The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-08-23
THE NEGROES FUTURE.

4 member Of The Advertiser stan
met q gentleman recently who had
gone by boat from Norfolk to Provi-
dence and thence on through Canada,
returning by the same route. He had
talked Familiarity with a number OF
oficers OF the transportation line and
he had met a number of strangers on
the two sea voyages. Some of the OBJ
servations he made furnish food for
thought as to the future OF the South
and the negro in particular.
At Norfolk he found stevedores were
paid at the rate OF Is cents an hour
and the labor. was colored. AT Provi-
dence the stevedores were white and
doing precisely the same sort Of work.
they received 80 cents per hour. Yet
he was assured the work at Providence
was done more cheaply than at Norfolk.
owing to the greater skill and eff
cheney of the white man. What was
more surprising to him was to hear
New England mill men who. under the
stress of competition. had gone South
10 engage III COttou
were not content to say the negro is
unsuited by character and habit to
become a mill operative, but has prop
erly no place in the cotton field as a
picker. He picks less. said the New
Englanders, than the white man and
the staple as he picks 1t contains more
leaves. more OF the boil and more dirt;
that in fact. the negro's pickings make
an inferior grade of cotton as rule.
In the plantations these Yankees were
cultivating at the South. they wefe
steadily giving preference to white
over negro labor. 1t is commonly
known that in considerable sections of
South Carolina. Mississippi and Louisl-
pushing the blacks to one side and pros
pering in the cotton fields. Booker
Washington has for years been warn
ing his brethren, they must git up and
git" or they would be crowded out of
one calling after another by foreign
and domestic competition. Their slow
but steady expulsion from the trade of
BARRIERS Is one instance, proof of which
can be found anywhere in the South.
The most surprising statement of the
traveller, however. was his belief that
the negro would more and more lose
his interest in education; that he Is
daily losing 1t. An, electric road Is be-
ing constructed to the county site
where this gentleman lives. The con-
tractors are glad to employ the half
grown or nearly grown negroes who
will not go to school. in aiding the
construction of the road. The young
negroes. our traveller says, will not go
to school and they are never willing to
work on the railroad for more than
one or two days at time. A little ex
tires them. little money salts
fies them and back they go to the pub
lie square to lounge. loaf and sleep or
play craps"
We are not prepared to say that
these observations would be verified as
true everywhere In the South, but that
there is a tendency such as this gen.
tleman has noted to count the negro
as inefficient. we have no doubt. In
the great conflict going on in a peace
full way between him and the white
man for the final loaf of bread, he must
in the last analysis depend upon his
own brain, his own muscle and his own
character. There will be much char
ity, some uttered and some actually
shown, but charity will avail him little
in solving the problems now confront
ing the man with a black skin in the
United States.