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The Labor Question in Alabama.Under the auspices of the Southern Interstate Immigration Committee there met recently at Montgomery, Ala., a convention of 100 able-bodied and . physically indolent white men to devise ways and means for tilling the farms in that State. Tho session opened with prayer, the chaplain complain- ; ing to the Almighty that “the jlow stands still in the field of promise and briers cumber the garden of beauty,” and beseeching Him to send them immigration and “to conduct those who are exposed to the chilling winds of frozen regions to this favored land, where summer sings and never dies,” and closing with other flowery and equally futilo appeals for help, recalling tho fable of tho wagoner who cried to Jovo for help whon his wagon was in the mud and was advised by that j deity to put his own .shoulders to the wheel. Tho prayer was followed by discussion of a vague sort, which traversed every suggestion but the right one bearing upon the reasons for .the decadent conditions of Alabama’s farming industry. It did not occur to any of those Southern gentlemen that the negroes are tho natural tillers of the soil in that warm climate; that no other class can do the work so well as they, and that if they wore encouraged to labor by any hope of reward, if thcv wore allowed the rights of citizens, if they were paid fair wages, even, the Alabama farms would not be in their p r e s ent c 011 di t i on.The problem stands thus: Thewhite “gentlemen,” who want to live without work off the toil of others, will not hire the blacks at fair wages or encourage them to obtain and work land of their own; on the other hand, all through -the discussions there was manifest an intention to drive tho blacks out of the State. Tho white“gentlemen” want to gob tho blacks off the farm and will not work themselves.
Newspaper Details
Van Wert Republican
Van Wert, Ohio, US
Thu, Jun 27, 1889
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 May 2023
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