when you have a feeling that you have an unpopular subject. My racial
identity was not clear in the mind of the gentleman who introduced me.
He said something like this: “Professor Steiner, of the University of
California said somewhere that if he had to be born again he would
like to be born a colored man, so that he might be able to study the
colored problem from the inside. We have with us today a gentleman
who understands the colored problem, and who did not have to be born
colored either.” These may not be the exact words, but it is the
thought. The first thing that I had to do was to dispel the mind of my
audience of the fact or statement just made, that I did not have to be
born a colored man, and that I wanted them to know that the traditions
of our country and the laws in many, if not all the states, had said
that any man is colored who has one iota of Negro blood in his veins.
“I am glad to have the honor to address you as a colored man.” Those
who know me best tell me that I do not have many stopping places. So I
fore-warned my friends in the front of me that sometimes my address was
three in one and sometimes one in three. Three in one when I have only
one hour in which to speak and one in three when I have three hours
in which to speak. Speaking to a Congregational Church, and a white
church, too, one has to observe the traditions very closely. These
traditions limit us to about thirty minutes, and unless one is very
interesting he had better stop in twenty-five minutes. So my address
had to be three in thirty.
The audience was scarcely dismissed when a large crowd gathered at
the corner of the church to ask more about certain topics which I had
only the time to touch. They were seeking to discover and to interpret
the meaning of life. I was invited to go home with many friends, but
I could not go with all, so a compromise was effected, and several
families joined, and I was the guest for the afternoon of these
families. One of these families had been missionaries in China. Others
had worked among the Japanese. There we were exchanging our experiences
each for the edification of the other. We were all happy that our lot
had been cast in these divergent directions.
I cannot continue this without becoming monotonous. I was most happily
received in a great many other churches, colored as well as white.
My message was generally, “The Amistad,” “The American Missionary
Association,” “General O. O. Howard and Reconstruction,” “The Schools
of the American Missionary Association,” “The Progress of the Colored
People,” “Inter-Racial Relations,” etc. One can see a wide latitude in
these subjects.
At the theaters we saw several colored stars. In Buffalo Charles Gilpin
in “Emperor Jones.” Gilpin is an artist of the first magnitude, but
I did not like his selection. I am not a critic of such matters, but
it did seem to me that his piece was coarse. It was very popular. One
could hardly find seating room in the large house where the play was
given.
In New York “Shuffle ’Long” was exciting great interest. There must
have been twenty or more taking part in the play, and every character
was an artist. I never saw anything finer. These people played in New
York in one house for nearly a year, and while the entrance fees were
high the house was packed every night.
In Chicago Bert Williams was the whole attraction. I saw him at the
Studebaker in “The Loop” just before his breakdown. I was told that
after his death the company broke up. They could not find another “Bert
Williams.” In his death the race has lost one of the greatest stars in
the theatrical world, irrespective of color. It is an awful tragedy of
our times that racial prejudice is blind to art when the artist happens
to be colored. It is no fault of the artist that he was born colored.
The theatrical field has been rather restricted so far as our colored
artists are concerned, but wherever they have had the opportunity they
have not been found wanting.
“Broadway Rastus and Sambo” are in a class by themselves. The play is
clean and fine, every whit of it. It will cure the blues. The singers
are the best on the American stage. The vaudeville is equal to any I
have seen in the best white theaters.
Every place visited we met very prominent colored men and women who
were formerly from North Carolina. We are compiling some interesting
data on them which we hope to give to the public later.
In Cleveland we met our old friend Lawyer J. P. Green. He has been a
lawyer there for forty years. He has written a splendid book of his
life. He has been Recorder of Deeds in Washington, and for several
terms member of the Ohio Legislature.
Mr. Charles Smith, whose parents were North Carolina people, has served
on the Cleveland police force twenty-five years, and is now retired.
His parents lived at Chapel Hill this state, and migrated to Oberlin
where he, with several other brothers and sisters, were educated.
Mrs. Mary Talbert, of Buffalo, is President of the Negro Women’s
League, which is a national organization of women. She was educated
in Oberlin. Her parents migrated there before the Civil War from this
state. It would take a chapter to tell what great things she has done
for the colored women and what she is now doing. She is a traveler,
lecturer and scholar. She has recently raised the money to have the
Fred Douglass Home in Washington City as a Memorial to the greatest
Negro who ever lived. It will be dedicated the 12th of August, 1922.
Her husband, Mr. William Talbert, is a city official in the treasurer’s
office, of Buffalo, New York.
Mrs. Clara Hardy, of St. Paul, Minnesota, a sister of Mrs. Talbert, is
also a graduate of Oberlin College. She has held many places of honor
in her adopted city. She is now Court Bailiff. She is a writer and
speaker of no mean ability. Her home was a perfect model.
In California it was my pleasure to stop with Dr. R. R. Robinson. He
is a Halifax County man. He was a student here for a number of years
working his way with his hands. He laid out our walks, planted many of
our older trees and helped to “Start Bricks.” He took an agricultural
course at the A. and T. College in this state and went to Tuskegee,
where he taught several years. He married a North Carolina girl from
Bethel, who was a trained nurse. Later he went to Nashville, Tennessee,
and took a course in medicine. After graduating he practiced medicine
in Brunswick, Ga., through the flue, and was very successful. After
the world war he went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was there when the riot
broke out. He saved his life by hiding in the woods three days, he and
his wife. He lost all his office fixtures and medical instruments,
and every remnant of personal apparel. He is now a very successful
physician in Los Angeles, California.
I have given only an outline of some impressions of my trip to
California with the hope that it may inspire some reader to know, to
go, and to acquire a larger vision of the world and of life.
FARM LIFE
For many years the farmer has been the laughing stock of the country.
The conduct of his farm and his business methods have brought him more
gibes and thrusts than are brought to any other professional class. The
late Booker T. Washington described the characteristics of his class
many years ago. The poor old mule or horse and often the ox, hitched
to a single plow, scratching the earth with as much effectiveness as
an old Plymouth Rock rooster would scratch for newly planted oats. The
farmer follows behind this slow plodding plow in tatters and rags, illy
fed, too often diseased with hook worm or some other infectious malady.
His road sides and ditch banks for ten or twenty feet back are filled
with weeds and shrubby growth to sap the vitality from the growing
crops in their proximity. He has stagnant pools all over his patch in
wet weather to further deplete the growth of his crops that may be left
from the weeds by the roadside and ditch banks.
His home, the home of the old farmer, is the last thing to which any
attention need be given. He has followed his methods for “Fifty years
or more.” He has cotton right up to the door, potatoes, peanuts or corn
filling the yard. No place is left for flowers or ornamentation of any
sort. The old log house, just a place in which to sleep and in which to
hide when it storms outside. It has only two rooms for a large family.
The old man is in tatters, the wife is in tatters and the children are
in tatters, I have seen many, the least of the little ones, as naked as
they came into the world.
The implements of such a farmer never saw shelter or protection from
the weather from the time they were bought from the store until they
had been disintegrated by rust and rot and had gone back into the
original mother earth to rest forevermore.
The farmer himself had a personality that was uninviting and dirty.
He thought the good Lord had created him for just the sort of life he
was eking out, and he eschewed all progress. Good roads and decent
schools were things he never needed and he would not consent for such
improvements if they cost him anything. The old mongrel hen was good
enough because she could roost in the trees and lay at the same time.
The pinewood rooters were all right because they could make their
living by eating pine roots and other people’s crops. A half dozen dogs
were useful to feed. The old cow was still kept in the family because
of the ancestral history and not because of her utility.
Slipshod methods in business have been the handicap of more farmers
than all the evils attending them. We very often receive congratulatory
letters from business men on our farmers’ programme and at the same
time these business men lament the fact that our farmers’ business
methods are so poorly managed.
Not long ago we received notice that two of the wealthiest farmers,
Negro farmers, in Georgia had died. They were reputed to be worth more
than a hundred thousand dollars in cash besides the great land holdings
and other property they owned. Later when their estates were settled
up their business was in such a tangled condition, all interwoven with
that of their neighbors’, that there was nothing left for the wife and
children. I hope that we do not have in North Carolina such tangles as
the above. Whatever else the farmer does he ought to keep his business
straight. We have found out through our Federal Farm Loan Organization
that many farmers have bought and paid for farms and have paid taxes on
these farms for twenty years, but it would take a “Philadelphia Lawyer”
to find out whether the legal owner was the farmer, the banker, or
the land company, or the merchant. That is bad business. Any man who
mortgages his farm after he has paid for it seriously jeopardizes his
future as far as his farm is concerned. If you have debts that must
be met you had better sell a portion of your farm outright and keep
the other clean and clear. The mortgage business is a bad business for
the average farmer to take into his partnership. The merchants, the
business men, the state government and national government, are all
emphasizing every movement tending to the exit of this mortgage system.
The farmer, first of all, should give it a hard kick.
It is a matter of education first. These farmers’ meetings give us
an opportunity to inform ourselves. Our schools and our colleges are
helping us to get informed. The local conferences have no other purpose
than to help you to be informed on farm and business matters relative
to your farm. Bulletins sent out by the State and National governments
are among the greatest educational agencies. They are all practically
free. The farmer _who does not and will not_ take advantage of such
agencies of information is certainly destined to be at the foot of the
ladder; and there is where he belongs. The farmer who is given all the
agencies and says he will not pull himself up ought to go down. The
sooner he goes with that spirit the better, so that some other man can
take his place and make good. I still see some of these old timers
carrying water across the field a half mile away, still taking care of
the family wash down by the river side, still holding on to the old
ash pile. These relics have been heirlooms in the family and we are
reluctant to let them go. It takes some spirit, some purpose and a
great will to tear away from these old traditions. It must be done if
we are going to advance. We must learn the lessons of experience. They
have been sad lessons to many farmers. These farmers’ conferences are
bringing to you lessons of scientific farming. Let the traditions go to
the wind and take hold of the new problems in your farming and farming
business that will bring success, happiness and a life.
Today as never before the farmer is coming into his own. Watch the
agricultural papers and magazines. Visit our county and state fairs.
See the interest and note the comparisons in our community fairs.
Progress is in the air. If there are those who do not believe it, they
will believe it, and feel the impress of the upward move, or they must
get out of the business. Any farmer, white or colored, who does not
line up with the best farming methods of the community is bound to lose
out on his farm. The lessons may be hard, but as a class of farmers you
must get these lessons.
The first lesson that must come to every farmer is that he must line
up or unite with other farmers in the prosecution of his work. Every
industry is organized except that of farming. The farmer produces his
crops, and, unorganized, sells them to any bidder who comes along and
takes his price or nothing. Organization will help the farmer to get
the best price for his products. No man works very long by himself at
anything. You cannot make it alone. Coöperation is the word. You get
coöperation by organization. Every industry that is worth the name is
organized.
Organization helps you to buy as well as it helps you to sell. It will
get you the lowest prices for what you have to buy, and the highest
prices for what you have to sell. Single handed you pay what is charged
and sell it for what you can get, much or little. The government is
fostering the Federal Farm Loan Organization in order to put the
farmer on his feet. Are you using that organization? The state is
encouraging farm unions. They can be formed in every community where
you can find ten men, _ten real men_. Are you using this organization?
Some communities are using them very effectively. Our own Federal Farm
Loan Organization, the Tri-County Federal Farm Loan Organization, of
Bricks, N. C., has put into Negro farms and farm improvements about
seventy-five thousand dollars and has applications for nearly as much
more. Do we have your application?
Let us illustrate what we want to impress relative to coöperation and
organization. A few years ago two renters came to the Brick School
farm. Each had one horse. The wives had a lot of small children and
could not be expected to do very much on the farm. One day I saw a team
of two horses plowing. The two men had united their horses and were
plowing their ground with a double team. One was plowing and the other
man was clearing up the ditch banks. They worked tandem all summer and
seemed to get fine results. They were happy in their work and each was
company for the other.
A few years ago we needed here on the Brick School farm a peanut
thresher. No one could get the thresher alone, so an organization
was perfected and a peanut thresher was bought for two hundred
dollars. This thresher did fine work for many years, and brought the
stockholders a nice little revenue as long as it was in service. I
cannot see why a few men in every community cannot unite their efforts
and get everything they need on their farms.
Every time I go to Rocky Mount I see scores and scores of wagons on the
road hauling tobacco to market. These wagons go in groups for company
and mutual help. I have counted as many as twenty in one group, and
I am sure the different groups represent a certain community. These
communities of small farmers ought to unite and buy jointly a truck.
Some of these grouped teams travel, to my personal knowledge, thirty
miles with their tobacco. This trip takes two days and one night to
land the sale. The teams and the men alike are unfit for work for
several days thereafter. Count the cost of man, wagon and animals. The
automobile will do the same work in a few hours and be ready instantly
for other work. If the farmer drives his wagon half of his time on the
road is lost driving this way and that getting out of the road for
trucks and automobiles. If you cannot put your products on the market
as fast as your neighbor you cannot compete with him. That is all. If
you cannot do it single handed unite your forces. That is the commonest
of common sense.
Farmers cannot hire ditching done any more. Ditching with pick and
shovel is a past art. You cannot pay the price, and you cannot find
the ditcher. Ditching is now a profession. The last time we had our
work done by hand the gentleman came in a large Buick, worked a few
hours for a few days and the job was done. The element of drudgery is
too great. We are living in an age of steam and gas and power. Why
strain the muscles when you can turn the throttle with the weight of
one finger and the work is done? You can buy a machine ditcher, drawn
by horse power, for as little as forty dollars. If done with hired help
it does not take but a few yards to cost forty dollars. Two mules and a
machine ditcher will make more ditches in a day than ten men can make
in a week. Here the drudgery is eliminated. Any boy can drive the team.
Why not join your forces and buy a ditcher or buy it by yourself? A
dozen peanut growers will pay more to thresh their peanuts in one year
than a whole peanut outfit will cost. At the same time it is yours and
you can thresh your peanuts when you please to do it. You will have
the outfit for many years, depending upon the care you give it. We
are paying now around ten dollars a cord for cutting wood. The best
woodcutters cannot cut more than two cords of wood in the woods a day.
Do you know that you can buy a wood saw that will fell the tree and cut
up the wood, and that one man can cut as much as fifteen cords in one
day? Muscular strength and drudgery are again eliminated. Why not a
few of you unite your forces and buy a machine, and in a few days lay
in all the wood you need for the winter and summer use? Do you like to
trudge along the old way because it is traditional? I do not know of
anything more annoying than to have to run to the woods or wood pile
morning, noon and night, to cut wood for the preparation of the meal.
To me it would be enough to spoil the temper of a saint.
Here is a fine proposition suggested to me by a former Brickite. I am
not sure that it is original with him, but it is a fine proposition and
I am passing it along:
The average farmer who is working on his own farm or farming on his
own account must grow not less than four or five hundred bushels of
peanuts yearly or more. Some, to my knowledge, grow eight hundred
and a thousand bushels. It usually costs twenty-five cents a sack
to thresh this amount. One sack holds about four bushels. It will
cost twenty-five dollars to thresh one hundred sacks or four hundred
bushels. Form a company of sufficient numbers and let them pay for
their stock exactly what they would pay to an outsider for threshing
their peanuts. If properly handled it would pay for itself in one year
and after that it ought to clear a dividend.
There is one outstanding difficulty in this as in nearly everything in
which we engage in coöperative manner. That one man who will take the
leadership. Where is he? He must be unselfish, honest and level-headed.
I am speaking especially with reference to farmers who have limited
means and not much help. Coöperation and organization ought to mean
more than a little partnership. To organize and coöperate for community
uplift and progress takes a lot of intelligence and honesty. I would
not impugn your citizenship and standing in the community to say that
you lacked either as farmers. It is a fact that most of us as farmers
are hard to understand some of the simplest business relations. When
the business demands that we shall pay our bills by a bank check and
require a receipt, and that all these operations should be booked, and
when an auditor is called in to balance our accounts and check up our
mistakes we are too quick to think that our honesty is questioned.
There is no other way to do business when others are involved in that
business. _The honest man wants to be checked up._ It gives him a
standing that nothing else will. Treasurers and secretaries of any
organization, whether churches, Sunday Schools, secret orders, debating
societies, or what not, have no business keeping other people’s money
in their personal possession. The banks are the national depositories
for all such organizations and other people’s money ought to be kept
there.
It should not only be put in the bank, but it ought to be put there
to the credit of the institution to which it belongs. This may not be
good farming, but it is good business. I know of at least one man who
went to the penitentiary for using other people’s money for only a
few days and could not replace it. Organizations and companies should
demand cancelled checks and receipts for all expenses every so often
in a joint meeting. If officers count this an infringement upon their
personal integrity dismiss them and get officers who do not so regard
it. It is the only way to do business.
We do not organize more and do not succeed better because we lack
faith in each other. This is perfectly natural. The Negroes have been
schooled in credulousness for a great many years. The encumbrance of
so long an inheritance cannot be so easily thrown off. Expect the
best that is in your neighbor and your neighbor will prove up to your
highest expectation. You not only make your neighbor better by your
good thoughts of him, but you add to your own spiritual and mental
growth incalculably. You grow yourself.
Farmers must buy modern machinery for their farm. It is the best
investment you can make. Corn planters, cotton planters, gang plows,
and machinery of every sort that will save you worry and steps should
be bought. You cannot afford to farm without these implements. If you
do you must be left behind in the occupation of farming. You can not
make it. I think a farmer who can buy an automobile ought to be able
to buy a tractor engine. With a tractor engine you can plow, harrow,
and plant your ground while your neighbor is breaking his ground, and
you have beaten him a hundred miles in the manner in which you have
prepared the soil. At the close of the day you are not too tired to
go with your family to the moving picture show or to some community
entertainment where you may get an inspirational uplift for the next
day’s work. Look at your neighbors. That is what they do and keep ahead
of you.
I think the farmer who is making good ought to buy a Ford car. I saw
a big farmer the other day who lived out about eight miles from Rocky
Mount. He was driving a horse and buggy. I asked him how much money
he had cleared the year before on his farm and he said that he had
cleared over and above all expenses about three thousand dollars. It
took him a good half day to drive to Rocky Mount for his plow point.
He might have saved the trip or run over there in twenty minutes and
made his purchase and had the rest of the day for work on his farm if
he had owned a Ford car. I am not arguing that one should purchase
modern machinery with which to facilitate his work in order to give him
more time to be idle. It will give him more time to do the things that
machinery cannot do. The good farmer never has idle time. Time spent
at a farmers’ conference is not idle time. The matter of getting the
latest and best information on farming methods is the most important
thing that a farmer can do. One cannot put into practice on his farm or
anywhere else what he does not know.