86 Negro Migration 



he is also a merchant who encourages the reckless ex- 

 tension of charge accounts during the year, upon which he 

 charges a high rate of interest, and for which he submits a 

 bill or verbal statement to a man who cannot read or add, 

 then he keeps the Negro perpetually in debt. 



Investigations following the Arkansas riots of 1920 have 

 shown that this condition, on some plantations, was a funda- 

 mental factor in the discontent. 



On the other hand, landlords very justly complain that 

 they HayejOi£yir^particular in renting their land outright 

 because, as th e_rent Jsjto be paid out of the crop over which 

 th ey do not ha ve mudLconlrol, and^-as-advances for food, 

 fertilizer, and feed, with legitimate interest charges are 

 often to be added to this rent T theyrisk loosing consider- 

 able sums on shiftless, unsuccessful, and dishonest tenants, 

 a nd thev afc^ r g k greater rteprpriafjnn nn their land. 



Such individual abuses of the tenant relationships whether 

 by landlord or by tenant, are but additional reasons why 

 landlords prefer to stick to share tenant cultivation and why 

 Negroes prefer to escape from it. 



STANDARD OF LIVING. 



Family Life. — The chances of utilizing a large family as 

 an economic asset are distinctly in favor of the owner and 

 cash tenant, not only because they can extend their opera- 

 tions merely by renting additional acres, but also for the 

 reason that the share tenant is a dependent whose task is 

 usually to raise the cotton crop. His food and clothing are 

 obtained on the basis of credit advances, and the landlord 

 therefore prefers to keep down his accounts by choosing 

 single men, unless the tenant has several children of suf- 

 ficient size to work in the fields. 



Food. — The census of 1910 indicated that in Georgia there 

 were 1.6 cows per owner, .9 per cash tenant and only .6 

 per share tenant. This successively larger number per cash 

 tenant and owner holds good through the different sections 



