File:Review of reviews and world's work (1890) (14598147857).jpg

Identifier: reviewofreviewsw33newy (find matches)
Title: Review of reviews and world's work
Year: 1890 (1890s)
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Publisher: New York Review of Reviews Corp
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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own land. Show me in Texas a land-holding Mexican, of Spanish descent, and I willshow you a man whose days as a proprietor arenumbered. The Latin does not seem to holdhis own in the agricultural districts of the South-ern United States. Throughout South Texas, Mexican (Indian andhalf-breed) farm labor is cheap and plentiful,but inferior when compared to labor in theNorth. The usual price per day for ordinaryfarmwork is fifty cents(.Vmerican money) and onemeal. In rush seasons, suchas when strawberries areready for picking and ship-ment, the price will go ashigh as a dollar. A Mexi-cans wants for a week areeasily supplied with three dol-lars, and when he has earnedthat sum it is hard to makehim work the remainder ofthe week. Threatening toemploy him no more is of noavail. He knows he willnever fi-eeze. and nature isso generous in South Texasthat it would be practicallyimpossible for him to starve.But he respects a contract.Sign with him at the begin- THE GROWTH OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS. 211
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TILLING THK SOIL WITH STEAM PLOWS IN SOUTHWESTERN TEXAS. ning of the year, or for any given length of time,and he will not only work for you, but will zealous.Ij guard your interests. Under any other circum-stances or condition, he is none too trustworthy.There is another class of labor in certain por-tions of Southwest Texas which is only tolerablyreliable—the poor whites. They are descendantsof Tar-heels, Crackers, and other lowly-born peo-ples who emigrated to Texas from older SouthernStates fifty and more years ago. They have neverbeen used to much, and have little or no ambi-tion to better their condition. Seeing otherwhite men succeed only tends to make them pes-simistic, and the warm climate keeps their energy at a low ebb. Some of these poor whites work on the shares —make a crop for half of it—but a majority prefer to work for wages by theday or month, as the Mexicans do. Their homeswell illustrate what Balzac has described as in-dustrious poverty. Then there are the ne

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