THE NEGRO AS AN IKON-WORKER. 339 



ed. At the Atlanta, (Ga.) mill a similar course has been pursued for about two 

 months. The puddling is done by colored labor as well as it was done by white, 

 and as soon as men are taught, the remainder of the work will be done by them. 

 In every case, we are informed, the negro workmen are as efficient as the white." 



And in discussing the same subject the Philadelphia North American says : 



''* * At this moment the negro is the black sceptre through which 

 the South can rule the land. * * The one thing which holds back this 

 country in its wonderful career of development and prosperity and retards its pro- 

 gress is the want of labor. * * The South to-day controls the labor 

 field of this land, and the power which enables her to hold that commanding 

 position is the negro. Under the crucial strain of the last two years our con- 

 tractors and companies everywhere have been trying every possible expedient to 

 find and hold the labor that they must have. They have tried the men of every 

 race, creed and color, and with remarkable unanimity their judgment is settling 

 down on the negro as the most available and desirable and economical for the 

 rough work of railway construction, mining and tunneling, i. e. — the foundation 

 of labor. This is a judgment that has been established by fact, by the patient, 

 silent experiment of years. In the course of inquiries we find that large bodies 

 of negroes from the South have been taken up to Pennsylvania and New York by 

 contractors, worked there for months and returned to their plantation homes. 

 Seven hundred negroes from around Staunton, Va. , are now working in one 

 company's mines in Minnesota. A Pennsylvania contractor is now in Colorado 

 negotiating with one of the most vigorous and prosperous railways there for a 

 contract on which he expects to takeout and work 2,000 negroes from the far 

 South. 



" While the negro may not have the physical stamina of some of the hardier 

 races, he has moral qualifications as a laborer which bring the results of his labor 

 up to their level. He is patient, steady, faithful, if well treated, and trusting. 

 He does not waste his force in strikes or sprees, and his saints' days do not seri- 

 ously encroach on the volume of the calendar. * * Short of China, 

 the labor field of the world, for us, at the present moment is barren and limited. 

 This is 'the South's great opportunity. Labor, the foundation of all values, is her 

 staple. The negro, an economic burden under slavery, under freedom has be- 

 come her chiefest treasure. * * The negro is the stone which the 

 builders have always persistently rejected in the South. They might have made 

 him the corner-stone of a sure political supremacy. They can now make him the 

 foundation of social supremacy and advancement. Will they? The South at 

 this moment has all the material elements of future and near impending empire 

 in greater abundance and wealth than any section of this land or any other. 

 She has raw materials, fertile soils, untold ores and mines, coals, vast undevelop- 

 ed regions, ready means of transportation, and labor. Can she fuse them? 

 The flux is brains." 



It looks to us as if this question of labor in the iron working industries in 

 certain parts of this country finds its solution in the way here indicated. It is no 



