New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-01-21
UNWILLING LABOR.

Official inquiries into the comparative eff
cheney Of free and convict labor have resulted
largely as might have been expected. In the
Northern States free labor is generally pre-
ferred as the more efficient, while in at least
| some of the Southern States the choice is for
convict labor. This division on a geographical
line is significant, though not in the way in
which some might hastily imagine. 1t is not
because the North is accustomed to free and the
South to slave labor, but rather because of the
difference in the nature of the work to be done
or OF the way In which II is to be done. The
much greater use of machinery in the North
prescribes the employment of free labor compe
tent to handle the machinery and worthy to be
intrusted with it, while the larger proportion of
simple hand labor in the South facilitates the
profitable employment of convict levies.
From some localities in the South the addi-
tional reason for preferrlng convict labor is
given that the negroes. who form the great mass
of the working population, are unwilling to do
the work that needs to be done. At Christmas
time planters In Georgia and Alabama were
pointing to fields Of cotton which still remained
unpicked, because, they said, the negroes were
unwilling to do that kind of work. 1t is said
that among the negroes. especially the younger
ones, there is a marked turning away from agri-
cultural work toward other but not more profit
able occupations They prefer to work on the
rather than to work on a plantation, even
though the latter offers them more steady en-
ployment and higher wages. They will actually
remain idle earning nothing and running into
debt, rather than work in the cotton fields for
a liberal rate Of payment Such are the com.
plants of many Southern planters. They may
be exaggerated, but there is probably much
truth in them. So far as they are true there
must be causes for the Objectionable state of
affairs, and it ought 10 be possible in some way
TO overcome those causes.
1t is, OF course, no strange thing for men to
turn away from farm labor though it is often
an unwise and mischievous thing. Many North
ern communities have suffered severely, Dust as
the South is now said to be suffering, because
the young men locked TO the cities for employ
ment ana nobody was left to work the farms
That has been, and is today painfully COM
mon evil. 1t is not strange then if a similar
movement is at work among the negroes of the
South. Moreover, in addition TO having the
same real or fancied reasons for abandoning
agriculture that Northern white men have the
negroes have this additional reason, which is
real enough, though more sentimental than prac-
ucal-that plantation labor is associated with
memory Of slavery days. Having got into the
PROMISED Land they do not want to resume tho
brlckmaking which they did In Egypt even
though they may do 1t now as free men and nor
as slaves. Doubtless, too there is this uracticoI
reason-that in the comparative Isolation OF
farm life they do not feel the security and tbo
assurance Of good treatment which they enjoy
in an urban community
Whichever Of these or other causes nav ba
operating, way to overcome it should he fonnd.
Tor 1t Is not good and worthy cause BLACK
men and white men should be in some wav led
10 realize that agricultural labor is rho mos,
generally necessary of all forms of work end
that 1t is as honorable and worthy as anv other
1t ought not to be impossible or even difficut 20
persuade them Of those truths 1t certainIv
should be practicable to make the hours of worI,
and the rate of remuneration in agricultural en-.
Payments comparable in advantage with tboeo
OF similar service in other calngs. II iso mat
ter OF course that security of all Fights can ana
must be made as perfect in the rural as in tho
urban community To say that the conditions
OF service In any essential occupation were mo-
essarily such that no free men couId no nor
suaded TO accept them, and that recourse must
theretore De had to enforced convict labor
would be an intOlerabe reproach to orr civil
cation ''i