Chapter XIX: Appendix (2)

Q. What chance is there of the planter securing white
labor to carry on these plantations?
--A. There is such a small proportion of white labor in the
South that it would be difficult for him to find them, and
the tide of foreign immigration is just beginning to be
turned in that direction. There has been a prejudice against
white emigrants going to the South, on account of going
among the negroes.

Q. Do you think that is diminishing?
--A. Diminishing yearly.

Q. You mean that immigration from Europe is being employed
on the plantations?
--A. Not exactly upon the large cotton plantations, but the
smaller plantations are now being converted into farms. For
instance, there has been a large immigration of European
emigrants into that section of the country between Little
Rock and Fort Smith.

Q. Do they, upon these farm or small plantations being
converted into farms, work in companionship with the negro
laborer?
--A. No; they generally buy the land and work it themselves;
they may hire a negro and work with him; they are laborers
themselves.

Q. Is there any tendency among the white and colored
laborers of any class to work in companionship, or to
fraternize at all in labor?
--A. I cannot say that there is. A white man would not take
a negro in as a partner to work with him in the field.

Q. And will a white man find any difficulty in hiring
another white man and negro to work together side by side in
the field?
--A. No, sir; I have them myself working side by side.

Q. There is no prejudice of that kind?
--A. None at all.

Q. No white man inquires whether he can work by himself or
is to work in company with a negro? Do they exhibit any
reluctance to work in company with the negro?
--A. The class of white people that work in our country for
wages comes from Ohio, and Missouri, and Indiana, and that
section of country, and I find there is some prejudice among
that class of people sometimes, but still there are
instances--as I say, I have men from Indiana now myself
hired working right in a gang with negroes.

Q. There is no strong tendency in that way, I suppose?
--A. No strong tendency in that way. There are no white
laborers from the South proper; at least the number we can
hire for wages is so small that it is not sufficient to call
it a class.

Q. In the Southern States proper about two thirds of the
population is white, is it not?
--A. I do not recollect. According to the census returns I
think there are about seven millions of negroes. The census
would give the exact statement.

Q. Not far from two thirds of the population, I think, is
white. In the Gulf States proper at least one half the
population must be white. In what way is the white laboring
population of the South employed?
--A. They are employed as small farmers nearly almost
entirely.

Q. Not to as great extent as mechanics and artisans?
--A. I suppose there is a liberal proportion of them to the
population; we have to have our artisans and mechanics; but
as a rule the white population of the South are small
farmers, either owners of the land themselves or tenants.

Q. How as to their material prosperity and thrift and
saving?
--A. It varies very much. For instance, take the State of
Georgia--and I believe it is admitted that Georgia is one of
the most thrifty and prosperous of all the Southern
States--I think the small farmers are generally
self-sustaining; they raise their own supplies.

Q. Do these small white farmers employ negro help to any
extent?
--A. To a certain extent. If a man has more land than his
family can work he will hire a negro laborer. There is no
prejudice against his doing so either on the part of the
farmer hiring him or the negro hired.

Q. He may hire some white and other colored laborers, I
suppose?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do they work together?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. How in regard to the value of the hill lands you have
spoken of in the State of Arkansas; as compared with the
alluvial, what is the difference in value?
--A. It is very great. There are farms in Arkansas that can
be bought, partially cleared up, and with some improvements
upon them, for from $5 to $20 an acre, less than the rent of
fair lands on the river. There is no finer section of
country in the world--I say that unhesitatingly--for a
foreign immigrant, or the immigrant from the East, or from
anywhere, than is afforded to-day in Arkansas and Texas.

Q. And political disturbances are at an end?
--A. We apprehend nothing at all; there is no reason why we
should.

Q. You were speaking of the necessity of the education of
the laborer of the South, the negro especially. Will you not
describe to us the actual condition of the masses of the
colored people in the matter of education, to what extent it
has progressed, and what facilities and opportunities exist,
and what additional are required?
--A. It varies in different sections. For instance, Georgia,
and Tennessee are probably ahead of any of the Southern
States in point of educating the colored people; they have
more facilities; they have negro primary schools and
colleges where a man is educated. The education that I was
speaking of, more particularly for the negro, is a plain
English education, sufficient to enable him to read and
write.

Q. What we call up North a common school education?
--A. A common school education. I will illustrate that.
Suppose a negro comes to me to make a contract that I have
written for him, and he cannot read or write. I offer that
contract to him, and I read it to him. He touches a pen and
signs his mark to it; there is no obligation attached at
all. He says at once, "That man is an educated man; he has
the advantage of me; he shows me that contract; I do not
know what is in it; I cannot even read it." Therefore a
contract made with a negro in that way is almost a nullity;
but if he could read that contract himself and sign his own
name to it, it would be a very different thing. I never
allow a negro to sign a written contract with me before he
has taken it home with him and had some friend to read it
over and consult with him about it, because I want some
obligation attached to my contracts.

Q. It is necessary for you as well as the negro?
--A. Necessary for my protection as well as his.

Q. How many of the negroes on the plantations can
comprehend a written contract by reading it, because a man
may be somewhat educated and not be able to decipher a
contract?
--A. I cannot give you an exact proportion, for it varies to
a great extent. I can only say that that number is
increasing rapidly.

Q. From what circumstances comes this increase?
--A. From their desire to gain knowledge.

Q. Do you find that desire strong among the colored people?
--A. Very strong indeed; and there are two ideas which a
negro possesses that give me great hopes for his future. If
I did not believe the negro was capable of sufficient
development to make him a responsible small farmer, I should
not want to remain in the business that I am any longer,
because I believe that the development of my business is
necessarily based upon the development of the negro and the
cultivation of my lands. The negro possesses two remarkable
qualifications: one is that he is imitative, and the other
is that he has got pride; he wants to dress well; he wants
to do as well as anybody else does when you get him aroused,
and with these two qualifications I have very great hopes
for him in the future.

Q. What do you think of his intellectual and moral
qualities and his capacity for development?
--A. There are individual instances I know of where negroes
have received and taken a good education. As a class, it
would probably be several generations, at any rate, before
they would be able to compete with the Caucasian. I believe
that the negro is capable of receiving an ordinary English
education, and there are instances where they enter
professions and become good lawyers. For instance, I know in
the town of Greenville, Miss., right across the river from
me, a negro attorney, who is a very intelligent man, and I
heard one of the leading attorneys in Greenville say he
would almost have anybody on the opposite side of a case
rather than he would that negro. The sheriff of my county is
from Ohio, and a negro, he is a man whom we all support in
his office. We are anxious that the negroes should have a
fair representation. For instance, you ask for the feeling
existing between the proprietor and the negroes. The probate
judge of my county is a negro and one of my tenants, and I
am here now in New York attending to important business for
my county as an appointee of that man. He has upon him the
responsibilities of all estates in the county; he is probate
judge.

Q. Is he a capable man?
--A. A very capable man, and an excellent, good man, and a
very just one.

Q. Do you see any reason why, with fair opportunities
assured to himself and to his children, he may not become a
useful and competent, American citizen?
--A. We already consider him so.

Q. The question is settled?
--A. I thought you were speaking personally of the man I
referred to.

Q. No; I was speaking of the negro generally--the negro
race.
--A. Let me understand your question exactly.

Q. Do you see any reason why the negroes, as a component
part of the American population, may not, with a fair
chance, come to be useful, industrious, and competent to the
discharge of the duties of citizenship?
--A. I think they may as a class, but it will take probably
generations for them to arrive at that standard.

Q. It has taken us generations to arrive at the standard,
has it not?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. There is some talk about our ancestors having been
pirates, I believe. Now, will you state to us what the
existing facilities for education are among the negroes?
--A. I can only speak as regards Arkansas. Of course I do
not know much of the other States. In Arkansas we have in
each county a school board. These boards examine and employ
teachers. We are taxed for a school fund, from which these
teachers are paid.

Q. What proportion of the colored children attend school,
do you think?
--A. On my own property there are five schools, and I think
the larger portion, I might say nearly all that are capable
of going to school, do go to school.

Q. How many children are there on your own property?
--A. I could scarcely form an idea.

Q. There are five schools?
--A. There are five schools, and I should suppose from 300
to 500 children.

Q. Those are educated in public schools?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. I understand you to say that nearly all of them attend?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. For how long a time each year is school kept open?
--A. The schools extend all the year except vacation, I
think, which is about three months; but a number of the
negroes will withdraw their children from school during
cotton-picking season, to help them pick the crop.

Q. Between what ages do they actually attend school?
--A. From 6 to 19. I know a great many of them who are going
to school who are 17, 18, and 19, who can just begin to read
and write a little.

Q. Do you find any inclination among the older negroes who
are past school age to endeavor to read and write?
--A. Not very much, but they are anxious their children
should, and appeal to them. In almost every instance where a
man has a child who can read and write, he will bring him
along with him when he makes a contract. They are very proud
of their children being able to read and write.

Q. Are they satisfied, as a rule, with their simply
becoming able to read and write, or do they like to have
them make a little further progress in mathematics,
geography, &c.?
--A. As a class they look to them simply to read and write.
They think when they have got that far they know everything;
but then there are certain ones who have ambition, just as
it is with our own race. There are some men who have tastes
for literature, and receive a better education than others
do, but it is not the same proportion of the negro race of
course that it is with our own. There are instances where
negroes are also anxious to obtain a collegiate education,
and become school teachers.

Q. I do not know that you are able to state to what extent
they actually attend school in the hill districts?
--A. I am not.

Q. You speak both of your own plantation and of other
plantations as well as your own in that regard?
--A. I am speaking of the alluvial lands along the
Mississippi River.

Q. In Arkansas?
--A. Not only in Arkansas, but in Louisiana and Mississippi;
I will say the alluvial lands on the Mississippi River
between Memphis and Vicksburg.

Q. Are the negroes on those lands generally having the same
opportunities for education that they do on your plantation?
--A. Oh, yes, sir; there is a common school system.

Q. And it is as prevalent in Louisiana and Mississippi as
in Arkansas?
--A. I think it is.

Q. What is the nativity of those teachers, as a rule?
--A. They are generally colored people from either the East
or the Northwest. There are some white teachers, but very
few.

Q. Are any of the white teachers Southern in birth?
--A. There is not a white teacher on my own property; they
are all colored teachers on my own property. The proportion
of white teachers is very small.

Q. How much do these colored teachers themselves know?
--A. Some of them are remarkably well educated.

Q. And generally earnestly devoted to their work?
--A. Perfectly so.

Q. Or is it simply to get their money?
--A. No; I think some of them really have a desire to see
their scholars advance.

Q. Some pride in their race, to have them get on, I
suppose?
--A. I think there is a certain pride in that respect; and,
again, they want to gain a reputation as teachers.

Q. What compensation does a teacher get?
--A. I think about from $50 to $100 a month.

Q. Do they pay their own expenses, board and shelter?
--A. Yes, sir; but board is cheap, merely nominal.

Q. About what amount?
--A. I should say these teachers can get board for $10 a
month.

Q. Is the cost of clothing in your part of the country
about the same as here?
--A. This is our market.

Q. You buy the ready-made clothing largely for the
population in general, I suppose?
--A. We buy both ready-made clothing and cloth to make up.

Q. I suppose the colored population hardly buy custom
goods?
--A. A great many of them buy the cloth, and some of their
women are as good tailoresses as you would find anywhere.
They buy the cloth and make it up themselves.

Q. That must bring a suit of clothes pretty cheap in a
colored family; they really expend nothing but buy the cloth
themselves?
--A. They sell very good jeans cloth there at 35 or 40 cents
a yard; they generally wear jeans.

Q. All seasons of the year?
--A. Generally in all seasons of the year. In the summer
time a laboring man hardly ever wears a coat at all.

Q. What do you think an average colored Southern laborer
expends per annum for his clothing, say the head of the
family, the man--what does it cost him for clothing a year?
--A. I cannot give you a definite answer. I will only say
that we who are the producers of cotton are very glad to see
them get in a prosperous condition in order that there may
be more consumption, and when a man is prosperous he will
buy two suits of clothes, where if he is not prosperous he
will make one do.

Q. We have had a good deal of testimony as to what it
actually costs a Northern laborer a year for clothing. I
have no desire to show that any laborers dress cheaply or
poorly; I merely want to get an idea of the relative cost of
the laboring man living North or South, in the item of
clothing?
--A. I can sell and do sell a man a pair of jeans pants and
a coat from $7 to $12 per suit.

Q. How many suits will he want in a year?
--A. That will depend on his condition and his ability to
pay me. If he is a prosperous man and beginning to
accumulate he will make one do. Whenever a negro begins to
accumulate he goes to extremes; he does not want to buy
anything; he wants to accumulate rapidly. Where a man is not
doing so well, and there is little doubt of his ability to
pay, he would probably want several suits; but I would
confine him to one or two.

Q. The same is true, I suppose, of his wife and children?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. But you look on the matter of clothing as a much less
expensive item in the laborer's account in your country than
here in the North where the climate is colder, I suppose?
--A. Yes, sir. What absorbs the profit of the laborers with
us is their want of providence; that is, if they get surplus
money they throw it away for useless articles.

Q. It has been suggested that a postal savings bank might
be a good thing as a place of deposit of the savings of the
colored population of the South; they might feel some
confidence in an institution of that kind, and that it would
be a beneficial thing to them. What is your own judgment?
--A. I advocate it and approve it, and indeed propose to
start a savings bank in our own neighborhood. In this
connection I will mention another important feature. In the
Mississippi Valley--and when I speak of the Mississippi
Valley I mean both sides of the river, Arkansas and
Louisiana on one side and Mississippi on the other--there
are numbers of negroes who have considerable accumulations
and use their surplus to advance to other negroes. For
instance, there are negroes right on our property who have
accumulated enough to help out certain others, as they
express it, and they use their money as an investment in
that way. For instance one negro who has got something will
advance it to another negro and take a mortgage on his crop.
Consequently there are numbers of them who are getting
advances from their co-laborers, and I always give them that
opportunity when they want it. My idea of the adjustment in
the Mississippi Valley, seeing what I can make from the
mercantile portion of my business, is that it is simply my
revenue that I get from the rent of my land as an investment
on my capital; and whenever a negro can get his own merchant
in New Orleans--a number of them have very good factors in
New Orleans and ship their cotton direct--I encourage it.
When one negro wants to help out another, I give him the
privilege of doing it and encourage it. There are several
negroes, a great many, not a few in Chicot County to-day who
have their own factors in New Orleans, ship their own goods,
and receive their own accounts of sales.

Q. They are not owners of alluvial lands?
--A. They are not owners at all; they are tenants.

Q. I suppose some time they will be liable to make some
accumulations, and they will now and then own a plantation?
--A. I do know of one instance on the river below Vicksburg
where the old property of Mr. Davis was bought by a former
slave of his.

Q. Is that the only instance?
--A. The only instance I know of.

Q. One question we have been accustomed to put is as to the
actual personal feeling that exists between the laborers and
capitalists of different parts of the country. What is the
feeling between the laborers, colored and white, and the
owners of the land and of capital at the South?
--A. I confine my replies to my own section, because I am
not familiar with the others. I have answered that question
in the written answers. The feeling is harmonious and good,
as I have expressed it there. The negro naturally looks to
the planter for advice and for assistance, and the planter
looks to his laborers for the development of his property.
Consequently their interests are identical and their
feelings good.

Q. You have alluded once or twice to the pressure of
outside, and I suppose Northern, opinion; I assume that you
mean political opinion in the past and the desirability that
it should cease. What is the fact as to a progressive
disintegration of the solid Republican or solid negro vote
of the South? What are the chances of its dividing, and of
the white vote dividing? We hear now of a "solid South,"
colored on the one side and white on the other. What
prospect is there of a division in that regard; to what
extent does it exist, or is it going on?
--A. The negroes of the South are already divided in their
votes. There are a great many who vote with the proprietors
of the properties. There are instances where they vote with
what they call their Republican friends. A few years ago in
the South any man who was an escaped convict from one of
your penitentiaries here who would come down to that country
and tell the negroes that he was one of General Grant's
soldiers, and fought to free him, would vote the last one
out; but any of those negroes would come to me at that very
time with his money and get me to save it for him, and take
care of it for him. He would put all his confidence in me so
far as his money was concerned, but when it would come to
politics he would vote with this man, who probably did not
own the coat he had on his back. Those kind of inferences
were what did do us in the South very material damage. Let
me illustrate that by a riot in my own county. In Chicot
County, in 1872, there was a proposition to impose upon the
county a railroad tax of $250,000 for the purpose of
building a railroad.

Q. What proportion of the taxable property of the county
would that have been?
--A. Our whole assessed valuation was about $1,500,000 at
that time. This was brought out by a promise that if the
appropriation was made, the levees on our river should be
built and this road would run on the levees. At that time
the whole of the local government in Chicot County was in
the hands of men who did not own any property in the county,
and had just come down there and been elected by the
negroes, who have a very large majority in that county. This
tax was a very great imposition upon us. At that time there
was a negro attorney at Lake Village, who was one of the
prime movers in this thing. The planters knew that this was
only intended as a speculation upon the county, for the vote
was afterwards taken, the appropriation was made, and not
one foot of levee was put up, and not one foot of that
railroad was built in Chicot County. Still we are mandamused
now for the interest on that debt that was put on us by that
kind of influence. One of our planters was remonstrating
with this negro attorney about this debt and told him it was
an imposition on the property owners, and that the thing
ought not to be done, when the man became violent and
insolent, and it resulted in a difficulty between this
planter and the negro. The planter had a little pen-knife in
his pocket, the blade not longer than my little finger; he
struck the negro with it and it happened accidentally to hit
him on a vital point and killed him. The sheriff of the
county was a negro. The planter, with two innocent parties
in whose house this occurrence took place at the
county-seat, in Lake Village, was arrested and lodged in
jail. A few days afterwards--probably not more than two or
three--nearly every negro in the county was summoned to
Lake Village, and they rose like so many locusts, coming in
from every direction, took those three men out of jail shot
them to pieces, murdered them. It was such an outrage that
the people from Memphis and Vicksburg and from the hill
countries, commenced to come in there with companies,
started down with companies. On investigation we found out
that the sheriff of the county had exercised his authority
to send out to the ignorant negroes of the county and summon
them to the village, and these fellows went because they
were afraid not to obey the mandate of the sheriff. At that
time feeling was running very high, and these people were
anxious to come in and quell this riot, but a few of us who
were more prudent, a few of the leading planters of the
county, got together, sent these different companies word
not to come there, that we did not want them in the county;
some of the companies were already on their way to Chicot
County, thinking the people there were going to be
massacred. A great many of our people had to run away from
their homes for several days; but we took the ground that we
would let the thing take its natural course. As soon as
things quieted down, which they did so partially in three or
four days, some of our gentlemen who had gone off with their
families returned, and it resulted in our arresting a few of
the ringleaders in the county. The courts and the
administration were all at that time in the hands of persons
not identified with the interests of the county, and it was
impossible for us to get justice meted out. We saved a
massacre of the negroes of the county, but we never could
bring those men to any kind of punishment before the courts,
and finally we came to a compromise with them, that if they
would leave the county we would withdraw the suit against
them, and that was the way the thing was ended. Now, I do
not believe you could get up a riot in Chicot County because
I think there are many intelligent negroes there who would
not permit it. Those are the kind of race issues that I
referred to. Relieve us of that sort of thing, and leave our
government to ourselves and our people, and give to the
negro the same protection the white man has, but do not give
him any more. Do not let him feel that he has the United
States Government standing behind him, and that he is the
child of the United States Government to be taken care of,
but that he must rely on his own resources and energy for
his living, and time will solve the question, and the demand
for his labor will protect him.

Q. Do you find that the feeling among the negroes which
resulted in the exodus of a few years ago has been allayed
and perhaps has disappeared?
--A. I will tell you something that is rather amusing about
that. The first that I heard of a negro exodus in my section
of the country--it was to Kansas--was my manager coming into
my room one morning and saying that the negroes were going
out to the river to go to Kansas. I said, "It is several
miles to the river; how are they going?" Said he, "They are
toting their things out on their heads." Said I, "Go right
at once there and offer them the wagons on the plantation to
haul the things. What is the matter?" Said he, "I don't
know; I went out this morning and summoned the hands to the
field, but they say they are all going to Kansas." I got on
my horse and rode out and met a negro who had been my
engineer. I said to him, "What is the matter, where are you
all going?" He stopped right on the road and said, "Mr.
Calhoun, you never have deceived me, and I am going to tell
you what is the matter. There were two men came through here
last week, one night, and said 'You see this picture?' There
is a picture of a farm in Kansas for me that General Grant
has bought out there for me. That is so because my name is
on the back of it, and here is my ticket; that carries me to
Kansas." Said I, "Let me see it." He showed me a piece of
pasteboard that had printed on it "Good for one trip to
Kansas." Said I, "What did you pay him for this?" He said,
"We paid him $2 a piece." "How many of you are in this
thing?" "Over eighty of us are in this thing." Said I, "That
man then swindled you out of $160; he is an imposter; there
is no farm bought for you in Kansas." I saw that the time
for me to remonstrate with them was not then; they were on
their way to the Mississippi River, and I let them all go.
After they got out there I went and expostulated with them;
told them of the difference in climate, soil, and everything
else that they were accustomed to, and that if they went
there many of them would lose their families and children.
They would not listen to me. They went on to the river bank,
and those negroes who went out there owed me over $109,000.

Q. How many of them were there? Eighty I think you said?
--A. There were 80, I think. Once, I suppose, there were 150
negroes, perhaps more, on the bank of the river. They were
not at a regular landing. They went out to the intermediate
points where a boat would not be compelled to land. We
notified all the boats coming up the river not to land at
this point. I did not want these negroes to go off, being
satisfied that they were going to their ruin if they did;
that they were leaving comfortable homes; many of them had
sold their mules or given them away at a mere sacrifice. One
negro sold a mule worth $150 for $15 to get off. They opened
their potato-houses, they opened their corn-cribs and
scattered the corn, giving it away to everybody that would
offer them five cents a bushel. I had given two of these
people a piece of land, the productions of all of which
they were to have for bringing it into cultivation and
improving it. Knowing the negro nature as I do, and knowing
that he would not want anybody to derive the benefit of
something that he thought he was entitled to, I got two
white men in the county to come and offer me to take this
piece of land and cultivate it on shares with me, giving me
one half its product, whereas with them I was entitled to
nothing. As soon as those two fellows found out that I had
made a good bargain for their land they went back home from
the river bank, and as soon as they went back all the rest
followed. Then I called the whole plantation up and told
them to appoint two representatives and that I would send
them to Kansas at my own expense to examine into this matter
and report to them. These two men went to Kansas, came back,
and reported the true condition of affairs; and now if what
they call in that country "a poor white man"--the negro's
expression--goes through the country and says "Kansas," they
almost want to mob him. That was the result of the Kansas
movement.

Q. What has become of those who went to Kansas?
--A. Many of them have returned and many have died; numbers
of them have died. Quite a large number went to Washington
County Mississippi, just opposite me.

Q. From time to time, at Washington, efforts are being made
to secure public lands in the Territories, the Indian
Territory and elsewhere, for the purpose of colonizing such
tracts with negroes. Do you think there is any sort of
occasion for that?
--A. None in the world. If the alluvial lands on the
Mississippi River were protected from overflow and brought
into a condition where they could be cultivated they would
afford all the homes, and of the best character, that the
negroes could possibly want in the South, and the natural
tendency is to come to just such lands.

Q. And the negroes prefer to be there to anywhere else?
--A. Those that come, I notice, never go back.

Q. You suggested the improvement of the levees. What is the
necessity, and in what degree is it difficult for those
residing along the river banks to protect themselves?
--A. I am the president of the levee board of Chicot County.
The plan which has been suggested by the Mississippi River
Commission and Mr. Eads, as their chief engineer, is
unquestionably the correct one for the improvement of the
Mississippi River. We know this not only from theory, but
from long experience with the river, those of us who have
lived there. The Mississippi River being, as it is generally
termed, the "Father of Waters," and passing through several
States, it is almost a national system, and it would be
impossible for any system to be adopted by the States which
would be local. Consequently it is imperatively the duty of
the Government of the United States to take care of the
improvement of the Mississippi River. There are certain
sections of the Mississippi River that are naturally above
overflow, made so by cut-offs. The fall of the Mississippi
River is about four inches to the mile. Consequently, when
there is one of those large bends, where the river runs
around where the cut-off is, no increase of water is needed.
The fall being four inches to the mile, the lands just above
the cut-off are made higher and above overflow, whereas just
below, the lands are overflowed or become liable to
overflow. The improvement of the Mississippi River itself
for commercial purposes, as well as the protection of the
lands, is dependent upon the building of the levees, for the
levees of course confine the water within its banks, and
give not only a greater volumn of water, but greater
velocity for scouring purposes, which scours out the sand
bars that are formed continually on the river. Captain
Eads's plan of forming jetties where the banks cave, saves
this deposit, as it were, in the water, which makes the sand
bars. A mattress is put against the caving banks which
prevents the alluvial land caving into the river which forms
the sand bars below. Then the increased volumn and increased
velocity of the water wash out the channel, and improve it
for commercial purposes, answering the object of protecting
the land, and at the same time opening that immense channel
for commerce.

Again, there are very important lines of railroad that are
being built up and down either bank of the Mississippi
River, and it is necessary they should be protected for
commercial purposes, as well as that the Mississippi River
should be improved for commercial purposes, and they can
only be protected by the building of levees. We who have
been on the river, and who feel that we are familiar with
it, have closely watched the course of the Commission, and I
can only say, as an expression of the opinion of the people,
that we indorse what the Commission are doing.

Q. And desire still more of it?
--A. Yes, sir; it is absolutely necessary. What has already
been expended by the Government would be absolutely useless
unless additional appropriations are made to complete the
work. I would like to call your attention to this point. The
Atchafalaya, in Louisiana, is a stream which runs from just
about the mouth of Red River into the Gulf of Mexico. The
fall from the mouth of the Atchafalaya and Red River to the
Gulf of Mexico is very much greater than the fall from the
mouth of Red River to the Gulf by way of New Orleans down
the Mississippi River. A few years ago the Atchafalaya was a
stream which could be waded across, but owing to the current
gradually going through it, it commenced to wash out until
now it has got to be a stream 100 feet deep.

Q. Is there or not any perceptible increase or diminution
of the column of the Mississippi itself as compared with 25,
or 50, or 100 years ago?
--A. We think that our waters are higher now than they have
ever been before.

Q. Greater extremes, or is there a uniform flow?
--A. A larger uniform flow, and it is attributed to the
destruction of the forests, though that is mere theory. One
of the arguments, at any rate, is that it is owing to the
destruction of the forests in the Northwest, which causes
more rain storms and gives a larger rainfall.

Q. I have heard the idea advanced that the destruction of
the woods and timber about the headwaters would, in case of
rain, lead to a more rapid deposit in the stream, it would
not be held back by the swampy nature of the soil, and so
you might have more sudden rises and falls in the river than
formerly without the volume of water or the uniform flow
being increased or lessened?
--A. I think--at least I have heard it so expressed by men
experienced on the river--that the flow of the Mississippi
River is greater now than it was formerly.

Q. That one year with another, more water runs down the
channel?
--A. We can see a slight increase of the water of the
Mississippi River. I do not know how it may increase in the
future, or if it will at all, but that is the opinion of
people there now. The point I want to call your attention to
specifically is the necessity for the prevention of the
water of the Red River going down through the Atchafalaya,
for if the Atchafalaya washes out it leaves New Orleans, a
large commercial city, upon, as it were, an inland sea. The
waters which overflow from the banks of the Mississippi
River on the front of Arkansas go over into the Red River
and never come back into the Mississippi River any more
until they come out at the mouth of the Red River. Just at
the mouth of Red River, and before Red River reaches the
Mississippi, is the Atchafalaya. So that all of this
overflow water that could be kept in the Mississippi River
by building the levees on the front of Arkansas, now goes
into Red River and helps to wash out the Atchafalaya, which
will ruin the city of New Orleans if that is not prevented.
It is a very strong commercial point, for the commerce of
New Orleans is a matter to be considered in our affairs.

Q. I suppose there is no doubt that the Atchafalaya
furnishes an outlet, which relieves your plantations very
much?
--A. No, sir; it does not affect where I live at all.

Q. Below the Red River, in Louisiana, is it not a relief in
case of an overflow?
--A. A partial relief; but in Louisiana, when you get down
that far, they pretty much have their system of levees
built, which protect the sugar district; there are only
probably a few gaps; and the Mississippi River, when it gets
that far down, does not rise in the same proportion that it
does where I live, 500 miles above. The mouth of the
Atchafalaya is 500 miles below where I am.

Q. Has this increased drainage from the Atchafalaya
resulted in any injury to the navigation of the river as far
north?
--A. Not as yet; but if it is not stopped--the commission
realize the fact I am now telling you--if it is not checked,
the whole Mississippi River will naturally turn through the
Atchafalaya, because the fall is so much greater.

Q. How do they propose to check it?
--A. That is a matter the commission and scientific
engineers would have to decide.

Q. Can they block it at the outlet of the Red River?
--A. They propose to check it principally by stopping the
water from the Mississippi River that goes into the Red
River. There would in that way be an enormous quantity of
water kept out of Red River. That would be one method. What
the engineers would consider sufficient or necessary to be
done, of course I would not venture to express an opinion
upon.

Q. What danger is there to the large mass of capital
invested in these alluvial lands, unless something is done
to prevent the overflows of which you speak?
--A. The lands that are now liable to overflow are almost
entirely abandoned.

Q. To how large an extent are they now abandoned?
--A. Taking in the whole of Mississippi Valley proper, from
Memphis down.

Q. Has there been any computation or reasonable estimate
that you know of the value of those lands affected by the
overflow?
--A. I have never heard of it; but I will say that those
lands which are liable to overflow now, if brought into
cultivation, are just as valuable as any we are cultivating;
probably more so, because they have the alluvial deposits
upon them. There is a deposit there from 3 to 4 inches.

Q. You have no idea of the extent of those lands?
--A. I cannot give you the proportion. I will simply say it
is a very large proportion.

Q. A third, or a half, or a quarter?
--A. More than a half. I saw it estimated some time ago, at
least I will give it as a statement published in the
_Planters' Journal_, published in Vicksburgh, that there are
thirteen counties on the Mississippi River which, if all
cleared up and put into cultivation, are capable of
producing the entire cotton crop of the United States, and I
have heard the question discussed.

Q. What prevents their being cleared up and put into
cultivation?
--A. Simply the overflow.

Q. Have they ever been cleared as yet?
--A. A great portion of them; and now destroyed because the
levee system is not complete. On these lands all the negro
labor which is not found profitable on the poorer lands in
the older States, could be made extremely profitable, not
only to the proprietors of the lands, but to the laborers
themselves.

Q. Do you think it would be within limit to say that one
half of the alluvial plantation lands, such as you have
described in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, is now
practically destroyed by reason of this overflow occasioned
by the destruction of the levee system?
--A. Yes, sir.

Q. At least one half?
--A. At least one half of that which has been in
cultivation, and which can be brought into cultivation.

Q. Of that which is thus useless now, what portion has been
formerly under cultivation?
--A. It would be impossible for any one to form an estimate,
because it is so varied.

Q. The amount of land that has been improved and which is
now destroyed by reason of the overflow, you cannot state?
--A. I cannot state it accurately; I will state it
approximately; I should say at least one third.

Q. One third of the entire amount that has been improved is
now destroyed by reason of the overflow, resulting from
imperfections in the levee system?
--A. Yes, sir; that is what I mean to say.

Q. And of that which has not been improved but might be
improved, how much?
--A. At least half.

* * * * *

As I have devoted some space to the general condition of labor in the whole country, and as some of my statements and conclusions may be looked upon as extravagant, I deem it very pertinent to add to the appendix a portion of the testimony of Dr. R. Heber Newton, given before Senator Blair's Committee on the "_Relations between Capital and Labor_," in New York City, September 18, 1883 (Vol. II., p. 535). Dr. Newton is recognized as a clear thinker and a ready writer not only on theological but on economic questions as well. His testimony on the points to which I have asked attention was as follows:

A LABOR QUESTION COMING

The broad fact that the United States census of 1870
estimated the average annual income of our wage-workers at a
little over $400 per capita, and that the census of 1880
estimates it at a little over $300 per capita, is the quite
sufficient evidence that there is a labor question coming
upon us in this country. The average wages of 1870
indicated, after due allowance for the inclusion of women
and children, a mass of miserably paid labor--that is, of
impoverished and degraded labor. The average wages of 1880
indicated that this mass of semi-pauperized labor is rapidly
increasing, and that its condition has become 25 per cent
worse in ten years. The shadow of the old-world
_proletariat_ is thus seen to be stealing upon our shores.
It is for specialists in political economy to study this
problem in the light of the large social forces that are
working such an alarming change in our American society. In
the consensus of their ripened judgment we must look for the
authoritative solution of this problem. I am not here to
assume that role. I have no pet hobby to propose, warranted
to solve the whole problem without failure. I do not believe
there is any such specific yet out. * * *

I

THE FAULTS OF LABOR

Plainly, labor's fault must be found with itself.

1. Leaving upon one side the class of skilled labor, a
large proportion of our wage-workers are notoriously
inefficient. In the most common tasks one has to watch the
average workingman in order to prevent his bungling a job.
Hands are worth little without some brains; as in the work
done, so in the pay won. Our labor is quite as largely
uninterested--having no more heart than brains back of the
hands. Work is done mechanically by most workingmen, with
little pride in doing it well, and little ambition to be
continually doing it better.

2. There is too commonly as little sense of identity with
the employer's interests, or of concern that any equivalent
in work should be rendered for the pay received. In forms
irritating beyond expression employers are made to feel that
their employees do not in the least mind wasting their
material, injuring their property, and blocking their
business in the most critical moments. Under what possible
system, save in a grievous dearth of laborers, can such
labor be well off, and incompetence and indifference draw
high wages?

3. Our labor is for the most part very thriftless. In the
purchase and in the preparation of food--the chief item of
expense in the workingman's family and that wherein economic
habits count for most--men and women are alike improvident.
The art of making money go the farthest in food is
comparatively unknown. Workingmen will turn up their noses
at the fare on which a Carlyle did some of the finest
literary work of our century. I remember some time ago
speaking to one of our butchers, who told me that workingmen
largely ordered some of his best cuts. Now an ample supply
of nutritious food is certainly essential for good work,
whether of the brain or of the brawn. The advance of labor
is rightly gauged, among other ways, by its increasing
consumption of wheat and meat, but the nutritiousness of
meat is not necessarily dependent upon its being from the
finest cut. I should like to see all men eating "French"
chops and porter-house steaks if they could afford it; but
when I know the average wages of our workingmen and the cost
of living on the simplest possible scale, it is discouraging
to learn such a fact as that which I have mentioned, since
all the elements of necessary sustenance can be had in so
much cheaper forms. * * *

4. Labor must fault itself further, on the ground of its
lack of power of combination and of its defective methods in
combination. It has been by combination that the middle
class has arisen, and by it that capital has so wonderfully
increased. The story of the Middle Ages, familiar to us all,
is the story of the rise of the industrial class by
combination in guilds. Labor's numbers, now a hindrance,
might thus become a help. In a mob men trample upon each
other; in an army they brace each other to the charge of
victory.

Trades-unions represent the one effective form of
combination won by American labor. Trades-unions need no
timid apologists. Their vindication is in the historic tale
of the successful advances which they have won for
workingmen. Called into being to defend labor against
legislation in the interests of capital, in the days when to
ask for an advance in wages led to workingmen's being thrown
into prison, they have in England led on to the brilliant
series of reforms which mark our century, as told so well in
the articles by Mr. Howell (_The Nineteenth Century_ for
October, 1882) and by Mr. Harrison (_The Contemporary
Review_ for October, 1883). Doubtless they have committed
plenty of follies, and are still capable of stupid tyrannies
that only succeed in handicapping labor, in alienating
capital, and in checking productivity--that is, in lessening
the sum total of divisible wealth. Such actions are
inevitable in the early stages of combination on the part of
uneducated men, feeling a new sense of power, and striking
blindly out in angry retaliation for real or fancied
injuries.

Trades-unions are gradually, however, outgrowing their
crude methods. The attempts, such as we have seen lately,
of great corporations to break them up, is a piece of
despotism which ought to receive an indignant rebuke from
the people at large. Labor must combine, just as capital has
combined, in forming these very corporations. Labor's only
way of defending its interests as a class is through
combination. It is the abuse and not the use of
trades-unions against which resistance should be made.

The chief abuse of our trades-unions has been their
concentration of attention upon the organization of strikes.

Strikes seem to me in our present stage of the
"free-contract" system entirely justifiable when they are
really necessary. Workingmen have the right to combine in
affixing a price at which they wish to work. The supply of
labor and the demand for goods, in the absence of higher
considerations, will settle the question as to whether they
can get the increase. The trying features of this method of
reaching a result are incidental to our immature industrial
system. Strikes have had their part to play in the
development of that system. We note their failures and
forget their successes; but they have had their signal
success, and have won substantial advantages for labor.
Their chief service, however, has been in teaching
combination, and in showing labor the need of a better
weapon by which to act than the strike itself.