The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 28, 1924, Page 6

Agricultural Tenancy in the South NY consideration of farm econo- mics must take into account the rapid increase of our rural tenancy during the past three or four decades. All social. questions of moment re- solve themselves back to questions of tenancy because this method of con- dueting agricultural activities effects every phase of the social life of the country regions. ‘ Standards -of living are very different in communities where there is prevalence of tenancy than they are in communities where ownership. prevails. Tenancy brings with it near-peonage; it leads to a lack of civic pride and neglect of poli- tics; it means constant migration of the helpless farmer and his family and migration to the mills. Our rural schools, public roads, marketing’ facili- ties, and the general progress of rural communities suffer from the present tendency to increase agriculturdl ten- ancy. The system of farm tenancy is not uncommon in the north and in the west, but the worst phases of it ap- pear in the south. Here, under the dominance of the single crop, a large portion of the community is reduced to virtual slavery. The census report states prosaically: “In the south there are large numbers of tenants who do not look forward to ownership and for whom tenancy is a normal econo- mical. situation.” The situation is weither “normal” nor is the state- ment that the tenants “do not look forward to ownership” any way near the truth. The fact is that under the existing conditions, the desire of the tenant to become the owner of the land is hopeless. Tenancy in the south is not a mat- ter of deliberate choice on the part of the farmers. It is a sad necessity on the part of moneyless men. It.is a social estate. .The large numbers of tenant farmers are continually in- creasing, and they are increasing be- cause escape from tenancy is almost if not entirely impossible. The tendency of the rural popula- tion in the south for the past thirty or forty years has been toward tenant farming. A remarkable concentra- tion in ownership of land had taken place. With it came the attendant evils of a rising absentee landowner class and a descending tenant farm- ing class. Thus, forty years ago a lit- tle over one-third of all farms in 16 southern states were worked by ten- ants; today, one-half of all the farms, in the cotton and tobacco area, nearly three-fourths are occupied by ten- ants. The following comparative fig- ures give the relative position of own- ers and tenants in some of the south- ern states: North Carolina. ..... South Carolina . Georgia .. Mississippi Louisiana . Alabama ....... Texas The current belief in the north and in the west is that tenancy in the south is a black man’s problem: on the contrary, it is mainly a white man’s problem. We find that in thir- teen states of the south producing cotton as a cash crop, 61.5 per cent of all tenants are white, and only 38.5 per cent are colored. And if we add the figures for three other southern states, the ratio of the white to the negro tenants is even higher, There are at present’ 154,000 more white than negro farm tenants in the south, and with their families they outnumber the negro farm tenant pop- ulation by 800,000. There are more white than negro tenants in eleven southern states, and in Texas, which is the greatest cotton producing state, four-fifths of all the farm tenants are white. In other words, tenancy in the south is not a racial problem. The negro complicates the situation, but ‘s not responsible for it. As the figures show, in four south- wn states—-Alabama, Georgia, Missis- ‘Jppi, and South Carolina, tenants op- srate over 66 per cent of the improved ‘and; In other states of the south, ten- n's operate over 50 per cent of the mproved Jand, ete. This shows that there are thousands upon thousands of men who do not own an inch of the land they toil; that in many cases their fathers did not own the farms upon which they were r’ ..red; and, if things continue the way they are, their own children are predestined to toil upon other people’s land—land- less farmers into the fourth genera- tion, The cotton grower of the south is not a farmer. He thinks he is; but this is mainly a delusion. He is a tenant, and a tenant is a laborer who has sold his heritag? for the doubtful privilege of being “run” by the land- lord. As a renter, the tenant owns at least his own work stock and farm implements; but as a cropper, ‘he owns little or nothing but the simple things in and around his cabin.-Usual- ly he owns no work stock and no farm implements. In either case, whether the tenant is a renter or a cropper, he does not own the soil he tills; he does not work for himself; he does not own the “house” that shelters him. He does not raise sufficient food for his fam- ily; he has no pride in his home; he is constantly on the move from farm to,farm seeking to better his condi- tion; he has no pride in the fruits of the earth, no self-sufficiency, no in- dependence. He is a kept man. He is a propertiless, homeless migrant. The growth of landlordism has been dJlements, he sees to it that the ten-] ut less sure, way of reaching the ant signs papers which practically reduces him to slavery. The tenant binds himself out for a season for bread and clothes for himself and family. And if by chance the bread, winner is taken away by malaria, ty- phoid, tuberculosis, or some other killing disease, the widow Th her ex- treme is often reduced to the plow and must sign away her prospect just as her husband did before. The landlords, or creditors, are the great and conspiring enemies of the small farmers and tenants. In their effort to accumulate more and more land, they resort to the lowest methods of exploitation, methods which dis- close their high-handed hypocrisy. ‘he charges for advances to tenants are exhorbitant. The accounts are often padded. The landlords will not render itemized accounts; “there is many an entry made in daybooks and ledgers that only the ‘experienced’ landlord can» explain to the hard. pressed renter,” Besides, the tenant does not enjoy freedom of sale and does not enjoy the market price for his share when the landlord takes it over for advances. Finally, very often it is impossible for tenants to get a settlement. * 3 The lack of freedom of sale is due to several causes. First, the landlord “runs” the neighborhood store where the tenant trades. Second; it is the THE EAGLE’S DREAM By EUGENE BARNETT. Hail! The American eagle as he sits on a mountain peak, Looking down on the politicians who are cursing the bolsheviks; For trying to gain their freedom they call these workers fools, Heartless kndves and cut-throats, for wanting majority rule. He observes these pseudo-statesmen from his lofty mountain craig; As they strive to crush the workers, and of their wisdom brag; While children slave in sweat-shops as thru a weary life they drag Their twisted weary bodies, piling up their masters’ swag. Twisted for want of sunshine, and for the lack of air, And weary, oh! so weary, from all the wrongs they bear. With souls that are-weazened and calloused from living in the slums, And bodies undernourished from feeding on the crumbs. This noble bird of freedom who is loved by all true men, Is longing for the hand of labor to take the helm again; And steer the ship of freedom to a stern and rock-bound coast Where equality and justice will be no idle boast. But where mankind will labor for the common good of all, Making every life a pleasure, and earth a paradise for all, With-a home for every human, food and raiment, plenty too; Organize-and_take the helm folks, make the eagle’s dream come true. aided by the single crop system, which in ttre south makes it difficult for tenants to rise to the cash basis, and often impossible for them to be- come home owners. The single crop demands two things: extensive credit _tand elaborate machinery. These are beyond the farmer-tenants’ reach. The single crop compels the farm- er to live on a money income. The money, however, comes but once a year; and so he has to borrow against hiseerop. And here is where the role of the local merchant comes in. The tenants depend upon the local mer- chant to supply him with food for his family, with tools for his farm, with work animals, etc. The failure of a crop or the overproduction of the crop leaves him in debt. To escape his indebtedness he increases his money-crop acreage. He thereby ne- glects his subsidiary crops—food, ani- mal fodder, and other things that would ease the burden of indebted- ness by making him less dependent upon the creditor. His attempts tq escape the money-lender enmeshes him more securely in his clutches. The farmer ceases to be a free man. He becomes the humble subject of the local creditor. Not only renters and croppers, but even small “independent” farmers,} who haye very little cash or credit, depend upon the local merchant who is very often the landlord himself. The landlord furnishes his tenant with food and clothes or stands good for him at some store, But before the landlord will “stand for them,” be- fore he furnishes the necessary im- landlord or his agent that weighs or measures the crop, appraises its qual- ity and value, and buys it himself. The landlord is thus exposed to a two-fold temptation: to employ short weights or shallow measures, and to inflate prices. Still more, the crop is mortgaged and cannot be sold until the landlord is satisfied. For protection of the landlord there is a law in some states making it illegal to sell cotton after dark. Besides, buyers sometimes have an understanding not to bid against a landlord on his tenants’ cotton. This is what makes it possible for the land- lords to take over the cotton at less than the market price. ‘ As for the final settlement in many cases that would simply mean to tell the temant how much he is in debt. It does not follow that all the charges are fair ones. If the year happens to be a bad one, or if the crop fails—the tenant has to pay; if the crop is a bumper one, then he has to pay again; if he has overproduced and his stock is a drug upon the market—then, of course, he has to pay, In all these cases the number of tenants who fall behind is large. It is true the tenant should know the amount of his debt and generally he does find out. Un- able to pay it, he is asked to stay and pay it out next year with a good crop. Occasionally, it seems, landlords re- fuse to make a settlement. The ex- planation given is the desire to hold the labor for another year. Before the Civil War, the landlord was sure of his labor because he belonged to him. Keeping the tenant in dgbt is another, same end. The owners instruct for that. purpose their agents to refuse Settlement, Thus.we see that the creditor class dominates the rural community.’ The very existence of the tillers of the soil is in the hands of a handful of men, who own the land, the fertili- zers, the oil mills, the banks, the ware- houses, etc. The creditor class dic- tates what shall be grown and by whom. They are the politicians who control the political destinies of the rural regions. . They dictate the elec- tions of the local as well as national officers. The sheriffs and judges, who are their men, see to it that the lien laws are enforced to the satisfaction of the landlords. In their effort to get a still firmer hold upon the land, the creditors re- sort to indirect methods of pressure to force smaller owners to sell their holdings; they use oppressive tactics in the form of unwarranted evictions; they use force to intimidate renters, arbitrary requirements in the matter of cropping contracts, threats to raise rents where land taxes were involved if elections should carry in fayor of the tax, and “keeping the tenants on the move,” when their political con- victions might differ from the land- lords, etc. In a word, the landlords are the masters of the community, politically as well as economically. From the above it can readily be seen that the exploitation of the land- less farmer has reached its highest point. The large plantation owners of the South are gradually taking over the land, thus reducing tenants, white and colored, to a state of unrelieved and helpless peasantry. Cc. E. Bran- son, who investigated conditions in North Carolina, writes the following: “The average income per person of 329 farmers of Williams and Baldwins township, North Carolina, in 1921, was only 23 cents a day. The cash in cir- culation in the homes of 51 white tenants was only 12 cents a day per person, or only 14 cents a day in the homes of the negro tenants, only 22 cents a day per person in Negro farm owner homes, and only 84 cents a day per person in white farm-owner homes! God Almighty made North Carolina a paradise for poor folks— that is, for the average poor man content with merely keeping soul and body together in the country regions. But for the poor man who aspires to own his house, the state is a purga- tory. If the farm is ever paid for, it must be paid for in pinching self- denial, in the field work of his wife — and children, and in the lack of school advantages, newspapers, magazines, and noble books. How could it ‘be otherwisé on an average money in- come of 15 cents a day per person?” This description can be applied to the South as a whole. David R. Coker 0° Hartsville, South Carolina, reckoned the average cash income of the cotton farms of the South at $600. (Address before the Cosmos Club, 8S. C., Oct. 22, 1922), which means that the farmers of the South handle too little money in the run of the year and, as. Branson puts it, “their surpluses in the best years are too small to serve as any safe basis on which to build a com- monwealth.” - Such poverty is deadening. In his despair, the tenant becomes a wan- derer. He moves from farm to farm, from community to community seek- ing for better conditions that are sel- dom to be found. It is estimated that 300,000 landless farmers move every year; that the average life of a tenant upon the farms of the United States is about 18 months. In the South, where the single crop system prevails, the restlessness is more insistent Z here the tenants more every year, sometimes every six months. It ig not an uncommon picture in our great Southwest to see tenant families pro- ceding slowly along dusty roads in an old and rickety wagon drawn by team of horses—father, mother, eight children, with all their worldly | By LOUIS ZOOBOCK