The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-23
IN HOTEL LoBBIEs.
Gllraath.a ohaervatlona.

Belton Gilreath. president of the Gil- reath Coal and Iron company and the Union Coal and Coke company, has just returned from Tuskegee. where he spent Saturday and Sunday as the guest of Con gressman Thompson, the well known banker. merchant and planter.
 T find that there is another great school in Tuskegee besides the Booker Washington school, the Alabama Confer ence Female college, presided over by Dr. John Massey, who is one of the ahlest educators in the south" said MT. Gil- reath. "Dr. Massey has been president of this university for twenty-seven years and the present year marks the most sue oessfui one In the history of the insti- tuition.
 T heard also while at Tuskegee,' said Mir. Gilreath. that great many white people were leaving the Black Belt coun- try, and moving to the cities of the min eral districts. Some of the lands that these people are leaving are being bought by northern or western men, and cut up into forty-acre tracts and sold to the negroes. The purchasers of these lands build a house on each forty-acre tract and sell the house and land to the negroes on long time at a big profit,
 'The only mistakes l see that the land owners In the black belt are making, if any, is that they do not sell to the negroes themselves and make this profit, rather than give it to the middleman. As far as some of the white people moving away from the black belt is concerned. be- lieve that Is all right and will prove to be the best for all concerned.
 We need a great deal more labor in this district, and can afford to pay, and are paying big prices for it, for the req son that we are getting big prices for our coal and iron, and other products And if the poor white families of the Black Belt will come here, they will become better off; and the intelligent and relia- ble negroes whom the whites leave be- hind them will have opportunities to rent and buy lands in that section on better terms. Furthermore, l think the bank CTS merchants and wealthy land own CTS of the Black Belt will be benefited, for the reason that the negroes who buy and own these small tracts. will work anu ldKe anu PAo- duce more per acre, because of the im- proved methods taught by Booker Wash ington.
 Tn other words I believe 1t is clearly to the interest of many of the poor white people to come to us from the Black Belt, as we need them, and they need us, and leave the Black Belt still more largely to the better-off whites and ne- groea.
 q feel the time has come for the negro to own his forty acres and mule, and as much more as he is willing and able to pay for. His poverty and ignorance are more dangerous to the south than to any part of the Union, because we are closer to him and compelled to share his sorrows and misfortunes, whether we want to do so or not. Therefore I con slider 1t to our interest to help uplift him every way we can, proportionate to his worth and necessities, and without me- glecting our own people.
 "In talking to some of the most intel- ligent people of Tuskegee. found the general impression of Birmingham to be that it is a very rich and staunch business city; but very wicked and dan gerous to live in from a moral view point