Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1908-08-26
FAILED TO SOLVE PROBLEM.
Commissioner Watson Discouraged
Over Results Of His Work.

A dispatch from Columbia, dated
August Ia, says:
Commissioner Watson says he has
walked up from his dream OF solving
the domestic servant problem in this
section, which is steadily growing
more acute, by substituting foreign
white servants for the negroes.
I'm done with the job" said Mr..
Watson with sigh. There's no use.
| Will make no more attempts, at
least for the present, to bring white
servants to any part of the State.
Conditions will not warrant further
attempts along this line. There are
some instances in which the expert
ments have proved successful in
which both sides continue satisfied,
but these are few and far between.
The chief trouble Is the matter Of
pay. People in this State are un-
willing to pay the increased price for
white help. They'll start out with a
thorough understanding of what they
are to pay, and begin right away
Dragging on the relief they are get
ting and everything will work lovely
till pay day, when there Is grand
split up and the jig is all up"
1t is not merely an idle dream that
Mr.. Watson has been having, for he
has been working with the energy
aracteristic Of him for several
cars, trying to bring relief to the
long suffering public, but every ex-
pertinent he has made has been a
disappointment so far as the general
plan he inaugurated was concerned,
and he has become quitter only
after the most determined efforts in
different directions and after the
most exhaustive study of the situa-
ton.
His first attempts failed because Of
social conditions, the help he located
leaving after a time for the North
and the West, even where it was we'll
treated and amply paid. These were
intelligent people Of some education,
whose lives were made miserable by
the nagging Of negro servants in the
same household, and who found no.
body outside to associate with. And
the commissioner also soon saw that
1T would not do to have young girls
working as servants far away from
their friends and re,utives.
The commissioner next devised a
plan Of bringing the foreigners in
groups Of families, and he secured
some high class people in this way.
He found places for the parents on
farms near cities, the sons and daush-
ters working in the cities. Mr.. Wat
son thought he had gotten en- the
right track at last of the solution of
the veXatious problem, not only local
ly, but throughout the South. Pee
pie who got this help told AIM and
told their friends how satisfactorily
1T was working, and the domestics
wrote home to friends and relatives
to follow their lead. Mr.. Watson
went to work with that boundless en-
thusiasm and buoyant optimism that
has always marked his endeavors
The situation really warranted him
in entertaining confident hope of
having found the key to the situation.
But he has been having some rude
awakenings lately. SO steadily have
these jars been coming in that even
the commissioner with all his good
fighting qualities acknowledged de-
feat for the time being.
The coming of the Wittekind peo-
pie had most salutary effect on the
negroes, not only in Charleston and
Columbia, where the quaint visit
ors were seen the most, but in nearly
every town in the State. The negro
women servants and negro men
thought they had genuine competi-
ton that would drive them out of
their jobs. Lazy, ailing, shiftless and
impertinent cooks, washerwomen,
nurses and walters took new leases
on life, and became competent, will
ing, obliging, respectful helpers with
such suddenness as to startle even
themselves, But this beautiful stu
alton Is thing Of the past now. At
present when a housewife or her
daughter goes out to hunt up a SER
want she Is met with the reply on all
sides:
"You know, l doesn't hire out no
mOre,' with an air that indicates
amaZement that "that white woman
has not learned before this that "this
colored lady" has reached that stage
In,