The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1906-07-26
on PANAMA CANAL.
NEGROES FROM WEST INDIES
FURNISH THE BULK.

Competent Supply Of unskilIed
Workmen on the Great Work.
In an article on the Panama Canal
John Foster Carr, writing in the Out
look, says that the blacks who are
doing the drudging toll of the work
there come from the chain OF Carrlo-
bean Islands that curves it's 1000 miles
from the mouth of the Orinoco TO
Yucatan-the islands that are soon
in naval strategy to be the wor
of the canal. Compare these negroes,
man with man, and you find astonish-
ing differences. The Barbadfan often
has all the marks of his African
fathers. The Jamaican, less by blend
ed blood than by education n a
NATURALIZATION grown national, SHOWS
a surface advance in type. AS MS
shovel works through the crusned
stone and mixes the concrete ne VIII
ioin in a monotonous chant; but MS
music has no melody like that OF our
negroes. He is very English, some
times to the point of m~utton-cnop
whiskers, and sometimes, by a per-
versity in imitation, be becomes a
veritable h-less Cockney in ebon. In
the Martiniquan the African traits are
transformed. There is often a french
comeliness; in the women a French
d~aintiness and intelligence. A 1ull
half of the men wear the French
goatee and bear a preposterous re-
semblance to Ehe b~ollevard1er Ma
poleon. They ply their picks sullenly.
And so the men Of no two ISLANDS are
alike. Grenadians are quite different
from Lucians; the man from st. kltts
requires more tactful handling than
the Fortune Islander.
Study them as laborers and the es-
sential similarities of all West In
dams appear. 1t does not matter
whether they are digging a drainage
trench in Colon, or laying tracks at
the very bottom of the Great Cut, or
breaking up the ancient cobblestone
pavements of Panama. Watch them
work for but a single day and you
are pazzling over the worst problem
that faces cur engineers. The only
labor they a find in the western
Hemisphere for building the canal has
less than one-third the efficiency OF
our labor of the North. The West
Indians every movement is slow and
bungling; every small obstacle a SUD-
ject for debate; anything at all a
sufficient excuse for all hands to stop
work. A slow upward look from one
or two of a gang is usually the only
sign that they have heard the fore
mans yell, for there is no change IN
pace or manner o f-work. Both re-
main slow, incredibly slow-"slow as
the wrath of God" is the impatient
descriptive phrase of the chief en-
gineer. They seem in a topic trance
of idleness and stupidity. They can
not learn to master a tool. They Will
bend over the ground with a pick,
and use no muscles for the work put
their biceps. Let a good foreman keep
at them and they can finally be
brought to lift it above the shoulder
as long as they are watched, but II
always falls of it's own weight.
''The poorest labor I have ever
known is the condemnation OF a
glo~be-trottirg engineer. And yet we
can we'll spare some of our denuncla-
ton of the West Indian, for his i'm
provement lies measurably in our own
hands. His lodging is already better
and more clearly than any that he has
ever known, and the new type OF MS
quarters is a further advance In ven
tilation and protection against mosqul-
toes. But he has not Jared so well
in the matter of nourishment. Allow
ing him to feed himself for peace
sake has had unfortunate consequence,
because perhaps two-fifths of all these
laborers do not eat sufficient or prop
er food to enable them to do any kind
of hard work. l have looked into hun-
dreds of their pots boiling over Don-
fires, as they crouch beside them. A
very large number contained nothing
but rice, or a piece of yam, or some
plantains. Others had added a small
piece of salt pork, beef or Goldfish. In
the rainy season, when with damp
wood their primitive fires fail them,
they tell me that they have often to
choose between h~alf-cooked yams and
rice. which the doctors say is not d.
gestible-and biscuits. Bread is. al
most unknown. The Colombians alone
know how to forage well. Their fish
and meat stews are always hearty and
sometimes delicious, as l a testify,
and they alone of all the laborers
on the Isthmus who feed themselves
seem to live better than those VINO
go to the Commissions kitchens.
Weak and anaemic are all these
poorly-fed laborers. They fall easy
victims to malaria, and on this ac-
count alone the chief sanitary officer
maintains, pneumonia with 70 to 80
per cent. of fatal cases is prevalent
among them when the better-fed white
man is nearly immune. Thinking that
they can live for less than the Com
missions 80 cents a day, 1880 OF the
1900 silver men" provide their own
food. For reasons of health as well
as of industrial efficiency they should
all be obliged to take the Commits
sion's ration. 1t consists of rice,
beans, onions, fresh and salt beef, cod
fish, lard, bread, sugar and coffee, var
led with occasional potatoes, plain
tains and bananas. The proportions
are chanped TO silt the national taste