The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1903-10-08
The South's Demand For Labor.
Baltimore Sun.

While political agitators and over.
enthusiastic, if not overwise, reform.
ers are extravagant in the matter
OF space and time they are devotins
to the discussion of the race problem
in the South, the farmers and plant
trs in the Southern States are
troubled more about the labor prob
lem than any other issue now de-
manding their attention. Reports
have been collected from nearly all
the Southern States, showing that
there is grave danger of serious loss
being sustained by the cotton plant
ers and other farmers of the South
by reason of their inability to secure
the labor necessary to properly till
and harvest their promising crops.
Georgia farmers report that their
output of cotton.will be smaller than
usual this year, solely for the reason
that they have been unable to secure
sufficient help to cultivate larger
areas. While the negro has been an
important factor in the handling of
the cotton crop, considerable depend
ence has been placed. in the last few
years, upon the white labor. Now
it is complained that the white la
bOrers have abandoned work in the
cotton fields for the purpose of secur-
ing the more steady and lucrative
employment in the mills and facto-
ries that have been springing up in
the revival of industrial enterprises
in the Southern cities. 1t is esti-
mated that fully 100000 laborers,
white and colored, have left the
farms and plantations in North Car
Olina in the last year to find employ
ment in the city mills and factories.
Similar conditions are reported to
exist in South Carolina and in Ala
bama and in other Southern States
which have experienced u revival in
manufacturing industries in the last
few years.
The problem is an important one,
and much of the best thought of the
Southern business men is being de-
voted to its discussion and consider
alton. The necessity for additional
men for work in the fields is impera-
tive. The source of this supply OF
Drawn is not apparent. The sugges-
tion that Chinese coolies be secured
is not worthy of consideration, in
view of existing seelusion laws, apart
from other undesirable results that
would in all probability follow the
adoption of such plan. The hope
for the South apparently lies in turn
ing the tide of foreign immigration
from the West and Northwest to the
more lucrative fields of employment
in the Southern States.
The Post has frequently called at
tention to the superior advantages
offered by the South to home-seek
erS, artisans and common labOrers
over the States in the West ant
| Northwest, iwhere climate, soil condi
| tiOns, and other problems of life
labor, profit and comfort are less at
tractive than they are in the South
land. Southern railroads and com
mercial bodies will have to enter the
labor market and compete with the
land boomers of the West and North
| west, who for years have had the
call upon the better class of foreign
ers seeking homes in America. There
seems to be no other way in which
the South can secure the army O
men needed for the development O
her Incompatible natural resources
her agricultural production, and heI
rapidly increasing manufacturing in
duStrieS.