The Negro Farmer Part 7

------------------------------------------ $40.62 33.30 45.45 37.95 43.60 41.40 40.70

17.80 18.00 16.60 23.30 44.95 43.05 Man 11.00 10.25 4.00 6.00 19.30 18.00 Boy 11.90 12.40 11.70 19.25 25.75 23.00 Son 6.75 17.25 14.75 Girl 1.60 Boy 2.10 8.00 5.25 Boy 3.00 15.15 13.50 Woman ---------------------------------------------- 40.70 40.65 32.30 60.40 130.30 119.15--665.82

These families are typical so far as known. In comparing their incomes with those in other districts it must be borne in mind that they have no rent to pay and their only necessary expenses are for food and clothes and incidentals. Certainly both of the families should have money to their credit at the end of the year. The total wages depends not only on the willingness to work, but also on weather conditions. One gets the impression that in some places conditions are pretty bad and even by some white residents of the state it is claimed that a state of servitude almost prevails on many plantations. In any case the Negroes do not seem satisfied. The labor is rather heavy. For this or other reasons there has been quite an exodus to the cotton country in recent years, which has caused the cane planters much trouble and they will make many concessions to keep their tenants. To meet this emigration for some time efforts have been made to import Italian labor but the results have not been wholly satisfactory. The Italians are more reliable and this is a great argument in their favor, but with this exception they are not considered much better workers than the blacks. The storekeepers much prefer the Negroes, who spend their money more freely.

The planters claim that the labor is unreliable and say they never know on Sat.u.r.day how many workers they will have on Monday. They also say it is hard to get extra labor done. In 1900 on one plantation the women were offered ten cents a day extra for some hoeing, but only four held out. Higher wages were offered if some cane were cut by the ton instead of by the day, but after a week the hands asked to return to the gang at the lower wage.

In the rice fields along the river about the same wages prevail as for the field hands in the cane plantations. The rice crop, however, is but a six months crop, so other employment must be found for part of the year if nothing but rice is raised. It is usual in this region to raise rice as a side crop.

CHAPTER V. SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.

=COUNTRY CHURCH AND SCHOOL.=

Hitherto we have had to do chiefly with the economic situation of the Negro farmer. There is, however, another set of forces which may not be ignored if we are to understand the situation which confronts us. These are, of course, the social forces. In discussing these it is more than ever essential to remember that a differentiation has been taking place among the Negroes and that there are large numbers who are not to be grouped with the average men and women whom we seek to describe. It may even be true that there are communities which have gained a higher level. Any statement of the social environment of 8,000,000 people must necessarily be false if applied strictly to each individual. The existence of the higher cla.s.s must not, however, be allowed to blind us to the condition of the rest.

The average Negro boy or girl is allowed to grow. It is difficult to say much more for the training received at home. We must remember that there is an almost total absence of home life as we understand it. The family seldom sits down together at the table or do anything else in common. The domestic duties are easily mastered by the girls and ch.o.r.es do not weigh heavily on the boys. At certain periods of the year the children are compelled to a.s.sist in the farm operations, such as picking cotton, but most of the time they are care free. Thus they run almost wild while the parents are at work in the fields, and the stranger who suddenly approaches a cabin and beholds the youngsters scattering for shelter will not soon forget the sight. Obedience, neatness, punctuality do not thrive in such an atmosphere. The introduction to the country school a little later does not greatly improve conditions. The teachers are often incompetent and their election often depends upon other things than fitness to teach; upon things, indeed, which are at times far from complimentary to the school trustees. The school year seldom exceeds four months and this may be divided into two terms, two months in the fall and two in the spring. School opens at an indefinite time in the morning, if scheduled for nine it is just as likely as not that it begins at ten thirty, while the closing hour is equally uncertain. The individual attention received by the average child is necessarily small.

The schools are poorly equipped with books or maps. The interior view given on page 61 is by no means exceptional.

It may not be out of place to mention the fact that recognition of these evils is leading in many places in the South to the incorporation of private schools, which then offer their facilities to the public in return for partial support at the public expense. Public moneys are being turned over to these schools in considerable amounts. In some counties the public does not own a school building. Without questioning the fact that these schools are an improvement over existing conditions, history will belie itself if this subsidizing of private organizations does not some day prove a great drawback to the proper development of the public school system, unless it may be, that the courts will declare the practice illegal and unconst.i.tutional.

The home and the school being from our point of view unsatisfactory, the next social inst.i.tution to which we turn is the church. Since the war this has come to be the most influential in the opinion of the Negro and it deserves more careful study than has yet been given to it. Only some of the more obvious features can here be considered. The first thing to impress the observer is the fact that time is again no object to the Negro. The service advertised for eleven may get fairly under way by twelve and there is no predicting when it will stop. The people drift in and out, one or two at a time, throughout the service. Families do not enter nor sit together. Outside is always a group talking over matters of general interest. The music, lined out, consists of the regulation church hymns, which are usually screeched all out of time in a high key.

The contrast between this music and the singing of the plantation songs at Hampton or some other schools which impresses one as does little music he hears elsewhere is striking. The people have the idea that plantation songs are out of place in the church. The collection is taken with a view to letting others know what each one does. At the proper time a couple of the men take their places at a table before the pulpit and invite the people to come forward with their offerings. The people straggle up the aisle with their gifts, being constantly urged to hasten so as not to delay the service. After half an hour or so the results obtained are remarkable and the social emulation redounds to the benefit of the preacher. It is difficult for the white visitor to get anything but hints of the real possibilities of the preacher, for he is at once introduced to the audience and induced to address them if it is possible. Even when this is not done there is usually an air of restraint which is noticeable. Only occasionally does the speaker forget himself and break loose, as it were. The study then presented is interesting in the extreme. While the minister shouts, the audience are swaying backward and forward in sympathetic rhythm, encouraging the speaker with cries of "Amen", "That's right", "That's the Gospel", "Give it to 'em bud", "Give 'em a little long sweetening". There is no question that they are profoundly moved, but the ident.i.ty of the spirit which troubles the waters is to me sometimes a question. The forms of the white man's religion have been adopted, but the content of these forms seems strangely different. Seemingly the church, or rather, religion, is not closely identified with morality. I am sorry to say that in the opinion of the best of both races the average country (and city) pastor does not bear a good reputation, the estimates of the immoral running from 50 to 98 per cent. of the total number. It is far from me to discount any cla.s.s of people, but if the situation is anything as represented by the estimate, the seriousness of it is evident. This idea is supported by the fact that indulgence in immorality is seldom a bar to active church members.h.i.+p, and if a member be dismissed from one communion there are others anxious to receive him or her. There are churches and communities of which these statements are not true. It is interesting to note that the churches are securing their chief support from the women. As an organization the church does not seem to have taken any great interest in the matters which most vitally affect the life of the people, except to be a social center. If these things be considered it is easy to see why the best informed are seeking for the country districts men who can be leaders of the people during the week on the farms as well as good speakers on Sunday. It is a pleasure to note that here and there some busy pastor is also spending a good deal of his time cultivating a garden, or running a small farm, with the distinct purpose of setting a good example. The precise way in which the church may be led to exert a wider and more helpful influence on the people is a matter of great importance, but it must be solved from within.

Turning from religious work we find the church bearing an important place in the social life and amus.e.m.e.nts. Besides its many gatherings and protracted meetings which are social functions, numbers of picnics and excursions are given. These may be on the railroads to rather distant points, and because of the lack of discrimination as to partic.i.p.ants, many earnest protests have been filed by the better cla.s.s of Negroes.

The amus.e.m.e.nts of the blacks are simple. Nearly all drink, but drunkenness is not a great vice. Dances are in high esteem, and are often accompanied by much drinking and not infrequently by cutting sc.r.a.pes, for the Negro's pa.s.sions lie on the surface and are easily aroused. In South Carolina the general belief seems to be that the dispensary law has been beneficial. There is also a universal fondness for tobacco in all its forms. Gambling prevails wherever there is ready money and not infrequently leads to serious a.s.saults. Music has great charms while a circus needs not the excuse of children to justify it in the Negro's eyes. Some of the holidays are celebrated, and when on the coast the blacks dubbed the 30th of May "Desecration Day," there were those who thought it well named. Active sports, with the occasional exception of a ball game, are not preferred to the more quiet pleasure of sitting about in the suns.h.i.+ne conversing with friends. America can not show a happier, more contented lot of people than these same blacks.

If we turn our attention to other characteristics of the Negro we must notice his different moral standard. To introduce the little I shall say on this point let me quote from a well known anthropologist. "There is nothing more difficult for us to realize, civilized as we are, than the mental state of the man far behind us in cultivation, as regards what we call par excellence 'morality.' It is not indecency; it is simply an animal absence of modesty. Acts which are undeniably quite natural, since they are the expression of a primordial need, essential to the duration of the species, but which a long ancestral and individual education has trained us to subject to a rigorous restraint, and to the accomplishment of which, consequently, we can not help attaching a certain shame, do not in the least shock the still imperfect conscience of the primitive man." From somewhat this standpoint we must judge of the Negro. Two or three ill.u.s.trations will suffice. Talking last summer to a porter in a small hotel, I asked him if he had ever lived on a farm. He replied that he had and that he often thought of returning.

Asking him why he did not he said that it would be necessary for him to get a wife and a lot of other things. I suggested the possibility of boarding in another family. He shook his head and said: "n.i.g.g.e.rs 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." The second ill.u.s.tration is taken from an unpublished ma.n.u.script by Rev. J. L. Tucker of Baton Rouge.

There is a negro of good character here in Baton Rouge whose name is ---- ----. He is a whitewasher by trade and does mainly odd jobs for the white people who are his patrons, and earns a good living.

He is widely known through the city as a good and reliable man.

Some time ago he had trouble with his wife's preacher, who came to his house too often. The trouble culminated in his wife leaving him. Soon thereafter he sent or went into the country and brought home a negro woman whom he installed in his house to cook and otherwise serve him. Explaining the circ.u.mstances to Mr. ----, he said: "I a'in' got no use for n.i.g.g.a preachers. Dey is de debbil wid de wimmen. I tol' dat ar fellah to keep away fr'm my house or I'd hunt him wid a shotgun, an' I meant it. But he got her'n spite a me. She went off to 'im. Now I's got me a wife from way back in de country, who don' know the ways of n.i.g.g.a preachers. I kin keep her, I reckon, a while, anyway. I pays her wages reg'lar, an' she does her duty by me. I tell yeh, Mr. ----, a hired wife's a heap better's a married wife any time, yeh mark dat. Ef yeh don' line er yer can sen' her off an' get anudder, an' she's nutten to complain 'bout a' longs yeh pay her wages. Yes siree, yeh put dat down; de hired wife's nuff sight better'n de married one. I don' fus no mo'

wid marryin' wives, I hires 'em. An I sent word to dat preacher dat if he comes roun' my house now I lays for 'im sh.o.r.e wid buck shot."

Commenting, Mr. Tucker says that the man had no idea of moral wrong, the real wife has lost no caste, the preacher stands just as well with his flock and the "new wife" is well received. The third instance occurred on a plantation. A married woman, not satisfied with the shoes she received from the store, wanted a pair of yellow turned shoes. The planter would not supply them. The woman was angry and finally left her husband, went to a neighboring place and "took up" with another man.

These cases sufficiently ill.u.s.trate prevailing conceptions of the sacredness of the marriage tie. Certainly this involves a theory of home life which differs from ours. Many matings are consummated without any regular marriage ceremony and with little reference to legal requirements, and divorces are equally informal. Moral lapses seldom bring the Negro before the courts. All these things but indicate the handicap which has to be overcome. Within the family there is often great abuse on the part of the men. The result of it all is that many Negroes do not know their own fathers and so little are the ties of kins.h.i.+p' regarded that near relatives are often unknown, and if possible less cared for. This may be substantiated by the records of any charity society in the North which has sought to trace friends of its Negro applicants. To attempt a quant.i.tative estimate of the extent of s.e.xual immorality is useless. It is sufficient to realize that a different standard prevails and one result today is a frightful prevalence of venereal diseases to which any practising physician in the South can bear witness. I am glad to say there are sections which have risen above these conditions.

The transition from slavery to freedom set in operation the forces of natural selection, which are sure and steadily working among the people and are weeding out those who for any reason can not adapt themselves to the new environment. Insanity, almost unknown in slavery times, has appeared and has been increasing among the Negroes of the South at a rate of about 100 per cent. a decade since 1860. Of course, the number affected is still small, but the end is perhaps not reached. We have witnessed also the development of the pauper and criminal cla.s.ses. This was to be expected. There is also some evidence of an increase in the use of drugs, cocaine and the like. The point to be noted is that there is taking place a steady division of the Negroes into various social strata and in spite of race traits it is no longer to be considered as on a level.

I have sought to represent the situation as it appears to me, neither seeking to overemphasize the virtues or the vices of the race. It is clear to me that in spite of the obvious progress the road ahead is long and hard. While I do not antic.i.p.ate any such acceleration of speed as will immediately bring about an economic or social millenium I believe that proper measures may be found, indeed, are already in use, which if widely adopted will lead to better things. How many of the race will fall by the way is, in one sense, a matter of indifference. In the long run, for the whites as well as the blacks, they will survive who adapt their social theories and, consequently, their modes of life to their environments.

CHAPTER VI. THE OUTLOOK.

"One of the things which militates most against the Negro here is his unreliability. * * * His mental processes are past finding out and he can not be counted on to do or not to do a given thing under given circ.u.mstances. There is scarcely a planter in all this territory who would not make substantial concessions for an a.s.sured tenantry." A Northern man, now resident in the South and employing Negro labor, says: "I am convinced of one thing and that is that there is no dependence to be placed in 90 per cent. of the Negro laborers if left to themselves and out of the overseer's sight." These quotations from men who are seeking to promote the success of the Negroes with whom they come in contact might be multiplied indefinitely from every part of the South.

The statements are scarce open to discussion, so well recognized is the fact. If I have rightly apprehended the nature of the training afforded by Africa and slavery there was little in them to develop the habits of forethought, thrift and industry, upon which this reliability must be based.

I am not arguing the question as to whether this unreliability marks a decadence of Negro standards or whether it is due to the present higher standards of the white. For argument, at least, I am willing to admit that in quality of workmans.h.i.+p, in steadfastness and self-control there has really been great progress. My interest is in the present and future rather than the past. I have tried to show that, judged by present standards, the Negro is still decidedly lacking. Personally I am not surprised at this. I should be astonished if it were otherwise. The trouble is that we at the North are unable to disabuse ourselves of the idea that the Negro is a dark skinned Yankee and we think, therefore, that if all is not as it should be that something is wrong, that somebody or some social condition is holding him back. We accuse slavery, attribute it to the hostility of the Southern white. Something _is holding him back_, but it is his inheritance of thousands of years in Africa, not slavery nor the Southern whites. It is my observation that the white of the black belt deal with the Negro more patiently and endure far more of s.h.i.+ftless methods than the average Northerner would tolerate for a day. It is interesting to note that Northern white women who go South filled with the idea that the Negro is abused can scarce keep a servant the first year or so of their stay. Of course there are exceptions, few in number, who say as did a lumberman in Alabama last summer: "I never have any trouble with the Negro. Have worked them for twenty years. Why, I haven't had to kill one yet, though I did shoot one once, but I used fine shot and it didn't hurt him much." We have attempted to have the Negro do in a few years what it has taken us thousands to accomplish, and are surprised that he has disappointed us.

There is no room for discouragement. Contrast the Negro in Africa and America to see what has been done.

Unless this unreliability is overcome it will form even a greater handicap for the future. Southern methods of agriculture have been more wasteful of small economies than have Northern. That a change is imperative, in many districts at least, has been shown. Is the Negro in a position to take advantage of these changes? At present it must be admitted that he does not possess the knowledge to enable him to utilize his environment and make the most out of it. It has been shown that he is bearing little part in the development of the trucking industry, nay more, that he does not even raise enough garden truck for his own support. In a bulletin of the Farmer's Improvement Society of Texas I find the following:

Very many, in the first place, do not try to make their supplies at home. Very often much is lost by bad fences. Lots of them don't know where their hoes, plows, single-trees, etc., are at this minute. Lots of them buy b.u.t.ter, peas, beans, lard, meat and hay. * * * Well, really, to sum up, if there's anything like scientific methods among the vast majority of our people I don't know it. * * * I venture to say that not one negro farmer in a hundred ever saw the back of one of these bulletins (agricultural), much less the inside.

If some of these primary lessons have not been mastered what chance is there that the Negro will overcome, unaided, the crop lien system and his other handicaps and introduce diversified agriculture, stock raising, etc.? Slavery taught him something about work and he is willing to work, and work hard, under leaders.h.i.+p. Herein lies the possibility of his economic salvation. He is not yet ready as a race to stand alone and advance at the pace demanded by America of the twentieth century. He must be taught and the teaching must be by practice as well as by precept. Viewed from this standpoint, though it is equally true from another, one of the great needs of the South is that its white farmers should pay more attention to other things than cotton. So long as land is considered too valuable to use for pasture, for hay, for the various crops on which stock live and fatten, or so long as it is considered profitable to sell cotton seed for $5 a ton and throw away four or five times this amount in the food and manure which the same seed contains, the Negro will not see the advantage of a different system. Nor does the sight of thousands of tons of rice straw dumped into the Mississippi each year, just as a generation ago the oat straw in Iowa was burned, lead him to suspect unused sources of wealth. The possibilities of Southern agriculture are great, but the lead must be taken by the whites.

The Negro has a great advantage over the Italian or other European peasant in that the white man prefers him as a helper. He is patient, docile and proud of his work. He is wanted by the native whites, and if the reader doubts this let him go to any Southern community and attempt to bring about any great exodus of the Negroes and he will be surprised to find how soon he is requested to move on. This interest on the part of the whites is a factor which must be considered. It would be a happy day for the Negro if the white woman of the South took her old personal interest in his welfare. This friendly sentiment will not increase with time and each succeeding generation will emphasize, more and more, industrial efficiency, and the Negro will not be preferred.

Corresponding to this is the fact that the Negro respects and willingly follows the white man, more willingly and more trustingly than he does another Negro. He is personally loyal, as the care received by the soldiers during war time ill.u.s.trated. But slavery is gone and the feudalism which followed it is slowly yielding to commercialism, which gives the palm to the more efficient.

Hitherto the Negro has tilled much of the best land of the South.

Meantime the great prairies have been settled and about all the good cheap land of the northwest taken. A tide of immigration is setting in towards the Southern states. Already the rice industry of Louisiana has been revolutionized by white immigrants. What may this mean for the Negro if these incoming whites defy race prejudice and seek the rich bottom lands of the Mississippi or elsewhere? Will the Negro be in a position of independence or will he only a.s.sist the white? Will he till in the future the best lands or will he be forced to the less fertile?

With the knowledge of the present regarding yellow fever, malaria and typhoid the dread of the lowlands is disappearing. If the indications point, as many believe, towards the South as the seat of the next great agricultural development these questions become of vital importance to the Negro. Can he become economically secure before he is made to meet a compet.i.tion which he has never yet faced? Or does the warmer climate give him an advantage, which the whites can not overcome? I must confess that I doubt it. In "The Cotton Plant" (page 242), Mr. Harry Hammond states that in 39 counties of the Black Prairie Region of Texas, in which the whites predominate, the average value of the land is $12.19 per acre, as against $6.40 for similar soil in twelve counties of the Black Prairie of Alabama, in which the Negroes are in the majority. He says further: "The number and variety of implements recently introduced in cotton culture here, especially in the prairies of Texas, is very much greater than elsewhere in the cotton belt." This would indicate that heat alone is no insurmountable obstacle.

If these things be true, then as the late Mr. J. L. M. Curry said:

"It may be a.s.sumed that the industrial problem lies at the heart of the whole situation which confronts us. Into our public and other schools should be incorporated industrial training. If to regularity, punctuality, silence, obedience to authority, there be systematically added instruction in mechanical arts, the results would be astounding."

The question of cla.s.sical education does not now concern us. The absolutely essential thing is that the Negro shall learn to work regularly and intelligently. The lesson begun in slavery must be mastered. As Dr. E. G. Murphy puts it:

The industrial training supplied by that school (slavery) is now denied to him. The capacity, the equipment, and the necessity for work which slavery provided are the direct cause of the superiority of the old time darkey. Is freedom to have no subst.i.tute for the ancient school? * * * The demand of the situation is not less education, but more education of the right sort.

I would not say that I thought all Negroes should be farmers, but I do feel that the farm offers the ma.s.s of the race the most favorable opportunity for the development of solid and enduring character. It seems to me that the following words from one of our broadest minded men apply with special force to the Negro:

If I had some magic gift to bestow it would be to make our country youth see one truth, namely, that science as applied to the farm, the garden and the forest has as splendid a dignity as astronomy; that it may work just as many marvels and claim just as high an order of talent."

CHAPTER VII. AGRICULTURAL TRAINING.

There remain to be considered some of the agencies at work to better the lot of the farmer. In this I shall not attempt to give a list of inst.i.tutions and outline of courses but to indicate various lines of work which seem promising.

In discussing the training of the Negro farmer credit must first be given to the white planters under whom he has learned so much of what he knows. Under the changing conditions of agriculture this training, or the training received on the average farm is not sufficient and must be supplemented by special training if the desired results are to be obtained.