Black and White Part 11

LABOR IN THE SOUTHWEST

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN sworn and examined

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. Where do you reside?--Answer. In Chicot County, Arkansas.

Q. State to the committee, if you please, where you were born, of what family connection you are, and what have been your opportunities for becoming acquainted with the past and the present condition of agricultural labor in the Southern States.

--A. I was born in Marengo County, Alabama. My father was a planter there before the war.

Q. He was a son of John C. Calhoun, the statesman?--A. He was a son of Mr. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina.

Q. You are his grandson, then?

--A. Yes, sir; I am his grandson. My father was Col. Andrew P. Calhoun. I was reared in South Carolina. In 1854 my father removed his residence from his plantations in Alabama to Fort Hill, South Carolina, near Pendleton, where I was raised. I have been identified with the agricultural interest of the South from my earliest recollections, and have been a practical cotton planter myself since the war, giving my own personal attention to my interests since 1869.

Q. When did you remove from South Carolina?

--A. I removed from South Carolina to Chicot County, Arkansas, in 1869.

Q. Until 1869 you had been a resident of South Carolina?

--A. Yes, sir.

Q. And of course very familiar with the condition of things on the Atlantic coast. Since that time you have been in the Mississippi Valley?

--A. Yes, sir; my experience as a cotton planter and with the laborers of the South is confirmed, I may say, almost entirely to the Mississippi Valley, for I left South Carolina so soon after the war that things had hardly shaped themselves there so that I could form an accurate estimate of the labor or the condition of affairs in South Carolina or on the Atlantic coast.

The CHAIRMAN. Not having had a personal acquaintance with Mr. Calhoun, and learning of his rare opportunities to give valuable information to the committee, and of his presence in the city, I addressed him a letter, calling attention to the subject-matter upon which we should like information, and which I had reason to think he could give us better than almost any one else, indicating certain questions which I would like to have him prepared to answer, and receiving a courteous reply, expressing a willingness to oblige the committee, I have called him before the committee, and will now read the questions:--

1st. What is the condition of the laborers in your section?

2d. Under what system are the laborers in your section employed?

3d. When hired for wages what is paid?

4th. What division is made between labor and capital of their joint production when you work on shares?

5th. When you rent what division is made?

6th. How many hours do the laborers work?

7th. Under what system do you work?

8th. What is the relation existing between the planters and their employees?

9th. What danger is there of strikes?

10th. How can the interest of the laborers of your section be best subserved?

If you have prepared answers to these questions, and can give your answers consecutively, I would like you to do so.

The WITNESS. I have prepared replies in order that I might save the committee time as well as condense my ideas.

Q. 1. What is the condition of the laborers in your section?

--A. The laborers in the Mississippi Valley are agricultural. But few whites are employed; they soon become landowners or tenants. Your question, therefore, reduces itself to, What is the condition of the negroes? I should say good, as compared with a few years ago, and improving.

You must recollect that it has only been 18 years since the negroes emerged from slavery without a dollar and with no education, and that for generations they had been taught to rely entirely upon others for guidance and support. They became, therefore, at once the easy prey of unscrupulous men, who used them for their personal aggrandizement, were subjected to every evil influence, and did not discover for years the impositions practiced upon them. They were indolent and extravagant, and eager to buy on a credit everything the planter or merchant would sell them. The planter had nothing except the land, which, with the crop to be grown, was mortgaged generally for advances. If he refused to indulge his laborers in extravagant habits during the year, by crediting them for articles not absolutely necessary, his action was regarded as good grounds for them to quit work, and there were those present who were always ready to use this as an argument to array the negroes against the proprietors. This, of course, demoralized the country to a very great extent, and it has only been in the past few years the negro laborers have realized their true condition and gone to work with a view of making a support for themselves and families. There is yet much room for improvement, but they will improve just as they gain experience and become self-reliant.

Considering their condition after emanc.i.p.ation and the evil influences to which they have been subjected, even the small advancement they have made seems surprising.

Q. 2. Under what systems are the laborers in your section employed?

--A. There are three methods: we hire for wages, for a part of the crop, or we rent.

Q. 3. When hired for wages what is paid?

--A. When hired by the month we pay unskilled field hands from $10 to $20 per month and board. When hired by the day, for unskilled laborers, from 75 cents to $1. Teamsters, $1 a day and board. Artisans, from $2 to $5. In addition to their wages and board, the laborers are furnished, free of cost, a house, fuel, and a garden spot varying from half to one acre; also the use of wagon and team with which to haul their fuel and supplies, and pasturage, where they have cattle and hogs, which they are encouraged to raise.

Q. 4. What division is made between labor and capital of their joint production when you work on shares?

--A. I doubt if there is greater liberality shown to laborers in any portion of the world than is done under this system. The proprietor furnishes the land and houses, including dwelling, stables, and outhouses, pays the taxes, makes all necessary improvements, keeps up repairs and insurance, gives free of cost a garden spot, fuel, pasturage for the stock owned by the laborer, and allows the use of his teams for hauling fuel and family supplies, provides mules or horses, wagons, gears, implements, feed for teams, the necessary machinery for ginning, or, in short, every expense of making the crop and preparing it for market, and then divides equally the whole gross proceeds with the laborers. In addition to all this, the proprietor frequently mortgages his real estate to obtain means to advance to the laborers supplies on their portion of the crop yet to be grown, thus mortgaging what he actually possesses, and taking a security not yet in existence, and which depends not only upon the vicissitudes of the seasons, but the faithfulness of the laborers themselves. Under this system thrifty, industrious laborers ought soon to become landowners. But, owing to indolence, the negroes, except where they are very judiciously managed and encouraged, fail to take advantage of the opportunities offered them to raise the necessaries of life. They idle away all the time not actually necessary to make and gather their corn and cotton, and improvidently spend what balance may remain after paying for the advances made to them.

Q. 5. When you rent, what division is made?

--A. Where the laborer owns his own teams, gears, and implements necessary for making a crop, he gets two-thirds or three-fourths of the crop, according to the quality and location of the land.

Under the rental system proper, where a laborer is responsible and owns his team, &c., first-cla.s.s land is rented to him for $8 or $10 per acre. With the land go certain privileges, such as those heretofore enumerated.

Q. 6. How many hours do the laborers work?

--A. This is an extremely difficult question to answer.

Under the wages system, from sunrise to sunset, with a rest for dinner of from one and one-half to three hours, according to the season of the year.

Under the share or rental system there is much time lost; for instance, they seldom work on Sat.u.r.day at all, and as the land is fertile, and a living can be made on a much smaller acreage than a hand can cultivate, they generally choose one-third less than they should, and it is safe to say that one third of the time which could and would be utilized by an industrious laborer is wasted in fishing, and hunting, and idleness.

Q. 7. Under what system do you work?

--A. We are forced to adopt all systems heretofore stated.

We prefer, however, the tenant system. We wish to make small farmers our laborers, and bring them up as nearly as possible to the standard of the small white farmers. But this can only be done gradually, because the larger portion of the negroes are without any personal property. We could not afford to sell the mules, implements, &c., where a laborer has nothing. Therefore the first year we contract to work with him on the half-share system, and require him to plant a portion of the land he cultivates in corn, hay, potatoes, &c. For this portion we charge him a reasonable rent, to be paid out of his part of the cotton raised on the remainder. In this way all of the supplies raised belong to him, and at the end of the first year he will, if industrious, find himself possessed of enough supplies to support and feed a mule. We then sell him a mule and implements, preserving, of course, liens until paid. At the end of the second year, if he should be unfortunate, and not quite pay out, we carry the balance over to the next year, and in this way we gradually make a tenant of him. We encourage him in every way in our power to be economical, industrious, and prudent, to surround his home with comforts, to plant an orchard and garden, and to raise his own meat, and to keep his own cows, for which he has free pasturage. Our object is to attach him as much as possible to his home. Under whatever system we work, we require the laborer to plant a part of his land in food crops and the balance in cotton with which to pay his rent and give him ready money. We consider this system as best calculated to advance him. Recognizing him as a citizen, we think we should do all in our power to fit him for the duties of citizenship. We think there is no better method of doing this than by interesting him in the production of the soil, surrounding him with home comforts, and imposing upon him the responsibilities of his business. Who will make the best citizen or laborer, he who goes to a home with a week's rations, wages spent, wife and children hired out, or he who returns to a home surrounded with the ordinary comforts, and wife and children helping him to enjoy the products of their joint labor? We recognize that no country can be prosperous unless the farmers are prosperous. Under our system, we seek to have our property cultivated by a reliable set of tenants, who will be able to always pay their rent and have a surplus left.

Again, a large portion of the cotton crop of the country is made by small white farmers. These to a great extent are raising their own supplies, and making cotton a surplus crop. The number who do this will increase year by year. It must be apparent that the large planters cannot afford to hire labor and compete with those whose cotton costs nothing except the expenditure of their own muscle and energy. The natural consequence resulting from this condition of things is that the negro, if he is to prosper, must gradually become a small farmer, either as a tenant or the owner of the soil, and look himself upon cotton as a surplus crop.

Q. 8. What is the relation existing between the planters and their employers?

--A. Friendly and harmonious. The planter feel an interest in the welfare of his laborers, and the latter in turn look to him for advice and a.s.sistance.

Q. 9. What danger is there of strikes?

--A. Very little. As a rule the laborers are interested in the production of the soil, and a strike would be as disastrous to them as it would be to the proprietors. There is really very little conflict between labor and capital.

The conflict in my section, if any should come in future, will not a.s.sume the form of labor against capital, but of race against race.

Q. 10. How can the interest of the laborers of your section be best subserved?

--A. By the establishment by the States of industrial schools, by the total elimination from Federal politics of the so-called negro question, and by leaving the solution to time, and a reduction of taxation, both indirect and incidental. It is a noteworthy fact that the improvement of my section has kept pace, _pari pa.s.su_, with the cessation of the agitation of race issues. The laborers share equally with the landowners the advantages of the improvement, and there is every reason to expect increasing and permanent prosperity if all questions between the landowners and their laborers in our section are left to the natural adjustment of the demand for labor. For many years the negroes regarded themselves as the wards of the Federal Government, and it were well for them to understand that they have nothing more to expect from the Federal Government, than the white man, and that, like him, their future depends upon their own energy, industry, and economy. This can work no hardship.

The constant demand for labor affords them the amplest protection. Nothing, probably, would contribute so immediately to their prosperity as the reduction of the tariff. They are the producers of no protected articles. The onerous burdens of the tariff naturally fall heaviest upon those who are large consumers of protected articles and produce only the great staples, grain and cotton, which form the basis of our export trade, and which can, from their very nature in this country, receive no protection from a tariff.

Q. In your own State, Arkansas, what portion of the land cultivated and what proportion of the acreage of the land cultivated is in the form of large plantations?

--A. That lying along the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers.

It would be hard for me to estimate the proportions. I do not know that I have ever considered it, but the portions which are cultivated in large plantations lie directly on the Mississippi River in front of the State of Arkansas and on the Arkansas River. The rest of the State is cultivated very much by small white farmers.

Q. And are the productions of the small holdings and large holdings similar; I inquire as to cotton particularly?

--A. No, sir. In the interior of the State cotton is made a surplus crop entirely.