suffering, and they may be all classed as the secondary cause of this
great exodus.

The primary cause is economics. The storms and floods destroy crops in
the Black Belt section. These people are hungry, they are naked, they
have no corn and had no cotton; so they are without food and clothes.
What else can they do but go away in search of work? There are a great
many wealthy white men here and there throughout the Black Belt section.
They have large plantations which need the ditches cleared and new ones
made to properly drain their farms. They could have given much work to
these destitute people; but what have they done? Nothing. They say that
it is a pity for the Negro to go away in such large numbers, and so it
is, but that will not stop them. They have it in their power to stop
them by making the Negro's economic condition better here.

The South must do more than make cotton and corn; it must begin to
manufacture some of the things that it uses. Why should we send our raw
material to the North to be manufactured? Practically all the furniture
we use comes from the North and they get the timber from us. The South
must be both a manufacturing as well as a farming section, if it would
hold its own with the other sections of this great country. The
capitalists of the South must turn loose their money if this section
would come into its own.

Thus far, the average white man of the South has been interested in the
Negro from a selfish point of view. He must now become interested in him
from a humanitarian point of view. He must be interested in his
educational, moral and religious welfare. We know that we have many
ignorant, vicious, and criminal Negroes, which are a disgrace to any
people, but they are ignorant because they have not had a chance. Why I
know one county in this State today with 10,000 Negro children of school
age and only 4,000 of these are in school, according to the report of
the Superintendent of Education. We cannot expect ignorant people to act
like intelligent ones, and no amount of abuse will make them better.

We know that our race is weak and that the white race is strong. We know
also that our race is sick and that the white race is well or whole.
Now, how should the strong treat the weak? How should the whole treat
the sick? Would a strong man say, here is a weak man with a heavy
burden, therefore, I will put more upon him? Would a well man say, here
is a sick man, therefore, I shall give