The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1916-11-19
GETTING THE RiFF.RAFF.


If that be true, they are not doing u
or the negro much harm. Both The
white employer and the good negro
can we'll afford to do without this class
of workers.
An agent with tales of high wages
fails to make the steady dependable
negro believe his story. He doesn't
get the steady negro with family
very often and, if that be true, the
whole effort will result in good in this
section of the country. Most Of the
negroes who are going away are the
kind that never work steadily. They
have nothing to tie them at home.
They work one day in one place and
the next in another. The "crap" shoot
ers and "roust abouts" are largely
those that are getting away That's
the element the north and east should
be given on opportunity to study.
This exodus ought to prove a God
send to the state. 1t looks to the
employer who needs help like it is
going to mean uncertainty in secur-
ing labor. And it may upset plans
for while, but it is not going to turn
out disastrous in the end, for when
things settle down labor will be stead
Ter and more dependable. Our labor
loss to the labor agents is not going
to be very great, for those negroes
who work and save for themselves
and their families are going to re-
main where they are.
1t is too hard a thing for the agent
to get at the steadily employed negro.
Now and then good negro may be
fooled and leave, but the colored Ia
Dor upon whose steady toll the state
depends will yet be with us. Enough
negroes have gone away and return
The story and that is the side that the
dependable negro is going to weigh
before he sets sail.
High wages in the north and east
are more than offset by the high cost
of living Ten dollars ton for coal
to keep a Negroes toes warm and to
roast sweet potatoes that are not
there, $1,000 a barrel for the flour
that the boss does not furnish and
$1.20 a gallon for the Georgia cane
syrup that is nowhere to be found,
is too high a price. Hunger and cold
get too close to the negro inn strange
land. The negro that we know is not
going to stay in the north.
Life on the southern farm is too
easy for that. Nobody here need tear
up the patch because the tramping
element is going away. For the good
of the steady employed, all of us bet
ter be glad that this class is moving.
Both negro and white have to provide
a living for those who do not work
Without them it will be easier for
the working negro and the working
white man. We never figure that we
have to earn a living for ourselves
and those who do not work at all, but
it is true, just the same Let the
worthless element go. They will have
to work or so cold and hungry in their
new field of endeavor and, may be, the
change will teach them HON to earn
their own living.
If all things else made it easy sail
ing for the negro in the north he could
not escape the wrath OF the labor I'M
ions. When he goes into the great
industrial fields of that section, he
is marked for the clutches of mon
ster that has teeth, claws and bristles.
When he becomes thhe competitor of
white labor it will be much as if he
had put his head into that monsters
mouth to determine whether biting is
o habit.
Most of us know our negroes and
they know us. We also know muc
OF the north and east When the ne
gro finds out what we know about la
Dor in those sections. he will appre-
ciate his southern home and the place
hat the white man of the south ac-
cords him where he can make an hon
est living so long as he desires.