The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1924-11-15
ROB
NEGRO FARMERS
IN THE SOUTH

Students i'll the old "ag, classes at
Tuskegee and Hampton learned to
sing with gusty might that mighty
boast, "a farmer, a farmer, farm
er's life for me; if | could live
farmers life, how happy I would be-
but there is great room to question
whether they have found the happi-
ness on the farms in the South since
they left these institutions that they
were expecting to find.
Instead they have found problems
in sanitation. housing, marketing, and
cooperation that have taught them
that the farmers life there i any
thing but the happy picture they
were taught to believe it was And
that doesn't mean that it shouldn't
be. Nor does it mean that those
good old souls who sent the adven-
turous young men out to till the soil
and thereby help solve the race
problem" were not altogether sincere
in their teachings. Rather it means
that they did not know anything about
the forces that would obtrude them
selves and work actively to make
the Negro farmers lot a hard one.
Agriculture III most Of the South
is not agriculture. II is just plain
farming. Almost any farmer in the
section where the Democrats make
lynching pastime is a pioneer. So
long have the fertile fields been IN
nocuous and unkept in some sections
that the great worry Of many tilIers
Of the soil, so-called, is not the tilling.
but the getting ready to till, clearing
a. it we're. They are farmers down
that way. haven't learned whole lot
about the new-fangled things that
make It possible for man TO become
an agriculturist or what they call that
back-sliding Republican. Roscoe Bruce,
a gentleman farmer" They are not
so run over with Ford automobiles
and modern plumbing. You have to
go to Ioway to get that
Lots OF white southerners have been
coming north, sort o following the
Negro in the last decade. What they
have seen in the north and west has
rather opened their eyes. They have
learned that ii very truth the South
is far behind Not only does her in
dustry lag and grow dusty. her farms
just don't have them. Where Ameri-
can agriculture should be its brightest,
it is the farthest back. Some of the
best citizens" in the South have got
busy 10 try to better this condition.
They want to pull their section OF
the. country out Of the mud The
first thing these considerable whites
did was to interest the federal gov
eminent a Republican administration.
Agitation was carried on for a long
time, politics always takes a long
time, until the Republicans at the
North decided to help the Democrats
OF the South. A bill, called the Smith
Lever Act, was passed by congress.
This bill provided help for the south
ern farmer.
The idea was this: Farming in the
South was ignorant The farmers,
white and black. did not know what
they were doing. They had been
asleep. It was figured that some
thing ought to Be done in a hurry.
There was not time to send lot Of
southerns, white or black, to school.
The men who were working the
farms must be taught, must be
brought up to date. This meant that
the schools must be sent to them,
that teachers must be hired and sent
70 certain districts TO instruct in the
science Of farming. Of course, most
of the farmers in the South are Negro.
IA any move, therefore, to improve
the condition Of that section, II would
be understood that at least a proper
tionate share Of whatever aid was
given the section, should be melted to
these black tillers Of the soil who,
though they knew more than the
whites down there about bugs and
cotton, did not know as much as the
agriculturists in Ioway
There was this much more to that
Smith-Lever Act. The federal gov
eminent agreed to give the states
financial aid ii spreading the gospel
of scientific farming. Then the state
vas to do what It could, the counties
and 81 on OF course, most Of the
Negroes in the South are RepubIi-
cans. But they are farmers, too.
The whites. Democrats. came To them