Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1901-03-20
a3tiseellaaeuas &eadins.
THE NEGRO LABOR QUESTION.
Senator McLaurin Discusses Conditions In
Anderson County.

Senator McLaurin Discusses Conditions In
Anderson County.
Augusta Chronicle.
A number Of prominent citizens Of
South Carolina have been interviewed
in the matter Of the stockade labor ex-
posure in Anderson county. Senator
Tillman, Congressman Latimer and
others have given their public views
and there has been no defense Of the
condition Of affairs, although being ia
miliar with the local situation, these
gentlemen have been able to show that
no such condition exists as a system,
and that its operation was confined to
Anderson county.
A representative of the Washington
Post had a talk with Senator John L.
McLaurin, of South Carolina, Monday
morning, and while the senator In no
wise defended the Anderson county
outrages, he offered some new sugges-
tions, which are most interesting in
that connections:
I'm the first place." said the senator,
1.-The Philadelphia North American has
unwittingly done the colored race a
great injustice in its representations
that as a race it's members in South
Carolina are willing to contract them
selves into practical slavery, or to sub
init to such a thing under the duress Of
a few men in one Of the As counties In
South Carolina. AS a matter Of fact,
the tri1ing, vagrant, criminal class OF
Negroes who lease themselves out.,are
very poor REPRESENTATIVES, or the self-re-
specting, Industrious, thrifty Negroes
in South Carolina, and throughout the
South. Just think what kind Of men
they are who would, either voluntarily
or under one-man duress, deliberately
sign a contract agreeing to be worked
with convicts, or without convicts, un-
der guard and stipulate their employers
Northern or Western man knows even
remotely, what this class Of Negroes
are.
"The Negroes North and West, are,
as rule, hotel walters, BARRIERS, driv-
ers, clerks, and laborers in various ca
pacities; this Is absolutely true Of the
great majority Of Negroes in the South
both in the towns and in the country.
We in the cotton states have, however,
a class Of utterly worthless, degraded,
thieving Negro boys, who run away
from their deserving parents and rela-
tives on the farms and go into the cities
and towns, where they hang around
and soon become not only vagrants. but
criminals. The police soon find them
out, and after a trial before a justice Of
the peace or a mayor, they are sentenc-
ed to a term in Jail. AS strange as it
may seem, they frequently greet such
a sentence with intense qualification, as
it relieves them for a time, from their
usual uncomfortable midnight sleeping
places on cotton platforms, in dry goods
boxes, office Railways, etc., and gives
them shelter a cot and two or three
meals a day, none Of which they would
work for. It is from this condition and
this class that the abuses in Anderson
county have arisen. Men with large
farms to manage, in some instances,
will go on bond for one of these boys,
get him out of Jail, and work him on
his farm under contract. Even that
plan, by no means defensible, If the la
Dor contract is like that in Anderson
county, is not so bad in view of the
class of the race (not the race) 1t in
wolves, if kind treatment and justice
were meted out to the therefore va
grant criminal.
us it any wonder, however, that the
class of Negro I have described would
agree to work with convicts under
guard, and consent to be locked up at
night?
How manifestly unjust to the color
ed race in the South and in the nation,
it is to class this low element Of the
race with Negroes Of the Judson Ly-
ons and Booker T. Washington type.
This low element does not represent
the characteristics, the hopes or the
possibilities of the race as it Is known
and appreciated in the South. 1t is not
race question. 1t may as we'll be said
that because thousands Of Cinnamon
are dirty, low, offensive and ignorant,
Minister WI cannot be gentleman.
Or that the dago anarchists Of Pater-
son, N. j., are as proper representatives
of the Italian race as Ambassador Fa-
va. Or that the Pennsylvania soldiers, |
who, on Inauguration day, committed
so many outrageous and disgraceful
acts in Washington, are proper repre-
sentatives of the white people of Penn |
sylvania. No, indeed. Only Southern
people, including respectable colored
men and women, appreciate that there
are classes among the colored race, as
well as among the white races, be they
Americans, Germans, Italians, Japan
ese, or Chinese.
"One other thing which occurs to
me-" continued the senator, "is the fact
that is not appreciated outside Of the