The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-06-28
ByLoUIs zooBocK

same end. The owners instruct for
that purpose their agents to refuse
settlement.
Thus we see that the creditor class
dominates the rural community. The
very existence of the tillers of the
soil is in the hands Of handful Of
men, who own the land, the fertili-
GERS, the oil mills, the banks, the ware
houses, etc. The creditor class die
tates what shall be grown and by
whom. They are the politicians who
control the political destinies of the
rural regions. They dictate the cleo
tions of the local as we'll as national
officers. The sheriffs and judges, who
are their men, see to it that the lien
laws are enforced to the satisfaction
of the landlords.
In their effort to get still firmer
hold upon the land, the creditors re-
sort to indirect methods of pressure
to force smaller owners to sell their
holdings; they use oppressive tactics
in the form of unwarranted eVictions;
they use force to intimidate renters,
arbitrary requirements in the matter
of cropping contracts, threats to raise
rents where land taxes were involved
if elections should carry in favor Of
the tax, and keeping the tenants on
the move" when their political con-
victions might differ from the land
lords, etc. In word, the landlords
are the masters of the community,
politically as well as economically.
From the above it can readily be
seen that the exploitation of the land
less farmer has reached its highest
point. The large plantation owners
of the South are gradually taking over
the land, thus reducing tenants, white
and colored, to a state of unreIieved
and helpless peasantry. G. E. Bran
son, who investigated conditions in
North Carolina, writes the following:
"The average income per person of
1923 farmers of Williams and Baldwins
township, North Carolina, in 1921. was
only % cents a day. The cash in cir
culation in the homes of 81 white
tenants was only II cents day per
person, or only IA cents a day in the
homes OF the negro tenants, only 90
cents day per person in Negro farm
owner homes, and only "a cents a
day per person in white farm-owner
homes! God Almighty made North
Carolina paradise for poor folks
that is, for the average poor man
content with merely keeping soul and
body together in the country regions.
But for the poor man who aspires to
own his house, the state is a purga-
tory. If the farm is ever paid for, it
must be paid for in pinching self
denial, in the field work of his wife
and children, and in the lack of school
advantages, newspapers, magazines,
and noble books. How could it be
otherwise on an average money in
come of is cents day per person?"
This description can be applied to
the South as a whole David R. Coker
O. Huntsville, South Carolina, reckoned
the average cash income of the cotton
farms Of the South at 5000. Address
before the Cosmos Club, S. c., Oct. %.
1929, which means that the farmers
OF the South handle too little money in
the run of the year and, as Branson
puts it their SURPRISES in the best
years are too small to serve as any
safe basis on which to build a com
monwealth."
Such poverty is deadening. In his
despair, the tenant becomes a wan
derer. He moves from farm to farm,
from community to community seek
ing for better conditions that are sell
dom to be found. It is estimated that
100000 landless farmers move every
year; that the average life of a tenant
upon the farms Of the United States
is about is months. In the South.
where the single crop system prevails.
the restlessness is more insistent:
here the tenants more every year.
sometimes every six months. It is
not an uncommon picture in our great