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Title: The Southern South
Author: Albert Bushnell Hart
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THE SOUTHERN SOUTH
by
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D.
Professor of History, Harvard University
New York and London
D. Appleton and Company
1910
Copyright, 1910, by
D. Appleton and Company
Published April, 1910
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I.--MATERIALS 7
II.--THE SOUTHLAND 20
III.--THE POOR WHITE 30
IV.--IMMIGRATION 48
V.--SOUTHERN LEADERSHIP 59
VI.--SOUTHERN TEMPERAMENT 66
VII.--ATTITUDE TOWARD HISTORY 80
VIII.--NEGRO CHARACTER 91
IX.--NEGRO LIFE 106
X.--THE NEGRO AT WORK 120
XI.--IS THE NEGRO RISING? 132
XII.--RACE ASSOCIATION 149
XIII.--RACE SEPARATION 166
XIV.--CRIME AND ITS PENALTIES 181
XV.--LYNCHING 205
XVI.--ACTUAL WEALTH 218
XVII.--COMPARATIVE WEALTH 231
XVIII.--MAKING COTTON 250
XIX.--COTTON HANDS 261
XX.--PEONAGE 278
XXI.--WHITE EDUCATION 288
XXII.--NEGRO EDUCATION 308
XXIII.--OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATION 323
XXIV.--POSTULATES OF THE PROBLEM 338
XXV.--THE WRONG WAY OUT 347
XXVI.--MATERIAL AND POLITICAL REMEDIES 367
XXVII.--MORAL REMEDIES 378
MAP AND TABLES 395
INDEX 419
THE SOUTHERN SOUTH
INTRODUCTION
The keynote to which intelligent spirits respond most quickly in the
United States is Americanism; no nation is more conscious of its own
existence and its importance in the universe, more interested in the
greatness, the strength, the pride, the influence, and the future of the
common country. Nevertheless, any observer passing through all the parts
of the United States would discover that the Union is made up not only of
many states but of several sections--an East, a Middle West, a Far West,
and a South. Of these four regions the three which adhere most strongly to
each other and have least consciousness of rivalry among themselves are
often classed together as "The North," and they are set in rivalry against
"The South," because of a tradition of opposing interests, commercial and
political, which culminated in the Civil War of 1861, and is still felt on
both sides of the line.
That the South is now an integral and inseparable part of the Union is
proved by a sense of a common blood, a common heritage, and a common
purpose, which is as lively in the Southern as in the Northern part of the
Union. The dominant English race stock is the same in both sections: in
religion, in laws, in traditions, in expectation of the future, all
sections of the United States are closer together than, for instance, the
three components of the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Whatever
the divergence between Southerners and Northerners at home, once outside
the limits of their common country they are alike; the Frenchman may see
more difference between a Bavarian and a Prussian than between a Georgian
and a Vermonter.
It is not to the purpose of this book to describe those numerous common
traits which belong to people in all sections of the United States, but to
bring into relief some of the characteristics of the South which are not
shared by the North. For it is certain that the physical and climatic
conditions of the South are different from those of the North; and equally
sure that as a community the South has certain temperamental peculiarities
which affect its views of the world in general and also of its own
problems. Slavery, which had little permanent effect on the society or
institutions of those parts of the North in which it existed up to the
Revolution, was for two centuries a large factor in Southern life, and has
left many marks upon both white and negro races. The existence of a
formerly servile race now ten millions strong still influences the whole
development of the South.
Unlike the North, which ever since the Civil War has felt disposed to
consider itself the characteristic United States, the South looks upon
itself, and is looked upon by its neighbors, as a unit within a larger
unit; as set apart by its traditions, its history, and its commercial
interests. The ex-president of the Southern Confederacy a few years ago at
a public meeting declared that he appeared "In a defense of our
Southland." A Southland there is, in the sense of a body of states which,
while now yielding to none in loyalty to the Union and in participation in
its great career, adhere together with such a sense of peculiar life and
standards as is not to be found in any group of Northern communities
except perhaps New England.
The Northerner who addresses himself to these special conditions of the
South must expect to be asked what claim he has to form or express a
judgment upon his neighbors. The son of an Ohio abolitionist, accustomed
from childhood to hear questions of slavery and of nationality discussed,
I have for many years sought and accepted opportunities to learn something
of these great problems at first hand. As a teacher I have come into
contact with some of the brightest spirits of the South, and among former
students count at least two of the foremost writers upon the subject--one
a White and the other a Negro. For some years I have carried on an active
correspondence with Southern people of every variety of sentiment. I have
diligently read Southern newspapers and have been honored by their
critical and sometimes unflattering attention. In the last twenty-five
years I have made a dozen or more visits to various parts of the South
ranging in length from a few days to four months, and therein have gained
some personal acquaintance with the conditions of all the former
slave-holding states except Missouri and Florida. In the winter of 1907-8
I took a journey of about a thousand miles through rural parts of the belt
of states from Texas to North Carolina, with the special purpose of coming
into closer personal touch with some phases of the problem upon which
information was lacking.
There need be no illusions as to the extent of the knowledge thus
acquired. These various journeys and points of contact with Southern
people have shown how large is the Southern problem, and how hard it is to
discover all the factors which make the problem difficult. Every year
opens out some new unexplored field which must be taken into account if
one is to hope for anything like a comprehensive view of the subject. How
shall any Northerner coming into a slave-holding region set his
impressions alongside the experience of men who have lived all their lives
in that environment? What is seven months' residence by a visitor, a fly
on the wheel, against seventy years' residence by men who are a part of
the problem?
There are two sides to this question of the value of the observations of
an outsider. Sometimes he is the only one who thinks investigation worth
while; and too much caution in hazarding an opinion would put a stop to
all criticism by anybody except the people criticised. The observer over
the walls may see more than the dweller within. A Southerner coming up to
make a study of the government in Massachusetts would probably discover
queer things about the Street Department of Boston that escape the
attention of those who breathe the city's dust; he might learn more about
the conditions of mill towns like Fall River than the citizen of Boston
has ever acquired; he might attend a town meeting in villages like
Barnstable, into the like of which the Fall River man never so much as
sets his foot; he may find out more about the county commissioners of
Bristol County than was ever dreamed by the taxpayers of Barnstable; he
may inform the dairyman on Cape Cod of the conditions of the tobacco farms
on the Connecticut; and hear complaints from the factory hands of New
Bedford which never reach their employers. It is just so in the South,
where many people know intimately some one phase of the race problem,
while few have thought out its details, or followed it from state to
state. A professor in the University of Louisiana might tell more about
the race and labor conditions of his State than the writer shall ever
learn; but perhaps he could not contribute to knowledge of the Sea Islands
of South Carolina or the Texas truck farms or the mountains of North
Carolina. The privilege of the outside visitor to the South is to range
far afield, to compare conditions in various states, and to make
generalizations, subject to the criticism of better qualified
investigators who may go over the same area of printed book and open
country, but which have a basis of personal acquaintance with the region.
If this book make any contribution toward the knowledge and appreciation
of Southern conditions, it must be by observing throughout two principles.
The first is that no statement of fact be made without a basis in printed
material, written memoranda, or personal memory of the testimony of people
believed to speak the truth. The second is that in the discussion there be
no animus against the South as a section or a people. I have found many
friends there. I believe that the points of view of the reflective
Northerner and the reflective Southerner are not so far apart as both have
supposed; as a Union soldier's son I feel a personal warmth of admiration
for the heroism of the rival army, and for the South as a whole; and I
recognize the material growth, the intellectual uplift, and the moral
fervor of the Southern people. In one sense I am a citizen of the
Southland. When a few years ago at a Phi Beta Kappa dinner in Cambridge,
the president of the University of North Carolina said: "I love North
Carolina, I ought to love that State, because it is my native country!"
President Eliot replied, when his turn came: "President Winston says that
North Carolina is his native country; gentlemen, it's _our_ native
country."
For this reason has been chosen as the title of this book, "The Southern
South." Leaving out of account those parts of the South, such as the
peninsula of Florida, which are really transplanted portions of the North;
setting aside also the manifold national characteristics shared by both
sections, I shall attempt to consider those conditions and problems which
are in a measure peculiar to the South. The aim of the work is not to
cavil but to describe, with full realization that many of the things upon
which comment is passed are criticised in the South, and have a
counterpart in the North.
Properly to acknowledge the information and impressions gained from
friends, and sometimes from persons not so friendly, would require mention
of scores of names; but I cannot forbear to recognize the candor and
courtesy which, with few exceptions, have met my inquiries even from those
who had little sympathy with what they presumed to be my views. The ground
covered by the book was traversed in somewhat different analysis and
briefer form in a course of lectures which I delivered before the Lowell
Institute in Boston during February and March, 1908. Parts of the subject
have also been summarized in a series of letters to the _Boston
Transcript_, and an article in the _North American Review_, published in
July, 1908. While a year's reflection and restatement in the light of
additional evidence have not changed the essential conclusions, I have
found myself continually infused with a stronger sense that the best will
and effort of the best elements in the South are hampered and limited by
the immense difficulties of those race relations which most contribute to
keep alive a Southern South.
CHAPTER I
MATERIALS
For an understanding of the Southern South the materials are abundant but
little systematized. In addition to the sources of direct information
there is a literature of the Southern question beginning as far back as
Samuel Sewall's pamphlet "Joseph Sold by His Brethren," published in 1700.
Down to the Civil War the greater part of this literature was a
controversy over slavery, which has little application to present
problems, except as showing the temper of the times and as furnishing
evidence to test the validity of certain traditions of the slavery epoch.
The publications which are most helpful have appeared since 1880, and by
far the greater number since 1900. Besides the formal books there is a
shower of pamphlets and fugitive pieces; and newspapers and periodicals
have lately given much space to the discussion of these topics.
So multifarious is this literature that clues have become necessary, and
there are three or four serviceable bibliographies, some on the negro
problem and some on the Southern question as a whole. The earliest of
these works is "Bibliography of the Negroes in America" (published in the
"Reports" of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1894, vol. i).
More searching, and embracing the whole field of the Negro's life in
America, are two bibliographies by W. E. Burghardt DuBois, the first being
"A Select Bibliography of the American Negro" ("Atlanta University
Publications," 1901), and "A Select Bibliography of the Negro American"
("Atlanta University Publications," No. 10, 1905). A. P. C. Griffin has
also published through the library of Congress "Select List of References
on the Negro Question" (2d ed., 1906) and "List of Discussions of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments" (1906). One of the most useful select
bibliographies is that of Walter L. Fleming in his "Reconstruction of the
Seceded States, 1865-76" (1905). The author of this book, in his volume on
"Slavery and Abolition" ("The American Nation," vol. xvi, 1908), has
printed a bibliographical chapter upon the general question of negro
servitude in America. The study of the Southern question would be much
lightened were there a systematic general bibliography, with a critical
discussion of the various works that may be listed.
A part of the problem is the spirit of those who write formal books, and a
group of works may be enumerated which take an extreme anti-Negro view and
seek to throw upon the African race the responsibility for whatever is
wrong in the South. Dr. R. W. Shufeldt (late of the United States army)
has published "The Negro a Menace to American Civilization" (1907), of
which the theme is sufficiently set forth by the wearisome use of the term
"hybrid" for mulatto; he illustrates his book, supposed to be a logical
argument on the inferiority of the Negro, with reproductions of
photographs showing the torture and death of a Negro in process of
lynching by a white mob; and he sums up his judgment of the negro race in
the phrase "The Negro in fact has no morals, and it is therefore out of
the question for him to be immoral."
The most misleading of all the Southern writers is Thomas Dixon, Jr., a
man who is spending his life in the attempt to persuade his neighbors that
the North is passionately hostile to the South; that the black is bent on
dishonoring the white race; and that the ultimate remedy is extermination.
In his three novels, "The Leopard's Spots" (1902), "The Clansman" (1905),
and "The Traitor" (1907), he paints a lurid picture of Reconstruction, in
which the high-toned Southern gentleman tells the white lady who wishes to
endow a college for Negroes that he would like--"to box you up in a glass
cage, such as are used for rattlesnakes, and ship you back to Boston." One
of these novels, "The Clansman," has been dramatized, and its production,
against the remonstrances of the respectable colored people in a Missouri
town, led directly to a lynching. No reasonable being would hold the whole
South responsible for such appeals to passion; but unfortunately many
well-meaning people accept that responsibility. In Charlotte, N. C., the
most refined and respectable white people went to see "The Clansman"
played and showed every sign of approval, as appears to have been the case
in Providence, R. I., in 1909. A recent writer, John C. Reed, in his
"Brothers' War," brackets Thomas Dixon, Jr., with John C. Calhoun as
exponents of Southern feeling and especially lauds Dixon as the "exalted
glorification" of the Ku Klux.
The volume from Dixon's pen which has had most influence is "The Leopard's
Spots," the accuracy of which is marked by such assertions as that
Congress made a law which gave "to India and Egypt the mastery of the
cotton markets of the world"; and that it cost $200,000,000 to pay the
United States troops in the South in the year 1867. The book has been
traversed with great skill by a negro writer. When Dixon asks: "Can you
change the color of the Negro's skin, the kink of his hair, the bulge of
his lip or the beat of his heart with a spelling-book or a machine?" Kelly
Miller replies: "You need not be so frantic about the superiority of your
race. Whatever superiority it may possess, inherent or acquired, will take
care of itself without such rabid support.... Your loud protestations,
backed up by such exclamatory outbursts of passion, make upon the
reflecting mind the impression that you entertain a sneaking suspicion of
their validity."
Many Southern writers are disposed to put their problems into the form of
novels, and there are half a dozen other stories nearly all having for
their stock in trade the statutes of Reconstruction, the negro politician
who wants to marry a white woman, and the vengeance inflicted on him by
the Ku Klux. In the latest of these novels the President of the United
States is pictured as dying of a broken heart because his daughter has
married a man who is discovered to be a Negro.
A book very widely read and quoted in the South is Frederick L. Hoffman,
"Race Traits and Tendencies" ("Am. Economic Association Publications," xi,
Nos. 1, 2, and 3, 1896). "Race Traits" is written by a man of foreign
extraction who therefore feels that he is outside the currents of
prejudice; it is well studied, scientifically arranged, and rests chiefly
on statistical summaries carefully compiled. The thesis of the book is
that the Africans in America are a dying race, but many of the
generalizations are based upon statistics of too narrow a range to permit
safe deductions, or upon the confessedly imperfect data of the Federal
censuses.
Quite different in its tone is a book which is said to have been widely
sold throughout the South, and which seems to be written for no other
purpose but to arouse the hostility of the Whites against the Negroes. The
title page reads: "_The Negro a Beast or In the Image of God The Reasoner
of the Age, the Revelator of the Century! The Bible as it is! The Negro
and his Relation to the Human Family! The Negro a beast, but created with
articulate speech, and hands, that he may be of service to his master--the
White man. The Negro not the Son of Ham, Neither can it be proven by the
Bible, and the argument of the theologian who would claim such, melts to
mist before the thunderous and convincing arguments of this masterful
book._" This savage work quotes with approval an alleged statement of a
Northern man that inside the next thirty years the South will be obliged
to "Re-enslave, kill or export the bulk of its Negro population." It
insists that the Negro is an ape, notwithstanding the fact that he has not
four hands; he has no soul; the mulatto has no soul; the expression "The
human race" is a false term invented by Plato "in the atheistic school of
evolution." The serpent in the garden of Eden was a Negro. Cain was also
mixed up in the detestable business of miscegenation, for the Bible says,
"Sin lieth at thy door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt
rule over him." The writer has taken pains to point out that "The mere
fact that the inspired writer refers to it in the masculine gender is no
evidence that it was not a female." The mulatto being "doomed by Divine
edict to instant death ... neither the mulatto nor his ultimate offspring
can acquire the right to live. This being true, it follows that these
monstrosities have no rights social, financial, political or religious
that man need respect." Wherever you find the word beast in the Bible it
means the Negro!
If such passionate and rancorous books were all that sprang from the
South, the problem would end in a race war; but as will be seen throughout
this discussion, there are two camps of opinion and utterance among
Southern white people. On one side the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth
violence and the violent take it by force; on the other side there is a
body of white writers who go deeper into the subject, who recognize the
responsibility of the white race as the dominant element, and who preach
and expect peace and uplift. Such a writer is A. H. Shannon in his "Racial
Integrity and Other Features of the Negro Problem" (printed in Nashville
and Dallas, 1907). In good temper and at much length he argues that the
Negro owes to the white man a debt of gratitude for bringing his ancestors
out of African barbarism, though the principal evils of the negro question
are due to the inferior race.
A widely read book of the same type is Thomas Nelson Page's "The Negro:
the Southerner's Problem" (1904). Mr. Page accepts as a fact the existence
of various classes of Negroes self-respecting and worthy of the respect of
others; and he believes, on the whole, that the colored race deserve
commendation. "The Negro has not behaved unnaturally," he says; "he has,
indeed, in the main behaved well." The main difficulty with Mr. Page's
book is that it fails to go to the bottom of the causes which underlie the
trouble; and that while admitting the fact that a considerable fraction of
the negro race is improving, he sees no ultimate solution. He suggests but
three alternatives: removal, which he admits to be impossible;
amalgamation, which is equally unthinkable; and an absolute separation of
social and apparently of economic life, which could be accomplished only
by turning over definite regions for negro occupation. Starting out with
undoubted good will to the black race, the writer ends with little hope of
a distinct bettering of conditions.
Quite a different point of view is William Benjamin Smith's "The Color
Line--A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn" (1905), which is based on the
assertion that the Negro is no part of the human race and hence that
amalgamation is a crime against nature. The general trend of Professor
Smith's book is an argument, somewhat technical and not convincing, that
the black man is physically, mentally, and morally so different from the
white man that he may be set outside the community. This was of course the
argument for slavery, and if it be true, is still an argument for peonage
or some other recognized position of dependency. From this deduction,
however, Smith sheers off; he uses the inferiority of the Negro chiefly as
an argument against the mixture of the races, which he believes to be a
danger; and he makes an ingenious distinction between the present mixture
in which the fathers were Whites and a possible future amalgamation in
which the fathers might be Negroes.
The most suggestive recent study of the negro question is Edgar Gardner
Murphy's "Problems of the Present South" (1904). Mr. Murphy is an
Alabamian, very familiar with Southern conditions. While not
optimistic--nobody in the South is optimistic on the race question--he
recognizes the possibility of a much better race feeling than the present
one. It is interesting to see that this man who, as champion of the
movement against child labor in the South, has been so successful in
relieving children of a terrible burden, feels sure that the worst thing
that can be done for the community is to keep the Negro ignorant. He is
perfectly willing to face the issue that those who show the qualities of
manhood should have the reward of manhood, namely, the right to
participate in politics; and the acknowledgment of that right he says does
not imply race fusion. He gives up nothing of his Southern birthright, and
courageously asserts the ability of his section to work out its problem
for itself.
Genial in tone, full of the ripe thought of an accomplished writer is
William Garrott Brown, "The Lower South" (1902), which is not a discussion
of the race question so much as of the character and point of view of the
planter before the Civil War and the Southern gentleman since that time, a
plea for a sympathetic understanding of the real difficulties of the South
and its sense of responsibility.
These five books are proof not only that there is wide divergence of
views, but also that genuine Southern men, strongly loyal to their own
section, can set an example of moderation of speech, breadth of view, and
willingness to accept and to promote a settlement of the Southern question
through the elevation of the people, white and black, who have ultimate
power over that question.
In slavery days almost all the discussion of race questions came from the
Whites, Southern or Northern. Now, there is a school of negro
controversialists and observers, several of whom have had the highest
advantages of education and of a personal acquaintance with the problems
which they discuss, and thus possess some advantages over many white
writers. About twenty years ago George W. Williams published his "History
of the Negro Race in America" (1883), which, though to a large degree a
compilation, is a respectable and useful book. Another writer, William H.
Thomas, in his "The American Negro" (1901), has made admissions with
regard to the moral qualities of his fellow Negroes which have been widely
taken up and quoted by anti-Negro writers. Charles W. Chesnutt, in several
books of collected stories, of which "The Conjure Woman" (1899) is the
liveliest, and in two novels, "The House Behind the Cedars" (1900) and the
"Marrow of Tradition" (1901), has criticised the rigid separation of
races. No man feels more keenly the race distinctions than one like
Chesnutt, more Caucasian than African in his make-up. One of the best of
their writers is Kelly Miller, who has contributed nearly fifty articles
to various periodicals upon the race problems; and in humor, good temper,
and appreciation of the real issues, shows himself often superior to the
writers whom he criticises. The most systematic discussion of the race by
one of themselves is William A. Sinclair's "The Aftermath of Slavery"
(1905), which, though confused in arrangement and unscientific in form, is
an excellent summary of the arguments in favor of the negro race and the
Negroes' political privileges.
The most eminent man whom the African race in America has produced is
Booker T. Washington, the well-known president of Tuskegee. In addition to
his numerous addresses and his personal influence, he has contributed to
the discussion several volumes, partly autobiographic and partly didactic.
His "Up from Slavery" (1901) is a remarkable story of his own rise from
the deepest obscurity to a place of great influence. In three other
volumes, "Character Building" (1902), "Working with the Hands" (1904), and
"The Negro in Business" (1907), he has widened his moral influence upon
his race. "The Future of the American Negro" (1899) is the only volume in
which Washington discusses the race problem as a whole; and his advice
here, as in all his public utterances, is for the Negro to show himself so
thrifty and so useful that the community cannot get on without him.
Paul L. Dunbar, the late negro poet, contented himself with his
irresistible fun and his pathos without deep discussions of problems. The
most distinguished literary man of the race is W. E. Burghardt DuBois, an
A.B. and Ph.D. of Harvard, who studied several years in Germany, and as
Professor of Sociology in Atlanta University has had an unusual
opportunity to study his people. Besides many addresses and numerous
articles, he has contributed to the discussion his "Souls of Black Folk"
(1903), which, in a style that places him among the best writers of
English to-day in America, passionately speaks the suffering of the highly
endowed and highly educated mulatto who is shut out of the kingdom of
kindred spirits only by a shadow of color. Witness such phrases as these:
"To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is
the very bottom of hardships"; or this, "The sincere and passionate belief
that somewhere between men and cattle, God created a _tertium quid_, and
called it a Negro,--a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable
within its limitation, but straitly fore ordained to walk within the
Veil."
The three groups just sketched, the violent Southerners, moderate
Southerners, and negro writers, each from its own point of view has aimed
to study the complicated subject, to classify and generalize. Nearly all
the writers are sources, in that they are conversant with the South and
have a personal acquaintance with its problems; but their books are
discussions rather than materials. What is now most needed for a solid
understanding of the question is monographic first-hand studies of limited
scope in selected areas. Unfortunately that material is still scanty.
Professor DuBois has made a series of investigations as to the conditions
of the Negro; first, his elaborate monograph, "The Philadelphia Negro"
(published by the University of Pennsylvania, 1899), then a series of
sociological studies in the "Atlanta University Publications," and several
"Bulletins" published by the United States Department of Labor, notably
"Census Bulletin No. 8: Negroes in the United States" (1904). He has thus
made himself a leading authority upon the actual conditions, particularly
of the negro farmer. At Atlanta University and also at Hampton, Va., are
held annual conferences, the proceedings of which are published every
year, including a large amount of first-hand material on present
conditions. One Northern white man, Carl Kelsey, has addressed himself to
this problem in his "The Negro Farmer" (1903), which is a careful study of
the conditions of the Negroes in tidewater, Virginia.
One practical Southern cotton planter has devoted much time and attention
to the scientific study of the conditions on his own plantation and
elsewhere as a contribution toward a judgment of the race problem. This is
Alfred H. Stone, of Greenville, Miss., who has published half a dozen
monographs, several of which are gathered into a volume, under the title
"Studies in the American Race Problem" (1908). He is now engaged, under
the auspices of the Carnegie Institution, on a study of the whole
question. He has visited several Southern states and the West Indies,
and brings to his inquiries the point of view of an employer of Negroes
who wishes them well and sees the interest of his country in the
improvement of negro labor. Perhaps his judgment is somewhat affected by
the special conditions of Mississippi and of his own neighborhood, in
which the Negroes are very numerous and perhaps more than usually
disturbing. The results of his latest investigations will appear under the
title "Race Relations in America"; and may be expected to be the most
thorough contribution to the subject made by any writer.
Among less formal publications are the negro periodicals, which are very
numerous and include _Alexander's Magazine_ and a few other well-written
and well-edited summaries of things of special interest to the race. The
whole question has become so interesting that several of the great
magazines have taken it up. The _World's Work_ devoted its number of June,
1907, almost wholly to the South; and the _American Magazine_ published in
1907-8 a series of articles by Ray Stannard Baker on the subject. In 1904
the _Outlook_ published a series of seven articles by Ernest H. Abbott
based upon personal study. An interesting contribution is the so-called
"Autobiography of a Southerner," by "Nicholas Worth," published in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ in 1906. Whoever Nicholas Worth may be, there can be no
doubt as to his Southern birth, training, and understanding, nor of his
excellent style, sense of humor, and power to make clear the growth of
race feeling in the South since the Civil War.
All these and many other printed materials are at the service of the
Northern as of the Southern investigator. Among their contradictory and
controversial testimony may be discerned various cross currents of
thought; and their statements of fact and the results of their
researches form a body of material which may be analyzed as a basis for
new deductions. But nobody can rely wholly on printed copy for knowledge
of such complicated questions. Books cannot be cross-examined nor
compelled to fill up gaps in their statements. The investigator of the
South must learn the region and the people so as to take in his own
impressions at first hand. Printed materials are the woof; but the warp of
the fabric is the geography of the South, the distribution of soil, the
character of the crops, the habits of the people, their thrift and
unthrift, their own ideas as to their difficulties.
Yet let no one deceive himself as to what may be learned, even by wide
acquaintance or long residence. It is not so long ago that a Southern lady
who had lived for ten years in the neighborhood of Boston was amazed to be
told that such Massachusetts officers as Robert G. Shaw, during the Civil
War, actually came from good families; she had always understood that
people of position would not take commissions in the hireling Federal
army. If such errors can be made as to the North, like misconceptions may
arise as to the South. All that has ever been written about the Southern
question must be read in the light of the environment, the habits of
thought, and the daily life of the Southern people, white and black.
CHAPTER II
THE SOUTHLAND
In what do the Southern States differ as to extent and climate from other
parts of the United States? First of all, what does the Southland include?
Previous to the Civil War, when people said "the South" they usually meant
the fifteen states in which slavery was established. Since 1865 some
inroads and additions to that group have been made. Maryland is rather a
middle state than a Southern; West Virginia has been cut off from the
South, and is now essentially Western, as is Missouri; but the new State
of Oklahoma is a community imbued with a distinct Southern spirit. For
many reasons the Northern tier of former slave-holding states differ from
their Southern neighbors; and in this book less attention will be given to
Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee than to their
South-lying neighbors, because they are becoming to a considerable degree
mineral and manufacturing communities, in which the negro problem is of
diminishing significance. The true Southland, the region in which
conditions are most disturbed and an adjustment of races is most
necessary, where cotton is most significant, is the belt of seven states
from South Carolina to Texas, to which the term "Lower South" has often
been applied.
Physically, the Southern States differ much both from their Northeastern
and their Northwestern neighbors. No broken country like New England
reaches down to the coast; no rocky headlands flank deep natural harbors;
there are, except in central Alabama and in Texas, no treeless prairies.
Three of these states, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, include
mountain regions which, though interesting in themselves, are little
related to the great problem of race relations and of race hostility.
Physically, they protect the cotton belt from the North, and thus affect
the climate; and they are fountains of water power as yet little
developed. South of the mountains and thence westward through northern
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, is a hill region which is from every
point of view one of the parts of the South most interesting and at the
same time least known by Northerners. This is the traditional home of the
Poor Whites; whose backwardness is in itself a problem; whose industry
contributes much more than the world has been prone to allow to the wealth
of the South; and whose progress is one of the most encouraging things in
the present situation, for they furnish the major part of the Southern
voters. The hills are still heavily wooded, as was the whole face of the
country as far as central Texas, when it was first opened up by Europeans.
The hill region is also the theater of most of the manufacturing in the
South, and especially of the cotton mills.
Below the hills is a stretch of land, much of it alluvial, extending from
lower North Carolina to central Texas, which is the most characteristic
part of the South, because it is the approved area of cotton planting, the
site of great plantations, and the home of the densest negro population.
The central part of it is commonly called The Black Belt originally
because of the color of the soil, more recently as a tribute to the color
of the tillers of the soil, for here may be found counties in which the
Negroes are ten to one, and areas in which they are a hundred to one. It
includes some prosperous cities, like Montgomery and Shreveport, and many
thriving and increasing towns; but it is preëminently an agricultural
region, in which is to be settled the momentous question whether the Negro
is to stay on the land, and can progress as an agricultural laborer.
The seacoast, along the Atlantic and Gulf, is again different from the
Black Belt. It abounds in islands, some of which, especially the Sea
Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, present the most interesting negro
conditions to be found in the South. In this strip lie also the Southern
ports, of which the principal ones are Norfolk, Wilmington, Charleston,
Savannah, Brunswick, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and
Galveston. With the exception of Atlanta, Montgomery, Birmingham, and
Memphis, and the Texan cities, this list includes nearly all the populous
cities of the Lower South. The ports are supported not from the
productions of their neighborhood, but as out-ports from the interior.
Three of them, Savannah, New Orleans, and Galveston, have a large European
commerce; the others depend upon the coasting trade, the fruit industry,
and the beginnings of the commerce to the Isthmus of Panama, which
everybody in the South expects is to become enormous.
In one respect the Southland and the Northland were originally alike,
namely, that they were both carpeted with a growth of heavy timber, the
pine and its brethren in some localities, hard woods in others. Here a
divergence has come about which has many effects on the South; by 1860,
outside the mountains, there was little uncleared land in the North, while
most of the hill region, and large parts of the Black Belt and coast, in
the South were still untouched by the ax. In the last twenty-five years
great inroads have been made on the Southern forests, and clearing is
going on everywhere on a large scale. Nevertheless, a very considerable
proportion of the Southern Whites and many Negroes still live in the
woods, and have retained some of the habits of the frontier. Population is
commonly sparse; pretentious names of villages on the map prove to mark
hamlets of two or three houses; nearly all the country churches are simply
set down at crossroads, as are the schoolhouses and mournful little
cemeteries. The good effects of frontier life are there, genuine
democracy, neighborhood feeling, hospitality, courage, and honesty; but
along with them are seen the drawbacks of the frontier: ignorance,
uncouthness, boisterousness, lawlessness, a lack of enterprise, and
contempt for the experience of older communities.
One of the characteristics not only of the lower classes, but of all
sections of the South, is the love of open-air life; the commonest thing
on the roads in any part of the South is the man with a sporting gun, and
a frequent sight is a pack of dogs escorting men on horseback who are
going out to beat up deer. In some parts of the back country and in many
parts of the Black Belt the roads are undrivable several months of the
year, and people have to find their way on horseback. So common is the
habit of horseback riding that a mountain girl to whom a Northern lady
lent a book on etiquette returned it with the remark: "Hit seems a right
smart sort of a book, but hit is so simple; why, hit tells you how to sit
on a horse!" As will be seen in the next chapter, the frontier is ceasing
to be, but many of its consequences will long be left impressed upon
Southern character. Meanwhile the woods are turning into dollars, and a
farming community is emerging not unlike that of the hill regions of
western Pennsylvania or southern Ohio.
The physical respects in which the South most differs from the North are
its climate and its products. The South enjoys an unusual combination of
climatic conditions; it is a subtropical country in which can be raised
cotton, rice, sugar, yams, and citrous fruits; it is abundantly watered
with copious rainfall and consequent streams; at the same time, it is
subject to occasional frosts which, however destructive of the hopes of
orange growers, are supposed to be favorable to cotton. Not one of the
Southern crops is a monopoly, even in the United States; they are raising
cotton and oranges in California, rice in the Philippines, sugar in Porto
Rico, and tobacco in Connecticut; but the South is better fitted for these
staples than any other section of the Union, and in addition can raise
every Northern crop, except maple sugar, including corn, oats, buckwheat,
considerable quantities of wheat, barley, rye, and garden fruits. Every
year trucking--that is, the raising of vegetables--grows more important in
the South; and Texas still remains a great cattle state. There is,
however, little dairying anywhere, and it cannot be too clearly kept in
mind that the great agricultural staple, the dramatic center of Southern
life, is "making cotton."
Though agriculture is the predominant interest in the South, it is coming
forward rapidly in other pursuits, and is putting an end to differences
which for near a century have marked off the two sections. Down to the
Civil War the South hardly touched its subterranean wealth in coal and
iron, and knew nothing of its petroleum or its stores of phosphate rock.
Mining has now become a great industry, especially in Alabama, and the
states north and northwestward to Virginia. The manufacture of iron has
kept pace, and indeed has stimulated the development of the mines; and
Birmingham is one of the world's centers in the iron trade. Cotton mills
also have sprung up; and, as will be shown later, think they are disputing
the supremacy of New England. Though the Black Belt shares little in these
industries, or in the city building which comes along with them, it has
two local industries, namely, the ginning of cotton and the manufacture of
cotton-seed oil, together with a large fertilizer industry.
The South is not without drawbacks such as all over the world are the
penalty for the fruitfulness of semi-tropical regions. While, with the
exception of the lower Mississippi, perhaps no day in the summer is as hot
as some New York days, the heat in the Lower South is steady and
unyielding; and though the Negroes and white laborers keep on with little
interruption and sunstrokes are almost unknown, the heat affects the
powers, at least of the Whites, to give their best service. Colleges and
schools find it harder to keep up systematic study throughout the academic
year than in similar Northern institutions.
The South is much more infested by poisonous snakes, ticks, fleas, and
other like pests than the North, and though the climate is so favorable
for an all-the-year-round outdoor life these creatures put some
limitations on free movement. The low country also abounds in swamps, many
of them miles in extent, which if drained might make the most fertile soil
in the world; but, as they lie, are haunts of mosquitoes, and therefore of
malaria. Deaths by malarial fever, which are almost unknown in the North,
mount up to some hundreds in Southern cities, and in the lowlands,
particularly of the Mississippi and the Sea Islands, every white new-comer
must pay the penalty of fever before he can live comfortably. The people
accept these drawbacks good-humoredly and often ignore them, but they make
life different from that of most parts of the North.
On the other hand, the rivers of the South, flowing from the wide extended
mountains with their abundant rainfall, make a series of abundant water
powers. In the upper mountains there are a few waterfalls of a height from
twenty to two hundred feet, but the great source of power is where the
considerable streams reach the "fall line," below which they run unimpeded
to the sea. Places like Spartanburg and Columbia in South Carolina, and
Augusta and Columbus in Georgia, have large powers which are making them
great manufacturing centers. No part of the United States east of the
Rocky Mountains is so rich in undeveloped water powers as is the South.
This prosperity extends also to the smaller cities which are now springing
up in profusion throughout the South. Even in the Black Belt there are
centers of local trade; and forwarding points like Monroe in Louisiana,
Greenville in Mississippi, and Americus in Georgia, are concentrators of
accumulating wealth and also of new means of education and refinement. In
this respect, as in many others, the South is going through the experience
of the Northwestern states forty years ago; and although its urban
population is not likely ever to be so large in proportion as in those
states, a change is coming over the habits of thought and the means of
livelihood of the whole Southern people.
In Southern cities large and small, new and old, the visitor is attracted
by the excellent architectural taste of most of the public buildings, of
many of the new hotels and modern business blocks, and of the stately
colonnaded private houses. Texas boasts a superb capitol at Austin, one
of the most notable buildings of the country, which will perhaps be
thought abnormal in some parts of the North, since it was built without
jobbery and brought with it no train of criminal suits against the state
officers who supervised its erection. The less progressive state of
Mississippi has a new marble capitol at Jackson, which is as attractive as
the beautiful statehouse at Providence. The same sense of proportion and
dignity is shown in many smaller places, such as Opelika, Alabama, or
Shreveport, Louisiana, which contain beautiful churches and county
buildings appropriate and dignified.
The cities in many ways affect the white race, chiefly for the better;
they furnish the appliances of intellectual growth, tolerable common
schools, public high schools, public libraries, and a body of educated and
thinking people. In the cities are found most of the new business and
professional class who are doing much to rejuvenate the South. The
interior cities much more than in former times are centers for the
planting areas in their neighborhood; and through the cities are promoted
those relations of place with place, of state with state, of section with
section, of nation with nation, which broaden human life. Unfortunately in
the cities, although their negro population is less in proportion than in
the open country, the race feeling is bitter; and some of the most serious
race disturbances during the last twenty years have been in large places;
although the presence of a police force ought to keep such trouble in
check.
Still the South remains a rural community. Leaving out of account
Louisville, Baltimore, and St. Louis, which, although within the
boundaries of slave-holding states, were built up chiefly by middle-state
or western state trade, the ante-bellum South contained only three
notable cities: Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans. As late as 1880 out
of eight million people in the lower South only half a million lived in
cities of eight thousand inhabitants and upward. In 1900, though a third
of the people of the whole United States lived in cities, the urban
population of the states extending from South Carolina to Texas was only
about a ninth. Since that time the cities have been going forward more
rapidly; but the drift out of the open country is less marked than the
similar movement in the Northern states, and the influence of foreign
immigration is negligible.
Nevertheless the cities have become a distinct feature of the New South;
and their healthy growth is one of the most hopeful tokens of prosperity.
The largest is of course New Orleans, which has now passed the three
hundred thousand mark and, in the estimation of its people, is on the way
to surpass New York City. What else does it mean when the Southern port in
one year ships more wheat than the Northern? But New Orleans is only the
fourteenth in size of the American cities, and the Lower South has only
one other, Atlanta, which goes into the list of the fifty largest cities
of the Union.
Though these figures show conclusively that the South is not an urban
region, they do not set forth the activity, the civic life, and the
prospective growth of the Southern cities. Charleston is still the most
attractive place of pilgrimage on the North American continent, beautiful
in situation, romantic in association, abounding in people of mind, and
much more active in a business way than the world supposes; Savannah is a
seaport, with a few incidental manufactures, but one of the busiest places
on the Atlantic coast; Mobile has become metropolitan in its handsome
buildings, and in a spirit of enterprise which the Yankees have not always
been willing to admit to be a Southern trait. Atlanta is the clearing
house of many financial enterprises, such as the great life insurance
companies and trust companies, and has become a wholesale center. While
three other interior cities of this region, Columbia, Montgomery, and
Birmingham, are among the active and progressive places of the country. In
Texas there is certain to be a large urban population, and Houston, San
Antonio, and Dallas have not yet decided among themselves which is to be
the Chicago of the South.
CHAPTER III
THE POOR WHITE
The broad and beautiful Southland is peopled by about thirty million human
beings (26,000,000 in 1900), who constitute the "South" as a community
conscious of a life separate in many respects from that of the North. What
is there in these thirty millions which sets them apart? First of all is
the sharp division into two races--two thirds of the people Whites and one
third Negroes, which in uncounted open and obscure ways makes the South
unlike any other country in the world. In the second place account must be
taken of the subdivision of the white people into social and economic
classes--a division common in all lands, but peculiar in the South because
of the relations of the strata to each other.
An analysis of the elements of white population may begin with the less
prosperous and progressive portion commonly called the Poor Whites. As
used in the South the term means lowlanders; and it is necessary to set
off for separate treatment the mountaineers, who are, if not typical
Southerners, at least unlike anything in the North. No other inhabitants
of the United States are so near the eighteenth century as the people to
whom an observer has given the name of "Our contemporary ancestors." For
nowhere else in the United States is there a distinct mountain people. The
New England mountaineers live nowhere higher than 1,500 feet above the
sea, and have no traits which mark them from their neighbors in the lower
lands; in the Rocky Mountains the population is chiefly made up of miners;
the Sierra Nevadas are little peopled; in the South alone, where some
elevated valleys have been settled for two hundred years, is there an
American mountain folk, with a local dialect and social system and
character.
The mountains and their inhabitants are a numerous and significant part of
the population in all the upper tier of the Southern States, including
Oklahoma; and though they are much less numerous in the lower South, they
furnish a large body of voters, and their slow progress is in itself a
difficult problem. The Appalachian range, from Canada to Alabama, is made
up of belts of parallel ridges; in a few places, such as Mount Washington
in New Hampshire, and Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, they rise above
6,000 feet, but they include comparatively few elevations over 3,000 feet,
and no lofty plateaus. Between the ridges and in pockets or coves of the
mountains are lands that are easily cultivated, and in many places the
mountains, when cleared, are fertile to their summits. The scenic
culmination of the Appalachians is Blowing Rock in North Carolina, 3,500
feet above the sea, where the rifleman without stirring from one spot may
drop his bullets into the Catawba flowing into the Atlantic, the New,
which is a head water of the Ohio, and the Watauga, a branch of the
Tennessee. Above this spot rises, 3,000 feet higher, the mass of
Grandfather's Mountain; and below is an enchanting series of mountains,
range after range, breaking off to the eastern foothills.
Within the Appalachians, south of Pennsylvania, dwell about two and a
half million people of whom but a few thousands are of African or European
birth. These are true Americans, if there are any, for they are the
descendants of people who were already in the country as much as a century
and a half ago. In a Kentucky churchyard may be found such names as
Lucinda Gentry, John Kindred, Simeon Skinner, and William Tudor. Side by
side stand Scotch-Irish names, for many of that stock drifted
southwestward from Pennsylvania into these mountains; and in the oldest
burying ground, on the site of Daniel Boone's Watauga settlement, the
first interment seems to have been that of a German. Just as in central
Pennsylvania, and the Valley of Virginia, the English, Scotch-Irish, and
Pennsylvania Dutch were intermingled. It is an error to suppose that these
highlanders are descended from the riffraff of the colonial South; they
have been crowded back into the unfavorable parts of the mountains
because, as the population increased, there was a lack of good land; and
the least vigorous and ambitious of them, though sons or grandsons of
stalwart men, have been obliged to accept the worst opportunities.
The life of the Mountain Whites is not very unlike that of New England in
the seventeenth century, New York in the eighteenth, and Minnesota in the
nineteenth century. The people are self-sustaining in that they build
their own houses, raise their own food, and make their own clothing. There
have been instances where in the early morning a sheep was trotting about
wearing a pelt which in the evening a mountaineer was wearing, it having
been sheared, spun, woven, dyed, cut, made, and unfitted in that one day.
Abraham Lincoln, as a boy in Indiana and a young man in Illinois, lived
the same kind of life that these people are now going through; for here is
the last refuge of the American frontier. These conditions seem not in
themselves barbarous, for there are still thousands of Northern people who
in childhood inhabited intelligent and well-to-do communities with good
schools, in which most of the families still made their own soap and
sugar, smoked their own hams, molded their own candles, and dyed their own
cloth, where the great spinning-wheel still turned and the little wheel
whirred.
The Mountain Whites, however, are more than primitive or even colonial,
they are early English; at least among them are still sung and handed down
from grandmother to child Elizabethan ballads. Lord Thomas still hies him
to his mother to know
Whether I shall marry fair Elender,
Or bring the brown girl home.
Local bards also compose for themselves such stirring ditties as "Sourwood
Mounting."
Chickens a-crowin' in the sourwood mountain,
Ho-de-ing-dang, diddle-lal-la-da.
So many pretty girls I can't count 'em,
Ho-de-ing-dang, diddle-lal-la-da.
My true love lives up in the head of a holler,
She won't come and I won't call 'er.
My true love, she's a black-eyed daisy,
If I don't get her, I'll go crazy.
The most unfavorable mountain conditions are fairly illustrated by eastern
Kentucky, a veritable back country. Along the roads the traveler passes a
number of one-room houses, without glass windows, and is told many tales
of the irregular or no-family life of the people. Perhaps along a creek he
chances on a traditional Mountain White family, such as Porte Crayon drew
fifty years ago, when these people were first described as a curiosity.
Below a dirty and ill-favored house, down under the bank on the shingle
near the river, sits a family of five people, all ill-clothed and unclean;
a blear-eyed old woman, a younger woman with a mass of tangled red hair
hanging about her shoulders, indubitably suckling a baby; a little girl
with the same auburn evidence of Scotch ancestry; a boy, and a younger
child, all gathered about a fire made among some bricks, surrounding a
couple of iron saucepans, in which is a dirty mixture looking like mud,
but probably warmed-up sorghum syrup, which, with a few pieces of corn
pone, makes their breakfast. A counterbalance to the squalor is the plump
and pretty girls that appear all along the way, with the usual mountain
headdress of the sunbonnet, perched at a killing angle. Such people have
their own peculiarities of speech like the mountain woman's
characterization of a forlorn country-seat: "Warn't hit the nighest ter
nowhar uv ary place ever you's at?"
The miserable family described above are a fair type of what a writer on
the subject calls the "submerged tenth among the mountaineers"; but they
belong to the lowest type, to which those who know them best give no
favorable character; they live in the remotest parts of the mountains, in
the rudest cabins, with the smallest provision of accumulated food. Most
of them are illiterate and more than correspondingly ignorant. Some of
them had Indian ancestors and a few bear evidences of negro blood. The
so-called "mountain-boomer," says an observer, "has little self-respect
and no self-reliance.... So long as his corn pile lasts the 'cracker'
lives in contentment, feasting on a sort of hoe cake made of grated corn
meal mixed with salt and water and baked before the hot coals, with
addition of what game the forest furnishes him when he can get up the
energy to go out and shoot or trap it.... The irregularities of their
moral lives cause them no sense of shame.... But, notwithstanding these
low moral conceptions, they are of an intense religious excitability....
They license and ordain their own preachers, who are no more intelligent
than they are themselves, but who are distinguished by special ability in
getting people 'shouting happy,' or in 'shaking the sinner over the
smoking fires of hell until he gets religion.'" They are all users of
tobacco--men, women, and children. They smoke and chew and "dip snuff."...
Bathing is unknown among them.... When a garment is put on once it is
there to stay until it falls to pieces. The washtub is practically as
little known among them as the bathtub....
The same authority has abundant praise for the better type of the
mountaineer, who loves the open-air life, cares nothing for luxury, and
"has raised the largest average families in America upon the most sterile
of 'upright' and stony farms, farms the very sight of which would make an
Indiana farmer sick with nervous prostration. He has sent his sons out to
be leaders of men in all the industries and activities in every part of
our country."
If there were no improvement in the mountaineer who remains on his land,
the South would rue it; but in some parts of the mountains one may have
such experiences as those of the writer in 1907 on a pedestrian journey
across the mountains of North Carolina, among what has been supposed to be
the most primitive and least hopeful people in the Southern mountains.
He found beside a lonely creek near the little village of Sugar Grove the
house of the son of a Swiss immigrant, the best one for many miles. It is
also the Telephone Exchange in that remote region. The stranger is
received hospitably, and sits down to a meal of a dozen good dishes,
including the traditional five kinds of sauce. He is not required to sleep
in the Telephone Exchange itself, which is the living room of the family
occupied by the husband, wife, two babies, two older children squabbling
in a trundle bed, and a space for two more, but receives a clean and
comfortable room to himself. The host is justly proud that Sugar Grove has
a good two-story school house put up by the labor of the people of the
neighborhood, who tax themselves to increase the school term from the four
months supported by the State fund to eight months. In that valley the
people are as prosperous as in the average Maine village, and for much the
same reason; it is lumber that has brought money and prosperity; for
railroads were not built thither till the lumber was worth so much that
the owners received considerable sums in cash, and the thrifty ones have
saved it. A few nights later was tested the hospitality of a young couple
newly married, who were running a little mill. They furnished a good room,
a capital supper of eggs, bacon, good coffee, corn pone, and the equally
delicious wheat pone, and arose in the dark so as to favor a five-o'clock
departure; and they "allowed" that the entertainment was worth about
twenty-five cents.
What has been done in Boone County, N. C., is likely to be done in most of
the other mountains sooner or later; the coal and the timber draw the
railroad, establish the village, make possible the school and start the
community upward; but the mountaineers are slow to move, and the boarding
schools, established partly by Northerners, are a godsend to the people.
When in one such school mustering a hundred and fifty boys one hundred and
thirty "guns" (that is, pistols) are turned over to the principal upon
request, it is clear that the mountaineers need a new standard of personal
relations. As you ride through parts of Kentucky, people point out to you
where Bill Adams lay in wait to kill Sam Skinner last fall; or the house
of the man who has killed two men and never got a scratch yet.
There is good in these mountain people, there is hope, there is
potentiality of business man and college president. Take, for example, the
poor mountain boy who, on a trip across the mountains with a fellow
Kentuckian, seems to be reading something when he thinks he is not
observed, and on closer inquiry reluctantly admits that it is a volume of
poetry which some one had left at the house. "Hit's Robert Burns's poems;
I like them because it seems to me they are written for people like us. Do
you know who I like best in those poems? It is that 'Highland Mary.'"
The reason for hope in the future of the Mountain Whites is that they are
going through a process which has been shared at one time or another by
all the country east of the Rocky Mountains. The Southern mountaineers are
the remnant of the many communities of frontiersmen who cleared the
forests, fought the Indians, built the first homes, and lived in a
primitive fashion. Much of the mountains is still in the colonial
condition, but railroads, schools, and cities are powerful civilizing
agents, and a people of so much native vigor may be expected in course of
no long time to take their place alongside their brethren of the lowlands.
The more prosperous South is too little interested in these people, and
is doing little direct civilizing work among them, in many districts
leaving that task to be performed by schools founded by Northerners. But
there are some good state schools among them, as, for instance, that at
Boonesboro', N. C.; and numerous small colleges mostly founded before the
Civil War.
The Mountain Whites ought not to be confused with the Poor Whites of the
lowlands. Although there are many similarities of origin and life, the
main difference is that the mountaineers have almost no Negroes among them
and are therefore nearly free from the difficulties of the race problem.
In the lowlands as in the mountains, men whose fathers had settled on rich
lands, as the country developed were unable to compete with their more
alert and successful neighbors, who were always ready to outbid them for
land or slaves; therefore they sold out and moved back into the poor lands
in the lowlands, or into the belt of thin soil lying between the Piedmont
and the low country. Hence the contemptuous names applied to them by the
planting class--"Tar Heels" in North Carolina; "Sand Hillers" in South
Carolina; "Crackers" in Georgia; "Clay Eaters" in Alabama; "Red Necks" in
Arkansas; "Hill Billies" in Mississippi; and "Mean Whites," "White Trash,"
and "No 'Count" everywhere.
These so-called Poor Whites are to be found in every state in the South.
They are the most numerous element in the Southern population. They are
the people who are brought into the closest personal relations with the
Negroes. A survey of their conditions and prospects is therefore essential
for any clear understanding of the race question.
The present dominant position of the Poor Whites is different from that of
their predecessors in slavery times. Distant from the highways of trade,
having no crop which they could exchange for store goods, satisfied with
primitive conditions from which almost none of them emerged, the Poor
Whites then simply vegetated. With them the negro question was not
pressing, for they had little personal relation with the rich planters,
even when they lived in their neighborhood; and the free Negroes who were
crowded back like themselves on poor lands were too few and too feeble to
arouse animosity. Mountain people have little prejudice against Negroes:
but in the hills and lowlands, where the two races live side by side,
where the free black was little poorer than his white neighbor, the slave
on a notable plantation felt himself quite superior to the Poor Whites,
who in turn furnished most of the overseer class, and had their own
opportunities of teaching how much better any white man was than any
nigger.
The isolation of these Poor Whites was one if the greatest misfortunes of
ante-bellum times: it was not wholly caused by slavery, but was aggravated
because the slave owner considered himself in a class apart from the man
who had nothing but a poor little farm. "Joyce," said a Northern officer
to a Poor White in Kentucky forty years ago, "what do you think this war
is about?" "I reckon that you'uns has come down to take the niggers away
from we'uns." "Joyce, did you ever own a nigger?" "No." "Any of your
family ever own a nigger?" "No, sir." "Did you ever expect to own a
nigger?" "I reckon not." "Which did the people that did own niggers like
best, you or the nigger?" "Well, 'twas this away. If a planter came along
and met a nigger, he'd say, 'Howdy, Pomp! How's the old massa, and how's
the young massa, and how's the old missus, and how's the young missus?'
But if he met me he'd say, 'Hullo, Joyce, is that you?'"
But Joyce and his kind went into the Confederate army of which they
furnished most of the rank and file, and followed Marse Robert
uncomplainingly to the bitter end; and they had a good sound, logical
reason for fighting what was apparently the quarrel of their planter
neighbor. A white man was always a white man, and as long as slavery
endured, the poorest and most ignorant of the white race could always feel
that he had something to look down upon, that he belonged to the lords of
the soil. In the war he was blindly and unconsciously fighting for the
caste of white men, and could not be brought to realize that slavery
helped to keep him where he was, without education for his children,
without opportunities for employment, without that ambition for white
paint and green blinds which has done so much to raise the Northern
settler. Though a voter, and a possible candidate for office, he was
accustomed to accept the candidates set up by the slave-holding
aristocracy. Stump speakers flattered him and Fourth-of-July orators
explained to him the blessings of a republican government.
The Poor White, in his lowest days, had a right to feel that he was a
political person of consequence, for did he not furnish three presidents
of the United States? Jackson was born a Poor White, and had some of the
objectionable and most of the attractive qualities of those people; Andrew
Johnson came from the upper Valley of the Tennessee; Abraham Lincoln was a
Poor White, the son of a shiftless Kentucky farmer. Materially the Poor
Whites contributed little to the community, except by clearing the land,
and they took care that that process should not go uncomfortably far.
Let a Southern writer describe his own ante-bellum neighbors: "These folk
of unmixed English stock could not cook; but held fast to a primitive and
violent religion, all believers expecting to go to heaven. What,
therefore, did earthly poverty matter? They were determined not to pay
more taxes. They were suspicious of all proposed changes; and to have a
school or a good school, would be a violent change. They were 'the
happiest and most fortunate people on the face of the globe.' Why should
they not be content?... holding fast to the notion that they are a part of
a long-settled life; fixed in their ways; unthinking and standing still;
... unaware of their own discomfort; ignorant of the world about them and
of what invention, ingenuity, industry, and prosperity have brought to
their fellows, and too proud or too weak to care to learn these things."
What is the present condition of the Poor White? The greater number of
white rural families own their farms, though there is a considerable class
of renters; and they till them in the wasteful and haphazard fashion of
the frontier. Their stock is poor and scanty, except that they love a good
horse. Most of their food except sugar they raise on their own places, and
up to a few years ago they were clad in homespun. There are still areas
such as southern Arkansas and northern Florida in which the life of the
Poor Whites has little changed in half a century.
Otherwise, if one now seeks to find this primitive and sordid life in the
South, he will need to search a long time. After the Civil War the
disbanded soldiers went back to their cabins, and for a time resumed their
old habits, but at present they are undergoing a great and significant
change. Though there are five or six millions of Poor Whites scattered
through the South, especially in the remote hill country, for the most
part away from the rich cotton lands and the great plantations, you may
literally travel a thousand miles through the back country without
finding a single county in which they do not show a distinct uplift. Take
a specific example. On January 2, 1908, on a steamer making its way up the
Mississippi River, was a family of typical Poor Whites, undersized,
ill-fed, unshaven, anæmic, unprogressive, moving with their household
gods, the only deck passengers among the Negroes in the engine room. On
inquiring into the case, it came out that they could no longer afford to
pay the rent on the tenant farm which they had occupied for several years.
"How do you expect to get started on a new farm?" "Oh, we've got some
stock. You see it right over there on the deck. Seven head of cows." "That
isn't your wagon, I suppose, that good painted wagon?" "Oh, yes, that's
our wagon, and them's our horses, three of 'em." "Is that pile of
furniture and household goods yours too?" "Yes, that plunder's ours; we've
got everything with us. You see I want to take my little boys where they
can have some schooling." And this was the lazy, apathetic, and hopeless
Poor White! He had more property than the average of small Southern
farmers, and was moving just as the Iowa man moves to Nebraska, and the
Nebraska man to Idaho, because full of that determination to give his
children a better chance than he had himself, which is one of the main
props of civilization.
Wherever the abject Poor White may be, a personal search shows that he is
not in the hill country of Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama, nor in the
enormous piney woods district of southern Alabama and Georgia. Visit Coosa
County, Alabama, supposed to be as near the head waters of Bitter Creek as
you can get, lay out a route which will carry you through by-roads, across
farms, and into coves where even a drummer is a novelty. You will find
many poor people living in cabins which could not be let to a city tenant
if the sanitary inspectors knew it, some of them in one-room houses, with
a puncheon floor, made of split logs; with log walls chinked with clay and
moss, with a firestead of baked clay, and a cob chimney. Around that fire
all the family cooking is carried on; the room is nearly filled up with
bedsteads and chests or trunks, a few pictures, chiefly crude advertising
posters, and not enough chairs to seat the family.
That is the way perhaps a fifth of the hill Whites live, but four fifths
of them are in better conditions. The one-room cabins have given way to
larger houses, a favorite, though by no means a type, being the double
house with the "hall" or open passage from back to front; besides the two
rooms there will probably be a lean-to, and perhaps additional rooms built
on; and very likely a separate kitchen, used also as a dining room.
Instead of the three to twelve little out-buildings scattered about,
decent shelters begin to appear for the stock, and tight houses for tools
and utensils.
Of the morals of these people it is difficult for a stranger to judge, but
the intimate family life in the better cabins is in every way decorous.
The pride of the family is the splendid patchwork bed quilt, with
magnificent patterns, representing anything from the Field of the Cloth of
Gold to the solar system. The children, who may be anywhere from two to
fifteen in number, are civil, the spirit of the family hospitable; and
though there are none of the books and newspapers which help to furnish
both the sitting room and the brains of the Northern farmer's family, they
are a hopeful people. Some embarrassing questions arise when there are
nine people, old and young, sleeping in the same room, but even in the
one-room houses the people commonly have ways of disposing of themselves
which are entirely decent. The poorest families live on "hog and hominy,"
a locution which does not exclude the invariable salaratus biscuit, corn
pone, and real or alleged coffee and string beans.
It is hardly fair to compare these people, who are at best only ten or
twenty years away from the frontier, with New Englanders or Middle States
or far Western farmers. In the Southern climate people get on with smaller
houses, fewer fireplaces and stoves, and more ventilation through the
walls. There is little necessity for large farm buildings, and the country
is too rough to use much farm machinery. Their outside wants are
simple--coffee, sugar, or the excellent cane-syrup, clothing (inasmuch as
they no longer make their own), wagons and utensils; these can all be
bought with their cotton, and they raise their own corn and "meat" (pork).
In comparison with the North a fair standard would be to set a dozen of
the Coosa County houses alongside a mining village in Pennsylvania, and
the advantage of cleanliness, decency, and thrift would show itself on the
Southern side.
Those people are rising; though still alarmingly behind, both in education
and in a sense of the need of education. Unusually well-to-do farmers may
be found who boast that they are illiterate, and who will not send their
children steadily to good schools in the neighborhood; but they are
learning one of the first lessons of uplift, namely, that the preparation
for later comfort is to save money. Saving means work, and perhaps the
secret of the undoubted improvement of the Poor Whites is that there is
work that they can do, plenty of it at good wages. That is a marvelous
difference from slavery times, when there was nothing going on in their
region except farming, and it was thought ignoble to work on anybody
else's farm, for that was what niggers did. Nowadays some Whites are
tenants or laborers on large plantations. Near Monroe, La., for instance,
is a plantation carried on by Acadians brought up from lower Louisiana,
with the hope that they will like it and save money enough to buy up the
land in small parcels. There are plantations on which white tenants come
into houses just vacated by negro tenants, on the same terms as the
previous occupants; the women working in the fields, precisely as the
Negroes do; there are plantations almost wholly manned by white tenants.
But there are other more attractive employments, and it is so easy for the
white man to buy land that there is no likelihood of the growth of a class
of white agricultural laborers in the South.
The son of the Poor White farmer, or the farmer himself, if he finds it
hard to make things go, can usually find employment in his own
neighborhood, or at no great distance. Large forces of men are employed in
clearing new land, a process which is going on in the hills, in the piney
woods, and in the richest agricultural belt. Little sawmills are scattered
widely, and the turpentine industry gives employment to thousands of
people. Day wages have gone up till a dollar a day is easy to earn, and
sometimes more; and the wages of farm laborers have risen from the old
eight or ten dollars a month to fifteen dollars a month and upward. The
great lumber camps give employment to thousands of people, both white and
black, and are on the whole demoralizing, for liquor there flows freely;
and though families are encouraged to come, the life is irregular, and
sawmill towns may suddenly decay.
The great resource of the Poor White is work in the cotton mills, for
which he furnishes almost the only available supply of the less highly
skilled kinds of labor. Here the conditions are wholly different from
those of half a century ago; he can find work every day for every healthy
member of his family, and sometimes prefers adding up the wages of the
women and children to making wages for himself. Whatever the drawbacks of
the mill town, it has schools, the Sunday newspaper, and some contact with
the outside world; and the man who really loves the farm may always return
to it.
Even in slavery times the ambitious Poor White could get out of his
environment, and furnished many of the business and political leaders of
his time; and there was a class of white farmers working their own land.
That class still exists, though no longer set off so sharply from the
ordinary Poor Whites, inasmuch as the lower element is approaching the
higher. As an instance, take a farmstead in Coosa County, Alabama,
containing perhaps a hundred acres, and alongside the disused old house is
a new and more comfortable one, flanked by a pump house; grouped near it
are nine log outhouses, and one frame building intended for cotton seed.
The front yard is beaten down flat, for it is very hard to make grass grow
in the South near to houses; but it is neat and reasonably tidy; in the
foreground stands an old syrup pan with red stone chimney, and near by is
the rude horse-mill used for grinding the cane. Such a farm is a fair type
of the average place, but still better conditions may be seen in new
houses of four and even six rooms, with the front yard fenced in, and a
gate, and a big barn for the storage of hay, just such as you might find
in southern Iowa.
The evident uplift among the Poor Whites in their own strongholds is only
a part of the story; for ever since the Revolution there has been a drift
of these people into the more promising conditions of southern Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and the far West. If from the number of born South
Carolinians now living in other states be subtracted the natives of other
states now living in South Carolina, the State will still have contributed
179,000 to other communities. Georgia has lost 219,000, and there are
similar though smaller drifts out of Alabama and Mississippi; while Texas
counts more than 600,000 people born in other states, principally the
South. Former Poor Whites and descendants of Poor Whites can be found in
every Northwestern and Pacific state, and constitute a valuable element of
population. The truth is, as the evidence adduced in this chapter proves,
that the term "Poor Whites" is a misnomer; that a class of poor and
backward people which has existed for decades in many parts of the South
is now disappearing. There are poor farmers in every part of the South;
but poor farmers can be found in every northwestern state. The average of
forehandedness and intelligent use of tools and machinery is less among
the back country farmers in the South than in other parts of the Union;
but there is such uplift and progress among them--particularly since the
high price of cotton--that the Poor Whites are ceasing to be an element of
the population that needs to be separately treated.
CHAPTER IV
IMMIGRATION
In every other section of the United States the element of the population
descended from English colonists is flanked by, and in some places
submerged by, a body of European immigrants; and every state is penetrated
by great numbers of people from other states. Considering that the South
has contributed to other sections of the Union about two and a half
millions of people, the return current from the North has been
comparatively small. "Why is it," asks the Louisville _Courier Journal_,
"that so few of these home-seekers come South where the lands are cheaper
and better, where the climate is more congenial, and where it is much
easier to live and become independent from the soil?" Among the
inhabitants of the Southern States were enumerated in 1900 only 400,000
people born in the North, of whom 250,000 originated in the Northeastern
states from Maine to Pennsylvania, and 150,000 came from the Middle
Western group extending from Ohio to Kansas; but this 400,000 people are
so widely scattered that outside of Texas and Florida there are few groups
of Northern people. Some farmers are said to be coming from the
Northwestern states into tide-water Virginia; others to Baldwin County, in
southern Alabama; others to northern Mississippi; and to Lake Charles,
Louisiana; chiefly with a view to the trucking industry. Two or three
communities made up wholly of Northern people can be mentioned, such as
Thorsby in Alabama and Fitzgerald in Georgia, which last is apparently the
only flourishing experiment of the kind.
Of the 400,000 Northerners in the South the greater number are in the
cities and manufacturing towns, as business men, bosses and skilled
laborers in the mills, in professions and mechanical trades. As a rule
they do not adhere to each other, and many of them seem to wish to hide
their origin. Why is it that there is a flourishing Southern Club in New
York, and smaller ones in other cities, yet no Northern club anywhere in
the South? The Southern explanation is that the Northerner who settles in
the South, within a few weeks discovers that the convictions of a lifetime
on all Southern questions are without foundation; and he takes on the
color of the soil upon which he lives. If it be true that the Southern man
and woman in the North continues to feel himself Southern to the end of
his days, while the Northern man in the South tries to identify himself
completely with the community in which he means to stay permanently,
perhaps there is some explanation other than the impregnability of the
Southern position.
The Southern emigrant to the North finds no door shut to him because he
comes from elsewhere; his origin is interesting to the people he meets;
and unless very violent in temper and abusive to the section of his
adoption, he may criticise his home and set forth the superiority of the
Southland without making enemies. The South, on the contrary, expects
people who are to be elected to clubs and become full members of the
community to agree with the majority; and on the negro question insists
that all Whites stand together. While courteous to the occasional
visitor, notwithstanding his presumed difference of view, the South is not
hospitable to those who plume themselves upon being Northern; and as a
community has shown decided hostility to the Northern teachers and
organizers of negro schools, and even of schools for the Poor Whites. The
Northerner who stands out on the question of the Negro's rights not only
has seven evenings of hot discussion upon his hands every week, but finds
himself put into the category of the "nigger lover," which includes not
only the white teachers of Negroes, but a President of the United States.
Nevertheless, there is a strong Northern influence in the South, exercised
partly through Southern men who have, either as students or as business
men, become familiar with the North; partly through the Northern drummers;
partly through Northern business and professional men, including many
Northern teachers and college professors, who are scattered through the
South, and who in general support the principle of the right of discussion
and the privilege of differing from the majority, for which the best
element in the South contests with vigor.
Small as is the number of Northerners in the South, the number of aliens
is not much larger. In the whole United States there were in 1900,
10,500,000 foreign-born, of whom only 727,000 were in the whole South;
while the lower South from North Carolina to Texas contained 303,000, and
the five states from South Carolina to Mississippi only 45,000. Of the
16,000,000 additional persons of foreign parentage in the Union the South
had again 1,500,000. That is, with a third of the total population of the
country, the South contains about one eleventh of the foreigners and
children of foreigners. These general figures may be enforced by the
statistics of particular cities. Baltimore and Boston have each a
population rising 600,000; but in 1900 there were 69,000 foreigners in
Baltimore against 197,000 in the Northern city. New Orleans and Milwaukee
are not far apart in total numbers, but Milwaukee had 90,000 foreigners to
30,000 in New Orleans. Atlanta, with a population of near 100,000, had
only about 3,000 foreign-born people; Saint Paul with a similar population
had 47,000.
This condition and its causes go very far back. When immigration began on
a large scale about 1820 the Northern states were nearer to the old world,
had better and more direct communication, and populous cities were already
established; hence the foreign current set that way. No doubt the
immigrant disliked to go to a region where labor with the hands was
thought to be menial, but his real objection to the South was not so much
slavery as the lack of opportunity for progressive white people. After the
Civil War cleared the way and the South began to develop its resources
there was a demand for just such people as the foreign immigrants to work
in sawmills and shops; and in addition they were eagerly coveted as a
source of field labor to compete with and perhaps supplant the Negro. All
the Northern states have encouraged and some have fostered immigration;
and the South has recently reached out in the same direction, though with
caution. As Senator Williams, of Mississippi, puts it: "Nor, last, would I
neglect foreigners of the right types. Resort would have to be had to them
very largely because of the fact that our own country could not furnish
immigrants in sufficient numbers."
During the last twenty years some systematic effort has been made to
attract foreigners to the South; some of the Southern railroads, notably
the Illinois Central, have attempted to stimulate immigration, in order
to fill up the vacant lands and increase railroad business. Private
agencies are at work in Northern cities, which try to direct immigrants
southward. Immigration societies have been formed, and a great effort was
made in 1907 to induce a current of immigration. A Southern State
Immigration Commission was established under the chairmanship of the late
Samuel Spencer, President of the Southern Railroad, and there are several
similar local societies. Following an example originally set by some of
the Northwestern states seventy years ago, several states appointed
commissioners or bureaus of immigration, particularly North Carolina,
South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. The most active of all these
bodies is the State Immigration Bureau of Louisiana, which has busily
distributed Italians and Bulgarians through the State. The Federal
Government has taken a hand in steering foreigners southward, through a
bureau in New York which puts before newly arrived immigrants the
opportunities of the South. By this bureau and by liberal and even
strained construction of the statutes the Federal authorities have aided
in the effort to bring the South to the attention of the incomer and to
facilitate his distribution.
In 1906 South Carolina took a part in the process by agreeing practically
to act as the agent of the planters and mill owners of the state, who
raised a fund of twenty thousand dollars which, to avoid the Federal
statute against the coming in of immigrants under contract to find them
work, was turned over to the State authorities. They thereupon made a
contract with the North German Lloyd Steamship Company to import several
immigrants whose passage was paid out of the fund. In consequence, in
November, 1906, appeared in the harbor of Charleston the steamer
_Wittekind_, having on board 450 steerage passengers, an arrival which was
declared to be the first successful undertaking to promote foreign
immigration from Europe to the South Atlantic section of the United States
in half a century. These immigrants--137 Belgians, 140 Austrians, and 160
Galicians--were fêted by the Charleston people and triumphantly
distributed throughout the State. Part of them were not mill hands at all;
others had been misinformed as to the scale of wages and conditions; one
of them thought it monstrous that he should have been a week in South
Carolina without ever seeing a bottle of beer. They wrote home such
accounts of their unhappiness that the steamship company declined to
forward any more immigrants, and Mr. Gadsden was sent by the State as a
special commissioner to Europe to investigate. He reported in 1907 that
the people were writing home to say that they did not like their work or
housing. He diagnosed the trouble as follows: "Our efforts have been
almost entirely expended in inducing immigrants to come to the South, and
we have thought little or nothing of how the immigrant is to be treated
after he has come in our midst; ... it seems to me that we have entirely
overlooked our industrial conditions, namely, that the wage scale
throughout the South is based on negro labor, which means cheap labor ...
our attitude throughout the South to the white laborer will have to be
materially altered before we can expect to have the immigrant satisfied to
remain as a laborer with us."
The only considerable groups of foreigners living together in the South
are a small German colony in Charleston and a larger one in New Orleans, a
body of Germans in central Texas (a settlement dating back to the Civil
War), and a few thousand Italian laborers in the lower Mississippi valley
who have been brought there chiefly through private agencies in New
Orleans and New York. Some Slavs have been introduced into the lower South
where they are collectively known as "Bohunks"; and a few efforts have
been made to bring in the Chinese.
For the slenderness of the immigrant movement there are two principal
reasons: the first is that the South does not like immigrants, and the
second is that the immigrants do not like the South. One constantly
encounters a sharp hostility to foreigners of every kind. The Georgia
Farmers' Union in 1907 unanimously voted against foreign immigration,
because it would bring undesirable people who would compete with the
Georgians for factory labor and would raise so much cotton that it would
lower the price. A Texan lawyer in a Pullman car painted for the writer a
gloomy picture of the unhappy condition of the North, which is obliged to
accept "the scum of the earth" from foreign countries and is thereby
overrun with Syrians, Russian Jews, and Sicilians, who are not capable of
becoming American citizens and fill the slums of the cities; the South, in
his judgment, was free from such difficulties. The _Manufacturers' Record_
of Baltimore is fearful of "masses of elements living largely unto
themselves, speaking foreign tongues and kept alien to the country through
having no contact with its people and its institutions save only through
their own leaders. Such an immigration, it is easily understood from
experience in other parts of the country, might become a dangerous fester
upon the body politic." A correspondent of the _Richmond Times Despatch_
objects to immigrants because they will prevent the reëstablishment of the
labor conditions which existed before the war, and will interfere with the
plantation system; and he especially deprecates any effort "to try any of
the races that have become inoculated with union notions, and who are so
quick to overestimate their contributions to the success of the
enterprises upon which they work and demand wages accordingly."
Another argument is that of competition. As a Southern writer puts it:
"The temptation of cheap alien labor from abroad is obvious as one of the
ways in which a home population may be dispossessed. When it ceases to
fill the rank and file with its own sons ... it ceases to be master or
possessor of the country." From another source the Negro is warned that:
"When the European who has been used to hard work begins to make a bale
and a half of cotton to where the negro makes but half a bale, ... then
the farm labor will pass from the hands of the negro forever."
On this question of immigration, as on many other matters, there is a
divergence between the responsible and the irresponsible Whites, or rather
between the large property owners and people who look to the development
of the whole section, and the small farmers and white laborers. The
criticism of the foreigner comes chiefly from the people who hardly know
him; from the town loafer or the small plantation manager who "hates the
Dago worse than a nigger." Between such people and the few foreigners
occasional "scraps" occur, and there have been instances of Italians or
Bohunks who have been driven out by main force because their neighbors did
not like them.
To be sure the foreigner in the North is not unacquainted with brickbats;
but the real question is not whether the Southerner likes him, but whether
he likes the South. He is under no such restraint as, for instance, in
Buenos Ayres, where, if he is not satisfied, he must steam back six
thousand miles to Europe; trains leave every part of the South every day
bound for the North. Hence, as soon as the problem of getting the
immigrant to the South is solved, the next point is how to keep him there.
Of the immigrants brought over by the _Wittekind_ in 1906, at the end of a
year the larger part had left South Carolina. The authorities of the State
were guiltless of holding out untrue inducements; but the immigrants did
not expect to be charged their rail fares from Charleston to the place of
labor; they found the wages less than they had supposed; sometimes less
than they had received at home; they were obliged to deal with the
company's store, instead of being paid in cash. Especially they complained
that farm hands were not so "intimately received by their employers" as
their cousins were in the Northwest. When the _Wittekind_ was ready to
sail from Bremen two hundred people who expected to join her refused to
go, because they had just heard of the race riot in Atlanta and thought
the South could not be a pleasant place. Rumors of peonage, and a few
actual cases, had also a deterring effect.
Nevertheless, there are a score or more of little agricultural communities
in which a considerable part of the people are foreigners. Most of these
people are Italians, that being an immigrating race accustomed to field
labor in a warm climate, and traditionally inured to the peasant system.
As these people bring little capital, most of them are assembled on some
plantation which undertakes on the usual terms to advance them necessities
until their crop can be made. It costs in central Louisiana about $60 per
head to get Italians, and that is deducted out of their first year's
earnings. In some cases the Italians come out as railroad and levee hands
and afterward bring over their families. At Alexandria, La., in the
neighborhood of Shreveport, at Valdese, N. C., and elsewhere, are
independent Italian villages.
The most successful plantation worked by Italian labor is undoubtedly
Sunny Side, founded by the late Austin Corbin on very rich land in
southeastern Arkansas. It dates back to 1898; the original plan was to
subdivide the estate and sell it to the immigrants; and at one time there
were perhaps fifteen hundred to two thousand Italians there, many of whom
were not farmers and soon grew tired of the place. At one time they were
reduced to less than forty families, but people have drifted back and new
ones have come in, until in 1908 there were over one hundred and twenty
families. They are sober, industrious, and profitable both to themselves
and to the plantation owners, who have placed the same kind of labor on
other plantations and would gladly extend the system if they could get the
people.
Some other race elements are to be found in the South; a few Greeks have
made their appearance; Bulgarians, Hungarians, and "Austrians" (probably
Slavs) may be found in Louisiana; but the greater number of recent
accessions are laborers or small business men, who play a very small part
in the economic and social development of the region.
This whole question of the foreigner is in close relation to the negro
problem. Even where the "Dagoes" are brought into close contact with the
Negroes, they neither make nor meddle with them; but the main reason for
interest in their coming is the scarcity and the ineffectiveness of negro
labor. If the number of foreigners should largely increase, there is
little doubt that they would join in the combination of the white race
against the Negro. On the other hand they furnish a more regular field
labor than the planter is otherwise able to employ, and when put alongside
the Negro sometimes they stimulate him to unwonted effort, as witness the
experience of an old cotton hand related to A. H. Stone: "I 'lowed to
Marthy, when I heered dem Dagoes had done bought the jinin' tract, dat I
was gwine ter show de white folks dat here was one nigger what wouldn' lay
down in front er no man livin', when it come to makin' cotton. En I done
it, too, plumb till pickin' time. It blowed me, too, sho's you bawn,
blowed me mightily. But jis ez I thought I had um bested, what you reckon
happened? I'z a natchel-bawn cotton picker, myself, and so is Marthy, and
right dar is whar I 'lowed I had um. But 'tother night when me and de old
'oman 'uz drivin' back fum church, long erbout 12 o'clock, en er full
moon, what you reckon I seen, boss? Fo' Gawd in Heaven, dat Dago en his
wife en fo' chillum wuz pickin' cotton by de moonlight. I do' 'no how it
looks to you, but I calls dat er underhanded trick myself!"
CHAPTER V
SOUTHERN LEADERSHIP
Immigrants either from the North or from abroad may be ignored as a
formative part of the South; but the Poor Whites are only a part of the
rank and file. There are many independent farmers, handicraftsmen, skilled
laborers, and small laborers, all parts of a great democracy; and one of
the causes of uplift is the coming of this democracy to a consciousness of
its own power. Nevertheless, in the South as elsewhere in the world, the
great affairs are carried on, the great decisions are made, by a
comparatively small number of persons; and in no part of the Union has a
select aristocracy such prestige and influence.
Before the war this leading element was very distinctly marked off,
because it was nearly restricted to slaveholders and their connections by
blood and marriage. Very few people, except in the mountain districts,
ever held important state or national office who did not come from the
slaveholding families, which never numbered more than three hundred
thousand; and half of those families owned less than five Negroes and
could hardly claim to belong to the ruling class. The slaveholding
aristocracy included nearly all of the professional and commercial men,
the ministers, the doctors, the college instructors, especially the
lawyers, from whom the ranks of public service were to a great degree
recruited.
These people were organized into a society of a kind unknown in the North
since colonial times. In any one state the well-to-do people, perhaps two
to five thousand in all, knew each other, recognized each other as
belonging to a kind of gentry, intermarried, furnished nearly all the
college and professional students, and were the dignitaries of their
localities. In organization, if not in opportunities or in the amenities
of life, they were very like the English county gentry of the period.
Those conditions are now much changed. In the first place, the old ruling
families have almost all lost their wealth and their interstate position.
Deference is still paid to them; a John Rutledge is always a John Rutledge
welcomed anywhere in South Carolina, and a Claibourne carries the dignity
of the family that furnished the first Governor of Mississippi; but it is
a mournful fact that hardly a large plantation in the South is now owned
by a descendant of the man who owned it in 1860. Some of the most
ambitious of the scions of these ancient houses, whose communities no
longer give them sufficient opportunities, have found their way to New
York and other Northern cities, and are there founding new families. Many
more are upbuilders of the Southern cities; some of them are again
becoming landed proprietors. Still the element dominant in society, in
business, and in administration, includes a large number of people who
have come up from below or have come in from without since the Civil War.
Distinctly above the traditional Poor White, though often confused with
him by outsiders, is the Southern white farmer. In ante-bellum days there
was in every Southern state, and particularly in the border states, a
large body of independent men, working their own land without slaves, with
the assistance of their sons--for white laborers for hire could not be
had--and often prosperous. They were on good terms with the planters, had
their share of the public honors, and probably furnished a considerable
part of the Southern Whig vote. Their descendants still persist, often in
debt, frequently unprogressive, but on the whole much resembling the
farmer class in the neighboring Northern states. The destruction of
slavery little disturbed the status of these men, and they are an
important element in the progress of the South.
The old leaders have lost preëminence, partly because the South now
requires additional kinds of leaders. In the modern Southern cities may be
found classes of wholesale jobbers, attorneys of great corporations,
national bank officers, manufacturers, agents of life insurance and
investment companies, engineers, and promoters, who were hardly known in
the old South. In the social world these people still have to take their
chance, for the foundation stones of society in every Southern state are
the descendants of the leaders of the old régime, including many people
whose former back-country farm with its half-dozen slaves has become
magnified into a tradition of an old plantation. As a Southern writer
says: "Legends had already begun to build themselves, as they will in a
community that entrusts its history to oral transmission. For instance,
the fortunes of many of our families before the war became enormous, in
our talk and in our beliefs."
Notwithstanding this presumptive right of the old families to figure in
modern society many are shut out by poverty and some by moral
disintegration. Of course in the South as elsewhere the newcomers have
more money and set a difficult standard of social expense; but, measured
by New York criterions, there are few wealthy people in the South. Leaving
out the Northern men who play at being Southern gentlemen it is doubtful
whether there are thirty millionaires in the whole Lower South; and it
must never be forgotten that nothing in the world is so democratic within
its narrow bounds as Southern society. The social leaders recognize on
equal terms other Southern high-class people, and also outsiders whom they
reckon as high class. There is a sharp difference between the poor farmer
and the well-to-do proprietor or the city magnate; but there is not
necessarily a social distinction between the family which has an income of
three thousand a year and the family which disposes of thirty thousand a
year.
Furthermore, between all the members of the white race there is an easier
relation than in the North; Pullman Car conductors are on easy and
respectful terms with lady passengers who frequently use their line, the
poorest White addresses the richest planter or most distinguished railroad
man with an assured sense of belonging to the same class; society is
distinctly more homogeneous than in the North. It is also more gracious.
What is more delightful than the high-bred Southern man and woman,
courteous, friendly, and interested in high things, bent on bringing to
bear all the resources of intellectual training, religion, and social life
for the welfare of the community? The high-class Southerner believes in
education; he has a high sense of public duty; he stands by his friends
like a rock; unfortunate is the Northerner who does not count among his
choicest possessions the friendship of Southern men and women!
In business the South is developing a body of modern go-ahead men who are
alive to the needs of improvement in business methods, who adopt the
latest machinery, seek to economize in processes, and have built up a
stable and remarkably well-knit commercial system. The South before the
war had many safe banks, and no state in the Union enjoyed a better
banking law than Louisiana. All that capital was swept away by the Civil
War, and for twenty years was not replaced, outside the cities; now little
banks are springing up at small railroad stations, and in remote little
county seats; and there is a concert and understanding between the country
and city bankers which is of great assistance to the material growth of
the South. The Southern business system calls for prudent and courageous
men, and there is no lack of good material.
In politics, however, a new type of leaders has in the last twenty years
sprung up as a result of the genius of Benjamin R. Tillman in discovering
that there are more voters of the lower class than of the upper, and that
he who can get the lower class to vote together may always be reëlected.
As a matter of fact Tillman comes of a respectable middle-class family;
but it is his part to show himself the coarsest and most vituperative of
Poor Whites. Such men as ex-Governor Vardaman of Mississippi, and Senator
Jeff Davis of Arkansas, are also evidences that the hold of the old type
of political leader is weakened. Some people say that the present system
of primary nominations is a sure way to bring mediocrity to the front.
On the other hand, the leaders of society and business and politics and
intellectual pursuits fit together much more closely than in the North. In
part this is the result of a social system in which people of various
types imbibe each other's views; in greater part it is due to the
influence of slavery, and the half century of contest over slavery, in
which the great property owners were also the heads of the state, the
pillars of the church, and the formers of opinion.
The problem of the leader in the South is also the problem of the led;
shall those who concentrate and shape public opinion, who carry on the
corporations, write the newspapers, teach the university students, decide
law cases, and preach the sermons, shall they also set forth a lofty
spirit? Will the mass, the voters, the possessors of the physical force of
the community, accept their decisions? In general, the tone of the leaders
in the South is sane and wholesome; commercial influences are less strong
on the press and on state and municipal governments than they are in the
North. There is at least a greater sentimental and abstract respect for
learning, a larger part of the community is in touch with and molded by
the churches.
The lower Whites, though manifestly advancing, are still on the average
far inferior to the similar class of white farmers of kindred English
stock in the North; and also to many of the foreigners that have come in
and settled the West. Education is going to help their children, but can
do little for the grown people who are now the source of political power
in the South; and there is a turbulence and uncontrolled passion,
sometimes a ferocity, among the rural people which is to be matched in the
North only in the slums.
In some ways the Northern visitor is struck by a crudeness of behavior
among respectable Southern Whites such as he is accustomed in the North to
experience in a much lower stratum of society. A large proportion of the
Poor Whites in the South and many of the better class go armed and justify
it because they expect to have need of a weapon. Tobacco juice flows
freely in hotel corridors, in railroad stations, and even in the
vestibules of ladies' cars; profanity is rife, and fierce talk and
unbridled denunciations, principally of black people. There is doubtless
just the same thing in Northern places, if you look for it, but in the
South it follows you. With all the aristocratic feeling classes are more
mixed together, and it is a harder thing than in the North to sift your
acquaintances. Still there is an upward movement in every stratum of
society; as Murphy puts it: "The real struggle of the South from the date
of Lee's surrender--through all the accidents of political and industrial
revolution--was simply a struggle toward the creation of democratic
conditions. The _real_ thing, in the unfolding of the later South, is the
arrival of the common man." The North has always had confidence in the
average man; in the South the upper and lower strata are in a more hopeful
way of mutual understanding than perhaps in the North.
CHAPTER VI
SOUTHERN TEMPERAMENT
The South has not only its own division of special classes, its own
methods of influence, it has also its own way of looking at the problems
of the universe, and especially that department of the universe south of
Mason and Dixon's line. To discover the temperament of the South is
difficult, for upon the face of things the differences of the two sections
are slight. Aside from little peculiarities of dialect, probably no more
startling than Bostonese English is to the Southerner when he first hears
it, the people whom one meets in Southern trains and hotels appear very
like their Northern kinsfolk. The Memphis drummer in the smoker tells the
same stories that you heard yesterday from his Chicago brother; the
members of the Charleston Club talk about their ancestors just like the
habitués of the Rittenhouse Club in Philadelphia; the President of the
University of Virginia asks for money for the same reasons as the
President of Western Reserve University; Northern and Southern men,
meeting on mutual ground and avoiding the question of the Negro, which
sometimes does not get into their conversation for half an hour together,
find their habits of thought much the same: the usual legal reasoning,
economic discussion, and religious controversy all appeal to the same kind
of minds. Northerners read Lanier with the same understanding with which
Southerners read Longfellow.
Nevertheless there is a subtle difference of temperament hard to catch and
harder to characterize, which may perhaps be illustrated by the difference
between the Northern "Hurrah" and the "Rebel yell"; between "Yankee
Doodle" and "Dixie," each stirring, each lively, yet each upon its
separate key. Upon many questions, and particularly upon all issues
involving the relations of the white and negro races, the Southerner takes
things differently from the Northerner. He looks upon himself from an
emotional standpoint. Thomas Dixon, Jr., characterizes his own section as
"The South, old-fashioned, medieval, provincial, worshipping the dead, and
raising men rather than making money, family-loving, home-building,
tradition-ridden. The South, cruel and cunning when fighting a treacherous
foe, with brief, volcanic bursts of wrath and vengeance. The South,
eloquent, bombastic, romantic, chivalrous, lustful, proud, kind and
hospitable. The South, with her beautiful women and brave men."
This self-consciousness is doubtless in part a result of external
conditions, such as the isolation of many parts of the South; but still
more is due to an automatic sensitiveness to all phases of the race
question. People in the South often speak of their "two peoples" and "two
civilizations"; and at every turn, in every relation, a part of every
discussion, is the fact that the population of the South is rigidly
divided into two races marked off from each other by an impassable line of
color. The North has race questions, but no race question: the foreign
elements taken together are numerous enough, and their future is uncertain
enough to cause anxiety; but they are as likely to act against each other
as against the group of people of English stock; as likely to harmonize
with native Anglo-Saxon people as to oppose them--they are not a combined
race standing in a cohort, watchful, suspicious, and resentful. The North
has twenty race problems; the South has but one, which for that very
reason is twenty times as serious. In every field of Southern life,
social, political, economic, intellectual, the presence of two races
divides and weakens. The blacks and the Whites in the South are the two
members of a pair of shears, so clumsily put together that they gnash
against each other continually. Though one side be silver, and the other
only bronze, neither can perform its function without the other, but there
is a terrible strain upon the rivet which holds them together.
This state of tension is not due wholly to the Negroes, nor removable by
improving them, as though the straightening only the bronze half of the
shears you could make them cut truly. If no Negroes had ever come over
from Africa, or if they were all to be expatriated to-morrow, there would
still remain a Southern question of great import. One of the mistakes of
the Abolition controversy was to suppose that the South was different from
the North simply because it had slaves; and that the two sections would be
wholly alike if only the white people felt differently toward the Negro.
The Negro does not make all the trouble, cause all the concern, or attract
all the attention of thoughtful men in the South. In every part of that
section, from the most remote cove in the Tennessee mountains to the
stateliest quarter of New Orleans, there is a Caucasian question, or
rather a series of Caucasian questions, arising out of the peculiar
make-up of the white community, though alongside it is always the shadow
of the African.
Nobody can work out any of the Caucasian problems as though they stood by
themselves; what now draws together most closely the elements of the white
race is a sense of a race issue. The white man cannot build new
schoolhouses or improve his cotton seed or open a coal mine without
remembering that there is a negro race and a negro problem. This
consciousness of a double existence strikes every visitor and confronts
every investigator. As Du Bois says, the stranger "realizes at last that
silently, resistlessly, the world about flows by him in two great streams:
they ripple on in the same sunshine, they approach and mingle their waters
in seeming carelessness,--then they divide and flow wide apart." Henry W.
Grady asserted that "The race problem casts the only shadow that rests on
the South." Murphy says, "The problems of racial cleavage, like problems
of labor and capital, or the problems of science and religion, yield to no
precise formulæ; they are problems of life, persistent and irreducible."
Various as are the opinions in the South with regard to the race problem
and the modes of its solution, society is infused with a feeling of
uneasiness and responsibility. Sometimes the visitor seems to catch a
feeling of pervading gloom; sometimes he hears the furious and cruel words
of those who would end the problem by putting the Negro out of the
question; sometimes he listens to the hopeful voice of those who expect a
peaceful and a just solution; but all thinking men in the South agree that
their section has a special, a peculiar, a difficult and almost insoluble
problem in which the North has little or no share.
Here comes in the first of many difficulties in dealing with the Southern
question, a diversity of voices such that it is hard to know which speaks
for the South, or where the average sentiment is to be found. Public
opinion on some moral and social questions is less easily concentrated
than in the North; though the prohibitionists have recently made a very
successful campaign through a general league, all efforts to focus public
opinion on the negro question through general societies and public
meetings have so far failed.
Agitation or even discussion of the race problem is not much aided by the
press, though in some ways journalism is on a higher plane than in the
North. Most cities, even small ones, have a newspaper which is edited with
real literary skill, and which does not seem to be the servant of any
commercial interest. There is a type of Southern paper of which the
_Charleston News and Courier_ is the best example, which has for its
stock-in-trade, ultra and Bourbon sentiments. No paper in the South is
more interesting than the _News and Courier_, but it represents an age
that is past. The conservative, readable, and on the whole, high-toned
Southern newspapers, do not in general seem to lead public sentiment, and
the yellow journal has begun to compete with them. Still the paper which
by its lurid statement of facts, large admixture of lies, and use of
ferocious headlines, was one of the chief agents in bringing about the
Atlanta riots of 1907 afterwards went into the hands of a receiver; and
journals of that type have less influence than in the North.
A temperamental Southern characteristic is an impatience of dissent, a
characteristic which has recently been summed up as follows by a foreigner
who has lived twelve years in the South and is identified with it. "There
are three phases of public sentiment that I must regard as weaknesses, ...
The public attitude of Southern temper is over-sensitive and too easily
resents criticism.... Then, I think the Southern people are too easily
swayed by an apparent public sentiment, the broader and higher conscience
of the people gives way too readily to a tin-pan clamor, the depth and
real force of which they are not disposed to question.... Again, ... the
South as a section, does not seem fully to appreciate the importance of
the inevitables in civilization--the fixed and unalterable laws of
progress." Illustrations of this sensitiveness to criticism are abundant.
For instance, the affectionate girl in the Southern school when a Yankee
teacher gives her a low mark, bursts into tears, and wants to know why the
teacher does not love her.
From slavery days down, there has been a disposition to look upon Northern
writers and visitors with suspicion. Still inquirers are in all parts of
the South received with courtesy by those whose character and interest in
the things that make for the uplift of both the white and the black race
furnish the most convincing argument that there is an enlightened public
sentiment which will work out the Southern problem. In any case there is
no public objection to criticism of Southerners by other Southerners;
nothing, for instance, could be more explicit and mutually unfavorable
than the opinions exchanged between Hoke Smith and Clark Howells in 1907,
when rival candidates for the governorship of Georgia. In politics one may
say what he likes, subject to an occasional rebuke from the revolver's
mouth.
It is not the same in the discussion of the race question. In half a dozen
instances in the last few years, attempts have been made to drive out
professors from Southern colleges and universities, on the ground that
they were not sufficiently Southern. In one such case, that of Professor
Bassett, at Trinity College, North Carolina, who said in print that Booker
Washington was the greatest man except Lee, born in the South in a hundred
years, it stood by him manfully, and his retention was felt to be a
triumph for free speech. Other boards of trustees have rallied in like
manner, and there is a fine spirit of fearless truth among professors of
colleges, ministers, lawyers, and public men. It is no small triumph for
the cause of fair play that John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi, in 1907
came out in opposition to Governor Vardaman's violent abuse of the Negro,
on that issue triumphed over him in the canvass for the United States
Senate; and then in a public address committed himself to a friendly and
hopeful policy toward the Negro.
In part, this frame of mind is due to a feeling neatly stated by a
Southern banker: "The Southern people are not a bad kind, and a kind word
goes a long way with them; they have odd peculiarities; they cannot argue,
and as soon as you differ with them, you arouse temper, not on the Negro
question especially, but on any." This diagnosis is confirmed by "Nicholas
Worth": "Few men cared what opinion you held about any subject.... I could
talk in private as I pleased with Colonel Stover himself about Jefferson
Davis or about educating the negro. He was tolerant of all private
opinions, privately expressed among men only. But the moment that an
objectionable opinion was publicly expressed, or expressed to women or to
negroes, that was another matter. Then it touched our sacred dead, our
hearthstones, etc." This state of feeling has much affected politics in
the South and is in part responsible for the phenomenon called the Solid
South, under which, whatever be its causes, the South is deprived of
influence either in nominating or supplying candidates for national
office, because its vote may be relied upon in any case for one party and
one only.
The dislike of the critic is specially strong when criticism comes from
foreigners, and aggravated when it comes from Northerners. A recent
Southern speaker says: "Now, as since the day the first flagship was
legalized in its trade in Massachusetts, ... the trouble in the race
question is due to the persistent assertion on the part of northern
friends and philanthropists that they understand the problem and can
devise the means for its solution." That Northerners do not all lay claim
to such understanding, or hold themselves responsible for race troubles,
is admitted by a Southerner of much greater weight, Edgar Gardner Murphy,
who has recently said: "Beneath the North's serious and rightful sense of
obligation the South saw only an intolerant 'interference.' Beneath the
South's natural suspicion and solicitude the North saw only an
indiscriminating enmity to herself and to the negro."
To these characteristics another is added by "Nicholas Worth," in his
discussion of the "oratorical habit of mind" of a generation ago--"Rousing
speech was more to be desired than accuracy of statement. An exaggerated
manner and a tendency to sweeping generalizations were the results. You
can now trace this quality in the mind and in the speech of the great
majority of Southern men, especially men in public life. We call it the
undue development of their emotional nature. It is also the result of a
lack of any exact training,--of a system that was mediæval." Another form
of this habit of mind is the love of round numbers, a fondness for stating
a thing in the largest terms; thus the clever but no-wise distinguished
professor of Latin is "Probably the greatest classical scholar in the
United States," the siege of Vicksburg was "the most terrific contest in
the annals of warfare"; the material progress of the South is "the most
marvelous thing in human history."
This difference of temperament between North and South is not confined to
members of the white race. The mental processes of the Southern Negro
differ not only from those of the Southern White, but to a considerable
degree from those of the Northern Negro; and the African temperament has,
in the course of centuries, in some ways reacted upon the minds of the
associated white race. The real standards and aspirations of the Negroes
are crudely defined and little known outside themselves, and if they were
better understood they would still have scant influence upon the white
point of view. The "Southern temperament," therefore means the temperament
of the Southern Whites, of the people who control society, forum, and
legislature. It is always more important to know what people think than
what they do, and every phase of the race question in the South is
affected by the habits of thought of thinking white people.
Both sections need to understand each other; and that good result is
impeded by the belief of a large number of people in the South that the
North as a section feels a personal hostility to the South; that in
Reconstruction it sought to humiliate the Southern Whites, and to despoil
them of their property; that it planted schools in the South with the
express purpose of bringing about a social equality hateful to the Whites;
that it arouses in the Negro a frame of mind which leads to the most
hideous of crimes; and that Northern observers and critics of the South
are little better than spies.
The North is doubtless blamable for some past ill feeling and some ill
judgment, but it cannot be charged now with prejudice against the South.
It is not too much to say that the North as a section is weary of the
negro question; that it is disappointed in the progress of the race both
in the South and in the North; that it is overwhelmed with a variety of
other questions, and less inclined than at any time during forty years to
any active interference in Southern relations. An annual floodtide carries
many Northern people into Florida and other pleasure resorts, where they
see the surface of the negro question and accept without verification the
conventional statements that they hear; the same tide on its ebb brings
them North with a tone of discouragement and irritation toward the Negro,
which much affects Northern public sentiment.
This apathy or disappointment is unfortunate, for from many points of
view, the North has both an interest and a responsibility for what goes on
in the South. First of all, from its considerable part in bringing about
present conditions. Besides an original share in drawing slavery upon the
colonies, the North by the emancipation of the slaves disturbed the
preëxisting balance of race relations, such as it was. Then in
Reconstruction the North attempted to bring about a new political system
with the honest expectation that it would solve the race question. Surely
it has a right to examine the results of its action, with a view either to
justify its attitude, or to accept censure for it.
If either through want of patience or skill or by sheer force of adverse
circumstance a dangerous condition has come about in the South for which
the dominant white Southerners are not responsible, they are entitled to
an understanding of their case and to sympathy, encouragement and aid in
overcoming their troubles. No thinking person in the North desires
anything but the peaceful removal of the evils which undeniably weigh upon
the South. To that end the North might offer something out of its own
experience, for it has expert knowledge of race troubles and of ways to
solve them. The Indian question ever since the Civil War has been chiefly
in the hands of Northern men; and if it has been a botchy piece of work,
at least a way out has been found in the present land-in-severalty plan;
and from the North in considerable part has proceeded the government of
the Filipinos. The North carries almost alone a mass of foreigners who
contribute difficulties which in diversity much exceed the negro problem,
and which so far have been so handled that in few places is there a
crisis, acute or threatening. The North has further its own experiences
with Negroes, beginning in Colonial times; it now harbors a million of
them; and it has in most places found a peaceful living basis for the two
races, side by side.
Perhaps Southern people do not make sufficient allowance for the
scientific love of inquiry of the North. It is a region where Vassar
students of sociology visit the probation courts; where Yale men descend
upon New York and investigate Tammany Hall; where race relations are
thought a fit subject for intercollegiate debate and scientific
monographs, on the same footing with the distribution of immigrants, or
the career of discharged convicts. In Massachusetts, people are ready to
attack any insoluble problem, from the proper authority of the Russian
Douma to the reason why cooks give notice without previous notice. As a
study of human nature, as an exercise in practical sociology, the Southern
race problem has for the North much the same fascination as the preceding
slavery question.
Doubtless the zeal for investigation, and the disposition to give unasked
advice, would both be lessened if the Southern problem were already solved
or on the road to solution by the people nearest to it. The Southern
Whites have had control of every Southern state government since 1876 and
some of them longer; they are dominant in legislature, court and
plantation; yet they have not yet succeeded in putting an end to their own
perplexities. Some of them still defiantly assert themselves against
mankind; thus Professor Smith, of New Orleans, says apropos of the
controversy over race relations: "The attitude of the South presents an
element of the pathetic. The great world is apparently hopelessly against
her. Three-fourths of the virtue, culture, and intelligence of the United
States seems to view her with pitying scorn; the old mother, England, has
no word of sympathy, but applauds the conduct that her daughter
reprehends; the continent of Europe looks on with amused perplexity, as
unable even to comprehend her position, so childish and absurd." Professor
Smith's answer to his own question is: "The South cares nothing, in
themselves, for the personal friendships or appreciations of high-placed
dignitaries and men of light and leading." He does not speak for his
section; for most intelligent Southern people, however extreme their
views, desire to be understood; they want their position to seem humane
and logical to their neighbors; they are sure that they are the only
people who can be on the right road; but they do not feel that they are
approaching a permanent adjustment of race relations.
How could such an adjustment be expected now? The negro question has
existed ever since the first landing of negro slaves in 1619, became
serious in some colonies before 1700, gave rise to many difficulties and
complications during the Revolution, was reflected in the Constitutional
Convention of 1787, later proved to be the rock of offense upon which the
Union split, and has during the forty years since the Civil War been the
most absorbing subject of discussion in the South. It hardly seems likely
that it will be put to rest in our day and generation.
Yet some settlement is necessary for the peace and the prosperity of both
races; and one of the means to that end is a frank, free and open
discussion in all parts of the Union. Nothing was so prejudicial to
slavery as the attempt to silence the Northern abolitionists; for a social
system that was too fragile to be discussed was doomed to be broken. One
of the most encouraging things at present is the willingness of the South
to discuss its problems on its own ground, and to admit that there can be
a variety of opinions; and to meet rather than to defy the criticisms of
observers.
If the thinking people of the South were less willing to share the
discussion with the North, it would still be a Northern concern; for the
Southern race problem, like the labor unions of the manufacturing North,
the distribution of lands in the far West, and the treatment of Mongolians
on the Pacific Coast, is nobody's exclusive property. There must be
freedom for the men of every section to discuss every such question; it is
the opportunity for mutual helpfulness. For instance, how much might be
contributed to an understanding of the decay of the New England hill towns
by a Southern visitor who should visit them and then report upon them from
his point of view. Violent, ignorant, and prejudiced discussion of any
section of the Union by any other section is, of course, destructive of
national harmony; but the days have gone by when it could be thought
unfriendly, hostile, or condemnatory for Northern men to strive to make
themselves familiar with the race questions of the South. "We are everyone
members of another," and the whole body politic suffers from the disease
of any member. The immigrant in the North is the concern of the Southerner
for he is to become part of America. The status of the plantation hand in
Alabama is likewise a Northern problem; as Murphy has recently said: "The
Nation, including the South as well as the North, and the West as well as
the South and the North, has to do with every issue in the South that
touches any national right of the humblest of its citizens. Too long it
has been assumed, both at the North and at the South, that the North is
the Nation. The North is not the Nation. The Nation is the life, the
thought, the conscience, the authority, of all the land."
CHAPTER VII
ATTITUDE TOWARD HISTORY
The history of the United States is a rope of many strands, each of which
was twisted into form before they were united into one cable. Each state
marks the sites of its first landings, puts monuments on its battlefields,
commemorates its liberty days, and teaches its children to remember the
great years of the past. The South has a full share of these memories,
which are both local events and foundation stones of the nation's history.
Jamestown, St. Mary's, Charleston, Fort Moultrie, Yorktown, Mobile, belong
to us all, as much as Providence, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and San
Francisco.
The Southern mind likes to think of its episodes as contributions to the
national history, and at the same time to claim as specifically Southern
all that has taken place in the South since the foundation of the Federal
Union. School histories are written and prescribed by legislatures to
teach children a Southern point of view; the South of Washington and
Jefferson, of Jackson and Calhoun, is looked upon as something apart from
the nation. To some extent there is reason for this frame of mind;
slavery, or rather the obstinate maintenance of slavery after it had
disappeared in other civilized communities, put the South in a position of
defiance of the world for near three quarters of a century; hence the
history of the South from 1789 to 1861 can be separated from that of the
Union as a whole in a manner impossible for New England and the West.
This separate history needs, like other eras of human history, to be
envisaged in the light of things that actually were. Such calm and
unbiased approach to the study of past times is difficult in the South
because of the exaggeration of one of the fine traits of Southern
character, of its respect for the past, its veneration for ancestors. In a
world of progress a main influence is the conviction that things need to
be improved, that the children are wiser than their fathers; but this
spirit is out of accord with the Southern feeling of loyalty to section,
to state, to kindred, and to ancestors. Charles Francis Adams spends years
in showing up the inconsistencies of the character of his Puritan
forbears; but to the Southern mind there would be something shocking in a
South Carolina or Virginia writer who should set forth unfavorable views
of the courage of General Moultrie or the legal skill of Patrick Henry.
For this reason, or for more occult reasons, there is a disposition in the
South to hold to local traditional views of the history of the United
States as a whole and of the South in particular. For instance, most North
Carolinians seem addicted to the belief that Mecklenburg County drew up
certain drastic resolutions of Independence, May 20, 1775; and the man who
is not convinced of it had better live somewhere else than in North
Carolina. In like manner many Southerners suppose it to be an established
fact that the aristocracy in the South were descended from English
Cavaliers, and the leaders in New England from the Puritans. Yet there is
little evidence of permanent Cavalier influence in any Southern colony.
The most recent historian of early Virginia, Bruce, says: "The principal
figures in the history of Virginia in the seventeenth century were men of
the stamp of Samuel Mathews, George Menefie, Robert Beverley, Adam
Thoroughgood, Ralph Wormeley, William Fitzhugh, Edmund Scarborough, and
William Byrd." Are these names more heraldic than those of John Winthrop
and John Endicott and Thomas Dudley? Aside from the titled governors who
did not remain in the colonies, Lord Fairfax possessed the only Virginia
title, and he may be balanced by Sir William Phipps, the Yankee knight.
George Washington's ancestors are known to have been respectable English
squires, but where are the Cavalier forefathers of Patrick Henry and
Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis? The bone and sinew
of the Colonial South, as of the North, was made up of the English middle
class, yeomen and shopkeepers; and in both sections the descendants of
those men chiefly came to eminence.
Another of the unfortified beliefs which have wide currency in the South
is that under slavery the South was a prosperous, happy, and glorious
community. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, in a lecture delivered in Boston in
1856, said of the slave states: "In surveying the whole civilized world,
the eye rests not on a single spot where all classes of society are so
well content with their social system, or have greater reason to be so,
than in the slaveholding States of this Union.... They may safely
challenge the admiration of the civilized world." Later books of
reminiscence carry you back to the delightful days when "the old black
mahogany table, like a mirror, was covered with Madeira decanters standing
in silver casters, and at each plate was a glass finger bowl with four
pipe-stem glasses on their sides just touching the water"; when "woman's
conquests were made by the charms and graces given them by nature rather
than by art of women modistes and men milliners ... and the men prided
themselves, above all things, on being gentlemen. This gave tone to
society."
This system was assumed to be especially happy for the slave; witness a
recent Southern writer: "Hence, to the negro, the institution of slavery,
so far from being prejudicial, was actually beneficial in its effects, in
that, as a strictly paternal form of government, it furnished that
combination of wise control and kind compulsion which is absolutely
essential to his development and well-being." Minor, in his recent "The
Real Lincoln," urges that "the children of slaveholders may be saved from
being betrayed into the error of regarding with reprobation the conduct of
their parents in holding slaves"; and justifies slavery on the ground that
the slaves had "a more liberal supply of the necessaries of life than was
ever granted to any other laboring class in any other place, or other
age." Reed, in his "Brothers' War," holds that "Any and every evil of
southern slavery to the negro was accidental.... Slavery, so far from
being wrong morally, was righteousness, justice, and mercy to the slave."
No wonder that "Nicholas Worth" exclaims: "What I discovered was that the
people did not know their own history; that they had accepted certain
oft-repeated expressions about it as facts; and that the practical denial
of free discussion of certain subjects had deadened research and even
curiosity to know the truth."
This theory that slavery was harmful, if harmful at all, only to the white
race, has gone to the extent of insisting that slavery was educational;
thus Thomas Nelson Page says that at the end of the War, among the
able-bodied Negroes there was "scarcely an adult who was not a trained
laborer or a skilled artisan. In the cotton section they knew how to raise
and prepare cotton; in the sugar belt they knew how to grow and grind
sugar; in the tobacco, corn, wheat, and hay belts they knew how to raise
and prepare for market those crops. They were the shepherds, cattle-men,
horse-trainers and raisers. The entire industrial work of the South was
performed by them.... Nearly all the houses in the South were built by
them. They manufactured most of the articles that were manufactured in the
South." And Mrs. Avary, in her "Dixie After the War," thinks that "the
typical Southern plantation was, in effect, a great social settlement for
the uplift of Africans." These arguments are perhaps not intended to
suggest that the present free laboring population would be better off if
reduced to slavery; but they fix upon the present generation the unhappy
task of justifying all the mistakes of previous generations.
The natural and wholly justifiable pride in the military spirit of the
South during the Civil War extends over to the constitutional, or rather
psychical, question of Secession. No issue in the world is deader than the
question whether states have a right to secede, for the simple reason that
the experience of forty years ago shows that in case any state or group of
states hereafter may wish to secede, the other states will infallibly
combine to resist by military force: no state or section can ever again
assert that it has reason to suppose that secession is a peaceful and
constitutional remedy, which should be accepted quietly by the sister
states. To justify the doctrine of secession now would mean to pull out
the bracing of the Union, no part of which is more determined to be a
portion of one great and powerful American nation than the Southern
States. It can hardly be expected that the North, after sacrificing five
hundred thousand lives and four billions of treasure, will, half a century
later, come round to the point of view of the defeated section.
It is equally idle at this period of the world's history to deny to the
Southern leaders in the Civil War sincerity and courage, or to withhold
from the nation the credit of such lofty characters as Lee and Stonewall
Jackson; but if they are to become world heroes alongside of Cromwell and
Iredell, consistency demands that the corresponding Northern leaders shall
likewise be accepted as sincere and courageous, and in addition as
standing for those permanent national principles to which the children of
their adversaries have now given allegiance. It is discouraging to
discover such a book as Charles L. C. Minor's "The Real Lincoln; from the
Testimony of his Contemporaries," which has gone to a second edition and
the purpose of which is, by quoting the harsh and cruel things said of
Lincoln in the North during his lifetime, to show that he was weak, bad,
and demoralized. Far more modern the testimony of Grady in his New York
speech of 1886, when he referred to him "who stands as the first typical
American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and
gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this republic--Abraham Lincoln.
He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier; for in his ardent nature were
fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults
of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in
that he was American."
If the South looks on the Civil War through some favorable haze, it is
chiefly in the direction of magnifying genuinely great men, and few of the
Confederate soldiers retain any bitterness toward the other side. This is
not the case with Reconstruction--toward which, for a variety of reasons,
the South feels the bitterest resentment. Only a few months ago a flowery
speaker in Baltimore, addressing an audience composed chiefly of Northern
people, declared that "all the ignominy, shame, bloodshed, moral
debasement that followed the crowning infamy of the Fifteenth Amendment
must be laid at the door of the North alone.... The whole movement was
thoroughly revolutionary--anarchy, chaos, ruin was the inevitable result."
Thomas Dixon, Jr., rings all the changes and more on this theme. He makes
Thaddeus Stevens, in the intervals that he can spare from his negro
paramour, set out to confiscate the property of all the Southern Whites;
and he supposes that the North sends down as its agents in the South "Army
cooks, teamsters, fakirs, and broken-down preachers who had turned
insurance agents." He charges that by the North the attempt was
"deliberately made to blot out Anglo-Saxon society and substitute African
barbarism."
The years from 1865 to 1871 were indeed sorrowful for the Southern States,
and have planted seeds of hostility between North and South and also
between the races in the South; but declamation and exaggeration add
nothing to the real hardships of the process. Many Southerners still
believe that their section was impoverished only by emancipation, which
they say swept away two thousand million dollars' worth of property; they
overlook that the South was politically and economically ruined by the
losses of four years of a war which, besides the actual destruction in the
track of armies, by its terrible drain took all the accumulated capital of
the section. After the war the South still retained the land and the
Negroes to work it. The community as a whole lost nothing except from the
dislocation of industry. Inasmuch as the South has recovered its
productive capacity, and there is not a man of any standing in the South
who, from the point of view of the white man's interest, would go back to
slavery if he could, it is time that the charges of spoliation by
emancipation were withdrawn.
Both the duration and the intensity of the Reconstruction process have
been overestimated. It was a period of general disorganization; the time
of the Credit Mobilier scandals; the exact decade when the people of New
York City were paying eighty million dollars for the privilege of being
plundered by Boss Tweed. The Southern state governments had previously
been economically administered, and the people keenly felt the degradation
of corruption from which Northern States were also suffering; but the
actual period of Reconstruction was much shorter than has usually been
supposed. After the first attempts to reorganize the governments in 1865,
they went back into the hands of the military, and the consensus of
testimony is that the military government if harsh was honest. There they
remained in all cases until 1868 and in Georgia until 1871. Within little
more than a year after 1868 the Conservatives of Virginia regained
control; in Alabama Reconstruction lasted only twenty-eight months; in the
tidal wave of 1874 the carpetbag and scalawag power was broken in all the
Southern States except South Carolina and Louisiana.
One year or five years of bad government was too much, but Southern
lawlessness was not the monopoly of the Reconstruction governments. One of
the greatest evils of the period was the Ku Klux Klan which Reed says
"becomes dearer in memory every year." There was reason for recovering
white supremacy in the South, even though the conditions of the
Reconstruction government have been somewhat exaggerated; but the Ku Klux
aroused a spirit of disorder, a defiance of the vested rights of white men
as well as of Negroes, which has been a malign influence for forty years.
The night-riders in Kentucky are almost a conscious imitation of the Ku
Klux, and only a few months ago it was suggested that it be reorganized in
Georgia to deal with negro crime. It is one thing to read of the gallant
struggle of the Ku Klux to protect womanhood and to asert the nobility of
the white race; it is quite another to be told, incidentally, that in a
certain county of Mississippi the Ku Klux "put a hundred and nineteen
niggers into the river." That is what some people call a massacre.
The attitude of some Southerners toward the Civil War and Reconstruction
suggests the story of the Georgia captain who, after three years of honest
fighting, reappeared on his farm and was welcomed home by his faithful
Penelope. "The war is over," said he; "I have come home to stay forever."
"Is that true, Jim? Have you licked the Yankees at last?" "Yes, I have
licked them at last, but if they don't stay licked, I don't know but I may
have to go up North and lick 'em again."
Is the North to be "licked again" indefinitely? The suffering, the
sacrifice, and the heroism of the Civil War were as great on its side of
Mason and Dixon's line as on the other side; and the historical
perspective of that period of conflict covers some incidents which the
North forgets with difficulty. For instance, the prison of Andersonville
was hateful to the whole North. After forty years it is easier than at the
time to understand the difficulties of an impoverished government guarding
thousands of prisoners with a scanty force in a region lacking in food.
Nevertheless, it is a deep conviction of the survivors among the prisoners
and in the minds of many thousand other persons that these inherent
difficulties were aggravated by the incompetency and heartlessness of
Captain Wirz, who by accepting command assumed the responsibility for the
condition of things. By the best showing of his friends he was an
incompetent man, who had the power of life and death over thousands of his
fellow-men, and let many of them die for want of humanity and common
sense. The only reason for remembering Wirz is that he was obnoxious to
the Northern soldiers in a time of great excitement. Yet the South of Lee
and Jackson and Sidney Johnston has erected a monument to that man who
performed no service to the Confederacy except to be executed, who led in
no heroic action, represents no chivalry, and who did not so much as
capture a color or an army wagon. It is an example of what in other parts
of the world is thought an emotional disinclination to look facts in the
face.
As to the period since Reconstruction--that is, the last thirty years--the
acute sensibility of the South no longer takes the form of accusing the
North of an attempt to submerge the white race, but rather is turned
toward enlarged news of Southern wealth and prestige, which will be
examined later in this book. It has been the service of Southern writers,
teachers, and public men to look facts more squarely in the face. Still,
one finds now and then an old man of the old Benton spirit. About two
years ago a Mississippi newspaper greeted a visitor who had previously
expressed some opinions on the South, as "an object of distaste to all
decent people of Mississippi.... This blue-abdomened miscreant ... would
have the world believe that the South has burnings, lynchings, and such
horrors, with special trains, and the children of the public schools to
witness. Are the people of Jackson going to hear this traducer of them;
this man who prints broadcast over the country baseless slanders against
the people who misguidedly invited him down here? Are they going to hear a
man filled with venom who will take their good name." And a high-toned
Southern gentleman, up to that time a personal friend of the Northerner,
thought it necessary to print a card in a newspaper, setting forth the
fact that he at least had no responsibility for the presence of the
Yankee.
CHAPTER VIII
NEGRO CHARACTER
The social organization of the Anglo-Saxons in the South, their relations
with each other, their strife for leadership, takes little account of the
other race, though it is diffused throughout the country; it is everywhere
with the Whites, but not of them. Although to the Southern mind the
community is made up entirely of white people, numerically almost one
third of the inhabitants of the former slaveholding states are Negroes,
and in the Lower South there are five million blacks against seven million
Whites. The moral and material welfare of the South is intimately affected
by their presence, and still more by their character. They are as much
children of the soil as the Whites; they are everywhere distributed,
except in the mountains; their labor is necessary for the prosperity of
the section; they have a social organization of their own and many of the
appliances of civilization; they own some land, travel, are everywhere in
evidence, yet they are distrusted by nearly all the Whites, despised by
more than half of them, and hated by a considerable and apparently
increasing fraction.
Even the names habitually used by the Whites for their neighbors show
contempt. "Nigger," though often used among the blacks, is felt by them to
be depreciatory; "Darky" is jocular; "Negro" is condescending; "Blacks"
as a generic term is incorrect in view of the light color of a large
fraction of the race. Afro-American, the invention of the Negroes, is
pedantic. The Negroes themselves much prefer "Colored person," which is
also a term used in directories.
Every Southern man and woman consciously or unconsciously makes
generalizations as to the whole race from those comparatively few
individuals with whom he is acquainted. Hence conventional and offhand
statements, obviously based upon little direct knowledge of the Negro,
abound in private conversation, in public addresses and in print. For
example, a few months ago the mayor of Houston, himself the son of a
Massachusetts man, who went down to Texas before the Civil War, was led by
an accidental question to deliver an extempore indictment of the whole
negro race under twelve heads then and there noted down as follows:
(1) The old Negroes in slavery times were a good lot, but Negroes nowadays
are worthless.
(2) The Negro is the best laborer that the South ever had.
(3) Education destroys the value of the Negro, by making him unwilling to
work.
(4) The South makes great sacrifices to educate the Negroes.
(5) The Negroes on the farms often do well; but those are the old slaves.
(6) The young Negroes will not work on the land but drift off, probably to
the cities.
(7) The pure Negro is much superior in character to the Mulattoes, who are
the most vicious part of the race.
(8) The mulatto is physically weak and he is rapidly dying out.
(9) Five sixths of all the Negroes in this city have some white blood.
(10) The educated Negroes fill the prisons.
(11) Booker T. Washington has good ideas.
(12) Negroes must be "kept in their place," otherwise there will be
general rapine and destruction.
Some curious errors of perspective are discernible in this picture: the
Negro is at the same time the best laborer and the worst laborer; the
South continues to make great sacrifices to educate blacks who will not
work and who fill the prisons; the mulatto is at the same time dying out
and furnishing five sixths of the colored population of a large city. Such
generalizations are the daily food of the South. Judge Norwood, of
Georgia, on retiring from the bench of the city court of Savannah, where
he had tried twelve thousand colored people, recently left on record his
formal opinion that the Negro never works except from necessity or
compulsion, has no initiative, is brutal to his family, recognizes no
government except force, knows neither ambition, honor nor shame,
possesses no morals; and the judge protests against "the insanity of
putting millions of semi-savages under white men's laws for their
government." The mayor of Winona, Miss., publicly announces that "The
negro is a lazy, lying, lustful animal, which no conceivable amount of
training can transform into a tolerable citizen." Senator Tillman, of
South Carolina, on the floor of the Senate has said: "So the poor African
has become a fiend, a wild beast, seeking whom he may devour, filling our
penitentiaries and our jails." Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, in his
farewell message to the Legislature, in January, 1908, called the Negroes,
who are in a majority in his state: "A race inherently unmoral, ignorant
and superstitious, with a congenital tendency to crime, incapable
unalterably of understanding the meaning of free government, devoid of
those qualities of mind and body necessary to self-control, and being
unable to control themselves."
One of the sources of confusion with regard to the Negro is that people
speak of "the African Race" which they suppose to be pictured on the
Egyptian monuments, to be briefly mentioned by Herodotus, and to be in the
same condition now in Africa as it was when first described. As a matter
of fact, there are several native races, varying in color from the
intensely black and uncouth Guinea Negro of the West Coast to the
olive-brown Arabs of the Sahara desert, and in civilization from the
primitive dwarf tribes of Central Africa to the organized kingdoms of the
Zulus and the thriving states of the Central lake region. Many arguments
as to the negro character are based upon the supposed profound barbarism
and cannibalism of all Africa. The truth is that the African tribes, with
all their ferocity and immorality, had advanced farther in the path of
civilization previous to their first contact with the Europeans than the
North American Indians of the Atlantic and Mississippi regions; they had
gone farther in the arts, had built up more numerous communities, and
established a more complex society. The curse of Africa, from which the
Indians were not free, was slavery and slave-hunting, which from time
immemorial have led to ferocious wars and reckless destruction of life. On
the side of religion, the African has built up a weird and emotional
system, honeycombed with witchcraft and a belief in magic, stained with
bloodshed and human sacrifice. Yet all explorers and residents in Africa
find many attractive traits in the Negro; he loves a joke, makes a
tolerable soldier, often shows faithful affection for his leaders, and
under the supervision of white officials, seems capable of a peaceful and
happy life.
That the character of the Negro should need to be a matter of absorbing
interest to the Southern Whites and a study to Northern observers, is the
fault of the Sixteenth Century European. The Negroes have for ages been in
contact with white races on their northern and eastern borders; Ethiopian
captives were brought to Rome, and the black slave is a favorite character
in the "Arabian Nights." But that this race, situated on the other side of
the globe, should affect the commerce and obstruct the political
development of America, is one of the oddities of history. The Negroes,
who have never made a conquest outside their own continent, who were first
brought to Europe on the same footing as ostrich feathers and elephants,
as objects of trade and as curiosities, have, through the greed and
cruelty of our ancestors, planted a colony of ten million people in our
land; and other groups, mounting up to several millions, in the West
Indies and Brazil.
Many attempts are made to determine the ability of the Negro by what he
has done in Africa and in Latin America. He has not lifted himself out of
barbarism in his own continent, though he has founded large and prosperous
states carried on solely by Africans; and Winston Spencer Churchill, from
his recent visit to the heart of Africa, sees reason to predict that he
will form permanent communities. The curses of Africa for centuries have
been inhuman superstitions and devastating slave raids, dignified by the
name of wars, for which the white and Arab slave dealers are partly
responsible. Torture of captives, sack of towns, murder of infants,
coffles of slaves marching to a market, are not so far away from the
practice of European nations two or three centuries ago that we can brand
them as evidence of irreclaimable barbarism. Pappenheim at Magdeburg and
Lannes at the takings of Saragossa could match many of the worst crimes of
the African impi on a raid, or of a white agent of the Congo Free State
collecting his rubber tax. Protestant Germany and England left off the
cruelest treatment of supposed witches only about two centuries ago.
Cannibalism and the slave trade seem now on their last legs in Africa, and
those white men who have lived longest in the heart of Africa seem to have
the largest hope that the Dark Continent may be enlightened and a
confidence in an African capacity for an existence much above the savage
traditions.
These hopes are based in most cases on the expectation that white people
will furnish the government and direct the industries. Whatever Africa may
do for itself, the one notable effort to create an African state on an
Anglo-Saxon model has been a failure. The Republic of Liberia was founded
nearly a century ago, as a means of regenerating Africa by Christian
civilization diffused from this spot on the coast into the interior; it
was to be an outport for tropical products and to furnish Africa an
example of democratic state building. Liberia is the African state in
which the United States is especially interested, for it was planted by
American missionaries and agents of the Colonization Society; and has been
an offshoot and almost a colony of this country. From the first it has
been cursed by malaria, by the inroads and pressure of savages, and by a
situation off the world's highways of commerce. To be sure its 15,000
civilized people have a public revenue of about $300,000, with a total
import and export trade of about $1,000,000; but all efforts to induce a
considerable number of Negroes from America to try their fortunes in
Liberia have been failures. A colored magazine in Boston has had the
humor and good-temper lately to reprint the following squib upon the
opportunities in that country for the American Negro:
Liberia's bridges, mills, and dams,
Need many thousand Afro-Ams.
Liberia's ewes, Liberia's lambs,
Like black sheep, baa for Afro-Ams.
Liberia's road, Liberia's trams,
For steady jobs want Afro-Ams.
The barber shops, like Uncle Sam's,
Give hope to myriad Afro-Ams.
There's bacon, hominy, yes, hams,
For all industrious Afro-Ams.
With faintest praise Liberia damns
The slow-arriving Afro-Ams.
Unless their woes at home are shams,
Why don't they go, the Afro-Ams?
The inquiry of the final stanza is to the point, for though the American
Colonization Society is still in existence, and within a few years has
tried to send out a shipload of Negroes, Liberia attracts almost nobody
and is a failure, either as a tropical home for the American Negro or as a
center of Christianity and civilization for Africa.
How is it with the colonies and independent states of Americanized
Africans in the West Indies, where there have been blacks for as much as
four centuries? Of these communities Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad,
the Windward and Leeward Islands were, or have been until recently,
European colonies. Cuba's population is about half Negro; and they come
nearer social and political equality with the Whites than anywhere else in
the world; but there the dominant element is the pure Spanish or Spanish
mestizo. In Jamaica since the emancipation of 1833 the races have had but
one conflict, that of 1866, which was at the time thought to be due to the
cruelty and panic of Governor Eyre. The blacks of Jamaica, to a large
extent small proprietors, support themselves in the easy fashion of the
tropics; but the 15,000 Whites who live among the 750,000 blacks seem less
able than the like class in the Southern states to organize negro labor
and make it profitable. The Negroes are taught to read and write, they
have furnished thousands of acceptable laborers for the Panama Canal, and
their death-rate is nearly down to the normal figures of the white people
for their latitude. Their illiteracy, however, is about that of their
brethren in the United States and nearly two thirds of all the children
are illegitimate. Their government is practically still, as for two
centuries and a half, out of their hands and in control of the English.
The Negroes in Hayti are popularly supposed to have deteriorated
intellectually and morally. To be sure the alternating series of despotism
and anarchy in that unhappy country are not very different from the course
of things in the white community of Venezuela; and it would be a great
mistake to suppose that the Haytian Negroes when they became independent a
century ago had absorbed the civilization of their Spanish and French
masters; most of them were still a fierce and intractable folk recently
brought from Africa. Their experience, however, and that of their
neighbors in Santo Domingo, throws light upon the capacity of the African
to build up a state, for both these lands are wholly governed by people of
the African race. Neither has gained stability or improved in education or
morals in half a century, though the Haytians are trying to set forth one
of the arts of civilization by borrowing more money than they are willing
to pay. The moral, or rather unmoral, conditions of this and other West
Indian islands are a fair basis for argument as to the average character
of the race.
The experience of the race in the Northern states leads rather to negative
than to positive conclusions as to their intellectual and moral power.
Time was when there were slaves on Beacon Hill; when Venus, "servant to
Madam Wadsworth," was admitted to the First Church of Cambridge; and the
Faculty of Harvard College warned the students not to consort with Titus,
"servant of the late President Wadsworth." The colonial Negroes, who in no
Northern colony were more numerous than six or seven per cent of the
population, have left an offspring to which, since the Civil War, has been
added a considerable immigration from the South. In 1900, 356,000 Africans
born in the South were living in the North, and that proportion has since
steadily increased. Nobody can pretend that this movement has improved the
conditions of the Northern states, and the Negroes themselves encounter
many hardships; they can vote, they get some small offices, and would get
more if they could settle factional quarrels and unite behind single
candidates; they have full and equal rights before the courts; they are
commonly admitted to the public schools. On the other hand, separate negro
schools have been provided in Indianapolis, in some places in New Jersey,
and are likely to spread farther. Partly because many trades unions will
not receive them, partly because they are thought to be less effective
than Whites, partly from sheer race prejudice, they find many avenues of
employment closed to them. Few people like them as neighbors, and though
admitted to most Northern high schools and colleges they do not find that
free intercourse of mind with mind which is not only one of the joys of
living, but is a great upbuilder of character.
The situation of the Negroes in the North is frankly discouraging, both
from their own point of view and that of the Northern White. Here if
anywhere the race ought to show those qualities of determination and
thrift and uprightness which its friends desire for it. Many of the
Northern Negroes live on the same plane as the white people; many others
do well, considering their lesser opportunities; and as a whole they earn
their living; for where the men are lazy the women take care of them. But
they are the objects of a steady prejudice; the reason for the school
separation is that parents do not wish their children to be on such terms
of acquaintance that they can learn all that the negro children know.
Throughout the North there is a distrust of the negro voter, a belief that
the Negroes furnish more than their share of the criminals.
To a large degree this is simply saying that the lowest part of the
population is thought to be low; people dislike Negroes for the same
reason that they object to many other persons, whether foreign or American
born; the woeful difference is that any incompetent white individual may
pull himself or push his children out of the slums and into association
with the best, while color sets the Negro apart, no matter what his
success in life; and the most respectable of them is treated as though
responsible for the worst of his race. The door of opportunity is open in
the North, but it does not open wide; the Northern colored man enters into
what our ancestors called the half-way covenant; he, like his Southern
brother, walks within the veil. Or is the bottom difficulty described by
the immigrant from South Carolina to the North who said, "Yes, dere mought
be more chances in New York than dere is in Charleston, but, please Gawd,
'pears like you ain't so likely to take dem chances."
The fundamental reason why race relations in the South are regulated by
the white people, and are circumscribed by what they think best for
themselves, is the universal white belief that the African is of an
inferior race, so inferior that he cannot be trusted to take a part in the
political life of the community, or even to manage his own affairs. That
opinion is temperately stated by Thomas Nelson Page as follows: "After
long, elaborate, and ample trial the Negro race has failed to discover the
qualities which have inhered in every race of which history gives the
record, which has advanced civilization, or has shown capacity to be
itself greatly advanced." It is brutally stated by Governor Vardaman: "God
Almighty created the Negro for a menial--he is essentially a servant....
When left to himself, he has universally gone back to the barbarism of his
native jungles. While a few mixed breeds and freaks of the race may
possess qualities which justify them to aspire above that station, the
fact remains that the race is fit for that and nothing more."
The supposed inferiority of the negro race is not a foregone conclusion.
First it rests on the tacit assumption that there is a "negro race" which
can be distinguished from the white race, not only by color but also by
aptitudes, moral standards and habits of mind. Some experts in the South,
who have studied the race as scientific men study the Indians of the
Amazon, declare that they are unable to find any large body of traits
which all Negroes possess; that they observe in no colored person
characteristics which cannot be found in some Whites; and that they
possess every variety of intellectual power and moral capacity. Then there
is the question of the mulatto, who in his race mixture may be more white
man than Negro. Is he to be included in the general indictment of
inferiority? And, finally, what is to be argued from the men of power whom
the negro race has displayed--a few in slavery days, and many in these
later times?
The most extravagant statement of negro inferiority is that the worst
white man is better than the best Negro because of the supernal quality of
the white race. A Southern writer talks of "The endless creations of art
and science and religion and law and literature and every other form of
activity, the full-voiced choir of all the Muses, the majestic morality,
the hundred-handed philosophy, the manifold wisdom of civilization--all of
this infinite cloud of witnesses gather swarming upon us from the whole
firmament of the past and proclaim with pentacostal tongue the glory and
supremacy of Caucasian man." Judged by their achievements from the dawn of
history to the present moment, the white race has indubitably achieved
immensely more than the black race, but it has also achieved more than its
own ancestors whom Taine thus characterizes: "Huge white bodies, ... with
fierce, blue eyes, ... ravenous stomachs, ... of a cold temperament, slow
to love, home stayers, prone to brutal drunkenness: ... Pirates at first:
... seafaring, war, and pillage was their whole idea of a freeman's
work.... Of all barbarians ... the most cruelly ferocious."
After all, a race cannot be proved inferior by what it has not done; the
United States as a war-making power has so far been inferior to the
Germans and the Japanese, but its strength has not been tested. The real
question is, does the Negro now, in the things that he is actually doing,
show as much power as low and ignorant white people who have had no more
than his opportunity? The Reconstruction governments, which are the stock
in trade of those who decry the Negro, are little to the point, because
they were to a considerable degree engineered by Whites, and because they
lasted only from one to eight years. On the other hand, the great powers
of a few select members of the race, and the excellent mentality and
character of many others, are not proof that its average stamina is up to
that of the white man; they must be tested by what they do.
The African in America has had little opportunity to work out a
civilization of his own, and it certainly cannot be charged against him as
a fault that he has accepted the white civilization which was at first
forced upon him. As one of their own number says: "The Negro has advanced
in exactly the same fashion as the white race has advanced, by taking
advantage of all that has gone before. Other men have labored and we have
entered into their labors." Yet, having accepted a heritage of literature,
law and religion, from his white brother, the Negro cannot escape from the
standard of the white man among whom he lives who have had like
opportunities; and if he does not measure up to it it is impossible to
avoid the conclusion that the race is inferior. Either the Negro is a
white man with a black skin, who after a reasonable term of probation must
now take the responsibilities of equal character (though not as yet of
equal performance), or else it must be admitted that, though a man, he is
a somewhat different kind of man from the White.
A favorite Southern phrase is: "The Negro is a child," and many
considerable people accord him a child's privileges. The ignorant black
certainly has a child's fondness for fun, freedom from care for the
morrow, and incapacity to keep money in his pocket; but some planters will
talk to you all day about the shrewdness with which he manages to get
money out of the unsuspecting white man; and when it comes to serious
crime, it is not every judge who makes allowance for childishness in the
race. The theory that the negro mind ceases to develop after adolescence
perhaps has something in it; but there are too many hard-headed and
far-sighted persons, both full bloods and mulattoes, who have unusual
minds, to permit the problem to be settled by the phrase, "The Negro is a
child."
Genuine friends and well-wishers of the Negro feel intensely the
irresponsibility of the race. A business man who all his life has been
associated with them says: "He has all the good qualities of the lazy,
thriftless person, he is amiable, generous and tractable. He has no
activity in wrongdoing. He has the imitative gift in a remarkable degree,
and always I love him for his faults, he is without craftiness, without
greed. You will find no Rockefellers nor Carnegies among them. He is not a
scoundrel from calculation.... He takes as his pattern the highest type of
white man he is acquainted with. He has no sort of regard for what he
thinks the poor white trash.... I don't know how best to help him, but I
like him, like him and his careless devil-may-care ways. I like him
because his whole soul is not absorbed in this craze for getting money. I
like him because he does no evil by premeditation, because he sees no
evil in everything he does, then goes and does it. I like him because some
day in the distant past I was like him."
The main issue must be fairly faced by the friends as well as the enemies
of the colored race. Measuring it by the white people of the South, or by
the correspondingly low populations of Southern or Northern cities, the
Negroes as a people appear to be considerably below the Whites in mental
and moral status. There are a million or two exceptions, but they do not
break the force of the eight or nine millions of average Negroes. A larger
proportion of the mulattoes than of the pure bloods come up to the white
race in ability; but if fifty thousand people in the negro quarter of New
Orleans or on the central Alabama plantations be set apart and compared
with a similar number of the least promising Whites in the same city or
counties, fewer remarkable individuals and less average capacity would be
found. Race measured by race, the Negro is inferior, and his past history
in Africa and in America leads to the belief that he will remain inferior
in race stamina and race achievement.
CHAPTER IX
NEGRO LIFE
The negro problem in the South cannot be solved, nor is much light thrown
upon it by the conditions of the race elsewhere. The immediate and
pressing issue is the widespread belief that the great numbers of them in
the South are an unsatisfactory element of the population. The total
Negroes in the United States in 1900, the last available figures, was
8,834,000. They are, however, very unequally distributed throughout the
Union; in twenty Northern states and territories there are only 50,000
altogether; in the states from Pennsylvania northward there are about
400,000; from Ohio westward about 500,000; while in the one state of
Georgia there are over a million; 7,898,000 lived in the fifteen former
slaveholding states; 7,187,000 in the eleven seceding states; and
5,055,000 in the seven states of the Lower South. At the rate of increase
shown during the last forty years there will soon be 10,000,000 in the
South alone. These figures have since 1900 been somewhat disturbed by the
natural growth of population and by the interstate movement, so that the
proportion of blacks in the North is doubtless now a little larger; but
the fact remains that the habitat of the black is in the Southern States.
Even there, great variations occur from state to state, and from place to
place. In Briscoe County, Texas, there are 1,253 Whites and not a single
Negro; in Beaufort County, S. C., there are 3,349 Whites and 32,137
Africans; on the island of St. Helena in this last county are 8,700
colored and 125 white people; and on Fenwick's Island there are something
like 100 Negroes and not a white person.
As between country and city, the Negro is a rural man; the only Southern
cities containing over 50,000 of them in the Lower South are New Orleans
and perhaps Atlanta; in the former slaveholding states out of 8,000,000
Negroes only about 1,000,000 lived in cities of 8,000 people and upwards,
which is less in proportion than the Whites. In a very black district like
the Delta of the Mississippi they form a majority of the city population.
In 72 of the Southern places having a population of 2,500 or more at least
half the population is African; but their drift cityward is less marked
than that of the white people, eighty-five per cent of all the Negroes
live outside of cities and towns. The Negroes have no race tradition of
city life in Africa, are no fonder than Whites of moving from country to
city, and throw no unendurable strain on the city governments.
A favorite assertion is that the American Negroes are either dying out or
nearing the point where the death-rate will exceed the birth-rate.
Hoffmann, in his "Race Traits," has examined this question in a
painstaking way, and proves conclusively that both North and South the
death-rate of the black race is much higher than that of the Whites. In
Philadelphia, for instance, the ratios are 30 to 1,000 against 20 to
1,000. Upon this point there are no trustworthy figures for the whole
country; but an eighth of the Negroes live in the so-called "registration
area," which includes most of the large cities; and in that area the
death-rate in 1900 is computed at 30 to 1,000 for Negroes and 17 to 1,000
for the Whites. This excess is largely due to the frightful mortality
among negro children, which is almost double that among Whites in the same
community. In Washington in 1900 one fifth of the white children under a
year old died and almost one half of the colored children.
When Hoffmann attempts to show that the negro death-rate is accelerating,
he is obliged to depend upon scanty figures from a few Southern cities. In
Charleston, for instance, the records show in the forties (a period of
yellow fever) a white death-rate of 16 and a colored death-rate of 20,
against recent rates of 22 and 44 to the 1,000 respectively; but in New
Orleans Mr. Hoffmann's own figures show a reduction of the colored
death-rate from 52 in the fifties to 40 in the nineties. The only possible
conclusion from these conflicting results is that the earlier mortality
statistics on which he relies are few and unreliable.
Nevertheless, the present conditions of negro mortality are frightful.
They appear to be due primarily to ignorance and neglect in the care of
children, and secondly, to an increase of dangerous diseases. The frequent
statement that consumption was almost unknown among Negroes in slavery
times is abundantly disproved by Hoffmann; but the disease is undoubtedly
gaining, for much the same reason that it ravages the Indians in Alaska,
namely, that the people now live in close houses which become saturated
with the virus of the disease. Syphilis is also fearfully prevalent, and
the most alarming statements are made by physicians who have practice or
hospital service among the Negroes; but the testimony as to the extent of
the disease is conflicting, and there are other race elements in the
United States which are depleted by venereal disease. The blacks also
suffer from the use of liquor, though drunkards are little known among the
cotton hands; but drugs, particularly cocaine and morphine, are widely
used. In one country store a clerk has been known to make up a hundred and
fifty packages of cocaine in a single night.
Notwithstanding the undoubtedly high death-rate, the birth-rate is so much
greater that at every census the negro race is shown to be still growing;
as Murphy says: "Whenever the Negro has looked down the lane of
annihilation he has always had the good sense to go around the other way."
The census of 1870 was so defective that it must be thrown out of account,
but the negro population, which was about 4,400,000 in 1860, and 6,600,000
in 1880, had grown to 8,800,000 in 1900. It is true that the rate of
increase is falling off both absolutely and in proportion to the white
race. In the South Central group of states, which includes most of the
Lower South, the population increased about forty-eight per cent from 1860
to 1880 and only thirty-nine per cent in the next double decade; while the
white population has in both periods increased at about sixty per cent,
with a rising ratio.
The urban Negro has a high death-rate, not only in the South but in
Northern cities; in Boston and Indianapolis the birth-rate of the Negroes
does not keep pace with the deaths, and they would disappear but for
steady accessions from the South. The Southern blacks on the land are
doing better and are growing steadily; neither statistics nor observations
support the theory that the Negro is dying out in the South; and
comparatively slight changes in resort to skilled physicians, in the
spread of trained nurses, in infants' food, may check the child mortality.
On the other hand, any increase in thrift and in saving habits will
almost certainly affect the size of families and diminish the average
birth-rate.
The very words "The Negro" suggest the misleading idea that there is
within the Southern states a clearly defined negro race. In fact,
physically, intellectually, and morally, it is as much subdivided as the
white race. What is supposed to be the pure African type is the Guinea
Negro, very black, very uncouth, and hard to civilize. What these people
are is easy to find out, for a great part of the inhabitants of the Sea
Islands of South Carolina and Georgia are of that race and speak what is
called the Gullah dialect, which Joel Chandler Harris has preserved in his
"Daddy Jack." Besides these children and grandchildren of imported Negroes
there is near Mobile a small group of sturdy people perfectly well known
to have been brought into the United States in 1858 in the yacht
_Wanderer_. These may be part of a cargo from which Senator Tillman's
family bought a gang, and he says of them: "These poor wretches, half
starved as they have been, were the most miserable lot of human
beings--the nearest to the missing link with the monkey I have ever put my
eyes on."
The whole African problem is immeasurably complicated and contorted by the
fact that of the Negroes in the United States not more than four fifths at
the highest are pure blacks. The remainder are partially Caucasian in
race, and occupy a midway position, often of unhappiness and sometimes of
downright misery. As to the number of mulattoes, there is no trustworthy
statistical statement; the census figures for 1890 reported that out of
the total "negro" population eighteen per cent was mulatto in the northern
group of Southern states, and about fifteen per cent in the Lower South;
but these figures are confessedly defective and are probably vitiated by
including some members of the lighter negro races as mulattoes.
Shannon, in his "Racial Integrity," while unhesitatingly accepting these
very imperfect figures, attempts to supplement them by calculations made
from an inspection of crowds; and it is his opinion that in the smaller
cities, the towns and villages, about twenty-two per cent are
mulattoes--"and that unless this amalgamation is effectually checked in
some way, this ratio will continue to rise until practically the whole of
the negro race will come to be of mixed blood." Shufeldt, in his "The
Negro, A Menace," asserts that at least sixty per cent of the Negroes have
some white blood, and is confident that the proportion is increasing. The
census authorities of 1900 commit themselves only to the generalization
that the mulattoes are most numerous in proportion to the number of Whites
in any given community. As to the testimony of observers, there is every
variety of appearance. You may see crowds of Negroes at a railway station
in Georgia, of whom two thirds are purely mulatto; you may visit islands
in South Carolina in which not one fortieth part have white blood.
The number of mulattoes is less important than their character and general
relation to the negro problem. Most Southerners assert and doubtless
believe that the mulatto is physically weak; but you see them working side
by side with pure blacks, as roustabouts and plantation hands, and some
planters tell you that one is as good as another in the field. People
assert that mulattoes are more susceptible to disease, so that they are
dying out; and some authorities say that there are no mulatto children
after the third or fourth generation. There is no scientific ground for
these assertions, and one of the highest medical authorities in the South
is of the conviction that except for a somewhat greater liability to
tuberculosis they are as healthy as the full bloods. Of course, the
greater number of mulattoes in the United States are the children of
mulattoes, and to what extent the proportion is kept up by further
accessions from the white race is absolutely impossible to determine. Many
statements on the whole subject come from people who hate the mulatto and
like to think that he is a poor creature who is going to relieve the world
of a disagreeable problem by leaving it.
From the same source comes the assertion that the mulatto is fundamentally
vicious, frequently made by people who argue in the same breath that the
so-called progress of the negro race means nothing, because it is all due
to mulattoes. The mulattoes do include a much larger proportion of the
educated than the pure bloods, and hence are more likely to furnish such
criminals as forgers and embezzlers; but there seems no ground for the
widespread belief that the mulattoes are more criminal than the pure
blacks. That there is a special temptation more likely to come to some
members of the mulatto section than to the pure black was suggested by a
Southern gentleman when he said: "The black girls won't work and the
yellow girls don't have to, they are looked after!" When asked to suggest
who it was who looked after them, the conversation languished. The
question of the character of the mulatto is a serious one, because most of
the spokesmen and markedly successful people of the race are not pure
bloods; and because of the unhappy position of thousands of men and women
who have the aptitudes, the tastes, and the educations of white people;
yet in the common estimation are bracketed with the rudest, most ignorant
and lowest of a crude, ignorant and low race.
The status of the Negroes is in many ways altered by the steady though
limited movement from South to North. The Negroes are subject to waves of
excitement, and in 1879 a colored agitator created a furore for
colonization by spreading abroad the news that in Liberia there was a
"bread tree" and another tree which ran lard instead of sap, so that all
you had to do was to cut from one and catch from the other. A systematic
effort has been made to settle colored people in Indiana, in order to hold
that State in the Republican column; and there are now probably nearly a
hundred thousand there, a third of whom are settled in Indianapolis, where
they furnish a race problem of growing seriousness. The Negroes in the
city of Washington have increased eight times in forty years. They have
repeatedly been brought into the North as strike breakers, often with the
result of serious riots. In 1879 thousands of them left various parts of
the South for Kansas, and in some cases the river boats refused to take
them. As a result some Southern states passed statutes requiring heavy
license fees (sometimes as much as $1,000 a year) from labor agents who
should induce people to go to other states. Nevertheless, there are now
over 50,000 in Kansas and over 100,000 in the neighboring new State of
Oklahoma. At present there are in New York and Philadelphia nearly a
hundred agents who draw Negroes northward, and they bring thousands of
people every year, chiefly to enter domestic service. The movement is ill
organized and does not by any means include the most thrifty, since
passage money is often advanced by the agents.
The numbers of the Negroes are not in themselves alarming. In most
Southern states they are fewer in proportion than the foreign element in
many Northern states. The hostility to the Negro is not based on his
numbers, but on his supposed inferiority of character. On this point there
is a painful lack of accurate knowledge, because there is so little
contact between the Whites and their negro neighbors. The white opinion of
the blacks is founded with little knowledge of the home life of the other
race. How many white people in the city of Atlanta, for instance, have
actually been inside the house of a prosperous, educated Negro? How many
have actually sat over the fire of a one-room negro cabin? The Southern
Whites, with few exceptions, teach no Negroes, attend no negro church
services, penetrate into no negro society, and they see the Negro near at
hand chiefly as unsatisfactory domestic servants, as field hands of
doubtful profit, as neglectful and terrified patients, as clients in
criminal suits or neighborhood squabbles, as prisoners in the dock, as
convicted criminals, as wretched objects for the vengeance of a mob.
An encouraging sign is the disposition of both white and colored
investigators to study the Negro in his home. Professor DuBois has
directed such researches both in Southern cities and in the open country;
there are also two monographs upon the religious life of the Negro, one
directed by Vanderbilt University and the other by Atlanta University; and
Mr. Odum, of the University of Mississippi, has prepared a study upon the
Negro in fifty towns in various states which, still in manuscript, is one
of the most instructive inquiries ever made into negro life.
Naturally, such investigations are easier in the cities, and we know much
more about the urban Negro, a sixth of the population, than of the rural
black, who are five sixths. In the large cities there is an African
population, a considerable part of which is prosperous. Here are the best
colored schools, the greatest demand for African labor, the largest
opportunity for building up small businesses among the Negroes themselves.
Here are to be found most of the rich or well-to-do Negroes; and there is
a large contingent of steady men employed in all kinds of capacities,
about whom there is little complaint. On the other hand, a broad fringe of
the population lives in houses or rooms actually less spacious and less
decent than the one-room cabin in the fields. This floating and unsteady
part of the negro race finds a favorable habitat in the towns and small
cities, where there is less opportunity for steady employment than in the
large cities. From this class come the domestic servants, who will be
considered in a later chapter.
The typical social life of the Negro is that of the field laborer, who
lives in a poor and crude way. The most common residence is the one-room
house, without a glass window, set in a barren and unfenced waste, with a
few wretched outhouses, the worst cabins being on the land of the least
progressive and humane planters. You may see on the land of a wealthy
White one-room houses with chinks between the logs such that the rain
drives into them, the tenant family crowded into the space between the
fireplace and the unenticing beds, dirty clothing hanging about, hardly a
chair to sit upon, outside the house not a paling or a building of any
kind, and pigs rooting on the ground under the floor. On a tolerable
Mississippi plantation with seventy-four families, seventeen had one-room
cabins, and one of those families comprised eleven persons. Some
Southerners have a theory that you can be sure that a cabin with a garden
is occupied by a White; but that is a fallacy, for there are many negro
gardens, although some planters prohibit them on the ground that they
will become weed spots. In the cities the Negroes live for the most part
in settlements by themselves, in which there are miserable tenements,
usually owned by white people and no better than the one-room country
house. Of course, thrifty colored people in country or city are able to
build comfortable houses for themselves.
Inasmuch as both father and mother work either in the fields or in
domestic service, there is little family life either in country or city.
The food is poor and monotonous; it is chiefly salt pork, bacon, corn
bread (usually pone), and some sort of molasses. Fresh meat is almost
impossible to get outside of town, chickens are raised though not very
plentiful, vegetables are few. For little children this diet is
intolerable, and that is why so many of them die in infancy. Close
observers declare that Negroes are brutal to their children, but one may
be much among them without seeing any instances. They are also accused of
deserting their old people; children often wander away and lose track of
their parents, but you will find districts where the old are well looked
after by their kindred. The most serious interference in family life is
the field work of the women, and the breaking up of families by the
desertion of the father; but somehow in all these family jars the children
are seldom left without anyone to care for them.
Public amusements are almost wanting for the Negro. They are commonly not
admitted to white theaters, concerts, and other similar performances. In
the country there is nothing better than to crowd the plantation store of
a Saturday night in a sort of club. Few of them read for pleasure, and
there is little to relieve the monotony. Perhaps for that reason they are
fond of going about the country, and you see them everywhere on
horseback, or in little bull carts, or on foot. They will spend their last
dollar for an excursion on the railroad, and at the turn of the year,
January 1st, many of them may be seen moving. The circus is one of the
greatest delights of the Negro; he will travel many miles for this
pleasure. The field hand is thrown back on coarse enjoyments; hard
drinking is frequent among both men and women, yet the habitual drunkard
is rare; the country Negro is fond of dances, which often turn out
unseemly and lead to affrays and murders.
For their social and jovial needs Negroes find some satisfaction in their
church life. Their own statisticians claim 3,254,000 communicants
worshiping in 27,000 church buildings, of which the greater part are in
the country. Contrary to expectation forty years ago, the Negroes have
been little attracted to the Catholic Church, which is so democratic in
its worship, and possesses a ritual which might be expected to appeal to
negro nature. Nearly half the church members are some sort of Baptists,
and half of the rest adhere to the Methodist denominations. Some city
churches have buildings costing twenty, thirty, and even fifty thousand
dollars, and they are pertinacious about raising money for construction
and other similar purposes.
These churches do not represent an advanced type of piety. Conversions are
violent and lapses frequent, and the minister is not certain to lend the
weight of his conduct to his words. There are many genuinely pious and
hard-working ministers, but at least half of them in both city and country
are distrusted by the Whites and discredited by their own people. Simply
educating the minister does not solve the problem, for what the people
want is somebody who will arouse them to a pleasurable excitement. That
is, the present type of piety among the negro churches is about that which
prevailed among the white people along the frontier fifty years ago, and
which has not entirely died out in the backwoods and the mountains. A
genuine colored service is extremely picturesque, the preacher working
like a locomotive going up a heavy grade, while the hearers assist him
with cries of, "Talk to um, preacher--Great God--Ha! Ha! You is right,
brudder--Preaching now--Talk 'bout um--Holy Lord." Then the brethren are
called upon to pray; in that musical intoning which is so appropriate for
the African voice; then the minister lines out the hymns and the
congregation bursts out into that combination of different minor keys
which is the peculiar gift of the negro race.
Another negro enjoyment is the secret orders, which are almost as numerous
as the churches and probably have as many male members. These societies
are first of all burial and benefit orders with dues ranging from fifty
cents a month upward, for which sick benefits of four dollars a week are
paid and about forty dollars for burial. The societies build lodge houses
not only in cities but in plantation regions; and the judgment of those
who have most carefully examined them is that they are on the whole a good
thing. They give training in public speaking and in common action; they
furnish employment to managers and clerks; and their considerable funds
are for the most part honestly managed. Some of them publish newspapers
chiefly devoted to publishing the names of officers and members. In
Mississippi there are thirty-four licensed orders with 8,000 members. They
carry $30,000,000 of risks, and in a year paid $430,000 to policy holders.
Naturally they have rather high-sounding names, such as "Grand Court of
Calanthe," "Lone Star of Race Pride," "United Brethren of Friendship and
Sisters of Mysterious Ten," "Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise." Some
efforts are making to build up national societies such as the "Royal Trust
Company" and "The Ethiopian Progressive Association of America," which,
according to its own statement, is "incorporated with an authorized
Capital Stock a hundred times larger than the next most heavily
capitalized Negro corporation on Earth. It is designed to fraternize,
build and cement the vital interests of Negroes throughout the world into
one colossal Union." The order and the church are both social clubs and
include a good part of the race both in city and country, and these
organizations are the work of the last forty years, for in slavery times
the negro churches were closely watched by the Whites, and secret
societies would have been impossible.
CHAPTER X
THE NEGRO AT WORK
Nobody accepts church or fraternal orders as the measure of the Negro's
place in the community, for the gospel which he hears most often is the
gospel of work; and that comes less from the preacher than from the
reformer; as DuBois says: "Plain it is to us that what the world seeks
through desert and wild we have within our threshold--a stalwart laboring
force, suited to the semi-tropics." The labor system and labor ideal of
the South are very different from those of the North. First of all, there
is the old tradition of slavery times that manual toil is ignoble; that it
is menial to handle prime materials, and to buy and sell goods across the
counter. But somebody must perform hard labor if the community is to go
on; and there is an immense field for uneducated men. Besides the
so-called "public works"--that is, turpentine, sawmills, building levees
and railroads, and clearing land--there is the pulling and hauling and
loading in the ports, the rough work of oil mills and furnaces and mines,
and above all the raising of cotton, where the demand for labor is always
greater than the supply.
Some of this labor is done by white gangs, and many of the blacks are
engaged in other and higher pursuits; but the chief function of the Negro
in the South is the rough labor which in the North was once chiefly
performed by Irishmen, later by Italians, and now in many places by
Slavs. This vast industrial system is almost wholly officered by Whites,
who are the owners, employers, and managers of nearly every piece of
property in the South on which laborers are employed. They set, so far as
they can, the terms of employment; but what they get in actual work is
settled by the Negroes, notwithstanding a condition of dependence hard to
realize in the North. It is firmly fixed in the average white employer's
mind that the Negro exists in order to work for him, and that every
attempt to raise the Negro must steer clear of any suspicion that it will
lead him to abandon work for the white man. The slow drift of Negroes to
the towns and cities cannot be prevented, nor some shifting from
plantation to plantation; but the white man's ideal is that the Negro is
to stay where he is, and hundreds of thousands of them are living within
sight of the spot where they were born.
Therefore, whoever wishes to know the conditions of the typical Negro must
look for them on the plantation, where he is almost the only laborer, and
is at present prodigiously wanted. As a keen Southern observer says: "The
protection of the Negro is the scarcity of labor"; for it is literally
true that some plantations could profitably employ more than double the
hands that they can get. Nevertheless it is an axiom in the South that
"the nigger will not work." Thus General Stephen D. Lee gives currency to
the declaration that "It is a fact known to those best acquainted with the
negro race since the war, that more and more of them are becoming idle,
and are not giving us as good work as they used to do." Another authority
says: "Some few of the race are reliable--many hundreds are not. The
farmer cannot get his land turned in the winter, because ninety hundredths
of these laborers have not made up their minds as to what they want to do
in the coming year. All would go to town if fuel was not high and house
rent must be paid." An engineer in charge of large gangs in Galveston says
he never would employ Negroes if he could help it, because they cannot be
depended upon to rush work in an emergency. A planter met on a Mississippi
steamer declares that wage hands at a dollar a day would not actually put
in more than two thirds of the hours of labor; and would accomplish no
more in two weeks than a cropper working on shares would do in two days. A
Negro who employs large numbers of men says: "If a Negro can get what he
wants without working he will do it."
Another standard accusation is that the Negro will not work steadily; that
he never turns up on Monday, and will leave for frivolous reasons; that if
he has been working for five dollars a week and you raise his wages to ten
dollars he will simply work the three days necessary to earn the five
dollars, having adjusted himself to that scale. In this charge there is a
good deal of truth, but the difficulty is not confined to the African
race. Northern employers are well acquainted with the hand who never works
on Monday; and in the cotton mills of South Carolina, which are carried on
solely by white labor, it is customary to have a "Reserve of Labor" of one
fourth or one fifth in order to meet the case of the hands who wish to go
fishing, or simply are not willing to work six days a week. Probably the
remedy for the Negro is to increase his wants to the point where he cannot
satisfy them by less than a whole week's work.
As to the general accusation that the Negro will not work, many white
employers scout the suggestion. A brickmaker in St. Louis has for years
employed them and likes them better than any other kind of labor. A
Florida lumberman says: "I would not give one black man in the lumber
camps of the South for three Italians, or three of any other foreigners.
We can't get along without them, and for one, I don't want to try." And
planter after planter will tell you that, however it may be with his
neighbors, he has no trouble in keeping his people up to their work.
Another reason for skepticism is what one sees as one goes through the
country. In the first place, enormous amounts of cotton are raised where
there is nothing but negro labor. In the second place, even in winter, the
season of the year when the Negro is least busy, there are plenty of
evidences that he is at work and likely to keep at it. He may be seen at
work on his own little farm, taking care of his stock, picking his cotton,
fixing up or adding to his house, his fifteen-year-old girl plowing with
one mule. A Negro's farm is generally more slovenly than a white man's,
but the crops are raised. You see the hired hands on the great
plantations, driving four-mule teams, working in the gins, coming for
directions about breaking ground. The truth is that the Negro on the land
is doing well, far better than might be expected from people who have so
little outlook and hope of improvement, working more intelligently and
doing better than the fellahin of Egypt, the ryots of India, the native
Filipino, quite as well as the lowest end of the Mountain Whites and the
remnants of the lowland Poor Whites. It is a race-slander, refutable by
any honest investigator, that the American Negro as a race is unwilling to
work.
It is another question how far they are competent to act as foremen or
independent workers. An iron manufacturer in Alabama says he has found
that the moment Negroes are promoted to anything requiring thinking power
they fail disastrously, and ruin all the machinery put in their charge; as
miners they handle tools with skill just as long as they are furnished the
motive power, but they have little discretion or ambition. On the other
hand, the writer has seen in the Richmond Locomotive Works white men
working under negro gang bosses without friction; and in many parts of the
South the building trades are almost wholly in the hands of blacks.
Why should the belief of the African's incapacity be so widely
disseminated? First, because nineteen twentieths of the people who talk
about the lazy Negro have no personal knowledge of the field hand at work.
Their impression of the race is gained from the thriftless and irregular
Negroes in the towns and cities. If we formed our notions of Northern farm
industry from the gypsies, the dock loafers, the idle youths shooting
craps behind a board fence, we should believe a generalization that
Northern farmers are lazy. The shiftless population living on odd jobs and
the earnings of the women as domestic servants, committing petty crimes
and getting into rows with the white youths, cannot be more than one tenth
of the Negroes, and the poorest tenth at that.
Domestic service is the most exasperating point of contact between the
races. It has been reduced to a system of day labor, for not one in a
hundred of the house servants spend the night in the place where they are
employed. Great numbers of the women are the only wage earners in their
family and leave their little children at home day after day so that they
may care for the children of white families. Some mistresses scold and
fume and threaten, some have the patience of angels; in both cases the
service is irregular and wasteful. Nobody ever feels sure that a servant
will come the next morning. Most of the well-to-do families in the South
feed a second family out of the baskets taken home by the cook; and in
thousands of instances the basket goes to some member of a third family
favored by the cook. Hence the little song taken down from a Negro's lips
by a friend in Mississippi:
"I doan' has to wuk so ha'd,
'Cause I got a gal in de white folks' ya'd;
And ebry ebnin' at half past eight
I comes along to de gyarden gate;
She gibs me buttah an' sugah an' lard--
I doan' has to wuk so ha'd!"
Let one story out of a hundred illustrate this trouble. A newly married
couple, both accustomed to handsome living, set up their own establishment
in a Mississippi town, in a new house, well furnished and abounding in
heirlooms of mahogany and china; the only available candidate for waitress
is a haughty person who begins by objecting to monthly payments, and
shortly announces to her mistress: "I ain't sure I want to stay here, but
I will give you a week's trial." The patient and good-natured lady accepts
the idea of a week's experience on both sides, but before that time
expires the girl comes rushing up in a fury to announce that "I'm gwine
ter leave just now, kase you don't give yo' help 'nough to eat." It
develops that she has had exactly the same breakfast as the white family,
except that the particular kind of bacon of which she is fond has run
short. There is plenty of bacon of another brand, but that will not
satisfy her; she will not stay "where people don't get 'nough to eat." She
thereupon shakes the dust of the place off her feet and blacklists the
family in the whole place, making it almost impossible for them to find
another servant; and probably some other white mistress within a week
takes up this hungry person as being the best that she can do.
Other people have more agreeable tales of good-tempered and humorous
servants; and the negro question would be half solved if the people who
undertake domestic service and accept wages would show reasonable
interest, cleanliness, and honesty; and a million of the race might find
steady employment at good wages in the South within the next six months,
and another million in the North, if they would only do faithfully what
they are capable of doing.
There is little hope of regeneration by that means; the difficulty is that
capable Negroes do not like domestic service and seek to avoid it. The
average Southerner sighs for the good old household slaves, and harks back
to the colored mammy in the kitchen and stately butler in the drawing-room
in slavery times, as evidence that the Negroes are going backward. He
forgets that under slavery the highest honorable position open to a
colored woman was to be the owned cook in a wealthy family; that Booker T.
Washington and DuBois and Kelly Miller in those days would have been
fortunate if raised to the lofty pinnacle of the trusted butler or general
utility man on the plantation. The house servants in slavery times were
chosen for their superior appearance and intelligence, and were likely to
be mulattoes; the children and grandchildren of such people may now be
owners of plantations, professional men, professors in colleges, negro
bankers, and heads of institutions; while the domestic servant commonly
now comes from the lowest Negroes, is descended from field hands, and
chosen out of the most incompetent section of the present race. The
problem of domestic service is chiefly one of the village and the city, in
which only about a seventh of the Negroes live.
Even many Southerners have very hazy ideas about the subdivisions of
plantation laborers; and do not distinguish between the renters and
croppers, who are tenant farmers in their way, and the wage hands who are
less ambitious and not so steady. There is complaint on many plantations
that negro families do not finish their contracts, though the main outcry
is against the day laborer; yet on many of the large plantations there is
little complaint that even he does not work steadily, and little trouble
in securing from him a fair day's work.
Another disturbance of the easy generalization that the Negro will not
work is due to the variations from county to county and from place to
place. Much more depends than the outside world realizes on the capacity
of a plantation manager "to handle niggers"; and the testimony of a
perfectly straightforward planter who tells you that he knows that the
Negroes as a race run away from work because he has seen it, is no more
true of the whole people than the assurance of his near neighbor that he
knows the blacks are all industrious because they work steadily for him.
Here we come back to the essential truth that it is unsafe to generalize
about any race. There are thousands of good Negroes in the towns and
thousands of lazy rascals on the plantations; but the great weight of
testimony is that the colored man works tolerably well on the land.
Another of the statements, repeated so often that people believe them
without proof, is that the Southern Negro has lost his skilled trades. Two
Southern writers say: "Now, most of the bricklayers are white. The same
is true with respect to carpenter work. The trade of the machinist is
practically in the hands of white men." "They have been losing ground as
mechanics. Before the war, on every plantation there were first-class
carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, etc. Half the houses in Virginia
were built by Negro carpenters. Now where are they?" Nothing could better
illustrate the fact that Southerners who reprehend the interference of the
North in questions which it does not understand, are themselves myopic
guides. If the negro trades have disappeared, how does it come about that
in Montgomery, Ala., there are practically no other laborers of that type?
that the bricklayers, carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, are all Negroes,
and no white boys seem to be learning those trades. The census of 1890
showed in Alabama about 13,000 colored men who had some sort of skilled
employment, many of them in trades which did not exist in slavery times,
such as iron-working, steam fitting, and service on railroads. It is true
that they are shut out of most of the callings in which there is authority
over others; there are no negro motormen or trolley conductors, no negro
engineers, though plenty of firemen; no negro conductors, though negro
brakemen are not uncommon, and in Meridian, Miss., the trains are called
in the white waiting room by a buxom negro woman.
In some Southern cities Whites, very often Northern men, have absorbed
certain trades supposed to be the peculiar province of the Negro: barber
shops with white barbers are found; the magnificent Piedmont Hotel in
Atlanta has a corps of white servants; wherever the trades unions get into
the South they are likely to work against the Negro; but in some cases he
has unions of his own; or there are joint unions of Whites and Negroes.
Considering the great opportunity for white men in callings where blacks
are not admitted it does not seem likely that they will ever be excluded
from skilled trades, though subject to more competition than in the past.
Another employment for which the African has in many ages and countries
been found suited is military service. Even in slavery times military
companies of free Negroes were not unknown, and some of them actually went
to the front for the Confederacy in the first weeks of the Civil War. Then
came the enlistment of nearly 200,000 in the blue uniform, and after the
war some thousands of men remained in negro regiments. A brief attempt to
educate colored officers in West Point and Annapolis was, for whatever
reason, not a success; and the negro troops are almost wholly under the
command of white officers. Since Reconstruction times negro militia
companies have not been encouraged, and in some states have been wholly
disbanded. The difficulty in Brownsville, Texas, in 1907, has tended to
prevent negro enlistment in the army and navy. In the Spanish War and
later in the Philippines negro regiments gave a good account of
themselves. There are a few negro policemen in the cities, but in the
South they are likely to disappear. The white man resents any assertion of
authority over him by a Negro, and in general considers him unfit to
exercise control over people of his own race.
Even in ante-bellum times there were occasional negro business and
professional men, some of whom had the confidence of their white neighbors
and made little fortunes. Since the Civil War these avenues have much
widened. The 16,000 or 17,000 ministers are still to a large degree
uneducated persons, as indeed is the case in many white churches. Negro
physicians are numerous, educated partly in Northern institutions, partly
in medical colleges of their own, partly in schools officered by white
professors, as, for instance, in Raleigh, N. C. Like the lawyers they
cannot practice without the certificate of state officers not very
friendly to them or easy to convince of their abilities; and the cream of
the practice among colored people goes to the Whites. In business, negro
merchants, manufacturers, builders, and bankers have become very numerous.
Recently a Negro Bankers' Convention was held in the South. Most of the
transactions of these men are carried on with their own people, though
they often find customers and credit with Whites. So far, there are few or
no large negro capitalists, but many promising groups of small capital
have been brought together; and at the Expositions of Charleston and
Jamestown they showed creditable exhibits of their own industries.
Two entirely new professions have opened up since the Civil War. The first
is that of journalist, and there are many negro newspapers, none of which
has any national circulation, or extended influence. The other is
teaching, which has opened up a livelihood to thousands of young men and
women. Some of the negro colleges are wholly manned by members of the
race, many of them graduates of Northern institutions, who seem to make
use of the same methods and appeal to the same aspirations as the
faculties of white colleges.
Though often accused by his white neighbor of attempts to unite in hostile
organizations, the Negroes show little disposition to rally around and
support leaders of their own race. Booker T. Washington, the man of most
influence among them, has encountered implacable opposition, and efforts
have even been made by hostile members of his own race to break up his
meetings in Boston. Inasmuch as the Negroes are excluded from politics in
the South, it is hard for any man to get that reputation for bringing
things about which is necessary in order to attract a strong following. As
DuBois points out "If such men are to be effective they must have some
power,--they must be backed by the best public opinion of these
communities, and able to wield for their objects and aims such weapons as
the experience of the world has taught are indispensable to human
progress."
One of the strong influences is the conferences gathered in part at such
institutions as Hampton and Tuskegee, and Atlanta University, in part
called in other places. A considerable number of Negroes have the money
and the inclination to attend these meetings, where they learn to know
each other and to express their common wants.
CHAPTER XI
IS THE NEGRO RISING?
That the Negro is inferior to the Whites among whom he lives is a cause of
apprehension to the whole land; that his labor is in steadiness and
efficiency much below that of his intelligent white neighbors is a
drawback to his section. Yet neither deficiencies of character nor of
industry really settle his place in the community. A race may be as high
as the Greeks and yet go to nothingness; a race may be as industrious as
the Chinese, and have little to show for it. The essential question with
regard to the Negro is simply: Is the race in America moving downward or
upward? No matter if it be low, has it the capacity of rising?
To answer these questions requires some study both of present and past
conditions. A very considerable number of Southern Whites are sure that
physically and morally the Negro is both low and declining; and some go so
far as to assert that every Negro is physically so different from the
white man that he ought not to be considered a member of the human race.
The argument was familiar in slavery times, and has been recently set
forth by F. L. Hoffman in his "Race Traits of the American Negro"; from
chest measurements, weight, lifting strength, and power of vision, he is
convinced that "there are important differences in the bodily structure of
the two races, differences of far-reaching influence on the duration of
life and the social and economic efficiency of the colored man." Professor
Smith, of Louisiana, in his "The Color Line, A Brief for the Unborn," goes
much farther in an argument intended to show that the brain capacity of
the Negro, the coarseness of his features, the darkness of his color, the
abnormal length of his arm, his thick cranium, woolly hair and early
closing of the cranial sutures, prove that he may be left out of
consideration as a member of a civilized community.
The tendency of scientific investigators during the last forty years has
been to minimize the distinctions between races; and the argument that the
Negro is to be politically and socially disregarded because of structural
peculiarities, though the stock in trade of the proslavery writers two
generations ago, now seems somewhat forced. To the Northern mind there is
a kind of unreality in the whole argument of physical inferiority; it is
like trying to prove by anatomy, physiology, and hygiene that the
Hungarian laborer is always going to be an ignorant and degraded element
in our population.
These technical arguments throw very little light upon the real African
problem, which is not, what does the structure of the Negro indicate that
he must be, but what is he really and what does he perform? If the Negro
can work all day in the cotton field, save his wages, buy land, bring up
his children, send them to school, pay his debts, and maintain a decent
life, no cranial sutures or prognathism will prevent his being looked upon
as a man; and the whole physical argument, much of which is intended to
affect the public mind against amalgamation, cannot do away with the plain
fact that the white and the black races are so near to each other that
some hundreds of thousands of people come of white fathers and negro or
mulatto mothers. The Negro is entitled to be measured, not by brain
calipers, nor by two-meter rods, but by what he can do in the world.
What he can do in the world depends upon the inner man and not the outer;
and here we approach one of the most serious problems connected with the
race. Has the Negro character? Can he conceive a standard and adhere to
it? Can he fix his mind on a distant good and for its sake give up present
indulgences? Can he restrain the primal impulses of human nature?
That the Negroes as a race are impure and unregulated is the judgment of
most white observers whether ill-wishers or fair-minded men. Thomas Nelson
Page, for instance, declares that the immorality of the negro race has
increased since slavery times. Thomas, himself a Negro, asserts that the
sexual impulse "constitutes the main incitement to the degeneracy of the
race, and is the chief hindrance to its social uplifting." Kelsey, a
Northern observer, says: "Many matings are consummated without any regular
marriage ceremony and with little reference to legal requirements." On
this subject as on all others the most preposterous exaggerations are
rife; a plantation manager will tell you that not two in a hundred couples
on his plantation are married; a stock statement, a thousand times
repeated, is that there is no such thing as a virtuous negro woman. Yet
the truth is gruesome enough; there are plenty of plantations where barely
half the families are married; bastard children are very numerous; and
this condition applies not only in the cities and towns where people are
put into new and trying environments, but everywhere among the Negroes
upon the land. It is the most discouraging thing about the race, because
it saps the foundation of civilization. Nor is it an explanation to say
that under slavery family ties were disregarded. The race has now had
forty years of freedom and undisturbed religious training, such as it is.
Still they ought to show decided improvement in morals if the race is
capable of living on a high moral plane.
This is a gloomy and delicate subject, but cannot be allowed to pass
without a few positive illustrations. When Kelsey suggested to a Negro
that he might go back to the plantation and board in a negro family, he
replied: "Niggers is queer folks, boss. 'Pears to me they don' know what
they gwine do. Ef I go out and live in a man's house like as not I run
away wid dat man's wife." A girl whose mistress was trying to put before
her a higher standard of conduct said: "It's no use talking to us colored
girls like we were white. A colored girl that keeps pure ain't liked
socially. We just think she has had no chance." A negro boy twelve years
old has been known to reel off two hundred different obscene rhymes and
songs. Divorce is frequent, particularly the easy form which consists of
the husband throwing his wife out of doors and bringing in another woman.
The negro preachers are universally believed to be the worst of their
kind, and very often are. If the things that are regularly told by white
people and sometimes admitted by colored people are true, the majority of
the Southern Negroes, rural and urban, are in a horribly low state both
physically and morally.
The more credit to those members of the race who are pure and upright; who
are showing that it is a libel to brand as hopelessly corrupt ten million
people, including probably two million mulattoes; to say nothing of the
numerous examples of chaste and self-respecting Negroes of both sexes in
the Northern states. The most furious assailant of negro character will
usually tell you of one or two Negroes that he knows to be perfectly
straightforward; and the writer can bear personal testimony to the
apparent wholesomeness of family life in negro homes that he has chanced
to visit. Here, a young mother in her scrupulously clean log house
hovering over her little children as affectionately as though she and they
were white; there, gathered around the hearth of a new house with good
furniture and pretty pictures, a family of seven children, neat, clean,
attractive, respectful, intelligent, and apparently attached to father and
mother. Again, a fine specimen of the thrifty colored man who boasts that
he has lived forty-one years with one wife: "I got a good wife, she take
keer of me." Where such homes are, all is not vile. It is a favorite
Southern delusion that education and Christian teaching have no effect on
the animal propensities of Negroes; there are thousands of examples to the
contrary.
It would do no good to anybody to minimize the terrible truth that the
Negroes as a race are in personal morality far below the Anglo-Saxons as a
race, that the heaviest dead weight upon them is their own passions; but
it would be equally futile to blink at the fact that the Whites do not set
them in this respect a convincing example. Anglo-Saxons the world over are
not unreasonably virtuous; and the divorce cases of Pittsburg might not be
safe reading for impressionable people like the blacks. If the negro race
is depraved it cannot but have a demoralizing effect on the white race,
most of whom have colored nurses; and the male half of whom have all their
life been exposed to a particularly facile temptation. Heaven has somehow
shielded the white woman of the South from the noxious influences of a
servile race; in slavery times and now there is not a fairer flower that
blooms than the white Southern girl; although it is a delusion that she is
never pursued by men of her own race. No visitor, no clean Southern man,
knows the abysses in both races or can fix the proportion in which both
need to rise if the Southland is to be redeemed from its most fearful
danger. Great numbers of the Negroes are immoral, and great numbers of
white men can testify to their immorality, for the building up of
character is a long and weary process in both races.
So far as the future of the Negro is concerned, the real problem is
whether he can suppress his bad traits and emphasize his higher nature,
but that is a question with regard to all other races. The blacks are
ignorant, not only of books, but of the world, of life, of the experience
of the race. They are untrustworthy, but at the same time faithful; as one
of their own number says: "They'll loaf before your face and work behind
your back with good-natured honesty. They'll steal a watermelon, and hand
you back your lost purse intact."
In any case, it may safely be affirmed that the Negro is not retrograding.
On the Sea Islands, where it has been reported that the Negroes had sunk
to savagery, where on one small island a white face had not been seen for
ten years, there is undoubtedly a widespread belief in magic, or what a
fluent colored preacher, in a discourse apparently intended for white
ears, referred to as "Hindooism." On such subjects the Negroes are
reticent; but no evidence of paganism is visible to long-time residents on
the islands. When it comes to fortune-telling and charms, and a fetich
that will insure you against having your mortgage foreclosed, about the
same thing may be found among otherwise intelligent people in any
Northern city. Degradation is frequent; and marital relations are loose on
the islands, though no more so than on the plantations of Mississippi, or
among the Negroes of the cities of Georgia. The population is in general
healthier than on the mainland, though much exposed to severe malaria. Two
or three of the African superstitions do survive; one is that you must
always keep a door open during the day so that you may not shut the bad
spirit in with you; but at night doors and shutters must be closed to keep
the spirit out. Another superstition is the "Basket-name," which is the
plague of the Northern teachers, who are a long time in learning that
Louisa's basket name is "Chug," or that when you call Ezra, "Mantchey"
will come. Churches of various denominations are kept up, and, together
with the various lodges, furnish the principal social life of the people.
To be sure they often have African dances at their religious services; but
these are very like the Shaker dances, which can hardly be called pagan
worship.
The error as to the progress of the Negro arises both from an unfounded
notion of the virtues and the civilization of the Negroes under slavery,
and an equally unfounded idea that the average conditions of the Negro
to-day are hopeless. The Negro was busier in slavery times than now
because there was always the whip in the background, but there is no
reason to suppose that his average annual product was as great as that of
the present freeman. Falsehood, thriftlessness, and immorality are the
charges which were constantly brought against the slaves, both by
outsiders and by their own masters. Judged by the standards which the
white man most readily applies to himself--namely, the proportion of
educated and progressive men and women, the average amount of property,
the interest in the welfare of the race--there is no reason to doubt that
the Negro is higher up than he was half a century ago.
How far does the desire for uplift extend, and how far is it effective?
The negro population shows a distinct interest in the future of the race.
The field hand who has the ambition to save and improve, to buy his own
land, feels that he is benefiting not only himself, but giving an object
lesson of the power of his race. Some of the leaders have personal ends to
gain, but they all expect to gain them by showing a power to improve the
conditions of their fellows. Yet even though the Negro may be working
steadily, he may also be gaining nothing from generation to generation; if
he gets better wages, he may be squandering them; a small part of the race
might conceivably be going forward, while a large part was dropping back.
A piece of testimony on the highest phases of negro character which is too
often forgotten in the South is that on the occasion when the race had the
best opportunity to show black-heartedness it gave the world a noble
example of patience, forbearance, and forgiveness. As that great
Southerner, Grady, wrote: "History has no parallel to the faith kept by
the negro in the South during the war. Often five hundred negroes to a
single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs the women and
children walked in safety, and the unprotected homes rested in peace.
Unmarshalled, the black battalions moved patiently to the fields in the
morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night
gathered anxiously at the big house to 'hear the news from marster,'
though conscious that his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere
humble and kindly. The body guard of the helpless. The rough companion of
the little ones. The observant friend. The silent sentry in his lowly
cabin. The shrewd counsellor. And when the dead came home, a mourner at
the open grave. A thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern
army, but not one was lighted." That achievement was a vast advance above
the savagery of the native African; and why should the capacity for
improvement stop there?
Keeping in mind the fact that with all his patience the slave in the best
days of slavery was still a low and vicious type in whom his slavehood
strengthened native propensities to lying, theft, and lust, it is
undeniable that the greater part of the race has made great advances; even
John Temple Graves, a harmful enemy of the Negro, admits that "The leaders
of no race in history have ever shown greater wisdom, good temper and
conservative discretion than distinguishes the two or three men who stand
at the head of the negro race in America to-day." Under slavery no such
success or influence was possible; there could be no negro orators, or
reformers, or leaders in the South.
An invariable answer to the plea that the character of the negro leaders
is a proof of the capacity for uplift is that they are substantially white
men. At the same moment the critics deny to those substantially white men
the privileges of actual white men. But may not "substantially white men"
have an uplifting influence such as indubitably white men had in earlier
times? Most candid white observers, however hostile to the race, admit
that somewhere from a tenth to a fourth of all the Negroes are doing well
and moving upward; and this applies to the Negro on the land as well as in
cities. In many scattered areas in the South, groups of plantation
Negroes have bought land and are saving money. Here are a few examples
taken from the writer's notebook:
At Calhoun, Ala., may be found nearly a hundred Negroes who have bought or
are buying their own farms, and have made $60,000 of savings to do it. A
negro woman on one of those farms said of her new house: "We don't need no
rider (overseer) now, dis house is our rider. It will send us into the
field, it will make us work, and it will make us plan. We's got to plan.
When Ise out in the pit I has to stop to look up at dis house, and den Ise
so pleased I don't know how I am working." Near Nixburg, Ala., is another
settlement started by a Negro, Rev. John Leonard, soon after the war,
which is called thereabouts "Niggerdom," because the blacks have acquired
the best tract of land in the region, have put up the best schoolhouse in
the county, and as a neighbor said of them: "They have got to the place
now where they're no more service to the Whites. They want to work for
themselves." At Kowaliga, Ala., is the Benson settlement, where a Negro
has bought his former master's plantation, largely extended it, has built
a dam and mill, owns three thousand acres of land with many tenants, and
is one of the few large planters of that section who combines cattle
raising with cotton. He gave land and assistance to a good school with
commodious buildings, carried on entirely by Negroes (including Tuskegee
graduates); is building what is probably the best planter's house in the
county, and has plenty of outside investments. At Mound Bayou, Miss., is
another purely negro settlement, with a population of about two thousand,
among whom not a single white man lives. Under the guidance of two
brothers named Montgomery, they bought their land direct from the
railroad company, claim to own 130,000 acres, and have paid for
considerable parts of it; maintain their own stores, carry on a little
bank, and elect a negro municipal government. The results show as much
capacity for managing their own affairs as the neighboring white towns.
There are two or three settlements of the same kind in the South, on a
smaller scale, as at Goldsboro, Fla., and one in Alabama. Different in
type, but a proof of prosperity, are the negro settlements on the Sea
Islands; here is no personal leader like Leonard, or Benson, or
Montgomery; but on several of the islands is a large group of colored
landowners who have been there ever since the Civil War, and whose houses
are much superior to the usual negro cabins. While not progressive, they
hold on to their land with great tenacity, and are not running into debt.
These specific examples prove beyond question that Africans can advance.
Every one of the settlements above mentioned is planted in an unpromising
region, among Negroes presumably of a lower type than the average. Lowndes
County, in which Calhoun is situated, is one of the most backward in the
South; the Sea Islands have the densest negro population to be found
anywhere. Similar instances, on a smaller scale may be found in every
state and almost every county of the South. However backward the people,
you are everywhere told that a few save money, buy land, and try to give
their children better conditions. Nor is it the mulattoes only who show
this disposition to get on in the world; the pure Negroes sometimes are
the most industrious and sensible of their race.
Houses and lands are not the only measure of uplift; and the numerous
Negroes who, according to the impression of white men not likely to
exaggerate, are really thrifty, might be unable to raise the average of
their race; but it seems clear that the Negro is nowhere reverting to
barbarism; that a considerable part of the race, certainly one fourth to
one fifth, is doing about as well as the lowest million or two of the
Southern Whites; though perhaps a fifth (of whom a great part are to be
found in towns and cities) are distinctly doing ill; that the Negroes on
the land, though on the average low, ignorant, and degraded, are working
well, making cotton, and helping to enrich the South. For, as one of
themselves puts it: "The native ambition and aspiration of men, even
though they be black, backward, and ungraceful, must not lightly be dealt
with." The real negro problem is the question of the character and the
future of the laborer.
But deep in the breast of the Average Man
The passions of ages are swirled,
And the loves and the hates of the Average Man
Are old as the heart of the world--
For the thought of the Race, as we live and we die,
Is in keeping the Man and the Average high.
The only real measure of uplift is character, but character cannot be
reduced to statistical tables. The accumulation of property, especially by
a race nearly pauperized when it first acquired the right to hold
property, can be traced and throws much light on the important question
whether the Negroes are rising or falling. It is difficult to separate out
the contribution which the Negro makes to the wealth of the South, and to
estimate his own savings, because the only available census figures on
this subject deal with the three classes of owners, renters, and croppers
of land; and do not, and probably cannot, make a separate account of negro
wage hands on the plantations, and workmen and jobbers of every
description. As nearly as can be judged, more than half the cotton comes
off plantations tilled by negro laborers, or tenants; and for the rest, a
notable portion is raised by independent negro farmers, chiefly on the
hills--some on the lowlands. The wage hands and the town Negroes have, in
general, little to show for their work at the end of the year. They
receive or are credited with wages, live on them, and they are gone.
Negroes are extravagant, tempted by peddlers and instalment-goods men, and
fond of spending for candy, tobacco, and liquor. There are few savings
banks in the South, and the failure of the Freedman's Bank in
Reconstruction times was a terrible blow to the long process of building
up habits of thrift. It seems to be the conviction of the best friends of
the Negro in the South that the great majority of the day laborers have
made little or no advance in habits of saving during the last forty years,
although most of them have more to show in the way of clothing and
furniture than their fathers had.
This is a great misfortune to the race, because, as Booker Washington
never wearies of pointing out, now is the golden time for the Negro to
acquire land. After the war, good farm land could be bought up at from $1
to $5 an acre; and to-day a family with $500 in cash, and saving habits,
can, in most parts of the South, pick up an out-of-the-way corner of land,
with a poor house on it, and begin the kind of struggle to support the
family and pay for improvements which has been the practice of the
Northwest. It is true that good land has now become expensive; there are
under-drained Delta lands which are held at $50 to $100 an acre, and
although planters grumble at the trouble and loss of making cotton with
shiftless hands, not one in a hundred wants to break up his plantation and
sell it out to the Negroes. The successful communities of negro farmers
who have acquired land during the last ten years have, with half a dozen
exceptions, been organized by Northern capitalists, or philanthropists who
have bought estates in order to sell them out. The reason for this
reluctance of the planter is very simple: his business is to raise cotton
on a large scale; if he sells out even at a good figure, he loses his
occupation; and the South, as a community, has not yet seized the great
principle that the prosperity of everybody is enhanced by an increase in
the productive and purchasing power of the laborer.
No figures can be found for the city real estate holdings of Negroes, but
in 1900 there were 188,000 so-called farms owned by Negroes, subject, of
course, like white property, to mortgages for part of the purchase money,
or for debts afterward incurred. In addition, 560,000 negro families were
working plots of land, as croppers and renters, and received either a
share or the whole of the crop that they made. These people altogether
were working 23,000,000 acres, an average of about 30 acres to a family;
and produced $256,000,000 worth of products. These 750,000 "farmers"
represent something over 3,000,000 individuals, which figures to an annual
output of $80 per head; and it is difficult to see how that value could
possibly be produced if the Negroes were not there. The families of the
day laborers count up to at least 3,000,000 more; and their product was
probably somewhere near as large as that of the renters and croppers,
although the share of the planter is rather greater. It would seem
reasonable to assert that $500,000,000 of the $1,200,000,000 of farm
products in the South was raised by negro labor; and that by their work in
the cities and towns they probably add another $200,000,000 to the annual
product.
It is not, however, certain that the Negroes have accumulated in their own
hands so much as the value of one year's output. A. H. Stone, a practical
planter, says that, on his plantation, negro property was irregularly
subdivided; his renters had property accumulated to an average of $400 a
family, while the share hands did not average $50 a family. That is, the
greater part of the negro property is owned by the smaller part of the
population. That is not peculiar to Negroes; in New York City nearly the
whole property is said to be owned by 20,000 people; and in Galveston most
of the valuable real estate is said to be in the hands of, or controlled
by, a score of individuals. In the cities and towns, many prosperous
Negroes are rent payers, and own no real estate, but there may be 50,000
owners besides the 190,000 farm owners. In Kentucky half the Negroes who
are working land independently own their farms. Even in Mississippi the
owners and renters together are more than the share hands.
Since no Negro can successfully rent unless he owns mules and farm tools,
and the renters are considerably more numerous than the owners, we may add
250,000 more families on the land who have accumulated something. That
makes 550,000 families, or between a third and a fourth of the Southern
Negroes, who are getting ahead. If the 550,000 families averaged $900 each
of land and personal property they would hold $500,000,000; $900 is,
however, a high figure, and it may be roughly estimated that negro land
owners and renters had accumulated in 1900 not more than $300,000,000 or
$400,000,000 worth of property. The rest of the Southern Negroes are about
7,000,000 in number; at the low average of $15 a head of accumulations
they would count up nearly $150,000,000 more. A fair estimate of negro
wealth in the South, therefore, would be something above $500,000,000, and
constantly rising.
This estimated proportion is confirmed by investigations into taxes paid
by Negroes. In 1902 the 2,100,000 Negroes in the four states of Virginia,
North Carolina, Georgia, and Arkansas were assessed for taxes on
$54,000,000. At the same proportion throughout the South, their assessment
would have been about $170,000,000, which by this time has probably
increased to over $200,000,000; and $200,000,000 is a fortieth of the
present total assessment. The sum is great, but the proportion to the
wealth of the South is small. At best it can be said that the Negroes, who
are a third of the population, own a fortieth of the property in the
South; and that one fourth of the Negroes own four fifths of all the negro
property. The taxes do not tell the whole story, and there are probably
rich Northern cities in which the poorest third of the population does not
directly pay more than a fortieth of the taxes. If a race is to be held up
as worthless because it is not on the tax books, what will become of some
of the most lively members of the Boston City Council and New York Board
of Aldermen? Everybody knows that in every community the poorest people
pay the largest proportionate taxes through their rent, and through the
increased cost of living which is pushed down upon them by landlords and
storekeepers. If the colored people were all to move out of their
tenements and farms and to go on general strike and earn nothing with
which to buy their supplies, the taxpayers of record would very quickly
find out who paid a part of their taxes for them. Nevertheless, whatever
excuses are made for him, it is undeniable that the Negro has no such
spirit of acquisition, no such willingness to sacrifice present delight
for future good, as the Northern immigrant, or even the Southern Poor
White.
CHAPTER XII
RACE ASSOCIATION
In the preceding chapters the effort has been made to analyze and describe
the white race and the negro race, each as though it lived by itself, and
could work out its own destiny without reference to the other. The white
race is faced with the necessity of elevating its lower fourth; the negro
race should be equally absorbed in advancing its lower three fourths. In
both races there is progress and there is hope; if either one were living
by itself it might be predicted that in a generation or two the problems
would cease to be specially Southern and would come down to those which
besiege all civilized communities. But neither race lives alone, neither
can live alone. The commercial prosperity of the Whites largely depends on
negro labor; high standards for the negro race depend on white aid and
white example; neither race is free, neither race is independent. They are
the positive and negative poles of a dynamo, and terrific is the spark
that sometimes leaps from one to the other.
In one sense, the Southern Whites are the South, inasmuch as they have
complete control of the state and local governments, of the military, of
public education, of business on a large scale, and of society; but the
Negroes are one third of the population, furnish much more than half the
laborers for hire, have schools, property, and aspirations; hence
whatever term is used, "Southern Problem," "Race Problem," or "Negro
Problem," it refers to the antagonism between those two races. How keen is
the Southern consciousness of this peculiar condition may be learned from
some of the Southern critics:
Thomas Nelson Page thus states it: "A race with an historic and a glorious
past, in a high state of civilization, stands confronted by a race of
their former slaves, invested with every civil and political right which
they themselves possess, and supported by an outside public sentiment,
which if not inimical to the dominant race is at least unsympathetic. The
two races ... are suspicious of each other; their interests are in some
essential particulars conflicting, and in others may easily be made so;
... the former dominant race is unalterably assertive of the imperative
necessity that it shall govern the inferior race and not be governed by
it." Less drastic is the statement of Judge William H. Thomas: "The white
man and the negro together make up the citizenship of our Southern
country, and any effort to deal with either ignoring the other will
diminish the chances of ultimate success. That religion and sentiment, the
fixed ideals and prejudices, if you please, of the South are _substantial
facts_ that cannot be ignored and must always be reckoned with." Murphy
speaks of the "problem presented by the undeveloped forces of the stronger
race. These must largely constitute the determining factor, even in the
problem presented by the negro; for the negro question is not primarily a
question of the negro among negroes, but a question of the negro
surrounded by another and a stronger people."
To all these attempts to state the case the Northerner is tempted to reply
that the South has no monopoly of race problems; that he too has
prejudices and repulsions and race jealousies resembling those of the
South; and that since he sees them melting away around him, those of his
Southern brethren will also disappear of themselves. That is all true, yet
much less than all the truth. In the South every white man is determined
that there shall be two races forever. Nobody ever stated the Southern
point of view on this subject better than the late Henry Grady: "This
problem is to carry on within her body politic two separate races, equal
in civil and political rights, and nearly equal in numbers. She must carry
these races in peace; for discord means ruin. She must carry them
separately; for assimilation means debasement. She must carry them in
equal justice; for to this she is pledged in honor and in gratitude. She
must carry them even unto the end; for in human probability she will never
be quit of either."
"The South" in Grady's mouth really means the white South, for it is not
in the purpose of any Southern man or woman of influence to permit the
Negro to take part in deciding race issues. Furthermore, to the settlement
of these difficult problems the South along with a genuine humanity, a
desire to act in all things within justice and Christianity, brings habits
of mind which have been discussed in an earlier chapter, and which make
especially difficult moderate public statements on the race question. As
in slavery times the simple assertion that there is a race question seems
to some people an offensive attempt to bring ruin on the South: there is
still something of the feeling candidly set forth by the old war-time
Southern school geography: "The Yankees are an intelligent people upon all
subjects except slavery. On that question they are mad."
Especially delicate and hazardous is any investigation of the most
intimate race relation which in the nature of things is better understood
in the South than in the North. The sexual relation between Whites and
Negroes is in such contradiction to much of the indictment against the
negro race, and is so abhorrent even to that section of the white race
that practices it, that there is no easy or pleasant way of alluding to
it. Actual race mixture is proven by the presence in the South of two
million mulattoes; it is no new thing, for it has been going on steadily
ever since the African appeared in the United States, though there are
people who insist that there was little or no amalgamation until Northern
soldiers came down during the war and remained in garrison during
Reconstruction. Every intelligent traveler in the ante-bellum period,
every candid observer, is a witness to the contrary. Since the earliest
settlements there have continuously been, and still exist, two different
forms of illicit relations between the races--concubinage and general
irregularity. Whence came the hundreds of thousands of mulattoes in
slavery days? Of course the child of a mulatto will be normally light, and
of the two million mulattoes now in the country, very likely three fourths
are the children of mulattoes. But what are the other five hundred
thousand? To that fateful question a reply can be made only on the
testimony of Southern Whites now living down there, and not likely to
paint the picture blacker than it is. Here are some striking instances of
negro concubinage; and the judgment of competent men is that hundreds of
like incidents could be collected:
CASE I.--A white business man in a small city of State A has lived twenty
years with a mulatto woman. They have eight children, two of whom are
successful business men, one of them a banker. The white man says that the
woman has always been faithful to him, and though under the laws of the
state he cannot marry her, he looks upon her as his wife and does what he
can for the children.
CASE II.--A judge of State B has recently sentenced two different white
men for cohabitation, though many Whites remonstrated and told him that
there was no use in singling out for punishment a few cases among so many.
CASE III.--In State C a retiring judge suggests that cohabitation be made
a hanging offense for the White, as the only way of stopping it.
CASE IV.--In State D one of the leading citizens of a town is known by all
his friends to be living with a black mistress.
As to irregular relations, in one state a judge renowned for his
uprightness proposes that a blacklist be kept and published containing the
names of men known by their neighbors to visit negro women. A recent
governor of Georgia says that "Bad white men are destroying the homes of
Negroes and becoming the fathers of a mongrel people whom nobody will
own." A newspaper editor says that he knows Negroes of property and
character who want to move out of the South so as to get their daughters
away from danger. There is no Southern city in which there are not negro
places of the worst resort frequented by white men. Heads of negro schools
report that the girls are constantly subject to solicitation by the clerks
of stores where they go to buy goods. The presumption in the mind of an
average respectable Southern man when he sees a light-colored child is
that some white man in the neighborhood is responsible.
Whether the evil is decreasing is a question on which Southerners are
divided. The number of white prostitutes has much increased since slavery
days, when there were very few of them; and the general improvement of
the community, the spread of religious and secular instruction, ought to
have an effect. But the real difficulty is that, although it is thought
disgraceful for a white man to live with a colored mistress, it does not
seem to destroy his practice of a profession, or his career as a business
man. There seems to be lack of efficient public sentiment.
If these statements of fact are true, and every one of them goes back to a
responsible Southern source, there is something in the white race which in
kind, if not in degree, corresponds to the negro immorality which is the
most serious defect of his character. It is not an answer to say that the
cities and even some of the open country in the North are honeycombed with
sexual corruption. That is true, and some Southerner might do a service by
revealing the real condition of a part of Northern society. Perhaps to
live with a colored mistress to the end of one's life is, from a moral
standpoint, less profligate than for a Pittsburg business man of wealth
and responsibility to drive his good and faithful wife out of the house
because she is almost as old as he is, and marry a pretty young actress.
The mere ceremony of marriage no more obliterates the offense than would
in the minds of the Southerner the marriage of the white man with his
concubine; and everybody who associates with such a man thereby condones
the offense.
The point is, however, not only that miscegenation in the South is evil,
but that it is the most glaring contradiction of the supposed infallible
principles of race separation and social inequality. There are two million
deplorable reasons in the South for believing that there is no divinely
implanted race instinct against miscegenation; that while a Southern
author is writing that "the idea of the race is far more sacred than that
of the family. It is, in fact, _the most sacred thing_ on earth," his
neighbors, and possibly his acquaintances, by their acts are disproving
the argument. The North is often accused of putting into the heads of
Southern Negroes misleading and dangerous notions of social equality, but
what influence can be so potent in that direction as the well-founded
conviction of negro women that they are desired to be the nearest of
companions to white men?
There is, of course, a universal prohibition in the South against marriage
of the two races, and these statutes express the wish of the community;
they put such practices to the ban; they make possible the rare cases of
prosecution, which commonly break down for lack of testimony. Nevertheless
the law does not persuade the negro women that there can be any great
moral wrong in what so many of the white race practice. The active members
of the negro race are in general too busy about other things to discuss
the question of amalgamation which there is no prospect of legalizing; but
it lies deep in the heart of the race that the prohibition of marriage is
for the restraint of the Whites rather than of the Negroes; that it does
not make colored families any safer; and that if there were no legal
prohibition many of these irregular unions would become marriages.
One of the curious by-currents of this discussion is the preposterous
conviction of many Southern writers that, inasmuch as these relations are
between white men and negro women, there is no "pollution of the
Anglo-Saxon blood;" thus Thomas Dixon, Jr., insists that the present
racial mixture "has no social significance ... the racial integrity
remains intact. The right to choose one's mate is the foundation of racial
life and civilization. The South must guard with flaming sword every
avenue of approach to this holy of holies."
On the other hand, and just as powerful, is the absolute determination of
the Whites never to admit the mulattoes within their own circle. The usual
legal phrase "person of color" includes commonly everybody who has as much
as an eighth of negro blood, and in two states anyone who has a visible
trace. But social usage goes far beyond this limit, and no person supposed
to have the slightest admixture of negro blood would be admitted to any
social function in any Southern city. In 1905 there was a dramatic trial
in North Carolina brought about by the exclusion from a public school of
six girls, descendants from one Jeffrey Graham, who lived a hundred years
ago and was suspected of having negro blood. The Graham family alleged
that they had a Portuguese ancestor, and brought into court a dark-skinned
Portuguese to show how the mistake might have arisen; and eventually the
court declared them members of the superior race.
The reason for the intense Southern feeling on race equality is to a large
extent the belief that friendly intercourse with the Negro on anything but
well-understood terms of the superior talking to the inferior is likely to
lead to an amalgamation, which may involve a large part of the white race.
The evils of the present system are manifest. The most reckless and
low-minded Whites are preying on what ought to be one of the best parts of
the negro race. Thousands of children come into the world with an
ineffaceable mark of bastardy; the greater part of such children are
absolutely neglected by their fathers; the decent negro men feel furious
at the danger to their families or the frailness of their sisters. Both
races have their own moral blemishes, and it is a double and treble
misfortune that there should be inter-racial mixtures on such degrading
terms.
As for a remedy, nobody seems able to suggest anything that has so far
worked. A recent writer soberly suggests that a way out is to make a
pariah of the mulatto, including that part of the mulattoes who are born
of mulatto or negro parents; they are to be shut from the schools,
excluded from all missionary efforts, made a race apart; and that action
he thinks would be a moral lesson to the full-blooded Africans! Another
method is that of the anti-miscegenation league of Vicksburg, Miss., which
aims to make public the names of offenders and to prosecute them. A better
remedy would be the systematic application of the existing laws of the
state, with at least as much zeal as is given to the enforcement of the
Jim Crow laws. In the last resort there is no remedy except such an
awakening of public sentiment as will drive out of the ranks of
respectable men and women those who practice these vices. Such a sentiment
exists in the churches, the philanthropic societies, and an army of
straightforward sensible men and women. The evil is probably somewhat
abating; but till it is far reduced how can anybody in the South argue
that education and material improvement of the Negro are what most
powerfully tends to social equality? Just so far as the negro man and the
negro woman are, by a better station in life, by aroused self-respect and
race pride, led to protect themselves, so far will this evil be
diminished.
The subject cannot be left without taking ground upon the underlying
issue. All the faults of the Southern men who are practical amalgamators
add weight to the bottom contention of the South that a mixture of the
races, now or in the future, would be calamitous. That belief rests upon
the conviction that the negro race, on the average, is below the white
race; that it can never be expected to contribute anything like its
proportion of the strength of the community; and hence to fuse the races
means slight or no elevation for the Negro, and a great decline for the
white race. With that belief the writer coincides. The union of the two
races means a decline in the rate of civilization; and the fact that so
much of it is going on is not a reason for legalizing it, but for sternly
suppressing it. If amalgamation is dangerous and would pull down the
standard of that higher part of the community which must always be
dominant, then such steps must be taken in all justice, in all humanity,
with all effort to raise both races, as are necessary to prevent
amalgamation.
While thus in one way fully recognized as a human being and of like blood
with the Whites, upon the other side the Negro is set aside by a race
prejudice which in many respects is fiercer and more unyielding than in
the days of slavery. One of the few compensations for slavery was the not
infrequent personal friendship between the master and the slave; they were
sometimes nursed at the same tawny breast; and played together as
children; Jonas Field, of Lady's Island, to this day remembers with pride
how after the war, when he became free, his old master, whose body servant
he had been, took him to his house, presented him to his daughters, and
bade them always remember that Jonas Field had been one of the family, and
was to be treated with the respect of a father. The influence of the white
mistress on those few slaves who were near to her is one of the brightest
things in slavery. She visited the negro cabins, counseled the mothers,
cared for the sick, and by life and conversation tried to build up their
character. It is almost the universal testimony that such relations are
disappearing; rare is the white foot that steps within the Negro's cabin.
John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi, says: "More and more every year the
negro's life--moral, intellectual, and industrial--is isolated from the
white man's life, and therefore from his influence. There was a kindlier
and more confidential relationship ... when I was a boy than between my
children and the present generation of negroes."
It is a singular fact that the feeling of race antagonism has sprung up
comparatively recently; to this day there are remnants of the old clan
idea of the great plantations. Thousands of Negroes choose some White as a
friend and sponsor, and in case of difficulty ask him for advice, for a
voucher of character, or for money, and are seldom disappointed. The lower
stratum of the Whites, which is thrown into close juxtaposition with
Negroes, finds no difficulty in a kind of rude companionship, provided it
is not too much noticed. The sentimental and sometimes artificial love for
the old colored "mammy" is a disappearing bond between the races, for
though the white children are cared for almost everywhere by negro girls,
there seems little affection between the nurse and her charge.
Some Southern authorities assert that race hatred was fomented toward the
end of Reconstruction. Says "Nicholas Worth": "Men whose faithful servants
were negroes, negroes who had shined their shoes in the morning and cooked
their breakfasts and dressed their children and groomed their horses and
driven them to their offices, negroes who were the faithful servants and
constant attendants on their families,--such men spent the day declaring
the imminent danger of negro 'equality' and 'domination.'" The same genial
writer goes on to describe the gloom at the supposed flood of African
despotism; they said: "Our liberties were in peril; our very blood would
be polluted; dark night would close over us,--us, degenerate sons of
glorious sires,--if we did not rise in righteous might and stem the
barbaric flood." Though in all the states the Negroes were swept out of
political power by 1876, to this day they are popularly supposed to be
planning some kind of domination over the Whites. This made-up race issue
is not yet extinct. Nobody knows the inner spirit of a certain section of
the South better than Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, who has recently said:
"The politicians keep the negro question alive in the South to perpetuate
their hold on public office. The negro question is the joy of their lives.
It is their very existence. They fatten on it. With one shout of 'nigger!'
they can run the native Democrats into their holes at any hour of the
day."
How does this feeling strike the Negro? Let an intelligent man, Johnson,
in his "Light Ahead for the Negro," speak for himself. He complains that
the newspapers use inflammatory headlines and urge lynchings--"a wholesale
assassination of Negro character"; that it is made a social crime to
employ Negroes as clerks in a white store; that the cultured Southern
people spread abroad the imputation that the Negro as a race is worthless;
that the news agents are prejudiced against the Negro and give misleading
accounts of difficulties with the Whites; that people thought to be
friendly are hounded out of their positions; that there is a desire to
expatriate the negroes from the country of their fathers. Kelly Miller, a
professor in Howard University, Washington, objects to using physical
dissimilarity as a mark of inferiority, and thinks "that the feeling
against the negro is of the nature of inspirited animosity rather than
natural antipathy"; and that "the dominant South is determined to foster
artificial hatred between the races."
Race prejudice has always existed since the races have lived together;
but, whether because taught to the boys of the Reconstruction epoch, or
whether because the Negroes have made slower progress than was hoped, it
is sharper now than in the whole history of the question. Is it founded on
an innate race repulsion? Does the white man necessarily fear and dislike
the Negro? The white child does not, nor the lowest stratum of Whites, who
are nearest the Negro intellectually and morally. John Sharp Williams
says: "If I were to call our race feeling anything etymologically, I would
call it a 'post-judice' and not a 'pre-judice.' I notice that nobody has
our race feeling or any race feeling indeed until after knowledge. It is a
conviction born of experience."
Right here the champions of the Negro discern a joint in the armor; thus,
DuBois: "Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the
natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance,
purity against crime, the 'higher' against the 'lower' races. To which the
Negro cries Amen! and swears that to so much of this strange prejudice as
is founded on just homage to civilization, culture, righteousness, and
progress, he humbly bows down and meekly does obeisance." Is not this the
crux of the whole matter? Is it prejudice against a low race, or a black
race? To say that the white Southerner looks down upon and despises every
black Southerner would not be fair, for there is still much personal
liking between members of the two races, and the South is right in
claiming that it has a warmer feeling for individual Negroes than Northern
people. Said a Southern judge once: "If my old black mammy comes into the
house, she hugs and kisses my little girl. But if she should sit down in
the parlor, I should have to knock her down." That is, he liked the mammy,
but the nigger must be taught to keep her place.
The phrase commonly used to describe this feeling is, "The danger of
social equality." Here is one of the mysteries of the subject which the
Northern mind cannot penetrate. Southern society, so proud, so exclusive,
so efficient in protecting itself from the undesired, is in terror lest it
should be found admitting the fearful curse of social equality; and there
are plenty of Southern writers who insist that the Negro shall be deprived
of the use of public conveniences, of education, of a livelihood, lest he,
the weak, the despised, force social equality upon the white race. What is
social equality if not a mutual feeling in a community that each member is
welcome to the social intercourse of the other? How is the Negro to attain
social equality so long as the white man refuses to invite him or to be
invited with him? It sounds like a joke!
The point of view of the South was revealed in 1903 when President
Roosevelt invited Booker Washington to his table. The South rang from end
to end with invective and alarm; the governor of a Southern state publicly
insulted the President and his family; a boy in Washington wrote a
scurrilous denunciation on the school blackboard; the _Charleston News and
Courier_ rolled the incident under its tongue like a sweet morsel; a
Georgia judge said: "The invitation is a blow aimed not only at the
South, but at the whole white race, and should be resented, and the
President should be regarded and treated on the same plane with negroes,"
and from that day to this the invitation has been received as an affront
and an injury to the Whites in the South. We are told of the terrible
consequences; how a black boy refused any longer to call the
sixteen-year-old son of his employer "Mister"; how the Negro from that
time on has felt himself a person of consequence. It does not appear that
the President's example was followed by any Southern governor; or that any
Negro invited himself to dinner with a white person. To the Northern mind
the incident was simply a recognition, by the acknowledged leader of all
Americans, of the acknowledged leader of black Americans. The Southern
mind somehow cannot distinguish between sitting at the same table with a
man and making him your children's guardian. The whole argument comes down
to the level of the phrase used so constantly when the question of setting
the slaves free was before the country: "Do you want your daughter to
marry a nigger?"
What the phrase "social equality" really means is that if anything is done
to raise the negro race it will demand to be raised all the way. But
demand is a long way short of reality. Northerners have their social
prejudices and preferences; yet they are not afraid that an Arab or a
Syrian immigrant is going to burst their doors and compel them at the
muzzle of the rifle to like him, invite him, make him their intimate;
nobody can establish social equality by law or public sentiment. Everybody
should sympathize with the desire of the South to keep unimpaired the
standards of civilization; but the friendliest Northerner cannot
understand why a Southern business man feels such a danger that he writes
of social equality: "Right or wrong, the Southern people will never
tolerate it, and will go through the horrors of another reconstruction
before they will permit it to be. Before they will submit to it, they will
kill every negro in the Southern states."
This ceaseless dwelling on a danger which no thoughtful man thinks
impending leads to attacks of popular hysteria in the South. A few months
ago in the town of Madison, Ga., it was reported: "Last night great
excitement prevailed in Madison caused by the appearance on the
electric-light poles in the city of a yellow flag about two feet long,
with the word 'Surrender' printed in large letters in the center of it.
Women became hysterical and thought it was the sign of a negro uprising.
Extra police was installed and it was thought of calling out the military
company. At the height of the excitement, it was learned that the signs
had been posted as an advertisement by a firm here. Cases have been made
against the members of the firm."
The real point with regard to social equality is not that the Negro is
inferior, but that his inferiority must be made evident at every turn. You
may ride beside a negro driver on the front seat of a carriage, because
any passerby sees that he is doing your bidding; but you must not sit on
the back seat with a Negro who might be a fellow-passenger; you may stop
at a Negro's house, if there is absolutely no other place to stay, sit at
his table, eat of his food, but he must stand while you sit; else, as one
of the richest Negroes in the South said, "the neighbors would burn our
house over our heads." The whole South is full of evidence, not so much
that the Whites think the Negroes inferior, as that they think it
necessary to fix upon him some public evidence of inferiority, lest
mistakes be made. It was against such confusion of the character and the
color that Governor Andrew protested when he said: "I have never despised
a man because he was poor, or because he was ignorant, or because he was
black."
CHAPTER XIII
RACE SEPARATION
Strong and passionate dislike and apprehension such as is set forth in the
last chapter is certain to show itself in custom and law set up by that
portion of the community which has the power of legislation. The commonest
measures of this kind are discriminations between Whites and Negroes,
especially in the use of public conveniences. In some cases the white
people shut out Negroes altogether. There are perhaps half a dozen towns
in the South in which none but Negroes live; there are scores in which the
Negroes are not allowed to settle or stay. Two counties in North Carolina
(Mitchell and Watauga) undertake to exclude Negroes; and people who
attempt to go through there with a black driver are confronted by such
signs as "Nigger, keep out of this county!" If that is not sufficient, a
native comes swinging across the fields and remarks: "I don't want to have
any trouble, and I don't suppose it makes any difference to you, but if
that nigger goes two miles farther, he'll be shot. We don't allow any
niggers in this county." Such exclusions are not unknown in other states.
In the town of Syracuse, Ohio, for generations no Negro has ever been
allowed to stay overnight; and the founder of a little city in Oklahoma
heard his buildings blown up at night because he had ventured to domicile
colored servants there. In the two Northern settlements of Fitzgerald,
Ga., and Cullman, Ala., the attempt was made to keep Negroes out
altogether.
In addition to these artificial separations, there is a redistribution of
the population going on all the while. Few of the owners of good
plantations any longer live on them, and the outlying Whites move into
town, or into counties where Negroes are fewer. The places thus vacated
are taken up through rent or purchase by colored people; so that we have
the striking phenomenon that black counties are getting blacker and white
counties whiter. Thus in Pulaski County, Ga., in thirty years the Negroes
doubled and the Whites increased only about twenty per cent. The same
thing is true inside the cities and towns; most of them have well-marked
negro quarters, near or alongside which none but the lowest Whites like to
live. In Richmond, on one of the main streets, it is tacitly understood
that the Negroes take the north sidewalk and the Whites the south
sidewalk. Probably no place is now quite so strict in the matter as
Morristown, Tenn., was twenty-five years ago, when white women first came
to teach the Negroes; they were literally thrown off the sidewalks into
the gutter because that was the only place where "niggers or
nigger-lovers" were allowed to walk.
The principle of race separation extends from civil into religious
matters. Before the Civil War Negroes were often acceptable and honored
members of white churches, and there are still some cases where old
members continue this relation, but they could now hardly sit in the same
pews. There are also difficulties in attempts to unite separate black and
white churches into one general denomination. The Protestant Episcopal
Church is much perplexed over a proposition for separate negro bishops,
inferior to the regular bishops. However, not a twentieth of the Negroes
to-day are members of churches which are in organic relation to white
churches; they have their own presbyteries, and conferences, and synods;
set their own doctrines and moral standards, and (if the white man is
right in thinking the race inferior) they will necessarily develop an
inferior Christianity.
The discriminations so far mentioned have to do with unwritten practices;
with customs which differ from community to community; there is another
long series upon the statute books. In 1865, in the so-called Vagrant
Laws, special provision was made for the relations of colored people; four
states allowed colored children to be "apprenticed," which practically
meant a mild slavery; in South Carolina "servants," as the Negroes were
called in the statute, were forbidden to leave their master's place
without consent; Mississippi forbade people to rent land to Negroes
outside the towns; South Carolina established a special court for the
trial of negro offenses; several states forbade blacks to practice any
trade or business without a license. These laws, which competent
Southerners now think to have been a serious mistake, seemed to Congress
evidence of a purpose to restore a milder form of slavery, and they were
swept away by the Reconstruction governments. Nevertheless, in all the
Southern states, constitutions or statutes forbid the intermarriage of
Whites and Negroes; and either during Reconstruction or since, all the
Southern states have provided for separate public schools for Negroes; and
several states prohibit the education of Whites and blacks in the same
private school.
The most striking discrimination is the separate accommodations on
railroads and steamboats, which has entirely grown up since the Civil War.
In slavery times few Negroes traveled except as the obvious servants of
white people; but in 1865 legislation began for separate cars or
compartments, and of the former slaveholding states, only two, Missouri
and Delaware, are now without laws on that subject. The term "Jim Crow"
commonly applied to these laws goes back to an old negro song and dance,
and was first used in Massachusetts, where, in 1841, the races were thus
separated. The Civil Rights Act of Congress of 1875 forbade such
distinctions, but was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.
Several state and federal cases have given opportunity for the courts to
decide that if there is a division between the two races, the
accommodations must be equal. Hence, most Southern trains have a separate
Jim Crow car, with a smoking compartment. The Pullman Car Company, perhaps
because its business is chiefly interstate, has hesitated to make
distinctions, and commonly will sell a berth to anybody who will show a
railroad ticket good on the appropriate train; but in some states there
are now demands for separate colored Pullmans, or for colored
compartments, or for excluding Negroes altogether. But nobody who knows
the Pullman Car Company will for a moment expect that it will do anything
because patrons desire it. The discrimination in many states extends to
the stations. For instance, in the beautiful new Spanish Mission building
at Mobile, there are separate waiting rooms, separate ticket windows, and
two exits--one for Whites and one for colored people. In Greensboro, N.
C., the waiting room, a large and lofty hall, is simply bisected by a
brass railing.
Similar laws apply to steamboats, though here it is not so easy to shut
off part of the passengers from the general facilities of the boat. Even
in the Boston steamers running to Southern ports there are separate
dining rooms, toilet rooms and smoking rooms for colored passengers.
Eight Southern states separate street-car passengers; sometimes they have
a separate compartment for Negroes--more often, a little movable sign is
shifted up and down the car to divide the races. Elsewhere, Whites sit at
one end and Negroes at the other, and fill up till they meet. In most of
these laws there is an exception, allowing colored nurses with white
children and colored attendants of feeble or sick people to enter the
white car; and it has been thought necessary to provide that railroad
employees, white or black, may circulate through the train.
In restaurants and hotels the distinction is still sharper, for except
those which are kept only for the accommodations of Negroes, there is no
provision for tables for colored people in any form outside of the
railroad eating houses. It is hence practically impossible for any colored
person to get accommodation in a Southern hotel.
These discriminations on travel have never been desired by the railroad
companies, inasmuch as they involve trouble and expense, and are a check
on the Negro's love for riding on trains and boats, which is an important
factor in the passenger receipts. It is everywhere disliked by the
Negroes, both because they do not, in fact, have accommodations as good as
those of the Whites, and because it is intended to be a mark of their
inferiority. The low-class white man who, in 1902, acted as ticket agent,
baggage man and division superintendent and conductor on the three-mile
branch road connecting Tuskegee with the main line remarked affably: "Been
to see the nigger school, I suppose? That's all right, Booker Washington's
all right. Oh, yes, he's a good man, he often rides on this train. Not in
this part of the car, you know, but over there in the Jim Crow. Oh, yes, I
often set down and talk to Booker Washington. Not on the same seat of
course. Jest near by."
Besides these shackles of custom or of law, the Negro is in general
excluded in the South from every position which might be construed to give
him authority over white people. The civil service of the federal
government is on a different footing; ever since war times there have
always been some negro federal officials, collectors of internal revenue,
collectors of ports, postmasters, and the like; but there is a determined
effort in the South to get rid of them. At Lake City, S. C., in 1898, part
of the family of Baker, the negro postmaster, was massacred as a hint that
his presence was not desired. The people of Indianola, Miss., in 1903,
practically served notice on a colored postmistress that she could not be
allowed to officiate any longer; whereupon President Roosevelt directed
the closing of the Indianola office. When in 1902 Dr. Crum was appointed
collector of Charleston, there was an uproar in South Carolina and
throughout the South. That episode involved some painful and some comical
things; for instance, a white lady who bears one of the most honored names
in American history, and who sorely needed the employment, was practically
compelled by public sentiment to resign a clerkship in the customhouse
when Dr. Crum came in; and the people who protested against his
appointment, on the ground that he was unfit, had previously helped to
select him as a commissioner in the Charleston Exposition.
In all these controversies the issue was double; first, that the white
people thought it an indignity to transact any public business with a
Negro representing the United States; and second, that it would somehow
bring about race equality to admit that a Negro was competent to hold any
important office. The President was furiously censured because he did not
take into account the preferences of the Southern people, by which, of
course, was meant the Southern white people; that in South Carolina there
are more African citizens than Caucasian seemed to them quite beside the
question.
For minor offices the lines are not so strictly drawn; there are a few
colored policemen in Charleston, and perhaps other Southern cities; Negro
towns like Mound Bayou, Miss., have their own set of officials; and there
are some small county offices which a few Negroes are allowed to hold.
Nearly two thousand are employed in some capacity in the federal
departments at Washington; about two thousand more under the District
government; and a thousand more elsewhere, mostly in the South. These are
chiefly in the postal service; there are some negro letter carriers in all
the Southern cities, and in Mobile there are no others. They get these
appointments, and likewise places as railway mail clerks on competitive
examination--an especially hard twist to the doctrine of race equality;
for what is the world coming to if a nigger gets more marks on an
examination than a white man? For the feeling that the Negro in authority
is overbearing and presumptuous there is some ground, but the attitude of
the South is substantially expressed in the common phrase, "This is a
white man's government," and is closely allied with the bogy of African
domination, which is trotted out from time to time to arouse the jaded
energies of race prejudice.
One of the most unaccountable things in this whole controversy is the
evident apprehension of a large section in the South that unless something
immediate and positive is done, the Negro will get control of some of the
Southern states, notwithstanding such protests as the following: "And
even where they represent a majority,--where do they rule? or where have
they ruled for these twenty years? The South, with all its millions of
negroes, has to-day not a single negro congressman, not a negro governor
or senator. A few obscure justices of the peace, a few negro mayors in
small villages of negro people, and--if we omit the few federal
appointees--we have written the total of all the negro officials in our
Southern States. Every possibility of negro domination vanishes to a more
shadowy and more distant point with every year." As will be shown a little
later, the Negro's vote is no longer a factor in most of the Southern
states, and he shows no disposition to take over the responsibility for
Southern government. The cry of negro domination has been more unfortunate
for the Whites than for the blacks because it has thrown the Southern
states out of their adjustment in national parties; in the state election
of 1908 for Governor of Georgia, the issue was between Clark Howells, who
was much against the Negro, and the successful candidate, Hoke Smith, who
is mighty against the Negro; but neither Howells nor Smith brought out of
the controversy any reputation that dazzled the Democratic Convention of
1908.
No party founded on negro votes or organized to protect negro rights any
longer exists in the South. In Alabama there are still "black-and-tan
Republicans"--that is, an organization of Negroes and Whites, and one of
the most rabid Negro haters in the South is a dignitary in that
organization and helped to choose delegates for the Republican national
convention of 1908. Throughout the South there are also what are called
the "Lilywhite Republicans"--that is, people who are trying to build up
their party by disclaiming any partnership with the Negro or special
interest in his welfare. Neither of these factions makes head against the
overpowering "White Man's party," which is also the Democratic party;
hence every state in the Lower South can be depended upon to vote for any
candidate propounded by the national Democratic convention; hence the
section has little influence in the selection of a candidate, who yet
would not have a ghost of a chance without their votes. The net result of
the scare cry of negro domination is that the Whites are in some states
dominated by the loudest and most violent section of their own race.
Behind this whole question of politics and of office holding stands the
more serious question whether a race which, whatever its average
character, contains at least two million intelligent and progressive
individuals, shall be wholly shut out from public employment. It is on
this question that President Roosevelt made his famous declaration: "I
cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope--the door of
opportunity--is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon
the grounds of race or color.... It is a good thing from every standpoint
to let the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree the
qualities of good citizenship--the qualities which in a white man we feel
are entitled to reward--then he will not be cut off from all hope of
similar reward."
The discrimination between the Negro and the White has nowhere been so
bitterly contested as with regard to suffrage, inasmuch as the right of
the Negro to vote on equal terms with the white man is distinctly set
forth in the Fifteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, and as
during Reconstruction the Negro had full suffrage in all the Southern
states. Without going into the history of the negro vote, it may be worth
while to notice that at the time of the Revolution, Negroes who had the
property qualification could vote in all the thirteen colonies except two;
that they never lost that franchise in Massachusetts and some other
Northern communities, and that as late as 1835 about a thousand of them
had the ballot in North Carolina. Then in Reconstruction times the
suffrage was given to all the Negroes in the country; a process of which
one of the most bitter enemies of the race to-day says: "To give the negro
the right of suffrage and place him on terms of absolute equality with the
white man, was the capital crime of the ages against the white man's
civilization." In reality the North bestowed the suffrage on the Negro
because its own experience seemed to have proved that the ballot was an
instrument of civilization--for all the foreign immigrants had grown up to
it.
Southerners are never weary of describing the enormities of the
governments based on negro suffrage; as a matter of fact, however, nobody
North or South knows what would have been the result of negro suffrage,
for in no state longer than eight years, and in some states only about
three years, did they actually cast votes that determined the choice of
state officers, or any considerable number of local officers. Their habit
of voting for "the regular candidate," without regard to his fitness or
character, was not peculiar to the race or to the section.
Disfranchisement began with the Ku Klux in 1870, and in most states the
larger part of the Negroes at once lost their ballots because driven away
from the polls by violence or terror. The only community in which they
were disfranchised by statute, together with the Whites, was the District
of Columbia. Then came the era of fraud, the use of tissue ballots and
falsified electoral returns, and confusing systems of ballot boxes; then,
in 1890, began a process of disfranchising them by state constitutional
amendments which provided qualifications especially difficult for Negroes
to meet: for instance, special indulgence was given to men who served in
the Confederate army, or whose fathers or grandfathers were entitled to
vote before the war. This movement has already involved six states, and is
likely to run through every former slaveholding state.
Even the comparatively small number of Negroes who can meet the
requirements of tax, education, or property find trouble in registering,
or in voting. In Mississippi, where there were nearly 200,000 colored
voters, there are now 16,000; in Alabama about 5,000 are registered out of
100,000 men of voting age. Sometimes they are simply refused registration,
like the highly educated Negro in Alabama, who was received by the
official with the remark: "Nigger, get out of here; this ain't our day for
registering niggers!" In Beaufort County, S. C., where, under the
difficult provisions of the law, there are about seven hundred negro
voters and about five hundred Whites, somehow the white election officials
always return a majority for their friends; and in the presidential
election of 1908 the hundred thousand negro men of voting age in South
Carolina were credited with only twenty-five hundred votes for Theodore
Roosevelt.
It has puzzled the leaders of the conventions to disfranchise the greater
part of the Negroes without including "some of our own people," and yet
without technically infringing upon the Fifteenth Amendment, which
prohibits the withdrawal of the suffrage on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude; but they have been successful. As a
Senator from North Carolina put it: "The disfranchising amendment would
disfranchise ignorant negroes and not disfranchise any white man. No white
man in North Carolina has been disfranchised as a result of this
amendment."
It is impossible not to feel a sympathy with the desire of the South to be
free from an ignorant and illiterate electorate; there is not a Northern
state in which, if the conditions were the same, the effort would not be
made to restrict the suffrage; but that is a long way from the Southern
principle of ousting the bad, low, and illiterate Negro, while leaving the
illiterate, low, and bad White; and then, in the last resort, shutting out
also the good, educated, and capable Negro. For there is not a state in
the Lower South where the colored vote would be faithfully counted if it
had a balance of power between two white parties; and Senator Tillman's
great fear at present is that the blacks will make the effort to come up
to these complicated requirements, and then must be disenfranchised again.
Have the Southern people confidence in their own race superiority, when
for their protection from negro domination and from the great evil of
amalgamation they feel it necessary to take such precautions against the
least dangerous, most enterprising, and best members of the negro race?
Nevertheless, the practical disenfranchisement of the Negroes has brought
about a political peace, and there is little to show that the Negroes
resent their exclusion.
Whatever the divergences of feeling in the South on the negro question, it
is safe to say that the Whites are a unit on the two premises that
amalgamation must be resisted, and that the Negro must not have political
power. All these feelings are buttressed against a passionate objection
to race-mixture, which is all the stronger because so much of it is going
on; it branches out into the withdrawal of the suffrage, not because the
South is in any danger of negro political domination, but because most
Whites think no member of an inferior race ought to vote; it includes many
restrictions on personal relations which seem like precautions where there
is no danger.
Upon these main issues Northerners may share some of the sentiments of the
South, but none of the terrors. If the Negro is inferior, it does not need
so many acts of the legislature to prove it; if amalgamation is going on,
it is due to the white race, can be checked by the white race, and by no
one else; if the Negro is unintelligent, he will never, under present
conditions, get enough votes to affect elections; if he does acquire the
necessary property and education, he thereby shows that he does not share
in the inferiority of his race. The South thinks about the Negro too much,
talks about him too much, abuses him too much. In the nature of things
there is no reason why the superior and the inferior race may not live
side by side indefinitely. Is the Negro powerful enough to force his
standards and share his disabilities with the superior white man? Is it
not as the Chinese sage says: "The superior man is correctly firm, and not
firm merely ... what the superior man seeks is in himself."
So far as can be judged, the average frame of mind in the South includes
much injustice, and unwillingness to permit the negro race to develop up
to the measure of its limitations. Here the experience of the North
counts, for it has many elements of population which at present are
inferior to the average. If there is a low Italian quarter in a city, or a
Slav quarter, or a Negro quarter, the aim of the Northern community is to
give those people the best chance that they can appropriate. Woe to the
city which permits permanent centers of crime and degradation! By schools,
by reformatory legislation, by philanthropic societies, by juvenile
courts, by missions, by that great blessing, the care of neglected
children, they try to bring up the standard. This is done for the welfare
of the community, it is what business men call a dollars and cents
proposition. If a man or child has three fourths of the average abilities,
the North tries to bring him to the full use of his seventy-five per cent;
if he stands at 150 on the scale of 100, it aims to give him the
opportunity to use his superior qualities.
This is just the point of view of the Southern leaders who are fighting
for justice and common sense toward the Negro: men like the late
Chancellor Hill, of the University of Georgia, like President Alderman, of
the University of Virginia, like Rev. Edgar Gardner Murphy, of Montgomery;
their gospel is that, notwithstanding his limitations, the Negro is on the
average capable of higher things than he is doing, and that the gifted
members of the race can render still larger services to their own color
and to the community. That is what Dr. S. C. Mitchell, of Richmond
College, meant when he said: "Friend, go up higher!" a phrase which part
of the Southern press has unwarrantably seized upon as a declaration of
social equality.
Every friend of the South must hope that that enlightened view will
permeate the community; but, as a matter of fact, a very considerable
number of people of power in the South, legislators, professional men,
journalists, ministers, governors, either take the ground that the Negro
is so hopelessly low that it is a waste of effort to try to raise him; or
that education and uplift will make him less useful to the White, and
therefore he shall not have it; or that you cannot give to the black man a
better chance without bringing danger upon the white man. Contrary to the
experience of mankind, to present upward movement in what has been a very
low white element in the South, and to the considerable progress made by
the average Negro since slavery days, such people hold that intelligence
and education do nothing for the actual improvement of the colored race.
Since the Negro is low, they would keep him low; since they think him
dangerous, they wish to leave him dangerous; their policy is to make the
worst of a bad situation instead of trying to improve it.
No Northern mind can appreciate the point of view of some men who
certainly have a considerable following in the South. Here, for instance,
is Thomas Dixon, Jr., arguing with all his might that the Negro is barely
human, but that if he is not checked he will become such an economic
competitor of the white man that he will have to be massacred. He protests
against Booker T. Washington's attempt to raise the Negro, because he
thinks it will be successful. Part, at least, of the customary and
statutory discriminations against the Negro which have already been
described are simply an expression of this supposed necessity of keeping
the Negro down, lest he should rise too far. All such terrors involve the
humiliating admission that the Negro can rise, and that he will rise if he
has the opportunity.
CHAPTER XIV
CRIME AND ITS PENALTIES
Sitting one night in the writing room of a country hotel in South
Carolina, a young man opposite, with a face as smooth as a baby's and as
pretty as a girl's, volunteered to tell where he had just been, a
discreditable tale. It soon developed that his business was the sale of
goods on instalments, chiefly to Negroes, and that in that little town of
Florence he had no less than five hundred and ninety transactions then
going on; that his profits were about fifty per cent on his sales; that
nineteen twentieths of the transactions would be paid up; but that
sometimes he had a little trouble in making collections.
"For instance, only yesterday," said he, "I went to a nigger woman's house
where they had bought two skirt patterns. When I knocked at the door, a
little girl came, and she says: 'Mammy ain't to home,' says she, but I
walked right in, and there was a bigger girl, who says, 'Mamma has gone
down street,' but I says, 'I know better than that, you ---- nigger!' And
I pushed right into the kitchen, and there she was behind the door, and I
walked right up to her, and I says, 'Do you think I'll allow you to teach
that innocent child to lie, you ---- nigger? I'll show you,' says I; and I
hit her a couple of good ones right in the face. She come back at me with
a kind of an undercut right under the jaw. I knew it wouldn't do any good
to hit her on the head, but I landed a solid one in the middle of her
nose; and I made those women go and get those skirts and give them up
before I left the place."
Once entered on these agreeable reminiscences, he went on in language the
tenor of which is fortified by a memorandum made at the time. "But that
isn't a circumstance to what happened three weeks ago last Tuesday.
There's a nigger in this town that bought a cravenette coat from us for
thirteen dollars and a half. It costs us about nine dollars, but he only
paid instalments of four and a half, and then, for about six months, he
dodged me; but my brother and I saw him on the street, and I jumped out of
the buggy before he could run away, and says I, 'I want you to pay for
that coat.' He had it on. He says, 'I hain't got any money.' Says it
sarcastic-like. Well, of course I wouldn't take any lip from a nigger like
that, and I sailed right in. I hit him between the eyes, and he up with a
shovel and lambasted me with the flat of it right between the
shoulder-blades, but I could have got away with him all right if his wife
hadn't have come up with a piece of board and caught me on the side; my
brother jumped right out of the buggy, and he hit her square and knocked
her down, and we had a regular mix-up. We got the coat, and when we came
away, we left the man lying senseless on the ground." "But don't those
people ever get out warrants against you?" "Warrants against me, I guess
not! I lay in bed five days, and when I got up, my brother and I swore out
warrants against the nigger and his wife. We brought them up in court and
the judge fined them forty-seven dollars, and he says to me, 'All the
fault I find with you is that you didn't kill the double adjective
nigger. He's the worst nigger in town!'"
With all allowances for the lies visibly admixed in this unpleasant tale,
it undoubtedly lifts the cover off a kind of thing that goes on every day
between the superior and the inferior races. On the one side stand the
negro customers, shiftless, extravagant, slinking away from their debts,
yet doubtless afterward puffed with pride to be able to boast that they
had a knock-down fight with a white man and were not shot; the other actor
in this drama of race hatred could not even claim to be a Poor White; he
was the son of a traveling man, had some education, was successful above
the average, and until he began to talk about himself might for a few
minutes have passed as a gentleman; yet to save a loss of less than five
dollars, and to assert his superiority of race, he was perfectly willing
to put himself on the level of the lowest Negro, and to engage in
fisticuffs with a woman.
It is not to be supposed that this thoroughgoing blackguard is a spokesman
for the whole South, or that every local court inflicts a heavy penalty
upon black people for the crime of having been thrashed by a white man.
The story simply illustrates a feeling toward the Negroes which is
widespread and potent among a considerable class of Whites; and it bears
witness also to a disposition to settle difficulties between members of
the two races by the logic of hard fists. It is a lurid example of race
antagonism.
No section of the Union has a monopoly of violence or injustice. Men as
coarse and brutal as the man encountered in South Carolina could probably
be found in every Northern city. Homicides are no novelty in any state in
the Union, and it is as serious for a Northern crowd to put a man to death
because somebody calls him "Scab" as for an equally tigerish Southern mob
to burn a Negro because he has killed a white man. The annals of strikes
are almost as full of ferocity as the annals of lynching, and it would be
hard to find anything worse than the murder, in 1907, of some watchmen in
New York City who were thrown down a building by striking workmen, who
were allowed by the police to leave the building, and were never brought
to justice.
Nevertheless, there is in the North a strong impression that crime is on a
different footing in the South; that assaults, affrays, and homicides are
more frequent; that the South has a larger crime record than seems
reconcilable with its numerous churches, its moral standards, and its
fairly good state and city governments. Light may be thrown on the problem
of race relations by inquiring whether the South is as much shocked by
certain kinds of crime and violence as the North, whether a criminal is as
likely to be tried and convicted, whether the superior race, by its
practice in such matters, is setting before the inferior race a high
standard of conduct.
Statistics indicate that in desperate crimes against the person, and
especially in murder, the South far surpasses other civilized countries,
and other parts of the United States. In London, with a population of
6,500,000, there were in a year 24 homicides; 4 of the criminals committed
suicide, and the 20 others were brought to justice. In New York City, with
about two thirds the population of London, there were 331 homicides with
only 61 indictments and 46 convictions. In the state of South Carolina,
with a population about one third that of New York City, there were 222
homicides in a year, and not a single execution of a white man.
Popular phrases and the press in the South habitually put a gloss upon
many of these crimes by calling them "duels"; but a careful study of
newspaper cuttings shows that the old-fashioned affairs of honor with
seconds and exactly similar weapons, measured distance, and the word to
fire, have almost disappeared. Nearly all the affrays in which the
murdered man is conscious of his danger are simply street fights, in which
each man lodges in the body of the other as many shots as he can before he
himself sinks down wounded. It can hardly be considered an affair of honor
when Mr. John D. Twiggs, of Albany, Ga., walks through the streets with a
shotgun loaded with buckshot, looking for Mr. J. B. Palmer, who has gone
home to arm himself.
Even this uneven kind of warfare is less frequent than the outright
assassination of one white man by another. Where was Southern chivalry
when Gonzales, the editor of the _Columbia State_, was in 1902 killed in
the open street before he could draw his pistol, by Lieutenant-Governor
Tillman of South Carolina, about whom the editor had been telling
unpleasant truths? Where do you find the high-toned Southern gentleman
when a man walks up to a total stranger, seizes him, and with the remark,
"You are the man who wanted to fight me last night," plunges his knife
into the victim's back. The newspapers are full of the shooting of men
through windows, of their disappearance on lonely roads, of the terror
that walketh by night, and the pestilence that waiteth at noonday.
Then there are the numerous murders of friend by friend, on all kinds of
frivolous occasions; a man trespasses on another man's land, goes to
apologize, and is shot; another makes a joke which his friend does not
appreciate, and there is nothing for it but pistols. The feeling that a
man must assert his dignity at the end of a revolver was revealed in New
Orleans in 1908 when Inspector Whittaker, head of the police, with five of
his men, walked into the office of the _New Orleans World_, which had
criticised his enforcement of the liquor laws, struck the editor in the
face and several times shot at him. After he had taken such pains to
vindicate the majesty of the law, it seems a hardship that his superiors
compelled the Inspector to resign. There is hardly a part of the civilized
world where homicide is so common as in the South, and the crime is quite
as frequent in the cities as in the back country. Pitched battles by white
men with policemen and with sheriffs are not uncommon; and sometimes three
or four bodies are picked up after such a fight.
In many ways this unhappy state of things is a survival of frontier
practices which once were common in the Northwest as well as in the South,
but which have nearly disappeared there as civilization has advanced; but
in the South there is a special element of lawlessness through the
Negroes. One of the few advantages of slavery was that every slaveholder
was police officer and judge and jury on his own plantation; petty
offenses were punished by the overseer without further ceremony, serious
crimes were easily dealt with, and the escape of the criminal was nearly
impossible.
Freedom, with its opportunity of moving about, with its greatly enlarged
area of disputes among the blacks, and between Whites and Negroes, has
combined with the influence of the press in popularizing crime, and
perhaps with an innate African savagery, to make the black criminal a
terrible scourge in the South. To begin with the less serious offenses,
there is no doubt that the Negro has a very imperfect realization of
property rights, partly because of the training of slavery. The vague
feeling that whatever belonged to the plantation was for the enjoyment of
those who lived on the plantation is deliciously expressed by Paul Dunbar:
Folks ain't got no right to censuah othah folks about dey habits;
Him dat giv' de squir'ls de bushtails made de bobtails fu' de rabbits.
Him dat built de gread big mountains hollered out de little valleys,
Him dat made de streets an' driveways wasn't 'shamed to make de alleys.
We is all constructed diff'ent, d' ain't no two of us de same;
We cain't he'p ouah likes an' dislikes, ef we'se bad we ain't to blame.
If we'se good, we needn't show off, 'case you bet it ain't ouah doin'
We gits into su'ttain channels dat we jes' cain't he'p pu'suin'.
But we all fits into places dat no othah ones could fill,
An' we does the things we has to, big er little, good er ill.
John cain't tek de place o' Henry, Su an' Sally ain't alike;
Bass ain't nuthin' like a suckah, chub ain't nuthin' like a pike.
When you come to think about it, how it's all planned out, it's splendid.
Nuthin's done er evah happens, 'dout hit's somefin' dat's intended;
Don't keer whut you does, you has to, an' hit sholy beats de dickens,--
Viney, go put on de kittle, I got one o' mastah's chickens.
Not so genial is the usual relation of Negro with Negro; both in town and
city there is an amount of crude and savage violence of which the outside
world knows little, and in which women freely engage. Jealousy is a
frequent cause of fights and murders; and whisky is so potent an excitant
that many competent observers assert that whisky and cocaine are at the
bottom of almost all serious negro crimes. Practically every negro man
carries a revolver and many of them bear knives or razors; hence, once
engaged in a fracas, nobody knows what will happen. A woman describing a
trouble in which a man shot her brother was chiefly aggrieved because "Two
ladies jumped on me and one lady bit me." There is constant negro violence
against the Whites, and they occasionally engage in pitched battles with
white gangs.
Here, as in so many other respects, even well-informed people run to
exaggeration. Thus President Winston, of the North Carolina Agricultural
College, declares in public that the Negroes are the most criminal element
in the population, and are more criminal in freedom than in slavery (both
of which propositions are indisputable); that "the negro is increasing in
criminality with fearful rapidity"; that "the negroes who can read and
write are more criminal than the illiterate"; that they are nearly three
times as criminal in the Northeast as in the South; that they are more
criminal than the white class, and that "more than seven tenths of the
negro criminals are under thirty years of age." This statement, like
almost all the discussions of criminal statistics, ignores the important
point that as communities improve, acts formerly not covered by the law
become statutory crimes; and hence that the more civilized a state the
more likely it is that criminals will be convicted, and the larger will be
the apparent proportion of criminals. In Connecticut are enumerated 68
white juvenile delinquents to 100,000 people, in Georgia only four, but
the Georgia boys are not seventeen times as good as their brothers in the
Northern state. It further overlooks the fact that most criminals of all
races are under thirty years of age, for crime is the accompaniment of
youth with white men as with Negroes.
To say that the Negroes furnish more than their proportion of criminals is
no more than to say that the lowest element in the population has the
lowest and most criminal members. The excessive criminality of the
Negroes, which is marked in all the states of the Union, is of course a
mark of their average inferiority, and a measure of the difficulty of
bringing them up to a high standard; and the proportion is often
exaggerated. In South Carolina where the Negroes are three fifths of the
population they furnish only four fifths of the convicts. As for the
assertion that the educated Negroes are specially criminal, the statement
is contradicted by the records of the large institutions of negro
education, and by the experience of thousands of people. Education does
not necessarily make virtue, but it is a safeguard. As a matter of fact,
white Southerners in general know little of the lives or motives of
thousands of the immense noncriminal class of Negroes, with whom they have
no personal relations; but are wide awake to the iniquities of the
educated men who fall into crime.
The experience of two centuries shows that the Negroes are not drawn to
crimes requiring previous organization and preparation; no slave
insurrection has ever been a success within the boundaries of the United
States; and blacks are rarely found in gangs of bandits. The incendiarism
of which there is now so much complaint is probably the expression of
individual vengeance. The Negroes, according to the testimony of those
nearest to them, are inveterate gamblers, and many affrays result from
consequent quarrels, so that murders may be most frequent where there is
the best employment and largest wages and greatest prosperity among the
thrifty. Murder, manslaughter, and attempts to kill make up three quarters
of the recorded crimes of the blacks in the Mississippi Delta. Murders of
Negroes by Negroes are very common and many of the criminals escape
altogether.
Negro crime is much fomented by the low drinking-shops in the city and in
country, by the lack of home influence on growing boys and girls, by the
brutalizing of young people who are sent to prison with hardened
criminals, and in general, by close contact with the lowest element of the
white race, which leads to crimes on both sides. It is a striking fact
that where the Africans are most numerous there is the least complaint of
crime. The so-called race riots are usually rows between a few bad Negroes
and the officers of the law, or a group of aggrieved Whites. Fights with
policemen and sheriffs are frequent, and desperate men not infrequently
barricade themselves in houses, and sell their lives as dearly as they
can. Quarrels over the settlement of accounts are not uncommon, and the
Negro who feels himself cheated sometimes takes his revenge at the end of
a gun. As weapons are ordinarily sold without the slightest check, to men
of both races and of every age, there is never any lack of the means to
kill.
Occasionally a cry is raised that proof has been found of the existence of
"Before Day Clubs"--that is, of organizations of Negroes for purposes of
violence. The thing is possible and difficult to disprove, but a sequence
of crimes through such an organization seems alien to the Negro's habits,
and is at least unlikely. The serious charges that the blacks habitually
protect any negro criminal who comes to them will be considered farther
on.
The negro crime about which Southern newspapers print most, Southern
writers say most, and which more than anything else aggravates race
hatred, is violence to white women. The crime is a dreadful one, made
worse by the spreading abroad of details, but it has such a fateful
relation to the whole Southern problem that something must here be said,
less on the thing itself than on some of the common misunderstandings and
misstatements which cluster about it.
Statistics are unfortunately too available, inasmuch as for twenty years
the number of such crimes has been nearly balanced by the number of
lynchings for that offense, which have been tabulated from year to year by
the _Chicago Tribune_, and have been thoroughly analyzed by Professor
Cutler in his recent book "Lynch Law." From 1882 to 1903 these statistics
show an average of thirty-two lynchings per year for violence or attempted
violence to white women, though of late they have been reduced to under
twenty. This includes some cases of innocent men, probably balanced by
assailants who escaped. These figures completely dispose of the allegation
that the crime is very frequent. Contrary to common belief in the North,
some such cases are tried before regular courts; and in Missouri the
Governor in 1908 very properly refused to pardon a Negro under a sentence
of death for that crime. Adding in these cases, and the half dozen which
perhaps escaped the newspaper reporter, at the utmost there are not over
fifty authenticated instances of this crime in the whole South in a
twelvemonth. Among something like 3,000,000 adult negro males the ratio of
the crime to those who might commit it is about 1 to 600,000; and out of
6,000,000 white women, not over fifty become victims, or 1 in 120,000. For
this degree of danger to white women ten million human beings are
supposed to be sodden with crime and actuated by malice, and the whole
South from end to end is filled with terror.
The allegation frequently made that these crimes are committed by highly
educated Negroes, graduates of Hampton and Tuskegee, is absolutely without
foundation. Most of them are by men of the lowest type, some undoubtedly
maniacs. Most of these occurrences take place where the Whites and Negroes
are most closely brought into juxtaposition, sometimes where they are both
working in the fields. Hence they are of rare occurrence where the Whites
are fewest and the Negroes most numerous. In many places in the Black
Belt, white people have no fear of leaving their families, because sure
that their negro neighbors would give their lives, if necessary, for the
protection of the white women. The Northern white teachers, who are
accused of arousing in the Negro's mind the belief that he is the equal of
the Whites, have never in a single instance been attacked; and in
communities where the Negroes are literally fifty to one, have not the
slightest fear of going about alone at any necessary hour of day or night.
These statements are not intended to minimize the dreadful effects of a
crime which brings such wretchedness upon the innocent. The two worst
enemies of the white woman in the South are "The Black Brute," whom the
Southern press is never tired of describing in unrepeatable terms, and the
white buzzard journalist who spreads her name and her dreadful story
abroad to become the seed of another like crime. Where is the Southern
chivalry and respect for white women when every such crime is sought out
and flashed abroad, in all the details obtainable, and the victim is
doomed to a second wrong in the lifelong feeling that she is known and
branded throughout the land?
A general and well-grounded complaint is that any fugitive, no matter what
his reason for flight, even though he is guilty of rape, is fed and sent
on his way by his own people, a practice which goes back to slavery days
when there were many strays whose only offense was a love of liberty. "The
worst feature," says an observer, "is that other negroes help to conceal
them and their crimes. They seem to have entered into a racial agreement
that they must help each one of their race to escape the penalties of the
white man's law by resorting to every artifice of untruthfulness and
concealment." Judge Cann, of Georgia, charges that "as a race, negroes
shelter, conceal and protect the criminals of their race; that they
produce riots by attacking officers of the law while in the discharge of
their duty; that they openly show sympathy with the negro criminal; that
they conspire against the enforcement of law; that they have made first a
hero, and then a martyr, of a legally convicted and executed murderer."
Like all such general statements, these allegations go too far. In the
first place, it is not altogether a sentiment of race solidarity. Negroes
have been known to give similar shelter to white vagabonds and criminals.
In the second place, black criminals are frequently apprehended through
blacks, and large numbers are brought into court, tried and convicted,
entirely on negro testimony. Something has been done in the way of negro
Law and Order Associations, which pledge themselves to give up criminals.
Still, it is discomposing to know that when a search was making for a
particularly odious fellow in Monroe, La., who had for a year or two made
himself the nuisance of the neighborhood by looking into windows, his
father and brothers, who must have known his practices, unhesitatingly
signed such a law-and-order pledge. The Brownsville incident of 1907 also,
with the apparent determination of scores of men not to "split" on some
ruffians and murderers among them, produced a painful feeling throughout
the country. In few respects could the Negroes do so much good for
themselves as by helping in the detection of the crime of their own
people.
If Negroes are violent to Whites and among themselves, they follow an
example daily and hourly set them by the members of the Superior Race. In
the first place, the Negro listens habitually to rough and humiliating
language. You get a new view of race relations when a planter in his store
on Saturday night calls up for you one after another three specimen
Negroes. "This man Chocolate," he says, "is a full-blooded nigger, the
real thing." "Chocolate" says nothing, shrugs his shoulders, and looks as
he feels, literally like the devil. The next is introduced as "One of your
mixed ones--How did that come about, hey!" and the mulatto, who has been
the official whipper on the plantation, grins at the superior man's joke.
The third is called up and presented as "The Preacher, very fond of the
sisters." This is a fair sample of what constantly takes place wherever
there is a rough, coarse white man among Negroes.
The office of the whipper is usually performed by the master himself, if
he is one of those numerous employers who believe in that method. As one
such put it: "I follow up a hand and tell him to do what he ought? If he
won't, I just get off and whip him." "Suppose he summons you before a
magistrate?" "I lick him again before the magistrate and send him home."
Other planters have given up whipping and charge a fine against the
Negro's account. Of course such fellows would rather be whipped than
prosecuted, and think that the riders (that is, the overseers), if they
once take it out of them in a thrashing, will harbor no further malice. In
some states, as North Carolina, whipping is unusual; in others it is
frequent.
Another race trouble is the driving out of blacks who make themselves
disliked by the Whites. A Negro passes an examination for post office
clerk, but is warned that if he tries to take the place he will be shot. A
colored editor, whose paper is much less offensive than any of the white
journals in his neighborhood in bad language and incitement to crime, is
thought well treated because he leaves the state alive. A Negro who is too
conspicuous, who builds a house thought to be above his station, who
drives two horses in his buggy, may be warned to leave the place; and if
he refuses to sacrifice his little property, may be shot. A black doctor
may be warned out of the county because there are enough white doctors.
The South is not the only community where people that are obnoxious are
hustled out of town, and Southern Whites sometimes receive the same
unofficial "ticket of leave"; but it makes bad blood when irresponsible
people, often in no way superior in character to the Negroes whom they
assail, uproot their neighbors.
Then comes the long list of homicides of Negroes by Whites. Ever since Ku
Klux times there have been occasional instances of "whitecapping"--that
is, of bodies of disguised men riding through the country, pulling people
out of their houses and whipping them. Such practices are not confined to
the South and are condoned sometimes in the North. Down on Buzzard's Bay
in Massachusetts a few years ago a jury absolutely refused to convict the
perpetrators of a similar outrage on a white man; while in Alabama, in
1898, five Whites were sentenced for twenty years each for killing a Negro
in that sort of way. Still convictions of white men for killing Negroes
are very unusual. Since practically every adult negro man has a gun about
him, the theory of the White is that if you get into a quarrel and the
Negro makes any movement with his hands, you must shoot him forthwith. To
this purport is the testimony of a Mississippi planter who reproved a hand
for severely whipping his child; the black replied that it was his
business and nobody should stop it; the white man said he would stop it;
whereupon the Negro drew, but was met by a bullet in his forehead; and,
explained the planter, "A steel bullet will go through a nigger's skull."
Take another case: An assistant manager on an estate in the Delta of
Mississippi tried to take a pistol away from a new hand and felt himself
safe because the man had his hands in his pockets; but the Negro fired
through the pocket, instantly killed the white man, and decamped. It
afterwards was shown that he had previously killed another white man.
The responsibility is not always on the Negro's side. There are many
disputes over labor contracts, in which the Negro justly believes that the
white man has cheated him, and his attempt to audit is stopped by a
quarrel in which the black is killed. Even boys under twelve years of age
have been known to shoot Negroes over trivial disputes, and a young lady
in Washington recently shot and killed a black boy who was stealing fruit.
The Negroes complain of harsh treatment by the police. For instance, a
good-looking, very black young man is glad to get out of Savannah and
among the white people on the Sea Islands. "They like the colored people
better; even if they do get drunk and are fierce, they treat them better.
In Savannah the other day I saw a man going back to his vessel, and a
policeman asked him where he was going. He answered up rough like,--I
wouldn't do that, I'd go down on my hands and knees to 'em rather than
have any trouble with em,--and the policeman broke his club over his head,
arrested him, and they sent him to the chain gang. I don't want to be
arrested; I never have been arrested in my life." That the police are
often in the wrong is shown by such instances as the recent acquittal of a
Negro by direction of an Alabama judge; he had shot a policeman who was
arresting him without reason, and the judge who heard the case justified
him.
Perhaps, comparing city with city, the North is as disorderly as the
South, but the rural South is a much more desperate region than the
farming lands of the North, as is shown by the statistics of homicide and
similar crimes. In Florida in 1899, with a population of 528,000, there
were about 40 murders and 200 assaults with attempt to murder. In Alabama
in 1895-96 there were about 350 homicides. In one twelvemonth some years
ago there were 6 murders in Vermont, 96 in Massachusetts, 461 in Alabama,
and over 1,000 in Texas. Judge Thomas, of Montgomery, has shown that the
homicides in the United States per million of population are 129 against
10 per million in England; and when the sections are contrasted, New
England has about 47 per million, against 223 per million in the South.
It is not easy to compare the criminal spirit in the North and the South
by the records of the courts or the statistics of convictions; acts which
are penitentiary offenses in one state may be misdemeanors, or no crime at
all, in another. A very recent tabulation, made from statistics of 1905,
shows in the Lower South 16,000 prisoners against 13,000 in a group of
Northwestern states having the same total population; and in the whole
South, 27,000 prisoners against 24,000 in a group aggregating the same
number of people in the North and West. Of the Southern prisoners, about
two thirds are Negroes, the proportion of criminals to the total numbers
of the African race being decidedly less than in the North. The only safe
generalization from those statistics is therefore that the Southern courts
send more people to jail, white and black, than the Northern. Statistics
throw little light on the question of relative crime.
A comparison is, however, possible between the ordinary course of justice
in the South and in the North. The most notorious defect in the South is
the conduct of murder trials, as shown by the evidence of Southern
jurists. Says one, "Unreasoning and promiscuous danger stalks in any
community where life is held cheap by even a few, and where the laws are
enforced by privilege or race. In such a community there is no sufficient
defense against a mob, or even a drunken fool." If one credited all the
editorials in Southern newspapers, he would believe that "a man who kills
a man in this community is in much less danger of legal punishment than
one who steals a suit of clothes"; and experienced lawyers tell you that
they never knew of a white man being convicted for homicide.
These statements are exaggerations, for the records of pardons show that a
certain number of white men have reached the penitentiary for that offense
and leave it by the side door. The reason for the failure of justice in
numerous cases is, first of all, the technicalities of the courts, which
are probably not very different in that particular from those of the
North; and, secondly, the unwillingness of juries to convict. It must be
accepted as an axiom that the average plain man in the South feels that
if A kills B the presumption is that he has some good reason. Counsel for
such cases habitually appeal to the emotions of the jury, and ask what
they would have done under like circumstances. Even conviction may not be
uncomforable; take the case of a young White in Florida, who killed a
policeman, was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, was then hired
out as a convict by his uncle at fifteen dollars a month, and paraded the
streets at his pleasure.
A general impression in the North is that the Southern courts are very
severe with colored men; and (if he has not already been lynched) it is
true that they are likely to pass heavy sentence on a Negro who has killed
a white man, and juries are often merciless; but there are many cases
where blacks are lightly treated on the express ground that they have had
less opportunity to know what is right and wrong. In Brookhaven, Miss., a
very rough region, in a year three white men have been heavily sentenced
for killing Negroes; while many cases could be cited where a Negro was
acquitted or let off with a light penalty for a like offense.
When it comes to less serious crimes, the Negro enjoys a special
protection whenever he can call in a respectable white man to vouch for
him as in general straightforward; the Court is then likely to impose a
light sentence. Even in serious cases a man is sometimes acquitted or
lightly treated at the request of his master, so that he may return to
work. That is what the planter meant who boasted: "I never sent a nigger
to jail in my life; and I have taken more niggers out of jail than any
planter in Alabama." That is, he never gave information against one of his
own hands, but inflicted such small penalties as he saw fit; and he would
pay the fine for his men who came before the courts, or even secure their
pardon, so as to get them on his plantation. That principle sometimes goes
terribly deep. In the case of a Negro who whipped his child to death, the
natural inquiry was, "What did they do with him?" To which the nonchalant
answer was, "Oh, nothing, he was a good cotton hand."
The great majority of negro convicts are sentenced for petty crimes,
stealing, vagrancy, and the like, and for rather short terms; but the name
for this punishment, "the chain gang," points to a system practically
unknown in the North. There are literal chain gangs, with real shackles
and balls, working in the streets of cities, white and black together; and
large bodies of convicts are worked in the open, stockaded, and perhaps
literally chained at night. Right here comes in one of the worst features
of the Southern convict system. The men on the chain gang are perhaps
employed on city or county work, and if their terms expire too fast, the
authorities will run out of labor; hence, the Negroes believe, perhaps
rightly, that judges and juries are convinced of their guilt just in
proportion to the falling off of the number of men in confinement; and
that if necessary, innocent people will be arrested for that purpose. That
is probably one reason why Negroes feel so little shame at having been in
prison. "Did you know I was in the barracks last night?" is a remark that
you may hear at any railroad station in Georgia.
The whole subject is complicated with vagrant laws. For instance, in
Savannah Negroes not at work, or without reasonable excuse for idleness,
shall be arrested; and in Alabama if arrested as a vagrant the burden of
proof is on the black to show that he is at work. It is a mistake to
suppose that colored tramps are common in the South; but irresponsible
men, loitering about a city and sponging on the working Negroes, are
frequent, and furnish many serious criminals.
On the whole, one would rather not be a negro convict in a Southern state,
or even a white convict, for many state and county prisons are simply
left-over examples of the worst side of slavery. A Northern expert in such
matters in Atlanta a few years ago, in a public address, congratulated the
people on the new jail which he had just visited. At least it looked like
the most improved of modern jails, for it had large airy cells provided
with running water, and the only defect in it was that it was intended for
the state mules and was far better than any provision made there for human
prisoners.
The first trouble with the Southern convict system is that it still
retains the notion, from which other communities began to diverge nearly a
century ago, that the prisoner is the slave of the state, existing only
for the convenience and profit of those whom he serves. In the second
place, it has been difficult to find indoor employment for the men, and
most of them are worked out of doors, a life which with proper precautions
is undoubtedly happier and healthier than that inside. In the third place,
whipping is still an ordinary penalty, and very frequently applied.
Furthermore, a number of states in the Lower South have been in the habit
of letting out convicts, and that is still done in several states, as
Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. They used to be rented to cotton growers,
and a planter could get as few as two convicts or even one, over whom he
had something approaching the power of life and death. This was a virtual
chattel slavery, which long ago ought to have been disallowed by the
Supreme Court of the United States, as contrary to the Thirteenth
Amendment. If still retained on a state or county plantation, the convicts
are in the power of wardens whose interest it is to drive the men
unmercifully. Governor Vardaman in a public message in 1908 thought it
necessary to say that "Some of the most atrocious and conscienceless
crimes that have been perpetrated in this State are chargeable to the
county contractor. I have known the poor convict driven to exhaustion or
whipped to death to gratify the greed or anger of the conscienceless
driver or contractor. The tears and blood of hundreds of these unfortunate
people cry out for this reform."
The Governor suggests that white men suffer under this system, and there
have been recent cases where vagrant Whites were sold on the auction block
for a period of months. It might perhaps be argued that the South is
always more stern in its judicial punishments than the North, inasmuch as
five years on a convict farm in Mississippi is worse than being decently
hanged in Massachusetts. The modern and humane methods of reform, of
separating the youthful first-term man from the others, of specially
treating juvenile crime, are little known in the South. When a
twelve-year-old black boy is sent to the chain gang by a white judge, the
community suffers. With regard to all those penal institutions one might
share the feelings of the good Northern lady, when told that her grandson
had been sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years: "What did they do
that for? why, he won't be contented there three weeks!"
This sympathy with the criminal the governors of the Southern states
appear to feel, as is shown by some astonishing statistics. When Governor
Vardaman went out of office January 1, 1908, he pardoned 8 white men and
18 Negroes, most of them convicted of murder or manslaughter, and 11 of
them life men. A Memphis paper has tabulated the state pardons for a
period of twelve months, and if the results are accurate, they show 1 in
Wisconsin, 22 in Massachusetts, 81 in Georgia, 168 in Alabama, and over
400 in Arkansas. Just how the Negroes get sufficient political influence
to secure pardons is one of the serious questions in Southern
jurisprudence. For these lavish pardons the Whites are wholly responsible,
for from them spring all the governors and pardoning boards.
The same responsibility rests on the Whites for the inefficiency of
criminal justice and for the mediæval prison system. The North might
fairly plead that its efforts to reform its judicial and punitive system
are resisted by the lower elements of society, which have such power
through choosing prosecutors and judges and legislators, in framing laws
and constitutions, that the better elements cannot have things their own
way. Not so in the South, where the Superior Race has absolute control of
the making of law and the administering of justice, and the treatment of
prisoners. Every judge in the South, except a few little justices of the
peace, is a white man. Negroes, although still eligible to jury service,
are rarely impaneled, even for the trial of a Negro. Negro testimony is
received with due caution; hardly any court will accept the testimony of
one black against one white man. For failures in the administration of
justice, for unwillingness to try men for homicide, for technicalities in
procedure, for hesitancy of juries, the Superior Race is wholly
responsible. The system is bad simply because the white people who are in
control of the Southern state governments are willing that it should be
bad. With all the machinery of legislation, and of the courts in its
possession, the white race still resorts to forms of violence which
sometimes strike an innocent man, and always brutalize the community, and
lead to a contempt for the ordinary forms of justice. The place for the
white people to begin a real repression of crime is by punishing their
criminals without enslaving them.
CHAPTER XV
LYNCHING
The defects in the administration of justice in the South are complicated
by a recognized system of punishment of criminals and supposed criminals
by other persons than officers of the law--a system to which the term
Lynch Law is often applied. In part it is an effort to supplement the law
of the commonwealths; in part it is a protest against the law's delay; in
greater part a defiance of law and authority and impartial justice.
In its mildest form this system of irresponsible jurisprudence takes the
form of notices to leave the country, followed by whipping or other
violence less than murderous, if the warning be disregarded. Such a method
owes all its force to the belief that it proceeds from an organized and
therefore a powerful race of people. Next in seriousness come the race
riots of which there were many examples during the Reconstruction era; and
occasionally they burst into serious race conflicts, of which half a dozen
have occurred in the last decade. The responsibility rests in greater
measure on that race which has the habit of calculated and concerted
action: reckless Negroes can always make trouble by shooting at the
Whites; but the laws, the officers of justice, the militia, the courts,
are in the hands of the white people. Since they are always able to
protect themselves by their better organization, their command of the
police, and the conviction in the minds of both races that the white man
will always come out victorious, most troubles that start with the Negroes
could easily be dealt with, but for a panic terror of negro risings which
harks back to slavery times. It is very easy to stampede Southern
communities by such rumors. When, in 1908, six armed Negroes were arrested
in Muskogee, Okla., telegrams went all over the country to the effect that
a race war was on, and two companies of militia were ordered out; but
apparently there was not a glimmer of real trouble. Negroes have
repeatedly been driven out of small places. For instance, in August, 1907,
in Onancock, on the eastern shore of Virginia, there was a dispute over a
bill for a dollar and a quarter which ended with the banishment of a
number of Negroes. In the year 1898 there was a similar riot in
Wilmington, N. C., and several thousand Negroes were either ejected or
left afterwards in terror. The trouble here began in excitement over the
elections.
By far the most serious of these occurrences was the so-called race riot
at Atlanta, September 22, 1906, caused primarily by that intense hostility
to the Negroes which is to be found among town youths; and secondarily by
some aggravated crimes on the part of Negroes, and the equally aggravated
crime of a newspaper, the _Atlanta Evening News_, which, by exaggerating
the truth and adding lies, inflamed the public mind; on the night before
the riot it called upon the people of Atlanta to join a league of men who
"will endeavor to prevent the crimes, if possible, but failing, will aid
in punishing the criminals."
The whole affair has been examined by several competent observers, but the
essential facts may be taken from the report of a committee of business
men of Atlanta, who went into the matter at the time, and who declared
that of the persons killed, "There was not a single vagrant. They were
earning wages in useful work; ... they were supporting themselves and
their families.... Of the wounded, ten are white and sixty colored. Of the
dead, two are white and ten are colored." This was not a riot, but a
massacre, for which the Superior Race is responsible; and from every point
of view it was damaging to the whole South. It kept back foreign
emigrants, it deeply discouraged the best of the Negroes in Atlanta and
elsewhere; it gave rein to the passions of the mob. Considering that
nobody was killed from among the mob, it seems like a ferocious practical
joke that scores of Negroes were arrested and charged with murder, while
not a single one of the hundreds of real murderers has ever received the
slightest punishment. Who can wonder at the grief and anguish of DuBois's
"Litany of Atlanta!" Every large place is liable to disturbance; Northern
cities have had race riots, and are likely to have more. The recent
assaults on and murders of Negroes in Springfield, Ohio, and Springfield,
Ill., are not different in spirit from those in the South; and though
there were plenty of indictments, the leader of the latter mob was
acquitted on his trial--a result which was reflected in the famous Cairo
mob of 1909.
What progress can be made in breaking up the savage and criminal instincts
of the Negro when he sees the same instincts in the Superior Race, which
is in a position to do him harm? If the Negroes for any cause should in
any Southern city, where they are in the majority, take possession of the
streets and hunt white people to death as was done in Atlanta, it would
bring on a race war which would devastate the whole South; and the lower
race would be severely punished for aspiring to the same fashions in
gunshots as its superiors. As a commercial traveler said on the general
subject of race relations: "You do not understand how the young fellows in
the South feel; when any trouble comes, they want to kill the nigger,
whether he has done anything or not."
The third and most frequent form of race violence is lynching, a practice
obscured by a mass of conventional and improbable statements. The subject
has been set in its proper light in an impartial and scientific study by
Professor Cutler entitled "Lynch Law," based on a compilation of
statistics which come down to 1903. He sweeps away three fourths of the
usual statements on the subject, first of all disproving the allegation
that lynching is a comparatively recent practice brought about by negro
crimes since the Civil War. The term Lynch Law has been traced back to
Colonel Charles Lynch, of Virginia, who, in Revolutionary times, presided
at rude assemblies which whipped Tories until they were willing to shout
"Hurrah for Liberty!" Till about 1830 lynching never meant killing; it was
applied only to whippings or to tarring and feathering. In the frontier
conditions of the South and West, the habit grew up of killing desperadoes
by mob law, as, for instance, the celebrated clearing out of five gamblers
at Vicksburg, Miss., in 1835. This process was also applied to some
murderers, both Whites and Negroes.
Professor Cutler also disposes of the assertion that the most serious
offense for which lynching is applied was unknown previous to
emancipation. In 1823, a Negro in Maryland was badly beaten, though not
killed, for a supposed attack upon a white woman. In 1827 one was burned
at the stake in Alabama for killing a white man. From that time on,
lynching of blacks continued in every Southern state--commonly for murder,
in a few cases for insurrection, in at least nine ascertained cases
previous to the Civil War for violence to white women. It is evident,
therefore, that the extremest crime had been sometimes committed, and the
extremest punishment exacted by mob violence before the slaves were set
free.
The lynching of Negroes was kept up after the war, and carried into a
system by the Ku Klux Klan and later White Caps, though usually applied by
them for political reasons. About 1880 lynching of Negroes began to
increase, nominally because of more frequent rapes of white women; and to
this day one often hears it said: "Lynchings never occur except for the
one crime." In the twenty-two years from 1882 to 1903, Cutler has recorded
3,337 cases of lynchings, an average of 150 a year, rising to the number
of 235 in 1892. In 1903 there were 125 persons lynched and 125 executed
legally. Of these lynchings, 1,997 took place in the Southern states, 363
in the Western states, 105 in the Eastern states, and not a single one in
New England. Of the 3,337 lynchings, 1,169 were of Whites (109 for rape)
and 2,168 were Negroes, thus completely disposing of the notion that this
practice either began because of negro crime, or was continued as a
safeguard against it. Of the blacks lynched, 783 were charged with murder;
707 with violence to women; 104 with arson; 101 with theft; and from that
on down to such serious crimes as writing a letter, slapping a child,
making an insolent reply, giving evidence or refusing to give evidence. A
Negro was lynched in 1908 for killing a constable's horse.
The common notion that rape of white women, the most serious crime
committed by Negroes, is on the increase, is also exploded by these
statistics, which show that the proportion, which has been as high as one
half of all lynchings, has come down to about one fourth. It may be said,
therefore, without fear of contradiction that lynching did not originate
in offenses by Negroes, is not justified by any increase of crime, and is
applied to a multitude of offenses, some of them simply trivial.
Successful attempts have been made to lynch Negroes in Northern states,
and in 1903 one was burned at the stake, in Wilmington, Del., which,
however, is a former slave state, and the last to adhere to the
whipping-post. Lynching has also much diminished in the West, so that it
is becoming more and more a Southern crime. In 1903, 75 of the 84
lynchings were in the South, in 1907 the total lynchings had come down to
63, of which 42 were in the four states of Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, and Georgia, and only 2 in the North. The proportion of causes of
lynchings remained about the same: murder, 18; violence to women, 12;
attempted violence, 11; miscellaneous causes, 22.
The methods of the lynchers are very simple. In 1906 a white man, accused
of murdering his brother, on whose case the jury had disagreed, was
dragged out of jail and shot. In a great many cases the supposed criminal
is hunted down by what is called a "posse"--really a self-appointed body
of furious neighbors; and very seldom is there the semblance of
investigation. If the offender is lodged in jail, that sanctuary of the
law is often invaded. In August, 1906, a mob of three thousand men,
incited by a person who afterwards proved to be a released convict, broke
open the jail at Salisbury, N. C., in despite of addresses by the mayor
and United States senator, took out and killed three supposed negro
criminals. Occasionally, when a criminal has been tried, convicted, and is
awaiting execution, he is taken out and lynched, for the excitement of
seeing the man die, and perhaps from fear that he will be pardoned.
Naturally, in this quick method, mistakes sometimes occur. At Brookhaven,
Miss., on January 2, 1908, a Negro was lynched for killing a white man; a
few days later they caught the actual murderer, but consoled themselves
with the belief that inasmuch as the first Negro was wounded when
captured, the presumption was that he must have killed some other white
man. A few days later, at Dothan, Ala., a Negro was taken out, hanged, and
two hundred shots fired at him, but was found the next morning alive and
unwounded, and was allowed to escape. In a recent case at Atlanta a Negro
positively identified by the victim of a most serious crime was allowed to
go to trial, and was acquitted, because the court believed him innocent,
and the woman subsequently identified another man.
How does it come about that these mobs, composed invariably of white men
and none others, cannot be put down by the white authorities? The first
reason is that there are no rural police in the South to make prompt
arrests and protect prisoners; the sheriffs upon whom the custody of such
persons depends are chosen by popular election, and usually have no
backbone; one of them who had actually lodged his prisoners in jail said
that he hated to do it, and didn't know how he could meet his neighbors.
Jailors commonly give up their keys after a little protest; there are few
cases where a determined sheriff, armed and ready to do his duty, could
not quell a mob; but what can be expected of a sheriff who turns over a
prisoner to the mob in order that they may "investigate" his crime?
Occasionally a sheriff shows some pluck, and in December, 1906, President
Roosevelt singled out for federal appointment a sheriff who had lost his
reëlection because he had opposed a mob. Governors are sometimes very
weak-kneed; a few years ago the governor of North Carolina delivered up to
a mob a colored boy who had had such confidence in the Superior Race as to
come to the executive mansion and ask for protection. At Annapolis, in
1908, neither the sheriff, jailor, nor municipal authorities made any
effort to prevent the taking out of a prisoner; in Chattanooga, Sheriff
Shipp, who permitted a Negro to be taken out of his hands and lynched,
though the sheriff had been served by telegram with an order from a
justice of the Supreme Court directing him to protect the criminal, was
reëlected by a large majority; and apparently did not lose popularity when
a year later he was sentenced to ninety days' confinement for contempt of
court.
In all the Southern states the last state resort for keeping the peace is
the militia, and there have recently been two scandalous instances where
these volunteer soldiers have permitted themselves to be overrun by a mob,
giving up their guns without an effort to fire a shot. In one of these
cases it was recorded that "No effort was made to hurt any of the soldiers
however, as it was plain to the crowd that they had gained their point."
At Brookhaven, Miss., in 1908, the officer commanding the militia excused
himself because the sheriff had not asked him to order his men to fire.
These brave soldiers, these high-toned Southern gentlemen, these military
heroes, called out for the special purpose of protecting a prisoner, would
not draw a trigger!
The militia of course are not cowards, they are simply sympathizers with
the mob; and throughout the South, in the press, and from the lips of many
otherwise high-minded people, lynching is freely justified. Witness a
coroner's jury in Charlotte, N. C.: "We, the ... jury to inquire into the
cause of the death of Tom Jones, find that he came to his death by gunshot
wounds, inflicted by parties unknown to the jury, obviously by an outraged
public acting in defense of their homes, wives, daughters, and children.
In view of the enormity of the crime committed by said Tom Jones, ... we
think they would have been recreant to their duty as good citizens had
they acted otherwise." The rector of St. Luke's Church, Jacksonville,
says: "I write as an upholder of law and order; as one who deprecates and
denounces mob law; but I write as one who holds that law is but the will
of the majority in a democracy, and that will is that every time a negro
criminally assaults, or attempts to assault, a white woman, he shall be
dealt with by mob law, which is law after all. Only I would say, let that
mob be certain, 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' that they have the right
man." Listen to the _Atlanta Georgian_: "Some good citizens will say they
are shocked, and deplore these evil conditions, and the demoralization
they are going to produce, and all that, but they really ain't shocked,
although they think they are, and under proper provocation they would be
lynchers themselves." Even the late D. H. Chamberlain, once Reconstruction
governor of South Carolina, says: "Practically I come very near to saying
that I do not blame the South for resorting to lynching for this crime,"
and Benjamin R. Tillman, Senator of the United States, has publicly
declared: "I will lead a mob to lynch a man at any time who has attacked a
woman, whether he be white or black," and that it would probably be
necessary "to send some more niggers to hell."
The standard published reason for this acquiescence in lynching is that
the usual course of law is inadequate; people point to the legal delays
and the technicalities of the courts, courts organized by white men, held
by white judges, influenced by white counsel, before a white jury. They
claim that lynching is a rude sort of primitive justice, "an ultimate
sanction" which is simply a speedier form of law, though mobs are
notoriously easily confused as to persons and circumstances. They consider
lynching necessary in order to prevent the taking of testimony in open
court in cases of rape, a necessity which any legislature could obviate.
They plead that lynching is the only penalty which will keep the Negro in
bounds, although there are such strings of lynchings as show conclusively
that the publicity given to sickening details makes lynching simply a
breeder of crime. In the little town of Brookhaven, Miss., there were two
lynchings in the first eight weeks of 1908. The Southern defenders of
lynching set forth the solemnity of this form of execution, closing their
eyes to the fearful barbarities which have accompanied many cases and are
likely to occur any day.
The most cogent reason for the practice of lynching is that it gives an
opportunity for the exercise of a deep-seated race hostility. Most of the
murders and other crimes which lead to lynchings happen where Whites and
Negroes are living close together. A lynching is an opportunity for the
most furious and brutal passions of which humanity is capable, under cover
of a moral duty, and without the slightest danger of a later
accountability. Spectators go to a lynching, as perhaps they went to the
witch trial in Salem, or a treason case under Lord Jeffreys, to get a
shuddering sensation. Kindred of the injured ones are invited to come to
the front with hot irons and gimlets; special trains have repeatedly been
furnished, on request to the railroads, in order to carry parties of
lynchers; in several instances the burning at the stake of Negroes has
been advertised by telegraph, and special trains have been put on to bring
spectators. After the _auto da fé_ is over, white people scramble in the
ashes for bits of bone. Within a few months a black woman was burned at
the stake by a mob, though everybody knew she had committed absolutely no
offense except to accompany her husband when he ran away after committing
a murder. These are not incidents of every lynching, they are not condoned
by those Southerners who disapprove of lynching; but when you have turned
a tiger loose and given him a taste of blood, you are not entitled to say
that you have no responsibility for innocent people whom he may devour.
The whole fabric of defense of lynching, which in some cases and for some
crimes is justified by the large majority of educated white men and women
in the South, may be exploded into fragments by a single test. If lynching
under any circumstances is for the good of the community, why not legalize
it? Why does not some state come out of the ranks of modern civilized
communities in which public courts replace private vengeance and torture
has ceased to be a part of judicial process, and enact that in every town
the adult men shall constitute a tribunal which--on the suggestion that
somebody has committed a crime--shall apprehend the suspect, and, with the
hastiest examination of the facts, shall forthwith condemn him to be
hanged, shot, or burned, and shall constitute themselves executioners,
after due notice to the railroads to bring school children in special
trains to witness the proceedings, and with the right to distribute the
bones and ashes to their friends as souvenirs? Then the whole proceeding
may be inscribed on the public records, so that later generations may see
the care that has been taken to prevent lawlessness.
It would be unjust to leave this subject as though Southern people spent
their lives in breathing out threatenings and slaughter. With all the
conversation about homicide, all the columns of lurid dispatches about
lynchings, in which again white people pen the dispatches and white
editors vivify them, the everyday atmosphere seems peaceful enough; the
traveler, the ordinary business and professional man, feels no sense of
insecurity. Still one wonders just what was in the mind of the Alabamian
who, after driving a Yankee a hundred miles through a wild part of his
state, prepared to return by another way, but remarked: "I wouldn't be
afraid to drive right back over the same road that we came." The chance
that a respectable man in the South, who attends to his own business, will
be shot, is very much greater than in any other civilized country; but
powerful influences are at work to bring about better things. There are
some indications that the Negroes will be compelled to give up carrying
weapons, and then, perhaps, some of the Whites can also be disarmed.
Sensible people deplore the insecurity of life. As for race violence,
nobody who knows the South can doubt that the feeling of hatred and
hostility to the Negro as a Negro, perhaps to the white man as a white
man, is sharper than ever before; but that is the feeling of those members
of both races who have no responsibility, of the idle town loafer, of the
assistant plantation manager who could make more money if his hands would
work better. On the other side stand the upbuilders of the commonwealth,
the educators, the professional classes, the plantation owners, the
capitalists, most of whom wish the Negro well, oppose violence and
injustice, and are willing to coöperate with the best element of the
Negroes in freeing the South from its two worst enemies--the black brute,
and the white amateur executioner.
CHAPTER XVI
ACTUAL WEALTH
In every discussion of Southern affairs an important thing to reckon with
is a fixed belief that the South is the most prosperous part of the
country, which fits in with the conviction that it has long surpassed all
other parts of the world in civilization, in military ardor, and in the
power to rise out of the sufferings of a conquered people. This belief is
hard to reconcile with the grim fact that the South under slavery was the
poorest section of the country. Visitors just before the outbreak of the
Civil War, such as Olmsted, and Russell, the correspondent of the _London
Times_, were struck by the poverty of the South, which had few cities,
short and poor railroads, scanty manufacturing establishments, and in
general small accumulations of the buildings and especially of the stocks
of goods which are the readiest evidences of wealth. Some rich families
there were with capital not only to buy slaves, but to build railroads and
cities; and when the Civil War broke out there was in service a quantity
of independent banking capital. A delusion of great wealth was created by
the listing as taxable property of slaves to the amount of at least two
thousand millions. Although the legal right to appropriate the proceeds of
the labor of the Negroes was transferable, it could go only to some of the
300,000 slaveholding families; and no bill of sale or tax list could make
wealth out of this control of capacity to produce in the future; or if it
was wealth, then the North with its larger laboring population of far
larger productivity was entitled to add five or six thousand millions to
its estimate of wealth. The South was made richer and not poorer by
unloosing the bonds of the negro laborer.
All the world knows that from 1865 to 1880 the South was comparatively a
poor community, not because of the loss of slaves, but from the exhaustion
of capital by the Civil War, and the disturbance of productive labor. The
opportunity for a fair comparative test did not come till the region
settled down again; and then the output in proportion to the working
population remained decidedly small when compared with European countries,
and still smaller when compared with the Northern states.
During the last quarter century, however, the South has experienced the
greatest prosperity that it has ever known. Its progress since 1883 has
been such that an editorial in a Southern newspaper says: "Leaving her
mines and her mills out of the question, the great South is rich in the
products of her fields alone--richer than all the empires of history. She
is self-contained, and what is more, she is self-possessed, and she has
set her face resolutely against the things which will hurt her." Since
that statement was printed the material conditions of the South have
improved, population has steadily increased; and the resources of the
section have more than kept pace with it, manufactures have wonderfully
developed, industry has been diversified, railroads and trolley lines are
extended by Southern capital; the production of coal has been enormously
increased; the utilization of the abundant water powers for electrical
purposes is beginning; most of the older cities have been enlarged; and
new centers of population have sprung up. The traveler by the main
highways from Washington through Atlanta to New Orleans, or from
Cincinnati through Chattanooga and Memphis to Galveston, sees a section
abounding in prosperity.
What are the sources of this wealth? First of all comes the soil;
beginning with the black lands in western Georgia and running through the
lower Mississippi valley to the black lands of Texas, lies one of the
richest bodies of land in the world, comparable with the plains of Eastern
China. It is a soil incredibly rich and, once cleared of trees, easy of
cultivation; blessed with a large rainfall and abundance of streams. This
belt, in which the greater part of the Southern cotton is raised, is the
foundation of the prosperity of the South, which for that reason is likely
to continue permanently a farming community.
These rich soils are not to be had for the asking, and fully improved
lands, especially the few plantations that are undrained, bring prices up
to $100 an acre or more, but uncleared land is still very cheap, and away
from the Black Belt may be had at low prices, especially in the piney
woods regions, which when fertilized are productive and profitable.
Among the most valuable Southern lands are those under culture for fruits
and "truck." This is one of the few methods of intensive agriculture
practiced in the South. Success in such farming depends on climate,
accessibility to market, and skill. A belt of land in Eastern Texas which
has good railroad communication with the North, has suddenly become one of
the most prosperous parts of the South because its season is several weeks
earlier than that of most of its competitors. Truck farming bids fair to
change the conditions of the Sea Islands, of the Carolinas and of
Georgia, since they are in easy and swift communication with the great
Northern markets.
Scattered everywhere throughout the South are enormous areas of swamp
land, partly in the deltas of the rivers, and partly caught between the
hills. Under various acts of Congress 8,000,000 acres of so-called "swamp
lands" were given to the states including much rich bottom land. The South
is now making a demand upon the Federal Government to assume toward those
lands a responsibility akin to that for the irrigated tracts in the Far
West, and it seems likely that either a Federal or State system will
undertake the reclamation of large tracts. The legislature of Florida, for
instance, has authorized the levy of a drainage tax for the drainage of
the everglades, where millions of acres could be made available. At
present all the Federal projects under way, though they involve 2,000,000
acres and $70,000,000 of expenditure, are in the Far West and on the
Pacific Slope.
The fundamental fact that the South is mainly agricultural is brought out
by the statistics of occupations in 1900. The greater part of the
population of both white and black races is on the soil. By the census of
1900, in sixteen states counted Southern, thirty-eight per cent of the
population were bread-winners. Out of the total population of 23,000,000
there were 8,100,000 persons engaged in gainful occupations, of whom
814,000 were in large cities and the remaining 7,300,000 in small cities
and the country. The rapid growth of towns and small cities is due to the
prosperity of the open country; and hence the large city is less important
and less likely to absorb the rural population than is the case in the
North.
Except the Pacific Northwest no part of the Union is so rich in timber as
the South. Until about ten years ago, enormous areas of timber land were
so far from railroads that nobody could think of lumbering them; now that
the hills of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas
are penetrated with main lines, now that branches are pushed out and that
logging trams stretch still farther, few spots lie more than fifteen miles
from rails. Before sawmills arrive, men can earn fair day wages at cutting
railway ties and hauling them as much as fifteen miles, so that the poor
land-owners have one unfailing cash resource. Up to the financial
depression of 1907, lumbering of every kind was very prosperous; new mills
were under construction and a large amount of labor found employment. In
1908 many concerns were shut down, and planters were rejoiced because
Negroes were coming back to them for employment. The check to lumbering is
only temporary. The South still furnishes more than one third of the total
product of the country; and Louisiana comes next to the state of
Washington in the amount of annual cut. But, as a native puts it, "Timber
is a'gittin' gone"; and in ten years most of the Southern states will
approach the condition of Michigan and Wisconsin in the decline of that
industry. Nevertheless, one may still ride or drive for days through
splendid pine forests that have hardly seen an ax. In most places when the
timber is cut, farming comes in, and that is the cause of the
extraordinary prosperity of the "piney woods" belt, through southern
Georgia and Alabama; where the farmer of a few years ago was making a
scanty living, he is now able to sell his timber, to clear the land, and
to begin cotton raising on a profitable scale.
The South is conscious of the wastage of its timber resources, for the cut
is now advancing far up on the highest slopes of the mountain ranges;
hence the Southern members of Congress have joined with New Englanders in
supporting a bill for an Appalachian Forest Reserve, which would set apart
considerable areas at intervals from Mount Washington in New Hampshire to
Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, to be administered by the federal
government in about the same fashion as the similar reserves in the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges. This movement is
greatly strengthened by the manufacturers, who believe that the water
powers require a conservation of the upper forests.
Growing trees are available not only for lumber and railroad ties, but for
turpentine, and any two of these processes, or even all three, may be
going on at the same time. On a tract of pine land, no matter where,
usually the first process is to box the trees for turpentine, and the men
in the business sometimes buy the land outright, but oftener simply pay a
royalty. For this privilege the old-fashioned price was a cent a tree,
which would be about $40 or $50 for a 160-acre tract; but lately farmers
have received as much as a thousand dollars for the turpentine on their
farms. The box or cut in the trunk can be enlarged upward every year for
five years; then if the tree is left untouched for six or seven years it
may be back-boxed on the other side and will yield again for five or six
years; so that it takes about twenty years to exhaust the turpentine from
a given area. The flow from the incision, collected in a hollow cut out of
the wood, or by a better modern method of spigots and cups, not unlike
that used for maple trees, is periodically collected and carried to the
still, where the turpentine is distilled over, and the heavier residue
makes the commercial resin. At the prices of the last few years this
"naval stores" industry has been profitable and millions of trees are
still being tapped.
In mining, the South has no such position as in timber. The coal product
is respectable and growing--in 1906 nearly 40 million tons, which was a
ninth of the national product. Iron ore is also plentiful; and lead and
zinc are abundant in Missouri. Of the output of more than a hundred
millions of precious metals, not half a million can be traced to the
South--and there are no valuable copper mines.
"Varsification, that's what we want," was the dictum of the sage of a
country store in the South; and diversification the South has certainly
attained. The annual money value of manufactured products has now become
considerably greater than of the agricultural products, though of course
the crops are the raw materials to many manufactures. In 1880 the
manufactured products of the South were under 500 million dollars, or one
eleventh of the total of the United States; in 1900 they had risen to
1,500 millions, or about one ninth of the total; and in 1905 they were
2,200 millions--a seventh of the total.
The most striking advance in manufactures has been in iron, the production
of pig rising from 1,600,000 tons in 1888 to 3,100,000 in 1906, a seventh
of the national total; a prosperity due in part to the close proximity of
excellent ore and coal. But the production in other parts of the Union has
increased even more rapidly, so that the proportion of iron made in the
South is smaller than at any time in twenty years. One difficulty of the
manufacture is that it requires besides the crude labor of the Negroes a
large amount of skilled labor, which cannot be furnished by the Poor
Whites or the Mountain Whites.
Another large manufacture is that of tobacco, which is grown in
quantities in many of the Southern states, particularly in North Carolina
and Kentucky, the great centers of the tobacco industry being Richmond,
Durham (North Carolina), and Louisville. The tobacco factories are one of
the few forms of manufacture in which Negroes are employed for anything
except crude raw labor.
In distilled spirits the South produces nearly a third of the whole annual
output--the greater part in Kentucky; the Lower South does not provide for
the slaking of its own thirst; and of the milder alcoholic drinks consumed
in the whole country, the South furnishes only about a tenth.
This success in manufactures is due in part to cheap power, for both fuel
and water power are abundant and easily available; and since the South
requires little fuel for domestic purposes, it has the larger store for
its factories and railroads. The South has also become a large producer of
petroleum, phosphates, and sulphur, and in its bays and adjacent coasts
has the material for a valuable fishing industry.
For carrying on these various lines of business, the South is indebted in
part to Northern and foreign capital; but very large enterprises are
supported entirely by the accumulations of Southern capitalists; and the
savings of the region are turned backward through a good banking system
into renewed investments. The South before the Civil War was probably
better supplied with small banks lending to farmers than in any other part
of the Union, and in the last ten years a similar system has been again
worked out. There are nearly 1,500 national banks in the South, of which
two thirds have been founded since 1900; and in addition, there are
numerous joint stock and private banks. That the business is sound is
shown by the fact that practically all the Southern banks weathered the
crisis of 1907, which was more severe there than in the North. In a very
remote rural parish of Louisiana, in a small and seedy county seat, is a
little bank opened in November, 1907, which, within two months, had
accumulated $65,000 of deposits, and was still enlarging. Through these
widely distributed banks capital is supplied to small industries and to
opportunities of profit which would otherwise be neglected.
One needs actually to pass over the face of the South in order to realize
how much progress has been made in transportation facilities. That section
has always been alive to the necessity of getting its crops to market, and
Charleston has for a century been at work on communications with the
interior; and the Pedee Canal, the first commercial canal in the United
States, was constructed in 1795 to bring the crops to that port. The
navigable reaches of the Southern rivers up to the "fall line" were early
utilized for light-draught steamers, of which some still survive. Turnpike
roads were also built into the interior of the state; and the railroad
from Charleston to Hamburg--140 miles--completed in the thirties, was the
longest continuous line of railroad then in existence. Down to the Civil
War Charleston had an ambitious scheme for a direct line across the
mountains to Cincinnati. The effort to keep transportation up to the times
for various reasons was not successful; settlements were sparse, exports
other than cotton scanty, distances great, free capital limited.
In the last ten years the South has seen a wonderful advance in railroad
transportation. States like Louisiana and Georgia are fairly gridironed
with railroads, and new ones building all the time: indeed, in the "Delta"
of Mississippi a railroad can live on local business if it has a belt of
its own twelve miles wide.
Nevertheless, the present railroad system in the South, comprising about
80,000 miles, has been mostly built since 1880. This system includes
several lines from the Middle West to the seaboard, so that Baltimore, the
James River ports, New Orleans, and Galveston are enriched by commerce
passing through their ports to regions outside the Southern states.
Nevertheless, as will be seen in the next chapter, this means that the
great distributing centers in the Union are outside the limits of the
South.
The progress of the country is measured also by the great improvement in
accommodation for travelers. The testimony is general that down to about
1885 there were, outside half a dozen cities, no really good hotels to be
found in the South; now you may travel from end to end of the region and
find clean, comfortable, and modern accommodations in almost every
stopping place. The demands of the drummers are in part responsible for
this gratifying state of things.
The country roads do not share in the advance. Nominally the South has
over 600,000 miles of public highway, but little of it has even been
improved. Some of the old pikes have gone to ruin, others are still kept
up by tolls; but in many regions which have been well settled and thriving
for a century and a half there is a dearth of bridges, and in bad weather
the roads are almost impassable. So far, the difficulty is not much
relieved by trolley lines. The cities are well supplied and some of them
have a superior system; but few parts of the South have such a string of
populous places as will justify interurban lines, exceptions being the
Richmond-Norfolk and Dallas-Fort Worth systems. The trolley lines have
been much developed by a Northern syndicate which, under the name of Stone
& Webster, has made a business of buying or building and operating
electric plants, many of them with elaborate water power; and the current
is distributed for power, light, and transportation. Stone & Webster's
lines can be found all over the Union, as in Minneapolis and in the state
of Washington, as well as in the South. The capital of the trolley roads
in 1906 was 3,765 millions, or a fifth of the total trolley investment in
the United States.
At the best points of contact between rail and water transportation great
port enterprises are springing up. Galveston is the only port along the
whole coast of Texas with easily obtainable deep water, and the Government
has spent great sums in improving it, while the city has made the most
gallant effort to rebuild and fortify itself against the invasion of the
sea which a few years ago almost destroyed it. New Orleans feels itself
the natural port of the lower Mississippi valley, and the Eads system of
jetties keeps the mouth of the river open, though there is not water
enough to float the great steamers that come into the large Atlantic
ports, and the wharf charges are heavy; the actual commerce of New
Orleans--exports and imports together--was in 1907 $28,000,000 less than
that of Galveston. Inasmuch as New Orleans is a hundred miles from the
open sea, an effort has been made to provide capital to build a gulf port
about fifty miles to the eastward, but so far little progress has been
made. The city of New Orleans has shown unusual enterprise in building a
public belt line railroad ten miles long, intended to connect with all the
roads entering the city; and the city thus steps alongside Cincinnati as
the owner of a veritable municipal steam railroad. Between these ports
there is unceasing rivalry, and the depth of water on the bar outside
Galveston, or at the mouth of the Mississippi, is as interesting to the
Southern business man as the bulletin of a football game is to a
Northerner. Texas will prove to you by science, logic, and prophecy that
no deep-draught vessel can get into New Orleans, or pay the awful port
charges after it arrives; the Louisianian is confident that the next
typhoon will silt up those Texan lagoon harbors which have no great river
behind to scour them out.
Mobile, which is a place with increasing foreign commerce, can never hope
to lead deep water to its present wharves, but about twenty-two miles
below the city is an opportunity to bring large ships nearly inshore, and
that is likely to be the future port of Mobile. Pensacola is the special
favorite of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, but seems to have no
advantages which will bring it ahead of its neighbor Mobile. Of the lower
Atlantic ports, Fernandina, Brunswick, Savannah, Charleston, and
Wilmington are all limited in the depth of water, and several of them
require difficult river navigation. The deep-water ports of Baltimore on
the Chesapeake, and Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News on the lower
James, are on the extreme borders of the South and depend for their
prosperity chiefly on Western commerce.
The transportation business of the South, as in other parts of the Union,
has drifted into the hands of a comparatively few large corporations. The
Southern Railroad, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, and the
Louisville & Nashville include nearly all the railroads between Virginia
and Mississippi. The Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio, Norfolk &
Western, and the new Virginia Railroad connect the tide water of Virginia
and North Carolina with the West. The Louisville & Nashville, Illinois
Central, the Missouri Pacific and Queen and Crescent roads stretch
southward from the Middle Western states to the Gulf. In Texas three or
four railway systems compete for the business between the upper
trans-Mississippi country and the Gulf, and there is a bewildering complex
of branch lines. The net result is that the South outside the mountains is
gridironed with railways. The areas more than ten miles from a railroad
line in the South are now comparatively small. For this reason may be
expected a more rapid development of the resources and wealth of that
section in the next ten years than in the last decade.
CHAPTER XVII
COMPARATIVE WEALTH
Wealth the South possesses--large wealth, growing wealth, greater wealth
than that section has ever before approached. So agreeable is this state
of things that Southern writers are inclined not only to set forth their
prosperity but to claim that theirs is the most prosperous part of the
whole country and is soon to become the richest. As Edmonds puts it in his
"Facts about the South": "Against the poverty, the inexperience, the
discredit and doubt at home and abroad of ourselves and our section of
1880, the South, thrilled with energy and hope, stands to-day recognized
by the world as that section which of all others in this country or
elsewhere has the greatest potentialities for the creation of wealth and
the profitable employment of its people." The Southern statements of the
poverty of the South from 1865 to 1880 are more easily verified. The
tracks of armies outside Virginia and parts of Tennessee were narrow; but
at the end of the war the South had exhausted all its movable capital; the
banks were broken; the state and Confederate bonds worthless; the
railroads ruined; the cities disconsolate. And the labor system was, for a
time, much disturbed, though never disrupted. As Henry Watterson, of
Kentucky, puts it: "The South! The South! It is no problem at all. The
whole story of the South may be summed up in a sentence: She was rich,
she lost her riches; she was poor and in bondage; she was set free, and
she had to go to work; she went to work, and she is richer than ever
before. You see it was a ground-hog case. The soil was here, the climate
was here, but along with them was a curse, the curse of slavery."
The immense increase of wealth and productivity since 1880 is equally
unquestionable. When it comes to the claim that it is the most prosperous
part of the world, it cannot be accepted offhand. The fact that the South
is well off does not prove that it is better off than its neighbors; the
wealth and prosperity of the South are always limited by the character of
its labor. Calculation of profits, adding of bank balances, cutting of
coupons, have to some degree drawn men's minds away from the race
question; but on the other hand the demand for labor and the losses of
dividends or of opportunities to make money because the labor is
inefficient are ever renewed causes of exasperation. At all times the
South is subject to reverses like those of other regions. The crisis of
1907 hit that section hard by cutting down the demand for timber,
minerals, iron, and other staples, and was one of the factors in a decline
in cotton which touched the pocket nerve of the South; and the railroads
felt the loss of business. Still, most Southern enterprises weathered the
storm, and in 1909 the tide of prosperity is mounting again.
If it be true that the South is the most prosperous part of the world, a
disagreeable responsibility falls upon somebody for having less than the
best schools, libraries, buildings, roads, and other appliances of
civilization; if it be not true, there must be some defect in the social
or industrial system which out of such splendid materials produces less
than a fair proportion of the world's wealth. To be sure a section or a
state might lag behind in production and yet forge ahead in education, in
the harmony of social classes, in respect for law, in good order.
Switzerland is not a rich country, but it is an advanced country. The
claims of superior productiveness can with difficulty be tested. The
relative status of the two sections in intellectual and governmental ways
has been examined in earlier chapters and the South cannot claim supremacy
there. A similar comparison shall now be made as to the relative
production and accumulation of the two sections.
A criterion of wealth much relied upon by Southern writers is the movement
of commerce. We are told that two fifths of the inward and outward
movement of foreign trade passes through Southern ports. The truth is that
in 1907 that figure was $883,000,000 as against $2,432,000,000 in all
Northern Atlantic, Lake and Pacific ports. The bulk of this Southern
business, however, is in exports--$742,000,000--a third of the total. Not
a tenth of all the imports came into Southern ports, and three fourths of
that through the three ports of Baltimore, Galveston, and New Orleans,
from all which a part goes into non-Southern states. The explanation is
that through the Southern ports pour the staples, but that the return
cargoes, especially of manufactures, go to Northern ports, even though
part of it is later distributed to the South. A second correction is due
to the fact that about $536,000,000 of the exports goes through the five
ports of Baltimore, Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth, New Orleans, and
Galveston, all of which are entrepots for immense trade originating
beyond the limits of the South. For instance, New Orleans and Galveston
together shipped 24 million bushels of the 147 millions of wheat
exports--practically not a Southern crop. Even in such an unreckoned
increment of income as the federal pension lists, the South is less
forward than the North, which drew 113 millions a year against 25 millions
in the whole South and 11 millions in the seceded states--most of that to
colored soldiers.
The relative wealth of the two sections is best measured not by foreign
trade but by internal production and by public income and expenditure,
calculated on a per-capita basis. Of course conditions vary greatly from
state to state; in Alabama there is steady farm work most of the year,
while in North Dakota the winter is a time of comparative leisure;
California uses agricultural machinery, South Carolina depends chiefly on
hand tools; Wyoming is so young that it has had little time to accumulate
capital, Tennessee has large accumulations. It would be unfair to compare
Arkansas with Connecticut, or Illinois with Florida, on a strictly
per-capita basis. The only way to equalize conditions for a fair
comparison is to take groups of states and set them against other groups
of equivalent population and of similar interests, so that local errors
may neutralize each other.
As a basis for such a comparison of resources, three sets of tables have
been made up. The first sets apart the group of eleven seceding states
with 17,000,000 people (West Virginia not included) as being typically
Southern; and places against them a group of agricultural states extending
from Indiana to Oklahoma, also containing 17,000,000 people. The second
tables include the whole South--viz., the fifteen former slaveholding
states (excluding West Virginia), together with the District of Columbia,
including a population of about 28,000,000 people; to which is opposed the
Middle West and Pacific states from Indiana to the Coast, together with
Vermont and New Hampshire, which are added to make up a full 28,000,000.
To such comparisons the objection has been made that it averages the
confessedly inferior rural negro population with the picked immigrants
from the East and abroad in the Northwest. The objection is a concession
of the lower average productive capacity of the South; but in order to
compare the white elements of the two sections by themselves, a third set
of tables compares the whole South containing 17,900,000 whites and
8,000,000 blacks against a group of Northern agricultural states with a
population of 18,000,000 whites and 234,000 blacks.
The materials for such comparisons are various. Every traveler has his
impressions of the relative prosperity of South and North based on what he
sees of stations, public and private buildings, cities and stocks of
goods, and on the appearance of farms and work-people throughout the
country. For precise indications, the population of the states is
estimated year by year in the _Bulletins_ of the Census Bureau; estimates
of accumulated wealth are made every few years by the Department of
Commerce; returns of annual crops by the Department of Agriculture;
banking statistics by the Treasury Department. The annual _Statistical
Abstract_ prints summaries of manufactures and other industry, and on
these topics the Census Bureau issues valuable bulletins. For tax
valuations there is no general official publication, but the _World
Almanac_ collects every year from state auditors a statement of
assessments. Most of these sources must be accepted as simply a series of
liberal estimates, but the factors of error are likely to be much the same
in the Northern and the Southern communities, and at least they furnish
the basis for a comparison in round numbers. The tax assessments are
significant, because they are revised from year to year, and the methods
of assessment are not very different in the various parts of the country
and are likely to err by giving too low a value or omitting property, so
that comparisons from tax returns are relatively more favorable to the
poorer than to the richer communities.
_I. The Eleven Seceding States._
Tabulation based upon the principles stated above will be found in the
Appendix to this volume; and a study of those tables reveals some
interesting comparisons between the eleven communities which formed the
Southern Confederacy and nineteen Western communities, the two groups each
having in 1900 about nineteen million inhabitants. The assessed taxable
valuation of the Southern group in 1904 was 4,200 millions; in the
Northern group it was 9,700 millions, or more than double. Four years
later the valuations were 5,200 millions as against 13,800 millions. Since
tax assessments are subject to many variations, perhaps a fairer measure
of sectional wealth is banking transactions. The bank deposits of the
National groups of the Southern group were, in 1906, 700 millions, in the
Northern group, 2,400 millions. Bank clearings in the same year were
respectively 4 billions and 8-1/2 billions.
All the eleven seceding states together in 1906 valued their real estate
at 2,900 millions, their personal at 1,800 millions, total 4,700 millions.
A corresponding Northern group (in which the richest state is Indiana),
counts its real estate worth 7,700 millions, its personalty, 2,700
millions, a total of 10,400 millions. That is, the Northern land and
buildings are counted nearly thrice as valuable, and personalty about a
half more valuable, though everybody knows that there is a vast deal of
untaxed personalty in the North.
The miles of railroad in the Southern group were 55,000; in the Western,
94,000; the total value of agricultural products in the South was
estimated at 1,060 millions, in the North at 1,945 millions. Even the
cotton crop of the eleven states, worth 550 millions, was overbalanced by
the Northern corn crop which brought 595 millions. The manufactures in the
South for 1905 were 1,267 millions; in the Northwest 2,932 millions. The
Southern group expended for schools 26 millions, the corresponding
Northern states expended 91 millions. The value of Southern school
property was 43 millions, of the Northern group it was 216 millions; the
average annual expenditure per pupil in daily attendance in the South was
$9.75; in the North about $28.45. For public benevolent institutions the
South expended in 1903 net $3,000,000, the North $7,000,000; the Southern
group had 1,070,000 illiterate Whites, of whom 76,000 were foreign born;
the Northern group had 207,000 besides 389,000 illiterate foreigners. In
the indices of accumulated property the comparison is about the same; the
Southern deposits in all banks were, in 1906, 701 million dollars, the
Northern 2,439 millions. In manufactures the Northern group, with a
capital of 2,240 million dollars and 903,000 hands, produced 2,932
millions; against Southern capital of 1,140 millions, employing 659,000
persons and producing 1,267 millions.
The comparison of valuations brings out one unexpected result, namely,
that several of the Southern states have actually less taxable property
now than they had fifty years ago. This does not mean that they are poorer
because they have lost their slaves. Leaving slaves out of account, in
1860 South Carolina had a valuation of $326,000,000; in 1906 of
$250,000,000; in Mississippi the valuation of real estate in 1860 was
$158,000,000; in 1906, with a population more than twice as great, it was
$131,000,000; in the rich state of Georgia the valuation in 1860,
deducting slaves, was $432,000,000 against $578,000,000 in 1906. The
Southern people feel justly proud of the fact that the valuations of the
eleven former members of the Confederacy between 1902 and 1906 increased
by 962 millions, from a total of 3,799 millions to 4,761 millions, that
their annual manufactures increased by 450 millions; from 819 millions in
1900 to 1,267 millions in 1905.
This increase in industry is so striking that the Southern states suppose
they are unique in that respect; but the corresponding Northern group of
equal population in the same periods gained 4,000 millions in valuations
and 705 millions in annual manufactures. These figures may be checked off
in various ways. Take, for instance, the annual value of crops; the South
is very certain that with its cotton, its corn and other crops together it
is far in advance of the North. In the Southern states which were in
secession (excepting Texas) the value of farms and stock in 1900 was 2,100
millions, the value in an equivalent Northwestern group was 7,800
millions. The total farm product in the Lower South was 1,360 millions, in
the Northern group of equal population 2,390 millions. If Texas be
compared with a group of Pacific states, of equivalent population, the
Texan farms are worth 960 millions, the Far Western 1,400 millions.
The Lower South has been saving money of late years and is proud of its
growing bank deposits, from 168 millions in 1896 to 701 millions in 1906,
an increase of 450 per cent; but the equivalent Northern population has
increased from 716 millions to 2,439 millions. The Lower South in 1905
had 917 national banks with deposits of 308 millions and assets of 568
millions; the similar Northern states had deposits of 834 millions and
assets of 1,418 millions. Let us see whether the South makes up this
disparity by its state banks. In 1906 the Lower South, including Texas,
had deposits of 700 millions in all banks; and total bank clearings of
about 3,920 millions; the equivalent Northern group had deposits of over
2,400 millions, with total clearings of about 8,500 millions. Measured,
therefore, by accumulated savings, by bank capital, by clearings, the
South is poorer than the least wealthy section of the North. If we were to
take the rich Eastern and Northwestern states, with their immense
population, enormous manufactures (New York City contains over twenty
thousand factories), and vast transportation lines, the fact that the
South is far behind the North in things both material and intellectual
would stand out even more clearly.
_II. The Whole South_
It might fairly be said that it is unreasonable to compare the former
seceding states which have gone through the disruption of their labor by
Civil War with new Western communities in which there has been no
destruction of capital. Accordingly the second set of tables compares the
whole South--fifteen states and the District of Columbia--with a
Northwestern and Pacific Coast group of equivalent population. Since a
part of the contention of Southern writers is that the South was richer
than the North before the Civil War and is only returning to her rightful
place of supremacy, it is worth while to examine the supposed wealth of
the South in 1860. The assessed valuation of the Lower South was then
4,330 millions, which a Southern statistician attempts to show was 750
millions more than the combined wealth of New England and the Middle
states; out of this sum, 3,100 millions was for personal property,
including about 1,200 millions for slaves; but either the slaves should be
left out or a capitalized value of Northern laborers should be added on a
slavemarket basis.
Passing by the figures of 1870, which are discredited by all
statisticians, in 1880 the total property valued for taxes in the Lower
South was 1,880 millions, in the whole South was 3,420 millions; while in
similar blocks of Northwestern population they were respectively 2,712
millions and 4,640 millions. This is a splendid record for a people who
had given their all in a civil war and who had to build up nearly every
dollar of their personal property from the bottom. The land, of course,
was always there, but was worth much less per acre in 1880 than similar
good land in 1860.
How far has this rate of progress been continued since 1880 as shown by
the inexorable method of comparing groups of Southern states with groups
of Northwestern states of equal population? The tax valuation shows about
the same proportion, so far as can be ascertained, to real values in one
section as in the other. The local differences of mode of assessment when
averaged would probably not disturb the result by more then ten per cent.
The whole South (16 communities) as compared with a Northern group of the
same number of people in 1907 showed 8.5 billions of assessed property
against 13.7 billions in the North. It may therefore be set down as proven
that the taxable wealth of the lower agricultural South is less than half
that of similar agricultural communities in the North; so that while
mining and manufacturing states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri have
about the same wealth as similar Northern communities, the South as a
whole has not one half the wealth. Take the former slaveholding states all
together, including such a rich commonwealth as Missouri, and the farm
value in the whole region in 1900, with 28 millions of people, was under
5,000 millions; while 28 million people in the West and Northwest owned
farms to the amount of about 11,000 millions, or more than double. The
total Southern crops in 1899, the last year in which the totals are
obtainable, were worth 1,360 millions, the Northern crops counted up to
2,390 millions. The value of the Southern corn crop in 1905 was 416
million dollars; the equivalent population in the Northwest raised 601
million dollars' worth of corn. The whole South raises about 32 million
dollars' worth of oats; the North raises 201 millions. The Southern potato
crop is worth 19 millions; the Northern, 76 millions. Southern hay counts
up to 66 millions and Northern to 258 millions. Even in tobacco, the North
furnishes 7 million dollars' worth against 35 million dollars in the
South. Cotton is the one crop that is exclusively Southern, and the crop
of 1905, the year that we are considering, including the seed, was worth
632 million dollars. The Southern group had 127,000 teachers, school
property of 84 millions, and total school revenue of 45 millions, against
competing Northern figures of 199,000, of 293 millions, and of 120
millions. It is difficult in these figures to find justification for the
notion that the South as an agricultural region is richer than the North,
or is likely ever to rival it.
The actual figures for the present conditions of the South are
sufficiently attractive. During the four years 1904-1907 the big crops
and high price of cotton gave to the South such prosperity as it had never
known before, the total output being nearly fifty million bales, which
sold, in cash, for about 2,700 million dollars. This happy result was
reflected in every city and every county of the rural South, for old debts
were paid, new houses built, land doubled or even trebled in value, and a
spirit of hopefulness pervaded the whole population. A buoyancy is
reflected in the press, and particularly in the _Manufacturers' Record_ of
Baltimore, the leading Southern trade paper. "The South," says the
_Record_, "is now throughout the world recognized as the predestined
center of the earth, based on greater natural advantages that can be found
anywhere else on the globe." Or as another Southern paper put it some
years ago: "In 1860 the Richest Part of the Country--In 1870 the
Poorest--In 1880 Signs of Improvement--In 1889 regaining the position of
1860."
Nobody can be more pleased with Southern prosperity than New Englanders,
who have long since found out that the richer other sections of the
country become, the more business Northerners have with those sections; if
there are directions in which the South is making more rapid progress than
the North, it should be candidly acknowledged. Nobody can visit thriving
cities like Richmond, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, New Orleans, and the
galaxy of future centers of population in Texas, without hearty pleasure
in the increasing evidences of civilization, but it is very unevenly
distributed. Off the main lines of transportation the towns are still
ill-built and unprogressive, and the greater part of the area of the South
is no farther along than states like Illinois and Minnesota were in the
late sixties.
It is, however, a ticklish thing to make these comparisons, because many
Southerners, and particularly Southern newspapers, consider it an attack
upon the South to intimate that it is still much improvable. As the _Macon
Telegraph_ said a few months ago: "After all what does it matter that a
Harvard professor should consider us lazy and not even excuse us on the
ground that we are victims of the hookworm? We still have the right to go
on expanding the figures relating to our remarkable industrial upbuilding,
until we have driven New England out of the business of cotton
manufacturing."
The best measure of comparative wealth would be a statistical statement of
accumulations. On this subject there are many wild guesses. The
_Manufacturers' Record_ in January, 1907, makes claims for the South which
deserve especial examination: "England's wealth, according to the London
_Express_, is increasing at the rate of $7,000,000 a week. That is less
than one seventh of the rate of the increase of wealth in the South. The
increase in the true value of Southern wealth in the past twelve months
was $2,690,000,000, or about $7,300,000 for every day in the year,
including Sundays and holidays. Not only is the speed of increase in the
South so much greater than that in England, but the South possesses
resources, agricultural and mineral, that make certain in the future even
a much greater rate of increase than England."
Except poor old poverty-stricken New England, all the world will welcome
this prodigious accretion of wealth. Think how many opera tickets you
might buy for two and a half billions of dollars! The only attempt at
exact figures of our national wealth is the estimate of the _Statistical
Abstract_, published about every four years, and not based on any exact
figures. Such as it is, it is relied upon by the Southern writers; and it
sets forth that in the four years from 1900 to 1904 the total national
wealth increased by less than 20 billions, an average of 5 billions a
year; it is hardly likely that a third of the population, which in other
respects is below the Northwest, was contributing more than half this
annual gain. The only ground for the assertion seems to be an alleged
increase in the Southern tax valuation from 7 billions in 1906 to 8
billions in 1907; assuming that the average proportion of valuation to
actual value is forty per cent, you have your two billions and a half.
The first comment on this statement, which is selected as typical of the
broad claims which float through the Southern press, is that the figures
furnished the _World Almanac_ for 1908 by the state authorities show that
the Southern valuations in 1906 were 7,813 millions, and in 1907, 8,474
millions; so that the increase of assessments is 650 millions instead of
1,000 millions. In the second place, the estimated true value by the
_Statistical Abstract_ in 1904 was about 20 billions for the whole South;
and on a basis of comparison of the valuations of 1904 and 1907, the
increase in the whole three years would be at best only two and a half
billions. In the next place, two and a half billions a year means that
every man, woman, and child, black and white, is on the average laying up
a hundred dollars, which is an amazing rate of saving.
Having thus proven that the material progress of the South is exaggerated,
the next logical step is to show that perhaps it has foundation, inasmuch
as the equivalent 28,000,000 people in the Northwest in 1905 are gaining
wealth still more rapidly, having increased their estimated "true value"
from 44 billions in 1904 to at least 50 billions in 1907. The South, which
supposes itself to be getting rich faster than any other part of the
globe, has in the last few years actually added less to its wealth than a
similar Northwest agricultural region. In the year 1906-7, while the South
added 650 millions to its tax duplicate, the North added 850 millions. If,
as may be the case, the 650 millions of valuation meant 1,700 millions of
new wealth, the Northwest was adding at least 2,300 millions.
In all this array of figures there is no criticism of the South, no denial
that it is more prosperous than it has ever been before; no desire to
minimize its splendid achievements which are helping on the solution of
the race problem; but it is essential that the Southern people should
measure themselves squarely with their neighbors. The single state of New
York, with less than a fifth the population of the South, has as much
property as the whole South (leaving out Missouri), and adds every year to
its wealth as much as is added by the whole South (leaving out Texas). The
South is really at about the same place where the Northwest was thirty
years ago; it is developing its latent resources; building its cities;
perfecting its communications; starting new industries; and in much less
than thirty years it will come to the point that the Northwest has now
reached; but that section is still driving ahead more rapidly, and thirty
years hence may be proportionately richer than it is to-day. If the South
is saving four millions a day, the Northwest is saving five millions; and
the Middle and New England states, the other third of the country, are
saving eight or ten millions a day. If the South is to range up alongside
the Northwest, to say nothing of the Northeast, it must increase its
production still faster, and the only way to accomplish that purpose is by
improving the average industry, thrift, and output of its people.
_III. Comparative Efficiency of White Populations North and South_
Some Southern statisticians, while admitting these indubitable figures,
contend that the South is improving at a much more rapid rate, and hence
must in no long time overtake the North; but it must be remembered that in
most of these fields of comparison the North not only shows from two to
two and a half times the output, but that its annual or decennial increase
is absolutely larger than in the South; that is, that the annual amount
which the South must add to its present output, in order to catch up with
the North, is larger than it was a year ago, or at any previous time. A
conventional explanation of this state of things is that the Negroes
constitute a large part of the Southern working force, and are much below
the average of Americans in their productive output; but when comparisons
are made between similar aggregations of white population, results are not
very different. If the whole South (including the District of Columbia) be
compared, not with a block of about 28,000,000 Northern people, but with a
block of about 18,000,000 white people corresponding to the 17,900,000
Whites in the South (both figures for 1900), the results are still
startling; although the South has all the advantage of the labor and
production of 8,000,000 Negroes besides the Whites. The debts of the
Southern communities in 1902 were 374 million dollars; of the Northern,
301 millions. The total taxes raised in 1902 were: South, 116 millions;
North, 202 millions. The estimated Southern wealth in 1900 was 16.7
billions; in 1904, 19.8 billions, an increase of 3.1 billions; in the
North the corresponding figures are 25.8 billions and 31.4 billions, an
increase of 5.6 billions. The Southern assessed valuation of 1907 was 8.5
billions, of the Northern group 10.7 billions.
What makes these differences? It certainly is not because the South is
deficient in natural resources, in fertility, in climate, in access to the
world's markets, in the enterprise of its business men. What is the reason
for this discrepancy between the resources and the output of the South?
Some of the Southern observers insist that the North is made rich through
its manufactures. In order to eliminate that condition the comparisons in
this chapter are all with Western and Northwestern states (Vermont being
included simply to equalize the numbers); some of these states, as the
Dakotas and Oregon, are very similar in their conditions to the purely
agricultural and timber states of the South; in other states, such as
Indiana and Wisconsin, there are large manufactures, which, however, are
no more significant in proportion than those of Maryland and Missouri. The
Northwestern states have more manufactures than the Southern, but they
have more of everything, which indicates industry and prosperity. The
obvious reason is that laborers in the South, both white and colored, are
inferior in average productive power to Northern laborers; and the obvious
remedy is to use every effort to bring up the intelligence, and the value
to the community of every element of the population.
While the proof sheets of the foregoing chapter are passing through their
revision there appears in _Collier's Weekly_ for January 22, 1910, an
article by Clark Howell of the _Atlanta Constitution_ who makes, in
italics, the statement that "_the trend of Southern development is
incomparably in advance of that of any other section of the continent_."
The opportunity to apply the cold bath of statistics to such torrid
statements can still be taken, by adding to the tables in the Appendix
some figures for 1907 and 1908, and even 1909, together with some
generalizations based on figures not included in the tables. For example,
the figures for public school education in 1907 show for the ten seceding
states 78,000 teachers against 153,000 in the corresponding Northern
group; school property to the value of 19 millions as against 41 millions;
annual revenue of 24 millions as against 90 millions. The rich state of
Texas, with 18,000 teachers, is balanced by the Pacific group with 28,000;
its school property of 15 millions by 64 millions; its annual expenditure
of 7 millions by 25 millions. Even the richer border state group of five
communities, and an average daily attendance of a million school children,
has school property of 48 millions against 86 millions in the
corresponding Northwestern states; and the school revenue of 21 millions
must be placed against the revenue in the corresponding group of 38
millions.
The assessed valuations of the states, as reported to the _World Almanac_
for 1910, are as follows: the whole South in 1909 was assessed on 10,051
millions--a gain of 2,200 millions in three years; in the equal
Northwestern group it was 19,884 millions--a gain in three years of 7,000
millions (out of which perhaps 2,500 millions should be deducted, on
account of a bookkeeping increase in the assessments in Kansas and
Colorado). The cotton crop of 1908 sold for 675 millions and the corn crop
of the North for 886 millions. The railroads in the South in 1908 totaled
71,790 miles and in the Northwestern group 123,332 miles. The South "has
just harvested a billion-dollar cotton crop" says Clark Howell, and he
predicts twenty-cent cotton. The actual crop for 1909 was probably less
than 11 million bales, and at the average price for the season of about 14
cents, it sold for something like 770 million dollars. The corn and wheat
crops of the whole North (not the equivalent group) sold in the same year
for 2,091 million dollars.
No good can result to anybody either from belittling or exaggerating the
productivity of the South. That section is progressing, and the more it
progresses the less become its difficulties of race and labor problems,
the greater its connection with neighboring states, the larger the
advantage to the whole nation. Still, on any basis of comparison with the
least wealthy states and sections of the North--whether it be made between
the total population of equivalent groups or between the white populations
only, leaving out of account the productivity of the Negroes, the South is
below the national standard of wealth and progress; it grows constantly in
accumulations and in productivity, but its yearly additions are less than
those of the Northwestern states, and much less than those of the
Northeastern states.
CHAPTER XVIII
MAKING COTTON
"The South holds a call upon the world's gold to the extent of
$450,000,000 to $500,000,000 for the cotton which it will this year
furnish to Europe.... This money, whether paid in actual gold or in other
ways, will so strengthen the financial situation, not only of the South,
but of New York and the country at large, as to make the South the saving
power in American financial interests. No other crop on earth is of such
far-reaching importance to any other great country as cotton is to the
United States."
This extract from the _Manufacturers' Record_ is a somewhat grandiloquent
statement of the conviction of the South that it possesses a magnificent
cotton monopoly which no other part of the world can ever rival; that with
proper foresight and with courage, the South may corner the world's market
in the staple, and fix a price which will insure prosperity. In a country
full of natural resources of many kinds, with a soil on which corn may be
grown almost as good as in Indiana, where cattle can be raised and dairies
may be established, the chief aim and object of life is to "make cotton."
The talk of small farmers is cotton; every country merchant of any
standing is a cotton buyer; and most of the large wholesale houses and
banks are interested in cotton.
In all the large cities and some of the small ones are cotton exchanges
at which are posted on immense blackboards the day's data for "Receipts at
Ports," "Overland to Mills and Canada," "Current Stock," "Southern Mill
Takings," "Total in Sight to Date," "World's Possible Supply," and so on.
The federal Census Bureau publishes from time to time estimates of the
acreage and condition of cotton, which so affect the markets that great
efforts have sometimes been made to bribe the officials to reveal the
figures before they are published. The Census Office issues periodical
reports showing the number of bales of cotton ginned throughout the South.
This is the more remarkable because cotton is not the principal product of
the South, nor even the major crop of the rural sections; but the size and
public handling of the crop carry away men's imagination. Timber,
turpentine, mining, and iron making, taken together, produce a larger
annual value than cotton. The total value of all other crops in 1907 was
$758,000,000, which was about $90,000,000 more than the value of the
cotton crop. The corn alone was over $485,000,000, or over two thirds the
value of the cotton. Hay ($92,000,000), wheat, tobacco, oats, and potatoes
make up $272,000,000 more. Though the Lower South grew only 9,000,000
bushels of wheat, rice, cultivated on rather a small scale in South
Carolina, is a crop of growing importance in Louisiana and Texas. The
South raises no sugar beets, little flaxseed, and not a twentieth of the
wool; but the sugar and molasses are worth nearly $20,000,000. Trucking or
the raising of vegetables, chiefly for the Northern market, is said to
employ 700,000 freight cars in the season. The South has also about
15,000,000 cattle, 6,000,000 sheep, and 15,000,000 pigs, all of which are
independent of cotton except that to some degree cotton seed is the food
for stock.
When all has been said, however, the typical Southern industry is cotton,
upon the raising of which certainly nearly half of the population is
concentrated, and it constitutes about a fourth of the whole annual
product of the South. The field of the cotton industry extends from the
foot of the mountains to the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts; and the Southern
social problem is to a very large degree the problem of cotton raising
under a system by which one race includes practically all the masters, and
the other furnishes almost all the laborers for hire.
The history of cotton is in itself romantic. In 1790, about 4,000 bales
were raised; in 1800, 150,000; in 1820, 600,000; in 1840, over 2,000,000.
In 1860 there was a tremendous crop of nearly 5,000,000 bales, a figure
not reached again until 1879. In 1904 the crop was 13,700,000 bales--an
amount not equaled since. The price of cotton has of late ruled much lower
than in the first half of the century, when it sometimes ran up as high as
30 cents a pound. The 1860 crop brought about 11 cents. In 1898 the
average price was about 6 cents, and some cotton sold as low as 3 cents,
but the enormous crop of 1904 brought about 12 cents, and it has ruled
higher since. In 1908 the slackening of the world's demand caused the
price to drop, but it has risen again to the highest point for thirty
years.
The significance of the cotton crop is to be calculated not by the
Liverpool market, but by its remarkable effect on the life of the South.
One reason for its importance is that it can be grown on a great variety
of land. Most of the best American long staple, the Sea Island, comes from
a limited area off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, in which a
seed trust has been formed by the local planters to prevent anybody
outside their narrow limits from raising that grade; for if the seed is
renewed every few years, the fiber can be profitably raised on land now
covered by the piney woods. Another variety of the long staple, the
Floradora, is raised inland. The river bottoms and deltas of the numerous
streams flowing into the Gulf of Mexico are a rich field for cotton,
especially along the Mississippi river; but the Black Belt of the interior
of Georgia and Alabama is almost equally productive; and the piney woods
district and considerable parts of the uplands may be brought under cotton
cultivation.
Northerners do not understand the significance of the fertilizer in cotton
culture. George Washington was one of the few planters of his time who
urged his people to restore the vitality of their land as fast as they
took it out; but rare was the planter up to the Civil War who raised
cattle, and the imported guano from the rocky islets of the Gulf and
Pacific was little used. Then in the seventies discoveries were made of
phosphate rocks in the estuaries of the Carolina rivers; and later, inland
deposits in Tennessee. From these, with some admixture of imported
materials, are made commercial fertilizers which have become indispensable
to a large number of the cotton farmers, so that they are now spending 20
millions a year on that alone, every dollar of which is expected to add at
least a dollar and a half to the value of the crop.
The word "plantation" has come to have a special meaning in Northern ears.
It brings to the mind the great colonnaded mansion house with trim
whitewashed negro quarters grouped about it, the pickaninnies running to
open the gate for the four-in-hand bringing the happy guests, while back
in the cotton field the overseer rides to and fro cracking his blacksnake
whip. That kind of plantation is not altogether a myth. For instance, at
Hermitage, just outside of Savannah, you see a brick mansion of a few
large rooms, built a hundred years ago, surrounded by attractive sunken
gardens, and one of the most superb groves of live oaks in the South; and
near it are the original little brick slave cabins of one room and a
chimney.
That kind of elaborate place was rare; in most cases the ante-bellum
planter's house was a modest building, and nowadays very few large
planters live regularly on the plantation. If the place is profitable
enough, the family lives in the nearest town or city; if it is
unprofitable, sooner or later the banks get it and the family goes down;
even where the old house is preserved, it is likely to be turned over to
the manager, or becomes a nest for the colored people. Inasmuch as cotton
raising is an industrial enterprise, plantations are apt to change hands,
or the owners may put in new managers; so that the ante-bellum feeling of
personal relation between the owner and the field hand plays little part
in modern cotton making.
The modern plantation can more easily be described than analyzed; the term
is elastic; a young man will tell you that he has "bought a plantation"
which upon inquiry comes down to a little place of less than a hundred
acres with two houses. The distinction between a "farm" and a "plantation"
seems to be that the latter term is applied to a place on which there is a
body of laborers (almost universally Negroes) managed, with very few
exceptions, by white men and devoted principally to one crop.
Individual plantation holdings vary in size from the thirty thousand acres
of Bell, the central Alabama planter, down to fifty acres. Many large
owners have scattered plantations, sometimes as many as twenty or thirty,
each carried on by itself; or two or three adjacent groups under one
manager. You are informed that the X brothers "own thirty-three
plantations," which probably means thirty-three different large farms,
ranging from two hundred to two thousand acres each. Three to five
thousand acres of land under cultivation is as large a body of land as
seems advantageous to handle together.
A fair example of the large plantation in the best cotton lands is the
estate managed by Mr. Dayton near Jonesville, La., on the Tensas and
Little rivers. It is an expanse of that incredibly rich land, of which
there are millions of acres in this enormous delta, land which has in many
places produced fifty to seventy-five successive crops of cotton without
an ounce of fertilizer. Between the rivers, which are fenced off by
levees, lie the fields, originally all wooded, but in these old
plantations even the roots have disappeared from the open fields, although
wherever the plantation is enlarged the woods have to be cleared, and the
gaunt and fire-scarred dead trunks mark the progress of cultivation.
The negro houses stand in the middle of the field; for on modern
plantations it is very rare to gather the hands in quarters near the great
house; their cabins are distributed all over the estate. On the main road
is a manager's house, distinctly better than any of the negro cabins. Near
by a white family is moving in where a black family has moved out, for
this plantation (though the thing is uncommon) has a few white hands
working alongside the Negroes. In this free open, in the breadth of the
fields and the width of the turbid streams, alongside the endless
procession of scenic forests in the background, one forgets the long hot
days of toil, the scanty living, the ignorance and debasement. It may all
be as sordid as the mines or the iron works, but it is in pure air. These
thousands of broad acres with their mealy brown soil bearing the
"cotton-weed" (the common name for the stalk after the cotton is picked)
are a type of the lowland South from Texas to North Carolina.
A plantation of somewhat different type is "Sunny Side" in Arkansas,
nearly opposite the city of Greenville, Miss. "Sunny Side" is supposed by
some people to be extravagantly conducted because there are three or four
good managers' houses on the estate, and because there is twenty-three
miles of light railway track. Considering that the plantation runs eight
and a half miles along the river, and that all its products and supplies
would otherwise need to be hauled, there is a reason for the railroad,
whose one little locomotive fetches and carries like a well-trained dog;
and it is a special privilege of all the people employed on the estate and
of visitors to ride back and forth as their occasions require. "Sunny
Side," with an adjacent estate under the same management, comprises about
12,000 acres, of which 4,700 acres, including broad hay lands and
extensive corn fields, are under cultivation, and the remainder is in
timber; considerable areas have been cleared in recent years. The annual
cotton crop is about 2,500 bales. As on most plantations, the houses of
the hands are distributed so that nobody has far to go to his work. Twenty
to thirty acres is commonly assigned to a family; more to a large family,
and the lands rented at from $6 to $8 an acre, according to quality, with
the usual plantation privileges of firewood, a house, and pasture for
draft animals.
Here comes in one of the most important complications in cotton culture.
Northern wheat is usually grown by farmers tilling moderate-sized farms,
either as owners or as money renters; a third or more of the cotton is
raised in the same way by farmers or small planters who till for
themselves or employ a few families of hands; and like the wheat farmers
they look on the land as a tool. On the large plantations, where perhaps
as many as a thousand people are busied on the crop, the manager looks
upon the laborer simply as an element of production; you must have seed,
rain, and the niggers in order to get a crop. Even the most kind-hearted
and conscientious plantation owner cannot avoid this feeling that the
laborers are, like the live-stock, a part of the implements; he houses
them, and if humane and far-sighted, he houses them better than the mules;
he "furnishes them"--that is, he agrees to feed them and allow them
necessities while the crop is making. All this is practically the factory
system, with the unfavorable addition that the average plantation hand
comes near the category of unskilled labor. A Negro brought up on one
plantation can do just as well in a plantation ten or a thousand miles
away; and there is no subdivision of labor except for the few necessary
mechanics. That is, cotton planting on a large plantation is an industrial
enterprise requiring considerable capital, trained managers, and a large
plant of buildings, tools, animals and Negroes.
A characteristic of cotton culture is that it requires attention and keeps
the hands busy during the greater part of the year. The first process is
to break the ground, which begins as early as January 1st, then about
March or April the seed is dropped in long rows, and during the seeding
season the rural schools are likely to stop so as to give the children the
opportunity to help. In the seed there is great room for improvement; as
yet the Southern agricultural colleges seem to have made less impression
on the cotton grower than their brethren in the Northwestern states have
made on the corn and wheat farming, for some large and otherwise
intelligent planters make very little effort to select their seed.
When the cotton is once up, it needs the most patient care, for it must be
weeded and thinned and watched, and is gone over time after time. The
"riders" or assistant managers are in the saddle all day long, and a
prudent manager casts his eye on every plot of cultivated ground on his
plantation every day; for it is easy to "get into the grass," and all but
the best of the hands need to be kept moving.
Then comes the picking of the cotton, which lasts from August into
February. It is a planter's maxim that no negro family can pick the cotton
that it can raise, and extra help has to be found. Here is one of the
large items of expense in raising cotton, for the fields have to be gone
over two, three, and sometimes four times, inasmuch as the cotton does not
all mature at the same time, and if it did, no machine has ever been
invented which is practical for picking cotton. It is hand work to the end
of the year. There is a plantation saying that it takes thirteen months to
make a cotton crop, and it is true that plowing for the next crop begins
on some parts of the plantation before the last of the two or three
pickings is completed on other parts. When picked, the cotton goes into
little storehouses or into the cabins, until enough accumulates to keep
the gin busy.
Everybody in the great cotton districts talks about "A bale to the acre"
as a reasonable yield, but one of the richest counties of Mississippi
averages only half a bale, and the whole South averages about a third of a
bale. What is a bale? The "seed cotton," so called, as it comes from the
field, has the brown seeds in the midst of the fiber, and the first
process is to gin it--that is to take out the seed, and at the same time
to make it into the standard package for handling. This requires
machinery, originally invented by that ingenious Yankee schoolmaster, Eli
Whitney. There are about 38,000 of these ginneries, some having one poor
little old gin, others five or six of the latest machines side by side,
with air suction and other labor-saving devices. It is an interesting
sight to see the fluffy stuff wafted up into the gin with its row of
saw-teeth, and then blown to the press, where a plunger comes down time
after time until the man who runs it judges that about five hundred pounds
have accumulated; then another plunger comes up from below; the
rectangular mass thus formed is enveloped in rough sacking and fastened
with iron cotton ties. The completed bale is then turned out, weighed,
numbered, stamped, and recorded; and becomes one of the thirteen million
units of the year's crop; but the number identifies it, and any particular
bale of cotton may be traced back to the plantation from which it came and
even to the negro family that raised it. Sea Island cotton has a much
woodier plant, and the seed cotton contains less lint and more numerous
although smaller seeds; hence it requires special picking, a special gin,
cannot be so compressed, and must be much more carefully bagged. Sea
Island cotton at 23 cents a pound is thought to be no more profitable than
the short staple at less than half the price.
About 1897 a great effort was made to substitute a round bale, weighing
about half as much as the standard bale, and in 1902 the output reached
nearly a million. It is still a question whether that package is not an
improvement, but the machinery was more expensive, complaints were made
that the round bale was harder to stow for export; the railroad companies
refused to give any advantage in freight rates; and the compressor
companies, who are closely linked in with the railroads, were opposed to
it altogether; and the round bale has almost disappeared from the South.
Only two per cent of the cotton is thus baled.
One of the things remarked by Duke Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, when he
visited the South in 1824, was that the people seemed unaware that there
was any value in cotton seed. Some planters put it on the field as a
fertilizer, where it has some value; others threw it away. During the last
twenty years, however, the cotton seed has become a great factor in the
production. About one third the weight of the seed cotton is seed, and its
value is over one tenth that of the baled cotton. In the high cotton year
of 1906 the cotton seed was thought to be worth nearly ninety millions.
Immense quantities go to the oil mills which are scattered through the
South. Besides the clear oil they produce oil cake which is used as a food
for animals or a fertilizer. The seed practically adds something more than
a cent a pound to the value of the product.
CHAPTER XIX
COTTON HANDS
So far cotton cultivation has been considered as though it were a crop
which came of itself, like the rubber of the Brazilian forests, but during
a whole century the cultivation of cotton has had a direct influence on
the labor system and the whole social organization of the South. Such
close relations sometimes exist in other commodities; for instance, the
election of President McKinley, in 1896, seems to have been determined by
a sudden rise in the price of wheat; but cotton is socially and
politically important every year, because upon it the greater part of the
negro labor is employed, and to it a large portion of the white management
and capital is devoted.
Furthermore, the conditions of the old slavery times are more nearly
reproduced in the cotton field than anywhere else in the South. The old
idea that the normal function of the African race is field labor is still
vital; and the crude and unskilled mass of Negroes still find employment
in which they succeed tolerably well. As in slavery times, the cotton
hands are more fixed in their locality than in other pursuits; they are
less ambitious to move about, and find their way more close hedged in if
they try to go elsewhere. The relation of the white man as task-master to
the Negro as a deferential class is still distinctly maintained; while the
system of advances to laborers resembles the old methods of feeding the
hands.
The Negro is not the sole cotton maker; fully one third of the cotton in
the South is never touched by a black hand, being raised by small white
farmers both in the lowlands and in the hill regions, who produce one,
two, or more bales a year and depend upon that crop to pay their store
bills. Something like one sixth of the crop is raised by independent negro
land owners or renters working for themselves; this leaves nearly or quite
one half the crop to negro labor under the superintendence of white owners
or managers.
Even where the Negro is employed on wages, he looks on himself as part of
the concern and expects due consideration in return for what Stone calls
the "proprietary interest he feels in the plantation at large, his sense
of being part and parcel of a large plantation. Then, too, there is his
never-failing assurance of ability to pay his account, no matter how
large, by his labor, when it is not too wet or too cold, his respect, and
his implicit and generally cheerful obedience."
Inasmuch as more than half the Negroes are raising cotton, and most of the
others are working on farms, it is important to know what kind of laborers
they make. It is the opinion of their greatest leader, Booker Washington,
that the best place for the Negro is in the rural South, and that he is
not fitted for the strife of the great cities South or North. Is he
perfectly fitted for any service? Is it true, as one of the employers of
Negroes alleges, that "their actions have no logical or reasonable basis,
that they are notional and whimsical, and that they are controlled far
more by their fancies than by their common sense?"
In cotton culture there is little to elevate a man. One of the numerous
errors flying about is that the slave in the cotton fields was a skilled
laborer, and that there is intellectual training in planting, weeding, and
picking. The owner or renter must of course accustom his mind to consider
the important questions of the times of plowing and seeding, and he must
submit to the anxiety which besets the farmer all over the world; but
cotton culture is a monotonous thing, the handling of the few tools is at
best a matter of dexterity, and the only man who gets an intellectual
training out of it is the manager. When cotton is high, a plantation is a
more or less speculative investment, and many people who save money put it
into land and hire a manager. Cotton broking and banking firms sometimes
carry on plantations of their own. City bankers and heavy men get
plantations on mortgage, or by purchase; and banks sometimes own too much
of this kind of property.
Of course many planters run their own plantations; but on all large
estates, and many small ones, there is a manager who is virtually the old
overseer over again. Commonly he is a good specimen of the lower class of
the white population; in a very few cases he is a Negro. Successful
managers command a salary as high as $3,000 a year or more, and have some
opportunity to plant on their own account; business sense such a man must
have, but above all he must be able to "handle niggers," an art in which,
by common consent, most Northern owners of cotton land are wanting. On a
large plantation there will also be one or more assistant managers,
commonly called "riders"; a bookkeeper, who may be an important
functionary; a plantation doctor, sometimes on contract, sometimes times
taking patients as they come and charging their bills on the books of the
plantation. On one plantation employing a hundred and thirty Italian
families there is even a plantation priest.
The manager subdivides the estate into plots, or "plows"--you hear the
expression "he has a fifteen-plow farm"--of from ten to thirty-five acres,
according to the number of working hands in the squad that takes it. A
"one-mule farm" is about thirty acres. He settles what crop shall be
grown; some insist that part of the acreage be planted in corn, others
raise all the corn for the estate on land worked by day hands. The secret
of success is unceasing watchfulness of all the details, and especially of
the labor of the hands.
Outside of the administrative force and their families there are commonly
no white people on a cotton plantation. The occasional white hands make
the same kind of contracts, live in the same houses, and accept the same
conditions as the Negroes; but their number is small and they are likely
to drift out either into cotton mills or into sawmill and timber work. The
foreign agricultural laborers, as has been shown in the chapter on
immigration, are few in number. The Germans, the so-called Austrians, the
few Bulgarians, Greeks, Syrians, and Italians, all taken together, are
probably less than 10,000, and there seems little reason to suppose that
their number will soon increase. The main source of plantation labor has
always been the Negroes who furnish about two million workers on other
people's land, and with their families make up more than half of all the
Negroes in the United States.
With their families--for the unit on the plantation is not a hand, but a
family, or where three or four unmarried men or unmarried women work
together, a gang. This practice, combined with the child labor in cotton
mills, accounts for the large number of persons under fifteen years
old--more than half the boys in some states--who are employed in gainful
occupations. This is one of the most striking divergences from any kind of
Northern farming where plenty of farmers' wives ride the mowing machine,
and farmers' sisters pick fruit, and farmers' children drop potatoes,
where foreign women often work in garden patches, but where people do not
habitually employ women and children at heavy field labor.
The best Negroes, unless they own land of their own, seek the form of
contract most advantageous to themselves, paying either a money rent of
two dollars to eight dollars an acre, or an equivalent cotton rent. It is
generally believed that the renters are the people most likely to save
money and buy property for themselves. In Dunleith, Mississippi, a crew of
seven people came in with a hundred dollars' worth of property, and three
years later went away with more than a thousand dollars' worth of
accumulated stock, tools and personal property. A renter must have animals
of his own, and is obliged to feed them and to keep up his tools. Some
planters find that renters leave them just as they are doing well, and
that the land is skinned by them. In general, however, a Negro who has the
necessary mules can always find a chance to rent land.
The share hand or cropper is next in point of thrift; the planter
furnishes him house, wood, seed, animals, and implements; and at the end
of the year the value of the crop is divided between owner and tenant,
either half and half or "three fifths and four fifths," which means that
the Negro gets three fifths of the cotton and four fifths of the corn.
A third class is the wage hands, who in general have not the ability to
rent land on any terms; they receive a house and fuel, and wages, from
fifteen dollars a month up to a dollar a day. Where steady wage hands can
be found, this is considered the best arrangement for the planter.
Renters and croppers may be supplemented by extra work, paid for by them,
or charged to them. If they get into a tight place with their cotton, the
manager sends wage hands to their aid, and at picking time all available
help of all ages is scraped together and sent out according to the needs
of the plantation. Of course, a renter or a "cropper" may allow members of
his family to work for others, if he cannot keep them busy. On some
plantations tenants pay on an average nearly a hundred dollars a year for
this extra help.
During the five years from 1903 to 1907 there was a phenomenal demand for
cotton hands, and planters were eager to get anybody that looked like
work; hence the Negro had the agreeable sensation of seeing people compete
for him. Of course, if, at the "change of the year" (January 1st), the
Negro moves to one planter, he moves away from another, and the man thus
left behind has gloomy view of the fickleness and instability of the negro
race. One of the best managed plantations in the Delta of Mississippi,
supposed to be very profitable, has seen such a shift that at the end of
five years hardly one of the original hands was on the place. Other
planters in that region equally successful in making money say that they
have little or no trouble with negro families moving, and there seems no
good reason to believe that they are more restless than any other
laborers. It is, of course, highly discouraging for a planter who has made
every effort by improved houses, just treatment and clear accounts, to
satisfy his people, to see them slipping away to neighbors who are
notoriously hard, unjust, and shifty. While he remains on a plantation,
the Negro feels, says a planter, "the certainty, in his own mind, that he
himself is necessary to its success."
It is this dissatisfaction with the negro laborer which has led to the
efforts, described above, to bring in foreigners, efforts which have been
so far quite unsuccessful, first, because the number of people that could
be induced to come is too small to affect the South, and secondly, because
few of them mean to remain as permanent day laborers. Since the South
seems better fitted than any other part of the earth for the cultivation
of cotton, since at any price above six cents a pound there is some profit
in the business, and at the prices prevailing during the last five years a
large profit, it seems certain that the Negro will be steadily desired as
a cotton hand; and the question comes down to that suggested by Nicholas
Worth: "There ought to be a thousand schools, it seemed to me, that should
have the aim of Hampton. Else how could the negroes--even a small
percentage of them--ever be touched by any training at all? And if they
were not to be trained in a way that would make the cotton fields cleaner
and more productive, how should our upbuilding go on? For it must never be
forgotten that the very basis of civilization here is always to be found
in cotton."
If the master sometimes is dissatisfied with the laborer, the Negro in his
turn has his own complaints, which Booker Washington has summed up as
follows: "Poor dwelling-houses, loss of earnings each year because of
unscrupulous employers, high-priced provisions, poor schoolhouses, short
school terms, poor school-teachers, bad treatment generally, lynchings and
whitecapping, fear of the practice of peonage, a general lack of police
protection, and want of encouragement." In this list several of the items
refer to the plantation system of accounts, which cannot be understood
without some explanation of the advance system.
In slavery times plantation owners got into the habit of spending their
crop before it was grown, and that is still the practice of by far the
greater number of cotton planters and farmers, large and small. In flush
times agents of large cotton brokers and wholesale establishments
literally press check books into the hands of planters and invite them to
use credit or cash to their hearts' content. There is some justification
in the system as applied to cotton culture, which over large areas is the
only sale crop; and under which (for the same system runs down to the very
bottom) the planters themselves are in the habit of making advances to
their tenants and hands. The white and negro land owner commonly make
arrangements "to be furnished" by the nearest country storekeeper; or by a
store or bank, or white friend in the nearest city. On the plantation, the
planter himself commonly furnishes his own hands, and has a store or
"commissary" for that purpose. Neither banker nor planter expects to lose
money; both are subject to heavy deductions by the failure of planters and
the departure of hands, and hence they recoup themselves from those who
will pay. The effect is, of course, that when the cotton is sold and
accounted for, the planter and his hand alike may not have any surplus to
show, and begin the new year in debt. And the same round may be gone over
again year by year during a lifetime.
The system is enforced by lien loans, through which the crop is the
security for the loan, and in addition it is customary for the small
farmer to mortgage mules, tools, and whatever else he may have. As Stone
explains: "The factor's method of self-protection is to take a deed of
trust on the live stock and prospective crop, and is the same whether the
applicant be a two-mule Negro renter, or the white owner of a thousand
acres of land, wanting ten thousand dollars of advances.... There is,
however, this difference: the white man gets his advances in cash,
available at stated intervals, while the Negro gets the most of his in the
shape of supplies." Many people believe that the whole crop lien system is
an incentive to debt, that if it were abolished people would have to
depend upon their character and credit; and hence a determined effort was
made in South Carolina in 1908 to repeal the lien law outright.
The obvious defects of this system, the tendency to extravagance, the not
knowing where you stand, the prevention of saving habits, are aggravated
for the Negro because the white man keeps the books. The Negro is
accustomed to be charged prices which in many cases are a half higher than
the cash price of the same article in the nearby stores; he knows that
there will be an interest charge at the rate of from ten per cent to forty
per cent on his running account, and he suspects (sometimes with reason)
that the bookkeeping is careless or fraudulent. Some planters make a
practice of ending the settlement of every account with a row, and the
consequent frame of mind of the Negro is illustrated by a stock story. A
Negro has been trading with a local merchant and goes to a new store
because they offer twelve pounds of sugar for a dollar instead of ten. On
his way back he passes the old place, where they ask him in, weigh up his
sugar, and show him that he has actually only nine pounds instead of
twelve. "Yes, boss, dat's so, but after all, perhaps he didn't get the
best of it; while he was weighing out that sugar, I slips dis yere pair of
shoes into my basket."
The story precisely illustrates the futility of cheating the Negro; for
whenever he thinks his accounts are juggled, he will see to it that his
labor is no more conscientious than the bookkeeper's. Many of the really
long-headed planters see that the less the relations of employer and hand
are matters of favor, and the more they become affairs of business, the
easier it will be to get on with their hands. Many of them have a fixed
basis for advances, not more than about fifteen dollars a month for a
family, and that in provisions only; others keep no book accounts for such
advances, but issue coupon books of say fifteen dollars every month. A few
pay their wage hands and give out the advances in cash, allowing people to
buy where they will. A very few decline to have anything to do with
advances in any form; but inasmuch as the Negroes must eat, in such cases
the hands usually get somebody else to furnish them. Some planters close
up their accounts at the end of the year, compelling the Negroes to turn
in whatever they have in property to close out their accounts, and then
start in afresh.
All these are only palliatives; the net effect of the system of advances
to hands is to accentuate the industrial character of the cotton
plantation. A big plantation in central Alabama or the Delta of
Mississippi cannot be compared with any Northern farms, nor even with the
great ranches of California; it is very like a coal mine back in a cove of
the mountains of Pennsylvania; the same forlorn houses, the same company
store, the same system of store orders and charges; only the coal mine
sells its product from day to day and pays any differences in cash at the
end of the month, while the cotton hand must wait till his particular bale
is sold at the end of the season, before he can draw his profit. The Negro
is therefore less likely than the miner to lay tip money, and is even
more at the mercy of the company's bookkeeper.
Here is an actual annual account of a plantation family in the Delta of
Mississippi, two adults and one child, poor workers:
--------------------------------------------
| Debit | | Credit
------------|--------|-------------|--------
Doctor | $24.45 | Cotton | $498.57
Mule | 33.00 | Cotton seed | 91.00
Clothing | 53.40 | |
Rations | 60.00 | |--------
Feed | 11.25 | | $589.57
Rent | 130.50 | |
Extra labor | 179.45 | |--------
Seed | 11.90 | |
Ginning | 43.50 | |
Cash down | 53.50 | Debit. | $11.38
|--------| |
| 600.95 | | $600.95
--------------------------------------------
These people got their living and sixty-six dollars in cash and credit
during the year; but the charge for extra labor shows that they were
shiftless and did not work out their own crop. On the same plantation an
industrious family of three adults and one child earned in a year $974, of
which $450 was net cash.
An examination of various plantation accounts reveals the fact that the
actual earnings of the negro hands, if industrious, are considerably
greater than the average for the Pennsylvania miners, but of course the
whole family works in the fields. The renters could do still better if
they had money enough to carry them through the year; on a prosperous
plantation in Arkansas, only about one fortieth of all the negro gangs
kept off the books of the company and drew their earnings in cash at the
end of the year, while two thirds of the Italians employed on the same
plantation had no store accounts. In fact there is some complaint that the
Italians club together and buy their provisions at wholesale.
The advance system is complicated by a system of "Christmas Money." You
hear planters bitterly cursing the Negroes who have demanded $25, $50, or
$100 to spend at Christmas time, as though the money were not charged
against the Negro to be deducted at the end of the year; and as though it
were not so advanced in order to induce the Negro to make a contract with
them. Many planters refuse to give Christmas money and yet fill up their
plantation houses. It is all part of a vicious system; the wage hands have
to be paid somehow, though often not completely paid up till the end of
the year; the share hands and renters are carried by the planter because
they always have been carried; and because bad planters can take advantage
of this opportunity to squeeze their hands. The difficulty is one known in
other lands; in Ceylon, for instance, the laborers on tea and rubber
estates draw advances, carry debts which have to be assumed by a new
employer, trade at a "caddy," which is the same thing as a commissary, and
complain of the accounts.
The system is just as vicious for the small land owners both negro and
white. Most Southern states under their crop lien law allow the growing
crop to be mortgaged for cash or advances, and hence any farmer has credit
for supplies or loans up to the probable value of the crop when marketed.
That value is variable, the advances are clogged with interest and
overcharges, and the whole system is a heavy draft on the country. There
are money sharks in the Southern country as well as in the Northern
cities, and many scandalous transactions. One man in Alabama has 2,500
Negroes on his books for loans, in some cases for a loan of $5 with
interest charges of $1.50 a month. Cases have been known where a Negro
brought to a plantation his mules and stock, worked a season, and at the
end saw all his crop of cotton taken, and his property swept up, including
the mules, which are exempt by law. Many back plantations take the seed
for the ginning--that is, they exact more than twice what the service is
worth. A Negro has been known to borrow say $200; when it was not paid,
the white lender seized on all his possessions, and without going through
any legal formality gave him credit for $100, leaving the balance of the
debt hanging over his head. A peddler has been known to insist on leaving
a clock at the house of a poor colored woman who protested that she did
not want a clock, could not afford a clock and would not take a clock. The
man drove off, returned some months later, demanded payment for the clock
which was just where he left it, never having been started, and when the
money was not forthcoming proceeded to take away the woman's chickens--her
poor little livelihood. She ran to a white neighbor, who came back with
her and turned the scoundrel out. There is first and last much of this
advantage taken of the ignorance and poverty of the Negro; a certain type
of planter declares that he can make more money out of an ignorant black
than out of an educated one. As one of the white friends of the colored
race in the South says, the Negroes must receive at least sufficient
education to enable them to protect themselves against such exaction.
Considering the immense importance of cotton to the South, it is amazing
how wasteful is its culture and its distribution. Experts say that a great
part of the cost of fertilizers could be saved by cultivating the cow
pea. About six per cent of the value of the fiber--a trifle of forty
million dollars--is seriously injured by ginning. Comparatively few
farmers or planters select their seed, though several of the Southern
agricultural colleges have set up cotton schools, and the president of the
Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College has actually begun to hold
farmers' institutes for the negro farmers. The cotton bale is probably the
most careless package used for a valuable product. It sometimes literally
drops to pieces before it reaches the consumer; and of course the grower,
in the long run, loses by the poor quality or the poor packing of his
product. The grading of cotton requires that a large quantity be brought
together in one place, and the small grower gets little advantage out of
improvement in his staple.
What the South most needs in cotton is the improvement of the labor. As
President Hardy, of the Mississippi Agricultural College, says: "So many
of our negroes are directing their own work that their efficiency must be
preserved and increased or great injury will result to our whole economic
system. The prosperity of our section as a whole is affected by the
productive capacity of every individual in our midst. The negro's
inefficiency is a great financial drain on the South, and I believe this
farmers' institute work for the negro is the beginning of a permanent
policy that will be very far-reaching in its results. There is no doubt
that this is one of the ways of increasing the cotton production of the
country that has heretofore received very little attention."
It remains to consider the relation of the race question to cotton
manufacture. Long before the Civil War it was seen that the Southern
staple was being sent to foreign countries and to the North to be
manufactured, and that the South was buying back its own material in
cotton goods; therefore some cotton mills were constructed in the South.
The labor in these mills seems to have been entirely white, but their
product, which was of the coarser qualities, was never large enough to
control the market. About 1880 came a new era of cotton manufacture, aided
first by the extension of the railway system, second by the development of
water power, and third by the discovery that the poor whites make a
tolerable mill population. Hence grew up a chain of flourishing factory
towns, most of them on or near the "fall line," so as to take advantage of
the water powers, and there has been a steady growth of Southern
manufactures. In 1887 the Southern mills worked up only 400,000 bales,
which was one fifth of the staple used for manufactures in the United
States. Twenty years later they were making up 2,400,000 bales, which was
one half the consumption. The state of South Carolina alone in 1905
produced manufactures to the amount of $79,000,000.
The first thing to notice in this manufacture is that the mill hands are
still exclusively white. Several efforts have been made in Columbia,
Charleston, and elsewhere to carry on cotton mills with negro labor, and a
few negro capitalists have built mills in which they expected to employ
people of their own race; but every one of these experiments seems to have
been a failure, partly because of the ignorance of the average Negro who
could be drawn into the industry, and partly because of his irregularity.
The Poor Whites do not make by any means the best mill help, and their
output of yards per hand is considerably less than that in the Northern
states. The supply of white labor also shows signs of depletion, though
Mountain Whites are being brought down; it is still a question whether
they will settle in the new places, or whether after they have saved
money they will return to their mountains. Hence the frantic efforts to
bring in mill hands from outside the South. Northern hands will not accept
a lower wage scale and do not like the social conditions. It is plain that
the Southern cotton manufacture is entirely dependent upon the supply of
native white labor.
Notwithstanding the great growth of cotton manufacture in the South, the
fine qualities are still made elsewhere; and the capital employed, the
total wages paid, and the value of output are much greater in the North.
The value of the product in South Carolina rose between 1890 and 1905 from
$10,000,000 to $50,000,000, but in the same period the value in
Massachusetts rose from $100,000,000 to $130,000,000. The output of cotton
goods in Columbia, $5,000,000 is less than half the output of Nashua, New
Hampshire. The New England states still furnish nearly one half the output
of cotton manufactures, measured by value. The Northern states as a whole
pay $65,000,000 a year for wages against $27,000,000 in the South; and
their product is $270,000,000 against $268,000,000 in the South. It is
evident, therefore, that the scepter for cotton manufacture has not yet
passed into the hands of the South.
The discussion of the economic forces and tendencies of the South in the
last three chapters may now be briefly recapitulated. The South is a
prosperous and advancing region on the highway to wealth, but advancing
rather more slowly than other agricultural sections of the country, and in
material wealth far behind the West and farther behind the Middle states
and New England. It will be several decades before the South can possibly
have as much accumulation as that now in possession of the region which
most resembles it in the United States, the Middle West and Far West. Of
its sources of wealth, the timber is temporary, mining and iron making
limited in area. The chief employment must always be agriculture, and
particularly cotton. Cotton culture on a large scale, as now carried on,
is an industrial enterprise in which the laborer is likely to be
exploited. The advance system is a curse to the South, inciting to
extravagance and leading to dreams of wealth not yet created; it is
especially bad for the Negro, who is at his best as a renter, or still
more as the owner of land. Economically the progress of the negro laborer
is very slow, but he is absolutely necessary to the welfare of the South,
for no substitute can be discerned.
CHAPTER XX
PEONAGE
From the earlier chapters on the Negroes and on the Cotton Hands it is
plain that the Southern agricultural laborer is unsatisfactory to his
employer, and not happy in himself; that the two races, though allied, are
yet in disharmony. Of recent years a new or rather a renewed cause of race
hostility has been found, because the great demand for labor, chiefly in
the cotton fields, gives rise to the startling abuse of a system of forced
labor, commonly called peonage, which at the mildest is the practice of
thrashing a hand who misbehaves on the plantation, and in its farthest
extent is virtually slavery. For this system the white race is solely
accountable, inasmuch as it is the work of white men, sometimes under the
protection of laws made by white legislatures, and always because of an
insufficient public sentiment among white people.
When the slaves were set free, the federal government was careful to
protect them against a relapse into bondage. The Thirteenth Amendment,
which went into effect in 1865, absolutely prohibited "slavery or
involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted." In addition, in 1867, an act of Congress
formally prohibited "the system known as peonage." A further statue of
1874 declared it a crime "to kidnap or carry away any other person with
intent to hold him in involuntary servitude." The word "peonage" comes
from the Mexican system of serfdom, the principle of which is, that if an
employee owes his master he must continue to serve him until that debt is
paid, the only escape being that if another employer is willing to come
forward and assume the debt the employee is allowed to transfer his
obligation to the new master. In practice, the system amounts to
vassalage, inasmuch as the debt is usually allowed to reach a figure which
there is no hope of paying off.
The term "involuntary servitude" is clear enough, and it is a curious fact
that when the Philippine Islands were annexed there was a system of
slavery in the Sulu Archipelago which was actually recognized by a treaty
made by General Bates; but the federal government dropped the treaty, and
there is no doubt that the United States courts would uphold any Sulu
bondman who sought his liberty under the Thirteenth Amendment.
In 1865 some of the Southern states passed vagrant laws under which
Negroes were obliged to make a labor contract for a year, and could be
compelled to carry out that contract; and the belief in the North that
these statutes were virtually intended to reënslave the freedmen was one
of the mainsprings of the Fourteenth Amendment and the other
Reconstruction legislation.
Inasmuch as the raising of cotton requires almost continuous labor, it is
customary to make voluntary contracts with both renters and wage hands
running for a year, commonly from the first of January; and breach of
contract is a special grief and loss to the planter, inasmuch as if a
Negro throws up a crop it is often impossible to find anybody else to
finish it. Hence has grown up almost unconsciously a practice which
closely resembles the Mexican peonage. It is unwritten law among some
planters that nobody must give employment for the remainder of the year to
a hand who is known to have left his crop on another plantation; and still
further, that no contract should be made at the beginning of the year with
a family which, after accounting for the previous crop, is still in debt
to a neighbor, except that the new employer may pay the old debt and
charge it as an advance against the hand. There is nowhere any legal
sanction of this widespread practice, but the result is that thousands of
Negroes are practically fastened to their plantation because nobody else
in the neighborhood will give them employment; and far too many planters
therefore make it a point to keep their hands in debt.
This system grew up slowly and attracted little attention till it began to
be applied to Whites. During the last ten years the South has been opening
up sawmills and lumber camps, often far back in the wilderness. In order
to get men either from the South or the North, it was necessary to prepay
their fare, which was subsequently taken out of their wages. Hence the
proprietors of those camps felt that they had a claim on the men's
service, and in some cases kept them shut up in stockades. For instance,
in 1906, a Hungarian named Trudics went down to Lockhart, Texas, receiving
$18.00 for railroad fare, on an agreement to work for $1.50 a day. He did
not like the work and thought he had been deceived as to the terms;
whereupon he used a freedman's privilege of bolting. He was trailed with
bloodhounds by one Gallagher, caught, brutally whipped by the boss, and
driven back, as he said, "like a steer at the point of a revolver."
Similar cases have been reported from various parts of the South,
involving both native Americans and foreigners; the latter have sometimes
had the special advantage of aid from the diplomatic representatives of
their country. Inasmuch as some of the state courts were unwilling to take
action, cases were brought before the federal courts under the Peonage Act
of 1867. Thus, though the personal abuse of Trudics by Gallagher was a
state offense which seems to have escaped punishment, the violent laying
of hands on him and restraint of his liberty was made a case before a
federal court; and Gallagher was sent to prison for three months. It is
plain that if foreigners and white Northerners can be practically
enslaved, the same thing may happen to white Southerners; this and other
like convictions have had a good effect. Quite beyond the injustice of the
practice, it has been a damage to the South because it checks a possible
current of immigration.
In 1908 an attempt was made to show a case of peonage of Italians on the
Sunny Side plantation, Arkansas. It proved that one of the hands had grown
dissatisfied and started to Greenville to take a train for the wide world,
leaving unpaid a debt of about a hundred dollars at the commissary. One of
his employers followed him to the station and told him that if he
attempted to leave he would arrest him for breach of contract; whereupon
the man returned to the plantation. This was certainly not peonage, and
the grand jury consequently refused to indict; but it was an attempt to
enforce specific performance of a labor contract. Peonage of Whites seems
to have about come to an end; it was not stopped, however, by public
opinion in the South, and it still goes on through the holding in bondage
of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Negroes, either in unabashed defiance
of law or through the means of cruelly harsh and unjust laws, aided by bad
judges.
In the first place, many planters assume that a Negro who is on the debit
side on their books has no right to leave the plantation, even for a few
days, and as one of them expressed it to me: "If he goes away, I just go
and get him." A case recently occurred in Monroe, La., where some colored
men were brought from Texas by one Cole on the assurance that they were to
be employed in Arkansas. Instead they were switched off and set to work in
Louisiana. One of them departed and made his way to Texas, but his master
followed him, seized him, brought him back in defiance of all law, and set
him at work again. The master was tried for peonage in Texas, but was not
convicted.
One of the worst criminal cases of this kind is that of John W. Pace, of
Dade City, Ala., who not only shut in his own people, but would seize any
black that chanced along that way and compel him to work for him a few
days. Judge Thomas G. Jones, who in 1901 was put on the federal bench in
that state, made it his business to follow up Pace; when a jury declined
to convict him, the judge rated them soundly; another case was made out
and Pace thought it prudent to plead guilty, and was sentenced to
fifty-five years in the penitentiary. The Supreme Court of the United
States affirmed the constitutionality of the peonage law and Pace threw up
his hands; then, on the request of the judge, the President pardoned him.
These and some like convictions have shaken the system of confining men
because the employer thinks that otherwise they will go away.
Nevertheless, under cover of iniquitous state laws, peonage of Negroes
goes on steadily, first by a most unjust enforcement of various special
state statutes which require agricultural labor contracts to be made in
writing, and to run for a year. The illiterate Negro often does not know
what he is signing, and if he did know might see no means of helping
himself. It is difficult to contrive a legal penalty for a Negro who
simply leaves his contract and goes off; he might be arrested and held for
debt, since almost all such hands owe their employer for supplies or
money; but all the Southern states have constitutional provisions against
imprisonment for debt. The difficulty is ingeniously avoided by most of
the states in the Lower South, which make it a punishable offense to draw
advances on "false pretenses"; thereby a hand who attempts to leave while
in debt to his master can be arrested as a petty criminal. But how is it
provable that the Negro might not intend to return and carry out his
contract? In Alabama the legislature, with intent to avoid the federal
peonage law, has provided that the acceptance of an advance and the
subsequent nonperformance of the contract shall be proof presumptive of
fraudulent intent _at the time of making the contract_. Now the employer
can follow his absconding hand by a process thus described by a planter.
You arrest him on the criminal charge of false pretenses, which is
equivalent to a charge of stealing the money; you get him convicted; he is
fined, and in lieu of money to pay the fine he goes to jail; then you pay
the fine and costs and the judge assigns him to you to work out the fine,
and you have him back on your plantation, backed up by the authority of
the state.
Let a few actual illustrations, all based on Southern testimony, show what
is done under such a system. A woman borrows six dollars of a neighboring
planter, who afterwards makes a demand for the money. As it is not paid,
he sets up without further ceremony the pretense that she is obliged to
work for him, refuses to receive back the money which her present employer
furnishes her, and attempts to compel her to labor. In South Carolina a
man starts to leave his employer, asserting that he has paid up his debt;
the employer denies it; the man is brought into court and fined thirty
dollars, and in lieu of the money goes back to the same servitude, this
time hopeless. A Negro in Alabama makes a contract January 1st and takes
$5.00 earnest money, and works until May; the master refuses to give him a
house. He works two months more, and then leaves, is arrested for breach
of contract, and the courts hold that the acceptance of that five dollars
proves that he did not mean to carry out his contract, although he has
worked seven months. A woman makes a labor contract; and before it expires
marries a man whom she had never met at the time of making her contract;
held, that her marriage proves that she did not mean to carry out the
contract when she made it, and she is therefore guilty of false pretenses.
Even without a contract a Negro may be legally obliged to labor for a
white man under vagrancy laws, by which Negroes who are not visibly
supporting themselves may be convicted for that crime, and then sent to
the County Farm, or hired out to somebody who will pay their fine. Once in
the hands of a master, they are helpless. For instance, one Glenny Helms,
who was apparently guilty of no offense, was in 1907 arrested, fined and
sold to one Turner, who in this case thought it prudent to plead guilty of
peonage. The son of this Turner was the agent in the most frightful case
of peonage as yet recorded. A woman was accused of a misdemeanor; it is
doubtful whether she had committed any; but at any rate she was fined
fifteen dollars; Turner paid the fine; she was assigned to him and he set
her to the severe labor of clearing land. And then what happened? What was
a hustling master to do with a woman who would not pile brush as fast as
the men brought it, but to whip her, and if she still did not reform, to
whip her again, and when she still would not do the work, to string her up
by the wrists for two hours, and when she still "shirked," God Almighty at
last came to the rescue; she was dead! When they tried to prosecute the
man for murder in the state courts, the sheriff of the county (who was in
the gang) came to the other slaves who had seen this, as they were
summoned to the grand jury, and told them that if they gave any damaging
testimony "we will put you in the river." Such things happen occasionally
in all civilized lands. As dreadful a crime was committed in Paterson, New
Jersey, not many years ago; but there are two differences between the
Bosschieter and the Turner cases. Those Jersey murderers were all
convicted; that man Turner walks the earth, unmolested, not even lynched.
The public sentiment of New Jersey was clear that an offense against the
humblest foreigner was an offense against the Commonwealth; but the blood
of that poor black woman cries in vain to the courts of Alabama; and the
thousands of people down there who feel furious about such matters are so
far helpless.
The states by their statutes of false pretenses are partners in those
iniquities, but the federal government has done its best in prosecutions.
Between fifty and a hundred indictments have been brought. Federal Judge
Boyd, of North Carolina, said of his district: "There has been evidence
here of cruelty so excessive as to put to shame the veriest barbarian that
ever lived." Federal Judge Brawley, of South Carolina, has held void an
act of that State making breach of labor contract a misdemeanor.
Convictions have been obtained in half a dozen states, and it is
altogether likely that the Supreme Court of the United States will
confirm this good work by holding invalid all state statutes which attempt
to enforce a debt by sending a man to prison, or still more by selling his
services to a master.
Here, as in so many other phases of this question, the troublous thing is
not that there should be cruelty and oppression or servitude. Gangs of
Italians under a padrone in the North are sometimes little better than
bondmen. Masters of almshouses and reform schools will sometimes be brutal
unless their institutions are frequently and carefully inspected. The real
difficulty is that the superior race permits its laws and courts to be
used for the benefit of cruel and oppressive men; that public sentiment
did not prevent the peonage trials by making the cases impossible; that a
federal judge in Alabama should be assailed by members of the bar and
members of Congress because he stopped these practices. Peonage is an
offense which cannot be committed by Negroes; it requires the capital, the
prestige, and the commercial influence of white men.
The federal government has instituted investigations of these practices,
and Assistant Attorney General Russell has urged the passing of such
federal statutes as shall distinctly reach these cases of detention; and
also the amendment of the state laws so as to take away the authority to
transfer the services of anyone from the state to an individual. This last
is a reform of which there is especial need. Most of the cases of peonage
arise out of the practice of selling the specific services of a convict to
an individual; and it carries with it practically the right to compel such
a person to work by physical force. What is to be done with a bondman who
refuses to touch a hoe, except to whip him, and to keep on whipping him
till he yields? The guards and wardens of prisons in the South use the
lash freely, but they are subject at least to nominal inspection and
control. To transfer the distasteful privilege to a contractor or farmer
is to restore the worst incidents of slavery.
Sympathy must be felt for the planters and employers who make their plans,
offer good wages, give regular employment, and see their profits reduced
or eliminated because they cannot get steady labor. Much of the peonage is
simply a desperate attempt to make men earn their living. The trouble is
that nobody is wise enough to invent a method of compelling specific
performance of a labor contract which shall not carry with it the
principle of bondage. Men enlisted in the army and navy may be tracked,
arrested, and punished if they break their contracts--but they cannot be
lashed into shouldering a gun or cooking a meal. Sailors are, by the
peculiar conditions of isolation at sea, subject to being put in irons for
refusing to obey an order--but the cat has disappeared from the legal
arguments to do their duty. It is the concomitant of freedom that the
private laborer shall not be compelled to work by force; there is no way
by which the South can cancel that triumph of civilization, the exercise
of free will. When will people learn the good old Puritan lesson that the
power to do well involves the power to refuse well doing? That you cannot
offer the incitement of free labor without including the possibility of
the laborer preferring to be idle?
CHAPTER XXI
WHITE EDUCATION
"The most progressive nations have now definitely come to the conclusion
that there is no mode of increasing industrial and commercial efficiency
so effective as universal education sufficiently prolonged to effect
permanent improvement in the observing and reasoning powers of the
children." So said that primate of American education, President Eliot, in
an address at Tuskegee, Ala. Though speaking before an audience chiefly
composed of colored people, he was laying down a general principle, for he
goes on to say that in the Southern states "for both whites and blacks the
school time is too short; a large proportion of the children leave school
at too early an age; well-trained teachers are lacking; and the range and
variety of accessible instruction are too small. Hence a large proportion
of both the white race and the black race in the South are in urgent need
of better facilities for education."
This is one point of view; at the other extremity stand such men as a
Southern editor who has recently written, "As an educational influence the
investment of $100,000 in a cotton mill is worth ten times the $100,000
given a Southern college." What does the South as a whole think on this
question of education? What are its needs? What has it so far done? What
is it prepared to do? How does education affect the race question?
Throughout the South there has been and still persists an excellent
tradition of reading and of education among the classes which may be
presumed to afford such advantages for their children. Classical allusions
and quotations from Scripture and Shakespeare are still recognized by all
well-educated men. Some of the few fine old plantation houses contain
elegantly appointed libraries, stopping short, however, at the year 1836,
or whenever the owner died. The city of Charleston has better bookstores
than the city of Albany. Probably more people in North Carolina can
comment on Shakespeare than in Maine; and the man who can read Horace
without a pony and quote Greek without looking at the book is a public
character. Besides this admiration for an old-fashioned learning that is
now passing, the South feels a genuine and lively interest in what goes on
in the world. The present generation of fairly well-to-do people travel
more, see more, read more that is written in their own time, think more
than did their fathers and grandfathers. They feel a genuine interest in
education, put intelligent thought on methods, show respect for the
colleges, are willing to spend money on schools.
Like England in the Eighteenth Century the South abounded in readers of
good literature, while the land was full of ignorance. Though in early
Virginia suggestions were made for free common schools, and Thomas
Jefferson strenuously advocated them, though in the forties and fifties
several Southern states had elaborate paper systems of schools, outside
the large cities there were no graded schools open to all white children
such as were familiar in the North after 1840. Even New Orleans waited for
good school buildings till the fortunate bequest of McDonogh; as for free
rural schools, not a single Southern state had organized and set in
operation a system before the Civil War. From the first the sparse
settlement of the South, the presence of the Negro, and the lack of that
commercial connection with the rest of the world which so arouses the
human mind, made it difficult and perhaps impossible to found a system of
general popular education in that region.
For the higher education of the dominant class much more was done.
Beginning with William and Mary in 1692--the first colonial college except
Harvard--many colleges were established. The first state university was
North Carolina, founded in 1790; the first American university of the
German type was the University of Virginia, which began operations in
1825; the first institution to introduce coeducation was Blount College,
which, about 1800, conferred the degree of A.B. upon a woman. But for
various reasons there never were money enough, students enough, and
trained educators enough to man the Southern colleges that were founded;
and secondary schools to feed the colleges were lacking. The girls had a
few boarding schools, some of which were called colleges by courtesy, but
their education was superficial. Many students who could afford it found
their way to Northern colleges, and that is why John C. Calhoun, the
apostle of slavery, was a Yale graduate, and Barnwell Rhett, the
protagonist of secession, was a graduate of Harvard.
After the Civil War came a dismal period, when some of the old
universities were closed for want of means and of professors who could
take the oath of allegiance. The training of the children of the best
families at that period has been thus described by one who experienced it:
"The schools that I attended--may God forgive the young women who one
after another taught the children of the sparsely settled
neighborhood--were farces and frauds. There was no public school.... We
lived in sort of a secluded training place for Southern gentlemen.... We
never saw a newspaper.... The professor of mathematics--so a rumor
ran--was a freethinker. He was said to have read Darwin and become an
evolutionist. But the report was not generally believed; for, it was
argued, even if he had read Darwin, a man of his great intellect would
instantly see the fallacy of that doctrine and discard it."
One of the few benefits conferred by the Reconstruction governments was a
system of general public schools nominally open to every child in city or
country; but just as the education of Negroes and Poor Whites was
beginning, the schools were separated for the two races, and the Negroes
were cut off from Southern white teachers. To start the new system there
was no tradition of public school training and management, little sense of
public duty in laying sufficient taxes, and the South was very poor. Hence
it was about 1885 before the South put into operation a general
educational system, supported by public taxation. The most recent
statistics available (for 1906) show over 6,000,000 common school pupils
in the South, besides 380,000 pupils in private schools, 118,000 pupils in
public high schools, and 34,000 more in private secondary schools; 38,000
students in public and private universities, colleges and schools of
technology. Every Southern state has now worked out some system of both
rural and urban public schools, and several of them have a sizable State
school fund which is distributed among the districts. The ordinary type of
rural school is practically the district school of the North over again.
City schools are graded in the usual fashion. Most states have a State
Superintendent of Education, and the more progressive communities like
Louisiana are introducing county superintendents with power to compel good
schools. Surely with so many people and so much money, all must be happy
in the South. It is an educational army, with common school infantry,
secondary school cavalry, and in the institutions of higher learning the
heavy artillery and the big guns. Yet it is an army in which every
division, brigade, and regiment is divided into two camps, in which spear
clashes on shield, for hardly anything in the South so brings out into
relief the race question as the problem of education, and especially of
negro education.
The Reconstruction governments made no provision for public high schools,
but the growth of towns and cities in the South and the need of
preparatory schools for the colleges, and the public sense of the value of
secondary education, have compelled the founding of a great number of such
schools, both for girls and boys. Normal schools have also developed till
there are 45 with over 10,000 students. The colleges are also flourishing;
and of professional schools the South has more than 160, with above 12,000
students.
A rough measure of the need of education is the statistics of illiteracy,
which in the reports of the United States Commissioner of Education is
defined as the status of a person over ten years of age who is able
neither to read nor to write. Such illiterates in Germany are about one
per cent of the population; in England about six per cent; in the whole of
the United States about ten per cent. The various states of the Union show
great variations: in Nebraska in 1900 it was two per cent; and the lowest
Southern state, Missouri, with six per cent, showed a greater proportion
of illiterates than any of 27 Northern states; while the 12 highest
communities on the list, from Arkansas with twenty per cent to Louisiana
with thirty-eight per cent, are all Southern but two. Of 58,000,000
persons sufficiently old to be capable of both reading and writing in some
language in the United States in 1900, 6,000,000 were illiterate, of whom
about 4,000,000 lived in the South; of the 21 most illiterate states and
territories, 15 are Southern, the worst being Alabama, South Carolina, and
Louisiana, in all of which more than a third of the population was
illiterate. This alarming state of things is not due wholly to the negro
race; out of 5,700,000 blacks at least ten years of age, 2,700,000, or
forty-eight per cent, were illiterate; out of 13,000,000 Whites,
1,400,000, or eleven per cent, were illiterates. The white illiterates,
with all the advantages of their superior race, were half as numerous as
the Negroes! Out of 1,900,000 white children of school age, 200,000, or
ten and a half per cent, could not read or write; out of 1,000,000 colored
children of the same age, 300,000 were illiterate, which is twenty-five
per cent.
For both races this proportion of illiterates is steadily diminishing; and
that is the effect of the schools and of nothing else. Never again will
the South see a generation like the present, in which many adults have had
no opportunity, or have neglected the opportunity of going to school when
children. These figures accord with the experience of other states; for
instance, New Hampshire in 1890 was as illiterate as Missouri was in 1900;
and in both states illiteracy is steadily decreasing. As for the Southern
Poor Whites, it is true, as Murphy says, that they have a potentiality of
education. "I find no hopelessness in it, because it is the illiteracy,
not of the degenerate, but simply of the unstarted. Our unlettered white
people are native American in stock, virile in faculty and capacity, free
in spirit, unbroken, uncorrupted, fitted to learn."
The gross figures of illiteracy are misleading, because the old people who
cannot now be taught to read and write reduce the general average against
the children who are learning the arts of intelligence. The percentage of
colored illiterates in the whole of the United States in 1900 was
forty-four per cent as against seventy per cent in 1880; in Louisiana the
percentage runs up to sixty-one per cent; but the Negroes between ten
years old and twenty-five show only about thirty per cent of illiteracy,
and that proportion is steadily decreasing. In 1900 the illiterate
children from ten to fourteen years of age were in Mississippi only
twenty-two per cent. With reasonably good schools and proper laws for
compulsory attendance illiteracy may be expected to sink to about the
figures of other civilized nations.
This raises at once the question of the actual efficiency of the schools
in the South, their comparison with other parts of the country, their
probable effect upon the future of the region. The ability to write one's
name and to read a few words is only the beginning of education; the real
educational question in the South is, What are the schools doing beyond
the rudiments of the three R's? Some light is thrown on that question by
comparing the school statistics of the Lower South with those of a block
of similar Western and Northwestern agricultural communities from Indiana
to Utah: 20,700,000 Southerners have 7,000,000 children of school age
(five years to eighteen), of whom 4,400,000 are enrolled and the average
daily attendance is 2,700,000; 20,700,000 Northerners with 6,000,000
children (a million less than the equivalent South) enroll 4,500,000 and
have a daily attendance of 3,200,000. The Southern group has 92,000
teachers; the Northern, 158,000. The value of Southern school property is
$42,000,000; of Northern, $217,000,000, or over four times as much. The
Southern school revenue is $26,000,000; the Northern, $92,000,000. The
average expenditure per pupil attending in the South is under $10.00; in
the North nearly $30.00. The South spent about 16 cents on each hundred
dollars of valuation; the North spent about 20 cents.
When the whole South together, including such rich states as Maryland and
Missouri, is compared with an equivalent population group in the North,
the figures are more favorable to that section: 28,000,000 Southerners
furnished an average daily attendance of 3,700,000 children; the same
number in the North furnished 4,200,000. The South has 127,000 teachers;
the North, 200,000. The total value of Southern school property is
$84,000,000; of Northern, $294,000,000. A comparison of per-capita
expenditure in the year 1900 showed an average school tax in the United
States of $2.84 per head; but not a single state south of Washington
raised above $2.10. Alabama raised only 50 cents, and even the rich state
of Texas only about $1.50, as against $4.80 in North Dakota. Tennessee
spent $1,800,000 a year in public education; Wisconsin, with an equivalent
population, spent $5,500,000; South Carolina, with a population nine
tenths that of California, spent one eighth as much. The state of
Mississippi spent $6.17 per pupil annually; the state of Vermont spent
$22.85.
Inasmuch as the Negroes contribute several million school children and not
very much in taxes, it will be instructive to compare the 12,000,000
Whites of the Lower South with 12,000,000 Northwestern Whites, in those
forms of education which are referable chiefly to the Whites. The Lower
South, on this basis, furnished in 1906 68,600 pupils in public secondary
schools against 172,600 in the equivalent North; the secondary school
plants in the South cost $23,000,000; in the North $52,000,000. The
college students in the South were 27,800; in the North, 27,200. The
Southern college income was $6,000,000; the Northern, $7,500,000. Here,
again, the comparison of the whole South with 18 million Whites against 18
equivalent millions in the Northwest is somewhat more favorable. The
secondary plant costs $40,000,000 against $77,000,000 in the North. The
normal schools of the South have an income of $1,400,000, those of the
North $2,400,000. The Southern college students are 38,000 against 42,000;
and the college income, $9,000,000 against $12,600,000.
The inevitable inference from these figures is that the South still needs
to bring up its equipment and its expenditure if it is to educate as
efficiently as its neighbors; and this presumption is strengthened by
observation of schools of various grades. The Southern city schools are
good, especially in the former border states; St. Louis, Baltimore, and
Louisville come close up to Cleveland, Indianapolis, and St. Paul in the
outward evidences of educational progress. Statistical comparison of a
group of Southern cities with a group of Northern cities of the same
aggregate population shows that in externals they are not far apart; the
Northern schools have more schoolrooms, more teachers and more plant, but
the annual expenditures are about as large in the Southern as in the
Northern group.
The rural white schools are a different matter. It is, to be sure, nearly
thirty years since old Bill Williams explained why there was no school in
the Clover Bottom district in the Kentucky mountains: "They couldn't have
no school because there wasn't nary door or winder in the schoolhouse.
I've got that door and winder, and I paid a dollar for 'em; but I've been
keeping 'em, you see, because there was trouble about the title. Jim
Harris gin us that land, and we 'lowed 'twas all right, because it
belonged to his gran'ther and he was the favorite grandson; but when the
old man died it 'peared like he had willed it to somebody else; and I
wouldn't put no door nor winder into no schoolhouse where there ain't no
title, and there hain't been no school there sence. You want to know when
all that trouble happened 'bout the title? I reckon it was fifteen or
twenty year ago." There are still just such schools or rather such no
schools in many parts of the South.
Even in prosperous regions, buildings, apparatus, and teacher may be
alike, dirty and repellent. Take, for instance, Mt. Moriah school in Coosa
County, Alabama. The building is twenty-five feet square, inclosing a
single room with two windows and two doorways, one of them blocked up. In
the middle is an iron stove, around which on a winter's day are parked
four benches in a hollow square, upon which, or studying in the corner,
huddle and wriggle twenty-three pupils, ranging from seven up to
twenty-one years of age. They are reading physiology aloud, in the midst
of the gaunt room, with very little in the way of blackboards or
materials. An example of the better district schoolhouse is in a populous
region near the mill town of Talassee; a new building with eleven windows,
well ceiled throughout, with a clean gravel space in front, good desks and
plenty of blackboard.
The curse of many of the rural schools is their easy money, for all the
Southern states have a system of state school funds, the income of which
is subdivided among the districts, and is in some of them about enough to
keep up school three or four months on the usual scale of payment to
teachers. When the school fund is exhausted, great numbers of districts
close their schoolhouses, and the result is that the average number of
school days in a year is far below that of Northern schools. In
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island the public schools are in
session about 190 days; in Georgia, 118; in Arkansas, 87. These are
averages; and since the city schools commonly run seven or eight months,
there must be many districts in which there are not over fifty or sixty
days' school. One of the great educational reforms now going on in the
South is to secure from the local governments appropriations to continue
the schools after the state fund runs out. When the South is sufficiently
aroused to the blessing of education, it will find that it has money
enough for its needs.
Another defect is in the schoolhouses. The Southern towns and cities are
coming to follow the example of the West and North in putting up imposing
school buildings, though there is no such need for elaborate heating
apparatus and ventilation as in the North, and they are in general
simpler. The country schoolhouse is in many cases a big, dirty hut, often
built of logs, wretchedly furnished, and devoid of the commonest
appliances of civilization. There seems to be a feeling throughout the
South that schoolhouses cannot be built wholly out of taxation, but the
people on the ground must contribute at least a part of the cost. You may
find neat and tidy rural schoolhouses, actually painted, but they are far
from typical.
Another difficulty is the teachers. The monthly salaries for white
teachers in several of the Southern states are high. A Coosa County farmer
complains that a teacher in his district is getting $3.50 a day for twenty
days in the month, which was more than any farmer in the district could
earn. But of course her $70.00 a month would only run while school was in
session, which might be five months. In Louisiana rural teachers receive
higher salaries than in any other state in the Union, and no commonwealth
is making such determined effort to improve its rural schools. In the
remoteness of Catahoola Parish may be seen a system of wagonettes to bring
children to central graded schools, a reform which goes very slowly in New
England.
A further reason for the backwardness of the Southern rural schools is
that they are in the hands of county superintendents, whose place until
recently has too often been political. Now there is a body of trained
superintendents who are giving people object lessons in what can be done
even with poor buildings by well-trained teachers. The South is also
bending its energies on normal schools, and the result is a growing body
of teachers with professional spirit, who expect to make the schools their
life work. The state superintendents are also improving in their
professional power. The worst Southern rural schools are not too much
behind those that Horace Mann found in Massachusetts when he began his
work in 1837; the wages of the rural teachers are probably not so low as
those in Maine; and the next decade will see a vast improvement in the
rural schools throughout the South.
So with the secondary schools, where the number of pupils has
astonishingly increased. In 1898 there were in the South 1,107 schools and
72,000 pupils; in 1906 there were 1,685 schools (Texas alone has 321),
5,100 teachers, and 118,000 pupils. A great change has come about in the
education of girls. Nearly half the teachers and nearly two thirds of the
pupils (70,000) in these schools are women, and that means that in
connection with the normal schools, in which there are over 7,000 women
students, the South is now training a body of teachers who are going, to
make a great change in the education of the next generation. The growth of
secondary schools means further that the South is putting an end to a
reproach of many years' standing--namely, that it could not adequately
prepare pupils for college.
It was a severe lesson when the trustees of the Carnegie retiring
allowance fund in 1906 laid down its principle that no grant would be made
to professors in any college which did not come up to the following
standard: "An institution to be ranked as a college must have at least six
professors giving their entire time to college and university work, a
course of four full years in liberal arts and sciences, and should require
for admission not less than the usual four years of academic or high
school preparation, or its equivalent, in addition to the preacademic or
grammar school studies." To the surprise of the Lower South, it was
discovered that only one institution, Tulane University, had insisted on
the condition of four years academic or high school preparation. Several
other organizations are waking the South up to the need of improvements,
such as the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the
Southern states, with nineteen colleges as members; a commission of the
Southern Methodist Church; the General Education Board of New York, with
its fund of $43,000,000; and the Southern Education Board.
In the South as in the North, there are two types of institutions of
higher learning, the endowed (in most cases denominational) and the
public. The number of Southern colleges is considerable; 166 out of 493 in
the United States--which is not far from the proportion of the population;
but only 8 of these institutions have upward of 500 undergraduate
students, as against 42 in the rest of the Union; and the total number of
undergraduate students in universities, colleges, and technological
schools, 25,300, is about a fifth of the total of 122,000 in the United
States, while the normal proportion would be a third. The property of the
Southern colleges ($99,000,000) is about a fifth of the total college
property; the income of $7,300,000 is about a sixth of the whole, the
benefactions in 1906 ($2,400,000) about a seventh. That is, in number,
wealth, and students, Southern institutions of higher learning represent
about the same reduced proportion to the North as in the case of public
wealth and public expenditures; that means that an average million of
people in the South enjoy less than half the educational advantages
possessed by an average million in the Northwest.
This rather favorable proportion does not obtain in women's education; of
the fifteen colleges for women, recognized by the Bureau of Education as
of full collegiate rank, only 4 are in the South; they include less than
an eighth of the women students, and their property is less than a tenth.
The 95 Southern institutions classified as "Colleges for women, Division
B" are practically boarding schools of secondary grade, and are balanced
by the greater number of Northern girls in high schools; 345,000 against
70,000 Southern high school girls; the 17,000 in private high schools and
academies are overbalanced by 35,000 in the North. One of the great needs
of the South at present is high-class colleges for girls, which shall turn
out a well-grounded and well-trained body of women, interested in public
affairs, and shall be a nursery of high school and college teachers.
The Southern denominational colleges are open practically to men only. The
normal schools receive both sexes, and 4,000 women are registered in the
Southern universities, colleges, and technological schools which are open
to both sexes, as against 10,000 men. As the Southern states grow richer,
they are giving more attention and more money to their public
institutions, but so far few of their advanced institutions take rank
alongside the great Northwestern universities. The University of North
Carolina has 682 students and an excellent tradition; the University of
Texas counts 1,100 men and 400 women, and is in many ways the most
flourishing of the Southern institutions. The University of Virginia,
though it has an annual grant from the legislature, is practically an
endowed institution with 700 students; the University of Georgia has 408
students, though it at one time put forth the whimsical claim that it had
the largest attendance in the United States, surpassing Harvard and
Columbia, a result made up by adding in day scholars in affiliated schools
below the high school grade. The state university funds, including the
federal grants, are usually dispersed among two, or even three or four
small institutions.
There is a vigorous intellectual movement in the South. The recent
graduates, who at one time had a preference for college appointments in
their own colleges, are now giving way to a throng of eager young scholars
who have enjoyed graduate study in American or foreign universities and
hold higher degrees. Wherever you fall in with a body of those men, you
are impressed with their good training and their broad outlook. Politics
are yearly less forceful in such institutions; and probably never again
will there be such an episode as happened in a border state university
about ten years ago. A new president discovered after a time that the
janitor of the college buildings was not disposed to take instructions
from him, whereupon he appealed to the board of trustees to put the man
definitely under his control. The trustees held their meeting, at the end
of which the janitor appeared with a bundle of blue envelopes, the first
of which he offered to the president with the confidential remark, "You're
fired!" The others were addressed to the professors, every one of whom was
summarily removed. Having thus gone back to first principles, the trustees
elected a new president and a new faculty, including some of the old
teachers; strange to say, that university has since become one of the most
promising in its section. In all institutions of this kind and in the
literary faculties of many colleges is a sprinkling of Northern
professors, for the Southern colleges, like the Northern, are more
tolerant than they were half a century ago. Most of the young men now
receiving appointments in colleges and scientific institutions have
studied in other Southern colleges, in the North or in Europe; and in all
the learned associations they take their places as well-equipped and
productive men.
Professional education has also made great strides in the South. Many of
the most promising young men are sent to Northern law and medical schools,
not only because of their supposed educational advantages, but because it
is thought well for a young man to have a double horizon; but the greater
number find instruction in nearby professional schools either established
by practitioners or attached to some university. For the medical students
the hospitals which are springing up everywhere furnish clinical material.
Theological education is less systematized; the older and more settled
denominations have good schools, but too many preachers in the back
country have no other training than a natural "gift of the gab." In the
agricultural and mechanical colleges, and the engineering departments of
the endowed public universities, the South is educating her future
engineers and scientific men.
The educative effects of travel and intercourse with other people are
making themselves felt. In ante-bellum times few Southerners traveled
widely, except the comparatively small number of the richer young men who
found their way to Northern colleges, or abroad. Until ten years ago it
was difficult to hold Southern conventions and gatherings of intellectual
men of kindred aims because people could not afford to travel. Now there
is more circulation, more knowledge of the world, more willingness to see
in what respects the South lags behind, a greater spirit of coöperation
between Southern states, and with some people of other sections. The norms
of common schools, secondary schools, and higher institutions are now laid
down on about the same principles as in the North, and it remains to
develop them, to make paper systems actual, to get more of the school
children registered, more of the registered children in attendance, more
months of school for those who attend, better teachers for the longer
sessions, new buildings to accommodate the larger numbers, more students
to fill the little colleges and to enlarge the universities. White
education in the South is in a progressive and hopeful condition.
In the means of education outside of schools and colleges the South is
still much behind the richer North, and still more behind foreign
countries. Museums and picture galleries are few, aside from private
collections in Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and New Orleans. The fine
old paintings that one sees in clubs and public buildings come from an
earlier age, for there are few Southern artists. Nevertheless, the
architectural standard is quite as high as in the North, and the tradition
of wide spaces and colonnades persists. In its public buildings the South
is in general superior to the North; even in remote county seats one may
find buildings old and new of classic proportions, dignified and stately.
The South has been poor in collections of books, but all the larger
Universities have fair libraries, and the cities have public libraries,
and the numerous gifts of Carnegie have stimulated this form of public
education. Several Southern cities, as, for example, Galveston, have
endowed institutions for lecture courses on the general plan of the Lowell
courses in Boston.
The South has never been highly productive in literature, and too much of
the Southern writing bears evidence of a purpose of speaking for the South
or in a Southern fashion. A considerable part of the books written by
Southerners are about the South in one way or another; there is a sense of
sectional obligation. This is the less necessary for a region from which
have sprung Poe, one of the world's acknowledged literary delights, and
Lanier. There is a school of Southern writers, of whom the late Joel
Chandler Harris is a type, who have found broader themes of life about
them and have given to the world the delightful flavor of a passing and
romantic epoch. The principal literary work of the South is now in its
newspapers.
Another intellectual force is found in the Southern historical societies,
of which there is one in almost every state. They have shown a lively
interest in saving the records of the early history of the South and in
preserving its memorials from destruction. There are also two or three
literary periodicals of distinct literary merit, in which one finds an
expression of the newest and most modern South.
In every direction, then, the white people of the South are alert. The
schools are fair and improving, the community is awake to the need of
educating all the children, even in the remote country; and though the
taxes for education are still very light, there is a disposition to
increase them. In Texas, for example, where there is a state tax, the
people have by constitutional amendment authorized all school districts to
double that amount by local taxation. If the Whites were the only people
to be educated, and if education were the panacea, if it brought assurance
of good government, the Southern question would in due time take care of
itself.
The most hopeful sign of intellectual progress is the association of those
most interested for the promotion of their common ends; such is the
Coöperative Education Association of Virginia which holds annual meetings
and general conferences for education. These meetings are means of
attracting public attention to the problems and of suggesting the
solution.
For many years education of the Whites in the South has been aided from
the North, first, through considerable gifts for the education of the
Mountain Whites, and second through more sparing aid to colleges for
Whites in the lowlands. Recently, however, the attention of wealthy
Northern givers has been turned to the importance of uplifting the whole
white Southern community, and after several annual visits to the South
under the patronage of Mr. Robert C. Ogden, of New York, a Southern
Education Board was formed, the purpose of which is to rouse people to the
need of improving their education; following it is the General Education
Board, which makes small gifts to educational institutions usually on the
stipulation that they shall raise a conditional amount varying from an
equal sum to a sum three times as great. This is the more necessary as
there are only two or three institutions in the South that have anything
like an adequate endowment. Tulane University in New Orleans has a
property of several millions, and the University of Virginia has recently
raised a new million outright, but the South has no large body of people
with superfluous funds and its giving turns habitually rather in the
direction of church construction and foreign mission work than to
educational institutions. Of $1,400,000 given to the University of
Virginia during thirty years, $900,000 came from Northerners and $270,000
more from foreigners living in the South.
Of late, voices have been raised for some kind of Federal aid to Southern
education on the plea that where there is the greatest intellectual
destitution there is the most need for money. The appeal is contrary to
the usual instincts of the South in matters of federal and state
relations, and is strongly opposed by part of the Southern press,
particularly the _Manufacturers' Record_, which has waged a campaign
against even the private gifts made through the General Education Board.
CHAPTER XXII
NEGRO EDUCATION
However cheering the interest in general public and higher education
throughout the South, the Whites get most of the benefit; the lower third
of the people, the most ignorant, the poorest, the least ambitious, those
whose debasement is the greatest menace to the community, are less in the
public eye; and the efforts to educate them arouse antagonism of various
kinds. All calculations as to numbers of pupils, school expenditures, and
public opinion as to education are subject to restatement when the Negroes
are taken into account. Even in states like Maryland and Kentucky, where
they are not a fourth of the population, they disturb the whole
educational system, and in the Lower South, where they are in many places
overwhelming in numbers, the problem of their education becomes alarming.
Most people suppose that negro education began during the Civil War, but
it is as old as colonization; free Negroes were always allowed some
privileges in this respect, and thousands of slaves were taught to read by
kind-hearted mistresses and children of the family; the opinion of one who
has carefully explored this field of inquiry is that of the adult slaves,
about one in ten could read and write. Nevertheless, this practice was
contrary to the principles and the laws of the South, as is proved by the
dramatic prosecution of Mrs. Margaret Douglass, of Norfolk, in 1853, for
the crime of holding a school for free negro children, in ignorance of the
fact that it was forbidden as "against the peace and dignity of the
Commonwealth of Virginia." In due time this person, who had admitted
unhallowed light into little dark souls, was duly sentenced to thirty
days' imprisonment, a penalty (as the judge explained) intended to be "as
a terror to those who acknowledge no rule of action but their own evil
will and pleasure."
Both the teachings and the prosecutions establish a general belief that
Negroes could easily learn to read and write; and when during the Civil
War refugees flocked into the Union camps at Beaufort and Hilton Head,
charitably disposed people in the North sent down teachers; and, the
federal government coöperating, schools were started among those Sea
Island people, then rough, uncouth, and not far beyond the savage state,
though now a quiet, well-ordered, and industrious folk. From that time
till the giving up of the Freedman's Bureau in 1869, the federal
government expended some money and took some responsibility for negro
education. It was a pathetic sight to see old gray-headed people crowding
into the schools alongside the children, with the inarticulate feeling
that reading and writing would carry them upward. The Northern missionary
societies kept up these elementary schools, and then began to found
schools and colleges for the training of the most gifted members of the
race. Out of their funds, and with the aid of the freedmen, they put up
schoolhouses, they collected money to establish institutions like Fisk
University in Nashville, Leland and Straight Universities in New Orleans,
and Atlanta University. Such colleges were on the same pattern as other
colleges for Whites both North and South, adopting the then almost
universal curriculum of Greek, Latin, and mathematics, along with
smatterings of other subjects; they included preparatory schools, which,
as in some white colleges both North and South, included the larger number
of the recorded students.
Now came the founding of rural schools, for both Negroes and Whites; all
the Reconstruction constitutions provided for free public schools; and
since that time there has been public organized education for the colored
people, such as it is, in every state, in every city, and in most of the
rural counties having a considerable black population. The reaction
against Reconstruction for some time bore against these schools and they
have come along slowly. When, about 1885, the South entered upon a new
career of education, the negro schools came more into people's minds; but
they have not advanced in proportion to the white schools, and they have
encountered a lively hostility directed particularly against the higher
forms of education.
The present status of the negro common schools may be summarized from the
report of the Commissioner of Education for 1906. Taking the whole South
together, there were, in that year, over 2,900,000 colored children five
to eighteen years old, of whom 1,600,000, or little more than half, were
enrolled in school, while of the white children of school age nearly three
fourths were enrolled. Out of 1,600,000 enrolled, the average attendance
was 990,000, or about a third of the children of school age, while of the
whites it was 3,000,000, or nearly half the children of school age. For
the 1,600,000 enrolled negro children, there were 28,000 teachers, or 1 to
57; for the 4,500,000 white children over 100,000 teachers, 1 to 45. The
annual expenditures for the 6,200,000 children enrolled (white and black)
were $46,000,000, but to the negro children (about a third of the whole,
and least likely to be educated otherwise) was assigned about a seventh of
this sum. To state the same thing in another form, in nearly all the
Southern states at least twice as much was spent per pupil on Whites as on
Negroes.
A part of this disparity is due simply to the fact that the superior race
produces the larger number of children capable of secondary and higher
training and has more money to carry its children along, to pay their
expenses and tuition where necessary, in order to give them a start in
life. That consideration does not account either for the very low
enrollment or low attendance of negro children. The truth is that the
majority of white people, who have the sole power of laying taxes and of
appropriating money for education, think that the Negroes ought not to
have school advantages equal to those of white children, or advancing
beyond a common school education.
The mere statistics of negro schools and attendance after all carry with
them little information. What kind of pupils are they? What kind of school
buildings are provided for them? What is the character of their teachers?
Naturally, among both races, many are at work after twelve or fourteen
years, but the percentages of enrollment and attendance are so much less
than those of the white people that apparently colored children are less
likely than white to be sent to school and to be kept there when started.
Though every Northern state without exception has some kind of compulsory
education, not a single Southern state, except Kentucky and Missouri, has
enacted it.
Some personal knowledge of Southern schools, both in cities and the
country, suggests several reasons why the attendance is small. Visit this
negro wayside school in the heart of the piney woods near Albany, Ga. The
building is a wretched structure with six glass windows, some of them
broken; the sky visible between the weatherboards. There is one desk in
the room, the teacher's, made of rough planks; the floor is rough and
uneven. Of the forty-four children enrolled, none of whom come more than
about three miles, thirty-two are present on a pleasant day; six of them
appear to be mulattoes. They wear shoes and stockings and are quiet and
well-behaved but sit in the midst of dirt on dirty benches. The teacher is
a pleasant woman, wife of a well-to-do colored man in the neighboring
town, but apparently untrained. She teaches five months at $35 a month.
Last year there was no school at all in this district.
Enter another school at Oak Grove, Ala. The house is a single room,
twenty-five feet square; larger than is needed, like many of the
schoolhouses, because it may serve also for church services. There is not
a sash in any one of the seven windows, each having a hinged shutter. The
teacher has a table, and for the pupils are provided several rude benches
with or without backs; the room is furnished with a blackboard and is
reasonably clean; the teacher, a young man eager and civil, a graduate of
a neighboring school carried on by the Negroes for themselves, holds five
months' school. Take another school near Albany, Ga., in a tolerably good
schoolhouse built by the Negroes themselves with some white assistance,
for the county commissioners will do no more than offer $100 to a district
that will spend about $300 more on a building. The room overcrowded, four
or five at a desk; twice as many girls as boys; a good teacher who has had
some normal training; a book for each group of three in the reading class;
the lesson about a brutal Yankee officer who compels a little Southern
girl to tell where the Confederate officer is hiding. The children read
well and with expression.
These are probably fairly typical of the rural negro schools throughout
the South, and better than some. As a matter of fact, thousands of negro
children have no opportunity to go to school, because the commissioners
simply refuse to provide school in their district; perhaps because the
number of children is thought too few; perhaps merely because they do not
wish to spend the money. In a town with perhaps 2,000 Negroes there is
sometimes only one negro teacher.
Here comes in the effect of the separate school system which prevails in
every Southern state, in the District of Columbia, in Indianapolis, and in
parts of New Jersey. The system was inaugurated just as soon as the Whites
obtained control of the Reconstruction government after the Civil War, and
it goes all the way through: separate buildings, separate teachers,
separate influences, separate accounts. The reasons for it are: first, the
belief of white parents that negro children, even the little ones, have a
bad influence on the white children; second, the conviction that mixed
schools would break down the rigorous separation of races necessary to
prevent eventual amalgamation; third, the blacks are niggers. In cities
and towns it adds little to the expense to keep up separate buildings and
corps of teachers, but in rural districts, where the number of children is
small, the expense of double schools may be a serious matter.
One reason why the schools are poor is that the pupils are irregular, and
one reason why they are irregular is that the schools are poor. The
wretched facilities of the rural schools, both white and negro, tend to
drive children out; and the incompetent teachers do not make parents or
children fonder of school. For the white schools a supply of reasonably
intelligent young men and women is now coming forward. As to the Negroes,
with few exceptions, every teacher is a Negro, though appointed by and
supervised by some white authority; it is doubtful whether half the negro
teachers have themselves gone through a decent common school education.
Many of them are ignorant and uneducated. The superintendent of the town
schools at Valdosta, Ga., says: "There are to-day outside of the cities,
not more than one half dozen teachers in each county in the state, upon an
average, who can honestly make a license to teach. The custom in most
counties is to license so many as we are compelled to have to fill the
schools from among those who make the most creditable show upon
examination. School commissioners do not pretend to grade their papers
strictly. If they did three-fourths of the negro schools would be
immediately closed."
Conditions are not much better in the towns, where many negro teachers
earn only $150 to $200 a year; but in the cities the negro teachers are
more carefully selected, for they can be drawn from the local negro high
schools or the normal schools. But the colored people are said to scheme
and maneuver to get this teacher out and that one in. They have been known
to petition against a capable and unblemished teacher on the ground that
she was the daughter of a white man, and it was immoral for her to be
teaching black children.
If the negro common schools are inferior to the white, this is still more
marked in their secondary public schools, such as they are. No principle
is more deeply ingrained in the American people than that it is worth
while to spend the necessary money to educate up to about the eighteenth
year all the young people who show an aptitude, and whose parents can get
on without their labor. The Southern states accept this principle, but for
such education the Negroes have few opportunities. Out of 151,000 Southern
young people in public and private high schools, 6,500 high school pupils
and 2,600 in the private schools are Negroes. That is, a third of the
population counts a seventeenth of the secondary pupils. Most of the
so-called negro colleges are made up of secondary and normal pupils who
get a training very like that of the Northern academies, and some favored
cities have public high schools for the Negroes. This is the case in
Baltimore, and was the case in New Orleans until about 1903, when the high
schools were discontinued, on the ground that the Negro could not profit
by so much education, although the lower branches of the high schools were
still taught in the upper rooms of the negro grammar schools.
It must not be forgotten that there are more than a hundred institutions
for training the colored people, which draw nothing from the public funds.
These schools, in part supported by the colored people themselves, in part
by Northern gifts, which during the last forty years have amounted to
between thirty and fifty million dollars, are usually better than the
public schools, and have more opportunities for those lessons of
cleanliness and uprightness which the Negro needs quite as much as book
learning. Those schools are a thorn in the side of the South--so much so
that for years it was hardly possible to get any Southern man to act as
trustee; they are supposed to teach the negro youth a desire for social
equality; they are thought to draw the Negroes off from cordial relations
with the Southern Whites; above all, they include the higher institutions
which are credited with spoiling the race with too much Greek and Latin.
To a considerable degree the schools of this type are mulatto schools,
probably because the people of mixed blood are more intelligent and
prosperous, and more interested in their children's future; but many of
them are planted in the darkest part of the Black Belt--such as the Penn
School in the Sea Islands. Wherever they exist, they appeal to the
ambition and the conscience of the Negro, and help to civilize the race;
they are not only schools but social settlements. Alongside the earlier
schools and colleges planted by Northerners in the regular academic type,
during the last thirty years have arisen first Hampton, then Tuskegee, and
then many like schools, built up on the principle of industrial training,
which will be described in the next chapter.
The Northern schools for the education of the Negroes have brought about
one of the unpleasant features of the Southern question in the boycotting
of the Northern teachers, both men and women, who have come down to teach
them. This practice is a tradition from Reconstruction times when it was
supposed that the Northern teachers were training colored youth to assert
themselves against Whites. They expected only to furnish examples and
incitements to the Southern people themselves; hence a feeling of
bewilderment and grief, because from the very beginning the white teachers
in these institutions have been under a social ban the relentlessness of
which it is hard for a Northerner to believe. An educated and cultivated
white family has lived in a Southern city, superior intellectually and
morally to most of the community about it; yet no friendly foot ever
crossed its threshold. The beautiful daughter, easily first in the girls'
high school, never exchanged a word with her classmates outside the
school, except when called upon, as she regularly was, to help out her
less gifted fellows, as an unpaid and unthanked tutor--because her father
was spending his life in trying to uplift the Negro. The attitude of the
South toward most of those schools is one of absolute hostility. Even an
institution so favorably regarded in the South as Hampton Institute has
been prohibited by the Legislature of Virginia (which makes it a small
money grant) from selling the products of its industrial department.
The negro colleges in the South are far from prosperous; planted in the
day of small things with limited endowments, frequented by people who have
little money to pay for tuition, they have been supported from year to
year by Northern gifts which are not sufficient to keep them up to modern
demands. Though some of them have tolerable buildings, few have adequate
libraries, laboratories, or staff of specialist instructors. The state
institutions of this grade open to blacks are nearly all rather low in
standards, and offer little inducement for academic training; they are
either normal or industrial in type. The better off of the Negroes send
their sons to Northern white colleges where they may receive the best
instruction but have little contact with their fellow students. So far
from the number of negro college graduates being too great, it is entirely
too small for the immediate needs of the race. They must have educated
teachers and trained professional men; the negro schools will never
flourish without competent teachers and supervisors of the negro race. In
many respects the colleges are the weakest part of negro education. One
school in which numbers have had good training, Berea College, Kentucky,
has now been abandoned under an act of the state legislature forbidding
the teaching of Whites and Negroes together, but an industrial school of
high grade will be provided exclusively for the colored race.
As DuBois says: "If, while the healing of this vast sore is progressing,
the races are to live for many years side by side, united in economic
effort, obeying a common government, sensitive to mutual thought and
feeling, yet subtly and silently separate in many matters of deeper human
intimacy,--if this unusual and dangerous development is to progress amid
peace and order, mutual respect and growing intelligence, it will call for
social surgery at once the delicatest and nicest in modern history. It
will demand broad-minded, upright men, both white and black, and in its
final accomplishment American civilization will triumph." DuBois
calculates that in the twenty-five years from 1875 to 1900 there were only
1,200 or 1,300 negro graduates from all the colleges open to them North
and South, an average of about fifty a year out of a race numbering during
that period, on the average, six millions. Out of this amount about half
have become teachers or heads of institutions, and most of the rest are
professional men.
Many of the academic and normal training schools of various grades are
situated in the midst of large colored populations, and take upon
themselves a work similar to that of the college settlements in Northern
cities. Such is the flourishing school at Calhoun, Ala., which is in the
midst of one of the densest and most ignorant Negro populations in the
South, and besides training the children sent to it, it has supervised the
work of breaking up the land, which is sold to negro farmers in small
tracts, thereby giving an object lesson of the comfort and satisfaction in
owning one's own land. Most such schools aim to be centers of moral
influence upon the community about them. Here, again, they encounter the
hostility of their neighbors on the ground that they are putting notions
into the heads of the Negroes, and are destroying the labor system of the
community. On the other hand, many of the Whites take a warm interest in
these schools, although not a single one has ever received any
considerable gift of money from Southern white people. The testimony is
general that they are well taught, preserve good order, and inculcate
decency of person and life.
Probably the most effective argument in favor of negro education is the
success of Hampton and Tuskegee, two endowed schools, practically kept up
by Northern benefactors, which are the great exemplifiers of industrial
education. They are successful, both in providing for large numbers of
students--about 3,000 altogether--and in producing an effect upon the
whole South. The number of graduates is but a few score a year, and many
of them go into professions for which they were not directly prepared in
these schools. But great numbers of men and women who have spent only a
year or two in these institutions carry out into the community the great
lesson of self-help; and hundreds of schools and thousands of individuals
are moved by the example of these two famous schools and similar
institutions scattered throughout the South. They preach a gospel of work;
they hold up a standard of practicality; they are so successful as to draw
upon themselves the anathemas of men like Thomas Dixon, Jr., who says:
"Mr. Washington ... is training them _all_ to be masters of men, to be
independent.... If there is one thing a Southern white man cannot endure
it is an educated Negro."
The question is imperative. With all the efforts at education,
notwithstanding the great reduction in the percentage of illiteracy, the
number of negro adult men and women in the South who are unable to read
and write is actually greater than at any time since by emancipation they
were brought within the possibilities of education. The actual task grows
greater every day, and if the resources of the South are more than
correspondingly increased, it is still a question how much of them will be
devoted to this pressing need. Education will not do everything; it will
not make chaste, honest, and respectable men and women out of wretched
children left principally to their own instincts. Education is at best a
palliative, but the situation is too serious to dispense even with
palliatives.
Perhaps the first necessity is to improve the character and the training
of the negro teachers. Both in the rural and the city schools appointments
are in many cases made by white school board men who have little knowledge
and sometimes no interest in the fitness of their appointees. The colleges
and industrial schools all have this problem in mind. State normal schools
for Negroes in many of the Southern states try to meet this necessity, but
a great many of the country teachers, some of them in the experience of
the writer, are plainly unsuited for the task. Some of them are themselves
ignorant, few have the background of character and intellectual interest
which would enable them to transmit a moral uplift.
One of the most serious difficulties of negro education is the attendance,
or rather nonattendance. Within a few weeks after the beginning of school,
pupils begin to drop out; often perhaps because the teacher cannot make
the work interesting. One of their own number says: "Many of our children
do not attend school because our teachers are incompetent; because many of
the parents simply dislike their teachers; because some parents prefer
Baptist teachers; because many children have their own way about all they
do; because many children do not like a strict teacher; because some
parents contend for a fine brick building for the school; because, as a
whole, many parents are too ignorant and prejudiced and contentious to do
anything, yet we have enrolled about 150 pupils this session in spite of
the devil."
Some of the schools are overcrowded. There have been cases where 6
teachers were assigned for 1,800 children, of whom 570 enrolled, yet the
average earnings of the six teachers would not be more than $100 a year.
Against these instances must be placed a great number of intelligent,
faithful teachers who make up for some deficiencies of knowledge by their
genuine interest in their work.
For negro education as for white, but perhaps with more reason, it is
urged that the federal government ought to come in with its powerful aid.
The argument somewhat resembles that of the blind Chinese beggar who was
sent to the hospital where he recovered his sight, and then insisted that,
having lost his livelihood, he must be made porter to the hospital. Aside
from any claim of right, it is true that the problem of elevating the
Negroes concerns the whole nation, and is a part of the long process of
which emancipation was the beginning. Federal aid for colored schools,
however, can never be brought about without the consent of the Southern
states, and they are not likely to ask for or to receive educational funds
intended solely for the Negroes; while Northern members of Congress are
not likely to vote for taxing their constituents who already pay two or
three times as much per capita for education as the South, in order to
make up the deficiencies of the other section. It is impossible to
discover any way in which federal aid can be given to the Negroes without
reviving sectional animosity; and it is a fair question whether such gifts
could be so hedged about that they would not lead to a corresponding
diminution in the amount spent by the Southern states. The Government
grants to state agricultural colleges and experiment stations inure almost
wholly to the advantage of the Whites; if a part of that money could be
devoted to the education of the Negro, it might be helpful.
Several educational trusts created years ago for the benefit of the
Negroes have now ceased their work. The Peabody fund of about three
million dollars was much depleted by the repudiation of the Mississippi
and Florida bonds, and has now been entirely distributed. For some years
it was devoted to building up primary teaching on condition that the
localities benefited should themselves spend larger sums. Then it went
into normal schools. In 1882 the Slater fund of one million dollars was
given solely for the education of Negroes. The General Education Board in
its allocations to Southern institutions has liberally remembered several
of the negro institutions as well as the white.
CHAPTER XXIII
OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATION
In the two previous chapters white and negro education have been described
as parts of the social and governmental system of the South; there, as in
the North, the tacit presumption is that education is desirable, that it
is essential for moral and material progress, that both the parents and
the community must make great sacrifices to secure it. White education
hardly needs defense in the South; most of the people wish to see the
opportunities of life open to promising young people, believe in the
spread of ideas, and look on education as the foundation of the republic.
Does the principle, as in the North, apply to all the elements of
population? Is the education of the Negro as clearly necessary as that of
the White? Should the same method apply to the training of the two races?
On the contrary, there is in most Southern white minds hesitation as to
the degree of education suitable for the blacks; and a widespread
disbelief in any but rudimentary training, and that to be directed toward
industrial rather than intellectual ends.
The first objection to negro education is that the race is incapable of
any but elementary education and that all beyond is wasted effort. Has the
Negro as a race an inferior intellectual quality, a disability to respond
to opportunities? With all the effort to educate the race, and with due
regard to the fact that the proportion who can read and write is rapidly
rising, the Negroes are alarmingly ignorant, the most illiterate group in
the whole United States; and therefore they need special attention. In
addition, they are subjected to the smallest degree of home training, and
enjoy the smallest touch with those concentrated forces of public opinion
which force the community upward. Some of the Negroes seek intellectual
life at home, for occasionally you see a family grouped about the fire
with the father reading a book to them; but hardly any of the rural people
and probably few of the townsmen own a shelf of books and magazines and
newspapers. Their journalism is in general rather crude. A class of patent
inside newspapers is carried on by the heads of one or the other negro
order; and they contain good advice, news of the order, advertisements of
patent hair dressings which "make harsh, stubborn, kinky, curly hair soft,
pliant and glossy"; and descriptions of the experiments of surgeons in
making black skin white by the use of X-rays. Some of these papers are
well edited, and all of them have discovered the great secret of modern
journalism, which is to put as many proper names as possible into the
paper.
One difficulty with the negro newspaper is that it cannot fill up entirely
with colored news; and on general questions and the progress of the world
the regular white newspapers, with their greater resources, are certain to
be more readable. Still, few Negroes outside the cities read either weekly
or daily papers regularly; and one of the necessities for raising the race
is to cultivate the newspaper habit. To be sure, there is a type of highly
successful white journalism that does not edify the white race. Yet even a
bad newspaper cannot help telling people what is going on in the world.
In spite of its freight of crime, such a paper carries people out of
themselves, makes them feel a greater interest for mankind, brings in a
throng of new impressions and experiences, helps to educate them.
Outside of newspapers the Negroes have access to the written works of
members of their own race, which are at the same time a proof of literary
capacity and a means of teaching the people. Of course it is always urged
that such men as Booker Washington, the educator and uplifter; Dunbar, the
pathetic humorist; Chesnutt, author of stories of Southern life that rival
Joel Chandler Harris and Thomas Nelson Page; DuBois, who in literary power
is one of the most notable Americans of this generation; Kelly Miller, the
keen satirist; and Sinclair, the defender of his people--prove nothing as
to the genius of the races because they are mulattoes; but they and their
associates are listed among the Negroes, included in the censure on negro
colleges, and furnish the most powerful argument for the education of at
least a part of the race. Few men of genius among the Negroes are pure
blacks; but it is not true that the lighter the color the more genius they
possess. So far as the effects of a prolonged and thorough education are
concerned, those men from any point of view prove that the mulattoes, who
are perhaps a fifth of the whole, are entitled to a thorough education.
Has not DuBois the right to say:
"I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move
arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women
glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between
the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle
and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no
scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is
this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long
to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest
peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight
the Promised Land?"
On the other hand, the history of the last thirty-five years proves
conclusively that the great mass of negro children can assimilate the
ordinary education of the common schools. Mr. Glenn, recently
Superintendent of Education in Georgia, declares that "the negro is ...
teachable and susceptible to the same kind of mental improvement
characteristic to any other race," and Thomas Nelson Page admits that the
"Negro may individually attain a fair, and in uncommon instances a
considerable degree, of mental development." About three fourths of the
young people have already learned to read.
Many people intimately acquainted with the race assert that, although
about as quick and receptive as white children up to twelve or fourteen
years of age, the negro children advance no further; that their minds
thenceforward show an arrested development. Certainly anyone who visits
their schools, city or rural, public or private, is struck with the
slowness of the average child of all ages to take in new impressions, and
with the intellectual helplessness of many of the older children. Whether
this is due to the backwardness of the race, or to the uncouthness of home
life, or to the want of other kinds of stimulus outside of school, is hard
to determine. That there is any general arrested development is
contradicted by thousands of capable youths, mulatto and full blood.
The very slowness of the black children is a reason for giving them the
best educational chance that they can take. That is why the Southern
Education Association which met in 1907 passed a unanimous resolution
that: "We endorse the accepted policy of the States of the South in
providing educational facilities for the youth of the negro race,
believing that whatever the ultimate solution of this grievous problem may
be, education must be an important factor in that solution."
Another point of view is represented by the statement of Thomas Nelson
Page that the great majority of the Southern Whites "unite further in the
opinion that education such as they receive in the public schools, so far
from appearing to uplift them, appears to be without any appreciable
beneficial effect upon their morals or their standing as citizens."
Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, as late as 1908 recommended the
legislature to strike out all appropriations for negro schools on the
ground that "Money spent to-day for the maintenance of the public school
for negroes is robbery of the white man and a waste upon the negro. It
does him no good, but it does him harm. You take it from the toiling white
men and women; you rob the white child of the advantages it would afford
him, and you spend it upon the negro in an effort to make of the negro
that which God Almighty never intended should be made, and which man
cannot accomplish." He asserts that the most serious negro crime is due to
"The manifestation of the negro's aspiration for social equality,
encouraged largely by the character of free education in vogue, which the
State is levying tribute upon the white people to maintain."
In Cordova, S. C., in 1907, a business man who had visited a colored
school and spoken encouragingly to the pupils, felt compelled by public
sentiment to print an apology and a promise never to do anything so
dreadful again. This criticism comes not simply from demagogues like
Vardaman or weaklings like the Cordovan; intelligent planters will tell
you that they are opposed to negro education because it makes criminals;
and think their accusation proven by instances of forgeries by Negroes,
which of course they could not have committed had they been unable to
write. A superintendent of schools in a Southern city holds that even
grammar school education unsteadies the boys so that they leave home and
drift away; though he candidly acknowledges that it keeps the girls out of
trouble and provides a respectable calling as teachers to many negro
women.
Side by side with this feeling of disappointment or hostility, as the case
may be, is the conviction of most Southern people that enormous sacrifices
have been made for the negro schools. Thomas Dixon, Jr., with his
accustomed exactness and candor, wrote a few years ago: "We have spent
about $800,000,000 on Negro education since the War." These figures show a
poverty of imagination: it would be just as easy to write "eight thousand
millions" as "eight hundred." The estimate of the Bureau of Education is
that in the thirty-five years since 1870 about $155,000,000 has been spent
to support common schools for the negro race, which is about a fifth of
the amount spent on the white common schools in the same period, and not a
hundredth of the supposed present wealth of the South; in addition, heavy
expenditures are made out of the public treasury for secondary and higher
education in which the Negro has a slender share.
Another more specious complaint with regard to Negro education is that it
is an unreasonable burden on the Whites to make them pay for negro
education, and repeated attempts have been made to lay it down as a
principle that the Negroes shall have for their schools only what they
pay in taxes. Thus Governor Hoke Smith, of Georgia, says: "Is it not folly
to tax the people of Georgia for the purpose of conducting a plan of
education for the Negro which fails to recognize the difference between
the Negro and the white man? Negro education should have reference to the
Negro's future work, and especially in the rural districts it is
practicable to make that education really the training for farm labor. If
it is given this direction it will not be necessary to tax the white man's
property for the purpose. A distribution of the school fund according to
the taxes paid by each race would meet the requirements."
In at least two states this idea has been to some extent carried out. In
Kentucky the state school fund is apportioned among the school children
without regard to race, but for local purposes the Negroes appear to be
thrown on their own payments. And in Maryland, under various statutes from
1865 to 1888, all the taxes collected from Negroes were devoted to negro
schools, the state adding a lump sum per annum.
This point of view involves a notion of the purpose of education and the
reasons for public schools so different from that which animates the North
that it is hard to deal with the question impartially. Massachusetts makes
the largest expenditure per capita of its population in the whole Union,
almost the largest expenditure per pupil, and certainly the largest
aggregate expenditure, except the more populous states of New York,
Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio; Massachusetts spends on schools two
fifths as much every year as all the fifteen former slaveholding states
put together. In that state people think that school taxes are not money
spent but money saved: that they get back every cent of their $17,000,000
a year, several times over, in the increased efficiency of the people, in
the diminution of crime, in the addition to the happiness of life.
Schooling is insurance, schooling is the savings bank that can't break,
schooling is that sane kind of poor relief which prevents poverty. The
last thing which any Massachusetts community thinks of reducing is school
expenditure!
Furthermore, no principle is so ingrained in the Northern mind as that
since education is for the public benefit, every taxpayer must contribute
in proportion to his property. The rich corporations in New York or
Pittsburg, childless old couples, bachelor owners of great tracts of real
estate, wealthy bondholders educating their children in private schools,
never dream of disputing the school tax on the ground that they, as
individuals, make no demands on the school fund.
Still less would it enter the mind of any Northern community to divide
itself into social classes, each of which should maintain its own schools.
Such a proposition would go near to bring about a revolution. First of
all, the non-taxpayer is a taxpayer; it is the _pons asinorum_ of finance
that the poor are more heavily taxed in proportion to their means than any
other class of the community, through indirect taxes and the enhanced
rents of the real estate which they occupy. As a matter of fact, all the
taxes eventually paid by the Negroes in the South probably amount only to
a third or a half of the three millions or so spent upon their schools.
What of that? Are the Southern states the only communities in the country
in which a comparatively small part of the population pays most of the
taxes; it is altogether probable that in Boston or New York the payers of
nine tenths of the taxes do not furnish one tenth of the school children.
Who educates the Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, Greek, and Syrian
children of those cities? The well-to-do part of the community, and it
does it uncomplainingly, with its eyes open, gladly. The South likewise is
educating the Negroes principally for the advantage of the white race, for
the efficiency of the whole region in which the Whites have the greatest
stake, and from which they derive the greater benefit, material and moral.
One of the most obstinate Southern conventional beliefs, widely held,
constantly asserted, and diametrically contrary to the facts, is that the
Negroes have been spoiled by classical education which has totally
unfitted them for ordinary life. Thus even Murphy holds that "We have been
giving the Negro an educational system which is but ill adapted even to
ourselves. It has been too academic, too much unrelated to practical life,
for the children of the Caucasian." The intelligent man on the cars will
tell you that the negro college graduates with their Greek and Latin are
spoiling the whole race. Never was there such an advertisement of the
vigor of college education; since the official statistics show that the
actual number of Negroes studying Greek and Latin in 1906, both in the
secondary and higher schools (except the public schools), was 1,077 men
and 641 women, a total of 1,718 persons. With some possible additions from
those in high schools, and higher institutions, the total number of
colored people who are now taking any kind of collegiate training is not
above 3,000, of whom only 180 took degrees in 1906; there are also 4,500
normal students, of whom 1,270 graduated. Of professional students there
were in all (1906) about 1,900 Negroes, a third of whom were in theology
and another third in medicine. Of negro colleges and technical schools and
private academies, 127 are enumerated, ranging all the way from the
Arkadelphia Baptist Academy with 50 students, up to Tuskegee Normal and
Industrial Institute with 1,621 students; but in all such colleges those
ranked as taking a college course are comparatively few.
These figures throw light on the further conventional belief that it is
the Northern endowed colleges that have made the trouble in the colored
race, through efforts to teach the colored youth that they were the equals
of the Whites. By far the greater number of Negroes who are really getting
training above the secondary grade in the South are in the state-sustained
institutions--many of them, of course, still of low grade; and full credit
should be given to the South for developing this type of negro education,
of which the North knows little. State Agricultural, Normal or Industrial
colleges are to be found in every former slaveholding state, except
Arkansas and Tennessee, and together include more than 5,000 students.
The attacks, chiefly from Southern Whites, upon negro college education
have of late been transformed into a controversy as to the relative
importance of academic and industrial training. The schools of the
Tuskegee type furnished manual work to their students apparently not in
the first instance because it was thought to be educative, but because
they had to earn part of their living. This is apparently the main source
of the bitter hostility of Dixon to the work of Tuskegee. The form his
criticism takes is that Booker Washington, instead of teaching the Negro
to be a good workman, is training him to take independent responsibility;
that if he is a good workman he will compete with the Whites, and if he is
a good leader he will aim to make the Negroes a force in the community.
This line of objection to education of the black is really based upon the
belief that they are a race capable of education, that the Negro is not a
clod, but may be improved by the systematic efforts of superior men; he
has in him the potentiality of vital force.
Meanwhile throughout the country has been running a current in favor of a
more practical education than that furnished by the ordinary schools, and
the result has been the Technical, Manual Training, and Commercial schools
scattered throughout the Northern states. The controversy is not at all
confined to questions of negro education. The Southern white people have
been well inclined toward the new type of education for Negroes, although
on the whole much preferring the academic type for their own children.
A hot discussion has raged as to which of the two systems is most
necessary to the Negro. The champions of the academic side dwell upon the
right of the Negro to the same type of education as the white man. In many
white minds lies a lurking feeling that academic negro training leads to
discontent with present conditions; and that industrial training is more
likely to bring about contentment with the things that are. In fact, both
types are most necessary. The fifty millions poured into the South by
Northern generosity would have been worth while if they had done no more
than maintain a Hampton which could train a Booker Washington. His ideas
of thrift, attention to business, building decent houses, putting money
into banks, are ideals specially needed by the negro race; but they also
need the DuBois ideal of a share in the world's accumulated learning; of
the development of their minds; of preparation to educate their fellows.
That a supply must be kept up of people acquainted with the humanities,
having some knowledge of literature, able to express themselves cogently,
competent to train the succeeding generations, is as true for the negro
race as for any other; if it is a low race it has the greater need for
high training for its best members.
The two difficulties with manual training for either Whites or Negroes
are, first, that it may be simply practice in handicrafts, without
intimate knowledge of tools or processes, possessing no more educative
value than the apprenticeship of a carpenter or a blacksmith. The other
danger is that the manual part will be dilettante; and anyone who has ever
visited any large industrial school for Whites realizes how hard it is to
keep students busy with things that actually tell. The weekly hours
available for shop work where there are large classes are too few to
induce skill. Hence manual training may be simply a means of keeping young
men and women in elevating associations for a series of years, without
much positive education. The success of Hampton and Tuskegee and like
institutions is due to a judicious mixture of book learning and hand
learning, backed up by the personality of the founders, General Armstrong
in Virginia and Booker Washington in Alabama, and of their successors and
aids.
Against both industrial and academic training many people in the South
feel a strong prejudice, because they believe that both tend to produce
leaders who may dangerously organize the fellows of their race. A favorite
form of slander has been to charge that the graduates of colleges furnish
the criminals, and practically the worst criminals, of the negro race.
Never was there a more senseless or a more persistent delusion. The total
number of male graduates of all the Southern colleges during the last
forty years is not above two thousand, besides perhaps five hundred
graduates of Northern colleges who have found their way into the South.
Many of those institutions have kept track of their graduates and are able
to assert that the cases of serious crime among them are remarkably few,
no more in proportion probably than among the graduates of Southern and
Northern colleges for Whites. The moral effect of the colleges among
Negroes is in the same direction as among Whites; the students include the
more determined of the race or the children of the more determined. The
negro college students are still only about one in one thousand of the
children and young people of the race. The total number of living
graduates of negro colleges or other institutions of college grade are not
one in two thousand of the Negroes in the South.
It is true that even that number find it hard to establish themselves in
professions or callings which can reward them for the sacrifices and
efforts of their education. The negro doctors and lawyers have almost no
white practice and not the best of negro practice, but there is an opening
for thousands of Negroes in the development of the education of their
people. The thousandth of the race in secondary schools and the two
thousandth or more in colleges are enough to prove that a large number of
individuals in the race are capable of and ought to have the advantages of
higher training.
The denial to the Negroes of public secondary education at the expense of
the state practically means that most of them will not have it at all. It
is denied on the ground that it unfits boys and girls for life--exactly
the argument which has been unsuccessfully brought against schools of that
grade in the Northern states. It is denied on the ground that beyond
twelve years of age most of the Negroes are stationary and cannot profit
by a secondary education, a conclusion which does not seem justified by
the experience of the few high schools and the numerous private and
benevolent schools. Still more serious, the denial of secondary education
means that the Negroes are deprived of the most obvious means of training
for teachers of their own race.
In the last analysis most of the objections to negro education come down
to the assertion that it puts the race above the calling whereunto God
hath appointed it. The argument goes back to the unconscious presumption
that the Negro was created to work the white man's field, and that even a
little knowledge makes him ambitious to do something else.
One thing is certain: that no community can afford to neglect the academic
side of education. The schools are to many people the only and the final
appeal to the higher side of life, the only touch with the world's stock
of great thoughts. The accusation is brought against the best Northern
city schools that they are not practical, because they deal too much with
literature and history and science. The negro child, like the white child,
needs to have its mind aroused to the large things in the world; needs the
education of thinking, as well as of learning; as DuBois puts it: "To seek
to make the blacksmith a scholar is almost as silly as the more modern
scheme of making the scholar a blacksmith; almost, but not quite."
On the side of the Negro there are other complaints. One is that his
education has not had a fair trial; that the dominant South which lays and
expends the taxes has not dealt with the Negro on an equal footing with
white children; that the per capita expenditure on the black children in
school is probably not more than a third that for white children; that the
negro schools have often been exploited by white politicians who have put
in their own favorites as teachers; that even where the best intentions
prevail, the schools are manned by incompetent teachers; nowhere do the
rural colored people enjoy an education to the degree and with the kind of
teachers and appliances common in the country districts of the North; the
race can hardly be spoiled by education, for it has never had it, not for
a single year. Only about a third of the negro children are at school on a
given school day. Few of their rural schools hold more than five months,
many not more than three, some not at all; and in from sixty to one
hundred days in the year, irregularly placed, with teachers on the average
not competent for the exceedingly elementary work that they do, the wonder
is that children ever go a second day or acquire the rudiments of
learning; yet many of them learn to read fluently, to write a good hand,
and to do simple arithmetical problems. A race must have some intellectual
quickness to pick up anything out of such a poor system. The arguments in
favor of negro education have so far been convincing to every Southern
community, since negro common schools are maintained and considerable
amounts are spent for secondary and higher education.
The arguments against negro education destroy each other; they assume both
that the Negro is too little and too much affected by the education that
he receives. On one side we are told that he is incapable of anything more
than the rudiments; on the other side, that education is a potent force
making the Negro dangerous to the world. The incompetent can never be made
dangerous by training into competence. Education cannot change the race
weaknesses of the Negro; but it can give a better chance to the best
endowed.
CHAPTER XXIV
POSTULATES OF THE PROBLEM
That the South confronts a complexus of problems difficult and almost
insoluble is clear to all onlookers, Northern or Southern, candid or
prejudiced. So far this book has undertaken to deal rather with conditions
than with remedies, to state questions without trying to answer them, to
separate so far as may be the real aspirations and progress of the
Southern people of both races from conventional beliefs and shop-worn
statements which overlie the actualities.
Such an analysis of the physical and human elements of Southern life
prepares the way for a discussion of a different nature. Shall the
thriftless part of the Southern community remain at its present low
average standard of productivity? Are the lower Whites and the still lower
Negroes moving upward, however slowly? Can the two races come to an
understanding which will mean peace in our time? Are there positive
remedies for a state of things admittedly alarming? Any attempt to answer
these questions means some repetition or restatement of things already
treated at greater length. A first step may well be to summarize the whole
Southern problem as it presents itself to the writer's mind.
(1) The South as a whole, on any basis of material advancement, is below
the average of other parts of the Union and of several foreign countries;
it is poor where it ought to be rich; it needs economic regeneration.
(2) Measured by intellectual standards also the white South is below the
other sections of the Union; the high standing of its leaders does not
bring up the average of the more numerous elements. Any radical
improvement, therefore, must include the uplift of the lower stratum of
Whites.
(3) The South is divided between two races, one of which is distinctly
inferior to the other, not only in what it now does, but in the
potentialities of the future.
(4) The lower race is so far behind, and so likely to lag indefinitely,
that it is necessary for the welfare of the community that the two be kept
separate; and this stern edict applies not only to the pure African race,
but also to the two millions of mixed bloods, many of whom in aptitude and
habits of thought are practically white men.
(5) Both these races are improving, the Whites in great numbers and
rapidly; fewer of the Negroes proportionally, and more slowly.
(6) The criminality of both races, and especially the violent criminality
of the Negroes, brings into the controversy an element of personal rage
and fear.
(7) Partly by superior abilities, partly by an inherited tradition, partly
for the defense of the community, the white race dominates in every
department of social, industrial, and political life; it owns most of the
property; makes the laws for the black man; furnishes for him the
machinery of government and of justice; and inexorably excludes him from
both the social and political advantages of the community.
(8) This race division interferes with the American principle of
equality--that is, the equal right of every man, woman, and child to do
the best thing that his abilities and training allow, the inferior doing
the best in his stratum, the superior the better best of his class.
(9) The two races do not live together harmoniously. The Whites fear some
kind of negro domination--the Negroes resent the complete control by the
Whites; actual collisions are rare, but there is a latent race hostility.
(10) The white people, though they assume sole responsibility for whatever
adjustment is made, know little of the private life of the best Negroes,
and exercise small direct influence on the lower race. Hence the ordinary
agencies of uplift--the church, the school, and contact with superior
minds--are not brought into operation.
(11) The main reason for this want of touch with the Negroes is an
apprehension that any common understanding will assist a social equality
which might lead to miscegenation.
The Southern problem, therefore, to state it in a sentence, is how twenty
million Whites and ten million Negroes in the Southern states shall make
up a community in which one race shall hold most of the property, and all
the government, and the other race shall remain content and industrious;
in which one gets most of the good things of life and the other does most
of the disagreeable work; in which the superior members of the inferior
race shall accept all its disadvantages; in which one race shall always be
at the top and the other forever at the bottom; yet in which there shall
be peace and good will.
To these conditions, discouraging, hard, implacable to innocent people,
out of accord with the usual American principles, any effective remedy
must nevertheless adjust itself. Practically all Southern people agree
that the question is alarming, but they are at odds among themselves as
to the remedy; and they may be roughly divided into the intolerant, the
discouraged, and the moderate.
(I) Examples of passionate violence are plenty, and Professor J. W.
Garner, a Southerner, suggests some reasons for their abundance: "Next to
the difficulties arising mainly from the changed industrial conditions in
the South and their resulting effect upon the character of the black race,
the most serious obstacle in the way of maintaining harmonious relations
between the two races is the persistent, ill-timed, and often intemperate
agitation of the race question by a certain class of politicians lately
sprung up in the South, whose chief stock in trade is the race issue.
Their method consists in working upon the sympathies of a certain class of
whites by appealing to their passions and prejudices, by dwelling upon the
brutality and savagery of the negro, by conjuring up imaginary dangers of
negro supremacy, by exaggerating real dangers and in every conceivable way
exalting the negro problem, as a political issue, to a position out of all
proportion to its real importance."
The truth of this statement may be illustrated from the published
conclusions of some writers and speakers who are representative of the
most radical type of Southern feeling. For instance, Hoke Smith, Governor
of Georgia in 1908, has declared that "the development made by the Negro
in the South came through the institution of slavery, from the control of
an inferior race by a superior race. I believe that control was absolutely
necessary for the development which the Negro made. The continuation of
control is, in a measure, necessary to retain for the great mass of
Negroes the progress made by them while in slavery."
(II) Hoke Smith is far from representing the general or the average view
in the South. Some of the best spirits there who feel the responsibility
of their race are at their wit's end over the whole question and see no
way out of the difficulty. Thus a lawyer of Birmingham, Ala., writes: "If
my heart did not go out for the Negro, as a human being, or I cared less
for my God and an earnest wish to walk in His ways, I would kill the Negro
or die trying. God must intend that TIME shall work out His ways and not
the men of my generation, for after a longer life than most, and all of it
spent with and among the Negroes, I give it up.... Credit the Southern
people with preserving the Negro, with teaching him Christ, with good
will.... Education will do some good--perhaps more than I believe, but I
verily believe that we must have the Negro all born again before we can
teach him what to do."
(III) Of the more hopeful group of reflective men in the South there are
many spokesmen, who suggest various sorts of remedies not always in
accord.
Ex-Congressman William H. Fleming, of Georgia, puts it that "We do not
know what shifting phases this vexing race problem may assume, but we may
rest in the conviction that its ultimate solution must be reached along
the lines of honesty and justice. Let us not in cowardice or want of faith
needlessly sacrifice our higher ideals of private and public life. Race
differences may necessitate social distinction. But race differences
cannot repeal the moral law.... The foundation of the moral law is
justice. Let us solve the negro problem by giving the negro justice and
applying to him the recognized principles of the moral law. This does not
require social equality. It does not require that we should surrender into
his inexperienced and incompetent hands the reins of political
government. But it does require that we recognize his fundamental rights
as a man."
Senator John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi, protests against
"Indiscriminate cursing of the whole negro race, good and bad alike
included.... Above all, remember this: it is not the educated negro who
commits unspeakable crime; he knows the certain result. It is the brute
whose avenues of information are totally cut off."
Leroy Percy, of Greenville, Miss., pleads for protection of the black man:
"Daily, in recognition of the weakness of human nature, the prayer goes up
from millions to a higher power: 'Deliver me from temptation--temptation
which I cannot face and overcome I pray Thee to deliver me from.' There is
no greater temptation known to man than the hourly, daily, yearly dealing
with ignorant, trusting people.... So justice, self-interest, the duty
which we owe to ourselves and those who follow us, all demand that we
should not permit to go unchallenged, should not acquiesce in the
viciously erroneous idea that the negro should be kept in helpless
ignorance."
From this summary of general views it is evident that even the most
moderate white men pleading for the rights of their black neighbors
practically all tacitly accept certain postulates as to any possible
remedies, which they believe to be quite beyond discussion and which may
be analyzed as follows:
(I) The first is the dominance of the white race, which will not surrender
any of the present privileges. As Page puts it: "The absolute and
unchangeable superiority of the white race--a superiority, it appears to
him, not due to any mere adventitious circumstances, such as superior
educational and other advantages during some centuries, but an inherent
and essential superiority, based on superior intellect, virtue, and
constancy. He does not believe that the Negro is the equal of the White,
or ever could be the equal." That means that the low Negro is inferior to
the low White, the average Negro to the average White, and the superior
Negro, however high his plane, moral and intellectual, is also to be put
into a position of permanent inferiority to the higher Whites. Because
inferior morally and mentally, he is held also in political inferiority.
The South does not intend that even intelligent and educated Negroes shall
have a share in making or administering the laws.
(II) Partly from a sense of its own superiority, partly from a disdain of
a formerly servile race, chiefly from a well-founded belief that
amalgamation would be a great misfortune for the community, the South is
determined that there shall be no legalized admixture of the races. That
miscegenation is still going on in an unknown degree heightens the
determination that it shall at least be put under the ban of law; the very
danger makes the South more determined that the races shall be kept
separate.
(III) The dominant white Southerners are further absolutely determined
that any settlement of the question shall come from their volition; and
that means that the Southern Negro is not expected to exercise anything
more than a mild academic influence. The character of the Negroes, their
thriftlessness or industry, their crime or virtue, their stupidity or
their intelligence, may deflect the white mind one way or another; their
preferences, outside the iron fence which the South has erected round the
question, will receive some attention; but they will have to accept what
the white people assign to them.
(IV) The South is as yet little awakened to the idea that the status of
the lower Whites is a part of the whole race problem. Inasmuch as the Poor
White is emerging from seclusion and poverty, people do not sufficiently
realize that he needs education, intellectual and moral; that his
passions, his animal instincts, his violence stand in the way of the
uplift of both races.
(V) The North is expected by the South not to act by legislation or any
other active method in behalf of the Negro. The Southerners in general
consider the Fifteenth, or suffrage Amendment, to be an affront, which
they avoid by shifty clauses in their constitutions and would repeal if
they could. Some Southerners resent even inquiry about the South, and
apparently remember how their fathers received visiting abolitionists.
(VI) It would, however, be a great injustice to the immense number of
broad-minded people in the South to leave the impression that nobody down
there welcomes investigation or reads criticisms. Upon the negro question
in general there are two different and opposing Southern points of view.
The one-sided and arrogant statements of the Vardamans, the Dixons, the
Graveses, and the Tillmans have no right to call themselves the voice of
the South, in the face of the appeals to common justice and American
principles of fair play that flow from the pens of the Bassetts, the
Murphys, the Mitchells, the Flemings, and the Percys. It is a happy omen
that the South is divided upon its own question; for it means that the
taboo has been taken off discussion; that Southern men may honestly differ
on the question of the rights and the character of the Negro.
On the one side is a numerous class of Whites, some coarse and ignorant,
others of power and vitality, including many small farmers and managers of
plantations, and also a large element in the towns, who are not much
interested in the uplift of the Whites and do not wish well to the Negro,
but are full of a blind hostility to the negro race and take the ground
that this is a white man's government, and accept the Negro only as a tool
for their use.
On the other side stand a great part of the high-bred, well-educated and
masterful element; the people who count in the church, the club and
university, the pulpit and the bench; people who have a material interest
and genuine public spirit in providing for the future of their own
commonwealth. In general the best people in the South, the most highly
trained, most public-spirited, most religious, wealthiest, and most
responsible people wish well to the Negro. The plantation owner, the
manufacturer, the railroad manager, want efficient laborers; the minister
wants God-fearing people; the judge wants law-abiding men; the educator
wants good schools; they all want to raise the community, the bottom as
well as the top. How far is the superior class in the South to control the
action of legislatures and the movement of public sentiment, and the
behavior of those of a ruder cast? Which of these two classes speaks for
the South?
CHAPTER XXV
THE WRONG WAY OUT
Except within the postulates stated in the last chapter, there can be no
rational expectation of improvement of race relations in the South. Even
within those conditions many suggestions are from time to time made which
are out of accord with white and negro character, with the physical
conditions, or with the general trend of American life. Before coming to
practical remedies, it is necessary to examine and set aside these
no-thoroughfares.
First of all, can the Southern race question be solved by any action of
the North? The Reconstruction amendments with the clause authorizing
Congress to enforce them by "appropriate legislation" seem intended to
give the federal government power to protect the Negro against either
state legislation or individual action; but the Supreme Court in the Civil
Rights decision of 1883 held that the action of Congress under those
amendments was confined to meeting positive official action by state
governments. The Fourteenth Amendment provides for a special penalty in
case of deprivation of political rights, by reducing the representation in
Congress of the states which limit their suffrage. Any such legislation
must be general in terms and would therefore apply to the Northern states
in which there are educational or tax qualifications. Beyond that
difficulty is the remembered ill effect of Reconstruction laws, and the
conviction in the North that the negro problem is not one simply of race
hostility and definition of rights--that the Negroes are in many ways a
menace. To take the matter a second time out of the hands of the people on
the ground, even though they are not solving their own problems, would
mean a storm in Congress, a weight on the administration, possibly a
contest with the Supreme Court, which no responsible Northern public man
likes to contemplate.
Through the control of Congress over federal elections there is another
opportunity to interfere in behalf of the Negro, but the federal laws put
on the statute book in Reconstruction times were repealed in 1894; and
nobody now proposes to renew them. By the recent experience of the nation
in the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Cuba, a lesson has been taught of the
difficulty of handling non-European races. The nation begins to doubt the
elevating power of self-government. For whatever reason, there is no
evidence of any intention in the North to make the Negro the ward of the
nation. The writer is one of those who believe that any general federal
legislation would revive friction between the sections, would sharpen the
race feeling in the South, and in the end could accomplish little for the
uplift of the Negro; even federal aid to education could hardly be so
managed as to keep up the feeling of white responsibility from which alone
proper education of the Negro can be expected.
Is there any likelihood of a private propaganda in behalf of the Negro
like that of the abolitionists? A considerable class of Northern people
have a warm sense of resentment at what they think the injustice and
cruelty of the superior race, especially in the withdrawal of the
suffrage by state constitutional amendments; and there is a lively
interest in the education of Negroes and in work among the Poor Whites. A
propaganda, with societies, public meetings, journals, and a literature
is, however, no longer possible--the North has too much on its own hands
in curing the political diseases of its cities, in absorbing the
foreigners; like Congress, it recognizes that the South is sincere, even
if somewhat exaggerated, in its nervousness about the Negroes. The most
that can be expected of Northern individuals in the way of bettering
Southern conditions is attempts like that of this volume to get into the
real nature of the problems and to offer good advice.
Notwithstanding the horror felt toward amalgamation, from time to time in
unexpected Southern quarters reappears the suggestion that it is
impossible for the two races to live alongside each other separate, and
that the logical and unavoidable outcome is fusion; that the relentless
force of juxtaposition is too much for law or prejudice or race instinct.
Over and over again one is told that nowhere in history is there an
example of two races living side by side indefinitely without uniting.
This is not historically true; Mohammedans and Hindoos (originally of the
same race) have lived separate hundreds of years in India; Boers and
Kaffirs have been side by side for near a century; the English colonists
and the American Indians were little intermixed. Amalgamation could only
be accomplished by a change in white sentiment about as probable as the
Mormonization of the Northern Whites; and if it were possible, it would
lead to a new and worse race question, the rivalry of a mixed race
occupying the whole South against a white race in the rest of the country,
which would make all present troubles seem a pleasant interlude.
Amalgamation as a remedy welcomed by the Southern Whites is unthinkable;
as a remedy against their convictions, brought about by time, it is highly
unlikely.
At the other extremity is the idea, now more than a century old, that the
way to get rid of the race question is to remove one of the races
altogether. This notion of curing the patient by sending him to a hospital
for incurables goes back to 1775. Jefferson favored it; the Colonization
Society organized it in 1816, and in the forty years from 1820 to 1860
succeeded in sending about ten thousand Negroes to Liberia. Abraham
Lincoln favored it. It is often suggested nowadays. This plan, if it could
be carried out, would so completely relieve the immediate difficulties
that it deserves the most careful consideration.
The first objection at the outset is ten million objections--namely, the
Negroes themselves, who have never taken kindly to expatriation, for the
simple reason that it is flying to evils that they know not of. The second
difficulty is to find a place to receive the exiles. Experiments in the
West Indies, in Central America, and in Africa have all been failures. No
European country or colonies will welcome people sent away on the ground
that they are inimical to white civilization; and the settlements of
American Negroes in savage Africa have been entire failures. As has been
shown above, Liberia, after nearly ninety years of existence, has no
influence on the back country; its trade is scanty, its health is
depleted, and its conditions are in every way less favorable to physical
and moral well-being than those of the United States.
Then follows the financial difficulty; to be sure a correspondent of a
Georgia newspaper suggests: "Let the government appropriate $20,000,000
for five successive years each for deportation, judiciously forcing off
first the ages from eighteen to forty-five, as far as can be done without
too violent a separation of dependent ages, and five years will
substantially settle the exodus. All separations can be reunited in a few
years and not a negro's heart broken." But a single hundred millions would
be only a drop in the bucket. To bring over the ten million foreigners now
in the United States, and get them started in a country abounding in work
and opportunities, has probably averaged a cost of a hundred dollars a
head, or one thousand millions. The thing must be done completely, if at
all; for from the point of view of its advocates, to expatriate a part of
the race would be like cutting out a portion of a cancer; and where are
you going to find, say, a thousand million dollars to carry away ten
million people upon the proceeds of whose continued labor in America you
must depend for the Southern share of the money?
In the next place, would a world which still has tears for the Acadians
deported from Nova Scotia in 1755, which is aroused by the banishment of
political suspects to Siberia, be impressed with the high civilization of
a nation which would send ten million people to their death in a continent
where as yet neither Briton, Frenchman, Portuguese, or German has ever
been able to establish any considerable colony of European emigrants? If
the superior race, with all its resources, prudence, and medical skill
cannot live in Africa, what would become of ten million Negroes deported
on the plea that they were not capable of participating in the white man's
civilization? Though descended from Africans there is no reason to suppose
that they have transmitted immunity from the deadly tropical diseases.
Again, there is not a state, city, or county populous with Negroes in the
South which would not resent, and if need be resist, the sudden taking
away of its laborers. Whenever the question is brought to an issue, the
Southern people admit that, with all the race difficulties, the Negro does
raise the cotton and drive the mule; and without him the white man must
take the hoe and the reins. As John Sharp Williams puts it: "The white
people of the South do not want to hasten the departure of the good
negroes; ... whenever you suggest that he leave the Southern darky replies
in Scriptural phrase, 'Ask me not to leave thee.' They are here, and they
are going to remain here so long as there is a cotton field in sight." The
people who preach expatriation, deportation, elimination, or whatever they
choose to call it, are not the people who employ the Negro or wish him
well, or would be pleased to see him succeed in any hemisphere.
A milder suggestion is that the essential Negro be slowly and quietly
replaced by somebody else. What somebody else? Shall it be Northerners?
Senator Williams, of Mississippi, says: "I would like to see established a
great land company with a capital of about a million dollars, to buy lands
in the cotton States and sell them out to home-seeking immigrants on a ten
years' instalment plan." In 1907 the Southern press was convinced that a
great flow of immigration had set in from the North, but in reality
outside of Florida and Texas nearly all colonies of Northerners have been
unsuccessful, though there is a slow stream of people, partly from the
Northwest, who take up farms in the South and mix with the Southern white
population. These people are prone to be dissatisfied with the schools;
they are in despair over the wretched domestic service; the women are
filled with terror by the lynchings and by the frequent cause of them; the
newcomers dislike the Negroes more than the Southern-born people dislike
them, and cannot be depended upon to remain a permanent part of the
population. In any case, they do not replace the negro laborer for wages.
The only hope of a substitute population of plantation hands is in the
foreign immigrants, who have been described in a previous chapter, and of
whom, up to 1909, the South seems to have expected a brisk influx. The
federal government even set out to build immigrant stations in Charleston
and Savannah. But in 1907 all the Southern ports (excepting Baltimore)
together received only 21,000 out of 1,300,000. To-day the whole scheme is
a failure and there is no prospect of importing large numbers of
foreigners to work for wages. A member of Congress from Mississippi
recently declared from his seat in the House that there was a conspiracy
of federal and Italian officials to prevent Italians from coming into his
state.
The first reason for the failure of the promising plan is the many
undoubted cases, and the more rumored and reported instances, of peonage
of white men. In the second place the Italians, who have been chiefly
relied upon, have no intention of spending their lives and bringing up
their children as plantation laborers; they work so well and are so
profitable to both the plantation owners and themselves that after a few
years they save money enough to do something that they like better, and
that is the end of their service on other people's land. The experience of
South Carolina in 1906, detailed in the chapter on Immigration, seems
conclusively to prove that most foreigners prefer the North because they
think they are better treated there.
The fundamental difficulty with the whole plan of immigration is that a
great many people in the South believe that the average foreigner is an
undesirable member of the community. They have no familiarity with that
grinding-down process by which even unpromising races are transformed into
Americans. They read of the "Black Hand," which is not very different from
some forms of the old Ku Klux Klan; of the Vendetta, which can be
paralleled in the Southern mountains; and they show little willingness to
receive even the better foreign elements on equal terms. It is a fair
question whether if the Italians, for example, should come to have a
majority of votes in Louisiana they would ever be permitted to elect and
inaugurate a governor out of their own number; whether the phrase "White
man's government" does not apply as much against the "Dago" as against the
Negro.
If the Negroes cannot be replaced, is it not possible to segregate them
into districts of their own? For forty years a process has been going on
by which the black counties grow blacker and the white counties become
whiter; Negroes move into the counties where there is most work and
therefore the greatest number of laborers, and the Whites gradually move
out of the districts in which the Negroes are very numerous. Could not
that process be carried still farther? Some people in despair predict that
the Whites will eventually find their way into the West and Northwest,
leaving the fruitful South to the Negro. Although there is a steady drift
of white people out of the Southern states, it is of the same kind as the
movement from New England and the Middle states to the West, and the
Whites have not the slightest intention of abandoning their section;
buildings go up, mills appear, skyscrapers intensify the city, and in
every Southern state the Whites grow richer and more powerful.
The desired result might be brought about if the Negroes would move to
other parts of the Union, and much is made of the present drift into the
Northern cities, but the conditions of life are not favorable to them
there, and their number is only kept up by new immigrations. Booker
Washington advises the Negro to stay in the South because "The fact that
at the North the Negro is confined to almost one line of employment often
tends to discourage and demoralize the strongest who go from the South,
and to make them an easy prey to temptation." Many of the keenest
observers in the South desire that the Negroes should spread through the
country, partly to relieve the pressure in the South, and partly in the
conviction that it would furnish an object lesson to the Northern people
of the disadvantage of the presence of Negroes. Whatever the number of
emigrant Negroes out of the South, the number left there goes on steadily
increasing from decade to decade; and whenever they show a disposition to
leave in large numbers, the Southerners oppose and resist, because they
see no hope of supplying their place with any other than more negro
laborers.
Could the two races divide the land into districts? Such a separation is
favored both by Bishop Turner, a negro leader, and by John Temple Graves,
of Atlanta, a negro hater, and there are a few examples of such separate
communities. Many white counties and a few white towns will not admit
Negroes; and in perhaps half a dozen colored villages no white man lives.
Here is perhaps an opportunity for considerably reducing race friction,
for there is no reason to suppose that such separate towns go backward in
civilization; and they give opportunities for negro business and
professional men, which are important for the encouragement of the best
members of the race. The most serious practical objection is, however,
that such towns take away laborers, actual or potential, from the white
plantations; and the industrial cotton system depends on keeping those
Negroes on other people's land.
A broader proposition is phrased by Reed in the "Brother's War"--"Let us
give the negro his own State in our union.... We are rich enough and have
land enough to give the negro this State, which is due from us. His
especial need is to exercise political and civil privileges, in his own
community, all the way up from the town meeting to congress." Possibly
this remedy might have been applied forty years ago, but it is now
absolutely unworkable. When Reed suggests that the Negro be allowed to
take over some state and carry it on as a negro community, the instant
question is, which state? Louisiana will not allow her laborers to go _en
masse_ to Texas; and Texas would drive them back with shotguns from the
border if they tried to move. The blackest states have the least
disposition to become blacker, the lighter states are just as determined
to remain light; and since there is no longer any great area of good land
not taken up by anybody, colonization of the Negro within the limits of
the United States is impossible.
Could the desired result of keeping Whites and Negroes from too confining
a contact be reached by a less drastic method? A favorite suggestion
eloquently championed by Grady is "race separation," which he defined to
mean: "That the whites and blacks must walk in separate paths in the
South. As near as may be, these paths should be made equal--but separate
they must be now and always. This means separate schools, separate
churches, separate accommodation everywhere--but equal accommodation where
the same money is charged, or where the State provides for the citizen."
That is, in every city Negroes are to occupy separate quarters, go to
separate schools, ride in separate sections of the street cars, use
separate sidewalks, buy in separate stores, have separate churches, places
of amusement, social organizations, banks, and insurance companies. This
system, which in many directions has already been carried out, rests upon
a conviction of the Negro's ability to maintain an economic and
intellectual life of his own, without danger to the white race. It has the
great disadvantage of cutting off the third of the population which most
needs uplift from the influences which bear for progress. It still further
diminishes that association of the superior with the inferior race, that
kindly interest of employer in employee, that infiltration of culture and
moral principles which is the mightiest influence among the white people.
Furthermore, where is the black man to acquire the skill to carry on his
own enterprises, to build cotton gins and oil mills, to stock stores, to
found banks, if he is to be separated from the white man? Where is he to
buy his goods? Here the whole system breaks down; the drummer is no
respecter of persons, and not only is willing to sell to a solvent Negro,
but is likely to insist that the negro merchant shall not give all his
orders to a colored wholesaler. Then what is to be done with the hundreds
of thousands of landowners, tenants, croppers, and wage hands, who depend
on advances from the Whites? There is no such thing as commercial
segregation; as in other directions, when any remedy is proposed which
means the cutting off of negro labor, or of the profits derived from negro
custom, the South invariably draws back.
On the other hand, race separation would give greater opportunities to the
Negroes and reduce the contact with the lower class of the Whites, out of
which comes most of the race violence in the South. It is substantially
the method applied in Northern cities, though nowhere to any such degree
as in the South. It is a method which, with all its hardship to Negroes of
the higher class, comes nearest being a _modus vivendi_ between the races.
As for white communities without Negroes, there are many such in the
mountain regions, and an unsuccessful effort was made in the town of
Fitzgerald, Ga., by Northern immigrants to keep the Negroes out of it, but
in such places who will do the odd jobs and perform the necessary rough
labor? How shall houses be built, drays be driven and dirt shoveled, if
there are no Negroes?
Try which way you may, there seems no method consonant with the interests
of the South and the principles of humanity by which Negroes can be set
apart from the white people. It was not the choice of their ancestors to
change their horizon; nor were the Africans now in the United States
consulted as to their neighbors; but they were born on American soil; they
have shared in the toil of conquering the continent; they have their
homes, their interests, and their traditions; they have never known any
life except in dependence on and close relations with the Whites. However
happier the South and the whole country might be were there no race
question, there seems no possibility of avoiding it by taking away all
race contact.
A method of supposed relief widely applied, frequently invoked, and
strenuously defended, is to terrorize the Negro. And the North is not free
from that spirit. As Mr. Dooley philosophizes: "He'll ayther have to go to
th' north an' be a subjick race, or stay in th' south an' be an objick
lesson. 'Tis a har-rd time he'll have, anyhow.... I'm not so much
throubled about th' naygur whin he lives among his opprissors as I am whin
he falls into th' hands iv his liberators. Whin he's in th' South he can
make up his mind to be lynched soon or late an' give his attintion to his
other pleasures iv composin' rag-time music on a banjo, an' wurrukin' f'r
th' man that used to own him an' now on'y owes him his wages. But 'tis the
divvle's own hardship ... to be pursooed by a mob iv abolitionists till
he's dhriven to seek police protection." Still the Northern police do give
protection against assaults on the Negro which Southern police sometimes
refuse. Lawlessness is the plague of the South. Attention has already been
called to the negro crime against person and life, the shocking frequency
of white crime, the weakness and timidity of the courts, and the resort to
lynching as an alleged protest against lawlessness. The number of
homicides and mob murders is not so serious as the continual appeals to
violence by editors and public men who are accepted as leaders by a large
minority and sometimes a majority of the white people. Thus John Temple
Graves calls for "a firm, stern, and resolute attitude of organization and
readiness on the part of the dominant race.... Is this black man from
savage Africa to keep on perpetually disturbing the sections of our common
country? Is this running sore to be nursed and treated and anodyned and
salved and held forever to our breasts?" Southern newspapers abound in
fierce and exciting headlines: "The Burly Black Brute Foiled!" "A Ham
Colored Nigger in the Hen House!" "The Only Place for You is Behind a
Mule," and so on--what somebody has called "The wholesale assassination of
negro character." Senator Tillman in a public lecture has said: "On one
occasion we killed seven niggers; I don't know how many I killed
personally, but I shot to kill and I know I got my share." And in another
speech, in November, 1907, in Chicago, the same man, who has repeatedly
been elected to the Senate from a once proud state, said: "No matter what
the people in the North may say or do, the white race in the South will
never be dominated by the Negro, and I want to tell you now that if some
state should ever make an attempt to 'save South Carolina,' we will show
them in their fanaticism that we will make it red before we make it
black."
Observe that this ferocity is not directed against the Negro simply
because he does ill, but equally if he does well. Thus a correspondent in
Georgia writes: "Let me tell you one thing,--every time you people of the
North countenance in any way, shape or form any form of social equality,
you lay up trouble, not for yourselves, or for us so much, but for the
negro. _Right or wrong the Southern people will never tolerate it, and
will go through the horrors of another reconstruction, before they will
permit it to be. Before we will submit to it, we will kill every negro in
the Southern states._ This is not idle boasting or fire-eating threats,
but the cold, hard facts stated in all calmness." Could hate, jealousy,
and meanness reach a higher pitch than in the following declaration of
Thomas Dixon, Jr., sent broadcast through the country in the _Saturday
Evening Post_ two years ago? "Does any sane man believe that when the
Negro ceases to work under the direction of the Southern white man, this
'arrogant,' 'rapacious,' and 'intolerant' race will allow the Negro to
master his industrial system, take the bread from his mouth, crowd him to
the wall and place a mortgage on his house? Competition is war--the most
fierce and brutal of all its forms. Could fatuity reach a sublimer height
than the idea that the white man will stand idly by and see this
performance? What will he do when put to the test? He will do exactly what
his white neighbor in the North does when the Negro threatens his
bread--kill him!" Could blind race hostility go farther than in the
Atlanta Riots of 1907, for which not one murderer has ever been subjected
to any punishment?
These violent utterances come almost wholly from the Superior Race. The
Negroes have their grievances; but any intemperate publication toward the
white race would almost certainly lead to a lynching. An instance has
actually occurred where a Negro was driven out of a community, and glad to
escape with his life, because he had in his newspaper said with regard to
a woman of his own race whose character had been assailed, that she was as
virtuous as any white woman. Doubtless some of the cruel and incendiary
language that has been quoted is intended for home consumption; it is
supposed to be a striking way of saying to the Negroes that they ought to
behave better; and alongside every one of these vindictive utterances
could be placed a message of hope and encouragement from Southern white
men to the blacks. These expressions of white ferocity in condemnation of
negro ferocity are overbalanced by such strong words as those of Senator
Williams: "It cannot be escaped by the extermination of either race by the
other. That thought is absolutely horrible to a good man, a believer in
the divine philosophy of Jesus Christ, who taught mutual helpfulness, and
not mutual hatred to mankind." Nevertheless, it remains true that a large
number of Southern people who are in places of influence and authority
advise that the race problem be settled by terrorizing the Negro.
The commonest form of terror is lynching, a deliberate attempt to keep the
race down by occasionally killing Negroes, sometimes because they are
dreadful criminals, frequently because they are bad, or loose-tongued, or
influential, or are acquiring property, or otherwise irritate the Whites.
A saucy speech by a Negro to a white man may be followed by swift,
relentless, and tormenting death. In every case of passionate conflict
between two races the higher loses most, because it has most to lose; and
lynch law as a remedy for the lawlessness of the blacks has the
disadvantage of occasionally exposing innocent white men to the
uncontrollable passion of other white men, of filling the mind with scenes
of horror and cruelty, of lowering the standard of the whole white race.
This subject is inextricably connected with the crimes by Negroes, for
which lynching is held to be an appropriate punishment. The statistics
collected by Mr. Cutler, and stated in a previous chapter, show in the
twenty-two years from 1882 to 1903 a record of 1,997 lynchings in the
South; of the Negroes lynched, 707 were charged with violence to women and
783 with murder. These figures absolutely disprove the habitual statements
in the South that lynching is common to all sections of the Union; that it
is almost always caused by rape; and that rape is a crime confined to
Negroes. The details of some of these cases would show that the mob not
infrequently gets an innocent person; that it is liable to be carried away
into the most horrible excesses of burning and torture; that a lynching is
really a kind of orgy in which not only the criminal class among the
Whites, but people who are ordinarily swayed by reason simply let go of
themselves and indulge the primeval brutishness of human nature. Said
Confucius: "The Master said, 'I hate the manner in which purple takes away
the luster of vermilion. I hate the way in which the songs of Ch'ing
confound the music of Gna. I hate those who with their sharp mouths
overthrow kingdoms and families.'"
Professor Smith, of Tulane University, is spokesman for thousands of
respectable and educated men when he says: "Atrocious as such forms of
rudimentary justice undoubtedly are, and severely reprehensible, to be
condemned always and without any reserve, it cannot be denied that they
have a certain rough and horrible virtue. Great is the insult they wreak
on the majesty of the law and brutalizing must be their effect upon human
nature, yet they do strike a salutary terror into hearts which the slow
and uncertain steps of the courts could hardly daunt. In witness stands
the fact that lynch-lightning seldom strikes twice in the same district or
community. Such frightful incidents tend to repeat themselves at wide
intervals, both of time and place."
They tend to repeat themselves immediately; it is not an accident that
Mississippi, in a large part of which the Negroes are renowned for their
freedom from the crime so much reprehended, nevertheless, has more
lynchings than any other state; it is because Mississippi has the lynching
habit. Strange that in a community like the South, so intelligent, so
proud of the superiority and the supremacy of the white race, the deeds of
fifty abandoned black men each year should throw millions of Whites into a
frenzy of excitement; and that for the crime of those fifty, ten million
innocent people are held responsible. Lynching is no remedy for race
troubles, and never has been; it intensifies the race feeling a
hundredfold; it is a standing indictment of the white people who possess
all the machinery of government, yet cannot prevent the fury of their own
race. "Surely," says President Roosevelt, "no patriot can fail to see the
fearful brutalization and debasement which the indulgence of such a spirit
and such practices inevitably portend.... The nation, like the
individual, cannot commit a crime with impunity. If we are guilty of
lawlessness and brutal violence, whether our guilt consists in active
participation therein or in mere connivance and encouragement, we shall
assuredly suffer later on because of what we have done. The corner stone
of this republic, as of all free governments, is respect for and obedience
to the law." That the South can get on without lynchings is shown by the
gradual diminution in the number of instances. In 1901 there were 135, in
1906 only 45, and in this good result the protests of the good people in
the South have been aided by the criticism of the North. Murders of Whites
by Negroes are probably just as frequent, but they are more likely to go
to the courts.
Some things can still be done to reduce the crime of the individual
without increasing the crime of the mob. John Temple Graves has suggested
for the Negro that: "Upon conviction of his crime he would cross a 'Bridge
of Sighs' and disappear into a prison of darkness and mystery, from which
he would never emerge, and in which he would meet a fate known to no man
save the Government and the excutioners of the law--that the very darkness
and mystery of this punishment would strike more terror to the soul of
superstitious criminals than all the vengeance of modern legal
retribution."
A kindred suggestion is that a special court of Whites shall be set up to
deal with certain aggravated crimes, outside of the technicalities of the
ordinary criminal law. If the Negroes would deliver up those of their own
number whom they suppose to have committed such crimes, they would relieve
themselves of the odium of protecting the worst criminals. The Whites are
right in insisting on a stronger feeling of race responsibility, but where
is their own sense of race responsibility when the Salisbury lynchers,
the Atlanta murderers and the scoundrel Turner, who practically kidnapped
and then tortured to death a Negro woman, are protected by public
sentiment? Extraordinary remedies are not necessary if the white people
will make their own courts and sheriffs do their duty, by speedy trials,
followed by swift and orderly punishment; and most of all by disgracing
and driving out of society men who take upon themselves the hangman's
office without the hangman's plea of maintaining the majesty of law.
Lynching is part of the same spirit as that which inspires peonage, the
meanest of all crimes in the calendar; for to steal a poor Negro's labor
is to rob a cripple of his crutches; to knock down the child for his
penny; it is the fleecing of the most defenseless by the most powerful.
One of the remedies for the ills of the South is that the white people
shall sternly set themselves against the crime of peonage, which exists in
every state of the Lower South, either with or without the color of law;
and which secures the most expensive labor that the South can possibly
employ, since it alarms and discourages a thousand for every man whose
forced labor is thus stolen.
The terrible thing about all the suggestions of violence and hatred as a
remedy is that they react upon the white race, which has most to lose in
property and in character. "There are certain things," said Governor
Vardaman, of Mississippi, in a public proclamation, "that must be done for
the control of the negro which need not be done for the government of the
white man. In spite of the provisions of the federal constitution the men
who are called upon to deal with this great problem must do that which is
necessary to be done, even though it may have the appearance at times of
going somewhat without the law.... If the people of the respective
communities of this state will only come together and resolve to convert
every negro into a laborer and self-supporter, even though it be necessary
to make him a laborer upon the county's or the state's property, they will
serve their communities and their state well." No idea is more futile than
that you can drive people with whips into the Kingdom of Heaven; that you
can teach an inferior race to observe laws by yourself breaking them; that
you can put one half the community outside the law, while claiming
American liberty for the other half. Though the negro race has little to
urge in public, it feels the degradation and the hurt. Violence solves no
problems; it does not even postpone the evil day. The race problem must be
solved by applying to Negroes the same kind of law and justice that the
experience of the Anglo-Saxon has found necessary for its own protection.
CHAPTER XXVI
MATERIAL AND POLITICAL REMEDIES
The methods of dealing with the race question discussed in the last
chapter all go back to the idea that the Negro can be improved only by
some process distasteful to him. Race separation he dislikes, expatriation
he shudders at, and violence brings on him more evils than it removes, to
say nothing of the effect on the Whites. The world has tried many
experiments of civilizing people by the police, and they are all failures,
from the Russian Empire to the West Side of New York, especially since
both the Cossacks and the metropolitan police have faults of their own. In
the South and in Russia alike there is doubtless a feeling that the people
at the bottom of the scale are things below the common standard, that
force is necessary because they will not listen to reason.
None of the forcible remedies meets the most obvious difficulty in the
South--that the present condition of the lower race is not a foundation
for great wealth and high prosperity. If the Negro has reached his pitch,
if he is to remain at his present average of morals and industry and
productivity, the South may well be in despair, for it is far below that
of the low Southern White, and farther below that of the Northwestern
farmer. The condition of the black is a menace to society--if it must stay
at the present level.
In the chapter on "Is the Negro Rising?" some reasons are given for
believing that the status of the race has much improved in the last forty
years and is still gaining. Upon this critical point numbers of both races
testify. Kelly Miller says of the achievements of his people: "Within
forty years of only partial opportunity, while playing as it were in the
backyard of civilization, the American negro has cut down his illiteracy
by over fifty per cent; has produced a professional class some fifty
thousand strong, including ministers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, editors,
authors, architects, engineers and all higher lines of listed pursuits in
which white men are engaged; some three thousand negroes have taken
collegiate degrees, over three hundred being from the best institutions in
the North and West established for the most favored white youth; ... negro
inventors have taken out some four hundred patents as a contribution to
the mechanical genius of America; there are scores of negroes who, for
conceded ability and achievements, take respectable rank in the company of
distinguished Americans."
This opinion is not confined to members of the negro race; even so cordial
an enemy of the Negro as John Temple Graves admits that "The leaders of no
race in history have ever shown greater wisdom, good temper and
conservative discretion than distinguishes the two or three men who stand
at the head of the negro race in America to-day"; and elsewhere he
declares that there are two good Negroes for every bad Negro, a proportion
which does not obtain in every race. Thomas Nelson Page is of opinion
that, "Unquestionably, a certain proportion of the Negro race has risen
notably since the era of emancipation," and John Sharp Williams commits
himself to the statement that "Fully ninety per cent of the negro race is
behaving itself as well as could be expected; it is at work in the
fields, on the railroads, and in the sawmills, and does not, for the most
part, know that there is a fifteenth amendment." A cloud of witnesses
confirm the belief that a fourth to a fifth of all the Negroes in the
South are somewhat improving and slowly saving. Some of them have
hearkened to the advice of an English writer: "Try to realize two things:
first, that you are living in a commercial republic; a country whose
standard, in all things, is material; second, that you are the greatest
economic power in this country."
The possibility of a general industrial uplift depends upon several
factors which are not easy to fix. It is a question whether the lower four
fifths of the negro race has anything like the potentiality of the upper
fraction, for it is made up mostly of plantation Negroes, who have
certainly advanced a long way from slavery times, are better clothed,
better fed, better housed, better treated, but are still a long way below
most of the Whites in their own section. The most appalling thing about
the negro problem is, this mass of people on the land who are doing well
in the sense that they work, make cotton, yield profits, help to make the
community prosperous, but who are ignorant, stupid, and have no horizon
outside the cotton field and the cornfield. In spirit they still hark back
to Whittier's plantation song,
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn;
O nebber you fear if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn.
Is there anything stirring in the minds of that great, good-natured, inert
and unthinking mass which will bring them up where the reproach now
heaped upon them shall fade away? Still more, if they try to arise, will
the Whites permit them? That is no idle question, for rising means that
some of them will seek other pursuits, and the white people have already
given notice that certain avenues of labor are closed to them. Contrary to
many assertions confidently made, the Negroes are not as a race crowded
out of the skilled trades in the South; but the trades union is bound to
appear and the effort will be to shut negro mechanics out of the unions
altogether, as has been done in some Northern places. The Negro as he
rises to higher possibilities may find those possibilities withdrawn.
Listen to the philosophy of Thomas Dixon, Jr., a Christian minister: "If
the Negro is made master of the industries of the South he will become the
master of the South. Sooner than allow him to take the bread from their
mouths, the white men will kill him here, as they do North, when the
struggle for bread becomes as tragic.... Make the Negro a scientific and
successful farmer, and let him plant his feet deep in your soil, and it
will mean a race war.... The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, or the
leopard his spots. Those who think it possible will always tell you that
the place to work this miracle is in the South. Exactly. If a man really
believes in equality, let him prove it by giving his daughter to a Negro
in marriage. That is the test." This is nothing more nor less than the
negro preacher's exhortation to his congregation: "My dear hearers, dar is
two roads a-lyin' straight before you, and a-branchin' off de one from de
odder at the nex' corners; one of 'em leads to perdition, and de odder to
everlastin' damnation. Oh, my friends, which will you choose?" If the
Negro will not rise, argues Dixon, he gives nothing to the community,
away with him! If he does rise, he may take work that otherwise some
white man might do, lynch him!
The real argument of competition works just the other way. The inferior
Negro is not likely to take the bread out of the mouth of the superior
white man; but, when relieved from the abnormal conditions of slavery and
of Reconstruction, he may still be able to hold his own in the struggle
for existence. Emancipation threw upon the Negro the responsibility for
his own keeping. The most that he can ask is a fair field without
artificial hindrances or limitations; and in such a field a race on the
average inferior may nevertheless find tasks in which it excels, and may
maintain its race life unimpaired. Kelly Miller says: "You were born with
a silver spoon in your mouth, I was born with an iron hoe in my hand"; and
the world needs the hoe hand just as much as the silversmith.
It would appear that for the uplift of the Negro something is needed on
the white side: remembrance of the foundations of American liberty, of the
workings of Christianity, of the economic truth that you are not made poor
because your neighbor gets on in the world. The curse of the South is that
its people do not more genuinely realize that the more active,
industrious, and thrifty a people become, the more their neighbors receive
out of the enlarged contribution to the community. If the Negroes were all
as intelligent as Roscoe Conkling Bruce, as forehanded as Benson of
Kowaliga, as lyric as Paul Dunbar, the Whites in the South might get rich
out of the trade of the Negro, and some of them see it so. For instance,
President Winston, of the Agricultural College of North Carolina: "Greater
industrial efficiency would prove an everlasting bond between the races in
the South. It is the real key to the problem. Let the Negro make himself
indispensable as a workman, and he may rely upon the friendship and
affection of the whites.... Public sentiment in the South still welcomes
the Negro to every field of labor that he is capable of performing. The
whole field of industry is open to him. The Southern whites are not
troubled by his efficiency but by his inefficiency." Meantime the really
industrious Negroes, of whom there are a couple of million or more, follow
the advice of Paul Dunbar:
I've a humble little motto
That is homely, though it's true,--
Keep a-pluggin' away.
It's a thing when I've an object
That I always try to do,--
Keep a-pluggin' away.
When you've rising storms to quell,
When opposing waters swell,
It will never fail to tell,--
Keep a-pluggin' away.
The self-interest of the planter in the efficiency of his labor does not
necessarily lead him to see the highest interests either of the negro race
or of the South, under the present industrial system, which makes a
plantation a workshop rather than a farm. The ownership of rich cotton
lands only means wealth if you can find negro laborers and keep them at
work. One of the most powerful uplifting agencies in all agricultural
countries is the desire to own land, and one of the most frequent texts of
Booker Washington is that now is the time for the Negro to acquire land,
for it will never again be so cheap; but where is the land to be found?
Although ownership has almost completely changed since the Civil War, good
lands are aggregating more and more into large tracts. The white farmer
finds it difficult to hold his own against the capitalist and the
syndicate, and even the thrifty black is beset by special difficulties.
In the first place, the rural Negro has, unless by his saving from sawmill
and turpentine work, little opportunity to make money with which to buy a
farm, except from the farm itself: hence he buys on time, pays a heavy
interest charge, and is at every disadvantage. In the second place, few
planters are willing to break up their land into small tracts; to do so
takes away their livelihood, their only opportunity of making available
their knowledge of cotton planting and of dealing with cotton hands. Some
of them are absolutely opposed to letting the Negroes have land. Mr. Bell,
of Alabama, one of the largest landowners in the South, is credited with
saying that he "has no use for a Nigger that pays out." That is to say, he
prefer his hands to be unprogressive and in debt. Perhaps the South fails
to realize that the wealth of the Western, Middle, and New England states
comes from encouraging people to do the best they know how. The more
industrious the people are, the more business there is of every kind and
for everybody. The South would be happier and more prosperous if it could
accept the Western system of moderate-sized detached farms, on each of
which there is an intelligent owner or tenant.
The large number of negro landowners (though many of them perhaps are
mortgaged) and the evident prosperity of those communities in which the
greatest number of them hold their land, seems to show that landowning is
a motive that ought to be strongly set before them. The old notion of
Reconstruction times that the federal government ought to furnish "forty
acres and a mule" was not so far wrong; it would have been perfectly
possible for the nation to acquire land in large tracts, to subdivide it,
and give or sell it at nominal rates, so as to offer every thrifty Negro
the chance of proprietorship; but that opportunity, if it ever existed,
has long gone by, and the Negro must depend upon himself if he wishes to
buy land.
The present system is not only industrial; it tends to make a peasant out
of the Negro, and peasant is a term of reproach in the United States,
though in France, Germany, and Italy there are rich peasants as well as
poor ones, peasants who employ labor as well as those who have nothing but
their hands. The American objection to a peasant system is its fixity; the
peasant is an hereditary laborer on the land, usually the land of another;
he leaves it to other people to carry on the state, to elevate the
community. Nevertheless, it is simply the truth that under the present
system of tenancy employment and day wages, nearly half of the negro race
in the South is in effect a peasantry. Perhaps that is their fate. Perhaps
the Alabama lawyer's doctrine, so comfortable for the white man, is to
prevail: "It's a question who will do the dirty work. In this country the
white man won't: the Negro must. There's got to be a mudsill somewhere. If
you educate the Negroes they won't stay where they belong; and you must
consider them as a race, because if you let a few rise it makes the others
discontented."
The question of who is to do the crude, disagreeable and dirty work, has
solved itself in the North which has had one stratum after another of
immigrants who were willing to take it, each shoving his predecessor
higher up in the scale of employment; but no foreigners will come into the
South in order to relieve the Negro of hewing of wood and drawing of
water. It looks as though the majority of the race would be compelled to
accept some condition on the land, without a share in the government and
without much prospect of getting into other kinds of life. The prospect is
discouraging in itself, and it readily shades into restraint, subjection,
and peonage--the worst of remedies for a race low in origin, which has
just emerged from a debasing servitude, and which needs all the stimulus
of ambition and opportunity.
The South has proved its capacity for organizing and directing ignorant
labor, but a peasant system has more dangers for the upper than the lower
class. The gentlemen of eighteenth-century France, with all their high
breeding, did not understand the people under them and were hated of their
peasants; the Pashas of Egypt were degraded by their mastery over
thousands of fellahin; the Russian boyars have so alienated the peasants
that they have almost rent the empire in twain. To accept a peasant system
would be a confession that the South must remain in the lower stage of
economic progress which goes with such a system. The duty and the
privilege of the South is still to seek the way of enlightment; to make
the Negro a better laborer instead of crystallizing him into a race of
dependents.
Material progress is necessary for the Negro and equally for the Poor
White, not simply that he may be better clad and have better health, but
because it brings with it other influences which go to elevate mankind.
You cannot make good citizens and virtuous people out of a dirty, ill-fed
family in a one-room house; the remedy of intellectual and moral uplift is
as important as the material side. Thrift works both ways: the man who
buys good clothes for his children wants to send them to Sunday school;
the poor children in Sunday school beg their fathers to give them good
clothes. Such intellectual and moral agencies are at work, though here
again some white leaders object to them. For instance, John Temple Graves
asks: "Will the negro, with his increasing education and his surely and
steadily advancing worth and merit, be content to accept, in peace and
humility, anything less than his full and equal share in the government of
which he is a part?" Here is one of the stumbling blocks in the way of the
progress of the race.
For thrift and saving habits the South has always lacked one of the
approved aids; it has few savings banks, few ordinary banks which attract
the deposits of Negroes, and few steady investments in small
denominations. For this reason the proposed Postal Savings Banks would be
a boon to the South, and would help toward the purchase of land and other
property. The Negroes' own fraternal orders and stock companies furnish
some opportunities for savings. Regulation of drinking and gambling places
will also make saving likelier among the laborers. That difficulties and
conflicts of interest would rise between Whites and Negroes was foreseen
at the time of Reconstruction, and it was honestly supposed by the
thinking people of the North that the ballot would at the same time
protect the black against white aggression, and would educate him into the
sense of such responsibility that there would not be negro aggression.
Giving the negro suffrage, however, while at the same time through the
Reconstruction state constitutions disfranchising his former master,
brought about a condition of unstable equilibrium, and the strongest, best
organized, and most determined race of course prevailed. For some years
after the restoration of white supremacy in the Southern states, colored
men were still allowed to vote in districts like the Sea Islands of South
Carolina, and the Delta of Mississippi, where they were predominant, but
since 1885 there has not been any genuine negro suffrage in any state of
the South, in the sense that Negroes were assured that their votes could
be cast and would be counted even if they made a difference in the result.
The last remnant of a successful combination of negro voters with a
minority of the Whites was in the North Carolina election of 1896.
By the series of constitutional amendments begun in 1890, and since spread
through the South, a property or intelligence qualification has
practically been established for Negroes while not applying to poor or
illiterate Whites. In the Northern states race difficulties, so far as
they take form in politics, are settled by the usual course of elections;
in the South it is the unalterable intention of the Whites that the
Negroes shall not participate in choosing officials or in making laws
either for white men or for themselves.
Furthermore, the South is bitterly opposed to the holding of offices by
Negroes except the small local appointments. Though Negroes are one third
in number in the South, and more than one half the population in two
states, they have not a single state administrative official, member of
legislature, or judge. The opposition to negro office holding extends to
federal appointments, although a considerable number of places, some of
them important, are still held by Negroes. They obtain appointments as
railway mail clerks and letter carriers by competitive examination, and a
few of them are selected for collectorships of internal revenue and of
customs, on the basis that the Negroes are part of the community and
entitled to some recognition. To exclude them altogether from the public
service, as they have been almost excluded from the suffrage, may somewhat
diminish race friction, but it is a mark of inferiority which the whole
negro race resents.
CHAPTER XXVII
MORAL REMEDIES
The regeneration of a race, as of mankind, is something that must proceed
from within and work outward. Hence the most obvious remedy for race
troubles is that both races should come up to a higher plane of living.
What has been the progress of the Negro in that direction; what is the
likelihood of further advance? The chance of the blacks is less than it
would be if the white race had a larger part in it. The Negro is
insensibly affected by the spirit of the community in which he lives. He
knows that though ruffians threaten him with revolvers or with malignant
looks that have a longer range, there are also broad-minded and
large-hearted white men who bid him rise; but he is almost cut off from
the machinery of civilization set in motion by his white neighbor; he
cannot use or draw books from the public library; he practically cannot
attend any churches, lectures, or concerts, except those provided directly
for him. On the plantation he hardly sees a white face, except those of
the managers and their families. He has little opportunity to talk with
white men; none for that interchange of thought which is so much promoted
by sitting round the same table. He can attend no colleges or schools with
white students. In the common schools and in many institutions above, he
meets only negro teachers. He is far more cut off from the personal touch
and influence of white men and women of high quality than he was in
slavery times.
Within his own race he experiences the influences of some notable minds,
and, with few exceptions, the men recognized by the Negroes as their chief
leaders counsel moderation and preach uplift. Many of the lesser leaders
are deficient in character, and a large fraction of the ministers of the
gospel do not, by their lives or conversation, enforce the lessons which
they teach from the pulpit; they also have not the advantage of training
by white teachers. In the process of separation of races, the negro mind
has gone far toward losing touch with the white mind. The best friends of
the race are grieved and humiliated from time to time to find that they
had expected something which the Negroes did not recognize as due from
them--service, loyalty, gratitude. Thousands of people believe that the
Negro makes it the object of his life to cheat a white man. Thousands of
Negroes feel that they are not bound by promises or contracts made to
their own hurt.
Since the white race is not in such friendly relations with the Negro as
to impress upon him the causes of white superiority, some Southern writers
would like to see a sort of benevolent state socialism applied to the
Negro, such as laws under which the coming and going of the blacks should
be regulated, their implements secured, and labor distributed where it was
needed. Like many other suggestions, this remedy would cure the Negro's
shiftlessness by taking away his self-control, and would apply to the lazy
black man a régime which would be abhorrent if employed upon the lazy
white man.
Where the Whites appreciate and aid the Negroes, the color line cuts them
off from making the distinctions which are the rewards of the energetic
and successful in other communities. The negro poet, the essayist, and
the educator have no fellowship with those neighbors who could appreciate
their genius. So far as the South can prevent it, the most energetic and
successful negro business man can hope for no public office. The machinery
for uplifting the Negro through white influence is no longer in operation.
The inferior race is thrown back upon members of the inferior race for its
moral stimulus; and then is reproached because it does not form higher
ideals and advance more rapidly. The successful Negro exercising a good
influence among his fellows cannot be admitted to the white man's club,
cannot be made the intimate of men of kindred aims. As Senator Williams
says: "When we find a good negro we must encourage him to stay good and to
grow better. We are doing too little of that. The old adage, 'Give a dog a
bad name and you have made a bad dog,' is a good one. Indiscriminate
cursing of the whole negro race, good and bad alike included, is an
exemplification of the adage. I have frequently thought how hard it was
for a good negro, especially during campaign times, to stay good or to
grow better when he could not come within sound of a white speaker's voice
without hearing his whole race indiscriminately reviled without mention of
him as an exception, even in the neighborhood where he was known to be
one."
One of the strongest civilizing forces both North and South has been the
Church, through which has been spread abroad not only the incitements to
life on a high plane, but the intellectual stimulus of the preacher's
voice, of the association of keen men, of Bible study. The Negro has the
outward sign of this influence, the force of which is recognized by all
candid people; but his clergy are not, as a class, moral leaders, and
here, as in so many other directions, he is deprived of the leadership of
the Whites. For similar populations in the North there is an apparatus of
missions, and the schools and colleges planted by Northerners in the South
are almost all substantially missionary movements; but the South dislikes
them and makes almost no effort to rival them. The Christian church, which
is the bearer of civilization to Africa, China, the American Indians,
leaves the Negroes in great part to christianize themselves if they can.
The white man has another opportunity of helping upward his dark neighbor
through his control of legislatures and courts. Garner would solve the
problem--"not by denying him the advantages of education, but by curbing
his criminal instincts through a more rigid enforcement of the law. The
laws against carrying concealed weapons, against gambling, and against
vagrancy should, if necessary, be increased in severity and enforced with
a vigilance and certainty which will root out gambling, force the idle
vagrant to work, and send the pistol carrier to prison. The abolition of
the saloon and the extirpation of the 'blind tiger' and the cocaine dive
would remove the most potent external causes of negro criminality....
Conditions could be materially improved by the establishment of a more
adequate police surveillance and control and the introduction of a more
effective police protection, for it is a well-known fact that in most
Southern communities this protection is notoriously insufficient. It is
also well worth considering whether some reasonable and effective measures
might not be taken to prevent the movement of the negroes to the towns and
cities and their segregation in particular localities." Says an Alabamian
lawyer: "A different and milder set of laws ought to be enacted for him
than for the white man.... His best friends in the South are among our
'gentlemen.' The low White has no use for him. He hates the Negro and the
Negro hates him." From the federal government, as has been shown above, no
effective legislation can be expected; but may not something be done by
special state action?
Many observers are alive to the possibility of removing temptations which
are thought to be specially alluring to the Negro. The ill-disposed
country black is a rover, a night-hawk, and has his own kinds of good
times, including a supply of whisky; the bad town Negro finds his
pleasures right at hand, and is frequently abetted in them by the white
man. To be sure, low drinking houses, gambling houses and worse places,
flourish among all races in New York, and are no more likely to be
exterminated in New Orleans than in the Northern city for such
considerations. John Sharp Williams would resort to "some sort of
common-sense remedies of the negro question upon the criminal side,
principally in the nature of preventives. In the first place, they suggest
the rigid enforcement of vagrant laws by new laws whenever, in justice and
right, they need strengthening. In the second place, they suggest a
closing of all low dives and brothels where the vagrant, tramp, and idle
negroes consort and where their imaginations--they being peculiarly a race
of imagination and emotion--are inflamed by whisky, cocaine, and lewd
pictures. It must be remembered that that which would not inflame the
imagination of a white man will have that effect upon the tropical,
emotional nature of the darky.... We ought, like Canada and Cape Colony,
to have mounted rural police or constabulary, whose duty it would be to
patrol the country districts day and night." The cry in the Southern
newspapers against negro dives generally ignores the fact that many of
them are carried on by white people, and others are partially supported
by white custom. At the bottom of humanity race distinctions disappear,
and you could find, if you searched for it, in many Southern towns,
beneath the lowest negro deep a lower white deep. The difficulty with
Southern legislation is that it is more hostile to negro dives than to
white dives.
A more promising legislative remedy is an efficient vagrant law, by which
the hopelessly idle, the sponges on the industry of their race, should
receive the dread punishment of work. Northern states which are unable to
find statutes and magistrates strict enough to put an end to the
intolerable white tramp nuisance, have little cause to criticise the
Southern loafers, of whom the Whites are found in quite as large a
proportion as the Negroes. Several states already have vagrant laws, but
they are applied chiefly to Negroes, often very inequitably, and play into
the iniquitous system by which sheriffs make money in proportion to the
number of prisoners that they arrest and keep in jail. The _Birmingham Age
Herald_ says that to abolish imprisonment for nonpayment of criminal costs
is "as much out of our reach as is a flight to Mars.... We must build
jails to suit the operations of the collectors of fees. There is no help
for it."
Suggestions that there be a kind of negro court for the less serious negro
crimes, have been made by Thomas Nelson Page and others; and Negroes could
probably administer as good local justice as some of their dominant race.
In the island of St. Helena, for instance, where seven thousand people for
a long time had no local court, a white magistrate was sent over who sat
day after day drunk on the bench, finally shot a man (the second homicide
on that island in forty years), and was put on his trial, but still held
his judicial office. Perhaps a special negro court for petty crimes would
increase the sense of responsibility; but it collides with the present
system of selling petty criminals to the planters.
Something could be done by an efficient system of rural police such as is
needed all over the country, North and South. In Georgia and South
Carolina bills have lately been pending for a state mounted police which
would be a sort of revival of the volunteer patrols of slavery times. The
suggestion is fought hard, however, on the ground that white men might be
obliged to give an account of themselves as well as Negroes.
The only thoroughgoing legislative measure which seems likely to help the
Negro is prohibition, which is now sweeping through the Lower South. It is
a region which suffers from hard drinking, and there has long been a
strong sentiment against the traffic; but the tumultuous success of
prohibition laws in communities like Alabama and Mississippi is due in
great part to the conviction of employers of labor in cotton mills, in
ironworks, in the timber industry, and on the land, that they are losing
money because their laborers are made irregular by drunkenness. That
objection applies as much to the selling of liquor to Whites as to
Negroes; but the drinking white men have an influence over prosecuting
officers that the Negroes cannot command; and it looks as though the
result would be a kind of prohibition which shuts off the stream from the
dusky man's throat while leaving it running for the white man. If the
South succeeds in keeping liquor away from the Negro in the Southern
cities, it will show more determination than exists in any Northern center
of population.
In general, legislation is not a remedy for the race question, because
breaches of the law come from both sides; and nobody is skillful enough
to draft a bill which will, if righteously applied, apply only to criminal
and dissolute Negroes. The cutting down of drinking shops, the arrest of
the drones, a rural police, enforcement of the liquor laws, will help in
the South because it will bring about a feeling of responsibility in both
races--but race hostility is not caused by laws, is not curable by laws,
and relies upon defying laws.
Perhaps the most striking failure of the Whites to exercise an influence
over the Negroes is through the negro schools. They are, to be sure,
carried on under laws made by white men, administered by state and county
white officials, but there the relation ends. Even from the point of view
of an unsympathetic superior race, the schools are badly supervised; and
when it comes to the teachers, the lower race is thrown back upon teachers
of the lower race. In the North the raw children from the alien families
are Americanized by their fellows in the public schools, under the
influence of teachers taken from the class of the population which has
most opportunity for training. Not so in the South, where the blind are
expected to lead the blind, where negro teachers trained by Negroes are
expected to inculcate the principles of white civilization.
The refusal of the South to permit white people, and especially white
women, to teach the Negroes, is a plant of recent growth. In slavery times
the white mistresses and their daughters habitually taught the household
servants their duties and set before them a standard of morals. Beyond
that, they were often proud of teaching capable slaves to read and write.
On every theory of the relation of the races this transmittal of
civilization was not only allowable, but a sacred duty. Nowadays the
mistresses have the smallest control over or influence upon their
domestic servants; and, with few exceptions, the South absolutely refuses
to improve the low estate of the Negroes by permitting the white young
people to teach them.
The arguments against putting white teachers into negro schools are
altogether weak. The first is that it is unsafe for white women, but the
Northern women who have been for years among Negroes as teachers have no
fear nor cause for fear; and the influence of a pure and refined white
woman would tend to diminish some of the worst crimes of the black race.
It is urged, however, that even men could not teach Negroes, first,
because the Negroes would not trust their girls to them; secondly, because
it would cut off the field or negro employment; thirdly, because a white
man does not wish to teach Negroes; and, finally, because none but
inferior men would seek such employment.
Surely the poor little black children are not likely under any
circumstances to suppose that they are the equals of the members of the
proud families that held their fathers in slavery! The white people sorely
need the employment; the Negroes still more need the example and
admonition of trained and high-minded people. The relation is not unknown.
In the public schools of Charleston, for forty years, the negro children
have been taught by white ladies, and as well taught as the white
children. In Alabama, and even in Virginia, public schools were for a time
taught by Whites, and you hear of sporadic cases elsewhere, as in a
district of Louisiana, where the mother of the chairman of the school
board was a teacher, and she was so incapable that no white school would
have her on any terms, so they compromised by giving her a negro school.
With these small exceptions, a relation between the races, through which
none of the dreaded evils of race equality could come about, was rejected;
and that is the main reason why the negro schools have been poor and
continue inferior. The Southern woman is not below the Northern in a sense
of duty; the Southern schoolmarm is the equal of her Yankee sister in
refinement and in pluck; and the Southern woman was the only class of
people in the South who could at the same time have taught the
pickaninnies to read, and the older people to recognize that the Whites
were their best friends.
Of all the remedies suggested, education is the most direct and the most
practical because it has so far been neglected; education is needed for
the safety of the race. As Leroy Percy, the successful planter, puts it:
"You cannot send these men out to fight the battle of life helplessly
ignorant. In slavery, he was the slave of one, and around him was thrown
the protecting care of the master. In freedom you cannot, through the
helplessness of ignorance, make him the slave of every white man with no
master's protection to shield him"; and he adds, "The education of the
Negro, to the extent indicated, is necessary for the preservation of the
character and moral integrity of the white men of the South." Professor
Garner roundly declares that "Governor Vardaman's contention that
education increases the criminality of the negro is nothing but bold
assertion and has never been supported by adequate proof."
Education is just as much needed to break windows into dark minds, to open
up whatever of the spiritual the Negro can take to himself. It is the one
remedy in which the North can take direct part, and never was there more
need of maintaining the schools in the South, supported chiefly by
Northern contributions; for they have the opportunity to teach those
lessons of cleanliness of body and mind, of respect for authority, of
thrift, personal honesty, of human relations, which the public schools are
less fitted to inculcate. Many of these schools have white teachers, all
have white friends; they interfere in no way with the education furnished
by the South; they teach no lessons harmful to the Negro or the white man;
they perform a function which the Whites in the South offer to their own
race by endowed schools and colleges, and which they do not attempt to
provide for the Negroes. Education is not a cure-all, education is only
the bottom step of a long flight of stairs; but neither race nor
individual can mount without that step.
Throughout this book it has been steadily kept in mind that there are two
races in the South between which the Southern problem is divided; and that
there can be no progress without both races taking part. Here is the most
difficult part of the whole matter: the two races, so closely associated,
are nevertheless drifting away from each other. Time was when men like
Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, and Senator Lamar, of Mississippi,
expected that Whites and Negroes would coöperate in political parties;
time was when former slaveholders joined with former slaves in a confident
attempt to bring the Negroes up higher. Those voices of encouragement
still are heard, but there is in them a note of weariness. Almost
everybody in the South would be pleased if the Negroes (of course without
prejudice to the white domination) would rise or rise faster. It would
mean also much to the white race if the cook always came in the morning,
and the outside man never got drunk, and the cotton hand would raise a
bale to the acre, and the school child would learn to read about how to
keep his place toward the white man.
Every thinking man in the South knows that he is worse off because the
Negro is not better off. That is the reason of the rising dissatisfaction,
wrath and resentment in the minds of many Whites. They feel that the Negro
has no sense of responsibility to the community; they accuse him of
sullenness, of a lack of interest in his employment and his employer. Just
what the Negro thinks in return is hard to guess. "Brer Rabbit, 'e ain't
sayin' nuffin"; but it is plain that the races are less friendly to each
other, understand each other less, are less regardful of each other's
interests, than at any time since freedom was fairly completed. We have
the unhappy condition that while both races are doing tolerably well, and
likely to do better, race relations are not improving.
In other parts of the country where there are such rivalries, efforts are
made to come to an understanding. Each side has some knowledge of the
arguments of the other; they appeal to the same press; the leaders sooner
or later are brought together in legislatures or in a social way, and
gradually come to understand each other's difficulties. Some efforts have
been made in the South to study this question in association. The Negroes
have now several organizations which bring people together for discussion.
The Agricultural and Industrial Fairs which they are beginning to carry on
are one such influence. The negro schools of the Calhoun and Talladega
type do something; the large annual conferences organized by Atlanta,
Tuskegee, and Hampton, with their subsequent publications, are a kind of
clearing house of opinions on the conditions of the Negro and of sound
advice. A few years ago the attempt was made in the so-called Niagara
Movement to organize the Negroes in defense of their political rights.
On the side of the Whites there has been the Ogden Movement, for the
improvement of the Southern white education, part of the outcome of which
has been the formation of the General Education Board and Southern
Education Board. The _South Atlantic Quarterly_, published at Trinity
College, North Carolina, encourages a free exchange of views on Southern
conditions; and though the _Manufacturers' Record_ lays the responsibility
for the Atlanta riots upon the Southern white people who have been urging
moderation in the South, the Southern educational movement goes on
steadily, and seems to be gaining ground.
An effort was made after the riots to bring about a Southern commission of
three white men from each state, to discuss plans for keeping up the race
integrity of the Whites, including the Negro to stay on the soil,
educating both races, and reforming the courts, but it was allowed to
fail. Some Southern newspapers bitterly attacked it on the ground that no
discussion was necessary; that everybody knew all the facts that were
cogent, and that any such discussion of the negro problem would be likely
to bring down criticism from "doctrinaires, theorists and self-constituted
proprietors of the universe in the North." To the Northern mind this seems
one of the most alarming things about the whole matter. The labor question
in the Northeast, the land question in the Northwest, are openly discussed
man to man, and newspaper to newspaper. Nobody thinks that the conditions
in the South are agreeable; everybody would like to see some betterment;
and the refusal to discuss it simply makes the crisis worse.
This opposition is still stronger against any form of joint discussion
between representatives of the white and negro races. The real objection
seems to be that it would be a recognition that the Negro had a right to
some share in adjusting his own future, and that what he thinks about the
question ought to have weight with the white people. This is another of
the cruel things about the whole situation. The whole South is acquainted
with the negro criminal and the shiftless dweller on the borders of the
cities; almost no white people are acquainted by personal observation with
the houses, with the work, and still less with the character and aims of
the best element of the Negroes. For this reason, Northern investigators
have a certain advantage in that they may freely read the statements of
both sides, supplement them out of personal experience and conversation,
and try to strike a balance. There are plenty of reasonable people in both
races, each of whom knows his own side better than anybody else can
possibly know it; hence mutual discussion, common understanding, some kind
of programme toward which public sentiment might be directed, would seem
an obvious remedy, and is upheld by such men as Thomas Nelson Page; yet it
is a remedy which is never tried.
All the suggestions that have been discussed above may be roughly
classified into remedies of push and remedies of pull, and this
classification corresponds to the points of view of the two dominant
classes of Southern Whites. In studying the books, the articles and the
fugitive utterances on this subject, in talking with men who see the thing
at first hand, in noting the complaints of the Negroes and the Whites
alike, it is plain that there is in the South a strong negro-hating
element, larger than people like to admit, which appeals to drastic
statutes, to unequal judicial punishments, to violence outside of the
law; in a word, to "keeping the nigger down." Alongside it the thinking
class of Southern people (which appears to be gaining ground) seeks the
elevation of both races, and especially of that one which needs it most.
Meanwhile the Negro sits moodily by, waiting for the superior race to
decide whether he shall be sent to the calaboose or to school.
The Southern problem is thus brought down in its last analysis to the
simple question whether the two races can permanently live apart and yet
together. That depends, in the first place, on the capacity of the Negro
to improve far enough to take away the reproach now heaped upon him; and
in the second place in the willingness of the Whites to accept the
deficiencies of the negro character as a part of the natural conditions of
the land, like the sterility of parts of the Southern soil, and to leave
him the opportunity to make the most of himself.
The three fundamental duties of the white man, according to Judge Hammond,
of Atlanta, are to see "that his own best interest lies in the cultivation
of friendly relations with the negro.... To treat the negro with absolute
fairness and justice ... advising him and counseling him about the
important affairs of his everyday life." These duties lie upon the white
man because, as Thomas Nelson Page states it: "Unless the whites lift the
Negroes up, the Negroes will drag them down."
Nobody, white or black, North or South, is able to point out any single
positive means by which the two races are both to have their full
development and yet to live in peace. Every positive and quick-acting
remedy when examined is found invalid. Violence of language or of behavior
of both sides does nothing whatever to remove the real difficulties. The
agencies of uplift are slow and uncertain and nobody can positively
predict that they will do the work. The South, with all its magnificent
resources, is far behind the other sections of the Union, both in wealth
and productive power. It can only take its proper place in the Union by
raising the average character and energy of its people--of all its
people--for it cannot be done by improving either race while the other
remains stationary.
In a word, the remedy is patience. Dark as things look in the South, it is
subject to mighty forces. In many ways the strongest influence for peace
and concord in the South is simply self-interest. The most intelligent and
thoughtful men in the South see clearly that unless the people can be made
to improve, the section will always lag behind. Side by side with this
force is the spirit of humanity, of practical Christianity, which forbids
that millions of people shall be cut off from the agencies of
evangelization. The South is behind no other part of the country in a
sense of the greatness of moral forces.
From every point of view, the obvious thing for the South is to make the
best of its condition and not the worst, to give opportunities of uplift
to all those who can appropriate them, to raise the negro race to as high
a point as it is capable of occupying. This is a long, hard process, full
of disappointment and perhaps of bitterness. The problem is not soluble in
the sense that anyone can foresee a wholly peaceful and contented
community divided into two camps; but the races can live alongside, and
coöperate, though one be superior to the other. That superiority only
throws the greater responsibility on the upper race. Nobody has ever given
better advice to the South than Senator John Sharp Williams--"In the face
of this great problem it would be well that wise men think more, that good
men pray more, and that all men talk less and curse less." In that spirit
the problem will be solved, because it will be manfully confronted.
MAP AND TABLES
[Illustration: THE SOUTH IN 1900-1909]
COMPARATIVE POPULATION (1900)
WHITE ELEMENTS CONTRASTED
(_In Thousands_)
-----------------------------------+------------------------------------
NORTHERN GROUPS (1900). | EQUIVALENT SOUTHERN GROUPS (1900).
-------------+------+-------+------+--------------+------+--------+-----
|Whites|Colored| Total| |Whites|Colored|Total
-------------+------+-------+------+--------------+------+-------+------
1 Colorado | 529| 9| 540| 1 Alabama | 1,001| 827| 1,829
| | | | | | |
2 Indiana | 2,459| 58| 2,516| 2 Arkansas | 945| 367| 1,312
| | | | | | |
3 Indian | 303| 37| 392| 3 Florida | 297| 231| 529
Ter. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
4 Iowa | 2,219| 13| 2,232| 4 Georgia | 1,181| 1,035| 2,216
| | | | | | |
5 Kansas | 1,416| 52| 1,470| 5 Louisiana | 730| 651| 1,382
| | | | | | |
6 Michigan | 2,399| 16| 2,421| 6 Mississippi| 641| 908| 1,551
| | | | | | |
7 Minnesota | 1,737| 5| 1,751| 7 North | | |
| | | | Carolina | 1,264| 624| 1,894
| | | | | | |
8 Nebraska | 1,059| 6| 1,066| 8 South | | |
| | | | Carolina | 558| 782| 1,340
| | | | | | |
| | | | 9 Tennessee | 1,540| 480| 2,021
| | | | | | |
| | | |10 Virginia | 1,193| 661| 1,854
| | | | +------+-------+------
| | | | Total 10 | | |
| | | | States | 9,350| 6,566|15,928
| | | | | | |
| | | |11 Texas | 2,427| 621| 3,049
| | | | | | |
+------+-------+------+ Total 11 +------+-------+------
| | | | Seceding | | |
Total |12,121| 196|12,388| States |11,777| 7,187|18,977
+======+=======+======+ +======+=======+=======
| | | | | | |
9 North | | | | | | |
Dakota | 312| ...| 319|12 Delaware | 154| 31| 185
| | | | | | |
10 Oklahoma | 368| 19| 398|13 Dist. of | | |
| | | | Columbia | 192| 87| 279
| | | | | | |
11 South | | | | | | |
Dakota | 381| ...| 402|14 Kentucky | 1,862| 285| 2,147
| | | | | | |
12 Utah | 272| 1| 277|15 Maryland | 952| 235| 1,188
| | | | | | |
13 Wisconsin | 2,058| 3| 2,069|16 Missouri | 2,945| 161| 3,107
| | | | | | |
14 California| 1,403| 11| 1,485| | | |
| | | | | | |
15 Idaho | 154| ...| 162| | | |
| | | | | | |
16 Montana | 226| 2| 243| | | |
| | | | | | |
17 Oregon | 395| 1| 414| | | |
| | | | | | |
18 Vermont | 343| 1| 344| | | |
+------+-------+------+ +------+-------+------
Double Total|18,033| 234|18,501| Total South |17,882| 7,986|25,883
-------------+------+-------+------+--------------+------+-------+------
COMPARATIVE POPULATION (1900)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
(_In Thousands_)
------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
| RACES. | DISTRIBUTION. |
------------------------+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
| | | | | |
| White.|Negro.| Total.|Urban.| Rural. |
| | | | | |
------------------------+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
1 Alabama | 1,001| 827| 1,829| 134| 1,695 |
2 Arkansas | 945| 367| 1,312| 71| 1,241 |
3 Florida | 297| 231| 529| 79| 450 |
4 Georgia | 1,181| 1,035| 2,216| 244| 1,972 |
5 Louisiana | 730| 651| 1,382| 314| 1,068 |
6 Mississippi | 641| 908| 1,551| 41| 1,510 |
7 North Carolina | 1,264| 624| 1,894| 97| 1,797 |
8 South Carolina | 558| 782| 1,340| 100| 1,240 |
9 Tennessee | 1,540| 480| 2,021| 270| 1,751 |
10 Virginia | 1,193| 661| 1,854| 272| 1,582 |
| | | | | |
+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
Total 10 States | 9,350| 6,566| 15,928| 1,622| 14,306 |
| | | | | |
11 Texas | 2,427| 621| 3,049| 344| 2,705 |
+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
Total Seceding States | 11,777| 7,187| 18,977| 1,966| 17,011 |
+=======+======+=======+======+========+
12 Delaware | 154| 31| 185| 77| 108 |
13 District of Columbia | 192| 87| 279| 278| ... |
14 Kentucky | 1,862| 285| 2,147| 363| 1,784 |
15 Maryland | 952| 235| 1,188| 557| 631 |
16 Missouri | 2,945| 161| 3,107| 956| 2,151 |
| | | | | |
+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
Total Border States | 6,105| 799| 6,906| 2,232| 4,674 |
+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
Total South | 17,882| 7,986| 25,883| 4,198| 21,685 |
------------------------+-------+------+-------+------+--------+
-----------------------+------------------------+--------------
| FOREIGN WHITES. | ESTIMATES.
-----------------------+-------+---------+------+------+-------
| | Native | | |
|Foreign|[foreign |Total.| 1905.| 1906.
| Born. |parents].| | |
-----------------------+-------+---------+------+------+-------
1 Alabama | 14 | 30 | 44| 1,986| 2,018
2 Arkansas | 14 | 33 | 47| 1,403| 1,422
3 Florida | 19 | 24 | 43| 613| 629
4 Georgia | 12 | 25 | 37| 2,406| 2,444
5 Louisiana | 52 | 108 | 160| 1,513| 1,539
6 Mississippi | 8 | 20 | 28| 1,682| 1,708
7 North Carolina | 4 | 8 | 12| 2,032| 2,059
8 South Carolina | 5 | 12 | 17| 1,435| 1,454
9 Tennessee | 18 | 41 | 59| 2,147| 2,147
10 Virginia | 19 | 33 | 52| 1,953| 1,973
| | | | |
+-------+---------+------+------+-------
Total 10 States | 165 | 334 | 499|17,170|17,418
+-------+---------+------+------+-------
11 Texas | 178 | 289 | 467| 3,455| 3,537
| | | | |
Total Seceding States | 343 | 623 | 966|20,625|20,955
+=======+=========+======+======+=======
12 Delaware | 14 | 22 | 36| 193| 194
13 District of Columbia| 20 | 38 | 58| 303| 308
14 Kentucky | 50 | 139 | 189| 2,291| 2,320
15 Maryland | 93 | 179 | 272| 1,261| 1,275
16 Missouri | 216 | 524 | 740| 3,320| 3,363
| | | | |
+-------+---------+------+------+-------
Total Border States | 393 | 902 | 1,295| 7,368| 7,460
+-------+---------+------+------+-------
Total South | 736 | 1,525 | 2,261|27,993|28,415
-----------------------+-------+---------+------+------+-------
COMPARATIVE POPULATION (1900)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
(_In Thousands_)
---------------------+-----------------------+---------------+
| RACES. | DISTRIBUTION.|
---------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| White.| Negro.| Total.| Urban.| Rural.|
---------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
1 Colorado | 529| 9 | 540| 206 | 334|
2 Indiana | 2,459| 58 | 2,516| 608 | 1,908|
3 Indian Territory | 303| 37 | 392| ... | 392|
4 Iowa | 2,219| 13 | 2,232| 375 | 1,857|
5 Kansas | 1,416| 52 | 1,470| 205 | 1,265|
6 Michigan | 2,399| 16 | 2,421| 747 | 1,674|
7 Minnesota | 1,737| 5 | 1,751| 470 | 1,281|
8 Nebraska | 1,059| 6 | 1,066| 169 | 897|
9 North Dakota | 312| ... | 319| 10 | 309|
10 Oklahoma | 368| 19 | 398| 20 | 378|
11 South Dakota | 381| ... | 402| 10 | 392|
12 Utah | 272| 1 | 277| 70 | 207|
13 Wisconsin | 2,058| 3 | 2,069| 634 | 1,435|
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
Total | 15,512| 219 | 15,853| 3,524 | 12,329|
+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+
14 California | 1,403| 11 | 1,485| 650 | 835|
15 Idaho | 154| ... | 162| ... | 162|
16 Montana | 226| 2 | 243| 66 | 177|
17 Oregon | 395| 1 | 414| 99 | 315|
18 Vermont | 343| 1 | 344| 39 | 305|
19 Washington | 496| 3 | 518| 165 | 353|
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
Total | 3,017| 18 | 3,166| 1,019 | 2,147|
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
Double Total | 18,529| 237 | 19,019| 4,543 | 14,476|
+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+
20 Arizona | 93| 2 | 123| ... | 123|
21 Illinois | 4,735| 85 | 4,822| 2,272| 2,550|
22 Nevada | 35| ... | 42| ...| 42|
23 New Mexico | 180| 2 | 195| ...| 195|
24 New Hampshire | 411| 1 | 412| 159| 253|
25 Wyoming | 89| 1 | 93| 22| 71|
26 West Virginia | 915| 43 | 959| 74| 885|
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
Total | 6,458| 134 | 6,646| 2,527| 4,119|
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
Grand Total | 24,987| 371 | 25,665| 7,070| 18,595|
---------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
--------------------+-------------------------+--------------
| FOREIGN WHITES. | ESTIMATES.
--------------------+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
| | Native | | |
|Foreign|[foreign | Total.| 1905.| 1906.
| Born. |parents].| | |
--------------------+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
1 Colorado | 90 | 127 | 217 | 603 | 616
2 Indiana | 142 | 364 | 506 | 2,678| 2,711
3 Indian Territory| 5 | 10 | 15 | 498| 519
4 Iowa | 306 | 652 | 958 | 2,210| 2,206
5 Kansas | 127 | 276 | 403 | 1,546| 1,612
6 Michigan | 540 | 832 | 1,372 | 2,557| 2,585
7 Minnesota | 505 | 806 | 1,311 | 1,980| 2,026
8 Nebraska | 177 | 326 | 503 | 1,068| 1,068
9 North Dakota | 113 | 133 | 246 | 440| 464
10 Oklahoma | 16 | 38 | 54 | 558| 590
11 South Dakota | 88 | 156 | 244 | 455| 466
12 Utah | 53 | 116 | 169 | 310| 316
13 Wisconsin | 516 | 956 | 1,472 | 2,229| 2,261
+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
Total | 2,678 | 4,792 | 7,470 |17,132|17,440
+=======+=========+=======+======+=======
14 California | 317 | 442 | 759 | 1,621| 1,648
15 Idaho | 22 | 43 | 65 | 198| 206
16 Montana | 62 | 71 | 133 | 294| 304
17 Oregon | 54 | 85 | 139 | 465| 475
18 Vermont | 45 | 73 | 118 | 349| 350
19 Washington | 102 | 129 | 231 | 599| 615
+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
Total | 602 | 843 | 1,445 | 3,526| 3,598
+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
Double Total | 3,280 | 5,635 | 8,915 |20,658|21,038
+=======+=========+=======+======+=======
20 Arizona | 22 | 26 | 48 | 140| 144
21 Illinois | 965 | 1,498 | 2,463 | 5,319| 5,419
22 Nevada | 9 | 12 | 21 | 42| 42
23 New Mexico | 13 | 18 | 31 | 213| 216
24 New Hampshire | 88 | 80 | 168 | 429| 433
25 Wyoming | 17 | 24 | 41 | 102| 104
26 West Virginia | 22 | 49 | 71 | 1,057| 1,076
+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
Total | 1,136 | 1,707 | 2,843 | 7,302| 7,434
+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
Grand Total | 4,416 | 7,342 |11,758 |27,960|28,472
--------------------+-------+---------+-------+------+-------
COMPARATIVE VALUATION OF PROPERTY (1860-1909)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
(_In Millions_)
Column headings:
P: Population [thousands]
AV: Assessed Valuation
RV: Real Valuation
-------------+-------------------------+----------------+
| 1860. | 1890. |
+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
| P | AV | P | RV | AV |
-------------+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
1 Alabama | 964 | 432 | 1,513 | 623 | 259 |
2 Arkansas | 435 | 179 | 1,128 | 455 | 175 |
3 Florida | 140 | 69 | 391 | 389 | 92 |
4 Georgia | 1,057 | 618 | 1,837 | 852 | 416 |
5 Louisiana | 708 | 436 | 1,119 | 495 | 234 |
6 Mississippi| 791 | 410 | 1,289 | 454 | 167 |
7 North | | | | | |
Carolina | 993 | 292 | 1,618 | 584 | 235 |
8 South | | | | | |
Carolina | 705 | 490 | 1,151 | 401 | 168 |
9 Tennessee | 1,111 | 382 | 1,768 | 888 | 383 |
10 Virginia | 1,596 | 657 | 1,656 | 862 | 415 |
+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
Total | 8,500 | 3,965 | 13,470 | 6,003 | 2,544 |
11 Texas | 604 | 267 | 2,235 | 2,106 | 781 |
+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
Total | | | | | |
Seceding | | | | | |
States. | 9,104 | 4,232 | 15,705 | 8,109 | 3,325 |
+========+=======+========+========+=======+
12 Delaware | 112 | 40 | 168 | 176 | 66 |
13 Dist. | | | | | |
Columbia | 75 | 40 | 230 | 344 | 153 |
14 Kentucky | 1,155 | 528 | 1,859 | 1,172 | 548 |
15 Maryland | 687 | 296 | 1,043 | 1,085 | 529 |
16 Missouri | 1,182 | 267 | 2,679 | 2,398 | 888 |
+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
Total | 3,211 | 1,171 | 5,979 | 5,175 | 2,184 |
+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
Total South | 12,315 | 5,403 | 21,684 | 13,284 | 5,509 |
-------------+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
-------------+-------------------------+----------------+
| 1904. | 1906. |
-------------+--------+--------+-------+----------------+
| P | RV | AV | P | AV |
-------------+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+
1 Alabama | 1,955 | 965 | 323 | 2,018 | 344 |
2 Arkansas | 1,385 | 804 | 250 | 1,422 | 250 |
3 Florida | 596 | 431 | 100 | 629 | 131 |
4 Georgia | 2,368 | 1,167 | 505 | 2,444 | 578 |
5 Louisiana | 1,487 | 1,032 | 301 | 1,539 | 459 |
6 Mississippi| 1,656 | 688 | 223 | 1,708 | 223 |
7 North | | | | | |
Carolina | 2,004 | 842 | 433 | 2,059 | 489 |
8 South | | | | | |
Carolina | 1,416 | 586 | 210 | 1,454 | 250 |
9 Tennessee | 2,122 | 1,104 | 352 | 2,172 | 475 |
10 Virginia | 1,933 | 1,288 | 424 | 1,973 | 424 |
+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+
Total | 16,922 | 8,907 | 3,121 | 17,418 | 3,623 |
11 Texas | 3,374 | 2,836 | 1,082 | 3,537 | 1,139 |
+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+
Total | | | | | |
Seceding | | | | | |
States. | 20,296 | 11,743 | 4,203 | 20,955 | 4,762 |
+========+========+=======+========+=======+
12 Delaware | 191 | 230 | 76 | 194 | 76 |
13 Dist. | | | | | |
Columbia | 298 | 1,040 | 198 | 308 | 198 |
14 Kentucky | 2,263 | 1,527 | 668 | 2,320 | 644 |
15 Maryland | 1,246 | 1,511 | 644 | 1,275 | 644 |
16 Missouri | 3,278 | 3,760 | 1,243 | 3,363 | 1,489 |
+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+
Total | 7,276 | 8,068 | 2,829 | 7,460 | 3,051 |
+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+
Total South | 27,572 | 19,811 | 7,032 | 28,415 | 7,813 |
-------------+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+
-------------+------------+----------+----------+
| 1907. | 1908. | 1909. |
| Assessed | Assessed | Asses'd |
| Valuation. |Valuation.|Valuation.|
-------------+------------+----------+----------+
1 Alabama | 451 | 451 | 484 |
2 Arkansas | 302 | 302 | 327 |
3 Florida | 142 | 142 | 131 |
4 Georgia | 700 | 700 | 705 |
5 Louisiana | 459 | 459 | 524 |
6 Mississippi| 223 | 223 | 393 |
7 North | | | |
Carolina | 575 | 575 | 565 |
8 South | | | |
Carolina | 267 | 267 | 271 |
9 Tennessee | 475 | 475 | 444 |
10 Virginia | 424 | 424 | 580 |
+------------+----------+----------+
Total | 4,018 | 4,018 | 4,424 |
11 Texas | 1,139 | 1,139 | 2,174 |
+------------+----------+----------+
Total | | | |
Seceding | | | |
States. | 5,157 | 5,157 | 6,598 |
+============+==========+==========+
12 Delaware | 76 | 76 | 76 |
13 Dist. | | | |
Columbia | 279 | 279 | 312 |
14 Kentucky | 644 | 644 | 753 |
15 Maryland | 765 | 765 | 765 |
16 Missouri | 1,553 | 1,622 | 1,547 |
+------------+----------+----------+
Total | 3,317 | 3,386 | 3,453 |
+------------+----------+----------+
Total South | 8,474 | 8,543 | 10,051 |
-------------+------------+----------+----------+
COMPARATIVE VALUATIONS OF PROPERTY (1860-1909)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
(_In Millions_)
Column headings:
P: Population [thousands]
AV: Assessed Valuation
RV: Real Valuation
---------------+-------------+--------------------+---------------------+
| 1860. | 1890. | 1904. |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
| P | AV | P | RV | AV | P | RV | AV |
---------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
1 Colorado | 34| ...| 412| 1,146| 221| 590| 1,208| 465 |
2 Indiana | 1,350| 411| 2,192| 2,095| 857| 2,646| 3,106| 1,360 |
3 Indian Terr.| ...| ...| 180| ...| ...| 477| 459| ... |
4 Iowa | 675| 205| 1,912| 2,287| 519| 2,214| 4,049| 642 |
5 Kansas | 107| 23| 1,427| 1,799| 348| 1,534| 2,253| 378 |
6 Michigan | 749| 164| 2,094| 2,095| 898| 2,530| 3,282| 1,578 |
7 Minnesota | 172| 32| 1,302| 1,692| 589| 1,934| 3,344| 871 |
8 Nebraska | 29| 7| 1,059| 1,276| 185| 1,068| 2,010| 295 |
9 North Dakota| ...| ...| 183| 337| 88| 416| 736| 117 |
10 Oklahoma | ...| ...| 62| ...| ...| 526| 636| ... |
11 South Dakota| ...| ...| 329| 425| 140| 444| 680| 173 |
12 Utah | 40| 4| 208| 349| 106| 303| 488| 50 |
13 Wisconsin | 776| 186| 1,687| 1,833| 577| 2,197| 2,839| 1,358 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
Total | 3,932| 1,032|13,047|15,334| 4,528|16,879|25,090| 7,287 |
+======+======+======+======+======+======+======+=======+
14 California | 380| 140| 1,208| 2,534| 1,101| 1,594| 4,115| 1,551 |
15 Idaho | ...| ...| 84| 208| 26| 191| 343| 67 |
16 Montana | ...| ...| 132| 453| 113| 283| 746| 153 |
17 Oregon | 52| 19| 314| 590| 166| 454| 852| 174 |
18 Vermont | 315| 85| 332| 266| 162| 348| 360| 168 |
19 Washington | 12| 4| 349| 761| 218| 582| 1,052| 298 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
Total | 759| 248| 2,419| 4,812| 1,786| 3,452| 7,468| 2,411 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
Double Total | 4,691| 1,280|15,466|20,146| 6,314|20,331|32,558| 9,698 |
+======+======+======+======+======+======+======+=======+
20 Arizona | ...| ...| 60| 189| 28| 137| 306| 45 |
21 Illinois | 1,712| 389| 3,826| 5,067| 810| 5,220| 8,817| 1,083 |
22 Nevada | 7| ...| 46| 180| 25| 42| 221| 28 |
23 New Mexico | 94| 21| 154| 231| 43| 209| 332| 42 |
24 New | | | | | | | | |
Hampshire | 326| 124| 377| 325| 263| 426| 517| 221 |
25 Wyoming | ...| ...| 61| 170| 33| 100| 330| 47 |
26 W. Virginia | ...| ...| 763| 439| 187| 1,037| 840| 242 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
Total | 2,139| 534| 5,287| 6,601| 1,389| 7,171|11,363| 1,708 |
+======+======+======+======+======+======+======+=======+
Grand Total | 6,830| 1,814|20,753|26,747| 7,703|27,502|43,921|11,406 |
---------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
----------------+---------------+-------+-------+-------
| 1906. | 1907. | 1908. | 1909.
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
| P | AV | AV | AV | AV
----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
1 Colorado | 616| 465| 465| 465| 465
2 Indiana | 2,711| 1,598| 1,598| 1,768| 1,776
3 Indian Terr. | 519| ...| ...| ...| ...
4 Iowa | 2,206| 635| 590| 599| 613
5 Kansas | 1,612| 378| 425| 2,454| 2,511
6 Michigan | 2,585| 1,596| 1,654| 1,654| 1,649
7 Minnesota | 2,026| 871| 1,037| 1,037| 1,091
8 Nebraska | 1,068| 313| 329| 392| 392
9 North Dakota | 464| 196| 196| 227| 280
10 Oklahoma | 590| 97| 97| 97| 860
11 South Dakota | 466| 173| 173| 284| 321
12 Utah | 316| 146| 146| 146| 146
13 Wisconsin | 2,261| 1,385| 1,385| 1,385| 2,479
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Total | 17,440| 7,853| 8,095| 10,508|12,583
+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======
14 California | 1,648| 1,595| 1,879| 1,995| 2,337
15 Idaho | 206| 81| 81| 116| 121
16 Montana | 304| 234| 251| 252| 280
17 Oregon | 475| 188| 188| 188| 598
18 Vermont | 350| 188| 184| 184| 186
19 Washington | 615| 329| 573| 573| 790
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Total | 3,598| 2,615| 3,156| 3,308| 4,312
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Double Total | 21,038| 10,468| 11,251| 13,816|16,895
+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======
20 Arizona | 144| 45| 76| 81| 84
21 Illinois | 5,419| 1,083| 1,127| 1,127| 1,264
22 Nevada | 42| 44| 44| 44| 74
23 New Mexico | 216| 43| 43| 43| 64
24 New Hampshire| 433| 232| 238| 245| 249
25 Wyoming | 104| 51| 64| 68| 186
26 W. Virginia | 1,076| 875| 850| 850| 1,068
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Total | 7,434| 2,373| 2,442| 2,458| 2,989
+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======
Grand Total | 28,472| 12,841| 13,693| 16,274|19,884
----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
COMPARATIVE BANKING STATISTICS (1865-1906)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
(_In Thousands of Dollars_)
-----------------+------------------------------+----------+
| NATIONAL BANKS, 1865. |All Banks,|
+---+--------+---------+-------+ 1896. |
|No.|Capital.|Deposits.|Assets.|Deposits. |
-----------------+---+--------+---------+-------+----------+
1 Alabama | 2| ... | ... | ... | 6,856 |
2 Arkansas | 0| ... | ... | ... | 3,555 |
3 Florida | 0| ... | ... | ... | 5,531 |
4 Georgia | 1| 100 | 350 | 466 | 10,952 |
5 Louisiana | 1| 500 | 5,089 | 6,572 | 25,307 |
6 Mississippi | 1| 50 | 86 | 163 | 8,909 |
7 North Carolina| 2| 68 | 52 | 141 | 9,722 |
8 South Carolina| 0| ... | ... | ... | 9,891 |
9 Tennessee | 7| 340 | 939 | 1,850 | 21,723 |
10 Virginia | 10| 1,089 | 3,910 | 7,246 | 28,244 |
+---+--------+---------+-------+----------+
Total 10 | | | | | |
States | 24| 2,147 | 10,426 |16,438 | 130,690 |
11 Texas | 0| ... | ... | ... | 31,747 |
+---+--------+---------+-------+----------+
Total 11 | | | | | |
Seceding | | | | | |
States | 24| 2,147 | 10,426 |16,438 | 162,437 |
+===+========+=========+=======+==========+
12 Delaware | 11| 1,328 | 1,555 | 4,479 | 7,020 |
13 Dist. Columbia| 6| 1,550 | 5,483 |18,396 | 18,677 |
14 Kentucky | 11| 2,272 | 2,129 | 6,841 | 41,502 |
15 Maryland | 27| 11,910 | 15,212 |38,923 | 87,354 |
16 Missouri | 11| 3,574 | 5,622 |14,144 | 117,150 |
+---+--------+---------+-------+----------+
Total Border | | | | | |
States | 66| 20,634 | 30,001 |82,783 | 271,703 |
+---+--------+---------+-------+----------+
Whole South | 90| 22,781 | 40,427 |99,221 | 434,140 |
-----------------+---+--------+---------+-------+----------+
-----------------+----------------------------------+--------------------
| NATIONAL BANKS, 1905. | ALL BANKS, 1906.
+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------+----------
| No. |Capital.|Deposits.| Assets. |Deposits.|Clearings.
-----------------+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------+----------
1 Alabama | 67| 5,993| 21,235| 37,809| 52,004| 238,514
2 Arkansas | 28| 2,650| 8,803| 15,323| 19,533| 62,608
3 Florida | 34| 2,840| 14,085| 22,837| 31,878| ...
4 Georgia | 63| 6,371| 22,527| 43,333| 68,131| 594,700
5 Louisiana | 35| 5,905| 30,091| 55,678| 83,634| 984,264
6 Mississippi | 25| 2,970| 8,578| 16,139| 44,727| ...
7 North Carolina| 48| 3,850| 14,057| 26,499| 47,377| 19,484
8 South Carolina| 24| 2,986| 9,059| 18,819| 41,095| 68,415
9 Tennessee | 68| 8,425| 36,417| 66,079| 86,706| 594,979
10 Virginia | 85| 8,344| 42,277| 76,381| 95,132| 411,353
+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------|----------
Total 10 | | | | | |
States | 477| 50,334| 207,129| 378,897| 570,217| 2,974,317
11 Texas | 440| 32,295| 101,285| 189,484| 130,364| 946,197
+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------+----------
Total 11 | | | | | |
Seceding | | | | | |
States | 917| 82,629| 308,414| 568,381| 700,581| 3,920,514
+=====+========+=========+=========+=========+==========
12 Delaware | 24| 2,274| 8,164| 14,220| 24,552| 65,309
13 Dist. Columbia| 12| 4,827| 21,868| 41,391| 47,861| 284,214
14 Kentucky | 124| 14,686| 40,208| 89,523| 105,252| 674,079
15 Maryland | 89| 17,294| 61,986| 130,422| 171,313| 1,442,156
16 Missouri | 101| 23,580| 117,079| 309,821| 347,613| 4,373,738
+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------+----------
Total Border | | | | | |
States | 350| 62,661| 249,305| 585,377| 696,591| 6,839,496
+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------+----------
Whole South |1,267| 145,290| 557,719|1,153,758|1,397,172|10,760,010
-----------------+-----+--------+---------+---------+---------+----------
COMPARATIVE BANKING STATISTICS (1865-1906)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
(_In Thousands of Dollars_)
----------------+--------------------------------+----------+
| |All Banks.|
| NATIONAL BANKS, 1865. | 1896. |
| |Deposits. |
+----+--------+---------+--------+ |
| No.|Capital.|Deposits.| Assets.| |
----------------+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
1 Colorado | 1| 200 | 162 | 427 | 29,967 |
2 Indiana | 70| 12,260 | 10,526 | 33,259 | 52,386 |
3 Indian Terr. | 0| ... | ... | ... | 704 |
4 Iowa | 36| 3,196 | 5,110 | 11,128 | 78,440 |
5 Kansas | 2| 200 | 2,479 | 2,910 | 30,529 |
6 Michigan | 35| 4,148 | 4,307 | 11,665 | 103,671 |
7 Minnesota | 11| 1,345 | 1,894 | 4,582 | 68,494 |
8 Nebraska | 2| 115 | 337 | 525 | 30,866 |
9 North Dakota | 0| ... | ... | ... | 7,032 |
10 Oklahoma | 0| ... | ... | ... | 756 |
11 South Dakota | 0| ... | ... | ... | 7,217 |
12 Utah | 0| ... | ... | ... | 6,366 |
13 Wisconsin | 34| 200 | 262 | 463 | 68,864 |
+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
Total | 191| 21,664 | 25,077 | 64,959 | 485,292 |
+====+========+=========+========+==========+
14 California | 0| ... | ... | ... | 202,874 |
15 Idaho | 0| ... | ... | ... | 1,969 |
16 Montana | 0| ... | ... | ... | 16,801 |
17 Oregon | 0| ... | ... | ... | 9,262 |
18 Vermont | 27| 4,863 | 1,019 | 10,384 | 40,572 |
19 Washington | 0| ... | ... | ... | 9,229 |
+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
Total | 27| 4,863 | 1,019 | 10,384 | 280,707 |
+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
Double Total | 218| 26,527 | 26,096 | 75,343 | 765,999 |
+====+========+=========+========+==========+
20 Arizona | 0| ... | ... | ... | 1,548 |
21 Illinois | 76| 10,715 | 15,783 | 39,812 | 213,799 |
22 Nevada | 0| ... | ... | ... | 580 |
23 New Mexico | 0| ... | ... | ... | 2,311 |
24 New Hampshire| 38| 4,635 | 1,390 | 10,814 | 71,922 |
25 Wyoming | 0| ... | ... | ... | 2,651 |
26 West Virginia| 12| 1,652 | 2,325 | 4,807 | 17,746 |
+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
Total | 126| 17,002 | 19,498 | 55,433 | 310,557 |
+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
Grand Total | 344| 43,529 | 45,594 |130,776 |1,076,556 |
----------------+----+--------+---------+--------+----------+
---------------+----------------------------------+----------------------
| NATIONAL BANKS, 1905. | ALL BANKS, 1906.
+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
| No. |Capital.|Deposits.| Assets.| DEPS. |Clearings.
---------------+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
1 Colorado | 74| 7,093| 66,618| 102,970| 93,243| 399,242
2 Indiana | 197| 20,551| 91,727| 160,193| 203,333| 511,813
3 Indian Terr. | 133| 5,629| 11,657| 24,059| 15,529| ...
4 Iowa | 281| 17,665| 69,709| 134,197| 262,176| 308,990
5 Kansas | 171| 10,313| 50,236| 84,155| 118,269| 99,533
6 Michigan | 88| 12,720| 74,719| 115,736| 278,579| 830,735
7 Minnesota | 229| 18,606| 83,491| 145,250| 179,699| 1,374,158
8 Nebraska | 159| 10,885| 56,822| 106,743| 114,645| 524,947
9 North Dakota | 97| 3,498| 14,519| 22,396| 35,416| 27,935
10 Oklahoma | 98| 3,780| 12,822| 21,881| 26,985| ...
11 South Dakota| 72| 2,790| 13,752| 20,510| 41,982| 18,554
12 Utah | 17| 1,948| 10,758| 18,392| 38,331| 267,961
13 Wisconsin | 115| 13,585| 85,736| 124,241| 189,181| 476,709
+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
Total |1,731| 129,063| 642,566|1,080,723| 1,597,368| 4,840,677
+=====+========+=========+=========+==========+===========
14 California | 95| 23,065| 92,111| 181,699| 593,979| 2,506,729
15 Idaho | 27| 1,275| 8,282| 11,392| 19,194| ...
16 Montana | 29| 2,895| 18,855| 27,005| 37,663| 42,113
17 Oregon | 43| 3,160| 24,285| 38,193| 34,535| 259,704
18 Vermont | 50| 5,935| 12,796| 27,362| 65,240| ...
19 Washington | 36| 4,013| 36,100| 51,225| 91,309| 843,145
+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
Total | 280| 40,343| 192,429| 336,876| 841,920| 3,651,691
+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
Double Total|2,011| 169,406| 834,995|1,417,599| 2,439,288| 8,492,268
+=====+========+=========+=========+==========+===========
20 Arizona | 13| 705| 4,319| 6,247| 13,708| ...
21 Illinois | 346| 48,709| 276,382| 572,972| 714,421| 11,174,325
22 Nevada | 4| 407| 1,333| 2,136| 5,813| ...
23 New Mexico | 23| 1,342| 7,194| 11,012| 10,782| ...
24 New | | | | | |
Hampshire | 55| 5,330| 15,307| 31,044| 93,083| ...
25 Wyoming | 19| 1,085| 6,630| 9,498| 11,620| ...
26 West | | | | | |
Virginia | 79| 6,604| 24,848| 43,079| 76,465| 50,918
+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
Total | 539| 64,182| 336,013| 675,988| 925,892| 11,225,243
+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
Grand Total |2,550| 233,588|1,171,008|2,093,587| 3,365,180| 19,717,511
---------------+-----+--------+---------+---------+----------+-----------
COMPARATIVE MANUFACTURES (1905)
SOUTHERN GROUPS
(_Money Values in Thousands of Dollars_)
Column heading:
No.: No. of Establishments
----------------+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
| No. | Wage |Capital. | Annual | Cost of |Value of
| |Earners.| | Wages. | Material.|Products.
----------------+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
1 Alabama | 1,882| 62,173| 105,383| 21,878| 60,458| 109,170
2 Arkansas | 1,907| 33,089| 46,306| 14,544| 21,799| 53,864
3 Florida | 1,413| 42,091| 32,972| 15,767| 16,532| 50,298
4 Georgia | 3,219| 92,749| 135,212| 27,392| 83,625| 151,040
5 Louisiana | 2,091| 55,859| 150,811| 25,316| 117,035| 186,380
6 Mississippi | 1,520| 38,690| 50,256| 14,819| 25,801| 57,451
7 North Carolina| 3,272| 85,339| 141,001| 21,375| 79,268| 142,521
8 South Carolina| 1,399| 59,441| 113,422| 13,869| 49,969| 79,376
9 Tennessee | 3,175| 60,572| 102,439| 22,806| 79,352| 137,960
10 Virginia | 3,187| 80,285| 147,989| 27,943| 83,649| 148,856
| | | | | |
+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Total 10 | | | | | |
States | 23,065| 610,288|1,025,791| 205,709| 617,488|1,116,916
| | | | | |
11 Texas | 3,158| 49,066| 115,665| 24,469| 91,604| 150,528
| | | | | |
+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Total, 11 | | | | | |
Seceding | | | | | |
States | 26,223| 659,354|1,141,456| 230,178| 709,092|1,267,444
+=======+========+=========+========+==========+=========
12 Delaware | 631| 18,475| 50,926| 8,158| 24,884| 41,160
13 Dist. | | | | | |
of Columbia | 482| 6,299| 20,200| 3,658| 7,732| 18,359
14 Kentucky | 3,734| 59,794| 147,282| 24,439| 86,545| 159,754
15 Maryland | 3,852| 94,174| 201,878| 36,144| 150,024| 243,376
16 Missouri | 6,464| 133,167| 379,369| 66,644| 252,258| 439,549
| | | | | |
+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Total Border| | | | | |
States | 15,163| 311,909| 799,655| 139,043| 521,443| 902,198
+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Whole South | 41,386| 971,263|1,941,111| 369,221| 1,230,535|2,169,642
----------------+-------+--------+---------+--------+----------+---------
COMPARATIVE MANUFACTURES (1905)
EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
(_Money Values in Thousands of Dollars_)
Column heading:
No.: No. of Establishments
----------------+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
| No. | Wage | Annual |Capital.| Cost of |Value of
| | Earners.| Wages. | | Material.|Products.
----------------+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
1 Colorado | 1,606| 21,813| 107,664| 15,100| 63,114| 100,144
2 Indiana | 7,044| 154,174| 312,071| 72,056| 220,507| 393,954
3 Indian Terr. | 466| 2,257| 5,016| 1,114| 4,849| 7,909
4 Iowa | 4,785| 49,451| 111,427| 22,997| 102,844| 160,572
5 Kansas | 2,475| 35,570| 88,680| 18,883| 156,510| 198,245
6 Michigan | 7,446| 175,229| 337,894| 81,279| 230,081| 429,120
7 Minnesota | 4,756| 69,636| 184,903| 35,843| 210,554| 307,858
8 Nebraska | 1,819| 20,260| 80,235| 11,022| 124,052| 154,918
9 North Dakota | 507| 1,755| 5,704| 1,031| 7,096| 10,218
10 Oklahoma | 657| 3,199| 11,108| 1,655| 11,545| 16,550
11 South Dakota | 686| 2,492| 7,585| 1,422| 8,697| 13,085
12 Utah | 606| 8,052| 26,004| 5,157| 24,940| 38,926
13 Wisconsin | 8,558| 151,391| 412,647| 71,472| 227,255| 411,140
+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Total |41,411| 695,279|1,690,938| 339,023| 1,392,044|2,242,639
+======+=========+=========+========+==========+=========
14 California | 6,839| 100,355| 282,647| 64,657| 215,726| 367,218
15 Idaho | 364| 3,061| 9,689| 2,059| 4,069| 8,769
16 Montana | 382| 8,957| 52,590| 8,652| 40,930| 66,415
17 Oregon | 1,602| 18,523| 44,024| 11,444| 30,597| 55,525
18 Vermont | 1,699| 33,106| 62,659| 15,221| 32,430| 63,054
19 Washington | 2,751| 45,199| 96,953| 30,087| 66,166| 128,522
+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Total |13,637| 209,201| 548,562| 132,120| 389,918| 689,833
+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Double Total |55,048| 904,480|2,239,500| 471,143| 1,781,962|2,932,472
+======+=========+=========+========+==========+=========
20 Arizona | 169| 4,793| 14,396| 3,969| 14,595| 28,083
21 Illinois |14,921| 379,436| 975,845| 208,405| 840,057|1,410,342
22 Nevada | 115| 802| 2,892| 693| 1,628| 3,096
23 New Mexico | 199| 3,478| 4,638| 2,153| 2,236| 5,706
24 New Hampshire| 1,618| 65,366| 109,495| 27,693| 73,216| 123,611
25 Wyoming | 169| 1,834| 2,696| 1,261| 1,301| 3,523
26 West Virginia| 2,109| 43,758| 86,821| 21,153| 54,419| 99,041
+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Total |19,300| 499,467|1,196,783| 265,327| 987,452|1,673,402
+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
Grand Total |74,348|1,403,947|3,436,283| 736,470| 2,769,414|4,605,874
----------------+------+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------
COMPARATIVE CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS (1904-1905)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
-----------------+-----------+-------------------+----------------------+
| | PRISONERS | INSANE IN HOSPITALS |
|Delinquents| (June 30, 1904). | (Jan. 1, 1905). |
| (June 30, +-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
| 1904). |White|Negro |Total | White | Negro| Total |
-----------------+-----------+-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
1 Alabama | 37 | 270| 1,798| 2,068| 1,222| 490| 1,712|
2 Arkansas | ... | 251| 632| 884| 56| 107| 669|
3 Florida | 31 | 140| 1,094| 1,234| 457| 283| 740|
4 Georgia | 99 | 544| 2,029| 2,579| 2,049| 915| 2,964|
5 Louisiana | 36 | 325| 1,355| 1,680| 1,122| 467| 1,589|
6 Mississippi | ... | 114| 1,122| 1,238| 981| 598| 1,579|
7 North Carolina | ... | 269| 912| 1,185| 1,532| 545| 2,077|
8 South Carolina | ... | 142| 903| 1,045| 709| 498| 1,207|
9 Tennessee | 246 | 600| 1,397| 1,997| 1,457| 336| 1,793|
10 Virginia | 279 | 401| 1,494| 1,895| 2,239| 1,200| 3,439|
| | | | | | | |
+-----------+-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
Total 10 States| 728 |3,056|12,736|15,805| 12,330| 5,439| 17,769|
11 Texas | ... |1,835| 2,667| 4,504| 3,081 | 401| 3,482|
| | | | | | | |
Total +-----------+-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
Seceding States| 728 |4,891|15,403|20,309| 15,411| 5,840| 21,251|
+===========+=====+======+======+=======+======+=======+
| | | | | | | |
12 Delaware | 98 | 66| 94| 160| 288| 78| 366|
13 District of | | | | | | | |
Columbia | 405 | 12| 34| 46| 2,074| 517| 2,591|
14 Kentucky | 301 | 923| 1,298| 2,221| 2,632| 508| 3,140|
15 Maryland | 1,070 | 750| 1,117| 1,867| 2,189| 325| 2,514|
16 Missouri | 670 |1,752| 1,040| 2,793| 4,923| 273| 5,196|
+-----------+-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
Total | | | | | | | |
Border States | 2,544 |3,503| 3,583| 7,087| 12,106| 1,701| 13,807|
+-----------+-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
Total South | 3,272 |8,394|18,986|27,396| 27,517| 7,541| 35,058|
-----------------+-----------+-----+------+------+-------+------+-------+
------------------+------------------------
| PAUPERS
| (Jan. 1, 1905).
|
+--------+------+--------
| White | Negro| Total
------------------+--------+------+--------
1 Alabama | 414| 357| 771
2 Arkansas | 476| 167| 643
3 Florida | 80| 70| 150
4 Georgia | 602| 407| 1,009
5 Louisiana | 149| 14| 163
6 Mississippi | 223| 280| 503
7 North Carolina | 981| 578| 1,559
8 South Carolina | 415| 289| 704
9 Tennessee | 1,343| 641| 1,984
10 Virginia | 1,112| 883| 1,995
| | |
+--------+------+--------
Total 10 States| 5,795| 3,686| 9,481
11 Texas | 742| 221| 963
| | |
+--------+------+--------
Total | | |
Seceding States| 6,537| 3,907| 10,444
+========+======+========
| | |
12 Delaware | 229| 63| 292
13 District of | | |
Columbia | 90| 160| 250
14 Kentucky | 1,396| 306| 1,702
15 Maryland | 1,325| 405| 1,730
16 Missouri | 2,257| 244| 2,501
| | |
+--------+------+--------
Total | | |
Border States | 5,297| 1,178| 6,475
+--------+------+--------
Total South | 11,834| 5,085| 16,919
------------------+--------+------+--------
COMPARATIVE CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS (1904-1905)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN
GROUPS
----------------+-------------+----------------------+
| | PRISONERS |
| Juvenile | (June 30, 1904). |
|Delinquents, +-------+------+-------+
| June 30, | White.|Black.| Total.|
| 1904. | | | |
----------------+-------------+-------+------+-------+
1 Colorado | 288 | 901| 120| 1,022|
2 Indiana | 872 | 1,719| 419| 2,138|
3 Indian | | | | |
Territory | ... | ...| ...| ...|
4 Iowa | 714 | 1,131| 122| 1,255|
5 Kansas | 372 | 1,918| 801| 2,876|
6 Michigan | 1,114 | 1,857| 124| 1,995|
7 Minnesota | 360 | 995| 59| 1,067|
8 Nebraska | 164 | 430| 85| 519|
9 North | | | | |
Dakota | 39 | 198| 5| 203|
10 Oklahoma | ... | 21| ...| 22|
11 South | | | | |
Dakota | 65 | 217| 9| 245|
12 Utah | 79 | 212| 11| 223|
13 Wisconsin | 543 | 1,311| 32| 1,366|
+-------------+-------+------+-------+
Total | 4,610 | 10,910| 1,787| 12,931|
+=============+=======+======+=======+
14 California | 474 | 3,036| 165| 3,355|
15 Idaho | ... | 183| 8| 196|
16 Montana | 78 | 519| 38| 571|
17 Oregon | 93 | 360| 21| 399|
18 Vermont | 137 | 262| 12| 274|
19 Washington | 158 | 841| 37| 911|
+-------------+-------+------+-------+
Total | 940 | 5,201| 281| 5,706|
+-------------+-------+------+-------+
Double Total | 5,550 | 16,111| 2,068| 18,637|
+=============+=======+======+=======+
20 Arizona | 31 | 289| 13| 318|
21 Illinois | 1,386 | 2,550| 629| 3,180|
22 Nevada | ... | 99| 5| 129|
23 New Mexico | ... | 236| 15| 265|
24 Wyoming | ... | 195| 26| 230|
25 New | | | | |
Hampshire | 181 | 411| 5| 416|
26 West | | | | |
Virginia | 314 | 535| 604| 1,139|
+-------------+-------+------+-------+
Total | 1,912 | 4,315| 1,297| 5,677|
+-------------+-------+------+-------+
Grand Total | 7,462 | 20,426| 3,365| 24,314|
----------------+-------------+-------+------+-------+
----------------+----------------------+----------------------
| INSANE IN HOSPITALS | PAUPERS
| (Jan. 1, 1905). | (Jan. 1, 1905).
+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
| White.|Black.| Total.| White.|Black.| Total.
| | [1]| | | [1]|
----------------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
1 Colorado | 880| 31| 911| 452| 10 | 462
2 Indiana | 4,324| 125| 4,449| 3,206| 129 | 3,335
3 Indian | | | | | |
Territory | ...| ...| ...| ...| ... | ...
4 Iowa | 4,603| 60| 4,663| 2,055| 41 | 2,096
5 Kansas | 2,539| 121| 2,660| 693| 93 | 786
6 Michigan | 5,483| 81| 5,564| 2,796| 57 | 2,853
7 Minnesota | 4,263| 14| 4,277| 557| 8 | 565
8 Nebraska | 1,592| 16| 1,608| 477| 10 | 487
9 North | | | | | |
Dakota | 473| 4| 477| 233| 3 | 236
10 Oklahoma | 394| 19| 413| 58| 4 | 62
11 South | | | | | |
Dakota | 591| 31| 622| 161| 3 | 164
12 Utah | 373| 3| 376| 184| 3 | 187
13 Wisconsin | 5,024| 25| 5,049| 1,707| 6 | 1,713
+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
Total | 30,539| 530| 31,069| 12,579| 367 | 12,946
+=======+======+=======+=======+======+=======
14 California | 5,705| 305| 6,010| 4,156| 136 | 4,292
15 Idaho | 277| 3| 280| 111| 1 | 112
16 Montana | 563| 16| 579| 420| 9 | 429
17 Oregon | 1,276| 47| 1,323| 378| 11 | 389
18 Vermont | 883| 2| 885| 414| 11 | 425
19 Washington | 1,420| 27| 1,447| 311| 7 | 318
+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
Total | 10,124| 400| 10,524| 5,790| 175 | 5,965
+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
Double Total | 40,663| 930| 41,593| 18,369| 542 | 18,911
+=======+======+=======+=======+======+=======
20 Arizona | 258| 12| 270| 180| 11 | 191
21 Illinois | 10,184| 264| 10,448| 5,238| 149 | 5,387
22 Nevada | 175| 11| 186| 162| 4 | 166
23 New Mexico | 112| 1| 113| ...| ... | ...
24 Wyoming | 104| 3| 107| ...| ... | ...
25 New | | | | | |
Hampshire | 608| 2| 610| 1,064| 12 | 1,076
26 West | | | | | |
Virginia | 1,417| 86| 1,503| 846| 115 | 961
+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
Total | 12,858| 379| 13,237| 7,490| 291 | 7,781
+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
Grand Total | 53,521| 1,309| 54,830| 25,859| 833 | 26,692
----------------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------
[1] Not possible for figures of Jan. 1, 1905, to distinguish between
blacks and other colored insane and paupers; not important except in
California where on Dec. 31, 1903, there were 218 Mongolian insane.
COMPARATIVE COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION (1905)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
Key:
POP: Estimated Population [thousands].
ESP: Estimated School Population [thousands].
NPR: Number Pupils Enrolled [thousands].
NPA: Number Pupils Attending [thousands].
ADS: Average Days of School
NUM: Number
AVS: Average Monthly Salary.
VSP: Value of School Property [thousands].
ANR: Annual Revenue [thousands].
RPP: Revenue per Person of School Age.
ANO: Annual Outgo [thousands].
OAA: Outgo per Average Attendance.
OPV: Outgo per $10,000 Actual Property.
-----------------+------+-----+-----------+----+-----------+------+
| | |ENROLLMENT | | TEACHERS. | |
| | | AND | | | |
| | |ATTENDANCE.| | | |
| | +-----+-----+ +-------+---+ |
| POP | ESP | NPR | NPA | ADS| NUM |AVS| VSP |
-----------------+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-------+---+------+
1 Alabama | 1,986| 663| 400| 210| 103| 5,400| 28| 2,200|
2 Arkansas | 1,403| 474| 336| 207| 88| 7,826| 40| 3,171|
3 Florida | 613| 185| 123| 84| 108| 2,925| 38| 1,290|
4 Georgia | 2,406| 803| 499| 311| 118| 10,360| 34| 4,010|
5 Louisiana | 1,513| 493| 210| 146| 130| 4,680| 40| 3,660|
6 Mississippi | 1,682| 572| 404| 233| 123| 8,922| 31| 2,190|
7 North Carolina| 2,032| 676| 474| 280| 95| 9,687| 31| 3,183|
8 South Carolina| 1,435| 497| 303| 200| 106| 6,059| 30| 2,000|
9 Tennessee | 2,147| 687| 508| 349| 113| 9,784| 36| 5,172|
10 Virginia | 1,953| 618| 362| 215| 128| 9,072| 29| 4,298|
+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-------+---+------+
Total 10 | | | | | | | | |
States |17,170|5,668|3,619|2,235| ...| 74,715|...|31,174|
| | | | | | | | |
11 Texas | 3,455|1,156| 756| 502| 112| 17,116| 53|11,897|
+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-------+---+------+
Total Seceding| | | | | | | | |
States |20,625|6,824|4,375|2,737| ...| 91,831|...|43,071|
+======+=====+=====+=====+====+=======+===+======+
12 Delaware | 193| 51| 37| 25| 170| 897| 40| 1,627|
13 Dist. of | | | | | | | | |
Columbia | 303| 66| 51| 41| 181| 1,478| 64| 5,816|
14 Kentucky | 2,291| 709| 501| 310| 90| 10,449| 44| 6,118|
15 Maryland | 1,261| 352| 227| 140| 192| 5,150| 47| 4,790|
16 Missouri | 3,320| 978| 729| 471| 152| 17,385| 47|22,593|
+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-------+---+------+
Total Border | | | | | | | | |
States | 7,368|2,156|1,545| 987| ...| 35,359|...|40,944|
+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-------+---+------+
Total South |27,993|8,980|5,920|3,724| ...|127,190|...|84,015|
-----------------+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-------+---+------+
--------------------+--------------+-----------------------
| REVENUE. | EXPENDITURE.
+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
| ANR | RPP | ANO | OAA | OPV
--------------------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
1 Alabama | 1,589| 2.39| 1,475| 7.03| 13.0
2 Arkansas | 2,042| 4.31| 1,955| 9.43| 21.5
3 Florida | 946| 5.20| 945| 11.30| 21.9
4 Georgia | 2,397| 3.03| 2,328| 7.47| 19.2
5 Louisiana | 2,219| 4.51| 2,169| 14.83| 15.0
6 Mississippi | 1,859| 3.35| 1,869| 8.01| 27.1
7 North Carolina | 1,881| 2.78| 1,936| 6.90| 24.6
8 South Carolina | 1,310| 2.64| 1,305| 6.51| 20.3
9 Tennessee | 3,102| 4.52| 2,933| 8.41| 23.6
10 Virginia | 2,432| 3.94| 2,378| 11.05| 16.6
+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
Total 10 | | | | |
States | 19,777| ...| 19,293| ...| ...
| | | | |
11 Texas | 6,406| 5.54| 6,400| 12.76| 21.9
+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
Total Seceding | | | | |
States | 26,183| ...| 25,693| ...| ...
+=======+======+=======+=======+=======
12 Delaware | 499| 9.75| 540| 17.93| 21.4
13 Dist. of | | | | |
Columbia | 1,680| 25.54| 1,676| 41.28| 15.1
14 Kentucky | 2,723| 3.94| 2,663| 8.59| 17.4
15 Maryland | 3,163| 8.99| 2,961| 21.32| 18.2
16 Missouri | 10,330| 10.56| 10,102| 21.46| 26.3
+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
Total Border | | | | |
States | 18,395| ...| 17,942| ...| ...
+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
Total South | 44,578| ...| 43,635| ...| ...
--------------------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------
COMPARATIVE COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION (1905)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
Column headings:
EP: Estimated Population [thousands].
ESP: Estimated School Population [thousands].
NPE: Number Pupils Enrolled [thousands].
APA: Average Number Pupils Attending [thousands].
ADS: Average Days of School.
AMS: Average Monthly Salary.
VSP: Value of School Property [thousands].
AR: Annual Revenue [thousands].
RP: Revenue per Person of School Age.
AO: Annual Outgo [thousands].
OAA: Outgo per Average Attendance.
OAP: Outgo per $10,000 Actual Property.
-------------------+-------+------+-------------+----+------------+
| | | ENROLLMENT | | |
| EP | ESP | AND | ADS| TEACHERS. |
| | | ATTENDANCE. | | |
| | +------+------+ +--------+---+
| | | NPE | APA | | Number.|AMS|
-------------------+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
1 Colorado | 603| 149| 138| 92| 158| 4,454| 47|
2 Indiana | 2,678| 741| 550| 416| 160| 16,495| 54|
3 Indian Territory| 498| 170| 48| 28| 115| 1,325| 44|
4 Iowa | 2,210| 681| 540| 376| 160| 29,619| 38|
5 Kansas | 1,546| 470| 382| 264| 145| 12,036| 42|
6 Michigan | 2,557| 692| 521| 408| 168| 16,823| 45|
7 Minnesota | 1,980| 579| 430| 281| 161| 13,320| 44|
8 Nebraska | 1,068| 322| 279| 185| 170| 9,680| 44|
9 North Dakota | 440| 115| 107| 68| 141| 5,714| 44|
10 Oklahoma | 558| 175| 158| 90| 104| 3,687| 37|
11 South Dakota | 455| 132| 109| 75| 140| 5,150| 38|
12 Utah | 310| 101| 76| 56| 153| 1,718| 62|
13 Wisconsin | 2,229| 670| 465| 291| 169| 14,004| 38|
+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
Total | 17,132| 4,997| 3,803| 2,630| ...| 134,025|...|
+=======+======+======+======+====+========+===+
14 California | 1,621| 370| 315| 239| 170| 9,026| 67|
15 Idaho | 198| 57| 57| 41| 136| 1,547| 58|
16 Montana | 294| 65| 45| 31| 107| 1,268| 56|
17 Oregon | 465| 122| 108| 78| 158| 4,022| 45|
18 Vermont | 349| 82| 67| 48| 157| 3,417| 32|
19 Washington | 599| 151| 170| 119| 167| 5,179| 55|
+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
Total | 3,526| 847| 762| 556| ...| 24,459|...|
+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
Double Total | 20,658| 5,844| 4,565| 3,186| ...| 158,484|...|
+=======+======+======+======+====+========+===+
20 Arizona | 140| 36| 22| 14| 135| 538| 76|
21 Illinois | 5,319| 1,456| 985| 812| 169| 27,860| 60|
22 Nevada | 42| 9| 7| 5| 159| 357| 68|
23 New Mexico | 213| 65| 38| 26| 114| 828| 54|
24 New Hampshire | 429| 93| 78| 50| 152| 2,416| 36|
25 Wyoming | 102| 26| 18| 12| 140| 728| 51|
26 West Virginia | 1,057| 326| 248| 163| 123| 7,636| 35|
+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
Total | 7,302| 2,011| 1,396| 1,082| ...| 40,363|...|
+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
Grand Total | 27,960| 7,855| 5,961| 4,268| ...| 198,847|...|
-------------------+-------+------+------+------+----+--------+---+
-------------------+--------+---------------+---------------------
| | |
| VSP | REVENUE. | EXPENDITURE.
| | |
| +--------+------+--------+------+-----
| | AR | RP | AO | OAA | OAP
-------------------+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
1 Colorado | 10,265| 4,172| 28.62| 3,985| 41.89| 33.0
2 Indiana | 29,059| 11,927| 16.09| 11,501| 27.67| 30.1
3 Indian Territory| 750| 643| 3.78| 715| 25.10| 14.0
4 Iowa | 23,305| 11,195| 16.43| 10,316| 27.47| 26.4
5 Kansas | 10,525| 5,506| 11.72| 5,830| 22.08| 25.2
6 Michigan | 25,963| 9,760| 14.11| 9,630| 23.60| 27.9
7 Minnesota | 22,018| 9,163| 15.82| 8,470| 30.19| 24.1
8 Nebraska | 11,309| 5,218| 16.29| 5,304| 28.64| 23.8
9 North Dakota | 4,334| 2,435| 21.21| 2,530| 37.27| 31.5
10 Oklahoma | 2,123| 1,429| 8.17| 1,488| 16.49| 21.4
11 South Dakota | 4,550| 2,341| 17.67| 2,380| 31.61| 32.9
12 Utah | 3,538| 1,655| 16.76| 1,657| 29.50| 34.0
13 Wisconsin | 16,575| 8,531| 12.74| 8,240| 28.34| 27.8
+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
Total | 164,314| 73,975| ...| 72,046| ...| ...
+========+========+======+========+======+=====
14 California | 27,551| 9,271| 25.05| 9,771| 40.80| 22.8
15 Idaho | 1,892| 914| 16.09| 912| 22.39| 29.1
16 Montana | 4,832| 1,278| 20.68| 1,236| 39.28| 16.6
17 Oregon | 4,671| 2,013| 16.57| 2,052| 26.27| 21.2
18 Vermont | 2,964| 1,290| 15.80| 1,324| 27.39| 32.6
19 Washington | 9,808| 3,648| 24.10| 3,220| 27.09| 38.6
+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
Total | 51,718| 18,414| ...| 18,515| ...| ...
+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
Double Total | 216,032| 92,389| ...| 90,561| ...| ...
+========+========+======+========+======+=====
20 Arizona | 900| 438| 12.08| 457| 32.67| 14.3
21 Illinois | 64,555| 22,670| 15.59| 22,823| 28.11| 24.7
22 Nevada | 270| 271| 30.04| 258| 49.69| 11.7
23 New Mexico | 801| 368| 5.64| 362| 14.09| 10.6
24 New Hampshire | 4,493| 1,360| 14.69| 1,557| 31.22| 26.6
25 Wyoming | 454| 366| 14.27| 388| 31.78| 9.0
26 West Virginia | 5,811| 2,744| 8.42| 2,767| 16.97| 30.1
+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
Total | 77,284| 28,217| ...| 28,612| ...| ...
+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
Grand Total | 293,316| 120,606| ...| 119,173| ...| ...
-------------------+--------+--------+------+--------+------+-----
COMPARATIVE COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION (1907)
SOUTHERN GROUPS
Key:
PAA: Pupils Average Attendance [thousands].
VSP: Value of School Property [thousands].
ANR: Annual Revenue [thousands].
ANE: Annual Expenditure [thousands].
--------------------+--------+------+--------------------------
| | | FINANCES.
| | +---------+-------+--------
|Teachers| PAA | VSP | ANR | ANX
--------------------+--------+------+---------+-------+--------
1 Alabama | 7,757| 249| 4,569| 2,287| 2,620
2 Arkansas | 8,113| 221| 4,039| 2,428| 2,414
3 Florida | 3,362| 91| 2,001| 1,384| 1,352
4 Georgia | 10,379| 317| 5,822| 2,831| 2,850
5 Louisiana | 5,615| 160| 4,098| 2,952| 2,169
6 Mississippi | 9,499| 285| 2,190| 1,511| 2,641
7 North Carolina | 10,146| 297| 4,250| 2,519| 2,378
8 South Carolina | 6,228| 222| 2,200| 1,531| 1,416
9 Tennessee | 9,829| 353| 6,332| 3,314| 2,705
10 Virginia | 9,468| 220| 5,718| 3,323| 3,357
+--------+------+---------+-------+-------
Total 10 States | 80,396| 2,415| 41,219| 24,080| 23,902
| | | | |
11 Texas | 17,867| 499| 15,178| 7,443| 7,402
+--------+------+---------+-------+-------
Total, 11 Seceding | | | | |
States | 98,263| 2,914| 56,397| 31,523| 31,304
+========+======+=========+=======+=======
12 Delaware | 897| 25| 1,627| 499| 540
13 Dist. of Columbia| 1,575| 43| 7,005| 2,164| 2,012
14 Kentucky | 9,245| 310| 6,368| 4,263| 4,051
15 Maryland | 5,290| 135| 4,790| 3,424| 3,307
16 Missouri | 17,847| 493| 27,847| 10,853| 8,482
+--------+------+---------+-------+-------
Total South | 133,117| 3,920| 104,034| 52,726| 49,696
--------------------+--------+------+---------+-------+-------
COMPARATIVE COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION (1907)
EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
Key:
PAA = Pupils Average Attendance [thousands].
VSP = Value of School Property [thousands].
ANR = Annual Revenue [thousands].
ANE = Annual Expenditure [thousands].
----------------+--------+------+---------------------------
| | | FINANCES.
|Teachers| PAA +--------+--------+---------
| | | VSP | ANR | ANE
----------------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
1 Colorado | 4,944| 106| 10,207| 5,836| 4,476
2 Indiana | 16,841| 420| 31,499| 13,816| 12,012
3 Indian Terr | 2,740| 61| 2,175| 790| 920
4 Iowa | 28,508| 366| 24,950| 11,619| 10,681
5 Kansas | 12,743| 277| 11,000| 6,294| 6,874
6 Michigan | 17,286| 423| 30,944| 15,260| 12,086
7 Minnesota | 13,928| 322| 26,000| 11,085| 10,803
8 Nebraska | 10,059| 186| 12,755| 5,809| 5,561
9 North Dakota | 6,109| 72| 4,900| 3,000| 2,900
10 Oklahoma | 4,386| 103| 3,624| 2,053| 1,629
11 South Dakota | 5,358| 65| 5,138| 2,702| 2,730
12 Utah | 2,010| 61| 3,577| 1,996| 2,056
13 Wisconsin | 14,491| 328| 23,243| 10,223| 8,946
+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
Total | 139,403| 2,790| 190,012| 90,483| 81,674
| | | | |
14 California | 9,714| 248| 36,680 | 10,914| 12,219
15 Idaho | 1,897| 48| 3,162 | 1,240| 1,370
16 Montana | 1,741| 35| 3,489 | 1,597| 1,716
17 Oregon | 4,228| 77| 5,732 | 2,671| 2,474
18 Vermont | 3,984| 49| 3,416 | 1,255| 1,271
19 Washington | 6,209| 131| 12,448| 5,397| 5,504
+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
Double Total| 167,176| 3,378| 254,939| 113,557| 106,228
+========+======+========+========+=========
20 Arizona | 626| 15| 1,158| 610| 620
21 Illinois | 28,083| 770| 69,142| 30,958| 30,106
22 Nevada | 322| 7| 523| 345| 490
23 New Mexico | 923| 25| 1,000| 524| 484
24 New Hampshire| 2,916| 50| 5,240| 1,379| 1,453
25 Wyoming | 787| 14| 914| 609| 436
26 West Virginia| 8,061| 165| 7,113| 3,490| 3,361
+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
Grand Total | 208,894| 4,424| 340,029| 151,472| 143,178
----------------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
COMPARATIVE SECONDARY SCHOOLS (1905)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
---------------------+----------------------------------------+
| STUDENTS. |
+---------------+---------------+--------+
| Public. | Private. | |
+--------+------+-------+-------+ Total. |
| White. |Negro.| White.| Negro.| |
---------------------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+
1 Alabama | 4,646| 231| 1,485| 116 | 6,478|
2 Arkansas | 3,215| 295| 1,562| 159 | 5,231|
3 Florida | 1,493| 102| 242| 95 | 2,382|
4 Georgia | 7,015| 139| 2,499| 585 | 10,238|
5 Louisiana | 2,927| 80| 1,320| 35 | 4,362|
6 Mississippi | 3,998| 286| 1,375| 160 | 5,819|
7 North Carolina | 2,958| 14| 4,185| 383 | 7,540|
8 South Carolina | 4,380| 278| 748| 344 | 5,750|
9 Tennessee | 5,459| 605| 3,528| 90 | 9,682|
10 Virginia | 4,095| 545| 4,302| 338 | 8,264|
| | | | | |
+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+
Total 10 States | 40,636| 2,575| 20,230| 2,305 | 65,746|
11 Texas | 19,427| 1,134| 3,710| 221 | 24,492|
| | | | | |
+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+
Total Seceding | | | | | |
States | 60,063| 3,709| 23,940| 2,526 | 90,238|
+========+======+=======+=======+========+
12 Delaware | 1,340| 53| 238 | ... | 1,631|
13 Dist. of Columbia | 2,968| 891| 1,117 | ... | 4,976|
14 Kentucky | 6,155| 651| 3,261 | 51 | 10,118|
15 Maryland | 6,362| 350| 2,094 | ... | 8,806|
16 Missouri | 26,278| 1,080| 3,365 | 89 | 30,812|
+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+
| | | | | |
Total Border | | | | | |
States | 43,103| 3,025| 10,075| 140 | 56,343|
+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+
Grand Total | 103,166| 6,734| 34,015| 2,666 | 146,581|
---------------------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+
------------------+-----------------------+---------------------------
| TEACHERS. | VALUE OF PLANT.
+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
| | | | Public |Private | Total
|Public.|Private.|Total.|[1000s].|[1000s].|[1000s].
------------------+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
1 Alabama | 223 | 112 | 335| 831 | 516 | 1,347
2 Arkansas | 144 | 77 | 221| 620 | 419 | 1,039
3 Florida | 114 | 21 | 135| 501 | 134 | 635
4 Georgia | 320 | 207 | 527| 1,339 | 1,111 | 2,450
5 Louisiana | 155 | 102 | 257| 909 | 457 | 1,366
6 Mississippi | 225 | 89 | 314| 1,027 | 509 | 1,536
7 North Carolina | 123 | 270 | 393| 553 | 896 | 1,449
8 South Carolina | 214 | 83 | 297| 689 | 612 | 1,301
9 Tennessee | 242 | 215 | 257| 1,145 | 865 | 2,010
10 Virginia | 193 | 273 | 466| 596 | 1,424 | 2,020
| | | | | |
+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
Total 10 States| 1,953 | 1,449 | 3,402| 8,210 | 6,943 | 15,153
11 Texas | 842 | 264 | 1,106| 4,323 | 1,988 | 6,311
| | | | | |
+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
Total Seceding | | | | | |
States | 2,795 | 1,713 | 4,508| 12,533 | 8,931 | 21,464
+=======+========+======+========+========+=========
12 Delaware | 63 | 30 | 93| 487 | 200 | 687
13 Dist. of | | | | | |
Columbia | 196 | 203 | 399| 536 | 1,007 | 1,543
14 Kentucky | 297 | 289 | 586| 1,597 | 850 | 2,447
15 Maryland | 261 | 248 | 509| 1,149 | 3,125 | 4,274
16 Missouri | 1,140 | 311 | 1,451| 6,532 | 2,072 | 8,604
+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
| | | | | |
Total Border | | | | | |
States | 1,957 | 1,081 | 3,035| 10,301 | 7,254 | 17,555
+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
Grand Total | 4,752 | 2,794 | 7,546| 22,834 | 16,185 | 39,019
------------------+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+---------
COMPARATIVE SECONDARY EDUCATION (1905)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
Key:
PUB: Public.
PRIV: Private.
--------------+------------------------------------+--------------------+
| STUDENTS. | TEACHERS. |
+--------------+-------------+-------+------+------+------+
| Public. | Private. | | | | |
+-------+------+------+------+ Total.| PUB | PRIV |Total.|
| White.|Negro.|White.|Negro.| | | | |
--------------+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
1 Colorado | 8,079| 56| 323| ... | 8,458| 347| 49 | 396|
2 Indiana | 34,848| 658| 1,831| 2 | 37,339| 1,596| 185 | 1,781|
3 Indian | | | | | | | | |
Territory| 340| 26| 423| ... | 789| 20| 19 | 39|
4 Iowa | 32,210| 134| 2,577| ... | 34,921| 1,367| 147 | 1,514|
5 Kansas | 19,715| 310| 832| ... | 20,857| 756| 67 | 823|
6 Michigan | 33,077| 110| 1,523| ... | 34,710| 1,412| 148 | 1,560|
7 Minnesota | 18,073| 62| 2,381| ... | 20,516| 767| 205 | 972|
8 Nebraska | 17,425| 49| 1,461| 1 | 18,836| 749| 126 | 875|
9 North | | | | | | | | |
Dakota | 2,218| 1| 48| ... | 2,267| 119| 3 | 122|
10 Oklahoma | 1,917| 78| 286| ... | 2,281| 87| 14 | 101|
11 South | | | | | | | | |
Dakota | 4,543| 7| 340| ... | 4,890| 229| 34 | 263|
12 Utah | 1,785| 2| 2,731| ... | 4,578| 84| 144 | 228|
13 Wisconsin | 23,956| 17| 1,476| ... | 25,449| 1,051| 166 | 1,217|
+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
Total |198,186| 1,510|16,232| 3 |215,931| 8,584|1,307 | 9,891|
+=======+======+======+======+=======+======+======+======+
14 California | 23,125| 64| 2,749| ... | 25,938| 930| 349 | 1,279|
15 Idaho | 930| 1| 366| ... | 1,297| 48| 22 | 70|
16 Montana | 2,641| 4| 200| ... | 2,845| 133| 26 | 159|
17 Oregon | 4,125| 12| 811| 1 | 4,949| 165| 74 | 239|
18 Vermont | 4,378| 3| 1,523| 1 | 5,805| 196| 98 | 294|
19 Washington | 8,168| 40| 524| ... | 8,732| 346| 62 | 408|
+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
Total | 43,367| 124| 6,173| 2 | 49,666| 1,818| 631 | 2,449|
+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
Double Total |241,553| 1,634|22,405| 5 |265,597|10,402|1,938 |12,340|
+=======+======+======+======+=======+======+======+======+
20 Arizona | 285| 1| 55| ... | 341| 13| 4 | 17|
21 Illinois | 48,212| 461| 3,434| 6 | 52,113| 1,945| 314 | 2,259|
22 Nevada | 171| ...| ...| ... | 171| 10| ... | 10|
23 New Mexico | 638| 3| 33| ... | 674| 34| 3 | 37|
24 New | | | | | | | | |
Hampshire | 4,766| 3| 2,281| 14 | 7,064| 227| 185 | 412|
25 Wyoming | 560| 3| 35| ... | 598| 29| 5 | 34|
26 West | | | | | | | | |
Virginia | 2,408| 63| 1,019| ... | 3,480| 121| 83 | 204|
+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
| 57,040| 534| 6,857| 20 | 64,451| 2,379| 594 | 2,973|
+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
Total |298,593| 2,168|29,262| 25 |330,048|12,781|2,532 |15,313|
--------------+-------+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+
-------------------+--------------------------
| VALUE OF PLANT.
+--------+--------+--------
| Public |Private | Total
|[1000s].|[1000s].|[1000s].
-------------------+--------+--------+--------
1 Colorado | 2,634 | 200 | 2,834
2 Indiana | 9,540 | 836 | 10,376
3 Indian | | |
Territory | 352 | 239 | 591
4 Iowa | 8,452 | 643 | 9,095
5 Kansas | 4,636 | 604 | 5,240
6 Michigan | 8,905 | 639 | 9,544
7 Minnesota | 5,244 | 1,731 | 6,975
8 Nebraska | 4,309 | 505 | 4,814
9 North Dakota | 725 | ... | 725
10 Oklahoma | 551 | 145 | 696
11 South Dakota | 1,566 | 255 | 1,821
12 Utah | 268 | 1,049 | 1,317
13 Wisconsin | 6,457 | 1,539 | 7,996
+--------+--------+--------
Total | 53,039 | 8,385 | 62,024
+========+========+========
14 California | 4,616 | 2,722 | 7,338
15 Idaho | 441 | 179 | 620
16 Montana | 980 | 139 | 1,119
17 Oregon | 1,157 | 309 | 1,466
18 Vermont | 1,234 | 775 | 2,009
19 Washington | 2,050 | 496 | 2,546
+--------+--------+--------
Total | 10,478 | 4,620 | 15,098
+--------+--------+--------
Double Total | 64,117 | 13,005 | 77,122
+========+========+========
20 Arizona | 128 | 80 | 208
21 Illinois | 11,757 | 2,985 | 14,742
22 Nevada | 69 | ... | 69
23 New Mexico | 381 | ... | 381
24 New Hampshire | 1,478 | 1,108 | 2,586
25 Wyoming | 372 | 75 | 447
26 West Virginia | 1,052 | 367 | 1,419
+--------+--------+--------
| 15,237 | 4,615 | 19,852
+--------+--------+--------
Total | 79,354 | 17,620 | 96,974
-------------------+--------+--------+--------
COMPARATIVE HIGHER EDUCATION (1905)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
Key:
TEA: Teachers.
UNG: Undergraduates.
GRD: Graduates.
PRO: Professional.
VAP: Value of Plant.
PRF: Productive Funds.
BEN: Benefactions.
TI: Total Income.
---------------------+------+------------------------------+
| | STUDENTS. |
| +-------+------+-------+-------+
| TEA | UNG | GRD | PRO | Total.|
---------------------+------+-------+------+-------+-------+
| | | | | |
1 Alabama | 258| 1,895| 47| 241| 2,183|
2 Arkansas | 154| 894| 7| 272| 1,173|
3 Florida | 109| 311| 1| 37| 349|
4 Georgia | 430| 3,719| 19| 311| 4,049|
5 Louisiana | 266| 1,172| 101| 716| 1,989|
6 Mississippi | 315| 2,021| 72| 87| 2,180|
7 North Carolina | 465| 3,255| 49| 588| 3,892|
8 South Carolina | 295| 2,878| 37| 66| 2,981|
9 Tennessee | 681| 2,770| 80| 1,870| 4,720|
10 Virginia | 450| 3,741| 81| 472| 4,294|
+------+-------+------+-------+-------+
Total 10 States | 3,393| 22,656| 494| 4,660| 27,810|
11 Texas | 513| 2,954| 46| 862| 3,862|
+------+-------+------+-------+-------+
Total Seceding States| 3,906| 25,610| 540| 5,522| 31,672|
+======+=======+======+=======+=======+
12 Delaware | 29| 173| 1| ...| 174|
13 Dist. of Columbia | 501| 875| 146| 1,790| 2,811|
14 Kentucky | 448| 2,281| 42| 1,080| 3,403|
15 Maryland | 540| 2,433| 206| 405| 3,044|
16 Missouri | 929| 3,736| 203| 1,417| 5,356|
+------+-------+------+-------+-------+
Total Border States | 2,447| 9,498| 598| 4,692| 14,788|
+------+-------+------+-------+-------+
Total South | 6,353| 35,108| 1,138| 10,214| 46,460|
---------------------+------+-------+------+-------+-------+
---------------------+------+-----------------------------
| | FINANCES.
| +-------+-------+------+------
| TEA | VAP | PRF | BEN | TI
---------------------+------+-------+-------+------+------
| | 1000s | 1000s | 1000s| 1000s
1 Alabama | 258| 1,845| 1,306| 17| 393
2 Arkansas | 154| 913| 208| 15| 247
3 Florida | 109| 722| 614| 22| 176
4 Georgia | 430| 3,972| 1,161| 153| 701
5 Louisiana | 266| 2,877| 3,560| 13| 404
6 Mississippi | 315| 2,229| 1,510| 21| 589
7 North Carolina | 465| 3,699| 1,441| 186| 645
8 South Carolina | 295| 2,740| 783| 159| 542
9 Tennessee | 681| 4,659| 3,050| 310| 718
10 Virginia | 450| 5,475| 2,747| 850| 857
+------+-------+-------+------+------
Total 10 States | 3,393| 29,131| 16,380| 1,746| 5,272
11 Texas | 513| 3,975| 1,059| 2| 776
+------+-------+-------+------+------
Total Seceding States| 3,906| 33,106| 17,439| 1,748| 6,048
+======+=======+=======+======+======
12 Delaware | 29| 270| 83| ...| 68
13 Dist. of Columbia | 501| 9,416| 1,510| 355| 517
14 Kentucky | 448| 2,934| 2,287| 257| 420
15 Maryland | 540| 16,218| 5,388| 110| 1,131
16 Missouri | 929| 8,063| 8,005| 253| 1,164
+------+-------+-------+------+------
Total Border States | 2,447| 36,901| 17,273| 975| 3,300
+------+-------+-------+------+------
Total South | 6,353| 70,007| 34,71 | 2,723| 9,348
---------------------+------+-------+-------+------+------
COMPARATIVE HIGHER EDUCATION (1905)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN GROUPS
Key:
UNG: Undergraduates.
GRA: Graduates.
PRO: Professional.
VAP: Value of Plant.
PRF: Productive Funds.
BEN: Benefactions.
TI: Total Income.
-------------------+---------+-----------------------------+
| | Students. |
|Teachers.+-------+------+-------+------+
| | UNG | GRA | PRO |Total.|
-------------------+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
1 Colorado | 425| 1,826| 140| 333| 2,299|
2 Indiana | 462| 5,004| 136| 295| 5,435|
3 Indian Territory | 21| 25| ...| ...| 25|
4 Iowa | 775| 4,165| 238| 1,102| 5,505|
5 Kansas | 609| 3,396| 120| 487| 4,003|
6 Michigan | 560| 4,198| 144| 1,538| 5,880|
7 Minnesota | 595| 2,770| 140| 1,138| 4,048|
8 Nebraska | 502| 2,283| 153| 650| 3,086|
9 North Dakota | 88| 267| 11| 49| 327|
10 Oklahoma | 62| 323| 3| 50| 376|
11 South Dakota | 138| 516| 19| 48| 583|
12 Utah | 146| 580| 2| ...| 582|
13 Wisconsin | 452| 3,741| 157| 198| 4,096|
+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
Total. | 4,835| 29,094| 1,263| 5,888|36,245|
+=========+=======+======+=======+======+
14 California | 882| 5,285| 380| 617| 6,282|
15 Idaho | 22| 173| 1| ...| 174|
16 Montana | 52| 322| 12| ...| 334|
17 Oregon | 201| 1,078| 20| 193| 1,291|
18 Vermont | 89| 574| 1| 193| 768|
19 Washington | 170| 1,315| 85| 104| 1,504|
+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
Total | 1,416| 8,747| 499| 1,107|10,353|
+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
Double Total | 6,251| 37,841| 1,762| 6,995|46,598|
+=========+=======+======+=======+======+
20 Arizona | 26| 33| 6| ...| 39|
21 Illinois | 1,634| 8,889| 1,368| 3,809|14,066|
22 Nevada | 33| 178| 3| ...| 181|
23 New Mexico | 54| 105| 9| ...| 114|
24 New Hampshire | 119| 1,038| 36| 60| 1,130|
25 Wyoming | 18| 62| 3| ...| 65|
26 West Virginia | 106| 889| 2| 220| 1,111|
+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
Total | 1,990| 11,194| 1,427| 4,089|16,710|
+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
Grand Total | 8,241| 49,035| 3,189| 11,084|63,308|
-------------------+---------+-------+------+-------+------+
-------------------+------------------------------
| Finances.
+-------+-------+------+-------
| VAP | PRF | BEN | TI
-------------------+-------+-------+------+-------
| 1000s| 1000s| 1000s| 1000s
1 Colorado | 2,713| 812| 75| 525
2 Indiana | 6,312| 2,964| 80| 1,022
3 Indian Territory | 171| ...| 12| 16
4 Iowa | 5,959| 3,251| 342| 1,426
5 Kansas | 4,287| 1,232| 130| 710
6 Michigan | 6,076| 2,863| 106| 1,324
7 Minnesota | 3,506| 2,118| 50| 883
8 Nebraska | 2,588| 1,254| 193| 599
9 North Dakota | 1,096| 1,151| 50| 368
10 Oklahoma | 546| ...| ...| 145
11 South Dakota | 1,299| 199| 73| 275
12 Utah | 1,044| 326| 1| 282
13 Wisconsin | 4,548| 2,464| 311| 1,106
+-------+-------+------+-------
Total. | 40,145| 18,634| 1,423| 8,681
+=======+=======+======+=======
14 California | 10,755| 35,270| 470| 1,999
15 Idaho | 288| 213| ...| 93
16 Montana | 695| 523| ...| 177
17 Oregon | 907| 680| 17| 191
18 Vermont | 1,430| 1,073| 101| 149
19 Washington | 2,015| 295| 33| 607
+-------+-------+------+-------
Total | 16,090| 38,054| 621| 3,216
+-------+-------+------+-------
Double Total | 56,235| 56,688| 2,044| 11,897
+=======+=======+======+=======
20 Arizona | 234| ...| ...| 55
21 Illinois | 20,112| 17,052| 1,133| 3,072
22 Nevada | 282| 147| 2| 98
23 New Mexico | 292| ...| ...| 91
24 New Hampshire | 1,996| 2,750| 110| 279
25 Wyoming | 358| 26| ...| 59
26 West Virginia | 1,122| 276| 115| 217
+-------+-------+------+------------
Total | 24,396| 20,251| 1,360| 3,871
+-------+-------+------+------------
Grand Total | 80,631| 76,939| 3,404| 15,768
-------------------+-------+-------+------+------------
COMPARATIVE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (1905)--SOUTHERN GROUPS
---------------------+-------------------------------------------
| NORMAL SCHOOLS (PUBLIC AND PRIVATE).
+----------+----------+----------+----------
| | | |
| Teachers | Number | Value of | Total
|for Normal| of Normal| Plant. | Income.
| Students.| Students.| |
---------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------
1 Alabama | 89| 1,866| 988,000| 310,000
2 Arkansas | 15| 292| 112,000| 17,000
3 Florida | 34| 350| 55,000| 30,000
4 Georgia | 77| 831| 370,000| 82,000
5 Louisiana | 35| 638| 130,000| 31,000
6 Mississippi | 23| 269| 7,000| 6,900
7 North Carolina | 114| 1,872| 707,000| 166,000
8 South Carolina | 48| 502| 370,000| 74,000
9 Tennessee | 84| 1,652| 600,000| 109,000
10 Virginia | 62| 1,146| 1,274,000| 267,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Total 10 States | 581| 9,418| 4,613,000| 1,092,000
11 Texas | 51| 1,510| 372,000| 120,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Total Seceding States| 632| 10,928| 4,985,000| 1,212,000
+==========+==========+==========+==========
12 Delaware | ...| ...| ...| ...
13 Dist. of Columbia | 21| 181| ...| ...
14 Kentucky | 26| 434| 114,000| 29,000
15 Maryland | 22| 475| 227,000| 33,000
16 Missouri | 106| 3,324| 1,188,000| 186,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Total | 175| 4,414| 1,529,000| 248,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Grand Total | 807| 15,342| 6,514,000| 1,460,000
---------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------
---------------------+----------------------------------------------
| REFORM AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (PUBLIC).
+----------+----------+------------------------
| | | Finances.
| Teachers.| Number of+----------+-------------
| | Students.| Value of | Total
| | | Plant. |Expenditures.
---------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------------
1 Alabama | 2| 78| 37,000| 8,000
2 Arkansas | ...| ...| ...| ...
3 Florida | 1| 52| 25,000| 3,000
4 Georgia | 1| 49| 30,000| 3,000
5 Louisiana | ...| ...| ...| ...
6 Mississippi | ...| ...| ...| ...
7 North Carolina | ...| ...| ...| ...
8 South Carolina | ...| ...| ...| ...
9 Tennessee | 28| 1,279| 170,000| 87,000
10 Virginia | 6| 351| 59,000| 24,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Total 10 States | 38| 1,809| 321,000| 125,000
11 Texas | 2| 180| 50,000| 35,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Total Seceding States| 40| 1,989| 371,000| 160,000
+==========+==========+==========+=============
12 Delaware | 6| 229| 165,000| 20,000
13 Dist. of Columbia | 15| 436| 460,000| 71,000
14 Kentucky | 9| 744| 200,000| 57,000
15 Maryland | 31| 1,486| 1,122,000| 147,000
16 Missouri | 18| 1,247| 771,000| 124,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Total | 79| 4,142| 2,718,000| 419,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Grand Total | 119| 6,131| 3,089,000| 579,000
---------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------------
COMPARATIVE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (1905)--EQUIVALENT NORTHERN
GROUPS
-------------------+-------------------------------------------
| NORMAL SCHOOLS (PUBLIC AND PRIVATE).
+----------+----------+----------+----------
| | | |
| Teachers | Number of| Value of | Total
|for Normal| Normal | Plant. | Income.
| Students.| Students.| |
+----------+----------+----------+----------
1 Colorado | 35| 490| 250,000| 71,000
2 Indiana | 140| 3,877| 905,000| 268,000
3 Indian Territory| ...| ...| ...| ...
4 Iowa | 129| 2,757| 518,000| 203,000
5 Kansas | 54| 1,040| 396,000| 79,000
6 Michigan | 122| 2,416| 795,000| 216,000
7 Minnesota | 96| 1,968| 983,000| 202,000
8 Nebraska | 64| 1,533| 415,000| 73,000
9 North Dakota | 15| 397| 108,000| 26,000
10 Oklahoma | 72| 1,471| 405,000| 118,000
11 South Dakota | 44| 702| 390,000| 46,000
12 Utah | 8| 182| 100,000| 19,000
13 Wisconsin | 173| 2,723| 1,075,000| 313,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Total | 952| 19,546| 6,340,000| 1,634,000
+==========+==========+==========+==========
14 California | 101| 1,614| 1,179,000| 198,000
15 Idaho | 21| 239| 145,000| 33,000
16 Montana | 14| 126| 100,000| 30,000
17 Oregon | 46| 466| 163,000| 65,000
18 Vermont | 19| 256| 20,000| 21,000
19 Washington | 47| 753| 350,000| 101,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Total | 248| 3,444| 1,957,000| 448,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Double Total | 1,200| 22,990| 8,297,000| 2,082,000
+==========+==========+==========+==========
20 Arizona | 18| 288| 183,000| 46,000
21 Illinois | 146| 2,997| 3,011,000| 337,000
22 Nevada | ...| ...| ...| ...
23 New Mexico | 15| 206| 135,000| 36,000
24 New Hampshire | 9| 119| 125,000| 27,000
25 Wyoming | ...| ...| ...| ...
26 West Virginia | 75| 1,339| 642,000| 139,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Total | 263| 4,949| 4,096,000| 585,000
+----------+----------+----------+----------
Grand Total | 1,463| 27,939|12,393,000| 2,667,000
-------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------
-------------------+----------------------------------------------
| REFORM AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (PUBLIC).
+----------+----------+------------------------
| | | Finances.
| Teachers.| Number of+----------+-------------
| | Students.| Value of | Total
| | | Plant. |Expenditures.
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
1 Colorado | 12| 549| 180,000| 67,000
2 Indiana | 8| 1,186| 280,000| 103,000
3 Indian Territory| ...| ...| ...| ...
4 Iowa | 29| 986| 420,000| 99,000
5 Kansas | 6| 575| 299,000| 75,000
6 Michigan | 56| 2,149| 850,000| 198,000
7 Minnesota | 16| 250| 381,000| 81,000
8 Nebraska | 11| 310| 340,000| 61,000
9 North Dakota | ...| ...| ...| ...
10 Oklahoma | ...| ...| ...| ...
11 South Dakota | 2| 89| 86,000| 26,000
12 Utah | ...| ...| ...| ...
13 Wisconsin | 30| 900| 671,000| 136,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Total | 170| 6,994| 3,507,000| 846,000
+==========+==========+==========+=============
14 California | 9| 676| 529,000| 156,000
15 Idaho | 1| 20| 50,000| 5,000
16 Montana | 2| 127| 45,000| 24,000
17 Oregon | 2| 110| 50,000| 46,000
18 Vermont | 4| 240| 60,000| 25,000
19 Washington | 6| 48| ...| ...
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Total | 24| 1,221| 734,000| 256,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Double Total | 194| 8,215| 4,241,000| 1,106,000
+==========+==========+==========+=============
20 Arizona | 1| 55| 35,000| 16,000
21 Illinois | 47| 3,765| 2,200,000| 636,000
22 Nevada | ...| ...| ...| ...
23 New Mexico | ...| ...| ...| ...
24 New Hampshire | 4| 177| 100,000| 30,000
25 Wyoming | ...| ...| ...| ...
26 West Virginia | 10| 505| 170,000| 67,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Total | 62| 4,502| 2,505,000| 749,000
+----------+----------+----------+-------------
Grand Total | 256| 12,717| 6,746,000| 1,855,000
-------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------------
INDEX
A
Abbott, E. H., articles by, on Southern question, 18.
Advance system on cotton plantations, 268;
lien loans, 268;
impositions, 269-270, 272;
specimen accounts, 271;
Christmas money, 272.
Africa, negroes in, 94-97.
_See also_ Colonization.
Afro-American as name for Negro, 92.
Agriculture.
Southern crops, 24, 220;
poor white farmers and tenants, 41, 45;
foreign laborers, 57;
white small farmers, 60;
negro life, 115-116;
Negroes as laborers, 127;
farms owned by Negroes, 144-145;
amount of negro products, 145;
actual wealth of Southern states, 220-221;
population 221;
reclamation of swamps, 221;
comparative wealth of seceding states, 237-238;
of whole South, 241;
comparative value of cotton and other Southern crops, 251.
_See also_ Cotton.
Alabama.
Mining, 24;
Republican party, 173;
negro voters, 176;
leasing of convicts, 201;
contract law and peonage, 283;
illiteracy, 293;
per-capita school tax, 295;
comparative statistics, 395-415.
Albany, Ga., negro school near, 312.
Alderman, E. A., and negro progress, 179.
_Alexander's Magazine_, 18.
Alexandria, La., Italians at, 56.
Amalgamation of races.
Evil of, 157;
determination against, 344, 349.
_See also_ Miscegenation, Mulattoes.
American Colonization Society and Liberia, 96, 97.
_See also_ Colonization.
_American Magazine_, articles in, on race question, 18.
Americus, Ga., as trade center, 26.
Amusements, negro, 116.
Andersonville, Ga., statue to Wirz in, 88.
Andrew, J. A., protest of, against class prejudice, 165.
Appalachian Forest Reserve, proposed, 223.
Architecture, Southern standard of, 26, 304.
Arizona, comparative statistics of, 395-415.
Arkansas.
Illiteracy, 293;
comparative statistics, 395-415.
Armstrong, S. C., and Hampton Institute, 334.
_See also_ Hampton.
Art galleries in South, 304.
Assessment. _See_ Taxation.
Association of Colleges, 300.
Atlanta.
Size, 28;
progress, 29, 242;
foreign population, 51;
negro population, 107;
race riot, 206, 390.
Atlanta, University of.
Conferences, 131, 389;
founding, 309.
_See also_ Colleges.
_Atlanta Evening News_ and race riot, 206.
_Atlanta Georgian_, on lynching, 213.
Augusta, Ga., water power of, 26.
Austin.
Capitol, 27;
progress, 29.
Avary, Myrta L., on educational value of slavery, 84.
B
Baker, R. S., articles by, on race question, 18.
Baldwin Co., Ala., Northerners in, 48.
Bale, cotton.
Making, 259;
round, 259;
careless construction, 274.
Baltimore.
Foreign population, 51;
as port, 229, 233;
schools, 296, 315.
Banishment of Negroes, 195, 205, 206.
Banking, Southern, 225;
comparative statistics of, 236, 238, 402-403;
and cotton culture, 263;
need of savings banks, 376.
Baptist Church, negro, 117.
"Basket-name," 138.
Bassett, J. S., and race problem, 72, 345.
Beaufort County, S. C., negro suffrage in, 176.
_See also_ Sea Islands.
"Before Day Clubs," 190.
Bell, of Alabama.
Plantation, 254;
and negro uplift, 373.
Benevolent institutions, comparative statistics of, North and South,
237, 406-407.
Benson settlement, 141, 371.
Berea College and negro education, 317.
Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, Duke, on cotton seed, 260.
Bibliography of Southern problem, 7-19;
bibliographies, 7;
anti-negro works, 8-12;
conservative Southern books, 12-14;
works by Negroes, 14-17;
monographic studies, 17;
magazine articles, 18;
necessity of first-hand investigation, 19.
Birmingham, Ala.
Iron trade, 25;
progress, 29, 242.
_Birmingham Age Herald_ on punishment of vagrancy, 383.
Black-and-tan Republicans, 173.
Black Belt.
Extent, 21;
manufactures, 25;
trade centers, 26;
richness of soil, 220.
Blount College and coeducation, 290.
Blowing Rock, N. C., view from, 31.
"Bohunks," 54.
"Boomer" described, 34.
Boyd, J. E., and peonage, 285.
Brawley, W. H., and peonage, 285.
Brookhaven, Miss., violence in, 199, 211, 212, 214.
Brown, W. G., "Lower South," 14.
Brownsville incident, 129, 194.
Bruce, P. A., on Virginians of seventeenth century, 82.
Bruce, R. C., as leader, 371.
Brunswick, Ga., as port, 22, 229.
Business.
Leadership in South, 62;
Negroes in, 130.
C
Cairo, Ill., mob in, 207.
Calhoun, J. C., Northern education of, 290.
Calhoun, Ala.
Negro community, 141;
school, 318, 389.
California.
School expenditures, 295;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Cann, Judge, on concealment of negro criminals, 193.
Capital, in South, 225;
comparative statistics of banking, 402-403;
of manufacturing, 404-405.
Carnegie Educational Fund and Southern colleges, 300.
Catholic Church and Negroes, 117.
Cavaliers, myth of Southern descent from, 81.
Census Bureau, data from, 235.
_See also_ Population.
Ceylon, advance system in, 272.
Chain gangs in South, 200.
Chamberlain, D. H., on lynching, 213.
Charleston.
As port, 22, 229;
character, 28;
negro morality, 108;
Crum incident, 171.
_Charleston News and Courier_, character of, 70.
Chattanooga, lynching at, 212.
Chesnutt, C. W., as writer, 15, 325.
Child labor in South, 264.
Chinese and South, 54.
"Christmas money," 272.
Churchill, W. S., on Negroes in Africa, 95.
Cities.
Chief Southern, 22;
growth of smaller Southern, 26;
effect on Whites and Negroes, 27;
urban population of South, 28;
progress of Southern, 28;
negro life, 114, 167;
schools, 291, 296, 314, 315.
Civil War.
Poor Whites and, 40;
present Southern attitude toward secession, 84;
towards Northern leaders, 85;
belief in impoverishment through emancipation, 86;
Andersonville and statue of Wirz, 88;
negro soldiers, 129.
Clay Eaters, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Clearings, bank, comparative statistics of, North and South, 402-403.
Climate of South, 24, 25.
Coal in South, 224, 225.
Cole, peonage case, 282.
Colleges, Southern.
Antebellum, 290;
present development, 292, 302;
comparative statistics, 296, 300, 414-415;
for women, 301, 302;
ranking institutions, 302;
state university funds, 302;
and politics, 302;
Northern instructors, 303;
endowments, 307;
postbellum negro, 309;
character of negro, 315, 317;
need of negro, 317, 336;
number of negro graduates, 318;
objections to negro, 331-332;
academic versus industrial training for Negroes, 332-336.
_Collier's Weekly_ on Southern progress, 247.
Colonization of Negroes.
Attempts, 96-97;
not a solution of race problem, 350-352.
Colorado, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Colored person as name for Negro, 92.
Columbia, S. C.
Water power, 26;
progress, 29;
manufacturing output, 276.
Columbus, Ga., water power in, 26.
Commerce.
Southern ports, 22, 228-229;
South and Panama Canal, 22;
Southern inland centers, 26;
of Liberia, 96;
Southern inland transportation, 226-230;
through Southern ports, 233;
and race separation, 357.
Concealed weapons, carrying of, in South, 37, 64, 196, 216.
Conferences, negro, 131, 389.
Congress, no interference by, in race problem, 347-348.
Consumption, negro mortality, 108.
Convicts.
Number, North and South, 197;
Southern treatment, 200-202, 286.
Coöperative Educational Association of Virginia, 306.
Corbin, Austin, Sunny Side plantation, 57, 256, 281.
Cordova, S. C., and negro education, 327.
Corn, comparative value of crops of, 237, 241, 242, 248, 251.
Cotton.
Extent of belt, 21, 252;
Southern manufactures, 25, 274, 276;
Poor Whites and manufacture, 45, 275;
foreign and negro cultivators, 58;
value of crop, 237, 241, 248;
making of, 250-260;
Southern claim of importance, 250;
monopolizes Southern interest, 250;
compared with other Southern crops, 251-252;
and race problem, 252, 261, 267;
history, prices, 252;
staples, 252;
fertilizing, 253;
application of term plantation, 253-255;
types of plantations, 255-256;
white laborers, 255, 262, 264, 267;
labor system, 257, 261;
cultivation, 257-258;
yield per acre, 258;
ginning and baling, 258, 274;
round bale, 259;
seed as product, 260;
hands, 261-277;
independent negro raisers, 262;
relation of negro hands to plantation, 262, 266;
character of labor, 263;
management of plantation, 263-264;
working division of plantations, 264;
renters, croppers, and wage hands, 265-266;
extra work, 266;
instability of negro laborers, 266;
negro monopoly of labor, 267, 277;
necessity of training of laborers, 267, 273, 274;
complaints of negro hands, 267;
advance system and its effect, 268-273;
wastefulness of culture and distribution, 273;
selection of seed, 274;
culture and practical peonage, 279.
Cotton seed.
Seed trust of Sea Island staple, 252;
value as product, 260;
selection, 274.
"Cotton-weed," 256.
Courts.
Conduct of criminal trials in South, 198-199;
suggestion of negro, 383.
_See also_ Crime.
Crackers, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Crime in South.
Mountaineer, 37;
concealed weapons, 37, 64, 196, 216;
mulattoes and, 112;
and its penalties, 181-204;
in North, 183;
Northern ideas of Southern, 184;
proportion of homicides, 184, 197;
character of white homicides, 185;
criminality of Negroes, 186-189;
negro education and, 186, 189, 192, 328, 334, 343, 387;
Negroes and organized, 189;
conditions promoting negro, 190;
Before Day Clubs, 190;
negro assault on white women, 191-193, 208;
concealment of negro criminals, 193;
criminal example of Whites, 194, 207;
whipping of Negroes, 194, 205;
banishment of Negroes, 195, 205, 206;
homicide of Negroes by Whites, 195-196;
treatment of Negroes by police, 196;
relative convictions, North and South, 197;
conduct of murder trials, 198;
negro trials and protection, 199;
chain gangs, 200;
prisons, 201;
leasing of convicts, 201, 286;
prison reform, 202;
pardons, 203;
white responsibility for inefficient criminal justice, 203;
race riots, 205-208;
lynching, 208-217, 361-365;
prevalence, 216;
influences working against, 216;
and race animosity, 339;
preventative measures for negro, 381-384;
comparative statistics of prisoners, North and South, 406-407.
_See also_ Peonage.
Croppers on cotton plantations, 266.
Crum, W. D., opposition to appointment of, 171.
Cuba, Negroes in, 98.
Cullman, Ala., excludes Negroes, 167.
Cutler, J. E., on lynching, 191, 208, 362.
D
Dallas, progress, 29.
Davis, Jeff, as political leader, 63.
Davis, Jefferson, on Southland, 2.
Dayton plantation, 255.
Death-rate, negro, 107-110.
Debts, comparative public, of South, 246.
Delaware, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Democratic party, effect of control of, in South, 72, 173, 174.
Deposits, bank, comparative, statistics of, North and South, 402-403.
District of Columbia, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Divorce, negro, 135.
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
As writer on race question, 9;
on Southern temperament, 68;
on Reconstruction, 86;
on miscegenation, 155;
and suppression of negro development, 180, 345, 370;
on Booker Washington and Tuskegee, 319, 332;
on cost of negro education, 328;
on terrorizing Negroes, 360.
Domestic servants, negro, 124-127.
Domination, negro, as live question, 160.
"Dooley, Mr." on terrorizing Negroes, 358.
Dothan, Ala., abortive lynching in, 211.
Douglass, Margaret, negro school held by, 309.
Drink.
Negroes and, 109, 117;
Southern manufacture of liquor, 225;
Southern prohibition, 384.
Drug habit, negro, 109.
Du Bois, W. E. B.
Bibliographies of negro question, 8;
as writer and investigator of negro question, 16-17, 114;
literary style, 16, 325;
on race problem, 69;
on gospel of work, 120;
on suffrage and leadership, 131;
on race prejudice, 161;
"Litany of Atlanta," 207;
on race separation and progress, 318;
on right to education, 325, 333, 336.
Dunbar, P. L.
And negro question, 16;
on unaccountability, 187;
on industry, 372.
Dunleith plantation, 265.
Durham, N. C., tobacco manufacture in, 225.
E
Edmonds, R. H., on Southern potential wealth, 231.
Education, negro.
Illiteracy, 98, 293, 294, 320;
in North, 99;
negro teachers, 130, 314;
and crime, 188, 189, 192, 328, 334, 343, 387;
race separation, 168, 313;
of cotton hands, 267, 273;
problem, 308;
antebellum, 308;
during and after Civil War, 309;
beginning of public schools, 310;
present status of public schools, 310;
white opposition, 311, 323-337;
typical rural schools, 311-313;
refusal of authorities to provide schools, 313;
interaction of poor schools and attendance, 313, 320;
character of urban schools, 314;
secondary and higher, 314;
private schools, white opposition, 315-317, 319, 332;
colleges, 315, 317-318;
boycotting of white teachers, 316;
influence of private schools, 318;
Hampton and Tuskegee and industrial, 319;
question of federal aid, 321, 348;
private funds, 322;
as help in race problem, 320, 385-388;
needs, 320-321, 385-387;
questions of negro capability, 323-327;
question of harmful, 327;
cost to South, 328;
as unreasonable burden on Whites, 328-331;
opposition to academic, 331;
public industrial training, 332;
academic versus industrial, 332-334;
contradictory objections, 333, 337;
professional, 335;
opposition to secondary, 335;
necessity of academic, 336;
fundamental race objection, 336;
negro complaints, 336;
comparative statistics, secondary, North and South, 412-413.
Education, white, in South.
Of Mountaineers, 36, 37;
of Poor Whites, 44;
comparative statistics of seceding states, 237, 248, 294, 408-417;
of whole South, 241, 248, 295, 408-417;
on basis of white population, 295;
divergent views of need, 288;
tradition of culture, 289;
antebellum, 289-290;
postbellum, 290;
development of public schools, 291;
of secondary and higher systems, 292;
normal, 292;
comparative illiteracy, 292-294;
urban schools, 296;
rural schools, 296-299;
rural superintendence, 299;
secondary, 299;
of women, 299, 301;
colleges, 300-303;
professional, 303;
influence of travel, 304;
hopeful conditions, 304, 306;
museums and art galleries, 304;
libraries, 305;
literature, 305;
historical societies, 305;
taxes, 306;
promotive associations, 306;
Northern aid, 306;
federal aid, 307;
standard, 339.
Electric railroads in South, 227.
Eliot, C. W.
On South and Union, 5;
on education in South, 288.
Emancipation, Southern belief in impoverishing effect of, 86, 219.
Eyre, J. E., and negro insurrection, 98.
F
Family life, negro, 116, 324.
Farming. _See_ Agriculture, Cotton.
Fenwick's Island, inhabitants of, 107.
Fernandina as port, 229.
Fertilizing in cotton culture, 253.
Fifteenth Amendment.
Reason for, 175, 376;
present South and, 345.
_See also_ Suffrage.
Fisheries, Southern, 225.
Fisk University, founding of, 309.
Fitzgerald, Ga.
Northern community, 49;
Negroes excluded, 167, 358.
Flaxseed, Southern crop, 251.
Fleming, W. H., on remedy of race problem, 342, 345.
Florida.
And immigration, 52;
leasing of convicts, 201;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Forests, Southern wealth, 22;
221-223;
lumbering and advancement of Mountaineers, 36;
lumbering and Poor Whites, 45;
efforts for forest reserve, 223;
naval stores, 223.
Fourteenth Amendment, enforcement of, and race problem, 347.
Freedmen's Bureau and negro education, 309.
Frontier life of Southern Mountaineers, 23, 33, 37.
G
Gadsden, on South and immigration, 53.
Gallagher peonage case, 280.
Galveston.
As port, 22, 233;
rivalry with New Orleans, 228;
lecture courses, 305.
Gambling, negro, 189.
Garner, J. W.
On agitation of race question, 341;
on legislative remedy of problem, 381;
on negro education and crime, 387.
General Education Board, and Southern education, 300, 306, 307, 390;
and negro schools, 322.
Georgia.
Loss of natives, 47;
valuations, 238;
rural police, 384;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Georgia, University of, standing of, 302.
Ginning of cotton, 259, 274.
Glenn, G. R., on negro capability, 326.
Goldsboro, Fla., negro community at, 142.
Gonzales, N. G., murder of, 185.
Grady, H. W.
On race problem, 69, 151;
on Lincoln, 85;
on faithfulness of slaves in war time, 139;
on race separation, 356.
Graham, Jeffrey, case of descendants of, 156.
Graves, J. T.
On negro advancement, 140, 345, 368, 376;
on negro segregation, 355;
on terrorizing Negroes, 359;
on legal terror, 364.
Greenville, Miss., as trade center, 26.
Griffin, A. P. C., bibliographies of, on negro question, 8.
H
Hammond, Judge, on white duties in race problem, 392.
Hampton, Wade, on coöperation with Negroes, 388.
Hampton Institute.
Opposition, 317;
influence, 319;
justification, 333;
basis of success, 334;
conferences, 389.
Hardy, J. C., on training of cotton laborers, 274.
Harris, J. C., as writer, 305.
Hay, comparative value of Southern crop of, 241, 251.
Hayti, Negroes in, 98.
Health.
Southern, 25;
negro death-rate, 107-110;
mulatto, 111.
Helms, Glenny, peonage case, 284.
Hermitage plantation, 254.
Hill, W. B., and negro development, 179.
Hill Billies, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Historical societies, Southern, 305.
History.
Southern attitude, 80-90;
separate, of antebellum South, 80;
Southern adherence to traditional views, 81;
Cavalier myth, 81;
belief in antebellum prosperity, 82;
and in advantages of slavery to Negroes, 83;
present attitude towards Civil War, 84-85, 88;
towards Reconstruction, 85-88;
towards post-Reconstruction times, 89, 218.
Hoffman, F. L.
"Race traits," 10;
on negro death-rate, 107-108;
on negro physical inferiority, 132.
Home life. _See_ Family life.
Horseback riding in South, 23.
Hotels.
Race separation in South, 170;
improvement of Southern, 227.
Houses.
Of Mountaineers, 34, 36;
of Poor Whites, 43;
negro farm, 115, 254-256.
Houston, progress, 29.
Howell, Clark.
Gubernational campaign, 173;
on progress of South, 247, 248.
I
Idaho, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Illinois, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
Illiteracy.
Comparative Southern, 237, 292;
negro, 293, 320;
decreasing, 293-294.
_See also_ Education.
Immigration, foreign.
And South, 50-58;
foreign population of South, 50;
and antebellum South, 51;
Southern encouragement, 51;
South Carolina's experiment, 52, 56;
foreign groups in South, 53, 56-57;
obstacles, 54-56;
and negro question, 57;
and cotton laborers, 264, 267;
not remedy of race problem, 353;
and peonage, 353;
and crude labor, 374;
comparative statistics of foreign population, North and South, 398-399.
Indian question, 76.
Indian Territory, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
Indiana.
Colonization of Negroes in, 112;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Indianapolis.
Negro question, 112;
negro schools, 313.
Indianola, Miss., incident of negro postmistress in, 171.
Industrial education of Negro.
Hampton and Tuskegee. 319;
public, 332;
versus academic, 332-334;
dangers, 334.
Industry. _See_ Agriculture, Business, Commerce, Forests, Labor,
Manufactures, Mining, Wealth.
Insane, comparative statistics of, North and South, 406-407.
Iowa, comparative, statistics of, 397-417.
Iron, Southern mining and manufacture of, 25, 224.
Italians in South, 53, 56-57, 272, 281.
J
Jackson, Miss., capitol at, 27.
Jacksonville as port, 22.
Jamaica, Negroes in, 98.
Jefferson, Thomas, and colonization of Negroes, 350.
Jim Crow cars, 168-171.
Johnson, E. A., on race antagonism, 160.
Jones, T. G., and peonage, 282, 286.
Jones, Tom, Negro, lynched, 213.
Jonesville, La., Dayton plantation near, 255.
Jury duty, Negroes and, 203.
Juvenile criminals in South, 202;
comparative statistics of delinquents, 406-407;
of reform schools, 416-417.
K
Kansas.
Negro migration, 112;
comparative statistics, 395-415.
Kelsey, Carl.
"Negro Farmer," 17;
on negro immorality, 134, 135.
Kentucky.
Liquor manufacture, 225;
problem of negro education, 307;
taxation for negro schools, 329;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Kowaliga, Ala., negro community at, 141.
Ku-Klux Klan, evil of, 87.
L
Labor.
Of Poor Whites, 45;
in cotton mills, 45, 275;
foreign and negro, 55, 57;
white, on cotton plantations, 57, 255, 262, 264, 267;
negro, in North, 100;
negro, in South, 120-131;
Negroes and gospel of work, 120;
Negroes and unskilled, 120;
white control of negro, 121;
willingness of blacks, 121-124;
negro managers, 123;
negro domestic servants, 124-127;
blacks as farm laborers, 127;
skilled negro, 127, 225, 370;
unions and negro, 128, 370;
whipping on plantations, 194;
manufacture of iron, 224;
influence of Southern, on comparative wealth, 232, 235, 246, 247, 277;
system on cotton plantation, 254, 257, 261;
cotton hands, 261-277;
character, on cotton plantation, 263;
child, in South, 264;
cotton renters, croppers, and wage hands, 265-266;
instability of negro, 266;
negro monopoly of cotton culture, 267, 277;
necessity of training of cotton hands, 267, 273, 274;
negro complaints, 267;
advance system and its effect, 268-273;
peonage in South, 278-287;
postbellum vagrant laws, 279;
Negroes as peasants, 374-376;
immigration and crude, 374;
comparative statistics of manufacturing wages, North and South,
404-405.
_See also_ Immigration.
Lake Charles, La., Northerners at, 48.
Lake City, S. C., attack on negro postmaster at, 171.
Lamar, L. Q. C., on coöperation with Negroes, 388.
Land, negro ownership of, and uplift, 144, 372-374.
Lanier, Sidney, as writer, 305.
Lawyers, negro, 130, 335.
Lead in South, 224.
Leadership in South.
Antebellum, 59;
postwar changes, 60-62;
social, 62;
business, 62;
political, 63;
homogeneity, 63;
tone, 64;
Negroes and negro leaders, 130, 379.
Leasing of convicts in South, 201, 286.
Lee, S. D., on negro labor, 121.
Legislation as remedy of race problem, 381-385.
Leland University, founding of, 309.
Leonard. John, negro settlement started by, 141.
Liberia, failure of, 96-97, 350.
Libraries in South, 305.
Lien loans on cotton plantations, 268.
Lilywhite Republicans, 173.
Lincoln, Abraham.
Minor's "Real Lincoln," 85;
Grady on, 85;
and colonization of Negroes, 350.
Liquor. _See_ Drink.
Literature.
Southern, 305;
negro, 325.
Little River, plantations on, 255.
Lockhart, Texas, peonage case, 280.
London, murders in, 184.
Louisiana.
Immigration, 52, 56, 57;
school system, 292;
illiteracy, 293;
negro illiteracy, 294;
rural schools, 299:
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Louisville, tobacco manufacture in, 225;
schools, 296.
Louisville _Courier-Journal_.
On South and immigration, 48.
Lower South, extent, 20.
_See also_ South.
Lumber. _See_ Forests.
Lynching.
Cutler's researches, 208;
origin and early practice, 208;
proportion. North and South, 209, 210;
not confined to cases of rape, 209, 362;
methods of lynchers, 210;
mistakes, 211;
conduct of officials, 211;
and of militia, 212;
justified, 212;
reasons for practice, race hostility, 213-215;
suggestion of legalization, 215;
as remedy for race problem, 361-364;
reduction, 364.
M
McDonogh, John, educational bequest by, 289.
McKinley, William, price of wheat and election of, 261.
_Macon Telegraph_ on Northern criticism, 243.
Madison, Ga., popular hysteria in, on negro question, 164.
Magic, negro belief in, 137.
Malaria in South, 25.
_Manufacturers' Record._
On immigration, 54;
on Southern wealth, 242, 243;
on wealth in cotton, 250;
opposition to Northern educational aid, 307;
on Atlanta riots. 390.
Manufactures of South, 24, 224-225;
cheap power, 26, 225;
cotton, 45, 274-276;
importation of aliens, 52;
comparative statistics, North and South, 237, 238, 276, 404-405.
Marriage. _See_ Miscegenation.
Maryland.
And South, 20;
problem of negro education, 307, 329;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Massachusetts and school tax, 329.
Mean Whites, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Medicine.
Negro physicians, 129, 335;
schools in South, 303.
Memphis, progress, 242.
Methodist Church.
Negro, 117;
educational commission of Southern, 300.
Michigan, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Military service, negro, 129.
Militia and lynchings, 212.
Miller, Kelly.
On Dixon, 10;
as writer, 15, 325;
on race antagonism, 160;
on negro advancement, 368, 371.
Mining in South. 24, 224.
Minnesota, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Minor, C. L. C.
On Negroes under slavery, 83;
"Real Lincoln," 85.
Miscegenation, 151-154;
and principle of social inequality, 154, 156;
prohibition of marriage, 155;
white exclusion of mulattoes, 156;
remedy, 157;
and calamity of amalgamation, 157.
Mississippi.
Postbellum vagrant laws, 168;
negro voters, 176;
valuations, 238;
illiteracy, 294,
school statistics, 295;
lynchings, 363;
comparative statistics, 395-415.
Missouri.
And South, 20;
illiteracy, 292;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Mitchell, S. C., and negro development, 179, 345.
Mitchell Co., N. C., Negroes excluded from, 166.
Mobile.
As port, 22, 229;
progress, 28.
Monroe, La., as trade center, 26.
Montana, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Montgomery, founder of negro community, 141.
Montgomery, Ala., progress, 29.
Morals.
Mountaineer, 35;
poor white, 43;
negro, 108-109, 134-137;
mulatto, 112;
miscegenation, 151-157.
_See also_ Crime.
Morristown, Tenn., treatment of Negroes in, 167.
Mound Bayou, Miss., negro community at, 141.
Mt. Moriah, Ala., school at, 297.
Mountaineers, Southern, as frontiersmen, 23, 33, 37;
conditions, 30-38;
uniqueness, 30;
region, 31;
descent, 31-33;
self-sustenance, 32;
lowest type, "boomer," 33-35;
higher type, 35;
advancement, 35-38;
crime, 37;
and negro question, 38;
as laborers in cotton mills, 275;
Northern aid for education, 306.
Mulattoes.
And negro "race traits," 102;
proportion, 110-111;
physique, 111;
character, 112;
social position, 112, 156, 339;
and private negro schools, 316;
literature, 325.
Murders.
Proportion in South, 84;
varieties, 185;
of Negroes by Whites, 195-196;
conduct of trials, 198;
lynchings for, 209, 362.
Murphy, E. G.
"Present South," 13;
on democratic development, 65;
on race problem, 69, 79, 345;
on South and Northern criticism, 73;
on survival of Negroes, 109;
on race association, 150;
and negro development, 179;
on Poor Whites, 293;
on Negro academic training, 331.
Museums, Southern, 304.
N
Nashua, N. H., manufacturing output of, 276.
National banks, comparative statistics of, North and South, 402-403.
_See also_ Banking.
Naval stores, Southern, 223.
Nebraska.
Illiteracy, 292;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
"Negro a Beast," 11.
Negroes.
Writers, 14-17, 325;
periodicals, 18;
of Sea Islands, 22, 107, 110, 137, 142;
effect of urban life, 27, 114;
and Mountaineers, 38;
and foreign immigration, 55, 57;
temperament of Northern and Southern, 74;
present attitude of North on question, 75;
Northern responsibility and interest in question, 75-79;
persistence of question, 77;
necessity of solution, 78;
Southern belief in benefits of slavery, 83, 341;
character, 91-105;
population, 91, 106, 397-399;
names for, 91;
white generalizations on, 92;
character and capability in Africa, 94-96;
failure of Liberia, 96-97, 350;
conditions in West Indies, 97-99;
in North, 99-101;
question of inferiority, 101-105, 339;
"race traits," 101, 110;
lack of opportunity, 103;
and white standards, 103;
arrested development, 104, 326;
irresponsibility, 104;
life, 106-119;
diffusion, 106;
ruralness, 107;
survival and death-rate, 107-110;
divergent types, 110;
proportion and character of mulattoes, 110-112;
Northward drift, 112, 354;
white ignorance of negro life, 114, 124, 340, 391;
investigations of life, 114;
rural houses, 115;
family life, 116, 324;
amusements, 116;
religious life, 117, 380;
secret societies, 118;
as managers, 123;
and military service, 129;
as business and professional men, 129-130, 335;
attitude towards leaders, 130, 379;
conferences, 131, 389;
question of advancement, 132-148;
physical structure and inferiority, 132-134;
morality, 134-137;
not retrograding, 137, 143;
morals under slavery, 138;
faithfulness during Civil War, 139;
evidences of advancement, 139-142;
communities, 141;
proportion of uplift, 143, 146, 339, 368-369;
accumulation of property, 143-148;
savings, 143, 376;
real estate, 144-145, 372-374;
and tax-paying, 147;
race association, 149-165;
problem of association, 149-151;
miscegenation, 151-157;
remedy for it, 157;
position of mulattoes, 156, 339;
evil of amalgamation, 157, 349;
growth of race antagonism, 158-161, 216, 340, 389;
white fear of negro domination, 160, 172;
Negroes on race antagonism, 160;
basis of antagonism, 161;
question of social equality, 162-165, 340;
race separation, 166-180, 356-358;
exclusion from settlements, 166;
increasing segregation, 167;
quarters in cities, 167;
church separation, 167;
postbellum vagrant laws, 168, 279;
discrimination in travel, 168-171;
and public positions, 171-174, 377;
disfranchisement, 174-178, 347-348, 376-377;
white suppression of development, 178-180, 370-371;
illustrations of white antagonism, 181-183;
rough language by Whites, 194;
and present vagrant laws, 200;
and jury duty, 203;
testimony, 203;
race riots, 205-207;
thriftlessness, 271;
and newspapers, 324;
summary of race problem, 338-341;
race separation and principle of equality, 339, 344;
perpetual inferiority and subjection, 339, 340, 343, 344;
agitation against, 341;
postulates as to possible remedies of race problem, 343-346;
wrong remedies, 347-366;
no help from Congress, 347-348;
nor from Northern propaganda, 348;
nor from colonization 350-352;
nor from substitution of white laborers, 352-354;
nor from segregation, 354-358;
terrorizing as remedy 358-366;
material and political remedies, 367-377;
advantage to Whites in negro uplift, 371, 373;
as peasant class, 374-376;
moral remedies, 378-394;
influence of race separation on uplift, 378-381, 388-391;
suggestion of socialistic control over, 379;
need of equitable vagrant laws, 383;
special courts, 383;
and prohibition, 384;
necessity of discussion of race problem, 389;
essentials of remedy, 392-394;
comparative statistics of insane and paupers, North and South, 406-407.
_See also_ Cotton, Crime, Education, Labor, Lynching, Peonage, Whites.
Nevada, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
New Hampshire, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
New Mexico, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
New Orleans.
As port, 22, 233;
population and trade, 28;
foreign population, 51;
negro population, 107;
negro morality, 108;
rivalry with Galveston, 228;
belt line, 228;
progress, 242;
McDonogh bequest, 289;
discontinuance of negro high school, 315.
New York City, murders in, 184.
Newport News as port, 229, 233.
Newspapers. _See_ Press.
Niagara Movement, 389.
Nixburg, Ala., negro community near, 141.
No 'Count, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Norfolk, Va. As port, 22, 229, 233;
Mrs. Douglass' negro school, 309.
Normal schools in South.
Development, 292;
comparative statistics, 296, 416-417.
_See also_ Teachers.
North.
Extent, 1;
Northerners in South, 48-50;
position of Southerners in, 49;
Southern suspicion, 71, 73, 89;
Southern belief in hostility, 74;
present attitude on race problem, 75;
responsibility and interest in problem, 75-79;
condition of Negroes in, 99-101;
negro drift, 112, 354;
crime, 183;
idea of crime in South, 184;
criminal spirit in, and in South, 197-199;
lynching in, 209, 210;
comparative wealth (_see_ Wealth);
aid for Southern white education, 306;
for negro education, 315-317, 322;
and solution of Southern race problem, 345, 347-349, 391;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
North Carolina.
And immigration, 52;
and Mecklenburg Declaration, 81;
early negro suffrage, 175;
comparative statistics, 397-117.
North Carolina, University of.
Founding, 290;
standing, 302.
North Dakota.
School statistics, 295;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Norwood, T. M., generalization by, on Negroes, 93.
O
Oak Grove, Ala., negro school at, 312.
Oats, comparative value of crops of, 241.
Odum, H. W., negro researches by, 114.
Ogden, R. C., and Southern Education Board, 306, 390.
Oklahoma.
And South, 20;
comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Onancock, Va., banishment of Negroes from, 206.
Opelika, Ala., public buildings in, 27.
Open-air life in South, 23, 25.
Oregon, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
_Outlook_, articles in, on Southern question, 18.
P
Pace, J. W., peonage case, 282.
Page, T. N.
"Negro," 12;
on educational value of slavery, 83;
on failure of Negro, 101;
on negro immorality, 134;
on race antagonism, 150;
on negro capability, 326, 368;
on evils of negro education, 327;
on white dominance, 343;
on negro court, 383;
on mutual discussion of race problem, 391;
on need of negro uplift, 392.
Panama Canal and Southern commerce, 22.
Pardon of criminals in South, 203.
Paupers, comparative statistics of, North and South, 406-107.
Peabody fund, 322.
Peasant class, Negroes as, 374-376.
Penn School in Sea Islands, 316.
Pensacola as port, 22, 229.
Pensions, Southern income, 234.
Peonage.
And immigration, 56, 353;
in South, 278-287;
rise, 278;
federal law against, 278;
principle, 279;
development in cotton culture, 279;
of Whites, 280-281;
restraint of movements of Negroes, 281-282;
of Negroes under cover of laws, 282-283, 365;
illustrations, 283-285;
federal prosecutions, 285;
Southern approval, 286;
federal investigation, 286;
and leasing of convicts, 286;
and negro shiftlessness, 287.
Percy, Leroy.
On remedy of race problem, 343, 345;
on negro education, 387.
Pests, Southern, 25.
Petroleum in South, 225.
Philadelphia, negro mortality in, 107.
Phosphates in South, 225.
Physical conditions of South, 20-29;
swamps, 221.
Physicians, negro, 129, 335.
Physique, negro, and inferiority, 132-134.
Plantation.
Application of term, 253-255;
present types, 255-256.
_See also_ Agriculture, Cotton.
"Plow" division of farms, 264.
Poe, E. A., as Southern writer, 305.
Police.
Treatment of Negroes, 196;
need of rural, 211, 382, 384.
Politics.
Southern leadership, 63;
cause and effect of Solid South, 72, 173, 174;
colonization of Negroes in Indiana, 112;
Negroes and public positions, 171-174, 377;
Negroes and Republican party in South, 173;
negro suffrage, 174-178, 347-348, 376-377.
Poor Whites.
Traditional home, 21;
conditions, 38-47;
names for, 38;
diffusion, 38;
antebellum isolation, 38-41;
and Civil War, 40;
as farmers, 41, 45, 46;
advancement, 41-47;
morals, 43;
education, 44, 293;
as wage earners, 44-45;
in cotton mills, 45, 275;
northward and westward drift, 46;
term a misnomer, 47;
turbulence, 64;
and Southern problem, 344;
need of uplift, 375.
Population.
Southern urban, 28;
of South, 30;
Southern, of Northern birth, 48;
foreign, in South, 50;
negro, 91, 106;
negro death-rate, 107-110;
Southern agricultural, 221;
comparative statistics, North and South, 397-399.
Ports of the South, 22, 28, 228-229, 233.
Portsmouth, Va., as port, 229, 233.
Post-office.
Negro employees, 171, 172;
need of Postal Savings Banks in South, 376.
Potatoes, comparative value of crop of, 241.
Press, Southern.
Character, 70;
negro journalists, 130, 324;
Negroes and newspapers, 324.
Price.
Of farm lands, 220;
of cotton, 252.
Prisons in South, 201;
reform, 202;
comparative statistics of prisoners, 406-407.
Professions.
Negroes in, 129, 335;
schools in South, 292, 303.
Prohibition as remedy of race problem, 384.
Property. _See_ Land, Taxation, Wealth.
Protestant Episcopal Church and race separation, 167.
Pulaski Co., Ga., increasing negro population of, 167.
Pullman Car Co. and Jim Crow cars, 169.
R
Race. _See_ Negroes, Remedies, Whites.
Railroads of South.
Race separation, 168-171;
development, 226-227;
New Orleans belt road, 228;
control, 229;
comparative mileage of seceding states, 237;
of whole South, 248.
Rape, negro, of white women, 191-193;
early examples, 208;
lynching not confined to, 209, 362;
not on increase, 209;
and justification of lynching, 213, 214.
Real estate, negro, 144-145.
Reclamation of Southern swamps, 221.
Reconstruction.
Present Southern attitude, 85-88;
Ku-Klux, 87;
and race antagonism, 159;
negro suffrage, 175, 376;
educational measures, 292, 310.
Red Necks, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Reed, J. C.
On Dixon, 9;
on Negroes under slavery, 83;
on Ku-Klux, 87;
on negro segregation, 355.
Religion.
Of Mountaineers, 35;
of Negroes in Africa, 94;
negro, in South, 117, 129;
question of negro paganism, 137;
race separation, 167;
training of Southern ministers, 303;
Church and race problem, 380.
Remedies of race problem.
Summary of problem, 338-340;
essential conditions, 340;
types of altitude of Southern Whites, 340-343;
postulates, 343-345;
division of Whites, 345-346, 391;
wrong, 347-366;
no Congressional interference, 347-348;
no Northern private propaganda, 348;
no amalgamation, 349;
no colonization, 350-352;
no substitutes for negro laborers, 352-354;
no segregation, 354-356;
possibility of race separation, 356-358;
terrorizing, 358-366;
legalized terror, 364;
material, 367-376;
possibility and permission of general negro uplift, 367-372;
land-buying by Negroes, 372-374;
Negroes as peasants, 374-376;
aids for thrift, 376;
political, 376-377;
moral, 378-394;
influence of race separation, 378-381;
character of negro leaders, 379;
benevolent state socialism, 379;
influence of Church, 380;
legislative and judicial, 381-385;
negro education, 385-388;
need of race coöperation and discussion, 388-391;
last analysis of problem, 392-394;
white duties, 392;
patience, 392-394.
Renters on cotton plantations, 256, 266.
Restaurants, race separation in, in South, 170.
Rhett, Barnwell, Northern education of, 290.
Rice as Southern crop, 251.
Richmond.
Race separation, 167;
tobacco manufacture, 225;
progress, 242.
_Richmond Times Despatch_ on immigration, 54.
"Riders" on cotton plantations, 258, 263.
Riots, race, 205-208, 390.
Roads, Southern, 227.
Roosevelt, Theodore.
Booker Washington incident, 162;
and appointment of Negroes, 171, 174;
rewards faithful state official, 211;
on lynchings, 363.
Rural life.
Open-air life, 23, 25;
preponderance in South, 27-29;
negro propensity, 107;
police, 221, 382, 384;
schools, 296-299, 311-313;
relative lack of progress, 242.
_See also_ Agriculture.
Russell, C. W., on peonage, 286.
S
St. Louis, schools in, 296.
Salisbury, N. C., lynching in, 210.
Sand Hillers, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Santo Domingo, Negroes in, 99.
Savannah as port, 22, 28, 229.
Savings banks, need of, in South, 376.
Saxons, Taine on, 102.
Sea Islands, 22;
Negroes of, 107, 110, 137, 142;
trucking, 220;
cotton, seed trust, 252;
ginning and bagging of cotton, 259;
war-time negro schools, 309;
present education, 316.
Secession, present Southern attitude toward, 84.
Secondary education.
Development of Southern, 292, 299;
comparative statistics, North and South, 296, 412-413;
negro, 314;
hostility to negro, 319, 335.
Secret societies, negro, 118.
Shannon, A. H.
"Racial Integrity," 12;
on mulattoes, 111.
Shipp, J. F., and lynching, 212.
Shreveport.
Public buildings, 27;
Italians at, 57.
Shufeldt, R. W., "Negro a Menace," 8.
Sinclair, W. A. "Aftermath of Slavery," 15;
as writer, 325.
Slater fund, 322.
Slavery.
Effect on South, 2;
and Southern attitude towards history, 80;
traditional belief in prosperity under, 82, 218;
and in benefit to Negro, 83, 341;
domestic servants, 126;
negro morals under, 138;
personal race association under, 158;
chattel, and leasing of convicts, 201;
in Philippines, 279;
and education of Negroes, 308.
_See also_ Peonage.
Smith, Hoke.
Gubernatorial campaign, 173;
on negro education, 329;
on white control over Negroes, 341.
Smith, W. B.
"Color Line," 13;
on South and outside public opinion, 77;
on negro inferiority, 133;
apology for lynching, 363.
Social life in South.
Open-air, 23;
of Northerners, 49;
leadership, 59-62;
character, 62;
crudeness of behavior, 64;
democratic uplift, 65;
of Negroes in North, 100;
miscegenation and social inequality of Negroes, 154, 156;
exclusion of mulattoes, 156;
question of negro equality, 162-165, 340;
race equality and negro officials, 171;
negro homes, 324.
Socialism and race problem, 379.
Solid South, cause and effect of, 72.
South.
As part of Union, 1-3;
individuality, 2, 30;
author's preparation for judging, 3-6;
materials on, 7-19;
physical conditions, 20-29;
extent, 20;
physical divisions, 20-22;
Black Belt, 21;
forests, 22;
climate, 24;
mining, 24;
pests, 25;
health, 25;
architecture, 26, 304;
rural preponderance, 27-29;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
_See also_ Agriculture, Cities, Civil War, Commerce, Cotton, Crime,
Education, History, Immigration, Labor, Leadership, Manufactures,
Negroes, Peonage, Politics, Population, Reconstruction, Remedies,
Slavery, Social life, Wealth, Whites.
_South Atlantic Monthly_ and discussion of race problem, 390.
South Carolina.
Loss of natives, 47;
immigration experiment, 52, 56;
postbellum vagrant laws, 168;
murders in, 184;
valuations, 238;
cotton manufactures, 275, 276;
peonage in, 284;
illiteracy, 293;
school statistics, 295;
rural police, 384;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
South Dakota, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
Southern Education Association and negro education, 327.
Southern Education Board, 300, 306, 390.
"Southern South," meaning of term, 6.
Spartanburg, water-power in, 26.
Spencer, Samuel, and immigration, 52.
Springfield, Ill., race riot in, 207.
Springfield, Ohio, race riot in, 207.
_Statistical Abstract_, data from, 235, 243.
Steamboat, race separation on Southern, 169.
Stock, Southern, 251.
Stone, A. H.
Studies of negro question, 17;
on foreign and negro cotton hands, 58;
on negro accumulation of property, 146;
on lien loans, 268.
Stone and Webster, and electric power and transportation, 227.
Straight University, founding of, 309.
Street railways.
Race separation on Southern, 170;
inter-urban trolleys, 227.
Suffrage.
Northern distrust of negro, 100;
effect of disfranchisement on negro leadership, 131;
negro, 174-175;
negro disfranchisement, 175-177, 345;
reason for disfranchisement, 178;
enforcement of Fourteenth Amendment, 347;
federal control of elections, 348.
Sugar, Southern crop of, 251.
Sugar beets, Southern crop of, 251.
Sulphur in South, 225.
Sulu Archipelago, slavery in, 279.
Sunny Side.
Italian labor at, 57;
plantation, 256;
alleged peonage case, 281.
Superstitions, negro, 138.
Swamps, Southern, 25;
reclamation of, 221.
Syracuse, Ohio, Negroes excluded from, 166.
T
Taine, H. A., on Saxons, 102.
Talassee, school at, 297.
Talladega, school at, 389.
Tar Heels, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Taxation.
Negroes and, 147, 330;
assessment valuations as comparison of Southern wealth, 235;
comparative valuations of seceding states, 236;
of whole South, 239-241, 244, 248, 400-401;
on basis of white population, 246;
ante- and post-bellum valuation in South, 237;
school, in South, 295, 306;
burden of, for negro schools, 328-331.
Teachers, Southern.
Of rural white schools, 298;
of negro schools, 310, 314, 320;
boycott of Northern, of negro schools, 316;
need of white, for colored schools, 385-387;
comparative statistics, North and South, 408-417.
Temperament of Southern Whites, 66-79;
difficulty in determining, 66;
emotionalism, 66, 164;
influence of race problem, 67-69, 74;
diversity on problem, 69-70;
impatience of dissent, 70, 72, 390;
suspicion of Northerners, 71, 73, 74, 89;
attitude towards criticism, 71-73, 243;
exaggeration, 73;
of Negroes, 74;
Whites, and outside interest in race problem, 75-79;
attitude towards history, 80-90, 218;
veneration for ancestors, 81.
Tennessee.
School statistics, 295;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Tensas River, plantations on, 255.
Testimony, negro, 203.
Texas.
Urban population, 29;
immigration from other states, 47;
foreign settlement, 53;
value of farms, 238;
school statistics, 248, 295, 306;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Texas, University of, standing of, 302.
Theft, Negroes and, 186.
Thomas, William Hannibal.
"American Negro," 15;
on negro morals, 134.
Thomas, William Holcombe.
On race association, 150;
on homicides, 197.
Thorsby, Ala., Northern community at, 49.
Tillman, B. R.
As political leader, 63;
anti-negro generalizations, 93;
on newly imported slaves, 110;
attitude on negro disfranchisement, 177;
on lynching, 213;
and race problem, 345, 359.
Tillman, J. H., killing of Gonzales by, 185.
Tobacco.
Southern manufacture, 224;
comparative value of crop, 241.
Toombs, Robert, on South under slavery, 82.
Trade. _See_ Commerce.
Transportation.
Race separation in South, 168-171;
Southern conditions, 226-230.
Trucking in South, 24, 220, 251.
Trudics peonage case, 280.
Tulane University, standing of, 300, 307.
Turner, H. M., on negro segregation, 355.
Turner peonage case, 284, 365.
Turpentine, Southern industry, 223.
Tuskegee Institute.
Conferences, 131, 389;
influence, 319;
number of students, 332;
opposition, 332;
basis of success, 334.
U
Union, South and, 1, 5.
Urban life. _See_ Cities.
Utah, comparative statistics of, 397-417.
V
Vagrant laws, Southern.
Postbellum, 168, 279;
present, 200;
need of equitable, 383.
Valdese, N. C., Italians at, 57.
Valdosta, Ga., negro teachers in, 314.
Vardaman, J. K.
As political leader, 63;
abuse of Negro, 72, 93;
on negro inferiority, 101;
on leasing convicts, 202;
pardons, 202;
opposition to negro education, 327, 371;
and race problem, 345;
on illegal control of Negroes, 365.
Venereal disease, Negroes and, 108.
Vermont.
School statistics, 295;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Vice. _See_ Morals.
Virginia.
And Hampton Institute, 317;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Virginia Coöperative Education Association, 306.
Virginia, University of.
Founding, 290;
standing of, 203.
W
Wage hands on cotton plantations, 265.
Wages. _See_ Labor, Teachers.
_Wanderer_, Negroes imported in, 110.
Washington, B. T.
Works on negro problem, 15;
negro hostility to, 130;
on acquiring land, 144, 372;
incident of lunch with Roosevelt, 162;
Dixon on, 180, 319, 332;
on South as home of Negro, 262, 355;
on treatment of cotton hands, 267;
influence of Tuskegee, 319;
as writer, 325;
as leader, 333, 334.
Washington, George, and fertilizing, 253.
Washington, State of, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
Watauga Co., N. C., Negroes excluded from, 166.
Water-power in South, 26, 225.
Waterways, Southern, 226.
Watson, T. E., on cry of negro domination, 160.
Watterson, Henry, on Southern wealth, 231.
Wealth, Southern.
Private, 62;
enlarged views, 89, 231, 247;
negro accumulation, 143-148;
actual, 218-230;
under slavery, 218;
postbellum poverty, 219;
recent great increase, 219;
agricultural, 220-221;
forests, 221-224;
mineral, 224;
in manufactures, 224-225:
capital and banking, 225;
commercial, 226-229, 233;
comparative, North and South, 231-249;
Southern claims considered, 232, 247, 249, 276, 338;
influence of labor conditions, 232, 235, 246, 247, 277;
pensions, 234;
proper basis for comparison, 234;
comparative tables, 234, 400-417;
materials for comparison, 235;
comparative, of seceding states, 236-239, 248;
of whole South, 239-245, 248;
on basis of white population, 246-247;
uneven advance of Southern, 242;
actual and comparative rate of Southern accumulation, 243-245.
West Indies, capacity of Negroes in, 97-99.
West Virginia.
And South, 20;
comparative statistics, 399-417.
Wheat.
As an export, 233;
Southern crop, 251;
price and election of McKinley, 261.
Whipping on plantations, 194.
White Trash, name for Poor Whites, 38.
Whitecapping, 195.
Whites, Southern.
Effect of city life, 27;
position of Northerners in South, 48-50;
small farmers, 60;
division on, and discussion of race problem, 67-72, 345-346, 391;
generalizations on Negroes, 92;
Southern exaltation, 102;
ignorance of negro life, 114, 124, 340, 391;
race association, 149-165;
problem of association, 149-151;
miscegenation, 151-157;
remedy for it, 157;
exclusion of mulattoes, 156;
evil of amalgamation, 157, 344, 349;
growth of race antagonism, 158-161, 216, 340, 389;
fear of negro domination, 160, 172;
Negroes on race antagonism, 160;
basis of prejudice, 161;
race separation, 160-180;
fear of negro social equality, 162-165, 340;
suppression of negro development by, 178-180;
illustration of race antagonism, 181-183;
responsibility for inefficient criminal justice, 203;
comparative wealth of South on basis of white inhabitants, 235, 246;
laborers on cotton plantations, 255, 262, 264, 267;
peonage of, 280-281;
advancement, 339;
domination, 339, 343;
perpetual superiority, 340;
violent agitation of race problem, 341;
despair over problem, 342;
to control settlement of problem, 344;
terrorizing of Negroes, 358-366;
advantages to, of negro uplift, 371, 373;
necessity of coöperation with Negroes, 388-391;
duties in problem, 392;
comparative statistics of population, 397-399.
_See also_ Crime, Education, History, Immigration, Leadership,
Mountaineers, Negroes, Poor Whites, Remedies, Social life,
Temperament.
Whittaker, assault by, 186.
Williams, G. W., "Negro Race in America," 14.
Williams, J. S.
On immigration, 51, 352;
senatorial campaign, 72;
on increasing race antagonism, 159, 361;
on basis of race prejudice, 161;
on remedy of race problem, 343, 394;
on negro emigration, 352;
on good conduct of negroes, 368;
on recognizing negro worth, 380;
on prevention of negro crimes, 382.
Wilmington, Del., lynching in, 210.
Wilmington, N. C.
As port, 22, 229;
banishment of Negroes, 206.
Winston, G. T.
On South, 5;
on negro criminality, 188;
on negro uplift, 371.
Wirz, Henry, statue to, 89.
Wisconsin.
School statistics, 295;
comparative statistics, 397-417.
Women.
Labor on cotton plantations, 265;
school education in South, 299;
college education, 301, 302.
Wool, Southern crop of, 251.
_World Almanac_, statistics from, 235, 248.
_World's Work_, articles in, on Southern question, 18.
"Worth, Nicholas."
"Autobiography," 18;
on Southerners and criticism, 72;
on Southern exaggeration, 73;
on historical ignorance, 83;
on race antagonism, 159;
on training cotton hands, 267.
Wyoming, comparative statistics of, 399-417.
Z
Zinc in South, 224.
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