The Washington bee., 1909-01-30

already learned, but he must be en-
couraged constantly to improve and
| fit himself for the more difficult tasks
of a more complicated civilization.
The opportunity for learning a trade
which the Negro had in slavery no
longer existed after the war. There
was and is great danger that the
younger generation of Negro men
and women may grow up not only ig-
noorant of the trades which their IA
theirs and mothers knew, but despis
ing them. / consider one of the most
important achievements of the indus
trial schools to be the work they have
done in teaching the masses of the
Negro people the dignity of labor
with the hands.
All the teaching of slavery tended
to make the Negro regard labor with
the hand as a curse. When freedom
came his first notion was that he
was to cease, to very large extent,
to work. 1t has been necessary to
teach the masses of the Negro peo-
pie in the South that freedom means
harder, more earnest, and more per-
sistent labor than they ever knew in
slavery. In teaching this the indus
/
trial schools in the South have con-
tributed directly and indirectly a
great deal more than can be actually
measured to the industrial progress
of the Southern States and, in this
way, to the progress of the nation
In his report upon the conditions
lof the South made directly after the
war the late Carl Schurz said that
conditions in the South, as far as
concerned the social and legal status
of the Negro, would either tend
downward, until the Negro was in
a position very close to that of the
former slave, or they would tend up
ward, until the Negro became a full
! fedged, independent citizen. l think
anyone who has observed the course
lof events in the Southern states since
the war has seen both tendencies at
work there. In this connection |
would lay special stress upon the dis
franchisement laws than upon certain
other, as they seem to me, more fun
damental things.
For instance, there have been in
recent years complaints from some
parts of the country that Negroes
would not work. 1t has been said
that frequently when Negro laborers
Iwere given higher wages they were
!: inclined to work less regularly than
when they were given lower wages
. | Where such conditions have existed
there has been frequently tendency
, | either by force of law or by custom
to bind the Negroo in some way tc
the soil. For example, very large
proportion of the Negro tenant farm
ers are dependent upon the man upor
whose plantation they are employed
for provisions to carry them through
the season until the cotton is sold
; When there comes a bad season they
| are not able, as they say, to pay
out" In many parts of the country
there is a tacit understanding among
plantation owners that they will no
accept a tenant who is in debt, fol
the reason that the tenants labor /:
often the only security he can give
for the payment of the debt. If
tenant in such a case wishes to re
: move from one plantation to another
, he has to get some one ito buy hin
out of debt" Usually this person i!
the owner of the plantation to which
he intends to remove. In such cases
there is a mutual understanding tina
the tenant must remain on the plan
, tation until the money advanced hin
is entirely paid. The effect of thi
, is to reduce him to a position that L
I so near peonage that it is difficult tt
I draw the line between the two. Ihi
. is the tendency downward to which
. | have referred.
It is perhaps natural enough tha
, such a condition as l have describes
: should arise. 1t was hardly to b
expected that the South should max
the transition from slave labor to ire
, labor in a single step. It is not pos
sible to effect a revolution in men
thoughts and actions by mere strok
of the pen. 1t took Europe thousan
y years to pass from the slavery o
. Rome to the era of free labor of mod
= ern Europe. The intervening perio
u,oe occuoied by a modern form o