The most successful plantation worked by Italian labor is undoubtedly Sunny Side, founded by the late Austin Corbin on very rich land in southeastern Arkansas. It dates back to 1898; the original plan was to subdivide the estate and sell it to the immigrants; and at one time there were perhaps fifteen hundred to two thousand Italians there, many of whom were not farmers and soon grew tired of the place. At one time they were reduced to less than forty families, but people have drifted back and new ones have come in, until in 1908 there were over one hundred and twenty families. They are sober, industrious, and profitable both to themselves and to the plantation owners, who have placed the same kind of labor on other plantations and would gladly extend the system if they could get the people. Some other race elements are to be found in the South; a few Greeks have made their appearance; Bulgarians, Hungarians, and "Austrians" (probably Slavs) may be found in Louisiana; but the greater number of recent accessions are laborers or small business men, who play a very small part in the economic and social development of the region. This whole question of the foreigner is in close relation to the negro problem. Even where the "Dagoes" are brought into close contact with the Negroes, they neither make nor meddle with them; but the main reason for interest in their coming is the scarcity and the ineffectiveness of negro labor. If the number of foreigners should largely increase, there is little doubt that they would join in the combination of the white race against the Negro. On the other hand they furnish a more regular field labor than the planter is otherwise able to employ, and when put alongside the Negro sometimes they stimulate him to unwonted effort, as witness the experience of an old cotton hand related to A. H. Stone: "I 'lowed to Marthy, when I heered dem Dagoes had done bought the jinin' tract, dat I was gwine ter show de white folks dat here was one nigger what wouldn' lay down in front er no man livin', when it come to makin' cotton. En I done it, too, plumb till pickin' time. It blowed me, too, sho's you bawn, blowed me mightily. But jis ez I thought I had um bested, what you reckon happened? I'z a natchel-bawn cotton picker, myself, and so is Marthy, and right dar is whar I 'lowed I had um. But 'tother night when me and de old 'oman 'uz drivin' back fum church, long erbout 12 o'clock, en er full moon, what you reckon I seen, boss? Fo' Gawd in Heaven, dat Dago en his wife en fo' chillum wuz pickin' cotton by de moonlight. I do' 'no how it looks to you, but I calls dat er underhanded trick myself!" CHAPTER V SOUTHERN LEADERSHIP