The Negro's Agricultural Opportunity 53 



broadest sense, and has not been keen. The land has been 

 too plentiful and the opportunity for all too ample for it to 

 be a struggle. 



It is not unusual to find that whereas a Negro is compet- 

 ing with one white man for a farm, another white man, the 

 son or relative of the family who owned the Negro's family 

 in slavery, is helping the colored man m his operations with 

 advice, loans, or legal aid. Though these family or personal 

 relations are lessening as the patriarchial contacts of slavery 

 recede further into the past, many such bonds still exist. 

 There is no doubt that much of the success attained by 

 Negroes is due to this friendly aid by white people. The 

 statement which Booker T. Washington made concerning 

 his observation of this relation during a tour of South 

 Carolina indicates the extent of the personal or family aid. 

 "Everywhere I went," he said, "I found at least one white 

 man who believed implicitly in one Negro, and one Negro 

 who believed implicitly in one white man ; and so it goes all 

 through the South." This relation between members of the 

 two races is little understood elsewhere, mainly because the 

 popular belief as to race relations is largely moulded by sen- 

 sational accounts of indications of race friction, which make 

 such readable "news stories." It has, however, been aptly 

 summed up in the statement that the North believes in the 

 Negro as a race and condemns him as an individual, while 

 the South believes in him as an individual and condemns 

 him as a race. 



As long as this personal relation holds, the race relations 

 can in no wise be construed as involving an inter-racial 

 struggle for existence. It is rather a bi- racial effort to meet 

 the economic and social forces squarely. This effort often 

 goes deeper than the personal relations of the parties to 

 an action. 



It is a matter of future speculation as to just what will 

 happen when the opportunity becomes less ample, the com- 

 petition becomes sharper, and the family relations which 



