The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-06-29

keen away the Northern immigrant look
inc for more fertile fields and more tenn
perate cline. 1t is so rare a thing that
any number of Northern settlers come
TO make their homes in the South That
# is deemed worthy when colony does
come to make it piece of sensational
news to be sent out by the Associated
Press. whereas in the less fertile and
moro inhospitable climate of the North
West it is a matter of every day happen
ing.
We send out immigration agents-we
ouoht TO send more-and they have no
trouble in convincing New Jersey, Penn
svlvania and New England farmers that
they could better their condition by COM
ing to North Carolina. The stumbling
block in the way is, whether they put 1t
into words or not, that they feel them
solves and their children "too good to
compete with black labor in the cotton
and rice fields,'' and for that reason
many who would like to come turn sor-
rowfully away to the Western Billiards
and cyclones AS a rule men do not
emigrate except to better the condition
of their children. Europeans and North
erners have not gone where the black
man lives in great numbers. That is
fact. which no amount of theories can
dislodge.
Why have $4,000 native North Caro-
linians gone into other States to seek
their homes? Why between 1910 and
1860 was there such a large and steady
stream going into Indiana, ONO ana
Illinois? Why do they still go if IN
smaller numbers? There are many rea-
sons, but the chief reason is that many
men and women of the past have resolv-
ed not to bring up their children where
it might be necessary "to compete with
black labor in the cotton and rice fields.
Hundreds of Quakers went out because
they wanted to live in a free State.
Many others went to enter on the new
lands open to settlement, but for every
one that went out two would have taken
their places but for the existence of the
peculiar labor problem" which is "a
hindrance to progress at once unique
and ominous."
The presence of the negro in such
large numbers not only has
driven out thousands of our
sons but has also kept a
way desirable immigrants. As a Min
drance" it is even still more "ominous."
1t prevents development and progress a.
mong those whose love for home and faith
in its future are so deep and abiding
that they cannot bear to go away. 1t
is a menace to good government. LIT is
burden to industry. 1t checks the
development of the only agency that
promises to rid us of the burden, we
will not say stigma, of ilhteracy. With
out any feeling except of kindness to
the negro it must be admitted that Prof.
Wilson wrote a parable when he de-
clared the South's peculiar problem
hindrance to progress at once unique
and ominous."
But for the burden of educating the
negro, there would be less and less diff
ficulty of maintaining longer and better
public schools. In a decade of poverty
and hardship and loss, with the negro
a constant menace to good government,
with the necessity of continuing the social
order intact to preserve its civilization,
North Carolinians have paid thousands
of dollars to educate the negro. Many
have paid it 'tgrudgingly and Of neces-
sity." Others have paid it hoping that
it would prove bread cast on the waters.
Others have paid it in faith that it was
the wisest thing to do, believing that the
God of the white man and the black
man would solve the problem in His own
way. Whatever any mans opinion about
the wisdom of the education of the ne
gro, we have never doubted that he ought
to be given the opportunity to better his
condition.
1t cannot be said to be wholly the
fault of the negro that his presence in
great numbers in the South is "a him
drance to progress" 1t is unfortunate
alike for him and the South that the race
is not equally scattered in every State in
the Union, or concentrated in two or
three States from which the whites were
excluded. He is here. He will not go
elsewhere. He loves the soil. He loves his
home. The white people are attached to
him, they treat him with great kindness
and fairness, and there is mutual regard.
All the same, there is no man white or
black who does not know that the reason