_Conditions of Labor in the South_
I am not seriously concerned about the frightful political disorders
which have disgraced the Southern States since the close of the War of
the Rebellion; nor am I seriously concerned about the race-wars in
that section about which so much has been justly said, and about which
so very little is really known, in spite of the vast mass of testimony
that did not more than begin to tell the tale. I know that time and
education will give proper adjustment to the politics of the South,
and that the best men of all classes, the intelligent and the
property-holders will eventually grasp the reins of political or civil
power and give, as far as they can, equilibrium to the unbalanced
conditions.
The men of natural parts, of superior culture and ambitious spirit
usually, in all societies, manage to rise to the top as the natural
rulers of the people. You cannot keep them down; you cannot repress
them. They rise to the top as naturally as sparks fly upward to the
heavens. Demagogues and quacks manage only to impose upon the ignorant
and confiding, upon men, conscious of their own inability to rule, who
gladly transfer the responsibility to the first loud-mouthed fellow
who comes along claiming, as his own, superior capacity and virtue.
Intelligent men do not permit ignoramuses and adventurers to rule
them; they prefer to rule themselves; and they submit to be ruled by
such interlopers only so long as it takes them to thoroughly
understand the condition of affairs. It is not, therefore, to be
marvelled at that the white men of the South spread death and terror
in their pathway to the throne of power in subverting the governments
of the Reconstruction policy, based as those governments were, upon
_disorganized_ ignorance on the part of the blacks and organized
robbery on the part of the white adventurers, who have become infamous
under the expressive term "carpet-baggers;" although the genuine
Northern immigrants, the "Fools" who came in good faith to cast in
their lot with the Southern people supposing themselves to be welcome,
should not share in the obloquy of that epithet. But, should the white
men of the South continue indefinitely as the rulers of the South, to
the absolute exclusion of participation of the black citizens of those
states, then would my surprise be turned into profound amazement and
horror at what such tyranny would produce as a logical result. Yet I
know the temper of the people of the South too well to base any
deduction upon a proposition so full of horror and despair. And, then,
too, such a proposition would be at variance with all accepted
precedents of two peoples living in the same community, governed by
the same laws and subject to the same social and material conditions.
I submit that I have no fears about the future political status of the
whites and blacks of the South. The intelligent, the ambitious and the
wealthy men of both races will eventually rule over their less
fortunate fellow-citizens without invidious regard to race or previous
condition. And the great-grandson of Senator Wade Hampton may yet vote
for the great-grandson of Congressman Robert Smalls to be Governor of
the chivalric commonwealth of South Carolina. Senator Wade Hampton may
grit his teeth at this aspect of the case; but it is strictly in the
domain of probability. The grandson of John C. Calhoun, the great
orator and statesman of South Carolina, has not as yet voted for a
colored Governor, but he has for a colored sheriff and probate judge,
as the following testimony he gave before the Blair committee on
"Education and Labor," (Vol II, p. 173), in the city of New York,
September 13, 1883, will show:
"Q. (the Chairman) What do you think of his [the black
man's] intellectual and moral qualities and his capacity for
development? A. (Mr. Calhoun, John C.) ... The probate judge
of my county is a Negro and one of my tenants, and I am here
now in New York attending to important business for my
county as an appointee of that man. He has upon him the
responsibilities of all estates in the county; he is probate
judge.
"Q. Is he a capable man? A. A very capable man, and an
excellent, good man, and a very just one."
Again (_Ibid_ p. 137), Mr. Calhoun testified:
The sheriff of my county is from Ohio, _and a Negro_, and he
is a man whom _we all support in his office_, because he is
capable of administering his office.
When the grandson of John C. Calhoun can make such admissions,
creditable alike to his head and his heart, may not the great-grandson
of Wade Hampton rise up to chase the Bourbonism of his
great-grandfather into the tomb of disgruntlement? I have not the
least doubt of such probability. Again, I say, I am not seriously
concerned about the future political status of the black man of the
South. He has talent; he has ambition; he possesses a rare fund of
eloquence, of wit and of humor, and these will carry him into the
executive chambers of States, the halls of legislation and on to the
bench of the judiciary. You can't bar him out; you can't repress him:
he will make his way. God has planted in his very nature those
elements which constitute the stock-in-trade of the American
politician--ready eloquence, rich humor, quick perception--and you may
rest assured he will use all of them to the very best advantage.
I know of municipalities in the South to-day, where capable colored
men are regularly voted into responsible positions by the best white
men of their cities. And why not? Do not colored men vote white men
into office? And, pray, is the white man less magnanimous than the
black man? Perish the thought! No; the politics of the South will
readily adjust themselves to the best interest of the people; be very
sure of this. And the future rulers of the South will not all be
white, nor will they be all black: they will be a happy commingling of
the two peoples.
And thus with the so-called "war of races:" it will pass away and
leave not a trace behind. It is based upon condition and
color-prejudice--two things which cannot perpetuate themselves. When
the lowly condition of the black man has passed away; when he becomes
a capable president of banks, of railroads and of steamboats; when he
becomes a large land-holder, operating bonanza farms which enrich him
and pauperize black and white labor; when he is not only a prisoner at
the bar but a judge on the bench; when he sits in the halls of
legislation the advocate of the people, or (more profit if less honor)
the advocate of vast corporations and monopolies; when he has
successfully metamorphosed the condition which attaches to him as a
badge of slavery and degradation, and made a reputation for himself as
a financier, statesman, advocate, land-holder, and money-shark
generally, his color will be swallowed up in his reputation, his
bank-account and his important money interests.
Is this a fancy picture? Is there no substantial truth seen in this
picture of what will, must and shall be, as the logical outgrowth of
the Divine affirmation that of one blood he created all men to dwell
upon the earth, and of the Declaration of Independence that "we hold
these truths to be self-evident:--That all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?
Let us see.
A few months ago I sat in the banking office of Mr. William E. Mathews
and ex-Congressman Joseph H. Rainey (of South Carolina), in
Washington. As I sat there, a stream of patrons came and went. The
whites were largely in the majority. They all wanted to negotiate a
loan, or to meet a note just matured. Among the men were contractors,
merchants, department clerks, etc. They all spoke with the utmost
deference to the colored gentleman who had money to loan upon good
security and good interest.
A few months ago I dined with ex-Senator B.K. Bruce (of Mississippi),
now Register of the United States Treasury. The ex-Senator has a
handsome house, and a delightful family. In running my eyes over his
card tray, I saw the names of some of the foremost men and women of
the nation who had called upon Register and Mrs. Bruce. In passing
through the Register's department with the Senator, sight-seeing, I
was not surprised at the marks of respect shown to Mr. Bruce by the
white ladies and gentlemen in his department. Why? Because Mr. Bruce
is a gentleman by instinct, a diplomat by nature, and a scholar who
has "burned the midnight oil." Such a person does not have to ask men
and women to respect him; they do so instinctively.
I walked down F street and called at the office of Prof. Richard T.
Greener, a ripe scholar and a gentleman. The professor not only has a
paying law practice, but is president of a new insurance company. He
has all that he can do, and his patrons are both black and white.
All this and more came under my observation in the course of an hour's
leisure at the capital of the nation. And the black man has not yet
aroused himself to a full sense of his responsibilities or of his
opportunities.
In Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston we have colored men
of large wealth, who conduct extensive business operations and enjoy
the confidence and esteem of their fellow citizens without regard to
caste.
Speaking upon the progress of the colored race, in the course of an
address on the "Civil Rights Law," at Washington, October 20, 1883,
the Hon. John Mercer Langston, United States Minister and Consul
General to Hayti, and one of the most remarkable, scholarly, and
diplomatic men the colored race in America has produced, drew the
following pen-picture:
Do you desire to witness moral wonders? Start at Chicago;
travel to St. Louis; travel to Louisville; travel to
Nashville; travel to Chattanooga; travel on to New Orleans,
and in every State and city you will meet vast audiences,
immense concourses of men and women with their children,
boys and girls, who, degraded and in ignorance because of
their slavery formerly, are to-day far advanced in general
social improvement.
It would be remarkable now for you to go into the home of
one of our families, and find even our daughters incompetent
to discourse with you upon any subject of general interest
with perfect ease and understanding. Excuse me, if I refer
to the fact that some two weeks ago I visited St. Louis for
two reasons; first to see my son and daughter, and secondly
and mainly to attend the seventy-second anniversary of the
birth of perhaps the richest colored man in the State of
Missouri. I went to his house, and I was surprised as I
entered his doors and looked about his sitting-room and
parlors, furnished in the most approved modern style, in the
richest manner; but I was more surprised when I saw one
hundred guests come into the home of this venerable man, to
celebrate the seventy-second anniversary of his birth, all
beautifully attired; and when he told me, indirectly, how
much money he had made, since the war, and what he was worth
on the night of this celebration, I was more surprised than
ever. I am surprised at the matchless progress the colored
people of this country have made since their emancipation. I
have traveled in the West Indies; I have seen the
emancipated English, Spanish and French Negro; but I have
seen no emancipated Negro anywhere who has made the progress
at all comparable with the colored people of the United
States of America.
I desire it to be distinctly understood, that I am not at all anxious
about the mental and material development of the colored people of the
United States. They are naturally shrewd, calculating and agreeable,
possessing in a peculiar degree the art of pleasing; and these
qualities will give them creditable positions in the business
interests of the country in a few years. But they must have time to
collect their wits, to sharpen their intelligence, to train their
moral sense and the feeling of social responsibility, to fully
comprehend all that the change from chattel slavery to absolute
freedom implies. Men cannot awaken from a Rip Van Winkle slumber of a
hundred years and grasp at once the altered conditions which flash
upon them. The awakening is terrific, appalling, staggering.
When a man has been confined for long years in a dark dungeon he has
not trouble in discerning objects about him which, when he first
entered his dungeon, were indistinct or invisible to him. So when he
is brought suddenly to the strong light of the sun the effulgence
overmasters him, and he is blind as a bat. But slowly and painfully he
becomes accustomed to the transition from absolute darkness to
absolute light, and then nature wears to his vision her naturally gay
and winsome appearance. So with the slave. His grasp of the conditions
of freedom is slow and uncertain. But give him time, lend him a
helping hand, and he will completely master the situation.
In one of the most remarkable pamphlets of the time, written by C.K.
Marshall, D.D., of Vicksburg, Miss., entitled _The Colored Race
Weighed in the Balance_, being a reply to a most malicious speech by
J.L. Tucker, D.D., of Jackson, Miss., I find many truths that the
American people should know. Both Dr. Marshall and Dr. Tucker are
white ministers of the South, and both should be intimately acquainted
with the characteristics, capacity and progress of the colored people.
But Dr. Tucker appears to be as ignorant of the colored race as if he
had spent his days in the Sandwich Islands instead of the sunny land
of the South.
Dr. Marshall says (p. 55):
I think I know nearly all that can be said against a Negro.
In one form or another, the complaints have been a thousand
times reiterated; but has he not been, and is he not now
what the white man and society have made him? He is
naturally peace-loving, docile, and imitative. If kindly and
justly treated, with due allowance for the _peculiar
elements_ that make up his life, he will render back, in
kind at least, equally with the brother in white in _like
surroundings_. Everybody knows some reliable, trustworthy
Negro man and woman; and John Randolph said that of two of
the politest men he ever saw one was a Negro. _Gentleness_
is a wonderful agency in managing a Negro: I know it tells
powerfully upon white folks. The psalmist, addressing his
Maker, says, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." It is a
mighty lever; it moves the world; it moved it before
Archimedes; it moves it still; but peevishness,
fault-finding, scolding, cursing, premature censure, haughty
and assuming ways, sullenness, ill-temper, whether in the
field, the kitchen, the nursery, or parlor, will
legitimately result in thriftlessness, revolt, departure,
and contempt for white people! Many of the young generation
have not yet found their places in the new order of things;
and their silly parents work themselves nearly to death to
keep their sons from the plow and to make ladies of their
daughters, just like white folks; but time, gentleness,
bread, and neat homes will, with religion and culture, bring
great changes. And I say it to the credit of their former
owners, and their own instincts and capabilities, that _they
constitute to-day the best peasantry, holding similar
relations to the ruling classes on the face of the earth_.
Their vices are no greater; their respect for law about the
same; and their care for their children little inferior.
Besides, they speak the language of their country better,
are less cringing and craven, freer from begging; more
manly, more polite, less priest-ridden, less obsequious;
have a higher estimate of human rights and obligations;
understand farming, cooking, house-work, and manual labor,
in which they have been trained, better, I insist, than any
similarly conditioned race or people. They are less
profane--very much less--than white people; less bitter,
vindictive, and bloodthirsty; less intemperate, and far, far
less revengeful; and less selfish than what they
contemptuously snub as "poor white trash." But he is a
sinner! I believe the old stale rhyme tells some truth in a
modified sense, "In Adam's fall we sinned all;" but I do not
believe the serpent's tooth struck a more deadly and
depraving virus into the Negro's share of the apple of Eden,
dooming him as a sinner to a lower plane of wickedness than
others. He commits not all, but many, of the sins, crimes,
and misdemeanors, and indulges many of the vices of polished
humanity--cultured Caucasian humanity. They have had but
moderate experience in the sole management of their own
affairs.
Again (p. 66):
The Negro is neither a beggar, nor a pauper, nor a tramp;
and if honestly dealt with, he can make his own way. Where
they are idle and profligate, execute the law vigorously
against them, and they will approve and aid in the work. We
can lift them up, or cast them down. For one, I think we owe
them a debt of gratitude and impartial justice for their
faithful conduct during the war; and when disposed to
criticise and reproach them for not coming in all things up
to your sentimental notions, just put yourself in their
place. Then you will, if your scales are true and your
weights just, settle the question with little difficulty. I
cannot serve my readers better, perhaps, than by quoting the
words of the Rev. Dr. Callaway, lately Professor in Emory
College, Oxford, Ga., and new President of Paine Institute,
Augusta, Ga., a native of that State, and to the manor born.
In a late address, he says: "We have spoken of the Negro as
related to the conduct of the war, but it remains to be said
that, in his relation to us as a friend during that period,
and to our wives and children as guardian, the testimony of
his fidelity is on the lips of every surviving soldier. It
is easy to conjecture how, with a race less loyal to home
and patron, the testimony in the case might have been a
narrative of lawlessness and license. What he refrained
from, therefore, is to his credit. But in the four years of
darkness and demoralization, when, besides those of military
age, every boy whose muscles were equal to the support of a
musket, and every old man with vigor enough to mark time,
was called to the front, the Negro, commanding as a
patriarch and reverent as a priest, kept sacred vigil at our
homes. Besides this, with a foresight not developed for
himself or his family, but evoked by virtue of his office,
and the piteous destitution of our loved ones, he provided
for their wants. 'They were a-hungered, and he fed them.'
What he did is to his honor. What we refrain from in our
place of power as the superior race, shall be to our credit;
what we do in return shall be in proof of our appreciation.
The conduct of the Negro during the war proves him kindly,
temperate, trustworthy; his conduct since the war reveals in
him considerateness, purpose, capacity, an order of growing
good qualities. During the war his inferior courage, it may
be assumed, inured to his superior serviceableness, his
fears giving counsel to his courtesy and care. So set it
down, if you will, though the logic is as lame as the charge
is ungrateful."
This testimony upon the character, temper and adaptability of colored
people is all the more valuable because Dr. Marshall not only treats
the question from a Christian standpoint, but because his intimate
acquaintance with the subject adds weight and authority to his
opinion.
In the same strain, Dr. Atticus G. Haygood, President of Emory
College, in Georgia, a man of the largest culture, Christian
intelligence and progressive ideas, says, in his masterful work, _Our
Brother in Black, His Freedom and His Future_ (p. 194):
If white people and black people wish to know how to treat
each other in all the relations of life, let them study the
Bible. Take for example the business relations of life, the
old question of capital and labor, of service and wages. For
the settlement of all questions that grow out of these
relations the laws laid down and the principles taught in
the Bible, are worth all the "political economies" in the
world. They apply to all races and conditions of men, in all
countries and in all times. They are as needful and useful
in New England factories as on Southern plantations. Free
Negroes are not the only underlings in the world, Negro
servants are not the only hirelings. There are thousands of
factory operatives, day laborers, domestic servants,
mechanics, sewing women, clerks, apprentices, and such like,
whose cry for justice against oppression goes up to heaven
by day and by night. "For which things' sake," in all lands,
"the wrath of God is come upon the children of
disobedience." Let us here recall some of these
half-forgotten laws; they must do us all good. I know they
are needed in the South; I am persuaded that they are needed
wherever there are masters and servants.
Having heard a great deal about the condition of the colored people in
Louisiana, I decided that it would not be uninteresting to have an
authentic statement of that condition by some person fully capable of
furnishing the desired information. I therefore addressed a letter to
the Hon. Theophile T. Allain, a colored member of the Louisiana
Legislature for Sweet Iberville parish, and a large sugar planter.
From Mr. Allain's letter I condense the following statement, which
will be found to be interesting for many reasons:
"First," says Mr. Allain, "I speak as a man of the South, who pays
taxes on thirty-five thousand dollars worth of property, and without
owing to any man one dollar. I claim to be well informed as to the
condition of the colored people of the South, the people who bear the
heat and burden of the day.
"In the cotton section of the South the Negroes are kept in
subjugation, and are not permitted to exercise the right of suffrage
guaranteed to them by the provisions of the Federal constitution. In
the sugar-growing districts of Louisiana the colored and white people
live upon terms of friendship and cordiality. In these districts there
are thousands of colored men, who before the war were slaves, who now
pay taxes upon property, assessed in their own names, ranging in value
from five hundred to fifty thousand dollars. They produce principally
rice and sugar. It is a self-evident fact that the labor of the
colored men produces two-thirds of all the cotton raised in the South,
four-fifths of the sugar, and nine-tenths of all the rice.
"In the cotton sections of Louisiana the colored men work mostly on
shares, and here and there some of them have accumulated a little
money; but, as a rule, they make fortunes for the landlords and die in
poverty because of no fault of their own. Rent here, as everywhere
else, pulls the laborer down, and keeps him down. What remains to him
after the landlord has taken his _share_, goes to the Jew shopkeepers
and other middle men at crossroads, who will not be satisfied with any
profit less than one hundred to one hundred and fifty per cent.
"But the sugar districts of Louisiana are like oases in the desert.
Vacuum pans, steam cars, fine machinery and smiling faces are to be
met on every hand. Colored laborers find employment very readily in
the sugar districts from October to February; and during
cultivation-time, in many places, the colored laborers receive _as
high as one dollar and twenty cents per day_, and during the grinding
season, which is the harvest time, laborers receive from one dollar
and twenty-five cents to one dollar and fifty cents per day in the
field and seventy-five cents for one half of the night. At this
season we run the sugar machinery night and day. I should not omit to
state that colored men are, in the majority of cases, employed as
engineers at our sugar mills, and receive from two to two and a half
dollars per day:
"You will be surprised when I tell you that the most of the
bricklaying and plastering work, and the blacksmithing and
carpentering work is done in the sugar districts by colored men, who
average three dollars per day for their work.
"There are fifty-eight parishes in Louisiana, twenty-four of them
being sugar districts. To illustrate the degree of toleration which
obtains in the cotton and sugar growing districts, take the following
statement: In the Louisiana House of Representatives there are
thirteen colored members--all from the sugar districts; in the Senate
there are four colored members--all from the sugar districts. This
condition of things is readily accounted for by the fact that the
colored people in the sugar districts are more generally tax payers
than they are in the cotton districts, and, having mutual interests,
both white and black are more tolerant and better informed. The
Bulldozer and White Liner can find but little room to ply their
nefarious work where everybody finds plenty of work that pays well,
and where material prosperity is the first and political bickering the
secondary consideration. Because of the mutual interests at stake,
colored men in the sugar districts are often protected by their
bitterest political opponents.
"The State of Louisiana is assessed at $200,000,000, of which her
colored population pay taxes upon more than $30,000,000.--Two thirds
of this is owned by colored men in the sugar districts."
I could multiply quotations, but they would serve only to confirm my
view, that the colored man merely requires time to fully comprehend
his freedom and his opportunities, to enjoy the ample immunities of
the first and to improve to the utmost the advantages of the second.
All over the country the colored man is coming to understand that if
he is ever to have and enjoy a status in this country at all
commensurate with that of his white fellow-citizens, he must get his
grip upon the elements of success which they employ with such effect,
and boldly enter the lists, a competitor who must make a way for
himself. Dr. Marshall says truly: "The Negro is neither a beggar, nor
a pauper, nor a tramp." He is, essentially, a man of the largest
wealth, God having given him, under tropical conditions, a powerful
physique, with ample muscle and constitution to extract out of the
repositories of nature her buried wealth. He only needs intelligence
to use the wealth he creates. When he has intelligence, he will no
longer labor to enrich men more designing and unscrupulous than he is;
he will labor to enrich himself and his children. Indeed, in his
powerful muscle and enduring physical constitution, directed by
intelligence, the black man of the South, who alone has demonstrated
his capacity to labor with success in the rice swamps, the cotton, and
the cornfields of the South, will ultimately turn the tables upon the
unscrupulous harpies who have robbed him for more than two hundred
years; and from having been the slave of these men, he, in turn, will
enslave them. From having been the slave, he will become the master;
from having labored to enrich others, he will force others to labor to
enrich him. The laws of nature are inexorable, and this is one of
them. The white men of the South may turn pale with rage at this
aspect of the case, but it is written on the wall. Already I have seen
in the South the black and white farm laborer, working side by side
for a black landlord; already I have seen in the South a black and a
white brick-mason (and carpenters as well) working upon a building
side by side, under a colored contractor. And we are not yet two
decades from the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the manumission of the
black slave.
I have no disposition to infuriate any white man of the South, by
placing a red flag before him; we simply desire to accustom him to
look upon a picture which his grand-children will not, because of the
frequency of the occurrence, regard with anything more heart-rending
than complacent indifference. The world moves forward; and the white
man of the South could not stand still, if he so desired. Like the
black man, he must work, or perish; like the black man, he must submit
to the sharpest competition, and rise or fall, as the case may be. And
so it should be.