27 March 2006
Hoosac Valley News & Transcript October 2, 1862
WHITE MEN AS LABORERS AT THE SOUTH-
We wish we could remove one fallacy that labor performed by negroes on the plantations of the south cannot be done by white men. We say it can; and it can be done cheaper and better. Intelligent and independent Southerners will admit this. Why, the white farmers of the west, in their harvesting season, work and are happy and healthy, under a sun quite as oppressive as that of this latitude. The hod carriers of the North, with no wool to shield their heads, work as no negro could work, in a sun quite as broiling as anything experienced in a ricefield or a cane brake. We throw these assertions out for the examination of the philosopher and the statesman. And we will anticipate events so far as to say that a sugar plantation will be worked in this state by white men before the year is out.
Don't, then, believe those who tell you a white man can't do what a negro can. He can do all that a negro can in the way of laboring in the sun, and ever so much more. ¶ 3/27/2006 02:44:00 PM
We wish we could remove one fallacy that labor performed by negroes on the plantations of the south cannot be done by white men. We say it can; and it can be done cheaper and better. Intelligent and independent Southerners will admit this. Why, the white farmers of the west, in their harvesting season, work and are happy and healthy, under a sun quite as oppressive as that of this latitude. The hod carriers of the North, with no wool to shield their heads, work as no negro could work, in a sun quite as broiling as anything experienced in a ricefield or a cane brake. We throw these assertions out for the examination of the philosopher and the statesman. And we will anticipate events so far as to say that a sugar plantation will be worked in this state by white men before the year is out.
Don't, then, believe those who tell you a white man can't do what a negro can. He can do all that a negro can in the way of laboring in the sun, and ever so much more. ¶ 3/27/2006 02:44:00 PM
