The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-08-09
A New Method TO Make Southern
Negroes Work


A bill concerning vagrancy,' intro
duced into the Georgia Legislature, rep
resents new method of treating the
question Of negro labor which is finding
much favor in the South. BY this bill it
is made the duty of every county officer,
the police and other like officials to give
to any officer empowered to issue a crimi-
nal warrant information concerning all
Migrants, or persons suspected of being
Migrants, with view to their trial
The bill defines the vagrarcy against
which its provisions are directed, thus;
Persons wandering or strolling about In idle.
ness who are able to work and have no property
TO support them.
Persons leading an Idle. Immoral life. who have
no property to support them. and who able to
work and do not work
All persons able to work, having no properly
10 support them, and who have no visible or known
means OF n fair, honest and reputable livelihood.
The terms visible and known means OF n fair
honest and reputable livelihood as used In this
section. shall be construed reasonably continuous
employment at some lawful occupation for reason.
able compensation or lxcd and regular income
from property or other investment, the income
from which is sufficient for the support and mantc-
nance Of such vagrant
Persons having n1rd abode. who have no
visible property to support them, and who live by
stealing or by trading or bartering stolen property
Professional gamblers living in ldIcness,
An able bodied persons who are found begging
for living who quit their houses and leave their
wives and children without means OF subsistence
An persons able to work and who do not work,
bu, hire out their minor children and live on their
wages"
Anybody familiar with social condi-
tons at the South, more especially as
affecting the negroes, will understand the
motive and intent of this bill
Chronic or Capricious idleness among
the negroes is a very serious evil with
which Southern industry has to con-
tend for, besides loss of the needed labor,
it involves vagrant tendency to crime,
10 offering, for example, and to de-
structive immortality. Farmers, as the
Augusta Chronicle says seek in vain for
laborers, though about street corners
in towns, cheap rum shops and railway
stations, negro loafers are congregated
in large numbers. They have too easy a
time in town, living by their wits or on
the charity of negro cooks and house ser
wants" largely, we may add, obtained
from the larders of the households in
which these are employed: and no per-
slIasiOn can induce them to go to work
on the farms where they are needed.
Mr.. JOHN BLAIR MCAFEE, who is build
ing the extension of the Seaboard Air
Line from Birmingham to Atlanta, tells
the Constitution of the latter town that at
present his own and other large enter
prises in the South are suffering gricv-
olsly because of the scarcity of labor on
which they can rely, though, apparently,
the labor supply is abundant. As a
remedy for this very great evil, Mr..
MCAFEE suggests turning part Of the
European immigration to the Southern
ports and fields" That in such wav
some relief for railway enterprises might
be obtained is conceded by the Atlanta
paper, but il contends. with long South
ern experience to support it's argument
that " so long as the negro is the labor
element in the South and white races
are compelled to compete with him it
will be difficult to get the consent of the
latter 10 enter into the struggle with the
negro for the labor field in this section. !"
That indisposition on the part of immi-
grants is the explanation of the trihng
percentage Of the foreign-born in the
South, Even at this time, when the great
est immigration in American history is
coming in, almost none of it tends to the
South, though methodiCal efforts TO in
crease The population of that now thinly
peopled part of the Union are made by
interstate associations, with the earnest
assistance of enterprising railroads.
Heretofore when any of these imm-
grants have been induced to try the
South as a field Of labor they have been
likely soon to withdraw.
1t may therefore be assumed that for