Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-01-23

' publication editer by J. H. Harrison
 From platform and press, from pulpit and desk, we hear it announc- Cd daily that we are losing our jobs and other nationalities are getting th.'n.. r.
 Many are want to charge this loss ot loccupaticns to prejudice. Poor prejudice! She stands guilty of too many base acts already. Let us not : lay this charge at her door. She doesn't mind seeing Us put out, in fsct, she laughs and says, Il told you SO" But prejudice has not put us cut of the thousands of homes in which we used to serve as cooks, maids, waitresses, buffers, coach men, seamstresses and nurses.
 Prejudice did not take Negro men out of barber shops and hotels. Our own non4progressiveness, self-satis- fled stupidity, insolence and ineffic- these places Negro barbers spent their spare moments watching passers-by, cracking jokes, swapping social experiences, discussing teach CTS and preachers, instead Of studying their furnishings and implements and finding out what improvement they could make thereon, that would be boon to their profession. They fed ttheir minds On chaff instead of read ing the journals of their profession and seeing what the men who are forging ahead, were doing and how they were doing it. They allowed white men in the same line Of busi- ness, with less public sentiment in tteir. favor. so far as that line Of work was concerned to lift the busi- ness into the class of skilled pro- fessions, and to establish such a com plete new order of things, that when the Negro barber woke up, all of his customers had departed from his "barber shop" to the "Tonsorial Parlor" next door.
 Negro barbers actually talked and looked themselves out of their jobs. Idle moments and not prejudice were the. cause of their undoing.
 6 Take the Negro boot-black. He and acting monkey, or holding up some trifling girl who hasn't any better sense nor more self-respect than to hang around shine parlors or barber shops to get chance to grin at an apology that calls himself a man.
 Ut would be far better for the race if. these' young Negroes, who hunt these "light7work jobs" were made to don jeans and get picks and shcyels and tackle work that would make n en out of them.
 There are entirly tco many negro men who have never had a definite understanding with a good. sized job. The race will never have the right brand of men until this business is broken up. r
 Certainly, some one must run the elevators, black the boots. and handle tIe bundles on delivery wagons. But, entirely toc many well built yctlng men seek these occupations because they afford an amount of leisure and require little thought or tsct or common sense These occu- pRtions afford little chance for the development of sterling manhood.
 "A great many Negro boys around stores, particularly grocery stores and markets, and they seem to feel tHdt dll Ol LAClI opdA e t41l1C OAOuAu OO spent in acting money and cutting antics for white youngsters and others. As long as the majority of Negro men are satisfied with situa- tions of this kind, it is impossible for ,fH to rise to places more commanding But the young Negro man is going to find, himself in the same condition that the Negro barber found himself. He is going to cut shines and act monkey until people get tired, and then, they are going to get the ltal- Ian, the Pole, the Slav, the Hun gar:3n or any other type that has sthes enough to mix brain and thought and interest with business, iiistead of shines and grins and non sense.
 x We have lost our jobs because cur women who went to service failed to keep pace with progress by learning the art of cooking and housekeeplng. They would come from the back woods where they had earned two or three dollars a month and where they had not seen a coal stove or a well ordered house, and expected people stn pay the same price that they had ikeefl paying people, who, either by contract or experience, or by train ing understood the business. They , wore cast-off finery instead of sensl- t,le work dresses. They allowed theli trifltng husbands, no account beaux dep4ndant children and idle rela' lives to visit them at their places G: Work too often. They stayed out al tie chu.ch or lodge too late at night They tcok it for granted that some che had to hire th:m because civlliz. ed people cannot live without cooks But they did not have sense enougn t, know that there are cooks within the race and cooks without the race Our shiftlsssness coupled with oui lSck of skill, sent people in searcl &f the cooks without the race. They knew that they could not be an! worse and so they took chances.
 The best class of Americans prele' Naefo help. But they demand skilled skTkice. The servant class of foreign eN certainly Is green; they certalnl! are not clean, but there is one thinl Ataut them, they do not come to thl