The sun., 1919-10-12

programme failed in Washington be-
cause the negroes fought back to a
| degree which had never happened be-
| fore. The resulting influence on the
negro race was tremendous. 1t does
] not seem probable that this kind of
Nore or less deliberate riot Is going to
(. be attempted often in the future.
The kind of riot illustrated by the
outbreaks at East st. Louis and Chi
cago had at bottom labor troubles.
Negroes rushed North during and
, since the war because of the higher
| wages offered and the better working
| conditions. The result was friction.
| friction caused by the lower standards
of living among most of the negroes.
but more particularly friction because
of the fact that the negroes were will
ing to accept and had to accept lower
wages than the competing whites. II
was. therefore, not simply the "scab'
against the union man-it was the
black scab against the white union
man, when usually the white union
man refused to let the black man be
anything but n scab, save as "a last
resort. We had. therefore in these
cases riots OF peculiar cruelty and bit
terness, recalling the draft riots in
New York and the terrible upheavals
between the Irish and negroes in Phil
adelphia before the civil war.
Racial Hatred shows Itself.
In Omaha and Knoxville we have a
different kind of outbreak-an out
break which in the lower South. would
have been merely a sporadic lynching
and attracted only brief newspaper
notice, but both Tennessee and Ne
braska had respect for law which led
their officials to resist the mob, with
the result that the lynching became a
email riot tinged with racial hatred.
Arkansas brings new and startling
addition to the causes of riot.
Every careful reader has noticed the
peculiar contradictions and inconss-
tencies in the newspaper reports of the
occurrences near Helena. What really
happened was this: The rich cotton
lands lying along the Mississippi River
are owned in large plantations by in
dlvidual white landlords or companies.
The negro farmers are unable TO buy
this land, but work It on shares. II
has long been the custom in. the South
u titdI iiNSiO SNARE ItndlllS. lneH
have been subjected to a system of
bookkeeping which enabled them to
make a fair living, but to DO prac-
tically all the time in debt to the land
lord Thus n vast system of debt
peonage has been established. Now
and th.n under honest landlords in
dividual negroes have escaped or sud
den increases in the price of staples
have circumvented even the masters
bookkeeping. This happened in the
case OF the high price of cotton. and
with the increasing intelligence of the
tenants the landlords are being hard
put to it TO keep the tenants lin their
place
Near Helena. Ark, a number OF
colored tenants had their cotton taken
by the manager of the plantation As
their white Southern lawyers, the
Brattons, say:
PeonaEe I'm the West.
"They claimed that 1t had been i'm
possible for them to obtain itemized
statements of accounts or in fact to
obtain statements at all, and that the
manager was preparing to ship their
cotton, they being share choppers and
having half interest therein, OFF with
out settling with them or allowing
them to sell their half of the crop
and pay APP their accounts. Whatever
money he had on him when arrested
was money collected on fees from the
negroes that we were to represent in
the matter. AS we were informed, there
Continued on Seventh Pogo