The Leader, enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1915-1921, 1916-11-27
THE PLAIN TRUTH Of
THE NEGRO EXODUS

CA thoughtful editorial from a
representative, conservative south
Georgia newspaper. 1t is well
worth reading and thinking over)
Those negroes who have recent
ly lett Southwest Georgia for
New York, New Jersey and parts
of New England have been in
fuenced by various considera-
tons.
The coming of the boil weevil
has filled many negroes working
on our cotton farms with vague
uneaslness. They have been told
OF the ravages of the pest in other
states, and have learned that
many colored farmers in Alaba-
ma, Mississippi and Louisiana
suffered financial disaster when
the weevil took possession of their
fields. Many renters and troopers
were warned this year that they
would have to shift for them
selves in 1917, and the announce
nent has naturally resulted in a
degree of pessimism that is prov
ing alarmingly contagious.
The Herald learns that many
white landowners, now that the
possibilities of peanuts and certain
other crops other than cotton
have been demonstrated in this
part of the state, are assuring ne
gro tenants on their places that
arrangements similar to those
that have been entered in the past
will be made again for next year,
and that as result of this chang
ed attitude on the part of land
owners, many negroes of the ten
ant class who were contemplating
leaving Georgia are now found to
be perfectly willing to remain.
But even a stronger factor in
the unrest which has caused so
many negro families to leave the
farms of Southwest Georgia is an
among them that, for
some reason, the attitude of the
better class of white citizens of
this section toward the law-abid-
ing class of negroes has under
gone change.
investigation has developed the
fact that labor agents who get
several dollars head on every
negro who they can induce to
leave a Southern State for the
North are telling negroes, and
particularly those found on the
farms, that "the white folks are
going to run the negroes out of
Georgia; ;" that "the South wanted
Wilson to be president again be-
cause he was going to make the
negroes go back to Africa" and
that the Indians are coming
back to take their lands, and the
white folks are going to help
them run the blacks out of the
State"
These things seem ridiculous in
print. AS a matter of fact thew
are Supremacy ridiculous in fact.
for there is of course no vestige of
truth in any of them.
But they are the stories being
told the negroes who, because
they do not read the daily'news-
papers and are of a naturally Gre
dulous nature, believe. The fact
that the stories are being circulat-
ed by designing parties with their
own interests to serve seems not
to be taken into consideration by
the victims of the present unrest.
A movement intended to reas-
sure the colored people of this
section-to make them under
stand that they arc still wanted,
and that they will, as long as they
conduct themselves properly, have
the friendship and support of the
best classes of white citizens was
launched in Albany yesterday.
Other communities are to be
urged to take similar action.
The lawless, shiftless negro
who will not work is not an object
Of any solicitude on the part of
the white people.
For that matter, neither is the
lawless, shiftless white man who
will not work.
BUT GOOD NEGRO CITI-
ZENS ARE ENTITLED TO
PROTECTION AND COOP
GRAFTON FROM WHITE
CITIZENS.
But this big fact stands forth