24 Negro Migration 



reorganizations in family life, religious, educational and 

 other rural institiutions. Consequently, in describing the 

 changes in the agricultural system of the South, we are not 

 only outlining the principal conditions from which popu- 

 lation movements arise, but also presenting a systematic 

 treatment of the much debated and fundamentally import- 

 ant principles of land tenure. 



Such a presentation is particularly important at present 

 since farm organizations and especially the National Board 

 of Farm Organizations are characterizing tenancy as a 

 great evil and an increasing menace. They have induced 

 practically all the candidates in the race for the presidency 

 of the United States for the 1920 term to endorse this state- 

 ment. Such a broad generalization of the evils of tenancy 

 is undoubtedly a perpetuated form of Henry George's error 

 referred to in Chapter IV of this study, which arises from 

 the a priori assumption that tenant conditions are the same 

 in this country as they are in Europe. The_eyjdence pre- 

 sented in Part I, aside from its particular bearing on popu- 

 lation movement, would seem to indicate that increase in 

 actual number of tenants in the United States is, in itself, 

 neither an evil nor a menace, but an indication that larger 

 and larger numbers of labor ers are mountin g to a very 

 necessar y rung in the ladder whereby th e farmer boy climbs 

 from th e landless laboring class into the Tarm proprietor 

 class. It also indicates that inasmuch as the number of 

 owners is constantly increasing, the increase in tenants is 

 not recruited from ruined landowners, but rather from farm 

 laborers. In other words, while tenancy, as it exists on 

 many of the farms of the South and Middle West, has little 

 to be said in its favor, still, as compared to the status of 

 the farm laborer, it represents an advance. These observa- 

 tions as to the general significance of the rise of land-tenure 

 are fully developed in the last chapter of Part I. 



It appears that Booker T. Washington was right in urging 



