The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1907-01-29
pie must see to lit that there is a
change in this respect. Y | q ~ I
y Negroes Must be Reliable.

G :
laborer is paid off. on Saturday
night, the employer is not sure that
he will return to his place Of labor
until all his wage has been spent We
must teach our people to be just as
reliable in keeping their word as any
other race. We must teach our peo-
pie, whatever their employment, that
they should never leave tie service Of
their employer without due notice,
and that when they make a promise
to perform certain service, they
should keep that promise, though the
heavens fall. We must not only be re-
liable, but progressive in our, labor.
The kind of labor that would satisfy
few years ago is wholly unsatisfac-
tory today.
"The Tuskeegee institute in Alaba-
ma, like your own colored industrial
schools and colleges for colored youth
in South Carolina, for number of
years has been engaged in tremen-
dous task-that Of education. In the
first place, we had to educate the
prejudice out of our people with re-
spect to industrial education. It took
number Of years of hard work to
convince the colored people that they
should receive education in farming,
in mechanics, in cooking, sewing,
laundering and what not. That pre-
judice has been largely now over
l
come, and I believe that we are now
to the point where we can articulate
negro education into the life Of the
white people of the south so as to let
the white citizenship feel and see
more of the benefits of negro educa-
ton than has been true in the past.
No section of the south is more inter
ested from a financial point of view
in the success of the negro than is
true of this state.
"In the first place, it is tremen-
dously important that the negro be
happy, that peace exist between the
races, because there can be no salts
factory labor when the white man
aald the black man are at daggers
points. The more the laborer is salts
fled the better service will he render.
The Dignity of Labor.
"I have referred to the subject of
making negro labor reliable. One way
to do it (and that is what the Tuskec-
gee institute has been driving at
among other things) in the first place
is to teach the negro laborer the di-
guilty of labor, to teach him that all
forms Of labor are honorable, and all
idleness a disgrace. In the second
place, to increase his wants. In a
community where wages are high, la
Dor is often the most unsatisfactory.
This grows out Of the fact that when
the laborer receives high wage, at
the same time when lie is without edu-
cation, lie does not know how to spend
wisely the high rate of wages. The
result is, because Of his few and SIM
pie wants which he can satisfy by
working three or four days in week,
he remains in idlcncss during the
week, and thus his labor is unsatisfac-
tory.
"Tlrough a proper system Of clu-
cation such rs we are trying to give
at the Tuskegee institute, and such as
is being given elsewhere in the south,
we are gradully trying to increase the
negro's wants. We are getting him
to the point where he has an ambition
to buy home, to paint it, to put de-
cent furniture into it, few pieces of
carpet and some pictures. We ae try
ING to get him to the point where he
will want some books, some ncwspa-
pcrs. some magazines, where he will
want education for his children, and
as these wants increase he will work
six days i'm the week in order to salts
fy these increased wants. Thus here
as ii is throughout the civilized
world, education must go hand IL
hand with satisfactory Labor.
"Labor must not only be reliable
but intelligent and progressive, other.
wise it will be impossible for the in,
dustries of the south to compete with
other sections Of the country, where
there is trained brain behind the
trained hand.
In that same connection, it is i'm
portant that members of my race
learn to save money, to cease to scat
ter it to the wind as they do in many
cases for whiskey, cheap jewelry ant