The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1919-02-01
GAINING COURAGE SOUTHERN WHITE NEWS PAPER
SPEAKS OUT AGAINST TEXAS MOB VIOLENCE

ways investing your surplus money.
To those who are disposed to spend
their money, this conference says
do not use it or spend it foolishly
and by next year be in debt. Do
as this conference for the past twen-
ty-eight years has urged and advised.
Take some of this money and invest
it in land. Buy more tools and ma
chinery so that you can farm in an
up-to-date manner. Use some of this
money to improve. your homes so
that they may be more comfortable
and more attractive for your wives
and children. Get for your home lab
or saving devices so that your wives
and children will not have to spend
so much time and drudgery. Use
some of this money to improve your
school houses. If you do not have
a good school house in your COM
munity, get in touch, through the
Tuskegee Institute, with the Rosen-
wald School House Building Com.
mittee and your State Department
of Education. Lengthen your school
term. Pay your teacher better sal
ary. Use some Of this surplus mon
ey to improve your church pay your
pastors more literally and make pro-
visions for having services oftener
than once month.
The war situation compelled you
to diversity your crops and to raise
other things than cotton. You have
learned how to diversity and have
found out the value and importance
Of diversified farming. Do not again
depend only upon cotton. The rails
ing of live stock is becoming an inn
portant and paying industry in the
South. Raise more cattle and hogs.
This Conference takes this oc-
casion to call the attention of Negro
farmers to the opportunities and ad-
vantages Of borrowing money which
the Federal Farm Loan Bank offer
the farmers, white and black, of the
South. Hundreds of Negro farm own
ers who have found it necessary to
borrow money have taken the adj
vantage of the Federal Loan oppor-
tunities. This conference urges upon
the Negro farm owners who may
find it necessary to borrow money,
to get in touch, through National
Farm Loan Association, or otherwise,
with the Farm Loan Bank of your
district.
Although the war is over, the de-
mand in the cities of the South and
the northern industrial centers will
still continue. These cities and in
dustries will offer such inducements
in the way of good wages, protec-
tion under the law and school facili-
ties, that unless inducements are
offered on the farm and plantations,
many more laborers will leave the
rural district. To plantation owners,
therefore, this Conference would sug-
gest the advisability of making such
contracts with your laborers as will
induce them to stay on the farm. Give
your tenants square deal; both in
the contracts drawn and in the car
rying out of these contracts, espec-
tally with reference to accounts in
connection with supplies furnished
etc. Give the farm laborer similar
inducements of wages, law protection
and educational facilities as the ci-
ties and industrial centers are giving.
If these things are done. there will
be less tendency for laborers to
leave the farm for the industrial CEN
ters and cities.
During the war period, whites and
Negroes co-operated in subscribing
to Liberty Bonds, in purchasing War
Saving Stamps, in food production
and in food conservation and in other
war work activities. From various
communities the white and black
soldiers were sent away with the
same hearty God-speed and in many
instances, under the auspices of the
same committee. AS result oil work
ing together in these war work ac-
tivities, white and Negroes, through
out this Southland, where brought
into a more helpful relationship.
Each learned to expect more of the
other. It is the earnest desire Of
the Conference in these times of
peace, that this spirit of co-opera-
tion will continue and grow stronger
and more helpful and thus contri-
butte in a larger way to the growth
and development Of the South.