wealth and the accumulation are different.
The Southern Negro is a wealth producer. He does four-fifths of the
agricultural labor of the South and thereby adds four-fifths to the
wealth of the South derived from agriculture, the leading Southern
industry. If the whole of the billion dollars to the credit of the
Negro race were placed to the credit of the Southern Negro alone, it
would be less than half of what he should have saved since the war.
The Negroes of the South handle more money than New England did one
hundred years ago, and yet New England would be glad to place her
barrels of gold and silver at nominal interest--so rich has she grown,
although in the chilly winds of the Northeast.

The opportunities for the Southern Negro are as good for material gain
as are enjoyed by any other people in this country. The census of 1890
shows two hundred and twenty-four occupations followed by the
wage-earners of the United States. The Negroes are represented in
every one of these occupations--grouped under five heads:
Professional, Agriculture, trade and transportation, manufactures and
personal service. The Southern Negro, while not in all of them,
occupies in the South the vantage ground in those that bring the most
independence in living. We must not forget that agriculture is what we
might call the staple industry of the South.

I am indebted to Hon. Judson W. Lyons, register of the United States
Treasury, for the following statistics, showing the wonderful
influence of Negro labor in the commercial industries of the world:
More cotton is exported from the United States than any other article.
In the last ten years, 30,000,000,000 pounds of cotton, valued at
$225,000,000 have been exported. The United States produces more
cotton than all the balance of the world. The cotton manufactories of
Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy depend upon our
cotton exports. Ten years ago, $354,000,000 were invested in cotton
manufactories, employing 221,585 operatives, who received for wages
$67,489,000 per annum. The South produced from 1880 to 1890,
620,000,000 bushels of corn, 78,000,000 bushels of wheat, and
97,000,000 bushels of oats. The Negro performed four-fifths of the
labor of the South, as we have seen. Therefore, his share in the
average annual production in the last ten years would be 6,988,000
bales of cotton, valued at $209,640,000. In the last ten years the
Negro's part of the production of corn, wheat,