The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1904-12-15
SEEK CHEAP LA5Of
The Underlying Motive of Southern
Race Agitation.


The attack of the Manufacturers
Record of Baltimore on movements
for popular education in the South is
not surprising when one takes into
account the fact that the Record is
the organ of Southern industrial inter
ests, and understands the attitude OF
these interests toward the wage-earn-
er as exemplified not only in the mat
ter of factory legislation, but in the
enactments recently effected for the
CisfranchiSemert of the vast majority
Of those who work for wages in the
South. The indusrrIaI phase of the
race question is matter that seems
to have been taken into little account,
and yet there is much evidence. good
deal Of it to be cleaned frsm the pages
of the Manufacturers Record, to show
that the 6'sfralchisement movement
in the South is intended quite as much
for the industrial as for the social sub
lection of the South's wage-earning
class. To deprive the wage-earner
of the ballot is to put him well on the
road toward peonage. AID if to this
be added the withdrawal Of education
al privileges. the purpose will be still
further forwarded.
In the Manufacturers Record some
time ago there appeared a -communi-
caticn from a manufacturer and mem
Der OF the Legislature il Governor
Vardaman's state who said that the
agitation for child-labor and kindred
laws in the South were instigated by
Northern manufacturers, who saw
their finish when once the South had
fully applied its cheap and depend
ent labor supply to its unlimited nat
ural resources. 1t seems surprising
that Northern manufacturers, farmers
to realize the industrial bearing of
the South's anti-negro agitation of the
past ten years under cover of which
the great preponderance of the wage
earning class has been rendered help
lessly subject, and at the same time
there has been successful resistance
IL most Southern states to the enact
ment of such labor laws as have been
placed upon the statute books of the
North. The Northern manufacturer
FIRST, the Northern farmer and wage
Garner next, must compete in the same
market under these unequal condi-
lions, and if they are to continue
either the Northern wage-earner must
accept the the Southern scale of wages
and Southern conditions of labor, or
the transfer of the American cotton
manufacturing industry from New
England to the South, which has for
several years been going gradually on,
will be followed by similar emigration
Of other industries, because manu-
facturers will ultimately seek the
most economical and favorable con.
ditions. 1t may be argued that the
Northern factory operative has moth
ing to tear from the competition
of underpaid, unorganized and
uneducated labor, which Is true as
relates to certain industries, but as
relates to others, in which machinery
plays the larger part In production,
the recent history of the cotton in
dustry is sufficient evidence to the
contrary. The New England mills
have had to close down, lower wages,
lose money, or move.
The colored population of the
United States is here. it is going to
stay here, it will advance either to
the American labor standard, or de.
teriorate 10 the Mexican labor stand
ard. Every Northern anti-negro cru.
sader engaged in encouraging the pol
itical and industrial subsection of the
several million American wage-earn-
ers who happen to be black is cam
paigning not only against these men,
but against every American wage
worker.