The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1904-12-24
1.-THE WHITE PERIL
Graphic and Truthful Statement OF the
Condition of the Negro in
the South.
Indianapolis Ind.) News.


PERIL William Garrett Brown con.
siders in the current North American
Review the status of the negroes in
southern industry. Mr.. Brown is q
native OF Alabama, q graduate Of Har.
ward and lecturer il that university
on American history. His present
paper is the fruit of careful study of
the situation during an extended tour
through the south, beginning with Vir.
GINA and extending to the gulf states.
In general he noted steady move
ment Of negroes from the country to
the cities and to the northern states.
There is an iDflux of white farmers
from the northwestern states, not lar q,
but palpable. and growing. Scarcity
of labor in the country districts is uni
versal, while as farm hands the negro
is deteriorating. In the cities more
and more white men are turning to oc-
equations heretofore monopolized by
the negroes. In southern factories
compar atively few negroes are found.
Where they have been employed white
labor is gradually driving them out.
1t is a case of competition, not race
prejudice. The great cause of the
change is that the poor whites have
emerged from their centuries OF ignor-
ance and idleness and gone toWork and
generally that the attitude Of the white
man in the south toward labor has
changed, with the result that the negro
is being driven out because he does
not do as good work.
II New Orleans, which by reason OF
it's many races and customs, affords a
fine field for the study of race rela-
tionships, the city directory of 1870
showed nearly 1000 negroes engaged
in certain industries. Today not ten
per cent of the number are in those oc-
equations and from some of them
they have totally disappeared. But
meanwhile the negro population Of the
city has increased fifty per cent. Every
where the tendency of the negro to
town life and his failure to hold his
own there are the same. The planters
cannot get nelp enough to cultivate the
troll the trades more and more. There
is less intolerance among the laborers
there; but it is because the negro really
gives way to the white laborer and in
his union is really controlled by the
white man; no negro, for example, TAX
ing the place of a striking white la
borer. Mr.. Brown thinks it likely that
as the number of white laborers grows
they will tend TO exclude the negro
entirely. While this is the urban sit
uation, in the country Italians and
south European peoples generally are
coming into the field and absorbing it
more and more. They thrive; they
save their money; they become in time
land owners. The saying is that if an
Italian earns dollar and a quarter
he will spend the quarter and save the
dollar; while If q negro earns a dol
lar and quarter he will spend a
dollar and half. Everywhere the
demand for tenants and farm laborers
outruns the supply.
Mr.. Browns conclusions are not en-
#couraging. He thinks, to put it in few
words, that the negro gets the worst of
the bargain in dealing with the white
man, the instinct Of human nature being
stronger than altruistic ideas. Life
holds less for the negro; be can hope
for 1ess-no matter how high he may
rise. At best, while he is protected in
his property in legal way, he is not
in his life; he does not get justice in
the courts in case of assault where
the other party to it is a white
man. Meantime there is nothing for it
but what lies in the negro himself.
Laws will not help him. He must in
evitably meet the competition that has
been pictured above, and though he be
handicapped in the ways indicated. it
is all there is for him. Mr.. Brown
agrees with Booker Washington, who
said five years ago hat the next twenty
years would largely decide the negroes
place in the industries of the south.
sThe wisdom of the forecast is already
proved; vet it neglected the native
poor white. ~