It is not true then to-day that land-buying for the average colored farmer in the South is an easy thing. The land which has been bought has been bought by the exceptional men or by the men who have had unusual opportunity, who have been helped by their former masters or by some other patrons, who have been aided by members of their own families in the North or in the cities, or who have escaped the wretched crop system by some sudden rise in the price of cotton, which did not enable the landlord to take the whole economic advantage. It is therefore in spite of the land system and not because of it that the Negroes to-day own 12,000,000 acres of land (see Note 13). The net result of the whole policy of serfdom was so to deplete the ranks of laborers that a new solution of the labor problem must be found. Here it was that the southern city came forward. The city had new significance, especially new cities like Atlanta, Birmingham, and Chattanooga as contrasted with Charleston and Savannah. They saw a new industrial solution of the problem of Negro labor. It was a simple program: Industry and disfranchisement; the separation of the masses of the Negroes from all participation in government, and such technical training as should fit them to become skilled working men. There was an _arriere pensee_ here too, born in the minds of northern capitalists. The white southern working men were becoming unionized by northern agitators; here was a chance to keep them down to reasonable demands by black competition and the threat of more competition in the future. Moreover working men without votes would be far more docile and tractable. Politics had already spoiled the Negroes. Let the whites rule and the blacks work. The plea was specious, it had the sanction of great names, of wealth and social influence, and it convinced not only those who wanted to be convinced but practically all Americans who were eager to be relieved of troublesome questions and difficult public duties. All the more eagerly was this solution seized upon because of the definite and distinct promises which it made. Disfranchise the Negro, said the South, and the race problem is solved; there is no race problem save the menace of an ignorant and venal vote;--relieve us from this and the lion and the lamb will lie down together;--the Negro will go peacefully and contentedly to work and the whites will wax just and rich. We all remember with what confidence and absolute certainty of conviction this program was announced when Mississippi disfranchised her Negro voters seventeen years ago. It was repeated twelve years ago in South Carolina, ten years ago in Louisiana, and still more recently in North Carolina and Alabama.