The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-07-12
both black and white folks: True altru-

both black and white folks: True altru-
ism begins at home.
Country negroes Of the better type
are good workers and thrifty managers,
pretty sure 30 become ultimately land
owners and self-employers. Negro own
ership of land in the South increased
$50 per cent. in the first decade of the
twentieth century. But in this ad-
vancement of the best Of the race from
tenantry and wage working to larger or
smaller agricultural propretorship the
author secs a bad influence upon those
less fortunate or deserving. an agency
making for the deterioration in charac-
ter and efficiency in the labor left avail
able for the white mans plantation:
her observation and interest seem 10 be
rural and agricultural moro than urban
and Industrial. And the unreiiability Of
this labor In in turn responsible for de-
vices verging upon peonism, holding the
iaborer to the land with chains Of debt:
For many years the South squandered the
fertility OF her neids. We are learning Of
late years. slowly and painfully. to build
up the impoverished soil, and restore II to
Its former richness. But We have over
looked the squandered fertility OF labor.
Until we build up the worker the material
on which his work IL spent will never yield
It's normal return. The houses Of very
many farm iaborers are more than enough
to sap their vitality, to destroy ambition
and self-respect and to foster immortality
and disease. Conditions like these fich
from the community Its capital Of human
productiveness
To the conservative mind there may
seem here some confusion between horse
and cart, a possible inversion OF the
usual and effective order OF precedence:
but certain It Is that bad housing and
bad work are familiar concomitants,
and presumably any influence that
changes one will change correspondingly
the other. Improved housing condl-
tons are demonstrably a factor in the
improvement OF the quality OF white
Industrial labor and would assuredly
operate the same way among the COL
ored workers in the South. Whoever
tries, on whatever scale, to prove the
correctness of the theory Is warned
that the penalty of fifty years neglect
will have to be paid in overcoming sus-
picion and distrust.
The Submerged" part Of the black
race is a heavy incubus upon its edu-
Gated, prosperous members. AS fast
as they enter this class they withdraw
into a world OF their own, a world
which lies all about us white folks, yet
OF whose existence we are scarcely
aware. 1t is largely the ineficlents. the
failures or the immature and unframed
who remain with us" II will not do to
dismiss the wretched condition OF
negroes in novels with a shoulder shrug
and n complacent "They like what
they've got they're made that way"
It may be true, but there Is truth be-
yond that truth. Mrs. Hammond urges
legal condemnation OF these unsanitary
settlements, to be replaced (agency I'M
namely by decently habitable quarters;
maintenance of which could. for one
thing. be helped by proper methods Of
rent collection. She urges also an EEK
pertinent station" in negro housing, and
thinks an ordinary city block. though
one-third OF II were to be given over
to playground and other community"
uses, would give satisfactory returns
from the rental of decent little houses"
covering the other two-thirds. She
wishes the poorer negroes in the cities
could be turned back to the land. mot
because they are negroes" but because
country life is so desirable a haven OF
refuge for those who are unable to get
along In the towns. She does not tell
Just how they are to be got there, and
just what they are to do when they
get there.
1t is all very pulling. the wrong so
easy to see. the remedy so hard to get
at. These degenerate days are scolded
for materialism, yet perhaps they are
doing more to alleviate misery and re-
duce the sum of suffering than an
older day of greater piety; perhaps the
saving OF souls. giving way to the car
ing for bodies, has a worthier successor
in the increased public responsibilities
of landlords, employers and the admin
istrators of the public business.
Mrs. Hammond, in the excess OF her
zeal, is a little inclined TO blame men
for the doings of the blind gods and to
draw general conclusions from very
particular cases; but she is earnest and
honest. and her writing is a factor, for
whatever virtue there Is in 1t. on the
side OF the diagram of social forces
from which honest seekers after better
ment are trying to push the progeny OF
old sin and beloved self off the board.