The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-05-06
NEGRO LABOR
IS DRAWBACK
TO THE SOUTH
SENATOR CLAY TELLS OF NEED
OF EDUCATION.
The Blacks Need Practical Education
in Order to Increase the Productive
Capacity of Southern Farms.

teach colOred man industrious hab-
its and improved methods of farming,
means to make him a better citizen
and to advance the best interests of
the state.
"In these words Senator Clay, OF
Georgia, recently replied to Professor
P. C. Parks, former director of Clark
University, in discussing a proposal to
have the government lend it's aid
through the department of agriculture
in making better farmers of the south
ern negroes, says John Carigan, Jr., in
a Washington letter to the Atlanta
Constitution.
IF | can do anything to make the
colored people better citizens and bet
ter farmers, shall be glad to do So
said Senator Clay.
The plan proposed is for the bureau
in charge of farm management inves-
legations to send experts through the
south to teach the negroes the tunda,
mental facts of scientific agriculture.
w. j. Spillman, the agriculturallst in
charge of the farm management inves-
legations says this plan is entirely in
accord with the purpose for which the
bureau was established. He said:
at has always seemed to me that it
would be an excellent thing for every
one in the south, if the department
could undertake to give instruction to
negro tenants, and thereby better the
condition of the tenants and bring
larger returns to the landlord. l be-
lieve the southern people would vel
come such efforts
Negro Farmer Neglected.
That the south as a whole would be
more prosperous if the negro farmers
were more intelligent and capable, is
the self-evident truth uttered by Mr..
Stockbridge. In letter to the chair
man Of the committee on agriculture of
the senate he gives some reasons
which occur to him why the national
government should cooperate with the
states in giving the negro farmers an
upward lift, saying:
Something is radically wrong with
the negro farm laborers, and the
whole country suffers in consequence
If he were trained to be a better
farmer, the prosperity of the whole
country would be advanced.
Much is being done by both state
and federal government to improve
southern agriculture. This effort has
heretofore been practically directed
solely toward improving the condition
of the white farmers. They have we'll
equipped agricultural colleges and
experiment stations; they have farm
ers' institutes, unions, agricultural
fairs, periodicals and the other mod
ern aids TO agricultural progress. The
negro part Of our farm population has
received almost no systematic aid of
this kind. Any benefit he secures is
merely incidental.
IF these recognized adjuncts to ag-
ricultural progress are good for the
white farmer, they must be relatively
good for the negro farmer. II the av.
erago of the whole is raised by i'm
proving the productiveness of our
white part of the population, it is a
mathematic axiom that the total prod
uct would be increased by raising the
productiveness of the negro part.
Negroes May Be Taught.
"If the average yield of corn can be
increased by inducing white farmers
to adopt better methods, there can be
no question that the total average
would be raised by inducing negro
farmers to do the same thing.
at is better for the whole people
that all are induced to a high degree
of production or value, rather thaa
that part be left to lower the average
of the whole.
"The white men of the south recog
nize these fundamental truths. They
would gladly welcome any effort which
offered reasonable hope of improve
ment. They recognize the fact that
conditions have grown worse rather
than better during the past few years
AS a consequence, the proportion o
southern farms abandoned to unpro
ductive and thriftless efforts Of negro
tenants and troopers is steadily on th'
increase. The immediate result Il
seen in the steady decrease of the av
erage yields of staple southern crops
The condition is of national signifi