The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-03
THE LABOR QUESTION, GREAT l ALABAMA PROBLEM OF TODAY
Some Facts and Reasons Which Show Its Pre- eminence Over Other Questions Something Of
 River Place of Charles G. Abercrombie.

and discouragins. He Is going to bring some German families to Montgomery. to work on the Abercrombie place. some three or four. He has already found some Germans who want to come.
 The city man, the man who does not have any direct personal contact with labor. does not understand the gravity of this labor problem. It is tAe biggest question which faces Alabama. That statement is made seriously 8nd after due consideration. It is made by a man who. twelve months ago. knew nothing of the condition of farm labor in Alabama and who. in his lack of knowledge could not then appreciate the dificulties with which the Alabama cotton raiser was contending. And the maker of the statement has been in nearly every one of the great cotton raising counties from the Tennessee to Mobile Bay and from the Chattahoochee to the Tombigbee. Tho shadow of that question lies upon each and every one of these counties. In whatever respect the conditions may differ in one county from the conditions in another county, in this one respect, the labor question is the same, acute and pressing.
 It Is bigger thing for Alabama that some of these abstract governmental questions with which men busy them- selves so much in written and spoken discussion. It is the right of free- born American citinen, e sovereign elec- tor, to work himself up In the agitation of a question, which. except in his own mind affects him only remotely. And when these things are carved up and dissected it is always found that some man or some set of mems ambition is at the bottom of the whole thing.
 The First Question.
 Regulation of freight ratesl in Ala I, ha C I Assvs ing question. but the solution of that question does not mean near SO much to cotton producing Alabama as the solving of the labor problem. How much shall be charged for hauling freight in Alabama is not near SO irn- portant as how much freight shall be raised in Alabama to be hauled.
 The tariff Is an abstract question to the Alabama farmer who may only have suit of clothes because of it, but the questions whose solution may mean that he will raise eighty or 100 bales of cotton where he is raising fifty now is vital, pressing question. 1t is phase of the race question and the most important phase of 1t so far as the white man in Alabama Is concerned. It may be permissible for white man and a negro to sit down together at dinner in a Saratoga hotel but no negro will try to dine with white farmer fin Ala 'bama. A coroner's jury is an absolute certainty in such a case. should there ever be such a case. After all that has been said and written to the contrary by agitators, there Is no menace of so- cial equality in Alabama.
 And 1t is one of those questions which defy solution by legislation, 1t being a race question. That morals can not be legislated into a man has passed into an accepted proverb. It is equally an impossibility to legislate out the char acteristics of one race and legislate in the characteristtcs of another race. The law can not lift the negro to Q white mans standard. The law can not bridge the 10000 and more years that separate the white mans civilization and the barbaric state out of which the negro came, not of his own volition, so short a time ago, and in which his kinsman and his fellows grope and stumble. It is an sthological question just as much so az Is the color of the negro's skin. It would be quite as easy matter for the law to make the ne- gro's skin white. by saying that 1t shall in the future be considered white, as 1t would be for the law to give the negro the white mans restless energy. his un- tirinR persistence and his indomitabie will by saving that he shall be and is possessed or tnesc Qualtle8.
 The Laws Failure.
 The law has tried to solve the Ala bama labor problem. It went about it by legislating against the proclivities of the race. It was a shrewd and in- sidious move the law made. It went after vagrancy and In Alabama the law put the ban on vagrancy as 1t has put 1t on nothing else. And yet, yet the crowds that loaf around the low bar rooms grow bigger each year and each year there are more of that sort of barrooms. And every year there are fewer and fewer negro laborers on the farm. and every year there are more and more acres given over to broC m sedge and grass.
 What is the remedy? Let some man come forth with a working remedy and the people of Alabama will owe him monument higher than the Capitol. If he should ever come. he will be an even greater benefactor of humanity than the man who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before.
 Still there are counties and counties in Alabama, where this question is no question at ali and where 1t will never be a question. It is no problem in a county like Clay. It Is no problem in county like Coffee, for instance. The white man is the producer there. the
 
 eighty-acre farm and his family fur nishes all the necessary labor. Where fore these counties thrive and prosper agriculturally, and peace and plenty wait upon a contented and happy land
 It is a pity that the owner of a place like Mir. Abercrombie's should be held back from the carrying out of his' plans. by a condition over which he has no control In the interest of agricul ture, in the interest of the community the accomplishment of his plans would mean much. It would show for one thing what a man with a thorough business training, a man who has had the foresight and imagination to grasp large opportunities could do on the farm with his thoroughness and his grasp of affairs. But no explanations or apologies are needed for the Aber- crombie place, How 1t pays, even un- der advise conditions a satisfactory return has been shown. And 1t Is one of the most fertile of the many planta- tions that line the banks of the Ala bama River. dare say. there Is not richer one along the river. The natural fertility has been heightened year at- fer year, by subsoiling and by scienti- fic and intelligent fertilization.
 A subsOiIIn9 Policy.
 CT would say that the value of this pIace has doubled in the time have had it." said Mir Abercrombie. T paid coz and $50 an acre for the land, and 1 ths most of it was bought in the neigh horbood of the former figure. l be- lave that I could sell 1t tomorrow for t75 an acre. If I should want to sell, ' should hold. however, that $1Oo an acre was conservative price for the place" ..,,