The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1936-09-30
FARM TENANT
PROBLEM MAY
Be NEAR END
Mass of Data Being Sifted
by Oklahoma Com
mission Board

of the South'S 13-year-olu 'e"
problem was seen here as a COM
mittee of 10 Arkansas men ana
women representing all classes OF
society studied mass of data and
The committee, composed of ten
ants and landlords, bankers, pup
fishers, social workers and govern
ment officials, was named by GOV.
7 NJ, Futrell at his farm tenancy
commission meeting here last
week. From this mass OF ln1orma-
tion it is assembling, the commit
tee will make suggestions to a
called meeting of the entire COM
mission in October.
Gov. Futrell said the program
would of necessity be a broad,
Iong-range one. He stressed the
need for a federal government
nrogram of farm-ownership, and
the need for education OF lgnorr-
ant sharecroppers and their chill
dren.
The committee was expected to
suggest: -
/ A better housing program to
replace the implanted one and two
room shacks scattered over the
landscape. Many of them are nov
els where human beings can only
eat and sleep.
2. An industrial program to bal
ance agriculture. Col: Lawrence
Westbrook, assistant WPA admin
istrator. stressed the need of IN
dustry to provide employment dur
ing the part of the year when ten
ants do not work. >,
3. Sterilization of tenants. 1t
was found that the average ten
ant rarely stayed on one planta-
ton more than two years. Thru
constant moving his children are
deprived of an education and ne
has no desire to better himself Oh
his land. :,
4. Tenant participation in fed
eral agricultural plans. 1t was
pointed out that under the AAA
few tenants benefited and that un'
der the soil conservation act they
"are almost as bad off"
5. Lower tariffs to eliminate dis
elimination in favor of manufac'
turers and against cotton exports
6. A program patterned after
solutions to tenancy problems by
European countries. The govern
ments of Ireland and Denmark
ended tenancy by purchasing land
of absentee owners and reselllng
it to tenant operators.
Gov. Futrell stressed the fact
that any solution to the farm
tenancy problems must be within
constitutional limits. He express
ed approval of the proposed Bank
head-Jones bill which would pro-
vide home ownership through gov
eminent financing.
In appointing the tenant COM
mission, Futrell described the
sharecropper system as "eating at
the vitals of the South's economic
structure and calling for immedi-
ate and definite settlement"
Senator John Bankhead, DEM,
Ala, recently described the tenant
situation, especially in Arkansas
and Oklahoma, as acute, and
called for immediate steps to rem
edy it.
Both sharecropping and the
tenant system are outgrowths OF
chattel slavery. They developed
following the Civil war when ne
gro slaves were given their Gree
dom" as a military measure. But
without means of earning a living
millions of theoretically free,
negroes were forced to return to
their former masters on the mas
ters' own terms. Sharing the crop
was the system which developed.
Critics state that the system as
it exists today combines the worst
features of 18th century feudal-
ism and goth century finance cap
italism. They say that as result
thousands of workers on planta-
lions are in a more hapless con-
dition than their forebears.
Tenants and sharecroppers, the
critics say, have none of the guar
antees of chattel slavery in that
the landlord assumes no real re-
sponsibility for their welfare. On
the other hand they are exploited
by planters who reap the financial
rewards of their work and keep
them in a virtual condition of
peonage.
1t was these charges of peonage
which the federal grand jury at
Little Rock investigated with the
result that one indictment was re-
turned last week against Paul D.
Peacher, city marshal of Earle,
Ark.
Peacher, at the time stated in
the indictment, operated leased
farm to which prisoners were sent
to work. The Indictment charged
he falsely arrested eight negroes
on charges of vagrancy and
forced them to work for him, thus
"aiding and abetting in Holding in
slavery"
The sharecropper situation.
however, cannot be viewed wholly
as negro problem. Careful esti-
mates place the number of negro
sharecroppers in the South at
slightly under 100000 families
and the number of white families
at something over 100000.
High rate of tenancy in the
South is explained by the type of