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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 11. The Southern Plantation Economy and the Negro Farmer - 9. The Plantation Tenant
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250 An American Dilemma
viewpoint is most doubtful in itself under any circumstances*—to a tradi-
tion-bound, nonliberalistic, economic arrangement. The logical fault is too
obvious to need further comment. This particular economic arrangement,
as all others, has to be explained in historical terms and to be evaluated in
terms of its effects cornfared with alternatey ’possible arrangements.
In this context the changes actually occurring in the plantation system
become important. As we have indicated, the system of slightly modernized
Black Codes seems finally to be withering under the assaults of the
Supreme Court and other federal agencies as well as of various pro-
democratic organizations in both the South and the North. The relative
abundance of agricultural labor during the ’thirties has contributed, prob-
ably more than anything else, toward the gradual wiping out of the
practice of debt-peonage. Attempts to organize plantation tenants have
occurred. Efforts of the federal government to rationalize the credit struc-
ture and other crucial elements of the plantation system have been started.
There are some concerted efforts to begin reforming even the tenure
conditions. The cotton acreage has been drastically curtailed. We shall
find, however, that new problems have risen—problems which, again, have
affected the Negroes much more seriously than the whites.
’ See Appendix 2.
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