Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

The result of this has been that, beginning in January, the farmer had to go to the store or to the money-lender for practically all of his food during the year. The rate of interest which the farmer had to pay on his "advances" was in many cases enormous. The farmer usually got his "advances" or provisions from a storekeeper. The storekeeper in turn borrowed money from the local bank. The bank, as a general thing, borrowed from New York. By the time the money reached the farmer he had to pay in not a few cases a rate of interest which ranged from 15 to 30 per cent. If he failed to make his payment at the end of the year he was likely to be "cleaned up"—that is, everything in sight in the way of crops or live stock was taken from him. After being "cleaned up" he would either try to make another crop on the same rented farm—trusting to Providence or the weather for better luck—or else move to another farm and go in search of some one else to "run him," as the local expression describes the process. Not a few of the farmers whom I met had been "cleaned up" half a dozen times or more.

In addition to having to pay the high rate of interest for food supplies and clothing advanced, the ground rent was also to be paid. By far the greater part of the land was rented. This, of course, had a hurtful effect. Because the man who tilled the land did not own it, his main object was to get all he could out of the property and return to it as little as possible. The results were shown in the wretched cabins and surroundings. If a fence was out of repair, or the roof of the house leaked, the tenant had no personal interest in keeping up the premises, because he was always expecting to move, and he did not want to spend money upon the property of other people.

Instead of returning the cotton-seed to the ground to help enrich the soil, he sold this valuable fertiliser. The land, of course, was more impoverished each year. Ditching and terracing received little attention. The mules with which the crops were made were rented or were being bought "on time," as a rule, and the farmer did not have enough direct interest in them to encourage him to spend money in keeping them in prime condition. Besides, the food fed to the animals was not raised on the place, but had to be bought.

Another serious result of the "one-crop" system was that the farmers handled almost no cash except in the fall. To the ignorant and inexperienced men of my race this was hurtful. If by any chance they were able to pay their ground rent, and the principal and exorbitant interest charged for their "advances," and have a few dollars in cash left, the money did not remain with them long, for it came into their hands about Christmas time, when the temptation to spend it for whisky, cheap jewelry, cheap buggies, and such unprofitable articles was too strong to be resisted. Had the same value been in the hands of the farmer in the form of corn, vegetables, fruit, stock, or fowls it would have been not only less likely to be wasted, but it would also have been available for the farmer and his family during the whole or the greater part of the year.

The conditions which I have described had a discouraging effect upon many people who tried to get their living from the soil. As numbers of them expressed it to me, if they worked hard during the year they came out at the end in debt, and if they did not work they found themselves in debt anyhow. Some went so far as to perform only sufficient work to "make a show" of raising enough cotton on which to get "advances" during the year, with no thought of ridding themselves of debt or of coming out ahead.

Notwithstanding these conditions, there were instances each year of individuals who triumphed over all these difficulties and discouragements and came out with considerable money or cotton to their credit. These men soon got to the point where they could begin to buy their own homes.

In justice to the class of men in the South who advance money or provisions each year to the farmers, I ought to say that many of them deplore the state of affairs to which I have referred as much as any one, but with them it is simply a system of lending money on uncertain security. If these advances were not made, in many instances the farmers and their families would starve. The average merchant prefers to deal with the man who owns his land and can pay cash for his goods, but the many ramifications of the mortgage system make both the farmer and the money-lender slaves to the one-crop plan. If cotton fails, or if the tenant abandons the crop before it is matured, the money-lender is bound to lose. Both with the farmer and the money-lender it has been like the old story of the man hugging the bear, each desperately anxious to find a way to get free.

From the first I was painfully conscious of the fact that I could do very little through the work of the Tuskegee Institute to help the situation, but I was determined to make an effort to do what I could. Many of my own race had been reduced to discouragement and despair. Before the school could begin its practical help I spent all the time that could be spared in going about among the people, holding meetings, and talking with individual leaders, to arouse their ambition, and inspire in them hope and confidence.

My first effort was to try to help the masses through the medium of the thing that was nearest to them, and in which they had the most vital and practical interest. I knew that if we could teach a man's son to raise forty bushels of corn on an acre of ground which had before produced but twenty bushels, and if he could be taught to raise this corn with less labour than before, we should gain the confidence and sympathy of that boy's father at once.