The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-05-03
WHY NOT TO ALABAMAp


 WHY NOT TO ALABAMAP Tn a recent issue of The Philadelphia Saturday. Evening Post we find this; The telegraphic dispatches announced that seven thousand housekeep- era travelling on coaolists' tickets, passed through Minneapolis in one day. Tney were bound for the Dakotas. Mqntana' Wyoming, Washington and Oregon. The passenger departments of the santa re and Southern Pacific Railroads recently estimated the number of people wno come into California this season on colon- ists' tickets at 3S,O0O, an increase or per cent over the number last year. Traffic managers of Western and South western Railroad lines have evidence to convince them that during the season last mast over million Americans went home seeking westward from the Eastern and Middle States. Every State and Ter ritory west of the Missouri River has re- ceived some portion of this horde. And there is every reason to believe that the tide of homeseeking is not ebbing. and that it will continue to inundate the West for at least a decade, rising year by year in it's strength.
 These emigrants, as The Post elsewhere states, are not paupers or adventurers' They have sold their homes in the East and go West with plenty of money to purchase new homes and fit themselves to become self-sustaining and independent citizens. They are industrious and will ing to work, and are in every way fully competent to take care of themselves. They are, in short, class of people who help to build up a community or State.
 Now, the question is frequently and per- tinently asked: Why do not these people, or a good per centage of them, come South? We have here a better climate than they have in the Western States. We are not visited by the cyclones, the blizzards and the snows which make out door work practically impossible during several months of the year. We are not subject to the drouths and the locusts which not infrequently destroy the farm CTS prospect of a crop. In fact, all the natural conditions which go to make superior to these of the states and Teria- tories to which ali these emigrants go. If they can grow larger crops of corn and wheat in those sections than can be done here, the advantages are more than offset by the disadvantages we have men, toned, added to which is the further fact that here in Alabama can be grown an almost endless variety of fruits and vege- tables which do not grow up there.
 In short, we have in Alabama so many advantages over -the Northwest that it is hard to understand the reasons for not coming here. A little reflection, however, will enable us to understand that there are some fancied as well as real reasons for their not coming South. One of the first is the prevalent belief in the North that the South Is largely region of burn ing heat. where Northern man. or any other white man, cannot live in safety or comfort. To this it may be replied that farmers, carpenters, masons, street laborers and all other workers work all day through the summer season here in Alabama. and that deaths or prostrations from the heat are ten times as common in the North as they are in Alabama That is sufficient reply to that objec- l tion.
 | But there is one real and dominating objection operating on the minds of most people in the Northern and Eastern | States which induces them to seek homes 1 in the same latitude and that is the ne- 1 gro, These people are accustomed to l their own society, composed of their l naiphhnrG and relatives and VI ernigrate they are inclined to go in colo nies, as it were, and they get new homes, if possible in proximity to each other, so that they may still have practically the society to which they are accustomed
 In much of the best farming portion of ble to purchase large tracts of land which could be divided up into small farms A
 white family from the East will not buy home where he is surrounded and en. veloped by large plantations. and where his only neighbors are the almost count. less blacks who are in many cases tn, sole occupants of these large farms. IT
 such cases the emigrant is practically cut
 off from society. from schools, churche.
 and almost everything else that make. farm life pleasant and comfortable 4
 white family will not willingly submit tC this kind of life, and wc do not blame
 tham. It is unpleasant, unsafe and un endurable. There ar portions of botl | North and South Alabama where thes' | objections are not applicable, but they ar patent throughout the great Black Bel