The Northwest Enterprise

Negro Farmer Real New Deal Victim

By Emmett J. Scott

Washington, D. C. Truly "the forgotten man" of this era of New Dealism, "ill-fed, ill-clad, and ill-housed," is the Negro farmer, the majority of whom reside in the south.

They have no vote. They are disfranchised. They do not come within the political programs of the New Deal. They are not organized. They are not a pressure group. They have suffered grievously during these past seven years of agricultural experimentation.

In contemplating New Deal votes they are not taken into account. New Dealers feel they can be done without. Unlike their brethren in the Northern and Western States they can wreak no revenge at the polls. (Continued on Page Two)
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Deal Victim
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reprisals for neglect and broken promises. Their lot is tragic.
Karl Steinbeck, in a diagnosis of the ills of the Southern farmer Negro and White, calls attention to the fact that, under the "plowing under" edict, thousands of Negro as well as White farmers have lived a hand to mouth existence because the compensation they were to receive for land taken out of cultivation was consumed by avaricious, brow-beating landlords.
What has been done by the Federal Government to change these conditions, to rectify the unjust, unfair techniques which are doing the Negro farmer to death? Nothing, practically nothing of a substantial, constructive character. Nothing, practically nothing, to give this "man with the hoe" hope and encouragement that he may look forward to a better day.
At this time, when the New Deal is boasting that the Negro vote of the North is "in the bag." "sewed up," its own "private asset," colored citizens of the North, who vote and have their votes counted, cannot overlook the tragic situation in the South which affects so many of their kith and kin who have been unable to "escape" the oppressive conditions of Southern farm tenancy and share-cropper oppression and tyranny.