The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1919-08-08

They have managed to, live without
much prejudice. There has been
good feeling. The negro has had po-
litical equality. There has been. an
attempt to give him fair representa-
ton in public affairs and not. to resent
his presence there.
We admit frankly that if political
equality had meant the election of
negro mayors, judges and majority
of negroes in the city council the
whites would not have tolerated it.
We do not believe that the whites OF
Chicago would be any different from
the whites in the south in this respect.
We have been able to extend the
essentials of citizenship to negroes
freely because the whites are domi-
nant in numbers. All the essentials
are in the possession of the negro.
He is not Jim Crowed by law. A line
is drawn by usage. The law in fact
forbids what actually is done. 1t is
been an illegal, nonlegal, or extra le-
stinct.
Legally a negro has right to SER
vice anywhere the public generally is
served. He does not get it. Wisely
he does not ask for it. There has
been an illegal, nonlegal or extra le-
gal adjustment founded upon COM
mon sense which has worked in the
past and will work in the future.
The fact is that so long as this city
is dominated by whites whether be-
cause of their numbers without force
or by force if they were in the mi
nority there will be some limitations
placed upon the black people. They
will be limitations which will not
work an injustice to the black people
who have a right to their own devel-
opment.
There is no objection to economic
equality. There is a decided objec-
ton to the exploitation of black labor
During the war many negroes were
brought from the South. Thousands
OF them went into the stockyards.
The war shut off the supply of COM
mon labor. The South supplied the
want.
Thus the population of the blacks
doubled during the war times. Con-
Germs which brought the negro here to
exploit him damaged the community
by throwing the race question upon
it. Concerns which needed the negro
and put him upon an equal basis with
the whites, without importing cheap
labor to take the palce of whites,
were legitimately supplying their
need for labor.
The race issue in California grew
out of the fact that the Japanese
white labor. That will produce race
troubles as quickly as anything.
Concerns may have been derelict in
not considering the house problem.
The imported negroes could not live
in the streets or vacant lots. They
had to get under roof and in getting
under roof they suddenly established
new contact with white neighbor-
hoods.
In this change there was bound to
be trouble unless precautions were
taken. In the present case there is
no evidence of precaution and some
of provocation. It is possible for
that question to adjust itself. Such
realty movements cannot take place
without friction, but the friction need
not lead to riots. The city is steadily
shifting in residential character.
Some of the people affected by the
shifts do not like it,, but in normal
times the readjustment is not dis
turbing to the community. A spread
of factories may change the charact-
er of section. A spread Of negroes
may do the same thing.
A writer once summed up the ne
gro question by saying "the North
has the principles and the South has
the negroes" We are coming to
have the negroes and we want to keep
the principles so far as they are ap-
plicable.
Industrial radicalism, expressed in