NEWSPAPER COMMENT.
The Yazoo Delta.
The Memphis Appeal-Avalanche says: “From present indications the labor problem in the Mississippi valley is about to solve itself. The answer is a simple one—the substitution of white labor for black.
“Everything seems to indicate that the shiftless, easy-going, debt-making negro, dependent all the year round on the man who is running him, will soon be a thing of the past. Of course there are some negroes who are exceptions to the rule—who pay their debts when they make them, who live economically, who know the value of a dollar—but they are few and far between.
“That the Mississippi Delta is the garden spot of the earth no one doubts. Its soil is ever responsive to the hand of the tiller. It is capable of raising the most diversified crops. As a cotton country it has no equal. All kinds of fruit flourish in its kindly temperature. The forest abounds in the most valuable woods. As a stock raising country it is equal to the blue grass region of Kentucky. All that the Delta needs is the hand of man to develop it, and man is beginning to realize that his labor will count for more there than anywhere else.
“As an example of the difference between Caucasian and negro labor, an instance which recently came to light is invaluable. A wealthy planter, owning a Delta farm, let part of it to some foreign families; the rest to negroes. The foreigners worked hard. They raised diversified crops. They lived as cheap as they could, and at the end of the year they had not only paid their rent, but they had their barns stocked with supplies and well-filled bank books. The negroes had not paid their rent and were heavily in debt, besides being dependent on outside help for supplies to run them through the year to come. The two classes of tenants were exactly opposite, the one representing independence, the other dependency.
“The Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, recently purchased by the Illinois Central system, passes directly through the Delta. It owns a great deal of the land through which it passes, and is now making a systematic effort to settle it with immigrants from the Northwest and Europe. At present a large tract of land, known as the Bogue Phalia district, is receiving the benefit of most of this effort, and the families are rapidly moving in and taking possession.”
The Times-Union, Jacksonville, Fla., utters these profound truths: “Capital is like Providence in just one respect. It helps those who help themselves. It will take no risks in a community where the people brand investments as bad by refusing to take part in them. Capitalists know that men everywhere are looking for good investments, and an enterprise that does not secure home support is presumed to be a bad investment, no matter how much talk there is for the purpose of convincing men to the contrary. The present is an auspicious time. Millions of dollars of Northern capital are seeking investment, and they will go to such places as prove rather than assert faith in the investments they offer.”
The Atlanta Constitution, in making editorial comment on an item in the Southern States, says: