Why is this? Why
do not the Negroes become land-owners, and build up the
black landed peasantry, which has for a generation and more
been the dream of philanthropist and statesman?
To the car-window sociologist, to the man who seeks to
understand and know the South by devoting the few leisure
hours of a holiday trip to unravelling the snarl of centuries,--to
such men very often the whole trouble with the black field-
hand may be summed up by Aunt Ophelia's word, "Shift-
less!" They have noted repeatedly scenes like one I saw last
summer. We were riding along the highroad to town at the
close of a long hot day. A couple of young black fellows
passed us in a muleteam, with several bushels of loose corn in
the ear. One was driving, listlessly bent forward, his elbows
on his knees,--a happy-go-lucky, careless picture of irrespon-
sibility. The other was fast asleep in the bottom of the wagon.
As we passed we noticed an ear of corn fall from the wagon.
They never saw it,--not they. A rod farther on we noted
another ear on the ground; and between that creeping mule
and town we counted twenty-six ears of corn.
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