Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-01-19
A Big Factor in a Complex Social and
Economic Problem.
NEGROES As LABORERS AND ARTISANS
They VIII Do Their Share in Re-
facilitating the Island.
40 COLOR LINE IN POLITICS

MARIANOA, January JIG. 1888.
| Some Americans who have come to CUBA
are beginning to fret over the race question.
Two or three of them who have capital TO
| invest have shaken their heads as they told
me they didn't know how they were to get
their money back if they had to depend
on the lazy nisGers.' good many more
| who have no money to invest, and who
| therefore have plenty of time for politics,
are losing sleep for fear the African and
the Latin and the American viii never
i make a go Of it in governing tu32 To-
| gether. If | were in their place Should not
worry. The negro in Cuba is a factor in a
| complex social and economic pcopieIn. He
| is not the controlling factor. He Is doing
| his share toward working out the problem.
| That is not a bad thing to do.
| Cubnns LabOrers.
| Labor is more important than politics,
and for that reason word is written about
| it first. Between 800 and coo men have been
employed at Marianoa beach and at the
camp at Quenados by the American au-
| thorities. Of these fully one-half are blacks.
When the first call was made for laborers
| from the inSurgent troops the report was
circulated that Gen. Menocal had refused to
furnish Them, on the ground that his men
were soldiers and not workingmen.' / re-
membered how the same thing had been
said at SibCney and at Santiago when dis
tinguisked American military commanders
found 1t convenient to place all their blum
derS on the CIbanS Two volunteer reSi-
ments, one froIa New York and one from
Michigan, were growing because they We're
detailed to dig trenches and build roads
They said they had enlisted as soldiers and
not day lahorers. So that story was
saddled on the Cubans. 1t was musty when
it reached Havana several months later.
Gen. Menocafs reply to it was by supply
ing several hundred labOrers from his
tfoODS, with a REQUEST that room be made
for more. They quarreled among them
selves for the privilege of working for the
United States and earning money
l bad heard young lieutenant, lying in
the shade and enjoying his cigar, speak
contemptuOusly of these Cuban insurgent
laborers and especially of the black ones
He declared they We're doing nothing to
earn the money the American government
was paying them and were squandering
their wages. To my impractical eye they
seemed doing average amount of work
for this climate. Captain Hunt, the army
paymaster at Quenados camp. took similar
| observations. What he noted regarding the
use made of their wages was Interesting:
Those black fellows" he said. ARE
misers. At first l supposed they would go
off and spend their money in drinking and
playing cards but they don't. They put
every cent of it in their pockets. We pay
them in American money, and I was afraid
that in having it changed into these Span
ish silver coins they would be cheated by
the exchange Dealers but they are too
a Spanish dime and an American dime and
they'll change 81 into pennies without losing
a cent They are all saving their money for
some purpose
On the Sugar Plantations.
Whether the negroes who had been on
the plantations would be. willing to return
, to them was bothering those who looked
for bother a few weeks ago. The bother
no longer exists. The sugar planters in the
interior who have 10
all the hands they need from among the
inSurgent troops, though these have not
been formally disbaBded. The blacks form
a fair proportion of the Iaborers. The right
arms which had such extraordinary de-
Velopment of muscle through welding the
machete in the canefields are again cut
ting the cane instead of macheting Span
iardS None of their strength seems to
have been lost. ] have heard Americans
who have sugar plantations complain of the
untrustw orthiness of their black hands The
condition is not Gssimilar TO that which
| obtains in the south when the circus comes
and cotton picking stops. On the sugar
plantations in Cuba when the negro hand
| feels like taking day off he takes it. The
owners, whose oxen eat seven days in the
week. do not like it: bat they are helpless.
Nevertheless, they have already found that
when the negro plantation hand has his
wants increased even to the point of luxury
he will work harder and more steadily in
| order TO crafty those wants. That is a
hint for the future which has a distinct
| tCOI4OlilIC VALUE w Itliltl lHt average VI
| this black labor on the plantations is
| greatly below what it should be may be
doubted.
A cuban planter who has both American
| and French blood in his veins told me that
| in the aggregate it was not seriously def
| cient. Work on the plantation" he said,
begins at O'Clock in the morning and is
never ended at sunset. Fifteen hours is
not unusual The hands don't work as
! hard as they would in the north, but l
have never felt that l was not getting
work enough out Of them. The trouble is
| that people from the north make no allow
ance for the climate till they have been
| here a few years. Then some of the energy
| they have stored up is gone and they are
not inpatient.
In the Factories.
In the towns where some light manufac-
| turing is carried on l have often noticed
the large proportion of negro artisans.
| They have their full representation in the
| Havana cigar factories In Pinar del Rio,
| where there is a tannery, l noticed that
most of the workingmen were negroes.
over in Guanabacoa the saddle making in
| dustry is carried on in small way. In
two or three shops the majority of the
hands are blacks. Ii is the same in the
| saddle manufactures in Havana. There
are also many small shoe shops and in
! these negro workmen are always found at
| the benches. Some carpenters came the
! other day to make some repairs the
| house in which are my living rooms. They
| were black carpenters. few new houses
| are going up in the city. One of the largest
| of them is on the Prado. | noticed yester-
| day that most of the masons at work on it
| were colored
| The Cuban Negro Not an IdIcr.
| These notes are perhaps not conclusive
| yet they have established in my own mind
| that the negro in Cuba is not idler
| clog on industrial progress He will do his
| part in rebuilding the industries of the
| island, and capitalist need fear to en-
| gage in enterprises because of an ind finite
| fear regarding negro labor In the country,
| for a time, the black laborers may be in
| the majority. That is of the results of
| the reconce ntration. The blacks stood it
| better than the whites, and relatively
| larger number of them are left for the
| work in the fields. When the present con-
! ditons arr improved the question will arise
| over the immigration of labor. No need
| for discussing it has yet arisen. The lead
| ing blacks are opposed TO the wholesale
| negro immigration to Cuba, and the mass
| n their paOnla u,}th