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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the ’Thirties: Trends and Policies - 6. Mechanization - 7. Labor Organizations
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Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 261
machine equipment in the South is on farms where there are colored opera-
tors.**® It will always be easier for employers to find workers who know
how to run machinery in the white group. More and more the Negro will
be reduced to a seasonal worker, and even this opportunity will dwindle if
chopping and picking, too, should become mechanized.**^
7. Labor Organizations
In view of the quantitative significance of the labor displacement during
the ^thirties, one would have expected to find widespread evidence of unrest
among the sharecroppers. One would have expected, further, to find a
great number of publicized expressions of a popular concern about what
was happening, as well as a widespread discussion of ameliorative programs.
Finally, one would have expected concrete action to follow these discus-
sions.
There was unrest among the sharecroppers. There was publicity about it.
And the federal government did make highly commendable and rather
sizable attempts to improve the conditions by its various Farm Security
programs.® But the organized attempts of the tenants and sharecroppers
to fight for their needs were’ rather weak and scattered. And the publicity,
largely a result of certain incidents during the organizational work,**^ was
not extensive enough to reach far outside the ranks of such reformers,
administrators, social workers, scientists, journalists, and others who more
or less professionally had to follow the development. The federal govern-
ment itself called attention to some of the problems involved by publishing
several outstanding reports, including the Re’port on Farm Tenancy by the
President’s Committee, Woofter’s study on Landlord and Tenant on the
Cotton Plantationy and the Holley, Winston, and Woofter volume on
The Plantation Souths But even in these otherwise enlightening
studies there was little, if any, attention given to the wholesale decline
in number of tenants.** The general public was rather unaware of the deeper
social significance of such incidents as occasionally made the front page of
the press. What the federal government did for the Southern tenants,
therefore, appeared to the average citizen more or less like a goodhearted
and, perhaps, extravagant benevolence on the part of the New Deal. He
usually had no idea at all that part of the distress was due to government
policy. Popular backing for the protest movement was by no means as strong
as it could have been had the general public been better informed.
* See Section 1 2 of this chapter.
^ The explanation is largely that the statistics had not yet furnished any conclusive
evidence on the significance of the change. One cannot help feeling, though, that the political
necessity to defend all kinds of farm relief measures against attacks from the nonagrarian
groups caused a certain unwillingness to admit that the A.A.A. program could have con-
tributed to the decline in employment opportunities.
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