Black and White Part 14

--A. I would say variously from 500 to 2,500 acres in cultivation.

Q. How valuable are these plantations per acre?

--A. That is a question which cannot be answered definitely except in this way: where a planter owns the land, and he is out of debt, the land is not for sale, because he cannot invest his money in anything that is so profitable; but where a planter's property is mortgaged, and the mortgagee wants to foreclose and will foreclose, and there is not in that country the money which the planter can borrow to relieve himself of his indebtedness, he will probably sell his land at a small excess of his debt in order to save something. You see there is a want of capital in that country, and if a planter is involved, as many planters are and have been ever since the war, he must do the best he can. There are many planters in that country who are nothing but agents of the factors, from the fact that the interest and commissions they pay upon the debt amount to more than the rent for the property, and they hold on to it as a home.

Therefore, a planter in that condition will sell at a nominal price, whereas a plantation owned and paid for is not for sale.

By Mr. PUGH:

Q. There is really no established market price?

--A. None at all, owing to the necessity of the one to sell and the desire of another to buy.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. At what rates per acre have you known the t.i.tle to change in some instances?

--A. I have known lands to be bought there, including woodlands and cleared lands, at from $20 to $25 an acre, which would be, say, $40 or $50 an acre for the cleared land, and I have known other planters to refuse $80 an acre, cash.

Q. Do you think that $80 or $100 per acre would be a reasonable price for these plantation lands?

--A. They sold before the war for $120 an acre.

By Mr. CALL:

Q. You are speaking now of the alluvial lands?

--A. I am speaking of the alluvial lands on the Mississippi River, cleared, ready for cultivation, with the improvements existing upon them.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. Improved plantations?

--A. Yes, sir.

Q. Upon what price per acre do you think those lands would pay, one year with another, an interest of 6 per cent?

--A. I will best answer that question by the figures of rents which I have given. The rent, without any responsibility attached to the proprietor at all, is from $8 to $10 an acre.

Q. In money?

--A. In money. I will say further that I have been living in that country since 1869, and I have never yet known a year when there has not been a sufficient crop made to pay the rent, without a single exception.

By Mr. CALL:

Q. What is left to the tenant after he pays this $10 an acre?

--A. That land produces on an average 400 pounds of lint cotton to the acre, which at 10 cents a pound is $40.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. To what extent is Northern capital availing itself of opportunity to invest in these plantations?

--A. I might say it is limited.

Q. From what fact does that arise?

--A. From the fact that the safety of investments there is just becoming apparent to capitalists. Capitalists up to this time have been afraid to go to the South, owing to the disturbed condition of affairs politically and this very race-issue question. A man does not want to carry his money down there and put it into a country that might be involved in riots and disturbances. Those questions are now just beginning to settle themselves, and capital is beginning to find its way.

Q. Do you antic.i.p.ate in the near or remote future any further difficulty from the race question?

--A. Not at all, and if we are left to ourselves things will very soon equalize themselves.

Q. You are left to yourselves now, are you not?

--A. We are now.

Q. All you ask is to continue to be let alone?

--A. Just to be let alone. The South, with her natural resources and advantages of climate and soil, feels that she is perfectly able to take care of herself and her affairs, and all she wants is that the legislation of the country, both Federal and State, should be that which will mete out justice to all her citizens, colored as well as white.

Q. Does the South feel as though all she had got to do was to take care of herself, or does she feel a little responsibility for the other section of the country?

--A. She feels, more immediately now, responsibility for that section, for this reason, that the negro population of the South, compared with the white population of the South, might be a dangerous element, but the negro population, compared with the whole white population of the United States as an integral body, sinks into insignificance.

Therefore, the forces which are at work in the South today make us strongly Union. They are directly contrary to what were existing before the war, and there are no people in this Government today who have the same interest in the Federal Union that the people of the Southern States have, and they appreciate it.

Q. You feel that it is to your advantage that the negro population should be dealt with by the forty or fifty millions of whites, that the races should be balanced in that proportion rather than in the proportion that exists between them and the white population of the South alone?

--A. Yes, sir.

Q. The central idea of the South is a national idea, then?

--A. The central idea of the South is more a national idea now than it has been in this respect.

Q. I would use the word "leading" rather than "central"

there--the leading idea?

--A. We, of course, claim that we want to manage the internal affairs of our States just as much as New York, or New Hampshire, or Ma.s.sachusetts would want to manage theirs, but that it is necessary for us to have the guidance and protection of the Government: we want it just as much as either of those States.

Q. Have you traveled considerably through the North?

--A. I have.

Q. What portions of the North have you visited within the last few years?

--A. I have visited Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Hartford, and I might say a number of other points in the States of which they are the chief cities.

Q. While we are speaking of this matter of reciprocal feeling between the sections of country, as you have mentioned the att.i.tude of the South, I should like to know from you, from your personal observation and knowledge, what you find to be that of the North toward the South?

--A. I think it is of the kindliest character. I have never in my life been treated with more consideration than I have been by gentlemen in the East who were most opposed to the South during the war.

Q. I do not refer simply to personal courtesy, but I mean the expression of feeling as between the sections, the general tendency and drift of Northern feeling towards the Southern portions of the country, to the people of the South?

--A. I think, so far as I have been able to observe, that the feeling in the East towards the South is a general anxiety for her prosperity. I would go so far as to speak of it as anxiety for her prosperity.

Q. You think the war of sections is pretty much over?

--A. I think it is obliterated, and for that reason I go back to this point, that our prosperity in the South has begun.

Q. You have described with some minuteness the condition of things among the planters and those who work upon the plantations. I should like to ask this question further, whether any of the negroes along the alluvial bottoms are obtaining ownership of lands in fee-simple?

--A. In very few instances in the alluvial lands. When they make enough money to buy a home they generally go to the hill country, where land can be bought at a much more reasonable price.

Q. With what amount of acc.u.mulation will a negro get up and go to the hills?

--A. There are negroes right in my section of the country who have an acc.u.mulation clear of all expenses of from a thousand to $3,500 a year.

Q. Do they remain or do they go and buy homesteads for themselves?

--A. They probably remain until they acc.u.mulate a few thousand dollars, and then go and buy a home. We encourage it, from the fact that we want the others behind to be stimulated to do the same thing. I will say in that connection that the future of the negro of the South is the alluvial lands.

Q. These plantations?

--A. Not only these plantations particularly. What I mean by alluvial lands are the alluvial lands on the coast and the alluvial lands of the Mississippi Valley, the rich lands where the negro relies on his own energy and exertion rather than on his brains. There is an immigration coming into the older States now.

Q. The older Southern States?

--A. The older Southern States. As they come in the negroes gradually give way and go to the richer lands. For instance, one railroad last year brought into the Mississippi Valley over 10,000 negro immigrants.