coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

WESTWARD COURSE OF EMPIRE.
In a word, the negro stays put; the white man
does not, even where it would often be to his
advantage to do so.
Besides, there is an additional binding force
which serves to keep the well-treated negro laborer
with the same employer and at the same
work; it is that admirable quality of fidelity which
it is frequently given to those over them to inspire
in them, and which, once created, is as valuable
an asset as any employer of labor could desire.
This, with the tendency to stay in the same place,
is probably the principal reason for the favor
with which negro miners are regarded by Kentucky
operators, who have had opportunity to try
and observe them, and from many years of contact
know whereof they speak.
In the actual work of mining, as inferentially
suggested at the outset, they are in no respect inferior
to their white colleagues. Negro labor has
always been as good as any that can be had for
the performance of heavy work of all sorts; and
the handling of coal, even under the most improved
conditions and with the most modern facilities,
certainly comes under the head of heavy
physical labor, and always will. "Teachability"
has always been found to be a characteristic of the
negro with few exceptions, as witness the employment
of the race as chauffeurs, waiters, and the
like.
The work of mining is year by year growing
more complicated, and involves the application of
skill and the use of discretion and judgment, as
well as mere physical strength, to a greater and
greater degree; but no instance has been reported
where a negro has
BEEN" l-'olMI WANTING
in these qualities in any marked contrast to the
white men with whom he worked. As far as the
experience of operators who can speak with authority
goes there has been no trouble on the
score of the negro not doing his work properly.
It is in Western Kentucky that negro miners
have been most used, several of the larger operators
in that section employing them in large numbers
and regarding them as mainstays, by reason
of the qualities which have been referred to. The
average of intelligence among these miners is
fairly high, in a general sense, as may be gathered
from the statement that at meetings of various
miners' associations there are always colored men
as representatives, sometimes as leaders, who
acquit themselves in the deliberations with credit,
even admiration.
In the coal fields of Eastern and Southeastern
Kentucky there are relatively few negroes used.
In the first mentioned field, especially, there are
few colored miners, a fact which goes far toward
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33
indicating the correctness of the statement made
above that the colored miners lack the roving
spirit so characteristic of their white co-workers.
The Eastern Kentucky fields are in the mountains,
and there are practically no negroes native to that
section. Consequently, as may be inferred from
the suggestion made, there are practically no negro
miners.
"We wish there were," said an operator of this
section who is also interested in the mines in the
southeastern part of the state, where there are
more negroes employed. "We can use all that we
can get hold of up here, because we can never be
sure of holding our men long enough to handle
our business, and from what I hear and know of
the colored men they stay on the job pretty well,
and do their work as well as any class of labor
used in mines."
The extent to which the blacks are used in the
Southeastern Kentucky mines is fairly well indicated
by the fact that the Continental Coal Corporation,
of Pinesville, Ky., which is one of the
largest operations in the State, recently sent to
the first-aid contest, held at Lexington in connection
with the meeting of the Kentucky Mining Institute
last month, as well as several teams of
white men. The colored men, in the work of
treating hypothetical injuries in the contest,
showed fine skiil and initiative.
It may be mentioned as an interesting commentary
upon the extent to which racial separation is
customarily carried south of the Ohio and Potomac
that the two teams referred to, which were the
ONLY ONES OF THEIR RACE
sent to the contest, did not participate in the general
contest for the prizes offered, but took part
only in a contest for a special prize offered by the
people of Pineville, Ky., for the best negro firstaid
team in the States. Several operators from
Western Kentucky stated that they would have
brought teams to show what colored men could
do when well trained if they had known of this
special prize.
On the whole, it may be fairly deduced from
the experience of all Kentucky operators who have
been able to secure colored labor that negroes are
entitled to serious consideration for work in coal
mines. The fact that the South is finding it difficult
to keep enough of them for farm work suggests
that it would pay to colonize a few thousand
in those coal fields which are unable to secure
labor. On the other hand, it is possible that the
scarcity of labor, which is chronic in the South, is
as much due to the gradual moving away of the
negroes, attracted by the higher wages possible in
the cities, as to their proverbial disinclination to
work.
One of the Western Kentucky operators who em-