Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-09-02
THE NEGRO'S FUTURE.
(M0ntqomeru Adrertiser.l

A member of THE AdUertiser staff
met 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 familiarly with number
OF officers of the transportation line
and he had met a number of strangers
on the two sea voyages. Some of the
observations 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
Providence the stevedores were white
and doing the same sort of work
for which 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 efficiency 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 to engage in cotton
manufacturing were not content to
say the negro is unsuited by char.
acter and habit to become a mill
operative, but has properly 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 it contains more leaves,
more of the boil aud more dirt; that
in fact, the negro's pickings make
an inferior grade of cotton AS rule.
In the plantations these Yankees
were cultlvating at the South, they
were steadily giving preference to
white over negro labor. 1t ia COM
monty known that in considerable
sections of South Carolina, Missis-
sippi and Louisiana, Italians are
making headway, pushing the blacks
to one side and prospering in the cot
ton fields. Booker Washington has
for years been warning his brethren,
they must "git up and git" or they
would be crowded out of one calling
after another by foreign and domes-
tic 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 In interests in education; that
he is daily losing it. An electric |
road is being constructed to the
county site where this gentleman
lives. The contractors 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 so to school
and they are never willing to work
on the railroad for more than one or
two days at time. A little exertion
tires them, little money satisfies
them and back they go to the public
square to lounge, loaf and sleep or
P'eJ OiopS.
We are not prepared to say that
these observations would be verified
as true everywhere in the south, but
that there is tendency such as this
gentleman has noted to count the
negro as Inefficient, we have no doubt.
In the great conflict going on in
peaceful way between him and the
white man for the final loaf of bread,
ne must in the last analysis depend
upon his own brain, his own muscle
and his own character.
There will be much charity, some
uttered and some actually shown,
but charity will avail him little in
solving the problems now confront
ng the man with black skin in the
United States,