The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-03
THE SOUTH AND THE NEGRO

From the Bartlesville (Okla.) Examiner. N FTER worrying for half cen- AA tufy over the problem of the S S freed negro, and wondering how to ged rid of the black peril, the south has at last discovered that it's real worry and real menace Is in the drift of the negro to the north.
 Everywhere you go the men of the south are worrying about the loss of the "cheap negro labor that is the depend- ence of the south for it's prosperity" and the south is prepared to sugar coat the inducements it offers the negroes to re- main and the ones it sends out to those that have left. The south is frankly courting the negro.
 If Dixie is in Dixieland, and Dixie's industry and commerce is counting the negro. what are the northern cities that are filling up with southern darkies and getting a negro problem that is as new to them as is the counting of the negro by the south? But, because the south Is courting the negro laborer and planning to retain them and induce others to come back from the north, the social status Of the negro has not altered in the slightest, as regards the negro. '.
 It is not hard for visitor from the north or west to see why the south is wrought up over the negro question and why Dixie prefers negro labor to the inn migrant Dixieland knows the negro and knows how to get work out of the negro. After struggling with the negro through a century or so of slavery, and over half a century with the preponderance of negro population in many sections the negro has become part and parcel of Dixie and without the negro the south is as much at sea as is the north in trying to handle negro problem that the south has been learning how to handle since Dixie was first named Dixieland The visitor sees that Dixie has awakened to the fact that it's great black liability" was not "lia ability" at all, but it's great est asset" A native black man, speak, ing the English language and accustomed to the ways of the south. and Dixie ac- customed to their ways, is far different
 
 babel of tongues and complexity- of race and strangeness of habit of the immi- grants who are the only sources from which the south can replace the negro
 To give a concrete example of how the negro has tended to take Dixie out of Dixieland, industrially, attention is called to the great properties of the United o+ fr,cr rtoy, known as the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad company. The properties oper- ated by the T. c. I. Co. are situated in the beautiful hills and valleys ofsthe ex- tremity of the Appalachian mountains just north of the city of Birmingham. The deposits of coal, lime and iron owned by the corporation are embraced in tract roughly speaking, 25 or 30 miles by 50 miles, or nearly 1900 square miles in ex- tent In all America there is probably not a pretter wooded, watered and yer dure covered tract of land containing as distinctive types of ideal industrial vil- lages. Trinkling mountain streams run through or nearby. clear reservoirs abound and the homes of the coal miners are equally as artistic in appearance. as beautifully located and we'll cared for as are the homes of the steel workers-and three-fourths of them are negroes. Com munity centers are built in every camp and the camps are as neat as the pro- verbal pin and the negro and white la borers are the picture of happy, home making, hard working, self respecting and respected Americans. Booker T. Washingtons fondest dreams have ap- parently come true and are on exhibition