Unfettered: A NovelGriggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert)
General
Unfettered: A Novel
Griggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert)
African Americans -- Fiction; United States -- Race relations -- Fiction
Dealers in various lines of ware do not hesitate to sell to the Negroes the
most costly articles on the installment plan, taking care to place charges
thereon far above their real value. Thus the meagre earnings of the race
are so largely absorbed in the manner indicated. It means perpetual poverty
to the masses unless corrected.
Negroes must be taught to live simply, in keeping with their financial
condition. Penny saving banks must everywhere be established, and forces
set to work to urge the Negroes to save their money, thus counteracting the
influence of the myriad loan offices that tempt them to their financial
ruin.
THE WINDS HAVE VEERED.
The age in which we live is fast shifting from a basis in which brute force
is a great factor, to one in which skill and intelligence are the prime
essentials. The day of the man who has naught to offer save his native
strength is fast drawing to a close, and his night is all but upon us.
The general refinement of taste requiring a higher order of intelligence to
satisfy it; the inventive genius of man bringing into use complicated
machinery--these are influences at work rendering necessary a greater
measure of skill and a higher order of intelligence in the modern laborer.
If the Negro would not be lost in the shift of the age, he must be trained
with a view to the requirements of modern civilization. To this end
Technological schools must be established throughout the South and other
centers of Negro labor.
"THE FIELD IS THE WORLD."
The Negroes have evinced a keen desire for education, until now there are
more educated young men and women than there is congenial labor for them.
The schools have sent them forth far faster than conditions have permitted
them to be absorbed.
The Negro parent that has to submit to great privations to educate his
child, viewing education from the simple standpoint of its ability to
afford a livelihood, has now under consideration the advisability of
continuing his effort to educate his offspring. The pupil, confronted with
so many of his fellows that have gone through school and failed of
congenial employment, is inclined to lay down his books and bring his
school days to a close. To relieve this very annoying congestion, Negroes
must invade all the avenues of trade and found enterprises that will give
employment to the trained members of the race. The labor of the race is
fully able to sustain all branches of endeavor incident to civilized life.
Simultaneous with this development of the home field, Puerto Rico, Cuba,
Hawaii, the Philippines and Africa must be utilized to relieve this
congestion.
The well equipped young men and women must be inoculated with more of the
pioneer spirit.
WHERE THE GALE BLOWS FIERCEST.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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