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Timothy Thomas Fortune - Black and White

T >> Timothy Thomas Fortune >> Black and White




The black men of the South know full well that they were disfranchised
by illegal and violent methods; they know that laws are purposely
framed to defraud and to oppress them. This is dangerous knowledge,
dangerous to the black and the white man. It will be decided by one of
two courses--wise and judicious statesmanship or bloody and disastrous
insurrection. When men are wronged they appeal either to the
arbitrament of reason or of violence. No man who loves his country
would sanction violence in the adjudication of rights save as a last
resort. Reason is the safest tribunal before which to arraign
injustice and wrong; but it is not always possible to reach this
tribunal.

The black and white citizens of the South must alter the lines which
have divided them since the close of the war. They are, essentially,
one people, and should be mutual aids instead of mutual hindrances to
each other. By "one people" I don't wish to be understood as implying
that the white and black man are one in an ethnological, but a generic
sense, having a common origin. Living in the same communities,
pursuing identical avocations, and subject to the same fundamental
laws, however these may differ in construction and application in the
several States, it is as much, if not even more, the interest of the
white man that the black should be given every possible opportunity to
better his mental, material and civil condition. Society is not
corrupted from the apex but from the base. It is not the pure rain
that falls from the heavens, but the stagnant waters of the pool, that
breed disease and death. The corruption of the ballot by white men of
the South is more pernicious than the misuse of it by black men; the
perversion of the law in the apprehension and punishment of criminals,
by being wielded almost exclusively against colored men, not only
brings law into contempt of colored men but encourages crime among
white men. Thus the entire society is corrupted. Mob law is the most
forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that
society is rotten to the core. When men find that laws are purposely
framed to oppress and defraud them they become desperate and reckless;
and mob law, by usurping the rightful functions of the judiciary,
makes criminals of honest men. As Alexander Pope expressed it:

_Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with his face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace._

The South has nothing to gain and everything to lose in attempting to
repress the energies and ambition of the colored man. It is to the
safety as well as to the highest efficiency of society that all its
members should be allowed the same opportunities for moral,
intellectual and material development. "Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you." "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
There is no escape from the law of God. You either deal justly or
suffer the evil effects of wrong-doing. The disorders which have made
the South a seething cauldron for fifteen years have produced the most
widespread contempt of lawful authority not only on the part of the
lawless whites but the law-abiding blacks, who have suffered patiently
the infliction of all manner of wrong _because they were a generation
of slaves, suddenly made freemen_. They permitted themselves to be
shot because they had been educated to bare their backs at the command
of the white oligarch. But that sort of pusillanimous cowardice cannot
be expected to last always. Men in a state of freedom instinctively
question the right of others to impose unequal burdens upon them, or
to deny to them equal and exact protection of the laws. When oppressed
people begin to murmur, grow restless and discontented, the opposer
had better change his tactics, or lock himself up, as does the
cowardly tyrant of Russia.

A new generation of men has come upon the stage of action in the
South. They know little or nothing of the regulations or the horrors
of the slave regime. They know they are freemen; they know they are
cruelly and unjustly defrauded; and they _question the right_ of their
equals to oppose and defraud them. A large number of these people have
enjoyed the advantage of common school education, and not a few of
academic and collegiate education, and a large number have "put money
in their purse." The entire race has so changed that they are almost a
different people from what they were when the exigencies of war made
their manumission imperative. Yet there has been but little change in
the attitude of the white men towards this people. They still
strenuously deny their right to participate in the administration of
justice or to share equally in the blessings of that justice.

There must be a change of policy. The progress of the black man
demands it; the interest of the white man compels it. The South cannot
hope to share in the industrious emigration constantly flowing into
our ports as long as it is scattered over the world that mob law and
race distractions constantly interrupt the industry of the people, and
put life and property in jeopardy of eminent disturbance; and she
cannot hope to encourage the investment of large capital in the
development of her industries or the extension of her national system.
Capital is timid. It will only seek investment where it is sure of
being let alone. Again, while the present state continues, no Southern
statesman, however capable he may be, can hope to enjoy the confidence
of the country or attain to high official position. Thoughtful, sober
people will not entrust power to men who sanction mob law, and who
rise to high honor by conniving at or participating in assassination
and murder. They have too much self-respect to do it.

Only a few weeks since, a narrow-minded senator from the State of
Alabama, speaking upon the question of "National Aid to Education,"
said he would rather vote for an appropriation to place the Southern
States in direct communication with the Congo than to vote money to
educate the blacks. There is no ingrate more execrable than the one
who lifts up his hand or his voice to wrong the man he has betrayed.
This senator from Alabama does not represent the majority of the
people of his state. Take away the shot gun and mob law and he would
be compelled to crawl back into the obscurity out of which he was
dragged by his accomplices in roguery.

The colored man is in the South to stay there. He will not leave it
voluntarily and he cannot be driven out. He had no voice in being
carried into the South, but he will have a very loud voice in any
attempt to put him out. The expatriation of 5,000,000 to 6,000,000
people to an alien country needs only to be suggested to create mirth
and ridicule. The white men of the South had better make up their
minds that the black men will remain in the South just as long as corn
will tassel and cotton will bloom into whiteness. The talk about the
black people being brought to this country to prepare themselves to
evangelize Africa is so much religious nonsense boiled down to a
sycophantic platitude. The Lord, who is eminently just, had no hand in
their forcible coming here; it was preeminently the work of the devil.
Africa will have to be evangelized _from within_, not _from without_.
The Colonization society has spent mints of money and tons of human
blood in the selfish attempt to plant an Anglo-African colony on the
West Coast of Africa. The money has been thrown away and the human
lives have been sacrificed in vain. The black people of this country
are Americans, not Africans; and any wholesale expatriation of them is
altogether out of the question.

The white men of the South should not deceive themselves: the blacks
are with them to remain. Whether they like it or not, it is a fact
that will not be rubbed out.

If this be true, what should be the policy of the whites towards the
blacks? The question should need no answer at my hands. If it were not
for the unexampled obtuseness of the editors, preachers and
politicians of that section, I should close this chapter here.

The white men and women of the South should get down from the
delectable mountain of delusive superiority which they have climbed;
and, recognizing that "of one blood God made all the children of men,"
take hold of the missionary work God has placed under their nose.

Instead of railing at the black man, let them take hold of him in a
Christian spirit and assist him in correcting those moral abscesses
and that mental enervation which they did so awfully much to infuse
into him; they should first take the elephant out of their own eyes
before digging at the gnat in their neighbor's eyes. They should
encourage him in his efforts at moral and religious improvement, not
by standing off and clapping their hands, but by going into his
churches and into his pulpits, showing him the "light and the way" not
only by precept but example as well. Can't do it, do you say? Then
take your religion and cast it to the dogs, for it is a living lie; it
comes not from God but from Beelzebub the Prince of Darkness. A
religion that divides Christians is unadulterated paganism; a minister
that will not preach the Gospel to sinners, be they black or white, is
a hypocrite, who "steals the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in."
They should make liberal provision for the schools set apart for the
colored people, and they should visit these schools, not only to mark
the progress made, and to encourage teacher and pupil, but to show to
the young minds blossoming into maturity and usefulness that they are
friends and deeply interested in the progress made. In public, they
should seek first to inspire the confidence of colored men by just
laws and friendly overtures and by encouraging the capable, honest
and ambitious few by placing them in position of honor and trust. They
should show to colored men that they accept the Constitution as
amended, and are earnestly solicitous that they should prosper in the
world, and become useful and respected citizens. You can't make a
friend and partisan of a man by shooting him; you can't make a sober,
industrious, honest man by robbing and outraging him. These tactics
will not work to the uplifting of a people. "A soft answer turns away
wrath." Even a dog caresses the hand that pats him on the head.

The South must spend less money on penitentiaries and more money on
schools; she must use less powder and buckshot and more law and
equity; she must pay less attention to politics and more attention to
the development of her magnificent resources; she must get off the
"race line" hobby and pay more attention to the common man; she must
wake up to the fact that--

_Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,_

and that it is to her best interest to place all men upon the same
footing before the law; mete out the same punishment to the white
scamp that is inexorably meted out to the black scamp, for a scamp is
a scamp any way you twist it; a social pest that should be put where
he will be unable to harm any one. In an honest acceptance of the new
conditions and responsibilities God has placed upon them, and in
mutual forebearance, toleration and assistance, the South will find
that panacea for which she has sought in vain down to this time.




CHAPTER XI

Land and Labor


There is more prose than poetry in the desperate conflict now
waging in every part of the civilized world between labor and
capital,--between the dog and his tail, again, for, when the question
is reduced to a comprehensive statement of fact, it will be readily
seen that capital is the offspring of labor, not labor the offspring
of capital. Capital can produce nothing. Left to itself, it is as
valueless as the countless millions of gold, silver, copper, lead and
iron that lie buried in the unexplored womb of Nature. This storied
wealth counts for nothing in its crude, undeveloped state. As it is
to-day, so it was a thousand years ago. Years may add to the bulk,
and, therefore, the richness of its value; but until man, by his labor
of muscle and brain, has brought it forth, it has no value whatever.
To have value, it must become an object of barter, of circulation, in
short, of exchange. As its value depends upon its utility, so when it
can no longer be used it again becomes a useless mass of perishable
wealth. It is the product of labor, pure and simple. Speaking on
"Management of the Banks" (footnote p. 223), in his work on _Labor and
Capital_, Edward Kellogg says:--

All who become rich by speculations in bank, state and other
stocks, gain their wealth at the expense of the producing
classes; for no increased production is made by the changing
market value of these stocks. It is clear, that when the
rate of interest is increased, the gains of money-lenders
are augmented, and the money gained will buy a greater
quantity of property and labor. The increased gains of the
lender must be paid by the borrowers, by the productions of
their own or of others' labor.

So Adam Smith, speaking of "the Origin and Use of Money" (_Wealth of
Nations_, p. 33), says:

In order to avoid the inconveniency of such situations,
every prudent man in every period of society, after the
first establishment of the divisions of labor, must
naturally have endeavored to manage his affairs in such a
manner as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar
produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one
commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be
likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their
industry.

Labor is the one paramount force which develops the resources of the
world. It produces all the wealth; it pays, in the last analysis, all
the taxes--National, State and municipal; it produces the wealth which
sustains all the institutions of learning, as well as ministers to the
profligate luxuries of the idlers and sharpers who add nothing to the
wealth of society, but on the contrary constantly take from it, and
who have not inaptly been termed by Dr. Howard Crosby the "dangerous
classes;" it makes the wealth which gives a few men millions of
dollars as their share, either as rental or usurious interest upon
capital invested in the production of wealth; and it creates the vast
surplus which lies in the coffers of the Federal and State treasuries
of our land.

The producing agency, without which there could be no wealth; without
which the landlord could exact no rent and capital could draw no
interest, the producing agency alone receives an inadequate proportion
of the wealth it produces. The man who conducts any business requiring
labor and capital not only exacts an unjust proportion of the
laborer's hire, but takes more than he justly should as interest upon
his capital and as reward for his own time and labor, often amounting
to no trouble or labor, he delegating to other hands, such as foremen
or overseers, the absolute control of his investment. Yet, the man who
invests capital not only derives, in a majority of cases, a sufficient
income to enable him to live in more than comfort but to have a
healthy bank account; while the laborer, who alone makes capital draw
interest by giving it employment in developing the resources of
nature, derives only a bare subsistence, frequently not sufficient to
meet the absolute necessaries of his daily life. His wife and children
must be content with life simply--bare, cold life--often without any
of the conveniences or the commonest luxuries which make existence
anything more than the curse it is to a large majority of humankind.
This is peculiarly true of the condition of the masses of the Old
World, and is fast becoming true in our own young and vigorous
country.

In every quarter of the globe the cry of depressed and defrauded labor
is heard. The enormous drain upon the producing agents necessary to
maintain in idleness and luxury the great capitalists of the world who
accumulated their ill-gotten wealth by fraud, perjury and "conquest,"
so called, grinds the producing agent down to the lowest possible
point at which he can live and still produce. The millionaires of the
world, so called "aristocracies," and the taxes imposed by sovereign
states to liquidate obligations more frequently contracted to enslave
than to ameliorate the conditions of mankind, are a constant drain
which comes ultimately out of the laboring classes in every case.

What are millionaires, any way, but the most dangerous enemies of
society, always eating away its entrails, like the cultures that
preyed upon the chained Prometheus? Take our own breed of these
parasites; note how they grind down the stipend they are compelled to
bestow upon the human tools they must use to still further swell their
ungodly gains! Note how they take advantage of the public; how they
extort, with Shylock avarice, every penny they possibly can from those
who are compelled to use the appliances which wealth enables them to
contrive for the public convenience and comfort; how they corrupt
legislatures and dictate to the unscrupulous minions of the law. The
Athenians were wise who enacted into law the principle that when a
citizen became too powerful or rich to be controlled within proper
bounds, the safety of society demanded that he should be exiled--sent
where his power or riches could not be used to the detriment of his
fellow-citizens. Should such a rule be applied to-day, society in
every land could disgorge with much advantage the men who ride the
people as the Old Man of the Sea rode Sindbad the luckless sailor. But
our civilization is built upon a higher conception of individual right
and immunity; there is now no limit to the right of one man to rob
another of the produce of his labor or his natural and conferred
rights. Not only may individuals rob and plunder their fellows with
absolute impunity, but our laws have put breath into that soulless
thing which has become notoriously infamous as a "corporation." Around
this thing, this engine of extortion and oppression, our laws have
placed bulwarks which the defrauded laborer, the widow and orphan, and
even the sovereign public, cannot overleap. Here is where Monopoly
first shows its cormorant head.

If millionaires are enemies of society, and I assume that they
are--not because they have property, but because, as a rule, they have
acquired it by unjust processes and use it tyrannically--what excuse
have we for aristocracies, an idle class, a privileged class, who toil
not, nor spin? What is a recognized aristocracy, such as England
maintains? From what perennial fountain did it draw its nobility and
wealth? Came they not through Norman conquest and robbery? Who pay the
heavy taxes levied upon the people to support the privileged classes
of England? The royal revenues and princely preserves, are they not
supported out of the sweat of the poorer classes, upon whom all the
burdens of society fall at last? And why should there be royal
revenues and princely preserves? Do they add anything to the wealth of
a nation or the happiness of a people? Let us see.

Brassey (Sir Thomas), in his book on _Work and Wages_, p. 71, says:

The Irish Poor Law Commissioners stated that the average
produce of the soil in Ireland was not much above one half
the average produce in England, whilst the number of
laborers employed in agriculture was, in proportion to the
quantity of land under cultivation more than double, viz.:
as five to two. Thus ten laborers in Ireland raised only the
same quantity of produce that four laborers raised in
England, and this produce was generally of an inferior
quality.

Why is it that ten men in Ireland produce no more than four men
produce in England?

Henry George says (_Social Problems_, p. 150):

A year ago I traveled through that part of Ireland from
which these government-aided emigrants come. What surprises
an American at first, even in Connaught, is the apparent
sparseness of population, and he wonders if this can indeed
be that over-populated Ireland of which he has heard so
much. _There is plenty of good land_, but on it are only fat
beasts, and sheep so clean and white that you at first think
that they must be washed and combed every morning. Once,
this soil was tilled and was populous, but now you will find
only traces of ruined hamlets, and here and there the
miserable hut of a herd, who lives in a way that no Terra
del Fuegan could envy. For the 'owners' of this land, who
live in London and Paris, many of them having never seen
their estates, find cattle more profitable than men, and so
the men have been driven off. _It is only when you reach the
bog and the rocks_ in the mountains and by the sea shore,
that you find a dense population. Here they are crowded
together on land on which nature never intended men to live.
It is too poor for grazing, so the people who have been
driven from the better lands are allowed to live upon it--as
long as they pay their rent. If it were not too pathetic,
the patches they called fields would make you laugh.
Originally the surface of the ground must have been about as
susceptible of cultivation as the surface of Broadway. But
at the cost of enormous labor the small stones have been
picked off and piled up, though the great boulders remain,
so that it is impossible to use a plow; and the surface of
the bog has been cut away and manured by seaweed, brought in
from the shore on the backs of men and women, till it can be
made to grow something.

Sir Thomas Brassey writes from a capitalist's standpoint, while Mr.
George writes from the standpoint of a philosopher who not only sees
gross social wrongs but boldly applies the remedy. But let us see if
the same fester which irritates the body of Irish society has not also
a parasitical existence in our own land, where society is yet in its
infancy, where the people are supposed to enjoy all the advantages of
the competitive system, and where all are, measurably, free to take
and to use the opportunities offered the pioneers, or him who gets
first his grip upon the three natural elements absolutely essential to
man's existence, viz.: air, water, and land.

Wm. Goodwin Moody says (_Land and Labor in the United States_, p. 77):

Instead of being able to boast, as could our fathers, that
every man who tilled the soil was lord of the manor he
occupied, owning no master, the last census report made a
return of 1,024,701 tenant farms in our country in 1880.

A comparison of this showing with the land-holdings of
Great Britain and Ireland will help to a better
understanding of what these things import. The very latest
statistics give the total number of holdings in England and
Wales at 414,804; in Ireland, at 574,222; in Scotland, at
80,101; total, 1,069,127. Showing that in the whole of Great
Britain and Ireland, counting all the holdings as tenant
occupations, which they are not, there are 200,000 less
tenant farms than in the United States.

Again:

Among the owners of the tenant farms in our country are
English, French, and German capitalists, non-residents, who
have bought immense tracts of the railroad lands, and seized
upon the alternate government sections lying within their
railroad purchases, and on those tracts have commenced their
bonanza operations, or planted their tenants on the American
system.

When it is remembered that the entire network of railroads in the
United States is practically under the absolute control of five or six
men who, having derived their valuable franchises and more than
princely land grants from the people, show the utmost disregard of the
comfort, convenience or rights of the donors; when it is remembered
that one family in the city of New York controls enough land with
enough tenants to constitute an overgrown village; and that what they
do not claim as their own is held by one-fourth of the rest of the
population; when it is remembered that nearly every article which has
become a household necessity has been seized upon and can be obtained
only through some corporation, in the manufacture of which the
government has virtually granted a monopoly, as Charles granted to the
Duke of Buckingham a monopoly in the sale of gold lace; when it is
remembered that, even in this new country, three-fourths of the
population rent their homes and cannot buy them[14]; when these things
are remembered, as they should be, it will be readily seen that the
condition of our work-people is fast becoming no better than that of
the people of Europe, where a thousand years of false social
adjustments, of usurpation and of tyranny, have reduced the
proletariat class to the verge of starvation and desperation.

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