arose in his place, his face wreathed in smiles, and showing his white
teeth as he spoke: "Doctor, I done 'tended one o' yore conferences
here 'bout ten year ago. I heard you say dat a man ain't wurth nuthin'
as a man or a citizen 'less he owns his home, 'least one mule, and has
a bank account, an' so I made up my mind dat I warn't wuth nuthin',
an' so I went home an' talked de whole matter over wid de ol' woman.
We decided dat we would make a start, an' now I's proud to tell you
dat I's not only got a bank account, but I's got two bank accounts,
an' heah's de bank books (proudly holding on high two grimy bank
books); I also own two hun'ed acres of land an' all de land is paid
for. I also own two mules, an' bofe dem mules is paid for. I also own
some other property, an' de ole woman an' me an' de chilluns lives in
a good house an' de house is paid for. All dis come 'bout from my
comin' to dis heah conference."
Another old fellow, when called upon to tell what he had accomplished,
dexterously evaded the direct inquiry for some minutes, and when Mr.
Washington finally succeeded in pinning him down, said: "All I's got
to say, Doctah Washington, is dat dis heah conference dun woke me up
an' I'll be back heah next year wid a report jist like dese oder
fellers."
Mr. Washington was a great believer in his favorite animal, the pig,
as a mortgage lifter and general aid to prosperity. At one of the
conferences, after he had paid a particularly warm eulogy to the
economic importance of the pig, an old woman got up and said: "Mr.
Washington, you is got befo' you now Sister Nelson of Tallapoosa
County, Alabama. All I has I owes to dis conference and one little
puppy dog."
Mr. Washington challenged: "How's that?"
The old woman continued: "I got a little pig from dat little puppy dog
an' I got my prosperity from dat pig!"
Mr. Washington and the whole company in amazement hung upon the old
woman's words as she continued: "It was dis way: Dat little puppy dog
when she growed up had some little puppies herself. One day one o' my
fren's come by an' as' me for one o' dem puppies. I tol' him 'No,' I
would not gib him dat puppy, but dat he had a little pig an' I would
'change a puppy for a pig. I had heard you tell ober heah so much
'bout hogs an' pigs dat I thought dis was a good chance to get
started. He give me de pig an' I give him de puppy. In de course o'
time dat little pig dun bring me in some mo' pigs. I sol' some an'
kep' some. I had to feed de pig, so I had begun savin'. I den begun to
find out dat I could git on wid less den I had ben gettin' on wid, an'
so I kep' on savin' an' kep' on raisin' pigs 'til I was able to supply
most o' my neighbors wid pigs, an' den I got me a cow, an den I begun
to supply my neighbors wid milk, an' den I started me a little garden.
Den I sol' my neighbors greens an' onions, an' so I went on fum time
to time 'til I dun paid for de lot an' de house in which I lib, an' I
keeps my pigs about me an' keeps my garden goin', an' dat's why I says
all I is I owes to dat little puppy dog an' to dis heah conference."
At these conferences the most elementary subjects are discussed.
Booker Washington would tell and have told to these farmers matters
which one would naturally assume any farmers, however ignorant, must
already know. He never tried to deceive himself as to the woful
ignorance of the Negro masses, and still he was never discouraged, but
always said ignorance was not a hopeless handicap because it could be
overcome by education. While he frankly although sadly acknowledged
the lamentable ignorance of the rank and file of his race,
particularly those on the soil and dependent for education upon the
short-term, ill-equipped, and poorly taught rural Negro school, he as
stoutly denied and constantly disproved the assertion that these
ignorant masses were not capable of profiting by education. He
earnestly strove and signally succeeded in attracting to these great
annual agricultural conferences the most pathetically ignorant of the
Negro farmers as well as the leading scientific agriculturists of the
race. But he always insisted that the meetings be conducted for the
benefit of the ignorant and not in the interests of the learned.
He would, for instance, tell the attendants at the conferences what to
plant and when to plant it, and what live stock to keep and how to
keep it. He would have printed and distributed among them a "Farmer's
Calendar" which gave the months in which the various standard
vegetables should be planted and what crops should be used in
rotation. He constantly insisted that the Experiment Station at
Tuskegee Institute, supported by the State of Alabama, should not be
used for scientific experiments of interest only to experts, but
should deal with the fundamental problems with which the Negro farmers
of Alabama were daily confronted. The titles of some of the Experiment
Station Bulletins selected at random suggest the homely and practical
nature of the information disseminated. Half a dozen of them read as
follows: "Possibilities of the Sweet Potato in Macon County, Alabama,"
"How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human
Consumption," "How to Raise Pigs with Little Money," "When, What, and
How to Can and Preserve Fruits and Vegetables in the Home," "Some
Possibilities of the Cowpea in Macon County, Alabama," "A New and
Prolific Variety of Cotton." And all of these bulletins, so many of
which deal with the problems of the home, are written by an old
bachelor of pure African descent, without a drop of white blood, who
in himself refutes two popular fallacies: the one that bachelors
cannot be skilled in domestic affairs, and the other, that
pure-blooded Africans cannot achieve intellectual distinction. This
man is George W. Carver, who is not only the most eminent agricultural
scientist of his race in this country, but one of the most eminent of
any race. His work is so well known in scientific circles in his field
throughout the world that when leading European scientists visit this
country, particularly the Southern States, they not infrequently go
out of their way to look him up. They are usually very much surprised
to find their eminent fellow-scientist a black man.
The last of these conferences over which Booker Washington presided
was held at Tuskegee, January 20 and 21, 1915. A woman, the wife of a
Negro farmer, was testifying when she said: "Our menfolks is foun' out
dat they can't eat cotton." As the outburst of laughter which greeted
this remark died down, Mr. Washington said in his incisive way: "What
do you mean?" The woman replied: "I mean dat we womenfolks been
tellin' our menfolks all de time dat they should raise mo to eat."
She then displayed specimens of canned fruits and told how she had put
up enough of them to supply her family until summer. She told of
having sold thirty-six turkeys and of selling two and three dozen eggs
each week, with plenty left over for her family. She said that she and
her husband had raised and sold hogs, and still had for their own use
more than enough pork to last them until the next hog-killing time.
"How often do you eat chicken?" asked Dr. Washington.
"We can eat chicken every day if we want it," she replied.
When she had finished Mr. Washington explained that all this had been
done on 178 acres of the poorest land in Macon County.
In his opening address at this conference Mr. Washington denounced
"petty thieving, pistol-toting, crap-shooting, the patronizing of
'blind tigers,' and unnecessary lawsuits" as some of the weights and
encumbrances which are keeping the Negro from running well the race
which is set before him.
These are some of the basic questions which Booker Washington placed
before the conference for discussion:
"How and why am I so hard hit by the present hard times?"
"What am I doing to meet present conditions?"
"How may I, after all, get some real benefit from present
difficulties?"
The most spectacular feature of the exercises was the parade. It
extended for almost a mile and included a score or more of floats,
hundreds of men and women in appropriate costumes, and dozens of
horses, mules, and other live stock.
There were a large number of colored preachers in attendance who
showed that they had adopted the Washington slogan of trying to make a
heaven on earth and whose testimony showed that they were now giving
as much time to soil salvation as to soul salvation. One of them told
of a flourishing Pig Club which he had organized among his
parishioners after reading Mr. Washington's open letter, "Pigs and
Education; Pigs and Debts," the circulating of which will be later
described.
[Illustration: This old woman was a regular attendant at the Tuskegee
Negro Conference and idolizingly watched Mr. Washington during the
whole four hours that he would preside over one of the Conference
sessions.]
After the awarding of prizes for the best floats the declarations of
the conference were read by Major R.R. Moton of Hampton Institute, who
then little realized that before the year was out he was to be chosen
to succeed the leader of his race as the Principal of Tuskegee
Institute.
The following were the especially significant paragraphs of these
declarations:
"It is found that for every dollar's worth of cotton we grow, we raise
only forty-nine cents' worth of all other crops. An investigation has
shown that there are 20,000 farms of Negroes on which there are no
cattle of any kind; 270,000 on which there are no hogs; 200,000 on
which no poultry is raised; 140,000 on which no corn is grown; on
750,000 farms of Negroes no oats are grown; on 550,000 farms no sweet
potatoes are grown, and on 320,000 farms of Negroes there are no
gardens of any sort. These hundreds of thousands of farms without
cattle, grain, or gardens are for the most part operated by tenants.
In their behalf, the Tuskegee Negro Conference respectfully requests
of the planters, bankers, and other representatives of the financial
interests of the South that more opportunities be given Negro tenants
on plantations to grow crops other than cotton."
After the regular conference the usual Conference of Workers was held.
This conference is composed of people such as heads of schools and
colleges, preachers, teachers, and persons generally holding
responsible positions of leadership in their respective communities.
These leaders discuss the larger community problems in distinction
from individual problems. At this gathering, for instance, the
principal of the County High School at Cottage Grove, Ala., explained
how through diversified farming the parents of his students had been
able to live while holding their cotton for higher prices.
Some of the principals of schools told how they had accepted cotton as
payment of tuition for some of their students. Others had taken in
payment barrels of syrup, sacks of corn, and hogs. All the schools
reported cutting expenses, by reduction of their dietary, the salaries
of teachers, or some other forms of retrenchment, meaning sacrifice
for students or teachers, or both, that the work of education might
continue and weather the hard times. In concluding the conference
Booker Washington explained the terms of the recently enacted Smith
Lever Act for Federal aid in the extension of agricultural education
throughout the rural districts of the country. Thus ended the
twentieth session of the great Tuskegee Negro Conference and the last
session presided over by the Founder of the Conference. It was most
appropriate that this, his last conference, should have so unanimously
and effectively applied one of the leading tenets of Booker
Washington's teaching--namely, the winning of lasting profit from the
experiences of adversity.
As well as these annual Farmers' Conferences there are held at
Tuskegee monthly meetings for the farmers from the locality where they
display their products, tell of their successes and failures, and
compare notes on their experiences all under the expert leadership,
guidance, and advice of the staff of the agricultural department of
the Institute. Every month, or oftener, there is an agricultural
exhibit in which the best products of the various crops such as
potatoes, corn, and cotton are displayed, and the methods used in
their production explained by figures and graphic charts.
As early as 1895 Booker Washington started a campaign to get his
people to raise more pigs. This campaign he revived at intervals, and
for the last time in the fall of 1914, when the whole country and
particularly the South was suffering from the first acute depression
caused by the European War. In the Southern States this depression
was, of course, especially acute because the European market for
cotton was for the time being cut off. As one of the means to aid his
people in this trying time he sent the following letter to the entire
press of the South of both races:
"PIGS AND EDUCATION; PIGS AND DEBTS"
_To the Editor:_
Our race is in constant search of means with which to
provide better homes, schools, colleges, and churches, and
with which to pay debts. This is especially true during the
hard financial conditions obtaining on account of the
European War. All of this cannot be done at once, but great
progress can be made by a good strong pull together in a
simple, direct manner. How?
There are 1,400,000 colored families who live on farms or in
villages, or small towns. Of this number, at the present
time, 700,000 have no pigs. I want to ask that each family
raise at least one pig this fall. Where one or more pigs are
already owned, I want to ask that each family raise one
additional pig this fall.
As soon as possible, I want to ask that this plan be
followed by the organization of a Pig Club in every
community where one does not already exist. I want to ask
that the matter be taken up at once through families,
schools, churches, and societies, Farmers' Institutes,
Business Leagues, etc.
The average pig is valued at about $5. If each family adds
only one pig, in a few months at the present price for hogs,
$10 would be added to the wealth of the owner, and
$14,000,000 to the wealth of the colored people. If each
family adds two pigs, it would have in a few months $20 more
wealth, and $28,000,000 would be added with which to promote
the welfare of the race during the money stringency created
by the European War.
Let us not put it off, but organize Pig Clubs everywhere.
Give each boy and girl an opportunity to own and grow at
least one pig.
[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,
Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
This letter was not only printed by most of the white papers as well
as all of the Negro papers, but it was widely endorsed editorially in
the white as well as the black press. Many of the newspapers for
whites urged that the white farmers also follow the suggestion. The
granges and farmers' institutes of both races took up the appeal and
urged it upon their members. There can be no doubt that through the
publication of this one brief letter, sent out at just the right
psychological moment, Booker Washington materially aided the Southern
farmers of both races to tide over a serious crisis and materially
increased the economic wealth of the entire South. As he well knew,
the people were desperate and panicky and hence ready to follow
almost any lead. In any ordinary state of the public mind such a
letter could have produced nothing like such an influence. This well
illustrated Booker Washington's accurate knowledge of and feeling for
the psychology of the public which enabled him almost without
exception to speak or remain silent at the right times.
Booker Washington was not only interested in black farmers but white
farmers. He always emphasized the responsibility of the farmer as the
builder of the foundations of society. He was constantly inviting the
white farmers of the surrounding country to visit the school and see
what was being done on the school farms and by the Experiment Station.
And the white farmers availed themselves freely of this opportunity
and profited by it. The school's veterinarian is probably the only one
in the county, and this division was established very largely for the
purpose of bringing the school and the community--both white and
black--into closer relation. In dealing with farmers, even more
perhaps than with other classes of people, Washington would appeal to
their pride and even to their vanity. He was fond of telling them that
they were the salt of the earth. One of his favorite stories was about
the farmer who keeps his best potatoes for himself and his family and
sends the speckled ones to town; keeps his tender young chickens and
sends the old tough ones to town; keeps his rich milk and sends his
skimmed milk to town. While there may never have been quite such a
farmer the story had its element of truth, and helped to make the
farmer appreciate his good fortune and his importance in the scheme of
things.
In 1910, when the last Federal Census was taken, 503 Negro farm owners
in Macon County, Booker Washington's home county, owned 61,689 acres,
or an average of more than one hundred and twenty-two and one-half
acres of land per man. This is probably the largest amount of land
owned by the Negroes of any county in the United States. Certainly
this was true at that time. The better class of Negro farmers has
greatly increased during the past thirty years until at present from
90 to 95 per cent. of the 3,800 Negro farmers in the county operate
their own farms either as cash tenants or owners. The increase in the
number of Negroes owning or operating farms has been an important
factor in securing a better quality and variety of food. They have
diversified their crops and raised a larger amount of their own food
supplies, particularly meat and vegetables, and they have produced
more milk, butter, and eggs. It will be seen that Booker Washington's
voice when he reiterated over and over again, "The man who owns the
land will own much else besides," did not fall upon deaf ears.
When Booker Washington came to Macon County and founded Tuskegee
Institute, in 1881, the soil was worn out, and cotton, the chief crop,
was selling for an almost constantly lowering price. Although there
were few counties with a lower yield of cotton per acre, one-quarter
of a bale, over 42 per cent. of the tilled land of the county was
devoted exclusively to this crop. Very little machinery was used in
the farming, the antique scooter plow and hoe being the main reliance.
The soil was rarely tilled more than three or four inches deep. There
was, in fact, a superstition among whites as well as blacks that deep
plowing was injurious to the soil. Two-horse teams were seldom used.
Sub-soiling, fall plowing, fallowing, and rotation of crops were
little known and less practised. The county was producing per capita
per year only about five pounds of butter, four dozen eggs, and less
than three chickens.
The Negroes were with few exceptions shiftless and improvident
plantation laborers and renters. Of the almost 13,000 Negroes in the
county not more than fifty or sixty owned land. They lived almost
exclusively in one-room cabins. Sometimes in addition to the immediate
family there were relatives and friends living and sleeping in this
one room. The common diet of these Negroes was fat pork, corn bread,
and molasses. Many meals consisted of corn bread mixed with salt
water. This, then, was the raw material with which Booker Washington
had to work and from which has been developed, largely through his
influence, one of the most prosperous agricultural counties in the
South--a county which has been heralded in the press as feeding itself
because of the great abundance and variety of its products. In 1910
the per capita production for the county was: 40 gallons of milk, 11
pounds of butter, 7 dozen eggs, and 5 chickens. It must, of course, do
more than this before it will actually feed itself.
Mr. Washington was constantly drumming it into the consciousness of
the Negro farmer that as long as he remained ignorant and improvident
he was sure to be exploited and imposed upon. He used to illustrate
this by the story of the ignorant Negro who after paying a white man
fifty cents a week for six months on a five-dollar loan cheerfully
remarked: "Dat Mr. ---- sho is one fine gen'lman, cause he never has
ast me fo' one cent ob dat principal." It may be surmised that this
type of money lender is not enthusiastic over Negro education.
It is significant of the importance which Booker Washington attached
to agriculture that the first great Federal official whom he invited
to visit the school was the National Secretary of Agriculture. In 1897
he got the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture in President
McKinley's Cabinet, to visit Tuskegee and attend the dedication of the
school's first agricultural building.
Secretary Wilson arrived at night accompanied by Dr. J.L.M. Curry, a
Southerner, a leader of the educational thought of the South, and the
secretary of the John F. Slater Fund Board. The students lined up on
either side of the main thoroughfare through the school grounds with
back of them a great gathering of the farmers from the surrounding
territory and many from a distance. Each one of this great throng was
given a pine torch and all these torches were simultaneously lighted
as Secretary Wilson entered the school grounds. The Secretary and
Doctor Curry, preceded by the Institute Band, rode between these two
great masses of cheering people and flaming torches.
The next day the dedication exercises were held on a specially
constructed platform piled high with the finest specimens of every
product known to that section of the South. On this platform, with the
Secretary and Doctor Curry, were the State Commissioner of Agriculture
and several other high State officials and many other prominent white
citizens. This was the formal launching of the Agricultural Department
of the school. George W. Carver, the full-blooded African and eminent
agricultural scientist, of whom mention has already been made, had
recently been placed in charge of this department. He had come from
the Agricultural Department of Iowa State College, of which Secretary
Wilson had been the head.
The annual budget of this department alone is now nearly fifty
thousand dollars a year, and more than a thousand acres of land are
cultivated under the supervision of the agricultural staff. The modest
building which Secretary Wilson helped to dedicate has long since been
outgrown and the department is now housed in a large, impressive brick
building known as the Millbank Agricultural Building.
Under the provisions of the Smith-Lever Act, passed by Congress in
1914 for the purpose of aiding the States in Agricultural Extension
Work, Booker Washington secured for Tuskegee a portion of the funds
allotted to the State of Alabama for such work. With the aid of these
funds Agricultural Extension Schools have been organized. These
schools are conducted in coöperation with the Agricultural Department
of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute and the farm demonstration work
of the United States Department of Agriculture. They are really a two
days' Short Course in Agriculture carried out to the farmers on their
own farms. These schools have the advantage over the Short Course
given to the farmers on the Institute grounds in that they have the
farmers' problems right before them, to be diagnosed and remedies
applied at once. Through such schools farm instruction is being
carried to the Negroes of every Black Belt County of Alabama.