Why, then, did whites benefit disproportionately? Probably the most important factor was that Southern blacks could not vote. Having been legally disfranchised by the end of the 19^th and early 20^th century they counted nothing to the politicians who nominally represented them (Perman 2001).[4] Further, as we argue elsewhere (Adams and Gorton 2006)[5], Southern planters viewed blacks as largely fitted, due to their race, for agricultural labor and other physically demanding jobs. In contrast, they viewed whites as “naturally” part of the managerial or yeoman classes. They also preferred black laborers over white as sharecroppers and day laborers, viewing whites as largely unfit for physcially demanding jobs or sharecropping since they were "difficult" to manage.