The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-09
z CaIlahsa of Decatur.
LAND OWNERSHIP IN THE SOUTH
Importance of White Men Striving Ts Acquire Land in the South Force.

Importance of White Men Striving Ta
 Acquire Land In the south Force
 fully Presented.
 The Progressive Farmer. the most largely circulated farm weekly in the South. prints a notable article this week urging ambitious white tenant farmers to buy land now. and declar- ing that the whole South must stand together to encourage the develop ment of class of prosperous small white franners as the backbone of the country. The big plantations, 1t de- clares. hold back progress The article says: last of Southern white farmers leav- ing the farm to take work in cotton mills. We are anxious to see the manufacturing enterprises of the South build up, but we are more anx- ious to see the farm lands of the South held by prosperous small white farmers. and to see these small white farmers have their part in the great agricultural awakening now going on.
 Someone has wisely said that in all ages and all countries the men or the classes who own the land sooner or later make themselves the aristocracv of that country. We have not come to this condition go rapidly in Amer ica as in other countries, because of the abundance of cheap land result
 
 ment and the sparseness of popu- lRtion as yet; but in the long run the history of other countries must be re- peated here.
 to mind as we rode through a cotton mill village the other day and saw it's hundreds of white employes-men. women, and children--who have left the farm to become the homeless hire lings of the cotton manufacturers. Anh}uU n n n mi a F1al. featuring for them. are left on the farm and are becoming landholders in rapidly increasing numbers. Profes- sor W. l.. DuBois, prominent Geor- gia negro educator. has just published a map showing that since 1900 Geor- gia negroes have increased their land holdings from 850.000 to 100000 acres. and now within the State Of Georgia alone an area larger than the entire State of Delaware.
 CT, and especially every white man who for any reason Is thinking of be- coming somebody's hired man In town Instead of owning his home in the country. to buy land. The great plan. tations of the South, for the good of our section as a whole. must be broken up. We must encourage the spirit of home-owning. with every man sitting under his own vine. and fig tree. and we must especially en-
 
 class of small white farmers.
 "The saving of the rural South to the white race Is one Of the most important problems now before the people of the Cotton Belt.
 "in this connection, there Is an- other thing that ought to be mention ed and that Is the problem Of im- migration. The Farmers Union and other farmers organizations are right in protesting against the coming of large numbers of Italians. Russians, Hungarians, Poles. etc. This would only make a bad matter worse. and complicate matters still further. What would help. however. Is the coming of a large number of wide-awake Northern and Western farmers. buy ing small farms among us and making their farms object lessons in stock raising and other lines of diversified agriculture. These Northern and Western farmers will also set good example for our Southern people in that they are ready to do any and all kinds of work with their own hands, entirely independent of hired labor As a Southerner, reared on the farm and a descendant of genera tions Of Southern farmers, we must confess the need of our people at this point, and the help that we would get hepe from an increased number of wide-awake Western settlers. besides the aid they would render in keeping up the balance of population between the two races m the South and pre-. venting the predominance of col ored farming population. which, we repeat, would be undesirable for both whites and blacks and rutnous to our section as a whole.