The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1916-11-17
THIS NEGRO EXODUS
(savOyard in Nashville Banner

is great demand Tor labor IN every
/ quarter Of the Union, at wages the
! highest ever paid in any country at
any time. The war in Europe has put
an end to the tides of emigration with
: which We were inundated for so many
years, and our supply of labor was
further depleted through the return to
; Europe of thousands of reserves. >,
who went home to cut threats for flag
and country.
Hence there was small surplus when
it was announced that there is an exo-
dus of negro laborers from southern
fields to northern shops. If the thing
works without deal of friction, it win
prove great advantage to both sec
tons. But the south objects, and it is
doubtful if the white labor of the north
will extend hearty welcome to the
new factor brought into the industrial
world north of Mason and Dixon's
line. The negro is at home in the
south. He is the most docile and cas-
lest satisfied laborer in the world. and
gradually he is becoming stable. 1t
is simply wonderful the advance the
negro has made in the battle of life
at the south the past fifty years, and
this success gives the lie to reports
that he is downtrodden and abused BY
the southern whites AS soon as the
negro learned that the southern whites
intended to boss the politics of their
communities, he turned to work, and
today he is the most contented laborer
in the world and is getting along adj
mirably, as is evidenced by the vast
accumulations he has gathered.
! There are two classes of this race
the pupils of Fred Douglas, who was
a professional negro, and the follow
ers of Booker Washington, an upbuild-
er of his race. Your professional ne
gro is always and everywhere nui-
sance and peril. Fortunately his
tribe is small and growing less. There
IS no room at the south for this fellow
at all, and he is to be found nowhere
but at the north. The other class is
admirable. He strives to become
good citizen, and gradually he brings
the southern man to the consciousness
that Booker Washington was a great
statesman and public benefactor.
Douglass urged the negro to go into
politics. Washington besought him to !
go to work III
Horace Greeley did as much as any
other individual, not excepting Abra
ham Lincoln, to emancipate the negrol
Anybody could see Greeley in his office
and not long after the war a body of
professional negroes burst into his
room where he was writing one of |
those great editorials for the Tribune,
and the spokesman made an address
in which he urged the great editor to
aid them to elevate" their race. With |
out ceasing to write, and without look \
ing up from the paper on which he was
writing, Greeley waved them off with
his left hand and roared;,h aSans.. III
go way, go way, go to hell, 90 To-
New Jersey and raise potat ess ~ "A
the way to elevate your damned raceptl
1t was sound advice and just as good /
for white man as for negro.
Your northern man can never be
made to understand the good-fellow-
ship that exists between the southern
white and the negro. When your
southern man tips a waiter he would
much prefer that it be negro. Your !
northern white man will walk ten /
squares to be shaved by white bar
Der rather than step across the thresh-
old to be shaved by negro. At the
south white laborer and negro will
work at the same bench, at the same
anvil. You can't find such thing ais
that at the north. For years after the
war, all the use the northern man had
Tor the negro was his vote; vet YOU
could not find negro office holder at
I the north with a search warrant. No
northern state ever sent a negro to
congress, though the north has shed
enough tears over the woes of the ne
gro at the south to float Nelson's fleet.
1t would benefit the south immense
ly If that section couldSwap a million
or so of its colored population for a
like number of whites from the north.
The great obstacle to that enterprise
is the reception the negro laborer is
likely to get at the north Will the
northern laborer welcome the negro +?
1t is very doubtful, and thus at the
north the negro would be forced to
remain an unskilled laborer. The la
Dor unions, unless the mines be an ex-
ception, will not have a very hearty
welcome for the negro.
As for the prejudice against the ne
gro, there is none at the south and
great deal at the north. A state very
much like war exists in Harlem,
part of New York City, where the ne
groes are very numerous and insist on
occupying houses in the same neigh
borhoods with the whites. There was
actual war in the town of Akron. o..
IN the western reserve, mark you, some
time ago, about that very thing In
Chicago, on the other hand. the negro
is entirely welcome, but whether he is
acknowledged to be a member of la
Dor union is doubtful.
However, the negro's place is the
farm and doubtless he does best on the
southern farm. The climate of the
gulf coast suits him much better than
the climate of the nrairie rau,;ops ~