Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-10-06
The Labor Question

Editor OF the Beacon
Isit best that the labor leave Noxu-
bee county? The writer takes the
negative view.
Lands are utilized in only two ways
as source of revenue to-wit: Grazed
or titled. Wherever grazed there are
wide areas with small populations, as
note South America and the West.
Where the lands are farmed it
means thickly settled districts in pro-
portion to productivity; high prosperity
values, the rapid interchange of COM
merce, i'll short, commerce. People
in numbers in community according
to their energy and intelligence, sur
rounded with an average condition of
natural resources. make the standard
of wealth high, and business abounds;
excepting of course failures which
have only tenn mrorary influence. If the
above is true, viz: The presence of
people make hi,h land values, then
the converse is unavoidable, viz: The
scarcity of people in community
make low land values aud small bust
ness.
Wherever population is heaviest as
instanced by cities, land values are
highest, We are losing our popula-
tion. shall we make no effort to retain
it? And it is the most important part of
our population when viewed from an
economic point, as they are the pro-
ducers-the laborers, both white and
black.
Go into communities where the boil
weevil devastation (such as is now be-
ing experienced by Noxubee) drove
out labor, and land owners, merchants,
in fact all citizens will tell you that
nothing has brought the loss to them
so much as the departure of their
labor.
There are MANY citizens-merchants,
farmers and others who can divide this
loss with the laborer, by being willing,
wen say, to lose the potts for this
year, and by various schemes, (sueh as
inducing the man of the family to 60
out and get work by cotton picking in
other sections work. at sawmlls or on
good roads, till the 1st of January,
the proceeds of which-if wisely APP
piled would meet many needs) and in
this way tide over another year.
As our friend suggested, this must
be worked out by the different indi-
vidual cases.
The point wish to stress is, do not
permit the chance to cash in the in
debtedness of the !aborer, and thereby
lose his services by allowing him to 60
out of the county without some calcu-
lation of this loss to you and willing
ness on your part to stand some of it
to retain him.
What is meart by "cashing in" is
say family owes one, two or three
hundred dollars. and the labor agen;
pays the debt and takes the hand to
the Delta or some other section, can
we afford it for the sake of the ready
nooh in ovorv ipStopna9
As concrete illustration of what
is meant by sharing the loss." Say
the debt is one hundred dollars for
man and wife or for mule, and your
profit in this is twenty-five dollars or
even thirty dollars. Is it not far bet
ter to give this profit up as lost and
even a part of the remaining seventy
dollars, rather than that your farm
should do without tbe services of this
laborer for years-possibly for life?
1t is not an answer to say you'll get
more labor if yours leave, for where
there is shortage some one is hit,
and it may be you.
If you happen to be merchant, then
| his presence in the county increases,