The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-01-24
SOUTHERN LABOR PROBLEMS.

SOUTHERN LABOR PROBLEMS.
Manufacturers Record.
In the recent comprehensive survey in
the Manufacturers Record of vital 1ae
TORS in the cotton situation, presented
through communications from many IL
terests in all parts OF the South, the com
plaint about the scarcity and inefficiency
oI labor in the cotton field was a strik-
ing feature. This has prompted Mr..
John w. Hays OF Petersburg, Va, TO
write to the Manufacturers Record as
follows:
4 suggest that you figure out how
much IS lost to the South every day
and month and year by reason Of the
habitual ldleness OF the negro, whose
time and labor is worth on an aver
age 81 per day for each any every
day in the year. L lately saw near
Weldon. n. c., cotton field white
with the cotton because no labor
could be induced to pick the crop.
Cotton at that time was worth about
thirteen cents. and $50 negroes We're
idling and drinking about the streets
OF the town. To offers of work they
replied that they would not work for
anybody in Christmas week. This one
incident. which fell under my own
observation, may be multiplied by
thousands all over the South. The
higher wages the negroes are paid
the more Indifferent they become. l
was lately told of one case where a
negro had found $40 in the road,
and promptly threw up his job driv-
ing With $40 in his pocket he did
not have to work for anybody.
Somewhat similar is the picture re-
vealed in recent incident at Pesacola,
Fla where there has been scarcity of
available laborers for some time. A ne
gro minstrel troupe visited the city and
was met at the depot by a horde of sew
eral hundred black boys and men, which
was swelled by several hundred more
when the band paraded the town. With
work offering, these hundreds of negroes
were evidently unwilling to work, stiu-
alton familiar to observers in many
parts of the South and in sharp contrast
with that which shows the negroes hard
at work in the mines, in railroad con-
struction, in numbering and other devel-
opmental enterprises, comparatively few
or them, however, possessed OF the sta
bllity and reliability of workers amor g
other races The explanation is plain.
1t is had in the fact that for nearly forty
years the negro has been subjected to a
false training under outside initiative,
holding to wild theories of education,
and the logical results are now apparent
The remedy is equally plain AS coz
corning the cotton field, it lies in the in
vention of picking machine with which
one man may do at least the work OF
four under present conditions. The sue
cess of that we believe, is only ques-
ion of a few years. Meanwhile the PROB
lem is to be met, but only partly met,
through well-directed immigration o.
whites, increasing the number OF whites
who have become independent OF the ne
gro in cotton-raising, and through the
2nactment and enforcement of efficient
vagrancy laws. Georgia has already set
the pace for that; Alabama quickly toll
lowed it's example, and the legislatures
of Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia,
MARYLAND and Kentucky, especially the
last three, ought to do likewise. 1t must
be made impossible for the loafer to exist
IN the South. AS it is, he or she is rot
,ply an indirect drawback upon the com
munity in refusing to work where work
must be done, but in a majority OF cases
IS a direct drain through active crime
and petty offenses.