In the South as a whole the negro finds little
difficulty in buying land, if he can make a moderate first payment. It
is true that some are cheated by the merchant or the landlord. Prices
charged for supplies are too high, and the prices credited for crops are
too low, but the debtors are hardly swindled to a greater extent than
the ignorant and illiterate elsewhere.
The condition of the white tenant is sometimes little better than that
of the negro. He usually farms a larger tract, 83.8 acres on the average
(in 1910), as against 39.6 acres for the negro, and he is on the whole
more prosperous; but there are many who live from hand to mouth, move
frequently, habitually get into debt to the merchant or the landlord,
and have little or no surplus at settling time. In the South in 1910
there were 866,000 white tenant farmers who cultivated 20.5 per cent of
all the land, and since that time white tenancy has been increasing. The
increase of land ownership is greater among the negroes than among the
whites, who are in many cases illiterates. This illiteracy is one cause
of their poverty, but not the only cause: a part of it is moral,
involving a lack of steadfast purpose, and a part is physical. The
researches conducted by the United States Government, the state boards
of health, and the Rockefeller Foundation show clearly that much of the
indolence charged to the less prosperous Southern rural whites is due to
the effect of the hookworm, a tiny intestinal parasite common in most
tropical and subtropical regions and probably brought from Africa or the
West Indies by the negro.
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