ten the landlords made no settlement
and arbitrarily dismissed the whole matter by telling the Negroes that
they were in debt.

Another general grievance growing out of unsatisfactory farming
conditions was the exorbitant rates of interest charged Negro farmers
by merchants and planters for money borrowed to aid them in raising
their crops. The system of lending sums of money was thus: The tenant
would contract for a money loan from the first of January, but he
received no money till the first of March and none after the first of
August. Notwithstanding this, the Negro tenant was compelled to pay
interest on the whole amount borrowed for the entire year and
sometimes even for the extra months up to the time of the deferred
settlement. This practice became so common and so obnoxious that the
Comptroller of the Treasury of the United States declared to the
Southern banks that it was usury and threatened the closing of these
banks if this practice was continued. That this practice was a fact
and had been long-standing the words of a prominent Southern man will
show. "There is money in farming," says he, "lots of it, but the Negro
farmer has been systematically robbed by the white man since the close
of the Civil War. If the Negro farmers were to be returned all the
interest in excess of 8 per cent charged them for money advanced them
they would to-day be living in brownstone mansions, just as the rich
white advancers do."[69]

Rough and cruel treatment of Negroes by whites, moreover, was also an
important driving cause behind the recent exodus from the South. It is
reported that this sort of treatment was meted out to Negroes in many
of the small towns and villages; but it was more prevalent and worse
on the farms and plantations. On the latter, especially in the lower
part of the South, the beating or flogging of laborers was such a
common occurrence that these places came to be considered veritable
peon camps. Besides, in many of the saw-mill establishments overseers
and bosses were accustomed to knock Negroes around with pieces of
timber or anything else that happened to be within their reach at the
needy time. This brought on much dissatisfaction and caused the
Negroes to become determined to leave at their first opportunity.

Furthermore, the Negro press was a very influential factor in aiding
the movement. This, however, was not a general thing, because most of
the Negro publications, for various reasons, either r