These relations between landlord and tenant show much diversity, but certain conditions prevail everywhere. Few tenants can sustain themselves until the crop is gathered, and a very large percentage of them must eat and wear their crops before they are gathered—a circumstance which will create no surprise unless the reader makes the common error of thinking of them as capitalists. Though the landlord in effect takes his tenants into partnership, they are really only laborers, and few laborers anywhere are six or eight months ahead of destitution. How many city laborers, even those with skilled trades, could exist without credit if their wages were paid only once a year? How many of them would have prudence or foresight enough to conserve their wages when finally paid and make them last until the next annual payment? The fault for which the tenant is to be blamed is that he does not take advantage of two courses of action open to him: first, to raise a considerable part of the food he consumes; and second, to struggle persistently to become independent of the merchant. Thousands of tenants have achieved their economic freedom, and all could if they would only make an intelligent and continued effort to do so.

Nowhere else in the United States has the negro the same opportunity to become self-sustaining, but his improvidence keeps him poor. Too often he allows what little garden he has to be choked with weeds through his shiftlessness. One of the shrewdest observers and fairest critics of the negro, Alfred Holt Stone, says of the Mississippi negro: "In a plantation experience of more than twelve years, during which I have been a close observer of the economic life of the plantation negro, I have not known one to anticipate the future by investing the earnings of one year in supplies for the next....The idea seems to be that the money from a crop already gathered is theirs, to be spent as fancy suggests, while the crop to be made must take care of itself, or be taken care of by the 'white-folks.'"[1] This statement is not so true of the negroes of the Upper South, many of whom are more intelligent, and have developed foresight and self-reliance.

[Footnote 1: Stone. Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 188]

The theory that there is an organized conspiracy over the whole South to keep the negro in a state of peonage is frequently advanced by ignorant or disingenuous apologists for the negro, but this belief cannot be defended. The merchants usually prefer to sell for cash, and more and more of them are reluctant to sell on credit. In some cotton towns no merchant will sell on credit, and the landlord is obliged to furnish supplies to those who cannot pay. The landowners generally would much prefer a group of prosperous permanent tenants who could be depended upon to give some thought to the crop of the future as well as to that of the present. In the South as a whole the negro finds little difficulty in buying land, if he can make a moderate first payment. It is true that some are cheated by the merchant or the landlord. Prices charged for supplies are too high, and the prices credited for crops are too low, but the debtors are hardly swindled to a greater extent than the ignorant and illiterate elsewhere.

The condition of the white tenant is sometimes little better than that of the negro. He usually farms a larger tract, 83.8 acres on the average (in 1910), as against 39.6 acres for the negro, and he is on the whole more prosperous; but there are many who live from hand to mouth, move frequently, habitually get into debt to the merchant or the landlord, and have little or no surplus at settling time. In the South in 1910 there were 866,000 white tenant farmers who cultivated 20.5 per cent of all the land, and since that time white tenancy has been increasing. The increase of land ownership is greater among the negroes than among the whites, who are in many cases illiterates. This illiteracy is one cause of their poverty, but not the only cause: a part of it is moral, involving a lack of steadfast purpose, and a part is physical. The researches conducted by the United States Government, the state boards of health, and the Rockefeller Foundation show clearly that much of the indolence charged to the less prosperous Southern rural whites is due to the effect of the hookworm, a tiny intestinal parasite common in most tropical and subtropical regions and probably brought from Africa or the West Indies by the negro. The Rockefeller Foundation is now spending nearly $300,000 a year in financing, wholly or in part, attempts to eradicate the disease in eight Southern States and in fifteen foreign countries.

The parasite enters the body from polluted soil, usually through the feet, as a large part of the rural population goes barefoot in the summer; it makes its way to the intestinal canal, where it fixes itself, grows, and lays eggs which are voided and hatch in the soil. Since most country districts are without sanitary closets, reinfection may occur again and again, until an individual harbors a host of these tiny bloodsuckers, which interfere with his digestion and sap his vitality. It is now believed that the morbid appetites of the "clay eaters" are due to this infection. The fact that the negro who introduced the curse is less susceptible to the infection and is less affected by it than the white man is one of life's ironies.

There is a brighter side to this picture, however. Of all the cultivated land in the South 65 per cent is worked by owners (white 60.6 per cent; colored 4.4 per cent) and this land is on the whole much better tilled than that let to tenants. It is true that some of the landowners are chronically in debt, burdened with mortgages and with advances for supplies. Some of them probably produce less to the acre than tenants working under close supervision, but the percentage of farms mortgaged is less in the South than in any other part of the country except the Mountain Division, and unofficial testimony indicates that few farms are lost through foreclosure.

For years the agricultural colleges and the experiment stations offered good advice to the Southern farmer, but they reached only a small proportion. Their bulletins had a small circulation and were so full of technical expressions as to be almost unintelligible to the average farmer. Recently the writers have attempted to make themselves more easily understood, and the usefulness of their publications has consequently increased. The bulletins of the Department of Agriculture are read in increasing numbers, and several agricultural papers have a wide circulation. The "farmer's institutes" where experts in various lines speak on their specialties are well attended, and the experimental farms to which few visitors came at first are now popular.

Two other agencies are doing much for agricultural betterment. One is the county demonstrator, and the other boys' and girls' clubs. Both are due to the foresight and wisdom of the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, of the United States Department of Agriculture. As early as 1903 Dr. Knapp had been showing by practical demonstration how the farmers of Texas might circumvent the boll weevil, which was threatening to make an end of cotton-growing in that State. He was able to increase the yield of cotton on a pest-ridden farm. The idea of the boys' corn club was not new when Dr. Knapp took it up in 1908 and made it a national institution. The girls' canning club was soon added to the list, and then came the pig club for boys and the poultry club for girls.

The General Education Board, which, with its large resources, had been seeking the best way to aid education in the South, was forced to the conclusion that any educational development must be preceded by economic improvement. The farm production of the South was less than that of other sections, and until this production could be increased, taxation, no matter how heavy, could not provide sufficient money for really efficient schools. After a study of the whole field of agricultural education, the ideas of Dr. Knapp were adopted as the basis of the work and, by arrangement with the Department of Agriculture, Dr. Knapp himself was placed in charge. The appropriations to the Department of Agriculture had been made for the extermination or circumvention of the boll weevil and could not be used for purely educational work in States where the weevil had not appeared. A division of territory was now made: the Department financed demonstration work in those States affected by the pest and the General Education Board bore the expense in the other States. Entire supervision of the work was in the hands of the Department of Agriculture, which made all appointments and disbursed all funds. The Board furnished funds but assumed no authority. The history issued by the General Education Board says: "Dr. Knapp endeavored to teach his hearers not only how to raise cotton and corn, but how to conduct farming as a business—how to ascertain the cost of a crop, how to find out whether they were making or losing money. As rapidly as possible the scope was broadened for the purpose of making the farmer more and more independent. He was stimulated to raise stock, to produce feed and forage for his stock, and to interest himself in truck gardening, hog-raising, etc."

The method used was to appoint county, district and state demonstration agents who would induce different farmers to cultivate a limited area according to specific directions. As these agents were appointed by the Department of Agriculture, the farmer was flattered by being singled out by the Government. In most cases the results of the experiments were far superior to those which the farmer had obtained merely by following tradition, and he usually applied the successful methods to his whole farm. Some of his neighbors, who visited the demonstration plot to scoff at the idea that any one in Washington could teach a farmer how to grow cotton or corn, were wise enough to recognize the improvement and to follow the directions. Every successful demonstration farm was thus a center of influence, and the work was continued after Dr. Knapp's death under the charge of his son, Bradford Knapp.

The idea of the boys' corn club was vitalized in 1908 by Dr. Knapp, who planned to establish a corn club in every neighborhood, with county and state organizations. Each boy was to cultivate a measured acre of land in corn, according to directions and keep a strict account of the cost. The work of his father, or of a hired man, in ploughing the land must be charged against the plot at the market rate. Manure, or fertilizer, and seed were likewise to be charged, but the main work of cultivation was to be done by the boy himself. The crop was to be measured by two disinterested witnesses who should certify to the result. Local pride was depended upon to furnish prizes for the county organization, but the most successful boys in every State were to be taken on a trip to Washington, there to shake hands with the Secretary of Agriculture and the President. This appeal to the imagination of youth was a master touch.

Thousands of boys were interested and achieved results which were truly startling. In every State the average yield from the boys' acres was larger than the state average, in some cases almost five times as great. One South Carolina boy produced on his acre in 1910 over 228 bushels, and in 1913 an Alabama boy reached high-water mark with nearly 233 bushels. Hundreds of boys produced over 100 bushels to the acre, and the average of the boys in South Carolina was nearly 69 bushels, compared with an average of less than 20 for the adult farmers. The pig clubs which followed have likewise been successful and have stimulated an interest in good stock and proper methods of caring for it. Many country banks have financed these operations by buying hogs by the carload and selling to the club members on easy terms.

Girls' canning clubs were organized by Dr. Knapp in 1910. Girls were encouraged to plant a tenth of an acre in tomatoes. Trained demonstrators then traveled from place to place and showed them how to use portable canning outfits. The girls met, first at one house and then at another, to preserve their tomatoes, and soon they began to preserve many other vegetables and fruits. Two girls in Tennessee are said to have preserved 126 different varieties of food. Some of these clubs have gained more than a local reputation for their products and have been able to sell their whole output to hotels or to institutions. Though the monetary gain has been worth something, the addition to the limited dietary of the homes has been worth more, and the social influence of these clubs has been considerable. The small farmer in the South is not a social being, and anything which makes for cooperation is valuable. The poultry clubs which were an extension of the canning club idea have been successful. The club idea, indeed, has been extended beyond the limits of the South. Congress, recognizing its value, has taken over and extended the work and has supported it liberally. Today market-garden clubs for the manufacturing cities, potato clubs, mother-and-daughter clubs, and perhaps others have grown out of the vision of Dr. Knapp.

Though these activities have had a great effect in improving the South, that section has not yet been transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm demonstrations, experiment stations, and boys' and girls' clubs, the stubborn inertia of a rural population fixed on the soil has only been shocked, not routed. Much land is barely scratched instead of being ploughed deep; millions of acres bear no cover crops but lose their fertility through the leaching of valuable constituents during the winter. Fertilizer is bought at exorbitant prices, while the richness of the barnyard goes to waste, and legumes are neglected; land is allowed to wash into gullies which soon become ravines. Farms which would produce excellent corn and hay are supplied with these products from the Middle West; millions of pounds of Western pork are consumed in regions where hogs can be easily and cheaply raised; butter from Illinois or Wisconsin is brought to sections admirably adapted to dairying; and apples from Oregon and honey from Ohio are sold in the towns. In several typical counties an average of $4,000,000 was sent abroad for products which could easily have been raised at home. In Texas some of the bankers have been refusing credit to supply merchants who do not encourage the production of food crops as well as cotton.[1]

[Footnote 1: An illuminating series of studies of rural life is being issued by the Bureau of Extension of the University of North Carolina.]

Throughout the South there are thousands of homes into which no newspaper comes, certainly no agricultural paper, and in which there are few books, except perhaps school books. The cooking is sometimes done with a few simple utensils over the open fire. Water must be brought from a spring at the foot of the hill, at an expenditure of strength and endurance. The cramped house has no conveniences to lighten labor or to awaken pride. The overworked wife and mother has no social life, except perhaps attendance at the services at the country church to which the family rides in a springless wagon. Such families see their neighbors prosper without attempting to discover the secret for themselves. Blank fatalism possesses them. They do not realize that they could prosper. New methods of cultivation, they think, are not for them since they have no capital to purchase machinery.

On the other hand, one sees more Ford cars than teams at many country churches, and many larger automobiles as well. Some Southern States are spending millions for better roads, and the farmer or his son or daughter can easily run into town in the afternoon carrying a little produce which more than pays for any purchases. Tractors are seen at work here and there, and agricultural machinery is under the sheds. Many houses have private water systems and a few farmers have harnessed the brooks for electric lights. The gas engine which pumps the water runs the corn sheller or the wood saw. The rural telephone spreads like a web over the countryside. Into these houses the carrier brings the daily or semi-weekly paper from the neighboring town, agricultural journals, and some magazines of national circulation; a piano stands in the parlor; and perhaps a college pennant or two hang somewhere, for many farm boys and girls go to college. In spite of the short terms of the public schools, many manage to get some sort of preparation for college, and in the South more college students come from farm homes than from town or city. This encouraging picture is true, no less than the other, and the number of such progressive farm homes is fortunately growing larger.

A greater range of products is being cultivated throughout the South, though more cotton and tobacco are being produced than ever before. The output of corn, wheat, hay, and pork has increased in recent years, though the section is not yet self-sufficient. The growing of early vegetables and fruits for Northern markets is a flourishing industry in some sections where land supposedly almost worthless has been found to be admirably adapted for this purpose. An increasing acreage in various legumes not only furnishes forage but enriches the soil. Silos are to be seen here and there, and there are some excellent herds of dairy cattle, though the scarcity of reliable labor makes this form of farming hazardous. The cattle tick is being conquered, and more beef is being produced. Thoroughbred hogs and poultry are common.

With the great rise in the price of the farmer's products since 1910, the man who farms with knowledge and method is growing prosperous. Farmers are taking advantage of the Federal Farm Loan Act and are paying off many mortgages. The necessity of asking for credit is diminishing, and men have contracted to buy land and have paid for it from the first crop. While the things the farmer must buy have risen in price, his products have risen even higher in value; and in those sections of the South suited to mixed farming there need be comparatively little outgo.

One is tempted to hope that the lane has turned for the Southern farmer. Partly owing to his ignorance and inertia, partly to circumstances difficult to overcome, his lot after 1870 was not easy, and from 1870 to 1910 is a full generation. An individual who grew to manhood on a Southern farm during that period may be excused for a gloomy outlook upon the world. He finds it difficult to believe that prosperity has arrived, or that it will last. The number who have been convinced of the brighter outlook, however, is increasing.



CHAPTER V

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

Though the Old South was in the main agricultural, it was not entirely destitute of industrial skill. The recent industrial development is really a revival, not a revolution, in some parts of the South. In 1810, according to Tench Coxe's semi-official Statement of Arts and Manufactures, the value of the textile products of North Carolina was greater than that of Massachusetts. Every farmhouse had spinning-wheels and one loom or several on which the women of the family spun yarn and wove cloth for the family wardrobe. On the large plantations negro women produced much of the cloth for both slaves and family. Except on special occasions, a very large proportion of the clothing worn by the average Southern community was of household or local manufacture. Hats were made of fur, wool, or plaited straw. Hides were tanned on the plantations or more commonly at a local tannery and were made into shoes by local cobblers, white or black.

Local cabinet-makers made furniture, all of it strong, and some of it good in line and finish. Many of the pieces sold by dealers in antiques in the great cities as coming from Europe by way of the South were made by cabinet-makers in Southern villages in the first half of the nineteenth century. Farm wagons as well as carriages with some pretensions to elegance were made in local shops. In fact, up to 1810 or 1820 it seemed that the logical development of one or two of the South Atlantic States would be into frugal manufacturing commonwealths. Few of the thousands of small shops developed into real manufacturing establishments, however, though many continued to exist. The belief in the profits apparently to be made from the cultivation of cotton and tobacco changed the ideals of the people. To own a plantation on which he might lead a patriarchal existence became the ambition of the successful man. Even the lawyer, the doctor, or the merchant was likely to own a plantation to which he expected to retire, if indeed he did not already live on it while he engaged in his other occupation. As the century went on, the section began to depend more and more upon other parts of the country or upon Europe to supply its wants, and general interest in Southern industries began to wane.

Textile establishments had appeared early in the century. The first cotton mill in North Carolina was built in 1810 and one in Georgia about the same time. Much of the machinery for the former was built by local workmen. Other mills were built in the succeeding years until in 1860 there were about 160 in the Southern States, with 300,000 spindles, and a yearly product worth more than $8,000,000. The establishments were small, less than one-third the average size of the mills in New England, and few attempted to supply more than the local demand for coarse yarn which the country women knit into socks or wove into cloth. The surplus was peddled from wagons in adjoining counties or even in a neighboring State. Little attempt was made to seek a wider outlet, and many of these mills could supply the small local demand by running only a few months in the year.

During the Civil War, however, these mills were worked to their full capacity. At the cessation of hostilities many mills were literally worn out; others were destroyed by the invading armies; and fewer were in operation in 1870 than before the War. During the next decade, hope of industrial success began to return to the South. The mills in operation were making some money; the high price of cotton had brought money into the section; and a few men had saved enough to revive the industry. Old mills were enlarged, and new mills were built. The number in operation in 1880 was about the same as in 1860, but the number of spindles was nearly twice as great.

The Cotton Exposition at Atlanta in 1881 and the New Orleans Exposition in 1884 gave an impetus to the construction of mills. There were prophecies of future success in the industry, though some self-appointed guardians of the South proved, to their own satisfaction at least, that neither the section nor the people were adapted to the manufacture of cotton and that all their efforts should be devoted to the production of raw material for the mills of New England. Difficulties were magnified and advantages were minimized by those whose interests were opposed to Southern industrial development, but the movement had now gained momentum and was not to be stopped. Timidly and hesitantly, capital for building mills was scraped together in dozens of Southern communities, and the number of spindles was doubled between 1880 and 1885 and continued to increase.

In developing this Southern industry there were many difficulties to be overcome, and mistakes were sometimes made. Seduced by apparent cheapness, many of the new mills bought machinery which the New England mills had discarded for better patterns, or because of a change of product. Operatives had to be drawn from the farms and needed to be trained not only to work in the mills but also to habits of regularity and punctuality. The New England overseers who were imported for this purpose sometimes failed in dealing with these new recruits to industrialism because of inability to make due allowance for their limitations. Accustomed to the truck system in agriculture, the managers often paid wages in scrip always good for supplies at the company store but redeemable in cash only at infrequent intervals. The operatives therefore sometimes found that they had exchanged one sort of economic dependence for another. Another difficulty was that a place for Southern yarn and Southern cloth had to be gained in the market, and this was difficult of accomplishment for the product was often not up to the Northern standard.

Managing ability, however, was found not to be so rare in the South as had been supposed. Some of the managers, drawn perhaps from the village store, the small town bank, or the farm, succeeded so well in the broader field that others were encouraged to seek similar industrial success. As the construction of new mills went on, the temper of the South Atlantic States began to change. The people began to believe in Southern industrial development and to be eager to invest their savings in something other than a land mortgage. An instalment plan by which the savings of the people, small individually but large in the aggregate, were united, furnished capital for mills in scores of towns and villages. In 1890 there were nearly a million and three-quarters spindles in the South compared with less than six hundred thousand ten years before.

It seemed as though nearly every mill was profitable, and the occasional failures did not seriously check the movement, which developed about 1900 almost into a craze in some parts of the South. In these sections every town talked of building one mill or more. The machine shops of the North, which had been cold or at least indifferent to Southern development, woke up, as Southern mills began to double or triple their equipment out of their profits. Agents were sent to the South to encourage the building of new mills, and to give advice and aid in planning them. The new mill-owners were good customers. They had learned wisdom by the mistakes of the pioneers, and they demanded the best machinery with all the latest devices. Long credit was now freely offered by Northern manufacturers of machinery, and some of them even subscribed for stock—to be paid, of course, in machinery.

The Northern textile manufacturers also woke up. They found that in coarse yarns the Southern mills were successfully competing with their products. Some pessimistic representatives of the industry in the North prophesied that the Southern mills would soon control the market. Some New England mills built branch mills in the South; some turned to the finer yarns; and some sought to throw obstacles in the way of their competitors. It has been freely charged by many Southerners that New England manufacturers bore the expense of labor organizers in an unsuccessful attempt to unionize the Southern mill operatives. It has also been charged that the propaganda for legislation restricting the hours of labor and the age of operatives in Southern mills was financed to some extent by New England manufacturers, and that the writers of the many lurid accounts purporting to describe conditions in Southern mills received pay from the same source.

The system of paying for stock on the instalment plan permitted the construction of many mills for which capital could not have been raised otherwise and had also certain distinct social consequences. According to this plan, the subscriptions to the stock were made payable in weekly instalments of 50 cents or $1.00 a share, thus requiring approximately two or four years to complete payment. Those having money in hand might pay in full, less six per cent discount for the average time. Since almost or quite a year was usually necessary to build the mill and the necessary tenements for the hands, the instalments more than paid this item of expense. The weekly receipts and the payments in full were kept in a local bank, which also expected future business and was therefore likely to be liberal when credit was demanded. Often the officers and directors of the bank were also personally interested in the new enterprise. The machinery manufacturers gave long credit and often took stock in the mill. Commission houses which sold yarns and cloth also took stock with the expectation of controlling the marketing of the product.

Many mills built on this plan were so profitable that they were able to pay for a considerable part of the machinery from the profits long before the last instalment was paid, and some even paid a dividend or two in addition. Such mills started operations with many things in their favor. The ownership was widely distributed, since it was not at all uncommon for a hundred thousand dollar mill to have a hundred or more stockholders, some of whom held only one or two shares. Further, since the amount of money paid in the immediate neighborhood for wages, fuel, and raw material was large, every one was disposed to aid the enterprise in every way possible. Town limits were often changed almost by common consent in order to throw a mill outside so that it would not be subject to town taxes. Where the state constitutions permitted, taxes on the mill were even remitted for a term of years. Where this could not be done, assessors were lenient and usually assessed mill property at much less than its real value.

Not only did some Northern corporations build branch mills in the South, but a considerable amount of Northern capital was invested in mills under the management of Southern men. It is of course impossible to discover the residence of every stockholder, but enough is known to support the assertion that the proportion of Northern capital is comparatively small. The greater part of the investment in Southern mills has come from the savings of Southern people or has been earned by the mills themselves. Lately several successful mills have been bought by large department stores and mail-order houses, in order to supply them with goods either for the counter directly or else for the manufacture of sheets, pillowcases, underwear, and the like. Marshall Field and Company of Chicago, for example, own several mills in North Carolina.

The mills of the South have continued to increase until they are now much more numerous than in the North. They are smaller in size, however, for in 1915 the number of spindles in the cotton-growing States was 12,711,000 compared with 19,396,000 in all other States. The consumption of cotton was nevertheless much greater in the South and amounted to 3,414,000 bales, compared with 2,770,000 bales in the other States. This difference is explained by the fact that Southern mills generally spin coarser yarn and may therefore easily consume twice or even three times as much cotton as mills of the same number of spindles engaged in spinning finer yarn. Some Southern mills, however, spin very fine yarn from either Egyptian or sea-island cotton, but time is required to educate a considerable body of operatives competent to do the more delicate tasks, while less skillful workers are able to produce the coarser numbers.

Southern mills have paid high dividends in the past and have also greatly enlarged their plants from their earnings. They had, years ago, several advantages, some of which persist to the present day. The cost of the raw material was less where a local supply of cotton could be obtained, since freight charges were saved by purchase in the neighborhood; land and buildings for plant and tenements cost less than in the North; fuel was cheaper; water power was often utilized, though sometimes this saving was offset by the cost of transportation; taxes were lower; the rate of wages was lower; there was little or no restriction of the conditions of employment; and there were comparatively few labor troubles.

With the great growth of the industry, however, some of these early advantages have disappeared. Many mills can no longer depend upon the local supply of cotton, and the freight charge from the Lower South is as high as the rate by water to New England or even higher; the transportation of the finished product to Northern markets is an additional expense; wages have risen with the growth of the industry and are approaching closely, if they have not reached, the rate per unit of product paid in other sections. The cost of fuel has increased, although in some localities the development of hydro-electric power has reduced this item. All the States have imposed restrictions upon the employment of women and children in the mills, particularly at night. On the other hand, taxes remain lower, the cost of building is less, and strikes and other forms of industrial friction are still uncommon. When well managed, the Southern mills are still extremely profitable, but margin for error in management has become less.

The Southern mills are chiefly to be found in four States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, and in the hill country of these States, though a few large mills are situated in the lowlands. North Carolina, with over three hundred mills, has more than any other State, North or South, and consumes more cotton than any other Southern State—over a million bales.

South Carolina, however, has more spindles, the average size of its mills is larger, and it spins more fine yarn. North Carolina is second only to Massachusetts in the value of its cotton products, South Carolina comes third, Georgia fourth, and Alabama eighth. Virginia and Tennessee are lower on the list. In quantity of cotton consumed, the cotton growing States passed all others in 1905; and in 1916 the consumption was twenty-five per cent greater, in spite of the fact that New England had been increasing her spindles. Some Southern mills are built in cities, but usually they are in the smaller towns and in little villages which have grown up around the mills and owe their existence to them. There is some localization of industry: a very large number of mills, for instance, may be found in a radius of one hundred miles from Charlotte, North Carolina, and one North Carolina county has more than fifty mills, though the total number of spindles in that county is not much greater than in some single New England establishment.

In the allied knitting industry the production of the South is increasing in importance. North Carolina led the South in 1914, with Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, following in the order named. Though most of the establishments are small, some are important and are establishing a wide reputation for their product. Generally they are situated in the towns where cotton mills have already been located.

The textile industry, though it is the most important, is not the only great industrial enterprise in the New South. Two others, both in a way the by-products of cotton, deserve attention. Only a few years ago cotton seed was considered a nuisance. A small quantity was fed to stock; a somewhat larger quantity was composted with stable manure and used for fertilizer; but the greater part was left to rot or was even dumped into the streams which ran the gins. Since the discovery of the value of cottonseed products, the industry has grown rapidly. The oil is now used in cooking, is mixed with olive oil, is sold pure for salad oil, and is an important constituent of oleomargarine, lard substitutes, and soap, to name only a few of the uses to which it is put. The cake, or meal from which the oil has been pressed, is rich in nitrogen and is therefore valuable as fertilizer; it is also a standard food for cattle, and tentative experiments with it have even been made as a food for human beings. The hulls have also considerable value as cattle food, and from them are obtained annually nearly a million bales of "linters," that is, short fibers of cotton which escaped the gin. Since the seed is bulky and the cost of transportation is correspondingly high, there are many small cottonseed oil mills rather than a few large ones. Texas is the leader in this industry, with Georgia next, though oil mills are to be found in all the cotton States, and the value of the seed adds considerably to the income of every cotton grower. In 1914 the value of cottonseed products was $212,000,000.

The industry of making fertilizer depends largely upon cottonseed meal. More than a hundred oil mills have fertilizer departments. The phosphate deposits of the South Atlantic States are also important, and the fertilizer industry is showing more and more a tendency to become sectional. Georgia easily leads, Maryland is second, and no Northern State ranks higher than seventh.

From the standpoint of values lumbering is a more important industry than the manufacture of fertilizers. In this respect Louisiana is the second State in value of products, and the industry is important in Arkansas, Mississippi, and North Carolina. The South furnishes nearly half of the lumber produced in the United States. This industry is, of course, only one step from the raw material. The manufacture of wood into finished articles is, however, increasing in some of the Southern States. The vehicle industry is considerable, and the same may be said of agricultural machinery, railway and street cars, and coffins. North Carolina especially is taking rank in the manufacture of furniture, most of it cheap but some of it of high grade. So far, ambition has in few cases gone beyond utilization of the native woods, some of which are surprisingly beautiful. Many small establishments in different States make such special products as spokes, shuttle blocks, pails, broom handles, containers for fruits and vegetables, and the like, but the total value of these products is small compared with the value of the crude lumber which is sent out of the South.

The iron industry is important chiefly in Alabama, of the purely Southern States. This State is fourth in the product of its blast furnaces but supplied in 1914 only a little more than six per cent of the total for the United States. Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia produce appreciable quantities of pig iron; no Southern State plays a really important part in the steel industry, though Maryland, Alabama, and West Virginia are all represented. Birmingham, Alabama, is the center of steel manufacture and has been called the Pittsburgh of the South, but though the industry has grown rapidly in Birmingham, it has also grown in Pittsburgh, and the Southern city is gaining very slowly. There are great beds of bituminous coal in the South, but only in West Virginia and Alabama is the production really important, though Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia produce appreciable quantities.

In the total value of the products of mines of all sorts, West Virginia and Oklahoma are among the leaders, owing to their iron, coal, and petroleum output. Other Southern States follow in the rear. Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana all have a mineral output which is large in the aggregate but a small part of the total. The sulphur mines of Louisiana are growing increasingly important. North Carolina produces a little of almost everything, but its mineral production, except of mica, is not important. In this State large aluminum works have been constructed and the quantity of precious and semiprecious stones found there is a large part of the production for the United States.

The tobacco industry is growing rapidly in the South. There have always been small establishments for the manufacture of tobacco, and many of these during the last three decades have grown to large proportions. New establishments have been opened, some of which are among the largest in the world. The development of the American Tobacco Company and its affiliated and subsidiary organizations has greatly reduced the number of separate establishments. Many were bought by the combination; their brands were transferred to another factory; and the original establishments were closed as uneconomical. Many other small factories, feeling or fearing the competition, closed voluntarily. But the total production of tobacco has steadily increased. Plug and smoking tobacco are largely confined to the Upper South. North Carolina easily leads, while Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri (if it be classed as a Southern State) also have factories which are known all over the world. Richmond, St. Louis, Louisville, and New Orleans, and Winston-Salem and Durham in North Carolina are the cities which lead in this industry. Winston-Salem probably now makes more plug, and Durham more smoking tobacco, than any other cities in the United States, and the cigarette production of the former is increasing enormously. Some factories supply export trade almost exclusively. There has been little development of the fine cigar industry except in Louisiana and Florida, though in all cities of the Lower South there are local establishments for the manufacture of cigars from Cuban leaf. Richmond is a center for the manufacture of domestic cigars and cheroots and has one mammoth establishment.

Twenty years or thirty years ago scattered over the South there were thousands of small grist mills which ground the farmer's wheat or corn between stones in the old-fashioned way. These are being superseded by roller mills, some of them quite large, which handle all the local wheat and even import some from the West. However, as the annual production of wheat in the South has decreased rather than increased since 1880, it is obvious that the industry has changed in form rather than increased in importance.

There are other less important manufacturing enterprises in the South. The census shows about two hundred and fifty distinct industries pursued to a greater or less extent. Maryland ranked fourteenth in the total value of manufactured products in 1914. Only seven Southern States were found in the first twenty-five, while Minnesota, which is generally considered an agricultural State, ranked higher in manufactures than any of the Southern group in 1914. The next census will undoubtedly give some Southern States high rank, though the section as a whole is not yet industrial. The manufacturing output is increasing with marvelous rapidity, but it is increasing in other sections of the country as well. Although the South was credited in 1914 with an increase of nearly 72 per cent in the value of its products during the decade, its proportion of the total value of products in the United States as a whole increased only from 12.8 per cent in 1904 to 13.1 per cent in 1914. The section is still far from equaling or surpassing other sections except in the manufacture of textiles.



CHAPTER VI

LABOR CONDITIONS

The laborer employed in the manufacturing enterprises of the South, whether white or black, is native born and Southern born. Sporadic efforts to import industrial workers from Europe have not been successful and there has been no considerable influx of workers from other sections of the Union. A few skilled workers have come, but the rank and file in all the factories and shops were born in the State in which they work or in a neighboring State. Speaking broadly, those dealing with complicated machines are white, while those engaged in simpler processes are white or black. We find, therefore, a preponderance of whites in the textile industries and in the shops producing articles from wood and iron, while the blacks are found in the lumber industry, in the tobacco factories, in the mines, and at the blast furnaces. There are some skilled workmen among the negroes, especially in tobacco, but generally they furnish the unskilled labor.

The textile industry employs the greatest number of operatives, or at least concentrates them more. From the farms or the mountain coves, or only one generation removed from that environment, they have been drawn to the mills by various motives. The South is still sparsely settled, and the life of the tenant farmer or the small landowner and his family is often lonely. Until recently, roads were almost universally bad, especially in winter, and a visit to town or even to a neighbor was no small undertaking. Attendance at the country church, which sometimes has services only once a month, or a trip to the country store on Saturday afternoon with an occasional visit to the county-seat furnish almost the only opportunity for social intercourse. Work in a cotton mill promised not merely fair wages but what was coveted even more—companionship.

During the period of most rapid growth in the textile industry, agriculture, or at least agriculture as practiced by this class, was unprofitable. During the decade from 1890 to 1900 the price of all kinds of farm produce was exceedingly low, and the returns in money were very small. Even though a farmer more farsighted than the average did produce the greater part of his food on the farm, his "money crop"—cotton or tobacco—hardly brought the cost of production. The late D.A. Tompkins, of Charlotte, North Carolina, a close student of cotton, came to the conclusion, about 1910, that cotton had been produced at a loss in the South considered as a whole, at least since the Civil War. Many farmers, however, were in a vicious economic circle and could not escape. If they had bought supplies at the country store at inflated prices, the crops sometimes were insufficient to pay the store accounts, and the balance was charged against the next year's crop. Men who did not go heavily into debt often handled less than $200 in cash in a year, and others found difficulty in obtaining money even for their small taxes. To such men the stories of $15 to $25 earned at a mill by a single family in a week seemed almost fabulous. The whole family worked on the farm, as farmers' families have always done, and it seemed the natural thing that, in making a change, all should work in the mill.

To those families moved by loneliness and those other families driven by an honest ambition to better their economic condition were added the families of the incapable, the shiftless, the disabled, and the widowed. In a few cases men came to the mills deliberately intending to exploit their children, to live a life of ease upon their earnings. There were places for the younger members of all these families, but a man with hands calloused and muscles stiffened by the usual round of farm work could seldom learn a new trade after the age of forty, no matter how willing. Often a cotton mill is the only industrial enterprise in the village, and the number of common laborers needed is limited. Too many of the fathers who had come to the village intending themselves to work gradually sank into the parasite class and sat around the village store while their children worked.

During the early expansion of the industry, the wages paid were low compared with New England standards, but they were sufficient to draw the people from the farms and to hold them at the mills. In considering the wages paid in Southern mills, this fact must never be forgotten. There was always an abundance of land to which the mill people could return at will and wrest some sort of living from the soil. For them to go back to the land was not a venture full of unknown hazards. They had been born on the land and even yet are usually only one generation removed, and the land cries out for tenants and laborers. It must also be remembered that though the wages measured in money were low, the cost of living was likewise low. Rents were trifling, if indeed the tenements were not occupied free; the cost of fuel and food was low; and many expenses necessary in New England were superfluous in the South.

With the increasing number of mills and the rising price of agricultural products, the supply of industrial laborers became less abundant, and higher wages have been necessary to draw recruits from the farms until at present the rate of wages approaches that of New England. The purchasing power is probably greater for, while the cost of living has greatly increased in the South, it is still lower than in other parts of the country. This does not mean that the average Southern wage is equal to the New England average. While there is a growing body of highly skilled operatives in the South, the rapid growth of the industry has made necessary the employment of an overwhelmingly large number of untrained or partially trained operatives, who cannot tend so many spindles or looms as the New England operatives. Again, much yarn in the North is spun upon mules, while in the South these machines are uncommon. For certain purposes, this soft but fine and even yarn is indispensable. Only strong, highly skilled operatives, usually men, can tend these machines. The earnings of such specialists cannot fairly be compared with the amounts received by ordinary girl spinners on ring frames. Again the weekly wage of an expert weaver upon fancy cloth cannot justly be compared with that of a Southern operative upon plain goods. Where the work is comparable, however, the rates per unit of product in North and South are not far apart.

From the standpoint of the employer it may be possible that the wages per unit of product are higher in some Southern mills than in some New England establishments. In the case of an expensive machine, an operative who gets from it only sixty to seventy-five per cent of its possible production may receive higher wages, or what amounts to the same thing, may produce at a higher cost per unit than a more highly paid individual who more nearly approaches the theoretical maximum production of the machine. There is much expensive machinery in the Southern mills. In fact, on the whole, the machinery for the work in hand is better than in New England, because it is newer. The recently built Southern mills have been equipped with all the latest machinery, while many of the older Northern mills have not felt able to scrap machines which, though antiquated, were still running well. However, the advantage in having a better machine is not fully realized if it is not run to its full capacity. Both spinning frames and looms have generally been run at a somewhat slower speed in the South than in the North. This fact was noted by that careful English observer, T.M. Young: "Whether the cost per unit of efficiency is greater in the South than in the North is hard to say. But for the automatic loom, the North would, I think, have the advantage. Perhaps the truth is that in some parts of the South where the industry has been longest established and a generation has been trained to the work, Southern labor is actually as well as nominally cheaper than Northern; whilst in other districts, where many mills have sprung up all at once amongst a sparse rural population, wholly untrained, the Southern labor at present procurable is really dearer than the Northern[1]." This does not mean that Southern labor is permanently inferior; but a highly skilled body of operatives requires years for its development.

[Footnote 1: T.M. Young, The American Cotton Industry, p. 113.]

In the beginning there were no restrictions upon hours of work, age, or sex of operatives, or conditions of employment. Every mill was a law unto itself. Hours were long, often seventy-two and in a few cases seventy-five a week. Wages were often paid in scrip good at the company store but redeemable in cash only at infrequent intervals, if indeed any were then presented. Yet, if the prices at the store were sometimes exorbitant, they were likely to be less than the operatives had been accustomed to pay when buying on credit while living on the farms. The moral conditions at some of these mills were also bad, since the least desirable element of the rural population was the first to go to the mills. Such conditions, however, were not universal. Some of the industrial communities were clean and self-respecting, but conditions depended largely upon the individual in charge of the mill.

As the years went on and more and more mills were built, the demand for operatives increased. To draw them from the farms, it was necessary to improve living conditions in the mill villages and to increase wages. Today the mill communities are generally clean, and care is taken to exclude immoral individuals. Payment of wages in cash became the rule. The company store persisted, but chiefly as a matter of convenience to the operatives; and in prices it met and often cut below those charged in other stores in the vicinity. The hours of labor were reduced gradually. Seventy-two became the maximum, but most mills voluntarily ran sixty-nine or even sixty-six. The employment of children continued, though some individual employers reduced it as much as possible without seriously crippling their forces. This was a real danger so long as there were no legal restrictions on child labor. Children worked upon the farm as children have done since farming began, and the average farmer who moved to the mill was unable to see the difference between working on the farm and working in the mill. In fact, to his mind, work in the mill seemed easier than exposure on the farm to the summer sun and the winter cold.

Men who were not conscious of deliberately exploiting their children urged the manager of the mill to employ a child of twelve or even ten. If the manager refused, he was threatened with the loss of the whole family. A family containing good operatives could always find employment elsewhere, and perhaps the manager of another mill would not be so scrupulous. So the children went into the mill and often stayed there. If illiterate when they entered, they remained illiterate. The number of young children, however, was always exaggerated by the muckrakers, though unquestionably several hundred children ten to twelve years old, and possibly a few younger, were employed years ago. The nature of the work permits the employment of operatives under sixteen only in the spinning room; the girls, many of them older than sixteen, mend the broken ends of the yarn at the spinning frames, and the boys remove the full bobbins and fix empty ones in their stead. The possible percentage of workers under sixteen in a spinning mill varies from thirty-five to forty-five. In a mill which weaves the yarn into cloth, the percentage is greatly reduced, as practically no one under sixteen can be profitably employed in a weaving room.

Public sentiment against the employment of children became aroused only slowly. Crusades against such industrial customs are usually led by organized labor, by professional philanthropists, by sentimentalists, and by socialistic agitators. The mill operatives of the South have shown little disposition to organize themselves and, in fact, have protested against interference with their right of contract. The South is only just becoming rich enough to support professional philanthropists, and an outlet for sentimentality has been found in other directions. There has been as yet too little disproportion of wealth among the Southern whites to excite acute jealousy on this ground alone, and the operatives have earned much more money in the mills than was possible on the farms. In comparatively few cases does one man, or one family, own a controlling interest in a mill. The ownership is usually scattered in small holdings, and there is seldom a Croesus to excite envy. This wide ownership has had its effect upon the general attitude of the more influential citizens and hindered the development of active disapproval.

The chief reason for the inertia in labor matters, however, has been the fact that the South has thought, and to a large extent still thinks, in terms of agriculture. It has not yet developed an industrial philosophy. Agriculture is individualistic, and Thomas Jefferson's ideas upon the functions and limitations of government still have influence. Regulation of agricultural labor would seem absurd, and the difference between a family, with or without hired help, working in comparative freedom on a farm, and scores of individuals working at the same tasks, day after day, under more or less tension was slow to take shape in the popular consciousness. It was obvious that the children were not actually physically abused; almost unanimously they preferred work to school, just as the city boy does today; and the children themselves opposed most strongly any proposed return to the farm. The task of the reformers—for in every State there were earnest men and women who saw the evils of unrestricted child labor—was difficult. It was the same battle which had been fought in England and later in New England, when their textile industries were passing through the same stage of development. Every student of industrial history realizes that conditions in the South were neither so hard nor were the hours so long as they had been in England and New England.

The attempt to apply pressure from without had little influence. Indeed it is possible that the resentment occasioned by the exaggerated stories of conditions really hindered the progress of restrictive legislation, just as the bitter denunciation of the Southern attitude toward the negro has increased conservatism. Every one knew that the pitiful stories of abuse or oppression were untrue. No class of laborers anywhere is more independent than Southern mill operatives. It has been a long while since a family of even semi-efficient operatives has been compelled to ask for employment. Runners for other mills, upon the slightest hint of disaffection, are quick to seek them out and even to advance the expense of moving and money to pay any debts. It is well known that families move for the slightest reason or for no reason at all except a vague unrest. Self-interest, if nothing else, would restrain an overseer from an act which might send a whole family or perhaps half a dozen families from his mill.

Gradually the States imposed limitations upon age of employment, hours of labor, and night work for women and children, which practically meant limiting or abolishing night work altogether. These restrictions were slight at first, and the provisions for their enforcement were inadequate, but succeeding legislatures increased them. Mild compulsory attendance laws kept some of the children in school and out of the mill. A more or less substantial body of labor legislation was gradually growing up, when state regulation was stopped by the action of the Federal Government. Since the first Federal Child Labor Act was declared unconstitutional, several States have strengthened laws previously existing, and have further reduced the hours of labor.

Until comparatively recently whatever provision was made for the social betterment of the operatives depended upon the active manager of the particular mill. Some assumed a patriarchal attitude and attempted to provide those things which they thought the operatives should have. Others took little or no responsibility, except perhaps to make a contribution to all the churches represented in the community. This practice is almost universal, and if the term of the public school is short, it is usually extended by a contribution from the mill treasury. During recent years much more has been done. Partly from an awakening sense of social responsibility and partly from a realization that it is good business to do so, the bigger mills have made large expenditures to improve the condition of their operatives. They have provided reading rooms and libraries, have opened many recreation rooms and playgrounds, and have furnished other facilities for entertainment. Some of the mills have athletic fields, and a few support semi-professional baseball teams. At some mills community buildings have been erected, which sometimes contain, in addition to public rooms, baths, and a swimming pool, an office for a visiting nurse and rooms which an adviser in domestic science may use for demonstration. The older women are hard to teach, but not a few of the girls take an interest in the work. Nothing is more needed than instruction in domestic science. The operatives spend a large proportion of their income upon food—for the rent they pay is trifling—but the items are not always well chosen, and the cooking is often bad. To the monotonous dietary to which they were accustomed on the farms they add many luxuries to be had in the mill town, but these are often ruined by improper preparation. Owing to this lack of domestic skill many operatives apparently suffer from malnutrition, though they spend more than enough money to supply an abundance of nourishing food.

Not many years ago the improvidence of the mill operatives was proverbial. Wages were generally spent as fast as they were earned, and often extravagantly. Little attempt was made to cultivate gardens or to make yards attractive, with the result that a factory village with its monotonous rows of unkempt houses was a depressing sight. The "factory people," many of whom had been nomad tenant farmers seldom living long in the same place, had never thought of attempting to beautify their surroundings, and the immediate neighborhood of the mill to which they moved was often bare and unlovely and afforded little encouragement to beauty.

The improvident family is still common, and many ugly mill villages yet exist, but one who has watched the development of the cotton industry in the South for twenty-five years has seen great changes in these respects. Thousands of families are saving money today. Some buy homes; others set up one member of the family in a small business; and a few buy farms. More than seventy-five families have left one mill village during the last ten years to buy farms with their savings, but this instance is rather unusual; comparatively few families return to the land. Efforts have been made to develop a community spirit, and the results are perceptible. Many mill villages are now really attractive. Scores of mills have had their grounds laid out by a landscape architect, and a mill covered with ivy and surrounded by well-kept lawns and flower beds is no longer exceptional. In scores of mill communities annual prizes are offered for the best vegetable garden, the most attractive premises, and the best kept premises from a sanitary standpoint.

The Southern operative is too close to the soil to be either socialistic in his views or collectivistic in his attitude. The labor agitator has found sterile soil for his propaganda. Yet signs of a dawning class consciousness are appearing. As always, the first manifestation is opposition to the dominant political party or faction. This has not yet, however, been translated into any considerable number of Republican votes, except in North Carolina. In the other States, the votes of the factory operatives seem to be cast in something of a block, in the primary elections. The demagogic Blease is said to have found much of his support in South Carolina in the factory villages.

Employees in other industries show so much diversity that few general statements can be made concerning them. The workers in the furniture factories—who are chiefly men, as few women or children can be employed in this industry—are few in number compared with the male employees in the cotton mills and, except in the case of a few towns, can hardly be discussed as a group at all. Both whites and negroes are employed, but the white man is usually in the responsible post, though a few negroes tend important machines. The general average of education and intelligence among the whites is higher here than in the cotton mills, and wages are likewise higher. Conditions in other establishments making articles of wood are practically the same.

Lumber mills range from a small neighborhood sawmill with a handful of employees to the great organizations which push railroads into the deep woods and strip a mountain side or devastate the lowlands. Such organizations require a great number of laborers, whom they usually feed and to whom they issue from a "commissary" various necessary articles which are charged against the men's wages. As the work is hard, it has not been at all uncommon for employees who had received large advances to decamp. The companies, however, took advantage of various laws similar to those mentioned in the chapter on agriculture to have these deserters arrested and to have them, when convicted, "hired out" to the very company or employer from whom they had fled. Conditions resulting from this practice in some of the States of the Lower South became so scandalous about 1905 that numerous individuals were tried in the courts and were convicted of holding employees in a state of peonage. In 1911 the Supreme Court of the United States declared unconstitutional the law of Alabama regarding contract of service.[1] This law regarded the nonfulfillment of a contract on which an advance had been made as prima facie evidence of intent to defraud and thus gave employers immense power over their employees. Conditions have therefore undoubtedly improved since the peonage trials, but the lumber industry is one in which the labor has apparently everywhere been casual, migratory, and lawless.

[Footnote 1: Bailey vs. Alabama, 219 U.S., 219.]

The manufacture of tobacco shows as much diversity of labor conditions as the lumber industry. There are small establishments with little machinery which manufacture plug and smoking tobacco and are open only a few months in the year, as well as those which cover half a dozen city blocks. In the smaller factories the majority of the laborers are black, but in the larger establishments both negroes and whites are employed. Sometimes they do the same sort of work on opposite sides of the same room. In some departments negro and white men work side by side, while in others only whites or only negroes are found. The more complicated machines are usually tended by whites, and the filling and inspection of containers is ordinarily done by white girls, who are also found in large numbers in the cigarette factories. Not many years ago the tobacco industry was supposed to belong to the negro, but with the introduction of machinery he has lost his monopoly, though on account of the expansion of the industry the total number of negroes employed is greater than ever before.

In the smaller factories labor is usually paid by the day, but in the larger establishments every operation possible is on a piecework basis. These operations are so related in a series that a slacker feels the displeasure of those who follow him and depend upon him for a supply of material. In the smaller factories the work is regarded somewhat in the light of a summer holiday, as the tasks are simple and the operatives talk and sing at their work. This social element largely disappears, however, with the introduction of machinery. As might be expected in a labor force composed of men, women, and children, both white and black, with some engaged in manual labor and others tending complicated machines, there is little solidarity. An organized strike including any large percentage of the force in a tobacco factory is a practical impossibility. Those engaged in a particular process may strike and in consequence tie up the processes depending upon them, but any sort of industrial friction is uncommon. The general level of wages has been steadily rising, and among the negroes the tobacco workers are the aristocrats of the wage earners and are content with their situation. Since the larger factories are almost invariably in the cities, the homes of the workers are scattered and not collected in communities as around the cotton mills.

Experiments have been made in employing negro operatives in the textile industry, so far with little success, though the capacity of the negro for such employment has not yet been disproved. Though several cotton mills which made the experiment failed, in every case there were difficulties which might have caused a similar failure even with white operatives. Negroes have been employed successfully in some hosiery mills and in a few small silk mills. The increasing scarcity of labor, especially during the Great War, has led to the substitution of negroes for whites in a number of knitting mills. Some successful establishments are conducted with negro labor but the labor force is either all white or all black except that white overseers are always, or nearly always employed.

An important hindrance in the way of the success of negroes in these occupations is their characteristic dislike of regularity and punctuality. As the negro has acquired these virtues to some extent at least in the tobacco industry, there seems to be no reason to suppose that in time he may not succeed also in textiles, in which the work is not more difficult than in other tasks of which negroes have proved themselves capable. So far the whites have not resented the occasional introduction of black operatives into the textile industry. If the negroes become firmly established while the demand for operatives continues to be greater than the supply, race friction on this account is unlikely, but if they are introduced in the future as strikebreakers, trouble is sure to arise. In the mines, blast furnaces, oil mills, and fertilizer factories the negroes do the hardest and most unpleasant tasks, work which in the North is done by recent immigrants.

The negroes are almost entirely unorganized and are likely to remain so for a long time. Few negroes accumulate funds enough to indulge in the luxury of a strike, and they have shown little tendency to organize or support unions. However, their devotion to their lodges shows the loyalty of which they are capable, and their future organization is not beyond the range of possibility. Generally the South has afforded little encouragement to organized labor. Even the white workers, except in the cities and in a few skilled trades, have shown until recently little tendency to organize. In the towns and villages they are not sharply differentiated from the other elements of the population. They look upon themselves as citizens rather than as members of the laboring class. Except in a few of the larger towns one does not hear of "class conflict"; and the "labor vote," when by any chance a Socialist or a labor candidate is nominated, is not large enough to be a factor in the result.

During 1918 and 1919, however, renewed efforts to organize Southern labor met with some success particularly in textile and woodworking establishments, though the tobacco industry and public utilities were likewise affected. The efforts of employers to prevent the formation of unions led to lockouts and strikes during which there was considerable disorder and some bloodshed. Communities which had known of such disputes only from hearsay stood amazed. The workers generally gained recognition of their right to organize, and their success may mean greater industrial friction in the future.



CHAPTER VII

THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE

For a century, the presence of the negro in the United States has divided the nation. Though the Civil War finally decided some questions about his status, others affecting his place in the social order remained unsettled; new controversies have arisen; and no immediate agreement is in sight. Interest in the later phases of the race question has found expression in scores of books, hundreds of articles, thousands of orations and addresses, and unlimited private discussions which have generally produced more heat than light. The question has kept different sections of the country apart and has created bitterness which will long endure. Moreover, this discussion about ten million people has produced an effect upon them, and the negroes are beginning to feel that they constitute a problem.

Differing attitudes toward the negro generally arise from fundamentally different postulates.

Many Northerners start with the assumption that the negro is a black Saxon and argue that his faults and deficiencies arise from the oppression he has endured. At the other extreme are those who hold that the negro is fundamentally different from the white man and inferior to him: and some go so far as to say that he is incapable of development. Fifty years ago General John Pope predicted, with a saving reservation, hat the negroes of Georgia would soon surpass the whites in education, culture, and wealth. Other predictions, similar in tone, were common in the reports of various philanthropic associations. Obviously these prophecies have not been fulfilled; but it is just as evident that the predictions that the former slaves would relapse into barbarism and starve have also not been realized. Practically every prophecy or generalization made before 1890 with regard to the future of the negro has been discredited by the events of the passing years.

It is perhaps worth while to take stock of what this race has accomplished in America during something more than fifty years of freedom. The negro has lived beside the white man and has increased in numbers, though at a somewhat slower rate than the white. The census of 1870 was inaccurate and incomplete in the South, and in consequence the census of 1880 seemed to show a phenomenal increase in the negro population. Upon this supposed increase was based the theory that the South would soon be overwhelmingly black. From the historical standpoint, Albion W. Tourgee's Appeal to Caesar is interesting as a perfect example of this type of deduction, for he could see only a black South. The three censuses taken since 1880 definitely establish the fact that the net increase of negro population is smaller than that of the white. This seems to have been true at every census since 1810, and the proportion of negroes to the total population of the nation grows steadily, though slowly, smaller.[1]

[Footnote 1: Though the negro increase is smaller than the white, nevertheless the 4,441,930 negroes in 1860 had increased to 9,827,763 in 1910. Of this number 8,749,427 lived in the Southern States, and 1,078,336 in the Northern. That is to say, 89 per cent of the negroes lived in the three divisions classed as Southern, 10.5 per cent in the four divisions classed as Northern and 0.5 per cent in the two Western divisions. Since 1790 the center of negro population has been moving toward the Southwest and has now reached northeast Alabama. Migration to the North and West has been considerable since emancipation. In 1910 there were 415,533 negroes born in the South but living in the North, and, owing to this migration, the percentage of increase of negro population outside the South has been larger than the average. Between 1900 and 1910 the increase in the New England States was 12.2 per cent and in the East North Central 16.7 per cent. The mountain divisions show a large percentage of increase, but as there were in both of them together less than 51,000 negroes, comprising less than 1 per cent of the population, it is evident that the negro is not a serious factor in the West. The negroes form an insignificant component (less than 5 per cent) of the population of any Northern State, though in some Northern cities the number of negroes is considerable. See Abstract of the Thirteenth Census of the United States, p. 78.]

Between 1900 and 1910, the native white population increased 20.9 per cent while the negro population increased only 11.2 per cent. This smaller increase in the later decade is due partly to negro migration to the cities. It is believed that among the city negroes, particularly in the North, the death rate is higher than the birth rate. The excessive death rate results largely from crowded and unsanitary quarters.

Since 1910, the migration of negroes to the North has been larger than before. The increase was not unusual, however, until the beginning of the Great War. Up to that time the majority had been engaged in domestic and personal service, but with the practical cessation of immigration from Europe, a considerable number of negro laborers moved to the Northern States. Indeed, in some Southern communities the movement almost reached the proportions of an exodus. Until the next census there is no means of estimating with any approach to accuracy the extent of this migration. The truth is probably somewhere in between the published estimates which range from 300,000 to 1,000,000. The investigations of the United States Department of Labor indicate the smaller number.

The motives for this northward migration are various. The offer of higher wages is the most important. The desire to get for their children greater educational advantages than are offered in the South is also impelling. The belief that race prejudice is less strong in the North is another inducement to leave the South, for "Jim Crow" cars and political disfranchisement have irritated many. Finally the dread of lynch law may be mentioned as a motive for migration, though its actual importance may be doubted. Not all the negroes who have moved to the North have remained there. Many do not allow for the higher cost of food and shelter in their new home, and these demands upon the higher wages leave a smaller margin than was expected. Others find the climate too severe, while still others are unable or unwilling to work regularly at the speed demanded.

The overwhelming mass of the negro population in the South, and therefore in the nation, is still rural, though among them, as among the whites, the drift toward the cities is marked. The chief occupations are agriculture, general jobbing not requiring skilled labor, and domestic service, although there is a scattered representation of negroes in almost every trade, business, and profession. In 1865 the amount of property held by negroes was small. A few free negroes were upon the tax-books, and former masters sometimes made gifts of property to favorites among the liberated slaves, but the whole amount was trifling compared with the total number of negroes. In 1910, in the Southern States, title to 15,691,536 acres of land was held by negroes, and the equity was large. This amount represents an increase of over 2,330,000 acres since 1900 but is nevertheless only 4.4 per cent of the total farm land in the South. As tenants or managers, negroes cultivated in addition nearly 27,000,000 acres. In other words, 29.8 per cent of the population owned 4.4 per cent of the land and cultivated 12 per cent of it. The total value of the land owned was $273,000,000, an average of $1250 to the farm.[1]

[Footnote 1: It must be noted, however, that during the decade ending in 1910, the percentage of increase in negro farm owners was 17 as against 12 for the whites, and of increase in the value of their holdings was 156 per cent as against 116 per cent for whites, while the proportion of white tenants increased. The other property of the negro can only be estimated, as most States do not list the races separately. The census for 1910 reports 430,449 homes, rural and urban, owned by negroes, and of these 314,340 were free of encumbrance, compared with a total of 327,537 homes in 1900, of which 229,158 were free. Further discussion of the part of the negro in agriculture will be found in another chapter.]

Speaking broadly, the right of the negro to work at any sort of manual or mechanical labor is not questioned in the South. Negroes and whites work together on the farm, and a negro may rent land almost anywhere. In thousands of villages and towns one may see negro plumbers, carpenters, and masons working by the side of white men. A negro shoemaker or blacksmith may get the patronage of whites at his own shop or may share a shop with a white man. White and negro teamsters are employed indiscriminately. Hundreds of negroes serve as firemen or as engineers of stationary steam engines. Thousands work in the tobacco factories. Practically the only distinction made is this: a negro man may work with white men indoors or out, but he may not work indoors by the side of white women except in some subordinate capacity, as porter or waiter. Occasionally he works with white women out of doors. Lack of economic success therefore cannot be charged entirely or even primarily to racial discrimination. Where the negro often fails is in lack of reliability, regularity, and faithfulness. In some occupations he is losing ground. Not many years ago barbers, waiters, and hotel employees in the South usually were negroes, but they have lost their monopoly in all these occupations. White men are taking their place as barbers and white girls now often serve in dining-rooms and on elevators. On the other hand, the number of negro seamstresses seems to be increasing. A generation ago, many locomotive firemen were negroes, but now the proportion is decreasing. There are hundreds, even thousands, of negro draymen who own teams, and some of them have become prosperous.

White patronage of negroes in business depends partly upon custom and partly upon locality. Negroes who keep livery stables and occasionally garages receive white patronage. In nearly every community there is a negro woman who bakes cakes for special occasions. Many negroes act as caterers or keep restaurants, but these must be for whites only or blacks only, but not for both. A negro market gardener suffers no discrimination, and a negro grocer may receive white patronage, though he usually does not attempt to attract white customers. There are a few negro dairymen, and some get the best prices for their products. Where a negro manufactures or sells goods in a larger way, as in brickyards, cement works lumber yards and the like, race prejudice does not interfere with his trade.

Negro professional men, on the other hand, get little or no white patronage. No negro pastor preaches to a white congregation, and no negro teaches in a school for whites. Negro lawyers, dentists, and doctors are practically never employed by whites. In the past the number engaged in these professions has been negligible, and that any increase in the total of well trained negro professional men will make an immediate change in the attitude of whites is unlikely. The relation of lawyer and client or physician and patient presumes a certain intimacy and subordination to greater wisdom which the white man is not willing to acknowledge where a negro is involved. Negro women, trained or partially trained, are employed as nurses, however, in increasing numbers.

In 1865, the great mass of negroes was wholly illiterate. Some of the free negroes could read and write, and a few had graduated at some Northern college. Though the laws which forbade teaching slaves to read or write were not generally enforced, only favored house servants received instruction. It is certain that the percentage of illiteracy was at least 90, and possibly as high as 95. This has been progressively reduced until in 1910 the proportion of the illiterate negro population ten years old or over was 30.4 per cent, and the number of college and university graduates was considerable though the proportion was small. Since the percentage of native white illiteracy in the United States is but 3, the negro is evidently ten times as illiterate as the native white. This comparison is not fair to the negro, however, for illiteracy in the urban communities in the United States is less than in the rural districts, owing largely to better educational facilities in the cities; and 82.3 per cent of the negro population is rural.[1]

[Footnote 1: In New England negro illiteracy is 7.1 per cent in the cities and 16.9 per cent in the rural communities. Then, too, the great masses of negroes live in States which are predominantly rural and in which the percentage of white illiteracy is also high. The percentage of native white illiteracy in the rural districts of the South Atlantic States is 9.8 and in the East South Central is 11.1 per cent. Negro illiteracy in the corresponding divisions is 36.1 per cent and 37.8 per cent. In the urban communities of these divisions, illiteracy on the part of both whites and negroes is less. Native white illiteracy is 1.1 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively, while negro illiteracy in the towns was 21.4 and 23.8 per cent respectively.]

The negroes along with the whites have suffered and still suffer from the inadequate school facilities of the rural South. The percentage of illiterate negro children between the ages of ten and fourteen in the country as a whole was only 18.9 per cent compared with the general average of 30.4 for the negroes as a whole. It is evident, then, that as the negroes now fifty years old and over die off, the illiteracy of the whole mass will continue to drop, for it is in the older group that the percentage of illiterates is highest. It must not be concluded from these figures that negro illiteracy is not a grave problem, nor that negro ability is equal to that of the whites, nor that the negro has taken full advantage of such opportunities as have been open to him. It does appear, however, that the proportion of negro illiteracy is not entirely his fault.

The negro fleeing from discrimination in the South has not always found a fraternal welcome in the North, for the negro mechanic has generally been excluded from white unions and has often been denied the opportunity to work at his trade.[1] He has also found difficulty in obtaining living accommodations and there has been much race friction. It is perhaps a question worth asking whether any considerable number of white men of Northern European stock are without an instinctive dislike of those manifestly unlike themselves.

[Footnote 1: The American Federation of Labor in 1919 voted to take steps to recognize and admit negro unions.]

The history of the contact between such stocks and the colored races shows instance after instance of refusal to recognize the latter as social or political equals. Indian, East Indian, and African have all been subjected to the domination of the whites. There have been many cases of illicit mating, of course, but the white man has steadily refused to legitimize these unions. The South European, on the contrary, has mingled freely with the natives of the countries he has colonized and to some extent has been swallowed up by the darker mass. Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, the Portuguese colonies in different parts of the world, are obvious examples.[1]

[Footnote 1: How much of this difference in attitude is due to lack of pride in race integrity and how much to religion is a question. The Roman Catholic Church, which is dominant in Southern Europe, does not encourage such inter-racial marriages, but, on the other hand, it does not forbid them or pronounce them unlawful. Yet this cannot explain the whole difference. There seems to be another factor.]

In the Southern States the white man has made certain decisions regarding the relation of blacks and whites and is enforcing them without regard to the negro's wishes. The Southerner is convinced that the negro is inferior and acts upon that conviction. There is no suggestion that the laws forbidding intermarriage be repealed, or that separate schools be discontinued. Restaurants and hotels must cater to one race only. Most of the States require separation of the races in common carriers and even in railway stations. The laws require that "equal accommodations" shall be furnished on railroads, but violations are frequently evident, as the railways often assign old or inferior equipment to the negroes. In street cars one end is often assigned to negroes and the other to whites, and therefore the races alternate in the use of the same seats when the car turns back at the end of the line. The division in a railway station may be nothing more than a bar or a low fence across the room, and one ticket office with different windows may serve both races.

Some of these regulations are defended on the ground that by reducing close contact they lessen the chances of race conflict. That such a result is measurably attained is probable, and the comfort of traveling is increased for the whites at least. William Archer, the English journalist and author, in Through Afro-America says, "I hold the system of separate cars a legitimate means of defence against constant discomfort," and most travelers will approve his verdict. The chief reason for such regulations, however, is to assert and emphasize white superiority. Half a dozen black nurses with their charges may sit in the car reserved for whites, because they are obviously dependents engaged in personal service. Without such relationship, however, not one of them would be allowed to remain. It is not so much the presence of the negro to which the whites object but to that presence in other than an inferior capacity. his is the explanation of much of the so-called race prejudice in the South: it is not prejudice against the individual negro but is rather a determination to assert white superiority. So long as the negro is plainly dependent and recognizes that dependency, the question of prejudice does not arise, and there is much kindly intimacy between individuals. The Southern white man or white woman of the better class is likely to protect and help many negroes at considerable cost of time, labor, and money, but the relationship is always that of superior and inferior. If a suggestion of race equality creeps in, antagonism is at once aroused.

It is the fashion to speak of the "old-time negro" and the "new negro." The types are easily recognizable. One is quiet, unobtrusive, more or less industrious. He "knows his place"—which may mean anything from servility to self-respecting acceptance of his lot in life. The other resents more or less openly the discrimination against his race, and this resentment may range from impertinence to sullenness and even to dreams of social equality imposed by force. Some have a smattering of education while others, who have been subjected to little training or discipline, are indolent and shiftless. The thoughtless, however, are likely to include in this classification the industrious, intelligent negro who orders his conduct along the same lines as the white man.