The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-20

Ii is easy to see, that. since manual labor Is in large part done. by negroes in the Gulf States their future industrial de- dustrial future of the negro. The subject is difficult; and 1t is made more so by racial questions, which belong. to politics or sociology and with which I shall not deal. It Is only by way of parenthesis that declare. my longtime confidence that such problems will be solved wisely the humanity and the far-sightedness of the white people of the South. Every ra- uenal American, North and South. per cetves that with them the solution rests and must rest. 1 am concerned today, however. with a different though allied eubtect-the effect of negro labor in the States in the benefits of the Isthmian Ca nal If your share be dominant, as I be- iicve t will be-as surely, 1t ought to be --it will result from your development of more minute and thorough agriculture and mining and greater volume. com plesxity and nicety + your drjI manufactures
 been found, depend largely upon the standard of elementary Or crude labor. Our future industrial advance at the North. and you're as well at the South, is. in chief part resultant of the intel- lectual and moral condition of the labor ing masses, whatever be their color or race. The advance depends upon that, l
 believe. more than upon the genius of in
 ventors or promoters or business men or
 aWyerS or statesmen Out of the total population of l,SzS, 459 in Alabama Tn 1900. S27.307 belonged to the negro race, or 45.s
 per cent. The corresponding per centages of black population were 4t9 in 1890. and 47.5 in 1880.
 Nothing. therefore, is more certain than that for generations 10 come the labor Of Alabama must in large part be negro; and
 that the greatness and solidity of It's in- dustrial superstructurG must in no slight degree depend upon the character of that
 labor. So upon the best solution of the
 problem of that labor must the full bene-
 it of the new canal to Alabama, and in
 deed to the whole country. depend in reds-
 lv serious measure. This fact is quite independent of moral or social to be dealt with as oberiy as the fact that the average temperature is h.I / r in Alabama than in ohio, or lower li4dn m Southern Texas or Florida. Muthall ln the Appendix 10 the edition of his Dictionary of Statistics published in lS9S tp. 6l3), points out that one farm hand in the United States raises as much as two in England or three III Germany or five in Austria or seven in Russia. There is, he says, "a prOdlgious waste of labor in most 'countrIes of Europe;" tho number of farmers and farm laborers in Europe is just nine tunes that or the Cnited States, while the rate of food raised in only double That IS to say. it takes four and one-half Europeans to raise as much food ds an American Hence the agricultural domination Of the world by our country. hence me vast re- cent accumulation of American wealth. inc vast progress of it's industrial power, It has been demonstrated again and again--and it is indeed, refutation of | nnch high protectionist argument-that inc most highly paid labor Is the cheap est. that is to say, that dollar paid to a | high-class labor will, in the long run, pro duce more than dollar paid to low-class | labor. TranSlating all thIs out ol the al- l oahra or statistics it means that the su-
 6erior 6rLf vigor, hopefulness. ambition. buoy ant energy of the American laborer when
 compared with those of of his b.. European | s1it of vastly greater productivity. Those
 qualities affect the laboring man no less | ftbap they do the superior mechanic or | merchant or bankers or professional man,