The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-01-13

years, thus becoming well equainted with
both foreign and Southern labor / say
the negro is to be preferred for many rea-
sons. l will mention a few reasons why
the negro is preferable to foreign labor:
The Southern white man and negro
understand each other. which cannot be
the case with the foreigner. You cannot
understand his language in the majority
of cases much less his habits and ways
Secondly, he has religion of superstition
founded on ignrance, which is almost in
tolerable and which will not assimilate
with the religion of the South or American
ideas. The South needs the negro and
the negro must have the true Southern
white man as his abiding friend. Morally
and religiously, the negro must have the
influence of pure Protestant, Anglo
Saxon Southern religion.
The two Southern races have one re-
ligion. I am speaking in general terms.
can read dissension and ruin to the
South with the "influx' of foreign labor.
To supplant the negro with foreign labor,
thus driving him from the South, would
result in his moral ruin, and to subject
the Southerner to foreign labor would
mean amending discord and strife. If the
North will let the South alone and $50
cial equality agitators, and negro prob
lem" lecturers will keep quiet, peace and
harmony will reign. Imagine what dis
aster would befall the South if all the
cotton pickers should go on strike for
the months of July, August September
and October That is what foreign Ia
bor'' means to large degree. There is
far less danger to the peace and pros
perity of our State and nation arising
from the negro race than from this awful
influx of foreign labor. The negro must
not be supplanted by the herds which
have migrated from foreign shores and
driven out the honest American toiler in
many of our Northern States and coast
cities of the far South.
l think I speak with some little knowl-
edge of the situation, having resided several
years in a thickly populated city of the
North. surrounded by twenty-one ma
tionalities, speaking twenty-one languages.
The first servant we had after arriving
in Brooklyn, N. Y, was a Polish girl, and
we never understood a word she said fer
the months she was with us. Give me
''old Aunt Annie the good old black cook
who knows what you mean when you say,
"Turnip salad corn bread and knows
how to cook the old fashion Southern
wav.
What would the law-abiding people of
dear old Raleigh think if the headlines of
the News and Observer should read like
this some morning: 'At a Christening
Last Night Blood Flowed more Freely
Than Beer" This was the headline in
our Bayonne daily few weeks ago, and
seven were taken to the police station as
bloody as pigs and three to the hospital,
one with his throat cut and two badly
slashed we have had more suicides and
murders in Bayonne the past ten years
than in the whole State of North Caro-
lina l venture to say. What would our
dear old Southern State be if Italy, Russia.
Hungary, Turkey, Spain and many other
foreign countries were turned loose within
its borders to live among us as our cooks
and farm hands? If the farmer cannot
find laborers enough to pick his cotton
would it not be far better for him to raise
more of those things necessary for the
table Raise all his meat, his corn, his
wheat and oats Then the necessity for
so much money to buy all these necessi-
ties of life would be averted.
The most independent farmer is the one
who raises his own table necessities. After
this let him cultivate all the cotton he
can attend to. 1t would be a hundred
fold better to do this than to bring IN the
undesirable, foreign labor to reap our
fields.
Yours with the deepest interests of the
glorious old State and all it's people at
heart. S. j. BELTS.
Bayonne. N. ].