“‘You can wash bottles, put up castor oil, salts and turpentine, sell anything you know and put the money in the drawer.’
“He showed me how to work the keys of the cash drawer. ‘I am going to trust you,’ he said. ‘Don’t steal from me; if you want anything ask for it, and you can have it. And don’t lie; I hate a liar. A boy who will lie will steal, too.’
“I remained with Dr. Huss thirteen years. He sent me to school and paid my tuition out of his own pocket; he trusted me fully, often leaving me in charge of his business for weeks at a time. When he died I formed a partnership with Dr. Butler, Dr. Slater, and others, and bought the store. Our business grew and prospered, so that within a few years we had a stock worth $3,000, and cash of $800. That made us ambitious. We bought land, built a new store, and went into debt to do it. We didn’t know much about business—that’s the Negro’s chief trouble—and we lost trade by changing our location, so that in spite of all we could do, we failed and lost everything, though we finally paid our creditors every cent. After many trials we started again in 1896 in our present store; to-day we are doing a good business; we can get all the credit we want from wholesale houses, we employ six clerks, and pay good interest on the capital invested.”
Greatest Difficulties Met by Negro Business Men
I asked him what was the greatest difficulty he had to meet. He said it was the credit system; the fact that many Negroes have not learned financial responsibility. Once, he said, he nearly stopped business on this account.
“I remember,” he said, “the last time we got into trouble. We needed $400 to pay our bills. I picked out some of our best customers and gave them a heart-to-heart talk and told them what trouble we were in. They all promised to pay; but on the day set for payment, out of $1,680 which they owed us we collected just $8.25. After that experience we came down to a cash basis. We trust no one, and since then we have been doing well.”
He said he thought the best opportunity for Negro development was in the South where he had his whole race behind him. He said he had once been tempted to go North looking for an opening.
“How did you make out?” I asked.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said, “when I got there I wanted a shave; I walked the streets two hours visiting barber shops, and they all turned me away with some excuse. I finally had to buy a razor and shave myself! That was just a sample. I came home disgusted and decided to fight it out down here where I understood conditions.”
Of course only a comparatively few Negroes are able to get ahead in business. They must depend almost exclusively on the trade of their own race, and they must meet the highly organised competition of white men. But it is certainly significant that even a few are able to make progress along these unfamiliar lines. Many Southern men I met had little or no idea of the remarkable extent of this advancement among the better class of Negroes. Here is a strange thing. I don’t know how many Southern men have prefaced their talks with me with words something like this: