The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-13
A DELUDEp soUTHERNER.

Georoge w. Cable, formerly of New Or
 leans, is a man of considerable literary | attainments who has won no little repu- tation and money as an author. He | ought to be thoroughly informed on all
 matters connected with the South and Southern people, but since he removed | North and obtained some kind of degree from Yale he seems to have forgotten his | Southern ideas as we'll as his knowledge
 of the Southern people and of the condi-
 tions obtaining here. For example, in 8
 recent address to some of Bostons lit- | erary people he said:
 There is a notion among Southern peo-
 pie. which is not confined to them, but of
 which they have made themselves the ex-
 ponents, that it is highly important that
 the negro should be kept on the planta-
 tion. That is false. I say this because l some white man ought to say it.. What
 is civilization? The cityfying of a people. l True, the city has many temptations, and many men and women go to ship wreck there. But it only means a more energetic process of selection; and as
 much as some go down, others go up. The South has languished for lack of the 4NCW EH6IdIu lOWH lued. UT the D6SL re- suits. a greater aggregation of people is necessary than is possible on the plan tation. I do not plead that the negro should go to the large cities in great numbers, but that he should go to the towns, and that wherever he can he should make town.
 And in amplif1cation of what we are al- most tempted to call his fool theories he proceeds to tell his Boston listeners that
 the negro must go to town as much as
 he must go to school" and that going to the towns Ifs equally necessary for his spiritual training" and a lot of other rot of like character, which has a strange sound coming from a Southern man. and which could hardly have been used by any Southerner unless he had been fully innoculated with Northern ideas, or was only intent on currying favor with a
 Northern audience.
 Such sentiments may be Acceptable to
 our Yankee friends. and if they prefer
 that the few colored men among them
 shall go to the towns we have nothing
 to say. It is their own funeral and we
 do not feel called on to act as pall-bear- CTS or chief mourners, but man is q poor friend to either the whites or blacks when he gives such advice for use in the South. One of the most serious difficult ties which confronts this section is in the tendency which the colored people have to flock to the cities and towns 1t is bad enough when the white young men oh and seek positions in town, but it is in- | hnitely worse for the negroes. There are | many avenues open to the former which | arc closed to the others, but even the | whites often find that they have made a | mistake, and learn from bitter experi | ence that it Was bad days work for | them when they turned their faces city, ward
 If the white men, young or old, find it difficult and often impossible. to find cm | ployment and living wages in the city the | task is ten times harder for the negro | He finds but few places where he is want ed or needed, and any one has only to look at the crowds of idle and dissolute negroes who crowd the streets and al- lies hang around corners and flock to- gether like blackbirds to realize that their numbers far exceed any legitimate demand for them. There are in Mont gomery, for example. many negroes who lead industrious and useful lives, and who are self-sustaining, but for one of this class there are two or three who are loafers and vagrants and who cannot ob- tain employment or live by honorable means. To advise, as Cable does that the already congested negro populations of the cities and towns of the South shall still further be increased by the general influx of negroes from the coun- try is about the worst advice that could be given.
 The proper thing to do is to dscour- age the increase of negro populations of the cities through additions from the rural districts, and to endeavor, by all proper and legitimate means, to make them satisfied with the home life in the country for which they are best fitted,