school age, and only 4,000 of these are in school,
according to the report of the Superintendent of Education. We
can not expect ignorant people to act like intelligent ones,
and no amount of abuse will make them better.

Sometimes we hear it said that the white man of the South
knows the negro better than anybody else, but the average
white man of the South only knows the ignorant, vicious and
criminal negro better than anybody else. He knows little of
the best class of negroes. I am glad to say, however, that
there are a few southern white men who know the better class,
and know them intimately, and are doing what they can to
better the negro's condition. I would to God that the number
of these few could be increased a hundredfold.[182]

R.R. Wright, President of the Georgia State Industrial College for
Negroes, in a discussion of the causes of the migration movement
stated that it is undoubtedly true that the high wages offered is the
main cause. There are other aiding causes, however, for this movement
besides low wages.

Naturally the negro is peculiarly adapted to a southern climate and
prefers to remain in the South. He has made his best progress in the
South. There are nearly a million negro farm operators and most of
them are in the South. The total acreage of their farms is 42,279,510:
valued at $1,141,792,526. In the value of farms operated there was an
increase of 128.5 per cent, during the last census decade, while the
value of farm property operated by white farmers for the same time
increased only 99.6 per cent. The negro is prospering in the South.
Now this and other facts constitute for the negro a strong tie to the
southern soil.

This tie should not be broken lightly. The negro does not want
to leave the South. The only thing to break this tie is unfair
and cruel treatment of the negro on the part of the white man.
In this connection our white friends should know that not only
in the lynchings, and in the courts and in the unwholesome
conditions on the southern railway common carriers (as vital
as these are), but that in the general attitude of many of our
southern white people, there is exhibited a contempt for the
negro which makes the best of the negroes feel that they
are only tolerated in the South. And yet in their individual
relations there is no better friend to the negro in the world
than th