UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE HUMAN WAY ADDRESSES ON RACE PROBLEMS AT THE SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS ATLANTA, 1913 EDITED BY JAMES E. McCULLOCH NASHVILLE SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS 1913 CONTENTS Introductory Note 3 Organization 4 The Present Situation 5 James H. Dillard, M.A., LL.D. How to Enlist the Welfare Agencies of the South for Improvement of Conditions Among the Negroes 8 W, D. Weatherford, Ph.D. Work of the Commission of Southern Universities on the Race Question 19 J Prof. C. H. Brough. The Economic Status of the Negro 26 Prof. William M. Hunley, Ph.D. The Negro as a Farmer 36 Prof. R. J. H. DeLoach, Ph.D. The Negro Working Out His Own Salvation 41 Prof. E. C. Branson, A,M. Social and Hygienic Condition of the Negro, and Needed Reforms 55 Prof. Josiah Morse, Ph.D. The Prevalence of Contagious and Infectious Diseases Among the Negroes, and the Necessity of Preventive Measures 64 Dean George W. Hubbard, M.D. Desirable Civic Reforms in the Treatment of the Negro 70 Prof. W. O. Scroggs, Ph.D. Rural Education and Social Efficiency 78 Prof. Jackson Davis, A.M. The Work of the Jeanes and Slater Funds 85 Prof. B. C. Caldwell. The Need and Value of Industrial Education for Negroes 89 Miss Grace Biglow House, M.A. Open Church Work for the Negro 98 Rev. John Little. Racial Self-Respect and Racial Antagonism 102 Charles V. Roman, M.A., M.D. The Test of Civilization 112 Mrs. J. D, Hammond. The White Man's Task in the Uplift of the Negro 118 Rev. A. J. Barton, D.D. A Cathedral of Co-operation 134 Bishop Wilbur P. Thirkield, D.D., LL.D. Statement on Race Relationships 141 Bibliography 144 i M g INTRODUCTORY NOTE >- K s QQ -j AT the closing session of the conferences on Race Prob- lems held during the meeting of the Southern Sociological e* Congress in Atlanta there were numerous and emphatic in expressions of opinion that the addresses, in addition to g their incorporation in the general publication of the Con- gress, should be issued in a separate edition. Pledges were promptly given in support of the plan. In response to this ,3 demand the present volume is published. JAMES H. DILLARD, Chairman. o o ca UJ 443956 ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS OFFICERS President Gov. William H. Mann, Richmond, Va. First Vice President Rev. John E. White, D.D., LL.D., Atlanta, Ga. Second Vice President Mrs. J. A. Baker, Houston, Tex. Treasurer Mr. M. E. Holderness, Nashville, Tenn. General Secretary Mr. J. E. McCulloch, Nashville, Tenn. Founder Mrs. Anna Russell Cole, Nashville, Tenn. COMMITTEE ON RACE PROBLEMS James H. Dillard, M.A., LL.D., Rev. J. G. Snedecor, Tuscaloosa Mr. A. Trieschmann, Crossett, Ark. Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, Wash- ington Dr. Lincoln Hulley, Leland, Fla. Prof. E. C. Branson, Athens, Ga. Hon. Wm. H. Fleming, Augusta Dr. J. D. Hammond, Augusta Miss Belle H. Bennett, Richmond, Ry. Rev. John Little, Louisville Chairman, New Orleans, La. Bishop W. P. Thirkield, New Orleans Mr. G. H. Huckaby, Shreveport Mr. A. H. Stone, Dunleith, Miss. Rev. H. K. Boyer, Winston-Salem, N. C. Miss Grace Biglow House, St Helena Island, S. C. Dr. W. D. Weatherford, Nashville Bishop W. R. Lambuth, Nashville Dr. George W. Hubbard, Nashville Rev. A. J. Barton, Waco Dr. H. B. Frissell, Hampton, Va. THE PRESENT SITUATION JAMES H. DILLARD, M.A., LL.D. AT the first meeting of the Southern Sociological Con- gress, held last year in Nashville, there were two confer- ences -on race problems. These conferences were well at- tended and proved most interesting. There were present a number of representative men of both races, and it was found that there was not time to hear all who wished to speak on the subject. During the session of this first Con- gress a committee was appointed on Race Relationships con- sisting of the following: A. J. Barton, Waco, Tex.; Miss Belle H. Bennett, Richmond, Ky. ; C. E. Branson, Ath- ens, Ga. ; William H. Fleming, Augusta; H. B. Frissell, Hampton, Va. ; J. D. Hammond, Augusta; G. W. Hub- bard, Nashville; G. H. Huckaby, Shreveport; W. R. Lam- buth, Nashville; John Little, Louisville; J. D. Snedecor, Tuscaloosa; A. H. Stone, Dunleith, Miss.; W. P. Thirkield, New Orleans; C. B. Wilmer, Atlanta; W. D. Weatherford, Nashville, Secretary ; and James H. Dillard, New Orleans, Chairman. Of this committee, ten are present at this second Congress. There was also formed at the first Congress what is known as the University Commission on Race Questions. This Commission consists of representatives from ten South- ern State Universities as follows: Alabama, J. J. Doster; Arkansas, C. H. Brough, Chairman; Florida, J. M. Farr; Georgia, R. J. H. DeLoach; Louisiana, W. D. Scroggs; Mis- sissippi, W. D. Hedleston; North Carolina, C. W. Bain; South Carolina, Josiah Morse; Tennessee, J. D. Hoskins; Texas, W. S. Sutton; Virginia, W. M. Hunley, Secretary. Five of these gentlemen are on the present program. Our present program contains the names of nineteen who are to read papers or make addresses, and of the nine- teen appointees five are colored. Seventeen of the nineteen are present. The addresses will be followed by discussions which I hope will be freely participated in, so far as time will permit, by members and delegates of both races. 6 THE HUMAN WAY The facts which I have just stated tell the truth which, in calling this meeting to order, I wish particularly to em- phasize. This truth is that the time has come when the earnest and thoughtful white people of the South have de- termined to face the problems involved in race relationships, and to cooperate with each other, with the colored people themselves, and with friends in the North in promoting bet- ter conditions than have existed since reconstruction days. In those early days of reconstruction the great trouble was caused by the predominating influence of men who, however sincere they may have been, attempted to do the impossible overnight. I can never think of those days with- out calling to mind an illustration which was being exhib- ited about the same time in the Old World. Fifty-odd years ago Italy was an expression, not a united country. There was a bundle of divided States, but not one country as it is to-day. All great Italians, both statesmen and men of letters, earnestly desired union. Three great men stood out among many as the champions of a United Italy. These were Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour. Mazzini was uncompromisingly in favor of a republic, and worked largely by secret associations and conspiracy. Garibaldi was always ready for fight and for any extreme measures. Cavour was the statesman, the greatest, I think, with his contemporary Lincoln, in the nineteenth century. Cavour said that a republic at that stage of the game was impos- sible. He knew that Europe would not allow it, even if the Italians were ready for it. He said: "I will work for the possible. I will take the kingdom of Sardinia and unite Italy around that." And he did. Mr. William R. Thayer, one of our American historians, has written the standard life of Cavour, one of the greatest books ever written in America. In speaking of Cavour he used the expression that Cavour had "an enthusiasm for the possible." It is a great expression. Most "enthusiasts" have an enthusiasm for the impossible. The impossible may be the ideal, may come later on, but if it be impossible at the time, the highest wisdom is to be enthusiastic for the possible, and to wait. THE PRESENT SITUATION 7 In our own country, after the civil war, if statesmen like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens had attempted less, they would have accomplished more in the long run. Idealists ignore the fact that we are walking on the earth. We humans will not be pushed too fast. We have to grow. If the forward push be too rapid or too far, reaction is inevi- table. In all forward movements this is a fact which it is the part of highest wisdom to remember. Sumner and Stevens ignored this fact. I think we may guess that Lin- coln, had he been spared to deal with reconstruction, would have taken a different course. I think that, like Cavour in Italy, Lincoln would have had an "enthusiasm for the pos- sible," and would have foreseen that it was impossible to do outright what later events have shown to have been im- possible of accomplishment in such hasty way. But we had the reconstruction days with their trail of ill will. It is needless to dwell on the ugly details. I am not claiming that there were no well-meaning efforts in the process of reconstruction, or that the men engaged were all of them nothing more than selfish and unscrupulous pol- iticians, but we know the results. For forty years the well- disposed have been suffering from the bitterness that was begotten. Let us be glad that what may be called the post- reconstruction period seems at last to be drawing to a close. This is the truth which I wish to emphasize at this time. I sincerely believe that the day of better feeling is at hand. I believe that the day has come when we shall, if I may say so, start over again and develop right relations in the right way. We Southern white people now realize two facts in regard to the relationship of the races. First, we real- ize that the old relationship, so frequently typified in the affection of the black mammy, is one that must pass. Sec- ond, we realize that the spirit of no relationship, no respon- sibility, no cooperation, is impossible. We see that our whole public welfare requires the education and improve- ment of the colored people in our midst. We see that public health depends on common efforts between the races. We see that the prosperity of these Southern States is condi- tioned on greater intelligence among the masses of all the 8 THE HUMAN WAY people. We see that every consideration of justice and righteousness demands our good will, our helpful guidance wherever it can be given, and our cooperation. Let us hope that the deliberations and discussions of these conferences will tend to promote this spirit of good will and cooperation. Let us hope that by coming together we may learn better how to set ourselves to work to im- prove conditions. Let us speak out with plainness and hon- est conviction, and at the same time with good feeling and sympathy. HOW TO ENLIST THE WELFARE AGENCIES OF THE SOUTH FOR IMPROVEMENT OF CONDITIONS AMONG THE NEGROES W. D. WEATHERFORD, PH.D., NASHVILLE, TENN. I WISH to make clear in the very beginning that the same type of agency which can improve the conditions for the white people can also improve the conditions of life for the negro. Humanity is humanity whether the color be black or white, and I know no fiat of God that makes white any more valuable as a color or any easier to deal with than black. Every social agency which is working for the uplift of the white race should also be working for the uplift of the colored race, unless there is a special branch of that organization working for the negroes. Let us take for granted in this paper that we believe the negro needs help in practically every way that the white man needs help. Here it simply falls to my lot to enumerate some of the agencies which are working for the uplift among white people, and to show how they can be used to uplift the negro. First, we would mention the Church as the greatest of all social and welfare agencies. We do not now speak of the Church as a dispenser of charity or the builder of orphan- ages and asylums. We speak of the Church as a social HOW TO ENLIST THE SOUTH'S WELFARE AGENCIES 9 agent in a much truer and deeper sense than any of these. The great social mission of the Church is the bringing in of a new appreciation of the sacredness and value of the indi- vidual man. This means brotherhood. It means equal safety of life. It means an equal chance to make a living and build a life. Now the equal opportunity can only come when every man is recognized as a real man, as a person. The Church, and the Church alone, can bring about any such estimate of humanity. No amount of legislation can ever make us value the individual; it can only prevent or deter us from harming that individual. Law can never change our essential attitude toward humanity. To this problem the Church holds the key. Its message of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man puts new meaning into every life and guarantees a new safety and security. Now it is high time that the white Churches were awak- ing to the responsibility of extending this sense of sacred- ness to all men ;, to the ignorant as well as to the learned, to the wicked as well as to the righteous, to the black as well as to the white. In a paper last year before this Congress I called atten- tion to the fact that this very attitude of man to man is the Gibraltar on which the Southern Church and State may wreck themselves. I wish to repeat here that we cannot hope to have any real respect for law, we cannot build up any civilized community so long as personality is not held sacred. So long as we grind up our children in the mills, so long as we stifle our poor ones in the damp cellars and cheap tenement houses, so long as we allow negroes to be lynched just so long will we fail to have any genuine appreciation of the sacredness and value of the person. We cannot despise some persons and value others, for per- sonality is personality, whether it is poor or rich, whether black or white; and we despise any portion of humanity at the risk of losing our sense of the sacredness of all men, and hence breaking down our laws, destroying our civili- zation, giving the lie to our Christian ethics, and damning our own souls. 10 THE HUMAN WAY I want to maintain here and now that every minister of the gospel, every Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association or the Young Women's Christian Association, every teacher in our schools, every social worker in the South has a sacred and solemn obligation to instill into the hearts of all those whom they lead this principle of the value and sacredness of the person. We need more ser- mons preached on this theme. We need more addresses in our Associations, we need more emphasis on this in our schools. If we cannot win the day here, we are hopelessly lost. And we are not now winning the day. We are not growing as we should in our appreciation of the sacredness of human personality. The horrible lynchings that have been taking place in the South during the last few months are enough to make our blood run cold with despair. More of us must speak out on this topic. It is not opposition to lynching we are talking about we must all oppose that, God knows but we must go deeper than that. We must cure the horrible cancer that eats at the heart of our civi- lization, this horrible lack of appreciation for the sacred- ness of the individual person. This is our malady, and so long as we do nothing to cure it we may expect it to flower forth in bloody lynchings, in underfed women, in starved and neglected children, and in a criminal system which is more cruel than raw barbarism. We need a new crusade of a "Peter the Hermit," not to rescue an empty tomb from the hands of an infidel power, but a crusade to wrench the helpless and the belated from the hands of a maddened mob which puts money above man, which puts prejudice above persons, which puts license in- stead of law, which uses immoral mobs to uphold morality, which despises and degrades all personality in a so-called attempt to vindicate the wrong of a single person. If the Churches, the schools, and the Associations would throw themselves into this great crusade, we should have a new appreciation of the Godhood in man and hence less of injus- tice, inequality, and crime. I should like to see this Con- gress send out a call for such a crusade as this, which would set a thousand pulpits ringing with a new message of HOW TO ENLIST THE SOUTH'S WELFARE AGENCIES 11 humanity, and would give new meaning to the teaching in ten thousand schoolrooms, because God and humanity had found a defending voice. The second social agency which must be used for the uplift of the negro is the school. We do not always think of the Church and the school as social and welfare agencies, but they are the strong twin brothers, without which all other agencies would be absolutely helpless. The school touches more classes of people, more members of each class, and each member for a longer time, and at a most favorable period, than does any other social agency. It takes the children of the rich and of the poor alike, the cultured and the uncultured, the moral and the morally deficient, and deals with them together in such a fashion as to give a unique opportunity to really serve. Our task therefore is to socialize the school, to so fill it with the message of social uplift that it will minister to the whole life of the community in which it exists. In order that the negro school may thus become social- ized, there are four things necessary as I see it, and in all these respects we are now making substantial progress. 1. We must put more money into our negro schools in order that they may have more decent buildings, more in- spiring surroundings, better equipment, and longer school terms. 2. We must set a new type of curriculum for our negro children. These schools must fit into the needs of the life of the people whom they serve. We are now clamoring for a type of curriculum for our country schools for white chil- dren which will widely depart from the type used in our city schools. Why should we not be logical and see to it that we give to the negroes a type of textbooks and courses suited to their specialized need? 3. We need better trained teachers. The average negro teacher has such little training that he would not be able to comprehend what you meant if you talked about the school being an agency for social uplift. But these teach- ers are giving more than that for which they are paid. Why should we expect to get all the virtues of a trained intellect, 12 THE HUMAN WAY a skillful hand, and a consecrated heart, all combined in the person of a negro teacher whom we pay the handsome sti- pend of twenty-two dollars and forty-eight cents per month, or the princely fortune of eighty dollars, ninety-two cents, and eight mills for the whole school term,* as is the case in one State? 4. We must have better school supervision. If the white teacher in a city, with good training, splendid equip- ment, the stimulus of fellow teachers, needs the careful supervision of a city superintendent, how much more does the poorly trained negro teacher, working alone in the coun- try, with no equipment, little encouragement, no inspira- tion from fellow teachers how very much more does she need careful supervision, inspiration, and direction? I cannot tell you what a wonderful transformation is being wrought in those countries where Dr. Dillard through his Jeanes Foundation is able to place a county supervising teacher, who heartens these isolated teachers, giving them training and supervision. This Congress ought to send out a stirring call to the philanthropists of this country to put into the hands of Dr. Dillard and his Board enough money to place such a supervising teacher in every county in the South. At this same time we should make a plea for better supervision on the part of county superintend- ents. Much has been done, but much more remains to be done. One can think of no greater and more far-reaching influ- ence than that of a socialized school a school into which the conception of the value of humanity has found its way; a school where the course of study fits its pupils to take their place in the life of the community; a school where health and housing, morals and manners, efficiency and service are given full presentation. The negro school must be made an effective agent for uplifting the race. We must set forth some standards for it, we must have some convictions about it, we must write some policies for it, and we must put our shoulders to the wheel and swear by all that is holy that these things shall come to pass. *"Negro Life in the South," p. 98. HOW TO ENLIST THE SOUTH 'S WELFARE AGENCIES 13 Another welfare agency in the South, though it would probably not be mentioned by our professional social work- ers, is that of the United States Farm Demonstration work. This work goes into the country, and through the personal visits of the trained agent attempts to teach the farmer how to raise more corn, cotton, or tobacco, how to keep his land up, how to utilize his place for stock-raising in fact, how to make a comfortable and respectable living where he before was simply eking out an existence. Hundreds of farmers are now enjoying splendid crops and good homes who were formerly on the edge of bankruptcy and homeless- ness. The great need is that this work shall be extended to the negro as well as to the white man. There are a few Negro Farm Demonstration Agents, and some of the white agents have a few negroes working under their direction, but the great mass of negro farmers are not touched. With 890,000 negro farmers in the South, controlling either as owners or tenants forty million acres of improved lands, it is high time we should wake up to the enormous economic problem involved in the proper training of these men. These three forces which we have mentioned are usually left out of an enumeration of the social and welfare agen- cies, but they are the heart of the problem in this solution of .the race question. Let us now pass to some of the regular agencies for social and civic betterment. The city charity organizations have sprung up like mushrooms all over North America, and we are now begin- ning to have our full share in the South. The city of Boston boasted 1,424 such organizations in 1907, devoted to every conceivable kind of relief. We were told by a social worker in Atlanta recently that there were one hundred specialized social workers representing almost an equal number of betterment organizations in this city. The great difficulty with this great mass of relief and bet- terment work lies in its lack of system, coordination, and cooperation. There is an endless amount of overlapping and duplication, together with an enormous amount of over- sight of problems which need attention. It is in this field of omission and oversight that the negro often finds him- 14 THE HUMAN WAY self. In the South, to say the least of it, the negro probably has a good chance of securing relief from physical suffer- ing by way of cold and hunger, as has the poor white. But the difficulty lies in the realm of corrective service. Prac- tically nothing is now being done in any systematic fashion to prevent negroes from coming into positions of depend- ence. There is need for a definite negro department in every city charity organization, which will carefully study the problem and lay constructive policies to meet the need. In this connection it is vitally important that the negro himself be induced to become an integral part of the charity organization in order that he may assume some responsi- bility for the help of his own people. Such a negro charity society was organized recently in Columbia, S. C., and found a most hearty response among the negroes of that city. This negro department of the city charities would make a careful study of the sanitary conditions of those sections of the city occupied largely by negroes, and by giving publicity to such facts would cooperate with the white organization in bringing about needed reform. It would also study the housing problem. This can be done by negroes with much more facility and ease than it can ever be done by white people. They would enlist the cooperation of negro physi- cians in studying the health conditions of the negro popula- tion. All this work by negroes would help to train them in the largest conceptions of race pride and race better- ment. What we are pleading for here is that the city charity organizations in our Southern cities shall cease to work for negroes and begin to work with negroes. We are asking that we take them into our plans in working on this big bet- terment scheme for the whole community. We are asking that we treat them as responsible members of the com- munity, and not as dependent wards. We are suggesting that we serve them by helping them to help themselves. We are pleading that we not only care for and uplift the weak, the dependent, the poverty-stricken, but that we strengthen the whole race by uniting its leaders in a con- structive service for their own people. This seems to me to be the only statesmanlike way to work out this problem. HOW TO ENLIST THE SOUTH'S WELFARE AGENCIES 15 I wish to mention only one more form of welfare work, though many more might be mentioned. One of the very greatest needs of the negro race in America is a chance for recreation among adults and play life among children. Those who know the negro best know very well that there is little chance for either play or recreation, whether the negroes live in the city or in the country. One hardly needs call attention in this company to the part which play must contribute to the building of character. The Boys' Work Commission of the Men and Religion Movement, in its printed report, speaks of the necessity of play life in the following terms: "As preparation for making a religious response to the world, something should also be said of play, because of its value in developing spontaneity, coopera- tion, abandon, imagination, rhythm, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and prompt obedience to the order of the will. In general, the hearty extension of interest to its farthest limit, and the disposition to revel in life's high and eternal possibilities, will depend upon the early cultivation through play, directed and undirected, alone and in groups, of those very move- ments of the soul which later constitute religious faith and worship." Play life is the very foundation of character develop- ment, and the child that cannot play, or must play in filthy and unwholesome surroundings, will surely not grow into the fullest strength of character. This is precisely the conditions that surround the play life or lack of play life of negro children. One wonders if we are aware that there are no playgrounds for negro children. Most of the parks are not open to them, most of the ball fields are closed against them, most of the vacant lots are forbidden ground to groups of negro children, and even the negro school grounds are so restricted in most cases that cooperative games are next to impossible. How can we expect these negro children to grow into strong characters, able to co- operate with their fellow men in the game of life, if the games of childhood are forbidden them ? It is time the playground movement was getting some real impetus in the South. Rev. John Little has opened two 16 THE HUMAN WAY little play spots not playgrounds ; they aren't that big in Louisville, and the negro children are so thick there that every hour these places are open you cannot get a picture of the grounds because of the children. There is not a city in the South where we might not have good playgrounds for the negro children at a very low cost and a very high rate of profit to the whole community. But not alone does the negro child need play : the adult needs recreation under decent conditions. About a year ago I made a hurried examination of the amusements for negroes in twenty-seven Southern cities. The facts were gathered by both white and colored students 1 and professors in these various cities, so that I had a check against the optimism of white investigators and the pessimism of the colored. But such a check was scarcely needed. Few of either class found anything like adequate facilities tfor recreation and amusement. The only amusement place that one of these cities could report was a dance hall, six pool rooms, and twenty-six eating houses ; negroes admitted to the peanut gallery of the theaters. Another reports one air dome (low resort) , one moving picture show with vaude- ville attachment; "negroes admitted to peanut gallery in white theaters; but better class say they will not go unless for some special attraction, as they are put with the lowest class of whites." This report is made by a trained sociolo- gist, a Southern white person living in a city of fifty thousand. Another city of forty thousand inhabitants, at least half of whom are colored, reports not a single moving picture show, not a theater, not a public playground, no public baths, no public gymnasiums, and only four school yards where people can gather for recreation or amusement. Another investigator reports: "Picture shows with vau- deville attachment are rotten, attended by the lowest types of all colors." Still another city reports : "There have been several picture shows exclusively for negroes. They have been on the vilest streets and have been attended largely by the worst element of negroes ; and from all I can learn, the pictures have not been of the cleanest sort, to say the least." HOW TO ENLIST THE SOUTH'S WELFARE AGENCIES 17 If the social workers of America are right in claim- ing that the hours for play for children and the hours of recreation and amusement for adults are the hours of greatest danger to the character as well as the hours of greatest possibility, surely we in the South are taking a tremendous risk in allowing nine millions of our citizens to spend these hours under conditions which are all too frequently vile and unwholesome. It would be in accord with the best principles of economics and sociology, it would be high philanthropy and high statesmanship to see to it that those who live by our sides have a chance to build character during the leisure hours. To their work for white children and better amusement conditions for the white adults, every Playground Association and Park Com- mission in the South has an obligation to make some pro- vision for the negro people. If it comes to a question of expense, I for one would rather be taxed to support play- grounds instead of penitentiaries. I would rather support parks than city jails, I would rather support playground supervisors than chain gang wardens. Incidentally there would be less taxes to pay, greater safety of life and prop- erty, and a growing company of colored children who had a chance to become good citizens and an economic asset in the upbuilding of our Southland. We have thus mentioned five social betterment forces in the South which must be harnessed to the problem of negro uplift. The list is of course suggestive, and not exhaustive. We have only meant to indicate the way in which we can use forces now in existence to further the cause of negro betterment. In other words, this is simply a plea that in all our social welfare movements in the South we must remember that we are not working for 20,547,420 whites, but for twenty million whites plus 8,749,427 negroes. We must not forget that we have a population of 29,296,847 and that we have no right to omit a single one of these when we are laying our plans for social betterment. In conclusion, I would like to say one more thing. The South is a solid South in more than a political sense. We are a solid South in a social sense. I mean whatever affects 18 THE HUMAN WAY the social welfare of one man affects the social welfare of every other man in the section. We are bound together by the fact of proximity, we are bound together by eco- nomic relations, we are bound together by the traditions of the past, we are bound together by all the forces of present life which demand the guarding of our health, our ideals, and our civilization. We are not eight million negroes and twenty million whites; we are twenty-nine million human beings, and whatever affects one of our company must of necessity affect all the other 28,999,999. The sin of the immoral will destroy the safety of the moral, the disease of the weakest will destroy the health of the strongest, the prejudice of the most ignorant will warp the judgment of the most learned, the lawlessness of the most criminal will blacken the fair name and drag into criminal action the law-abiding instincts of the highest citizens. We must stand or fall together. Thank God this is true! This insures that the learned shall not despise the ignorant, that the physically sound shall not despise the physically weak, the rich man cannot scorn the poverty-stricken, the righteous cannot become self-righteous in their contempt for the morally weak. Every welfare movement for whites must become a welfare movement for negroes as well. This interest in the whole will keep us from dying with the dry rot of complacency. God has put upon the religious; edu- cational, and social workers of both races of the South a tremendous load of responsibility; but by his help we will carry it like men, and be all the stronger because of our manly exertion. WORK OF THE COMMISSION OF UNIVERSITIES 19 WORK OF THE COMMISSION OF SOUTHERN UNI- VERSITIES ON THE RACE QUESTION PROFESSOR C. H. BROUGH, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS THE South is to be congratulated on the fact that she has educational statesmen with far-sighted and philan- thropic vision, of the type of Dr. J. H. Dillard, of New Orleans, who has consecrated his ripe experience and able executive leadership to the social, economic, educational, re- ligious, and civic improvement of the negro race. Such a leader, who is the inspiration and originator of the Commis- sion of Professors from representative Southern Univer- sities, is worth infinitely more to our nation and to our Southland than a thousand ranting demagogues. With such an inspiring force as Dr. Dillard, I feel that our commission could do no better than follow the splendid constructive outline which he has mapped out for our work ; therefore, as Chairman of the Commission, I invite sugges- tions along the following lines : I. What are the conditions? 1. Religious. Contributions, excessive denominationalism, lack of the practical in preaching, etc. 2. Educational. Self-help, Northern contributions, public schools, etc. 3. Hygienic. The whole question of health and disease. 4. Economic. Land ownership, business enterprises, abuse of credit system, etc. 5. Civic. Common carriers, courts of justice, franchise, etc. Changes and tendencies in the above conditions. Atti- tude of the whites. II. What should and can be done, especially by whites, for im- provement? III. What may be hoped as to future conditions and relations? With reference to the religious contributions to the bet- terment of the negro, it may be said that our Churches have been pursuing a "penny wise and pound foolish economy." The Presbyterians last year gave an average of three post- age stamps per member to the work. The Methodists aver- aged less than the price of a cheap soda water just a 20 THE HUMAN WAY five-cent one. The Southern Baptist Convention has only been asking from its large membership $15,000 annually for this tremendous work. In view of these conditions, as Southern Churchmen we may well echo the passionately eloquent outburst of Dr. W. D. Weatherford, one of the most profound thinkers and virile writers on the negro ques- tion, and the leader of the young men of the South in their Y. M. C. A. work: "Do we mean to say by our niggardly gifts that these people are helpless and worthless in the sight of God ? Do we mean to say that one cent per member is doing our share in evangelizing the whole race? God pity the Southern Christians, the Southern Churches, and the Southern States, if we do not awake to our responsi- bility in this hour of opportunity." But the responsibility for deplorable religious conditions among the negroes is not altogether with the whites. While it is true that the negro is by nature a religious and emo- tional animal, while there are approximately 4,500,000 Church members among the 10,000,000 negroes in the United States, and these Churches represent property values of nearly $40,000,000, yet it is also painfully true that excessive denominationalism and ecclesiastical rivalry and dissensions prevent the formation of strong, compact organizations among them and, as a result, there are twice as many Church organizations as there should be, congre- gations are small, and the salaries paid their preachers are not large enough to secure competent men. In connection with the character of the average negro preacher, it is interesting to note that in an investigation made by Atlanta University concerning the character of the negro ministry, of two hundred negro laymen who were asked their opinion of the moral character of negro preach- ers, only thirty-seven gave decided answers of approval. Among faults mentioned by these negro laymen were self- ishness, deceptiveness, love of money, sexual impurity, dogmatism, laziness, and ignorance, and to these may be added the fact that preaching is generally of a highly emo- tional type and is wholly lacking in any practical moral message. At this meeting of the Southern Sociological Con- gress, I trust that some one will discuss the necessity of WORK OF THE COMMISSION OF UNIVERSITIES 21 holding up before the negroes the conception of the Perfect Man of Galilee, of unblemished character and spotless purity, who went about doing good, as well as the concep- tion of a Saviour of power and a Christ of divinity. Educationally the negroes of the South have made re markable progress. In 1880, of the negro population above ten years of age, 70 per cent was illiterate. By the end of the next decade this illiteracy had been reduced to 57.1 per cent, and by the close of the century it had declined to 44.5 per cent. During the last ten years of the nine- teenth century there was an increase of the negro popula- tion of 1,087,000 in the school age of ten years and over; yet, despite this increase, there was a decrease in illiteracy of 190,000. In 1912 there were over 2,000,000 between the ages of five and eighteen, or 54 per cent of the total number of educable negro children, enrolled in the common schools of the former slave States, and the percentage of illiteracy among the negroes is only 27.5 per cent. In the State of Arkansas for the year ending June 30, 1912, 109,731 negro children were enrolled in the common schools out of a total educable negro population of 175,503, and the percentage of illiteracy among the negroes was only 26.2 per cent. Besides the Branch Normal at Pine Bluff, maintained by the State at an annual expense of $15,000, an institution which has graduated 236 negro men and women in the thirty-eight years of its useful history, and six splendid negro high schools at Fort Smith, Helena, Hot Springs, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff, there are six de- nominational high schools and colleges in Arkansas that are giving the negroes an academic education and practical instruction in manual training, domestic science, practical carpentry, and scientific agriculture. These facts tell the story of praiseworthy sacrifice, frugality, struggle, and aspiration. The amount devoted to negro education in the South for the forty years ending with the academic session 1910-11 is approximately $166,000,000. Of this amount, the negro is beginning to pay a fair proportion, especially in North Carolina and Virginia. But the Southern white people have borne the brunt of the burden, meriting the stately eulogy 22 THE HUMAN WAY of the late lamented Commissioner of Education, William T. Harris, that "the Southern white people in the organiza- tion and management of systems of public schools manifest wonderful and remarkable self-sacrifice," and also the tribute of Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Outlook, "While Northern benevolence has spent tens of thousands in the South to educate the negroes, Southern patriotism has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same purpose. This has been done voluntarily and without aid from the Federal Government." The South as a whole has appreciated the truth of the six axioms in the program of negro education so admirably set forth by Dr. W. S. Sutton, of the University of Texas, in a recent bulletin, and she boldly affirms that the highest welfare of the "black child of Providence" committed to her keeping lies not in social or even political equality, but in equality of industrial opportunity and educational en- lightenment. Therefore, if the dangerous and insidious movement for the segregation of the school funds between the races in proportion to the amount paid in as taxes is to be checked, the negro must awake more keenly to the neces- sity of self-help, realizing that "Self-ease is pain. Thy only rest Is labor for a worthy end, A toil that gives with what it yields, And hears, while sowing outward fields, The harvest song of inward peace." Closely allied to the proper solution of the problem of negro education are the practical questions of better hygienic conditions and housing, the reduction of the fearful mortal- ity rate now devastating the race, and the prevention of disease. At the present the death rate of the negroes is 28 per one thousand, as opposed to 15 per one thousand for the whites. The chief causes of this excessive death rate among the negroes seem to be infant mortality, scrofula, venereal troubles, consumption, and intestinal diseases. Ac- cording to Hoffman, over 50 per cent of the negro children born in Richmond, Va., die before they are one year old. This is due primarily to sexual immorality, enfeebled con- WORK OF THE COMMISSION OF UNIVERSITIES 23 stitutions of parents, and infant starvation, all of which can be reduced by teaching the negroes the elementary laws of health. The highest medical authorities agree that the negro has a predisposition to consumption, due to his small chest expansion and the insignificant weight of his lungs, and this theory seems to be borne out by the fact that the excess of negro deaths over whites from consumption is 105 per cent in the representative Southern cities. But however strong the influence of heredity, it is undeniable that con- sumption, the hookworm, and fevers of all kinds are caused in a large measure by the miserable housing conditions prevalent among the negroes. Poor housing, back alleys, no ventilation, poor ventilation, and no sunshine do much to foster diseases of all kinds. Furthermore, people cannot be moral as long as they are herded together like cattle without privacy or decency. If a mother, a father, three grown daughters, and men boarders have to sleep in two small rooms, as is frequently the case, we must expect lack of modesty, promiscuity, il- legitimacy, and sexual diseases. It is plainly our duty to preach the gospel of hygienic evangelism to our unfortunate "neighbors in black," for the Ciceronian maxim, "Mens sand in corpore sano," is fundamental in education. Cer- tainly he who is instrumental in causing the negro to build two- and three-room houses where only a one-room shack stood before and to construct one sleeping porch where none was before deserves more at the hands of his fellow man than the whole race of demagogues put together. Economic progress has been the handmaid of educa- tional enlightenment in the improvement of the negro. In- deed, to the negro the South owes a debt of real gratitude for her rapid agricultural growth, and in no less degree does every true son of the South owe the negro a debt of grati- tude for his unselfishness, his faithfulness, and his devo- tion to the white people of Dixieland, not only during the dark and bloody days of the Civil War, but during the trying days of our industrial and political renaissance. To the negro, either as an independent owner, tenant, or laborer, we partly owe the increase in the number of our 24 THE HUMAN WAY farms from 504,000 in 1860 to over 2,000,000 at the present time; the increase in our farm values from $2,048,000 in 1860 to $4,500,000 at the present time ; the decrease in the size of our farm unit from 321 acres in 1860 to 84 acres at the present time. However, there are four well-defined retarding forces to the fullest economic development of the negro in the South, and to these evils this Commission should give thoughtful and earnest consideration : the tenant system, the one-crop system, the abuse of the credit system, and rural isolation. I believe that industrial education, teaching the negro the lessons of the nobility of toil, the value of thrift and honesty, the advantages attaching to the division of labor and the diversification of industry and the dangers lurking in the seductive credit system, will prove an effec- tive panacea for these self-evident evils. As an American citizen the negro is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the equal protec- tion of our laws for the safeguarding of these inalienable rights. The regulation of suffrage in the South, as well as in the North, is and always will be determined by the prin- ciple of expediency. But none but the most prejudiced negro-hater, who oftentimes goes to the extreme of deny- ing that any black man can have a white soul, would con- trovert the propositon that in the administration of quasi- public utilities and courts of justice the negro is entitled to the fair and equal protection of the law. Separate coach laws are wise, but discriminations in service are wrong. If "law hath her seat in the bosom of God and her voice in the harmony of the world, all things paying obeisance to her, the greatest as not exempt from her power and the least as feeling her protecting care," if "Sovereign law, the State's collected will, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill," then the meanest negro on a Southern plantation is en- titled to the same consideration in the administration of justice as the proudest scion of a cultured Cavalier. It is, indeed, a travesty on Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence to send a negro to the penitentiary for a term of eighteen WORK OF THE COMMISSION OF UNIVERSITIES 25 years for selling a gallon of whisky in violation of law and at the same time allow scores of white murderers to go un- punished, as was recently stated to be a fact by the Gov- ernor of a Southern State. Even if it be only theoretically true that "all people are created free and equal," it is un- deniably true that he is entitled to the equal protection of our laws and to the rights safeguarded every American citizen under the beneficent provisions of the Constitution of the United States. If I may use the eloquent words of the golden-tongued and clear-visioned Bishop Charles B. Galloway, "The race problem is no question for small politicians, but for broad- minded, patriotic statesmen. It is not for non-resident theorists, but for clear-visioned humanitarians. All our dealings with the negro should be in the spirit of the Man of Galilee." The task that is now confronting this Commission on the Race Question, which is composed of Southern white men who are representing the Universities of the South, is Atlean in its magnitude and fraught with tremen- dous significance. I believe that ours is a noble mis- sion, that of discussing the ways and means of bettering the religious, educational, hygienic, economic, and civic con- dition, of an inferior race. I believe that by preaching the gospel of industrial education to the whites and negroes alike we can develop a stronger consciousness of social re- sponsibility. I believe that by the recognition of the fact that in the negro are to be found the essential elements of human nature, capable of conscious evolution through edu- cation and economic and religious betterment, we will be led at last to a conception of a world unity, whose Author and Finisher is God. Let us, then, have a just conception of the dignity of our mission, and in dreaming of our ideals for the improve- ment of a wonderful race let each of us resolve in his heart of hearts with the sailor-poet : "I am tired of sailing my little bark Par inside the harbor bar; I want to be out where the great ships float, I want to be out where the great ones are. 26 THE HUMAN WAY And I am not content to abide Where only the ripples come and go; I must mount the crest of the waves outside, Or breathless plunge into the trough below. And if my little bark should prove too frail For the winds that sweep the wide sea o'er, Better go down in the deathless strife Than drowse to death by the sheltered shore. THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NEGRO PROFESSOR WILLIAM M. HUNLEY, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA I SHALL not attempt a comprehensive discussion of the economic status of the negro. That were impossible of accomplishment in the brief time allotted me. Nor shall I weary you with more statistics than absolutely necessary, chiefly because I fear there may be many present who agree with 0. Henry that "statistics is the lowest form of in- formation." My purpose is simply to sketch in outline, from the economic point of view, the condition of the negro as we find him to-day and to suggest, if possible, the line along which we should think and work in our efforts to improve that condition. The economic point of view is the distinctive Southern attitude in the matter of improvement of race conditions. We aim to elevate the negro economically in the belief that, by this means, he will become a better citizen. In other parts of the country the aim seems to be just the opposite viz., to give the negro certain social and political advantages which he now lacks in the belief that, possessing those ad- vantages, he will attain a higher level of efficiency and will become, therefore, a better citizen. Thus we all strive to reach the same end, but by different routes. The industrial route seems to me to be the better. THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NEGRO 27 The present economic status of the negro shows mar- velous advancement and holds great promise. A little pamphlet, "Fifty Years of Negro Progress," by Monroe N. Work, came to my desk as I was preparing this paper. The part referring to certain economic phases of the question is so much better than anything I had set down that I tore up several pages of notes and decided to take the liberty of quoting from this pamphlet a few paragraphs : "In 18(fe there were 3,960,000 slaves in the South. Their value was approximately $2,000,000,000, or about $500 each. At the present time about this same number of negroes in the South are engaged in various gainful occupations. Their economic value is approximately $2,500 each, and their total value as an asset of the South is ten billion dollars. "Fifty years ago, with the exception of a few carpen- ters, blacksmiths, and masons, practically all the negroes in the South were agricultural workers. Freedom gave them an opportunity to engage in all sorts of occupations. The census reports show that there are now very few, if any, pursuits followed by whites in which there are not some negroes. There are over 50,000 in the professions teachers, preachers, laymen, doctors, dentists, editors, etc. There are some 30,000 engaged in business of various sorts. Fifty years ago there were in the South no negro archi- tects, electricians, photographers, druggists, pharmacists, dentists, physicians, or surgeons ; no negro owners of mines, cotton mills, dry goods stores, insurance companies, publish- ing houses, or theaters; no wholesale merchants, no news- papers or editors, no undertakers, no real estate dealers, and no hospitals managed by negroes. In 1913 there are negroes managing all the above kinds of enterprises. They are editing 400 newspapers and periodicals. They own 100 insurance companies, 300 drug stores, and more than 20,000 grocery and other stores. There are 300,000 or more negroes working in the trades and in other occupations requiring skill blacksmiths, carpenters, cabinetmakers, masons, miners, engineers, iron and steel workers, factory operators, printers, lithographers, engravers, gold and silver workers, tool and cutlery makers, etc. 28 THE HUMAN WAY "Fifty years ago it was unlawful for a negro to be employed in the postal service; for, in 1810, when the Post Office Department was organized, it was enacted that, under a penalty of $50, 'No other than a free white person shall be employed in carrying the mail of the United States either as postrider or driver of a carriage carrying the mail.' There are now more than 3,950 colored persons in the gov- ernment postal service. Altogether there are now over 22,440 negroes in the employ of the United States govern- ment. "Fifty years ago it was unlawful to issue a patent to a slave, and the Attorney-General of the United States had just ruled that, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, patents might still be issued to free persons of color. Since that time about 1,000 patents have been granted to negroes. These inventions have mostly been mechanical appliances and labor-saving devices. Some of the things which negroes have invented during the past year are a telephone register, a hydraulic scrubbing brush, a weight motor for running machinery, aeroplanes, an automatic car switch, and an automatic feed attachment for adding machines. "In 1863 it was not in the imagination of the most optimistic that, within fifty years, negroes would be mak- ing good in the field of finance, be receiving ratings in the financial world, or be successful operators of banks. When in 1888 the Legislature of Virginia was asked to grant a charter for a negro bank, the request was at first treated as a joke. There are now twelve negro banks in that State and sixty-four in the entire country. They are capitalized at about $1,600,000. They do an annual business of about $20,000,000. One of the strongest of these banks, the Alabama Penny Savings Bank, of Birmingham, at the close of business August 20, 1912, had resources amounting to $477,000." In concluding a most interesting and stimulating survey, the author says: "During the past fifty years there has been a rapid increase in the wealth of the negroes of the South. This increase has been especially marked in the past ten years, THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NEGRO 29 during which time the value of domestic animals which they own increased from $85,216,337 to $177,273,785, or 107 per cent; poultry from $3,788,792 to $5,113,756, or 35 per cent; implements and machinery from $18,586,225 to $36,861,418, or 98 per cent; land and buildings from $69,636,420 to $273,501,665, or 293 per cent. "In 1863 the total wealth of the negroes of this country was about $20,000,000. Now their total wealth is over $700,000,000. No other emancipated people have made so great a progress in so short a time. The Russian serfs were emancipated in 1861. Fifty years later, it was found that 14,000,000 of them had accumulated about $500,000,000 worth of property, or about $36 per capita, an average of $200 per family. Fifty years after their emancipation only about 30 per cent of the Russian peasants were able to read and write. After fifty years of freedom the ten million negroes in the United States have accumulated over $700,- 000,000 worth of property, or about $70 per capita, which is an average of $350 per family. After fifty years of freedom 70 per cent of them have acquired some education in books." Such a picture as that is surely good cause for pride and an eloquent assurance as to the future. The most remarkable strides have been made in agri- cultural pursuits. Professor DeLoach will show you, from the wealth of his knowledge of the subject, how the negro farmer has advanced and is advancing, and he will no doubt point out how we may help this great development. It will suffice for me to call your attention to certain facts and figures contained in the 1910 census reports. According to these reports, there are in the South approximately two and one-third million negro farm workers. Of these, about one and one-third million are farm laborers and 890,141 are farmers owning or renting their farms. T. J. Jones points out that it is significant of the interest of the colored race in farming that, while the colored population increased only 10 per cent, the colored farmers increased 20 per cent. The white population, on the other hand, with an increase of 24.4 per cent, added to their farmers only 18 per cent. 30 THE HUMAN WAY Furthermore, colored farm owners increased in every Southern State. Even in Louisiana, where colored farmers decreased, colored owners increased from 9,378 in 1900 to 10,725 in 1910. The astounding advance of the negro in fifty years is strikingly seen in the fact that in Virginia 67 per cent of the colored farmers own their farms. Mr. Jones declares that, taking colored owners, tenants, and laborers together, it may be conservatively estimated that negro labor cultivates an approximate area of 100,000,000 acres. To sum up his analysis of the 1910 Census, even at the risk of having you think I have forgotten my tentative promise about quoting statistics: "Negro farm laborers and negro farmers of the South cultivate farms whose area is approximately 100,000,000 acres. Negro farmers cultivate 42,500,000 acres of South- ern land. Forty per cent of all agricultural workers in the South are negroes. There are in the South approximately two and a third million negro agricultural workers, of whom almost one and a half million are farm laborers and 890,000 are farmers owning or renting their farms. Of the 890,000 negro farmers in the South, 218,000, or 25 per cent, are owners. Negro farm owners of the South own and cultivate 15,702,579 acres which they have acquired in less than fifty years. Add to this sum the land owned by the negroes of the North, and the total land ownership of the negroes of the United States undoubtedly aggregated 20,000,000 acres in 1910. The total value of land and buildings on farms owned or rented by the colored farmers of the South is almost a billion dollars." The three archenemies of Southern farm life, as Pro- fessor Brough so well insists, are the tenant system in various guises, the one crop system, and rural isolation. To these he would add the abuse of the credit system. As well we know, all of these bear far more heavily upon the negro than upon the white man. It has been said that the typical negro is not a servant, but a farmer. He has a greater disposition to stay on the farm than has the white man. One writer states that the THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NEGRO 31 negro is actually land-hungry. Those of you who are familiar with the sacrifices the negro will make to buy land, the heroism and splendid spirit he displays in his effort to win a home of his own, will perhaps not marvel at the won- derful growth of the land-owning class among the colored race. And it should be borne in mind, especially in the light of certain news items that have reached us about practices in many other parts of the country, that in the South there is practically no opposition to the negro buying land. There are certain restrictions imposed in many cities, to be sure, but the big fact is that practically all over the South the negro is not hampered in his efforts to own a farm. Marvelous development of business interests among negroes continues in the South as well as in the North. They have made tremendous strides in many lines. Negro drug- gists, merchants, undertakers, bankers, coal dealers, haber- dashers, insurance and real estate agents, barbers, harness makers, lawyers, hotel and restaurant proprietors, poultry dealers, publishers, miners, photographers, and laundrymen have increased in number and efficiency in the last decade to a surprising degree. In business, as in farming, the negro in the South in the main encounters no discourage- ment on the part of his white neighbor. On the contrary, in many instances negro merchants serve a larger number of white than of negro patrons. A notable instance is seen in Williamsburg, Va., where one of the leading merchants of the city is a negro the best part of whose patronage is drawn from white people. In Charlottesville negro barbers, mechanics, and carpenters are preferred to white artisans by a large part of the white population. In the banking business, as already indicated, the negro has moved ahead with mighty strides since the establish- ment of the first negro bank in 1888. A friend of mine told me the other day a story about a negro banker which serves to emphasize the change that has taken place in this phase of the economic advance of the race, for I am quite sure that, if it ever was true, it could not happen again: A negro had been depositing his funds at a bank run by negroes. After a time he went to the bank and asked for all 32 THE HUMAN WAY his balance. He was informed, so the story goes, that he had no balance. When he inquired how that was, he was told that the "interest had ate it all up." The distrust of banks on the part of many negroes is rapidly passing away. In small towns all over the South it is found that negroes are good patrons of the banks. There are also numerous building and loan associations that do a tremendous business with negroes. Prosperous negro banks are conducted in many Southern States, notably in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The so-called "group economy" is proving an important factor in the economic progress of the negro. In some trades and in some kinds of business the negro seems to be passing away, but on close examination of conditions it is found that in these particulars he is not serving white people as extensively as formerly, but he is being patronized by members of his own race. Negro barbers, druggists, merchants, lawyers, dentists, and builders who are patron- ized exclusively by members of their own race are increasing constantly. In every town and city there are prosperous negro restaurants where there were none a few years ago. This indicates a great increase in wealth and general pros- perity among the mass of negroes in the cities and towns, else they could not afford to support these dealers and pro- fessional men. It indicates another and, perhaps, more important thing namely, race pride. Where negro mer- chants, for example, are to be found, negroes invariably patronize them rather than white merchants. A very important phase of the question of the economic status of the negro is, to my mind, the attitude of trade- unions toward the negro. Dr. F. E. Wolfe, of Colby College, has written a valuable monograph, recently published, called "Admission to Trade-Unions." One chapter of this volume is devoted to the question of the admission of negroes. "The Federation of Labor," Dr. Wolfe says, "has not only discouraged the exclusion of negroes, but it has con- tinuously promoted organizations among negroes by posi- tive measures." THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NEGRO 33 The policy of the Federation now consists of two parts, he says. First, the substantial encouragement of the forma- tion of separate unions for colored laborers in localities where they may not otherwise become organized; and, sec- ond, the advocacy in speech and publications of the admis- sion of negroes, subject to the final discretion of individual national unions. In another place Dr. Wolfe says: "Negroes are en- gaged in considerable numbers as tobacco workers, barbers, team drivers, miners, sailors, musicians, hotel and res- taurant employees, foundry workers, pavers, hod carriers, and as workers in certain of the building trades, particu- larly as cement workers, plasterers, slate and tile roofers, wood, wire, and metal lathers, and metal workers. The national unions within these trades . . . have actively approved and substantially supported the admission and organization of negroes." Many unions, he says, have approved of the organization of negroes by admitting them to membership in mixed as well as in separate local unions. "Mixed unions," he continues, "may usually be found in any national union which charters separate negro unions, for the national pact binds each local union to accept the transferred members of another local union." Dr. Wolfe also points out that only about twelve national unions, including the Locomotive Engineers, the Locomotive Firemen, the Switchmen, the Maintenance-of-Way Em- ployees, the Wire Weavers, the Railroad Trainmen, the Railway Carmen, the Railway Clerks, and the Railway and Commercial Telegraphers, persist in regarding negroes as ineligible for membership; but the number of negroes en- gaged in these occupations is small. This attitude of trade-unions is an important considera- tion from the point of view of the negro's economic oppor- tunity, which, of course, is a factor in his economic status. From this meager survey it will be seen, I think, that the economic status of the negro to-day is on a solid basis and justifies high hope for the future. Certainly no "divina- tion of statistics" could have foretold what we see to-day 34 THE HUMAN WAY as we go about the South. But what of the great mass of negroes? Are they really better off now than they were fifty years ago? Are they improving economically? What can we do to help them? In considering these questions it is well to bear in mind what Dr. Dillard emphasizes as a most important fact namely, that the great mass of the negro population is in the South to stay for an indefinite period. In its last analysis, the negro problem is our problem. It is essentially a Southern problem. Therefore, what should we do to help along the economic improvement of the vast body of negroes? Any lasting improvement in the great mass must be made, not only with sympathy, but with the cooperation of the thoughtful people of the South. In the first place, we should work to eradicate certain evils, already indicated, as the tenant and allied systems. We must encourage in every reasonable way the negro farmer, not only to stay on the farm, but to own the land, or part of the land, that he tills. In a recent communica- tion Dr. John Lee Coulter expressed the point I wish to make very well when he said : "The salvation of the South demands the cultivation of the negro. I use the word 'cultivation' here in the same sense that I would use it in agriculture. The cultivation of the morning-glory means the training of the plant and bringing it up into the most useful form. The cultivation of the negro means training the negro to be a useful person. I believe that the greatest opportunity presents itself in the South because it is very largely rural. I think that the negro should be taught to farm better. He should be forced to do things right. I personally believe in very stringent and, it may be, very severe methods when necessary to force people to do things right. In the North Central States I have in the past advocated the strictest kinds of vagrancy laws, and would not hesitate to force either white men or negroes to serve their time sawing wood, breaking stones, building roads, or otherwise serving the community if they refuse to work as individuals, either for themselves or for other individuals. The fact that a man has $2 in his pocket THE ECONOMIC STATUS OP THE NEGRO 35 does not mean that he cannot be a vagrant. If he is not employed and becomes an eyesore in hanging around gen- erally, he should be forced to work for the community as a whole unless there are such circumstances as physical defect, old age, or other good reason." Another thing we can do, perhaps, as Professor Scroggs has said, is to increase the negro's wants. When his wants are few they are quickly satisfied. When that has been accomplished the average negro is no "busy bee" until his wants are again in the ascendency. By increasing his wants we shall greatly increase his economic value to himself and to the country. One other suggestion occurs to me in this connection. It relates to the question of the negro and public health. The economic status of the negro has improved in a wonderful way, but the indifference of the average negro to the laws of public health and hygiene costs the South millions of dollars' and makes the negro far less efficient than he would otherwise be. We should, in every way possible, endeavor to bring the negro to a realization of the value of observing the laws of sanitation and hygiene. We must not be deceived by statistics. The negro as a race has made vast strides in economic betterment in the last fifty years in the last decade, for that matter; but what of the great mass of negroes? Have they improved? Are they really improving? I firmly believe they are, slowly but surely. Our duty is to urge the thoughtful people of the South to take an active interest in the welfare of the negro, not only for the good of the negro, but for the continued prosperity and well-being of our country. 36 THE HUMAN WAY THE NEGRO AS A FARMER PROFESSOR J. H. DE LOACH, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA ONLY a few days ago I was discussing the negro prob- lem with a distinguished physician of one of our larger cities in Georgia, and I could not but take careful note of his remark that "in our courts the negro population never gets justice." Whether this is literally true or not, it is generally true. Since hearing that remark, I have been trying to think whether the negro gets justice in any other line any more than he does in the courts of justice, and I am about to conclude that the courts are no exception in the matter of injustice. Where does the negro stand as a farmer, and does he get justice in the matter of training for farm life? Is the white population cooperating with him in trying to make him a better farmer in order that he may help build up this great Southland of ours instead of letting him drift along and slowly but surely destroy, or help destroy, the South's and the world's greatest asset, the soil? We have been too long recognizing the fact that to per- mit ignorance to reign supreme on our farms is to deprive future generations of a normally rich soil, and therefore of a normal supply of food and clothing. We have been far too long recognizing the fact that intelligence applied to the soil and the farm will bring larger dividends than when applied anywhere else; and whether we are landowners or tenants, we should aid in the great movement, world- wide in its application, to maintain and conserve the soil. But we may ask ourselves this question : Does the negro get his share of training along this line? and, if so, is he capable of using his education to the best advantage? Can we establish the fact that it pays in dollars and cents, as well as otherwise, to help the negro understand the laws of the soil and the best farm practices? If so, we must then see just why we are not doing so. Is the negro so con- stituted that he cannot use profitably such information? These are questions that should concern anyone interested THE NEGRO AS A FARMER 37 in sociology and the negro problem in the South. The an- swer to them may help to solve not only the negro problem itself, but many other problems connected with the farm as well. Several years ago I was invited to address a negro farmers' conference, and after I had finished my talk the negroes were kind enough to make me a life member of the conference. It has been my great pleasure since that time to attend these annual conferences and take special note of the progress of the negroes who are active members of the conference. The negroes themselves have gotten to- gether the following facts with reference to the membership, and the information has interested me very much : FACTS CULLED FROM THE FARMERS' CONFERENCE Counties represented 8 Towns and villages represented 20 Acres of land owned by the members 6,245 Value of land $183,916 This is not a very large conference; yet it represents more real estate and money value than one would at first think, and all this belongs to negroes. There are a great many more renters and laborers than landowners in the conference, and these have been as greatly helped by the conferences as the landowners themselves. There is a feature of these conferences that I have studied very much in order to get statistical information on the negroes' use and application of information about agri- culture. I have begun within the last few years to question the members on their progress in farming since I myself became a member, and the answers have been more than surprising. In almost every individual instance there has been great improvement in the farms represented at the meetings. Some have increased their corn yield only two or three bushels per acre; others have increased about five or ten bushels; while one young farmer, a very intelligent negro, raised his yield on seven acres of good land from an average of eight or nine bushels to more than fifty bushels per acre. 443956 38 THE HUMAN WAY At this time it may be well to call attention to just what kind of information I gave them and what kind other ex- perts at the meeting gave them. I had charts and showed the effects of deep plowing and just how decaying vegetable matter would help to increase the yield of any farm crop. In fact, I spent much time telling in simple language the laws under which plants were striving to make a living for themselves and for us, especially plants that form our ordinary field crops, and they understood and heeded the messages. I went on to show what plant food was, how the plants ate it, and that if our plants were small they were starving. They caught the idea and applied it. I went further than this, and showed them some simple lessons in farm economy. I pointed out how we may put only two or three hundred pounds more per acre of these useful plant foods and often reap three times the cost to pay for them. For instance, I have pointed out how easy it would be to apply four hundred pounds of a high-grade fertilizer per acre instead of two hundred pounds. The four hundred pounds would cost $5 instead of $2.50, the cost of the two hundred pounds. But the land on which the four hundred pounds were applied would yield $8 worth of corn more to the acre than where only two hundred were applied, and would give even greater rewards relatively for cotton than for corn. They understood, and would after the second summer ask intelligent questions about fer- tilizers and nitrate of soda, and try to learn how the fer- tilizers should be applied to the land and how the crop could best be cultivated. When they were told, they under- stood, for the results prove that they understood. I have had occasion to look up some general statistics on the black versus the white counties in Georgia, from the standpoint of crop yields. It is interesting to learn that in the counties generally, though not always, where the ma- jority of landowners are negroes the farm crop yields per acre are greater than in counties where the majority of landowners are whites. Where the negroes are mostly tenants, the crop yields are not so high as where they own their own land. Some figures can be cited here: THE NEGRO AS A FARMER 39 In Glynn County, Ga., there were 155 farms in 1910. The whites owned 51 and the negroes 99 of these, while five were owned by foreigners. The yield of corn in that county was over 18 bushels, and cotton almost three-fourths of a bale per acre. In Oglethorpe County there were 622 farms, 498 of which were owned by whites, 120 by negroes, and the remaining four by foreigners. The yield of corn in Ogle- thrope was a little more than ten bushels and of cotton one- third of a bale to the acre. Most of the negroes in Ogle- thorpe County are tenants, while the negro farmers in Glynn own their land. It is very hard to find out just what proportion of farm lands in these two counties is owned by negroes and what proportion owned by whites. But such a condition could hardly exist unless there was some differ- ence in the thriftiness of the farmers themselves. It has been pretty well established by the investigations of Professor R. P. Brooks, of the University of Georgia, that negroes are far thriftier and more reliable where they are more evenly disseminated among the whites than where they are permitted to congregate in large numbers. In the former case they get the impressions of thriftiness among their white neighbors often, and are made better farmers. As a general thing negroes are easily taught and can be led to adopt any kind of information in their practices if the teacher is in sympathy with them and understands them. A great many of them are quite foolish in their atti- tude toward the white race, but we are so inclined to con- demn them as a race that we can hardly blame them. What they need is help, and it is incumbent upon those who either employ them or live as neighbors to them to help them. In most of the Southern States farmers' institutes are authorized and held in different parts of the several States for the discussion by experts of local farm problems, such as fertilizers, field crops, crop rotation, farm management, and the like. These institutes are intended mostly, if not altogether, for white farmers. The negroes as a general thing are not considered. In 1910 there were in Georgia 168,083 white and 122,559 negro farmers. Suppose we edu- cate the white farmers to farm according to science and 40 THE HUMAN WAY they get the best results from the land, we are still losing very rapidly if almost one-half of the farm population on account of ignorance is destroying the good soils of the State by letting them wash into the rivers and on into the ocean. A farmer can save the land or waste it. He can waste more in one generation by failing to apply proper methods than he can build up in ten generations. We can conservatively say that this large negro population of Georgia is wasting at least $300,000,000 a year from our Georgia soils by failing to farm in such a way as to keep the soils where they are. The ignorance of the negro not only hinders him from making progress, but is actually taking the landowners backward in this great loss of soil. The all-important question is, What are we to do about it? We shall be forced sooner or later to reach out and help the negro to improve his methods of farming. We shall have to do this in self-defense, even if we persist in refusing the negro aid for his own good. The practical work of helping the negro along the line of agriculture, it seems to me, will have to commence with simple lessons of extension work along the same line that we are holding Farmers' Institutes. Meetings must be given primarily for the negro, and we shall have to go into his own camp, by invitation, of course, and help him with his problems. We must have him realize that we wish him prosperity and are willing to help him attain greater effi- ciency. It is a long way from here and now to universal prosperity, and one generation need not expect to do more than help get any great movement started ; but from my own experience, I must say that I believe we have too long neglected to help this struggling people to greater efficiency. Our methods almost seem to indicate that we have climbed up on the lower race instead of having lent a helping hand during his long period of adversity, not realizing ourselves that we have done the most costly thing and gotten the poorest results. THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 41 THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION PROFESSOR E. C. BRANSON, A.M., PRESIDENT STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, ATHENS, GA. NEGRO FARM OWNERSHIP : THE FACTS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE /. The Facts 1. AT present the drift of negro population in the South is distinctly countryward. During the last census period our negro population in general increased barely 10 per cent, but our negro farm population increased more than 20 per cent. Just the re- verse tendency is true among the whites of every Southern State except Kentucky. In 1910 in the South the ratio of negro farm workers runs far ahead of negro population in general. For in- stance, in South Carolina the negroes are 55 per cent of the population, but 68 per cent of the farm workers. In Geor- gia they are 45 per cent of the population, but 53 per cent of the farm workers ; in Alabama 42 per cent of the popu- lation, but 54 per cent of the farm workers; in Louisiana 43 per cent of the population, but 64 per cent of the farm workers; in Mississippi 66 per cent of the population, but 69 per cent of the farm workers. The negroes are 30 per cent of our Southern population, but they are 40 per cent of all the persons engaged in agricultural pursuits. In Mississippi during the last census period negro farm- ers increased at a rate nearly two and a half times greater than the rate of increase for negro population in general, and in Georgia at a rate nearly three and a half times greater. In every State of the South except Arkansas and Okla- homa the negro is a dwindling ratio of population in gen- eral, but he is an increasing ratio of population in the farm regions, Louisiana alone excepted. 42 THE HUMAN WAY 2. On the other hand, the negro is a decreasing ratio of population in the cities of the South. In 1900 thirty-three Southern cities, each containing twenty-five thousand or more inhabitants, had a negro pop- ulation amounting to 10 per cent or more. During the following census period in all of these cities, except Fort Worth, negro population lagged behind the rates of white increase in some of them far behind; as, for instance, in Atlanta and Macon. In others there was an actual loss of negro population. Between 1865 and 1880 the towns and cities of the South seemed in fair way of being overrun and overwhelmed by the negroes. In 1910 it becomes evident that the negro is resisting the lure of city life and sticking to the farm better than the Southern white man. Some fifty thousand negroes are engaged in the various professions, mainly teaching, preaching, medicine, and law; some thirty thousand more are engaged in various business enterprises some of them with conspicuous success and distinction. But here, all told, are fewer than a hundred thousand upward-moving negroes. On the other hand, two and a third million negroes are engaged in agricultural pursuits as day laborers, tenants, and owners. With their families, they represent more than four-fifths of their race in the South, and they cultivate a hundred million acres of our farm land, or two-thirds of our total improved acreage. 3. The negro, then, is wisely choosing or blindly mov- ing to work out his own salvation as a race, not in city but in country civilization. In the farm regions he is achieving a new economic status. He is rapidly rising out of farm tenancy into farm ownership. In a large way he is coming to be a landed proprietor. During their first twenty years of freedom the negroes made little headway in land ownership. They were absorbed either in politics or in religion, and this is par- ticularly true of the leaders. The constructive achievements of the race were most marked in the direction of church- building and church organizations. THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 43 But during the last thirty years the negroes of the South have come to feel that bank books and barns are more im- portant than ballot boxes. At all events they appear in the 1910 census not as farm workers or farm tenants merely, but as farm owners in large numbers. Nearly one-fourth of all the negro farmers in the South own the farms they cultivate. In Florida they own nearly one-half of them, in Kentucky and Oklahoma more than one-half of them, in Maryland and Virginia more than three- fifths of them, and in West Virginia nearly four-fifths of them. In less than fifty years the negro has ac- quired possession of twenty million acres of farm land. Altogether his farm properties are valued at nearly $500,- 000,000. Negro landholdings in the aggregate make an area a little larger than the State of South Carolina. The Russian serfs, after fifty years of freedom, have not made greater headway. They have not done so well indeed in their conquest of illiteracy. True, cropping and share tenancy are increasing in the South faster than cash or standing-rent tenancy with its larger measure of independent self-direction nearly seven times as fast during the last census period. But wherever land is abundant or labor scarce or white farmers are mov- ing out, the negro rises out of share tenancy into cash tenancy and out of cash tenancy into ownership. During the last census period the negroes of the South increased less than 10 per cent in population, but they in- creased 17 per cent in the ownership of farms against a 12 per cent increase of white farm owners. In Mississippi, Alabama, and North Carolina the farms cultivated by white owners increased only 9 per cent, but the farms cultivated by negro owners increased 19, 21, and 22 per cent in the order named. In Arkansas, while white farm owners in- creased 8 per cent, negro farm owners increased nearly 23 per cent. In Georgia the white farm owners increased only 7 per cent, but negro farm owners increased 38 per cent. Even in Louisiana, where there was an actual loss of negro farm population, there was an increase of 14 per cent in the number of negro farm owners. 44 THE HUMAN WAY In 283 counties, or nearly one-third of all the counties of ten Southern States, the negroes are in a majority. In sixty-one of these counties negro farm owners outnumber the white farm owners. This is true of five counties in Georgia, six in Oklahoma, eight in Arkansas, eleven in Mississippi, and seventeen in Virginia. The negro farmer now owns $37,000,000 worth of farm implements and tools, $177,000,000 worth of farm animals, $273,000,000 worth of farm lands and buildings. During the last ten years he has nearly doubled his wealth in farm implements, more than doubled his wealth in farm animals, and nearly trebled his wealth in farm land and buildings. In Georgia, in 1910, the farms cultivated by white own- ers numbered 82,930, an increase of 5,776, or 7 per cent during the ten years. The farms cultivated by negro own- ers numbered 15,700, an increase of 4,324, or 38 per cent during this period. The rate of negro increase in farm ownership in Georgia is more than five times the rate of white increase during the last census period. In 1880 Georgia negroes owned 580,664 acres of farm land, but in 1910 they owned 1,607,970 acres. It is nearly a threefold increase during the thirty years. Negro prop- erty upon the tax digests of Georgia now amounts to $34,- 000,000. Three-fourths of it is country property. Their gains in property ownership in the rural regions of Georgia are amazing, but they appear so uniformly on our tax digests that they have ceased to be surprising. Here, for instance, is one of the sixty-six counties in the black horseshoe belt of the State. The negroes outnumber the whites more than four to one. In 1910 they owned near- ly one-tenth of all the farm land, nearly one-third of the plantation and mechanical tools, more than one-third of all the household goods and utensils, nearly one-half of all the farm animals, and one-sixth of the total aggregate wealth of the county. In another county there are 1,148 negro farm owners. They outnumber the white farm owners nearly three to one. In the census year only twelve mortgages were recorded against the negro farms of this county. THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 45 In an adjoining county four-fifths of all the farms cultivated by owners are cultivated by negro owners. In the census year there were no mortgages whatsoever on negro farms in this county. In my own county in 1910 they owned 8,283 acres of land; in one district more than one-fourth and in another nearly one-third of all the farm land. In all, 957 negroes in the county, or more than one in every three males of voting age, are home or farm owners. Where they are thinly scattered among white majori- ties, they make even more astonishing gains. For instance, here is a county in which the negroes own 15,146 acres of land. Their gain in the ownership of farm animals in ten years was 291 per cent; in plantation and mechanical tools, 497 per cent; and in aggregate wealth, 310 per cent. In the white belt is another county where the whites outnumber the negroes nearly two to one. But the gain by negroes in the ownership of plantation and mechanical tools during the census period was 376 per cent; in farm animals, 226 per cent; in total aggregate wealth, 230 per cent. II. Their Significance Here then in brief are the facts concerning negro farm and home ownership in the South. They show that the negro is a dwindling ratio of population in every Southern State except Arkansas and Oklahoma; that he is a decreas- ing ratio of population in the cities of the South; but that he is an increasing ratio of population in the farm regions of every Southern State except Louisiana. They show in every Southern State without exception that the negroes are increasing in farm ownership at a greater rate than the whites ; indeed, at rates varying all the way from two and a half to five and a half times the rates of white increase in farm ownership. Of course their farm holdings are small and their total acreage relatively little; but assuredly they are getting what Uncle Remus calls a "toe-holt" in the soil. 1. The Negro Works Out His Own Salvation Under Racial Law. The Southern negro, then, is working out his 46 THE HUMAN WAY own salvation, not in terms of politics, not in terms of formal education, but in terms of property ownership ; and mainly in terms of land in the rural regions. He is doing this without let or hindrance in the South, largely aside from the awareness of the whites, largely because of their indifference, but even more largely with the sympathy and help of his white friends and neighbors. He is lifting him- self up by tugging at his own boot straps, a figure commonly used to indicate an impossible something; but in civilization, as in education, it is the only possible means of elevation. The negro is emerging from jungleism and winning civi- lization mainly and necessarily by his own efforts. He is coming out of darkness into light in accord with and in obe- dience to the laws of development. His progress every inch of the way is marked by struggle struggle within himself for mastery over himself, and struggle with outward, un- toward surrounding circumstances. His real successes are achieved by himself. They can- not be thrust upon him by another. He cannot be coddled into civilization by an overplus of sympathy from friends far or near, North or South. We have tried to civilize the Indian with reservations and free rations, and we have failed. The negro as a race will never stand really possessed of anything that he does not win worthily by himself and for himself. His gains in property ownership, position, in- fluence, and prominence in economic and civic freedom will keep steady pace with racial efficiency. His destiny will be wrought out in terms biologic, economic, and social ; and, as usual, in dumb, blind struggle for self-defensive ad- justment to surrounding conditions. 2. The Laws of Racial Development have something like the steady, fateful pull and power of gravitation or any other natural law. These laws can be discovered and ma- nipulated to accelerate or retard progress, just as all the laws of nature can be discovered and harnessed for con- structive or destructive purposes. They can be recognized and applied as the laws of electricity have been recognized and applied. They cannot be invented and willed into THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 47 operation by individual bumptiousness or legislative blind- ness. The negro problem will not be solved by editorials, screeds, or statutes; by conferences, congresses, or assem- blies; by pride, prejudice, or passion. The development of the negro can be stimulated, safe- guarded, and directed wisely and beneficently. The asperi- ties of natural law can be softened. The stream of tenden- cies can be kept clear of injustice and cruelty, brutality and inhumanity; and it will be so if we have any Christianity worth the name. 3. His Chance Is in the Country. The way of salvation for the negro is not along the paved highways of city civili- zation. Whether or not there be any definite racial recognition of this fact, it is nevertheless true that during the last census period there was a steady drift of negroes out of Southern cities into farm regions. The modern city is everywhere a challenge to the civili- zation of any people, black or white. Under urban condi- tions the breath of man seems to be fatal to his fellows, but most of all fatal to the negro. Here he finds the strug- gle for existence fiercest. Here the forces of life most rapidly eliminate the weak and unfit. Here physical and moral diseases most rapidly work destructive results upon the race. The death rate of negroes decreased during the last cen- sus period, but in the registration area it is still 60 per cent higher than the death rate of the whites ; 66 per cent higher in Atlanta and Richmond, 77 per cent higher in Birmingham and Baltimore, 89 per cent higher in New Orleans, and 107 per cent higher in Charleston. In only one city of America, San Antonio, Tex., is the death rate of negroes lower than the death rate of whites. In Washington City the death rate of negro infants from all diseases is from two and a half to nearly four times that of white infants ; while the death rate of negro infants from tuberculosis is nearly four and a half times the death rate of white infants from this disease. 48 THE HUMAN WAY This disproportionate death rate among negroes is not entirely explainable in terms of race alone. They herd in slums in the cities North and South because they are poor. As a rule, sanitary conditions in these slums beggar descrip- tion. 4. He Wages a Losing Battle in the Cities. But also in the cities, North and South alike, there is a decreasing range and variety of industrial opportunities for the negro. The barber shops, the shoe-shine parlors, the shoe-mend- ing shops, the delivery and sale of newspapers, the waiting in hotels and restaurants, and even domestic service in the homes are steadily passing out of the hands of the city negro everywhere. The same thing is true of the building and repair trades of all sorts. He may be serving his own race more in these capacities, but he is certainly everywhere serving the white race less. In the cities the negro as a race is waging a losing bat- tle. The ravages of drink and drug evils, the vices and diseases of the slums make swift and certain inroads upon the race as a whole in the congested centers of our popu- lation. 5. The Battle of Standards. It would be beyond reason to expect a belated people in any large racial way to suc- ceed upon the highest levels of competition. His chances of progress are upon the lower levels, where life is less intense, the struggle for existence less desperate, and sur- rounding circumstances more propitious and helpful. The negro's chance is the countryside. Here he suc- ceeds and achieves a new economic status for the race. It is everywhere true that lower standards of living prevail over and gradually displace higher standards of living wherever the higher standards are weakened by luxu- rious wants and undefended by increasing energy and skill. This social law is operative in the lower rounds of industry as well as in the simple life of the farm regions. The for- eigner, for instance, displaces the native whites in the mills and on the farms of New England. In the South the im- mense gains of the negro in farm ownership is an apt illustration of this law. THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 49 6. He Wages a Winning Battle in the Farm Regions. The open country needs him as a farm worker. It holds out beckoning hands to him. The countryside has no slums. Fresh air, unmixed sunshine, and pure water are abundant. Fuel is everywhere plentiful. Nobody ever heard of a coun- try negro's freezing or starving to death or even suffering for the necessities of life in the rural South. In the country there are fewer temptations to irregularities of living. He sleeps more and works harder. He is less tempted into dissi- pation and vice. His home life is cleaner and wholesomer. His children are closer to him and under better oversight. Family life is less apt to be disrupted by immoralities or desertion. He easily saves money and gets ahead in the world somewhat. The negro is waging a winning battle in the farm regions. He may be destined for the present to lose out everywhere else, but he is rising into a new eco- nomic level in the open country. 7. His Civilization Begins in the Home-Owning Instinct. Negro civilization begins, then, as all other civilizations have begun in the home-owning, home-loving, home-de- fending instinct, in the pride, the industry, the thrift, and the sense of law and order that are peculiarly bred in people by land ownership. It is difficult to civilize a landless, home- less people; sojourners, pilgrims, and strangers in the land, foot-loose and free to wander at sweet will and pleasure; without abiding interest in the schools and Churches of the community, in law and order, peace and progress. It is the landless, homeless condition of the people of Mexico that makes Mexican civilization such a puzzling, baffling problem. The State despairs of civic stability for them, and the Church well-nigh despairs of salvation for them. Peonage, both economic and spiritual, is their inevi- table lot until they have a stake in the land. In the nature of things freedom arises out of land ownership. "The land is the man," said the early Saxons; "no land, no man." There is little hope in any country for vagrant tenants, black or white. A little more than a hundred thousand of the negro farmers of Georgia are tenants. Fifty-one per cent of them flit every year into new fields and pastures 50 THE HUMAN WAY green. They drift into the lumber camps, into and out of the railway gangs, into the slum quarters of the cities and out again. Real progress in the civilization of this race lies with the home and farm owners. They are tethered by property ownership. They are steadied by self-denial, industry, thrift, and a sense of personal worth ; and by the same cords they are bound to law and order. They develop the qualities and virtues of citizenship. They think twice before yield- ing to criminal impulse. In home and farm ownership they give hostages to society. Land ownership sharpens the negro's wits, clarifies his vision, and supports his conscience. He becomes an efficient moral and social police against the idle and vicious of his own race. Widespread land ownership among the negroes would cure vagrancy as no legislation can ever do. Every- where, among all peoples, patriotism is rooted in the soil and is nourished by it. 8. Loses Faith in Spelling Books; Gains Faith in Pocket- books. It is not without significance that the enrollment and attendance of negro children in schools everywhere lag behind the enrollment and attendance of white children. This is true not only in the South but in the North and West, where ample school facilities, long terms, and splendid op- portunities are freely open to them. The simple truth is, the negro is getting over the first flush of the notion I heard voiced ten years ago in my own home by the cook. She jumped on her little granddaughter in the shade of the back yard, saying, "You fool nigger, you better study dat jogfry lesson eff'n you ever 'spect to be a lady like Miss Edie." He is losing faith in spelling books and gaining faith in pocketbooks just as he has lost faith in ballot boxes and gained faith in bank accounts. In Georgia barely more than two-thirds of the negro children are registered in the schools for so much as a single day during the year; and only a little more than one-third of them are in average attendance. That is to say, practically two-thirds of the negro children of school age are out of school the year THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 51 round. It is rather to the credit of the negroes that they turn indifferently away from the disgraceful negro schools in the country regions of the South. Dumbly, blindly, and gropingly they are basing their progress, not on formal education, but upon the discipline of mind and body, disposition and character involved in the acquisition of property. Home and farm ownership calls for industry, steady and persistent; for self-denial and the sense of futurity out of which the capital of the business world has always been created. It calls for the prompt doing of things that ought to be done whether they want to do them or not. It calls for the weighing of remoter, greater satisfactions over against the pleasures and satis- factions of the moment. It calls for self-propulsion, self- compulsion, and severe self-inflicted discipline. These are lessons learned only in the school of hard experience. They are jewels plucked only from the toad's head of adversity. They are developed in a race only by struggle upward through long periods of time. Here is industrial education that counts. It is education, not in languages, but in realities, in the things and affairs of life, by the goad of lively ambition or pinching necessity. The tree of knowledge is best watered by the sweat of labor. Life is subdued by dyeing one's hands in the stuff itself. Doing precedes knowing as certainly in civilization as in religion. Doing something, having something, know- ing something, and being somebody is a necessary order of development for individuals and races alike. Knowing by doing is a fundamental law of pedagogy. It is also a fundamental law of race progress. An illiterate home and farm owner is a far more worthful man and citizen and really is far better educated than the man who speaks many languages and is ignorant in them all. 9. Black Skins; White Characters. Out of property ownership comes a certain sense of personal worth and dignity, and a sure realization of the force and driving power of character. One of my earliest recollections con- cerns a young coal-black negro in North Carolina winning his spurs in a great speech before a great audience of both 52 THE HUMAN WAY races. He daringly stood for the right as he saw it, in oppo- sition to the overwhelming sentiment of his people. He was fighting a great enemy and curse to his race, the drink evil. When Price was cut down by untimely death, he was laid away with distinguished honors. Four of the pallbear- ers were black and four of them were white, the Chief Jus- tice of the State among them. Upon another occasion I heard the Monday program of a Southern Chautauqua publicly adjourned to do honor to a negro. The stores of the little city were closed and appar- ently everybody, black and white, was in attendance upon the funeral. He was a prosperous negro farmer in the county, whose account was sought by every merchant in the city, whose word was as good as his bond, whose ad- vice and counsel to his people were always sane and safe. Always he stood as a breakwater against lawlessness and disorder of every description. Again the pallbearers were both white and black, and Frank Hill was laid away with a distinct sense of loss on the part of the entire com- munity. 10. The Need for Non-Partisan Studies. Negro farm ownership in 283 (or nearly one-third) of the cotton belt counties in which the negroes are densely massed is one problem. Farm ownership among negroes thinly scattered in white counties among white majorities is another prob- lem. In one case negro property owners manifestly yield to the upward pull of the surrounding superior mass. Here they certainly acquire ownership with accelerated rapidity, and with advantage to themselves and the community at large. In the other case, negro farm owners are thinly scattered in black counties among black majorities. Do they yield to the downward pull of the surrounding, infe- rior mass of shiftless, thriftless negroes? Is negro life in these counties slipping back into savagery? The answer calls for complete acquaintance with the facts. There are now many negro communities that are working out their salvation under conditions more or less sequestered. In Louisa County, Va., the negroes own fifty-three thousand acres of land; in Liberty County, Ga., THE NEGRO WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION 53 fifty-five thousand acres; in Macon County, Ala., sixty-one thousand acres. In Beaufort County, S. C., negro farm owners outnumber white farm owners seventeen to one. Negro civilization in these counties is at hand for inves- tigation under a dry light. Mound Bayou, Miss., Boley, Okla., Tuskegee, and Greenwood are centers of negro farm communities. There is abundant opportunity for direct, first-hand study by non-partisan investigators. And there is need for race studies by scientific students, in scientific ways, and in scientific spirit. The negro has suffered from the zeal of retained attor- neys for preconceived opinions; almost as much from in- discreet friends as from hostile critics. The skies ought to be cleared by impersonal, impartial acquaintance with the facts, whatever they are, concerning negro problems and progress. Many good people in the South stand hesitating- ly aloof because they are insufficiently informed and hon- estly in doubt about what is really best for the negro and the community in which he lives. 11. Getting Land the Beginning of Economic Wisdom. It seems fairly clear that neither for the negro nor for any race is well-being fully determined by physical sur- roundings. Being better off does not necessarily mean be- ing better. Home and farm ownership by the negroes is not the end of the problem, but it seems to be a necessary beginning. With all his getting, the negro is getting wis- dom enough to get land, and it is at least the beginning of economic wisdom and sovereign freedom. By virtue of home and land and other property owner- ship he is coming to be a civilizable, Christianizable crea- ture. Without it his religion would always be an emotional, unrelated, unapplied frenzy. With it he stands a chance to bridge the gulf between creed and conduct, emotion and action. Is he gaining in industry, honesty, law-abidingness and comfort? Yes to the extent that he is gaining in home and farm ownership, and not greatly otherwise. Of course he has not always wisely used the opportu- nities and privileges of this new-found freedom. Neither did our Teuton forefathers in the days that followed the 54 THE HUMAN WAY Reformation. Slipping the bridle of the priest, they found themselves loose in pagan meadows. They were coltish accordingly. The seventeenth century in Protestant Europe is a story of unchecked sensuality and rout, vice and vicious- ness, lawlessness and crime. Racial self-restraint and self- control are not speedily developed in any race, anywhere, at any time. 12. Crumbs of Religious Instruction. The full signifi- cance of such religion as we really have could not have been hidden from the negro, nor could he possibly have es- caped its influence. Our religion, such as it is, has wrought its effect upon him far above and beyond any conscious will and effort. The negro has made amazing gains in Church activities, religious organization, church-building, and church property ownership of all sorts. His white friends and neighbors in the South have contributed largely to the building and support of negro churches and church enterprises. We have given building sites and money constantly, good-naturedly, and more or less indifferently. We have laughed good-humoredly at the negro's religion. We have told many a joke about its emotional nature and its lack of relation to ethical conduct. But and I think I ought to say it the spiritual well- being of the negro has not been a heavy burden of respon- sibility upon our souls. Of late years he has had barely more than the crumbs of religious instruction that have fallen from our tables. For the most part we have left to the negro the cure of his own soul. We have not been full of heaviness because of his sickness. We have not been greatly disturbed because he has been sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. It may be that after a while we shall come to be concerned about the black man's soul. We cannot safely exclude from our scheme of ethics or religion any creature, dumb or human, black or white, who needs our help. We are learning this fundamental lesson slowly. 13. The Outlook. Nevertheless it remains always and everlastingly true that his destiny lies not in his stars, nor in another, but in himself. The negro will work out SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC CONDITION OF THE NEGRO 55 his own salvation, and doubtless in fear and trembling. It could not be otherwise. It is a fateful law of life, eco- nomic and social, civic and spiritual. But Paul writes it to the Philippians with unspeakable tenderness. It will be well for both races in the South if they be saturated with the spirit of this Epistle. It will be ill for both if either misses its meaning. The negro problem will be settled upon no plane lower than the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC CONDITION OF THE NEGRO AND NEEDED REFORMS PROFESSOR JOSIAH MORSE, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA I HAVE no new facts to offer, no new tables of statistics to present. What few facts and figures I shall use, I have taken from the studies of others who have given to the sub- ject an amount of time and energy I could not hope to dupli- cate. Nor do I offer this as an apology for laziness, or even as an expression of regret. To tell the truth, I believe we have, and have had for some time, all the facts we need for our particular purpose. And by "we" I mean, of course, those who are intelligently interested in the race adjust- ment problem. I am a firm believer in science and scientific methods: I appreciate the value of masses of data and statistical studies, but I do not believe in fetiches, even scientific ones, and I fear that we are now beginning to commit sins in the name of science just as formerly they were committed in the names of truth, liberty, justice, and the other car- dinal virtues. It is neither science nor sense to count the leaves on a tree, or the grains of sand in a mound, or the number of times the various letters of the alphabet occur in the Bible or in Shakespeare. To do this is manifestly a 56 THE HUMAN WAY waste of time and energy, and adds nothing of value to our knowledge of the respective subjects. Therefore, when some sociologists raise the cry for facts, more facts, and still more facts as if there lay some peculiar charm or virtue in the very amassing of them I fear that they have either developed a morbid craving for such things, like the miser who hoards his gold, but is afraid to spend any of it; or else in their subconsciousness they have an aversion to look- ing the problem squarely in the face, and hope to postpone the unpleasant day by insisting (not without some satis- faction to what they are pleased to call their true scientific spirit and proper conservatism) that we haven't enough facts as yet to warrant our attempting any practical solu- tion of the problem. The woods are full of those whose in- terest in the subject is academic. Keep it on this high plane, and they are rationally and sentimentally satisfied ; but sug- gest some definite and practical action, and their tastes and temperaments immediately compel them to withdraw. And so inertia and prejudice, in the guise of scientific caution, check for another year, at least, the advance of progress and reform. No one, I think, would seriously argue that the present attitude of the masses toward the negro is due, in any large measure, to the lack of accurate and detailed knowledge con- cerning him and the various phases of his life ; or that the more favorable attitude of some Southerners and North- erners is due to their possession of this knowledge. In- deed, there are numerous instances among the latter where the favorableness of the attitude has been in inverse pro- portion to the knowledge of the subject. The difference is due rather to difference in general culture, with its effects upon the feelings and emotions, the conscience and will, than to the possession or lack of specific information. Knowledge itself is not virtue, as Socrates thought, else there would be no discrepancy between knowing and doing. Knowledge, to be sure, is necessary; facts and figures are essential, but after a sufficient quantity of these have been gathered, we need action, moral courage, and a bit of fervor and enthusiasm to make the knowledge effective and fruit- ful. We need to cash in our facts, now and then, and con- SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC CONDITION OF THE NEGRO 57 vert them into deeds, if we are to escape the condition of the miser mentioned above. As Fichte well said: "Not merely to know, but according to thy knowledge to do, is thy vocation." The hosts of reformers and benefactors of the race, from the Founder of Christianity and his apostles to the founders of the latest republic these did not ask for more facts and statistics ; these did not consciously or subconsciously seek excuses for procrastinating; it was sufficient for them to know in a general, yet not uncertain, way that conditions needed remedying, that they could be remedied, and forthwith they set themselves vigorously to the task of doing it. And in doing so they forever changed the facts of human history. For it should be remembered that facts are made, not found. Alter the conduct of men, and you alter the facts that affect them. This, it seems to me, is the present-day need with re- spect to the negro problem. We need not more facts, valu- able as these are, but more faith; not more statistics and academic studies, but more religion, more genuine religion more faith in the brotherhood of man and Fatherhood of God actually to believe in it, as we believe that the earth revolves around the sun; and not merely subscribe to it perfunctorily on Sundays. It is good science, as well as good religion, and we need to take it seriously. Let us con- fess it: we need more love and sympathy and charity and the milk of human kindness when we deal with people who are different and less fortunate than ourselves; more \noblesse oblige with those handicapped in life's struggle. And these things are not to be had upon the presentation of a few facts. They need to be cultivated and developed by constant preaching and teaching from press and pulpit and platform, in the schools and colleges and on the stump. We need missionary work, and a company of fearless mis- sionaries who will have the high courage to teach unpopular truths to their own people and in their own communities. I say these things, not as one who brings an indictment against his people. Far from it. I know we are a generous folk, warm-hearted, chivalric, and sympathetic; we have noble impulses and worthy ideals; we cultivate the virtues as well as the graces of enlightened society, and no people 58 THE HUMAN WAY is quicker to respond to human appeals than we are. Had the slaves been taken originally to Germany, Russia, Tur- key, or other foreign countries, I am sure that the most active and eloquent champions of their "God-given and inalienable rights and privileges as human beings" would have come from our own Southern States. For we in- stinctly hate oppression and tyranny in whatever shape or form. And yet we do not altogether live up to this charac- terization in our own treatment of the negro. How shall we explain the inconsistency? To answer this adequately would require an extended psychological analysis of race prejudice, many elements of which are older than the human race and not without their positive value in the evolution of the species. There is one element, however, which plays a very important role, but which has not as yet received its due recognition. I refer to the power which ideas and beliefs have over conduct. When Descartes persuaded his contemporaries that animals are mere automata, without intelligence or feeling, even the tender-hearted Malebranche could without hurt to his feel- ings kick the dog that was fawning on him. When belief in demoniacal possession was prevalent, excellent, God- fearing men helped to burn, stone, and drown the possessed. The belief that their ancestors were much wiser and better than they could ever hope to become had much to do with arresting the development of the Chinese for more than two thousand years. And so the illustrations might be multiplied. I fear the attitude of many of our people toward the negro has been determined to a considerable extent by equally erroneous ideas. They have been persuaded by a generation of short-sighted, uneducated, and unscrupulous demagogues that the development and elevation of the negro is somehow incompatible with the best interests of the white men; that prosperity for the black man spells ruin for the white man; that what is good for the one is bad for the other; what is true for one is false for the other. And do this strange state of affairs has come to pass: that those traits and things we admire when possessed by ourselves and all the white world, we dislike when they appear in the SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC CONDITION OF THE NEGRO 59 negro; our virtues, when cultivated and practiced by the black man, become by some strange alchemy transformed into vices. Thus we recognize that education is a good thing, and those who strive for it are deserving of appro- bation and even praise. Likewise, manliness and. self- respect are commendable; and ambition and thrift and the pursuit of happiness are not to be condemned. And yet there are too many who prefer the ignorant, lazy, diseased, immoral negro even the vicious and criminal one to the self-respecting, progressive, property-owning, educated one. Now it is evident that this condition cannot long con- tinue without endangering the very foundations of our civilization. Double-dealing of this sort is bound ultimately to bring bankruptcy and ruin. Hence the urgent need, as I see it, for courage, patriotism, and zeal to be spent in popular educational efforts which shall seek to bring about a change in the prevailing attitude toward the negro similar to that which Rousseau wrought, single-handed, in the field of education proper, and later in the realm of government. Coming more closely to the subject assigned, we may observe that it is well known that the negro death rate is excessively high almost twice that of the white and that the diseases which exact the heaviest toll are consumption, pneumonia, scrofula, syphilis, and infantile diseases (in- fantile marasmus, cholera infantum, whooping cough, inani- tion). But the erroneous conclusion is drawn from these facts that the negro has a lower vitality or resistance power than the white, due to an inferior physical organism. Thus Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, who has been widely quoted, writes : "The vitality of the negro may well be considered the most important phase of the so-called race problem; for it is a fact which can, and will, be demonstrated by indisputable evidence, that of all races for which statistics are obtainable, and which enter at all in the consideration of economic problems as factors, the negro shows the least power of resistance in the struggle for life.'" 1 Mr. Hoffman's prepossessions have patently led him to commit the fallacy of "false cause." For it is also a fact *"Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," p. 37. 60 THE HUMAN WAY that there is more poverty among the negroes, more illit- eracy and ignorance of the laws of health, modern sanita- tion, and personal and public hygiene; that their living quarters are inferior, their physical environment less sani- tary, and that a much larger percentage of their mothers are breadwinners, which means neglect of the children, mal- nutrition, etc. And inasmuch as these are causes of dis- ease among all peoples, the world over, why may they not account for the excessive disease and death rate among the negroes? Mr. Hoffman would harly maintain that the larger disease and death rate of the Russian peasants, for example, half of whose children die before one year of age, or of our own factory and mill workers indicate that they possess the least power of resistance in the struggle for life. Moreover, a comparison of the negro death rate in the different cities brings out unmistakably the relationship between the factors above mentioned and disease and death. Thus the negro death rate for Charleston, S. C., as given by the United States Census for 1900, and quoted by the Atlanta University investigators, is 46.7 per thousand popu- lation; that of Savannah, 43.4; New Orleans, 42.4; Rich- mond, 38.1; Norfolk, 33.8; Nashville, 32.8; Atlanta, 31.8; while Cleveland shows only 18 ; Columbus, 21.2 ; New York, 21.3; Chicago, 21.6; Indianapolis, 23.8; Boston and Buf- falo, 25.5; and New Haven, which has the highest rate of the twelve Northern cities studied, 31.8. These are the cru