The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1912-10-04


First, the South has lost it's social
ascendency and the presence of col
ored servants no longer indicates
that their employers belong to an ex.
elusive social caste.
When our ultra f%ashionables began
to go abroad they began to ape
foreign manners and methods on
their return home. The time soon
came when things in the line of do
nestle service to be flrst-class had to
be English, you know"
A second cause that operated con-
currently with and perhaps more po-
tently than the first was the fact that
the house servant ceased to represent
the social elite among the colored
people themselves as they formerly
did. Indeed, there was a time when
the more polished house servant did
not hesitate to discriminate against
his Farmland brother; and the we'll
known fact that very often these ser
wants were related by blood to the
master of the house tended to sustain
this snobbish attitude. The training
that was impaired to the old house
servants undoubtedly did add a polish
to their manners that was calculated
to render them distinguished for
courtesy in most any company. Hav-
ing won such distinction besides hav-
ing a sort of hereditary training for
the work, it was very easy for colored
persons of a certain type to get en-
ployment as domestics until the be-
aforementioned forces, working to.
gether, brought the change in connec-
tion with which it appears that the
master lost quite as much as the ser
want.
The son Of the mechanic and farm.
er, on the other hand, never having
had much aptitude for the work OF
house servant and less taste for II
Immediately after emancipation
turned his talents to trading and the
professions, with the result that the
house servant soon lost his socia.
prestige and pre-eminence. The more
ambitious colored youths, therefore
no longer aspire to be house servants
and will follow the calling only Ions
enough to secure sufficient education
or money to do something else. Thu
rapid transition of the brightest anC
most competent colored men from tn
position Of waiter, for instance, ma
given great impetus to the employ
ment Of foreigners, who tend to lool
uuon the work as a lifetime calling
This is especially noticeable in tn
case of hotels and cafes operated o.
the European plan, where the checl
system demands as much quicknes
at figures as a clerk in any ordinar,
business house would need. But tn
type of colored men who might easil,
keep the pace or lead under this sys
tenn will not follow it after leavin
school, for it appeals to them NJ NOR
than it does to other native Amer,
cans. Still no people as a whole hav
been more helped by a given sort O
employment than the colored peopl
have been by the calling of tn
waiter.
Fully ninety per cent. Of their frs
professional and business men secur
their education or start in life a
walters. From this common startin
point they have branched out in a
directions. And while the race ma
be losing some prestige as house Sc
wants, they are more than making u
the loss in their new fields of Ell
deavor. Those who leave domesti
service accomplish a two-fold goot
They create new callings general
of a higher class to give hope and II
s~Diration to those that follow and
the same time they leave more ROOF
for those who cannot, by reason {
defective education or otherwise, e
beyond the pale, There are SON
who could never be anything els
but good walters, and If there al
poor lawyers and doctors who migl
be good walters, it is better on I'll
whole to have them practice law {
medicine than to have them crowd IL
other good walters to the wall.
So far as public or hotel waiting
concerned the good waiter Is just
important to his employer as the GOO
clerk, and, indeed the employer 7
quires quite as much intelligence
enc case as the other. The positlC
of house servant is stigmatized b