The secretary of the Chamber of Commerce believed that the influx did not cause anything more than a ripple on the surface. He said: "I cover everything when I say that, no apparent increase in crime; no trouble among themselves; no race friction." Theaters began to discriminate, but soon ceased. The proprietor of the Sheridan Club stated that he took a group of men to one theater which had shown signs of discrimination. Each man was told to purchase his own ticket. The owner observing the scheme admitted them. Very few restaurants refuse to serve negroes. Only one openly segregated them to a particular part of the dining-room. Absolutely no trouble was experienced in the schools. The police commissioner sees that the negroes have the protection of the law.

East Chicago, an industrial center located about twenty-five miles from Chicago with a population now made up in large part of Hungarians, Poles, Italians and negroes, had only one negro family in 1915. During the month of August, 1916, about 150 negroes came and others soon followed. At present there are about 75 families, 35 or 40 children of school age and about 450 men working in the industrial plants. The majority of these newcomers were from the rural districts of Alabama and Georgia, with a few from Mississippi. A large number of negroes, moreover, live in Indiana Harbor and in Chicago and work in East Chicago.¹¹⁶

Some of the people went to Indiana Harbor for church services. During the summer of 1917, an attempt was made to organize a church, but it was unsuccessful and almost excited a racial conflict. The negroes from Alabama and Georgia complained about the wickedness of East Chicago, and declared their intentions of going home, "where they can sing without appearing strange, and where they can hear somebody else pray besides themselves." Few racial clashes, however, have followed. A strike which occurred at Gasselli's Chemical Company was at first thought to be a protest of the foreigners against the 80 negroes employed there. Nothing serious developed from it. The only apparent dangers were in thoughtlessness on the part of negroes in their conduct. They were too badly needed in industry to be harshly treated either by the foreigners or their employers.¹¹⁷

In Beloit, Wisconsin, as in other cities, it was impossible to find out with any degree of accuracy the approximate number of negroes. Estimates of the number ranged from 700 to 2,000, whereas, before the influx, the black population was as low as 200. The total population of Beloit is about 20,000. There are now two negro churches, a Baptist and an African Methodist Episcopal. The Baptist church was said to be made up entirely of new people. Beloit did not have a negro Baptist preacher until the migration, and had no negro physicians. Prior to the influx there was little discrimination, except in some of the restaurants and occasionally in the theaters. One negro was working at the post office, and another at the railroad station. Aside from these, the negro men were practically all laborers and porters.

As is true in most small cities, one company took the initiative in sending for men from the South. The Fairbanks Morse Company was the pioneer corporation in this respect in Beloit. This company hires at present 200 men. Most of these came from Mississippi. In fact, Albany and Pontotoc, small towns in Mississippi, are said to have dumped their entire population in Beloit. A few from Memphis, Tennessee, were employed there but the company preferred Mississippians, and had agents at work in that State getting men for its plant. It was said to be fair in its treatment of negroes and to pay the standard wages.¹¹⁸

Milwaukee was one of the ready recipients of negro migrants from other points in the North. Following the outbreak of the war, the consequent cessation of foreign immigration and the withdrawal of a number of aliens from the labor market to follow their national colors, a large demand for negro labor was for the first time created. Milwaukee apparently could not attract voluntary migration, and the larger plants were forced to import some 1,200 southern negroes to man their industries. In 1910, the city had a negro population of 980. There are now in Milwaukee about 2,700 negroes of whom 1,500 are newcomers, not only from the South, but from the adjacent States of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota.¹¹⁹

This migration to Milwaukee caused a number of difficulties. The first difficulty to arise was in the relationship of the migrant to the old residents of the city. Like the newly arrived foreigners they lived rather "close lives," had little contact with the people of the community and as a consequence were slow in changing their southern standards. This lack of contact was registered in the slight attendance in the colored churches, which are by far the most common medium of personal contact among negroes. The leading pastors and two others who have made unsuccessful attempts to establish churches complained that the newcomers, although accustomed to going to church in their old homes, "strayed from the fold" in the large city. There was also a certain unmistakable reticence on the part of the newcomers with respect to the negroes of longer residence. The new arrivals were at times suspicious of the motives of the older residents, and resented being advised how to conduct themselves. They were for the most part not in touch with any civic agency. The migrants, therefore, came into contact with the lower element. The recreations and amusements of the newcomers were those which the social outcasts furnished them.¹²⁰

Another anomaly was to be observed in the motives behind the migration. The most recent European immigrants, unfamiliar with the character of the plants, having strong bodies and a disposition to work, are engaged as unskilled laborers. They do not, of course, remain at this level, but are continually pushed forward by later comers. The men who filled these lower positions were not the best type of foreigners. When the war began and this influx from Europe was stopped, it was for these positions that the plants were forced to seek men. Negroes were sought in the South, but, unfortunately, the emphasis was placed on quantity and not quality. Those who were able to move on shortest notice, those with few responsibilities and few interests at home, were snapped up by the labor agents. This blunder has also registered itself in the records of the city and the character of the negro migrants. This was probably due to the fact that little is known of Milwaukee in the South. Unlike Chicago, Detroit, New York and other northern cities, it was not a popular destination for voluntary migration. Agents who scoured the South for men testified that in a large number of cases the first question asked was whether or not Milwaukee was a wet town, for the southern States have prohibited the sale of liquor. While Chicago got advertisement in the South through its great mail order business, most of what was known of Milwaukee related to its breweries.

The negroes here, however, had numerous industrial opportunities. The manner in which the trades suddenly opened up to them made it difficult to ascertain the number of negroes so engaged. An intensive study of a neighborhood showed a much wider variety of skilled negro laborers and brought to light the cases of many not otherwise known. One man in touch with the iron workers of the city ventured the statement that there were perhaps 75 negroes engaged in skilled work in the iron and steel industries of the city. In a large number of other plants one or two negroes had succeeded in finding skilled employment. Firms known to employ negroes in the capacity of skilled workmen are the Plankington Packing Company, Wehr Steel and Machine Shops, the National Malleable Iron Works, A.J. Lindeman-Hoverson Company and the Milwaukee Coke and Gas Company. For the most part skilled negroes are butchers and molders.¹²¹

In the case of negroes from the South with trades, however, there arose a situation which is seldom fully appreciated. A man in the South may be skilled in such an independent trade as shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry and the like, but in a northern city with its highly specialized industrial processes and divisions of labor, he must learn over again what he thought he had mastered, or abandon his trade entirely and seek employment in unskilled lines. The wages for skilled work were for butchers, 55 to 64 cents an hour; for steel molders, 35 to 47 cents an hour; for firemen, $27 per week; for chauffeurs, $15 to $30 a week; for shoemakers, $20 a week; stationary firemen, $24 a week. The mass of negroes, men and women, gainfully employed in the city was made up of manual laborers. Vacancies for negroes in industry were made at the bottom. The range of occupations in unskilled work, however, was fairly wide. They were packing house employes, muckers, tannery laborers, street construction workers, dock hands and foundry laborers. Their wages were for foundry laborers, 32½ cents to 35 cents an hour; for muckers, $28 a week; for tannery laborers, $24 a week; dock hands, 60 cents an hour; and for packing house laborers, 43 cents an hour (male), and 30½ cents an hour (female). There were also porters in stores and janitors whose weekly wages averaged between $15 and $18 per week.

Several firms made strenuous efforts to induce laborers to come from the South. The Pfister-Vogel Company employed a negro to secure them for this purpose, and made preparation for their lodging and board. This representative stated that he was responsible for the presence of about 300 negroes in the city. Reverend J.S. Woods of the Booker T. Washington social settlement, who was actively engaged in assisting the plants, asserted that he had placed over 400. The Albert Trostel Company paid transportation for nearly 100 men.

The principal industries employing negroes with the number employed were about as follows:¹²²

On December 1, 1917, the Plankington Packing Company employed 93 men and 27 women. The Pfister-Vogel Company had only 75 men in its employ. This company, however, within 18 months had employed 300 negroes from the South.

Concerning the range of wages for negroes in these lines the data provided by these firms gave some means of information.

The quality of the workingmen is of interest both to the employers and social workers. To get uniform data employers were asked the principal faults and principal merits of their negro workmen. To the question, "What are the principal faults of your negro workmen?" these answers were given:¹²³

None that predominate.

The principal fault of negro workmen is, they are slow and very hard to please.

Not good on rapid moving machinery, have not had mechanical training; slow; not stable.

Inclined to be irregular in attendance to work.

Very unsteady.

Leave in summertime for road work.

To the question, "What are the principal merits of your negro workmen?" these answers were given:

They are superior to foreign labor because they readily understand what you try to tell them.

Loyalty, willingness, cheerfulness.

The skilled men stick and are good workmen.

Generally speaking they are agreeable workmen.

Quicker, huskier, and can stand more heat than other workmen.

The attitude of white and black workmen toward one another in none of the plants visited presented anything like a serious situation. The following are answers to questions relating to this sentiment as returned by the important industries:¹²⁴

No feeling—no complaints—no comments.

White and black get along well. There was a little trouble some time ago between a Jewish foreman and his negro workmen. All the negroes quit. The matter was investigated and the foreman discharged.

Good.

The relations are favorable, although negroes appear a bit clannish.

Good fellowship prevails.

Negroes do not stay long enough to get acquainted.

Good in most cases. Very little opposition. They are working as helpers with whites. Few objections.

As a final effort to get the opinion of employers themselves concerning the best means of improving their labor, a suggestion from them on this matter was solicited. Their views are subjoined:¹²⁵

A rather broad question and one that could only be answered after considerable study. Believe the great trouble with negro labor has been the fact that a poor class of negroes has been employed by many. We have a good lot of workers now.

Some means should be devised to get them away from their general shiftless ways.

Education.

As a negro can be very contented and happy on very little, if their living conditions were improved and the desire created in them to improve their condition, this would be a help towards encouragement in bettering their social condition. In fact, we feel that anything that would help to better the social attention of the negro would make him a better workman.

Better housing and supervision through some responsible organization. Some way to keep sympathetic watch over them.

Without doubt there is an element of truth in each of these comments. It is unquestionably true that a large number of these men register by their actions instability, irregularity and general shiftlessness. Some of these cases are inexcusable, and the only reason for their connection with the industry is the fact that they were brought from the South, where they were voluntarily idle, by agents of employers. The importation merely shifted the scene of their deliberate loafing and spasmodic contact with work.

Employers in all of the plants know that they have had difficulty in holding their negro labor, but do not know why. Most of the men willing to leave the city were unmarried men with few responsibilities. These are the ones who found employment there and, being dissatisfied, quit. The highest negro labor turnover was in the leather factories. But for this there was a reason. The only employment permitted negroes there was wet and very disagreeable beam work, and at wages not in excess of those paid by neighboring plants with a different grade of work. Inquiries among laboring men reveal reasons plausible indeed to the laborers themselves, which in many cases would have been found reasonable also by the employers.

It is generally known that all classes of labor of all nationalities are in an unsettled state. Shifting to the higher paid industries is common. In consequence the disagreeable and poorly paid ones have suffered. The instability of negroes, especially in those industries that have been so hard pressed as to find it necessary to go South for men, is not so much a group characteristic as an expression of present tendencies in labor generally.

Reasons of a more intimate nature advanced by the men for changing jobs are numerous. Among these are dissatisfaction with the treatment of petty white bosses, the necessity for ready money for the care of their families, the distance of the plants from the district in which the negro workmen live¹²⁶ and the unpleasant indoor work in certain factories.

The social condition of negroes in Milwaukee is not alarming. There are indicated, however, unmistakable maladjustments which require immediate attention. But even these will not become alarming, if checked now, when preventive measures can be made practicable, attractive and easy.

The neighborhoods in which negroes live have long showed evidence of physical and moral deterioration. The addition of 1,400 negroes from the South, over 70 per cent of whom were brought to the city by companies seeking labor, hastened the deterioration and gave rise to problems where only tendencies existed before. Neighborhood life is conspicuously lax and the spirit of the community quite naturally comports with the looseness and immorality of the district. Though such conditions are plainly evident, no organized influence has been projected to correct them. As with the neighborhood, so with housing, crime, delinquency, education, recreation, industry, and the like, the conditions which retard developmental habits must have constant vigilance and treatment.

Footnote 110: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 111: (return)

Ibid.

Footnote 112: (return)

The Detroit branch of the Urban League reported, for example, that a great percentage of its applicants for work were from Chicago.

Footnote 113: (return)

The two large houses accommodated fifty to sixty men. One of these was known as the Tuskegee Club House and housed only men from Tuskegee Institute.

Footnote 114: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 115: (return)

In May, 1917, the Sherman House on Genesee Street in the heart of the city became a negro hotel. It has 19 bedrooms and accommodates 35 men. It was poorly managed and dirty. A barber shop, pool room and dining room were run in connection with it and were also poorly managed. The manager of the hotel is one of the newcomers. A rooming house and dance hall for negroes is operated in another section of the city. The Wilder Tanning Company was building a hotel for 50 single men and individual houses of five, six, seven and eight rooms for families. Houses for white workmen were to be built by the company after these were completed. Lawrence Wilder, president of the company, stated that the building of these houses was no "experiment." "They are being put up to stay." Hot and cold water, hot air, heat, electric lights, and shower baths will be in the hotel. Single rooms will rent for $1.25, double rooms $2.50 per week. No women will be permitted to live in the hotel. A social room will be within easy access of all occupants. No meals will be served at the hotel, but will be served at the plant. The houses will be one and two stories and can be purchased on a monthly basis. A street car line will connect the plant and the subdivision.

Before the influx the Cyclone Fence Company and the Calk Mill Company were said to have sworn never to employ negro labor. The Wilder Tanning Company and the American Steel and Wire Company have standing invitations for negro men with references.—Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 116: (return)

They were employed by the Gasselli Chemical Company, Goldsmiths Detinning Company, the International Lead Refining Company, the United States Reduction Company, the United States Refining Company, Hobson and Walker's Brick Yard, the Inland Steel Foundry, Interstate Mill, the Cudahy Soap Factory and the Republic Rolling Mill. The Hobson and Walker's Brick Yard employed 200 and provided houses within the yards for the families of the workmen. The International Lead Refining Company provided lodging for its men in remodeled box cars. Wages for ordinary labor ranged from $2.50 to $4.50 per day. This did not include the amount that might be made by overtime work. The brick yard employed negroes for unskilled work at 35 cents an hour. A few skilled negroes employed were receiving from $4.75 to $7 a day.

Negroes are fairly well scattered throughout the foreign residential section. A small area known as "Oklahoma" or "Calumet" had perhaps the largest number. The houses were overcrowded, dark, insanitary, without privacy and generally unattractive. All of the rooms were sleeping rooms, usually with two beds in a room accommodating six men. Rent was high, and ranged from $15 to $25 a month for four and five room flats in very unattractive buildings. Single lodgers paid from $1.50 to $1.75 a week. Restaurant rates were exorbitant and food was so high that many of the families bought their provisions in Chicago.

There were no churches or in fact any wholesome social institutions in town. There were many flourishing saloons. There was one colored pool room, and one colored restaurant. On occasions, a hall belonging to the whites was used for dances and socials.—Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 117: (return)

Following each pay day from twenty to thirty negroes left for their homes in the South. Some returned when their funds were about exhausted and worked five or six months more. Others remained at home for the winter. "It was expected that the brick yard would lose a very large number on the 8th of November. On the 15th of December another large contingent leaves for the South."—Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 118: (return)

There was great congestion in housing, as the negroes were restricted to certain sections with homes usually kept in insanitary condition. A very large housing plan of the company met with objection on the part of the white citizens who sent in a petition to the City Council against building houses for negroes. The City Council said they wanted the housing property for park purposes. The matter was taken to court. The Council condemned the property but failed to sustain the belief that it was needed for a park. Through various methods of red tape and legal procedure the matter was delayed. The company then built houses on a smaller scale. The plans included two apartment houses that would accommodate six families each. There were also in the course of erection houses for men with families to take the place of some improvised huts which the company had found necessary to use to facilitate the work of the men.—Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 119: (return)

Before 1910, 114 persons had arrived; between 1911 and 1915, 72; during 1916, 74; during 1917, 102; and during 1918, 40 persons had arrived.

Footnote 120: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 121: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 122: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 123: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 124: (return)

Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

Footnote 125: (return)

Ibid.

Footnote 126: (return)

A simple situation of this nature registers itself without explanation against the character of negroes in the records of the firms. The Pfister-Vogel Company had a house on Clinton Street in which lived twenty or more negroes. This location is eight or ten miles away from the community in which negroes live. There are no amusements for these young men around Clinton Street. The cars stop running at a comparatively early hour. If they go to the city they must either come back in a taxicab or spend the evening away from home. It is less expensive to spend the evening away. As a result they are late for work and may not report. If they report, they are tired and unfit for work. If they do not they are put down as irregular and unsteady.—Johnson, Report on the Migration to Chicago.

CHAPTER XI

The Situation at Points in the Middle West

The most important city in this section to be affected by the migration was Pittsburgh, the gateway to the West. The Pittsburgh district is the center of the steel industry. For this reason, the war caused the demand for labor to be extremely heavy there. Pittsburgh was one of the centers to which the greatest number of negroes went. Before the migration, a considerable number of negroes were employed there. In 1900, the negro population of Allegheny county, in which Pittsburgh is situated, was 27,753. In 1910 it was 34,217. When the migration began, the county had about 38,000 negroes. Investigations and estimates indicate that, at the end of 1917, the negro population of the county had increased to almost 66,000. Epstein in his survey of The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh said:¹²⁷

From a canvass of twenty typical industries in the Pittsburgh district, it was found that there were 2,550 negroes employed in 1915, and 8,325 in 1917, an increase of 5,775 or 227 per cent. It was impossible to obtain labor data from more than approximately sixty per cent of the negro employing concerns, but it is fair to assume that the same ratio of increase holds true of the remaining forty per cent. On this basis the number of negroes now employed in the district may be placed at 14,000. This means that there are about 9,750 more negroes working in the district today than there were in 1915, an addition due to the migration from the South.

According to Epstein, the migration had been going on for little longer than one year. Ninety-three per cent of those who gave the time of residence in Pittsburgh had been there less than one year. More than eighty per cent of the single men interviewed had been there less than six months. In the number who had been there for the longest period, married men predominated, showing the tendency of this class to become permanent residents. This fact becoming evident, some industrial concerns bringing men from the South, having learned from bitter experience that the mere delivery of negroes from a southern city did not guarantee a sufficient supply of labor, made an effort to secure married men only, and even to investigate them prior to their coming. Differences in recruiting methods may also explain why some employers and labor agents hold a very optimistic view of the negro as a worker, while others despair of him. The reason why Pittsburgh has been unable to secure a stable labor force is doubtless realized by the local manufacturers. Married negroes come to the North to stay. They desire to have their families with them, and if they are not accompanied North by their wives and children they plan to have them follow at the earliest possible date.

It would appear that the stability of the labor supply depended to a very large extent upon the housing conditions. It was found that in many instances men who had families went to other cities where they hoped to find better accommodations. The Pittsburgh manufacturer will never keep an efficient labor supply of negroes until he learns to compete with the employers of other cities in a housing program as well as in wages. The negro migration in Pittsburgh, however, did not cause a displacement of white laborers. Every man was needed, as there were more jobs than men to fill them. Pittsburgh's industrial life was for a time dependent upon the negro labor supply, and the city has not received a sufficient supply of negroes, and certainly not so many as smaller industrial towns, although the railroads and a few of the industrial concerns of the locality have had labor agents in the South. Yet, in spite of the difficulties because of the obstructive tactics adopted in certain southern communities to prevent the negro exodus, they have nevertheless succeeded in bringing several thousand negroes into this district. "One company, for instance," says Epstein, "which imported about a thousand men within the past year, had only about three hundred of these working at the time of the investigator's visit in July, 1917. One railroad, which is said to have brought about fourteen thousand people to the North within the last twelve months, has been able to keep an average of only eighteen hundred at work." These companies, however, have failed to hold the newcomers.

The problems created by this sudden increase of Pittsburgh's population were very grave. In the early part of 1917, plans were formulated to make a social survey of the migrants in Pittsburgh. Cooperating in this survey were the University of Pittsburgh, the Associated Charities, the Social Service Commission of the Churches of Christ and the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes. In March, 1917, the director of the Department of Public Health, instructed the sanitary inspectors to pay special attention to all premises occupied by the "newcomers." Another step in this direction was the establishment in that city of a branch of the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes.

A survey made in 1917 showed that the housing situation was the most serious aspect of the migrants' social problems, and that in order to have improvements in other lines housing conditions must be made better. Because of the high cost of materials and labor incident to the war, because the taxation system still does not encourage improvements and because of investment attractions other than in realty, few houses had been built and practically no improvements had been made. This was most strikingly apparent in the poorer sections of the city. In the negro sections, for instance, there had been almost no houses added and few vacated by whites within the previous two years. The addition, therefore, of thousands of negroes just arrived from southern States meant not only the creation of new negro quarters and the dispersion of negroes throughout the city, but also the utmost utilization of every place in the negro sections capable of being transformed into habitations. Attics and cellars, storerooms and basements, churches, sheds and warehouses had to be employed for the accommodation of these newcomers. Whenever a negro had space which he could possibly spare, it was converted into a sleeping place; as many beds as possible were crowded into it, and the maximum number of men per bed were lodged. Either because their own rents were high or because they were unable to withstand the temptation of the sudden, and, for all they knew, temporary harvest, or perhaps because of the altruistic desire to assist their race fellows, a majority of the negroes in Pittsburgh converted their homes into lodging houses.

Because rooms were hard to come by the lodgers were not disposed to complain about the living conditions or the prices charged. They were only too glad to secure a place where they could share a half or at least a part of an unclaimed bed. It was no easy task to find room for a family, as most boarding houses would accept only single men, and refused to admit women and children. Many a man, who with his family occupied only one or two rooms, made place for a friend or former townsman and his family. In many instances this was done from unselfish motives and in a humane spirit.¹²⁸

How the negroes are employed will throw more light on their situation. The Epstein investigation showed that

Ninety-five per cent of the migrants who stated their occupations were doing unskilled labor, in the steel mills, the building trades, on the railroads, or acting as servants, porters, janitors, cooks and cleaners. Only twenty, or four per cent out of 493 migrants whose occupations were ascertained, were doing what may be called semiskilled or skilled work, as puddlers, mold-setters, painters and carpenters. On the other hand, in the South 59 out of 529 claimed to have been engaged in skilled labor, while a large number were rural workers.

The following table shows the occupations of migrants in Pittsburgh as compared with statements of occupations in the South:

It seems clear that most of the migrants were engaged in unskilled labor. The reason given by the manufacturers in accounting for this disparity were that the migrants are inefficient and unstable, and that the opposition to them on the part of the white labor prohibits their use on skilled jobs.¹²⁹ Ninety-five per cent of the negro workers in the steel mills were unskilled laborers. "In the bigger plants," says the investigator, "where many hundreds of negroes are employed, almost one hundred per cent are doing common labor, while in the smaller plants, a few might be found doing labor which required some skill." Epstein believes that this idea is often due to the prejudice of the heads of departments and other labor employers. A sympathetic superintendent of one of the large steel plants said that in many instances it was the superintendents and managers themselves who are not alive to their own advantage, and so oppose the negroes in doing the better classes of work. The same superintendent said that he had employed negroes for many years; that a number of them had been connected with his company for several years; that they are just as efficient as the white people. More than half of the twenty-five negroes in his plant were doing semiskilled and even skilled work. He had one or two negro foremen over negro gangs, and cited an instance of a black man drawing $114 in his last two weeks' pay. This claim was supported by a very intelligent negro who was stopped a few blocks away from the plant and questioned as to the conditions there. While admitting everything that the superintendent said, and stating that there is now absolute free opportunity for negroes in that plant, the man asserted that these conditions have obtained within the last year.¹³⁰

It was found that in the Pittsburgh district the great mass of workers get higher wages than in the places from which they come. Fifty-six per cent received less than $2 a day in the South, while only five per cent received such wages in Pittsburgh. However, the number of those who said they received high wages in the South is greater than the number of those receiving them there. Fifteen per cent said they received more than $3.60 a day at home, while only five per cent said they received more than that rate for twelve hours' work there. Sixty-seven per cent of the 453 persons stating their earnings here, earn less than $3 a day. Twenty-eight per cent earn from $3 to $3.60 a day, while only five per cent earn more than $3.60 a day. The average working day for both Pittsburgh and the South is ten and four-tenths hours. The average wage is $2.85 here; in the South it amounted to $2.15. It may be interesting to point out that the number of married men who work longer hours and receive more money is proportionately greater than that of the single men, who have not "given hostage to fortune."

Judging from what has been said about the habits of living among the negro migrants in Pittsburgh, they are of the best class of their race. Chief among those to be mentioned is their tendency to abstain from the use of intoxicants although it has often been said that the cause of the migration from the South was due to the desire of negroes in prohibition States to go where they may make free use of whisky. In this city it was observed that out of 470 persons who answered questions with reference to whether or not they imbibed only 210 of them said that they drank, while 267 made no use of intoxicants at all. It was also observed that among those who have families, the percentage of those addicted to drink is much smaller than that of others who are single or left their families in the South. This, no doubt, accounts for the orderly conduct of these negroes who, according to statistics, have not experienced a wave of crime. The records of the courts show numerous small offenses charged to the account of negroes, but these usually result from temptations and snares set by institutions of vice which are winked at by the community.

These negroes, on the whole, are thrifty and will eventually attach themselves permanently to the community through the acquisition of desirable property and elevation to positions of trust in the industries where they are employed. Evidences of the lazy and shiftless and the immoral are not frequent, because of a sort of spirit of thrift pervading the whole group. Many of the families have savings accounts in banks, and practically all of the married men separated from their families in the South send a large portion of their earnings from time to time. Money order receipts and stubs of checks examined show that these remittances to distant families range from between $5 to $10 a week. Others have seen fit to divert their income to objects more enterprising. They are educating their children, purchasing homes and establishing businesses to minister to the needs of their own peculiar group.

In view of the desirability of most migrants in this city, several persons have seen fit to make a comparison of the negro and foreign labor, with a view to determining whether or not the employment of negroes in the North will be permanent, as they may easily be displaced by the foreigners immigrating into this country in the future. The consensus of opinion is that the blacks are profitable laborers, but that their efficiency must be decidedly increased to compete with that of the white workers. Some of the faults observed are that they are as yet unadapted to the "heavy and pace-set labor in the steel mills." Accustomed to the comparatively easy going plantation and farm work of the South, it will take some time for these migrants to find themselves. "They can not even be persuaded to wait until pay day, and they like to get money in advance, following the habit that they acquired from the southern credit system. It is often secured on very flimsy pretexts and spent immediately in the saloons and similar places." Yet the very persons who make this estimate of the negro laborer say that the negroes born in the North or who have been in the North some time are as efficient as the whites, and that because of their knowledge of the language and the ways of this country, they are often much better than the foreign laborers who understand neither.

The principal industrial centers in Ohio to which the migrants went were Cincinnati, Middletown, Akron, Dayton, Springfield, Youngstown, Columbus and Cleveland. The city which took the lead in endeavoring to handle the migration problem was Cleveland. This was due to a considerable extent to the fact that the housing conditions in Cleveland were especially bad. Investigations made in the summer of 1917 by the Chamber of Commerce showed that housing conditions never were so in need of remedying as they were at that time. The influx of negroes, thousands of whom were living in box cars on railway sidings, was only one feature of the problem, investigators say. In nearly every part of the city, and especially in the vicinity of large manufacturing plants, workers are herded together, paying as much as $8 a week for a single room for a whole family.¹³¹

The Cleveland Welfare Federation appointed a committee composed of representatives of both races, to study problems made acute in Cleveland by the recent incoming of probably 10,000 negroes from the South. At the first meeting of this committee, August 3, 1917, the city welfare department announced that 61 per cent of the men in the workhouse at Warrensville were negroes and that of 100 women 66 were negroes. The normal proportion of negroes in the workhouse before the migration began was about 10 per cent, he said. This had mounted rapidly in the last year. It was brought out that the cause of this increase lay in housing congestion, lack of opportunities for recreation and because negro migrants are ignorant of the city's customs, laws and ordinances. A subcommittee was therefore appointed to look into this matter, as well as into that of perils surrounding newly arrived negro girls. A subcommittee was also appointed to study housing congestion and health problems. The secretary of the Cleveland Real Estate Board reiterated that there were 10,000 houses, renting at $25 and under, needed at the present time for both negro and white residents, and that, owing to labor difficulties and the high price of building materials, very little had been done to relieve the situation. He stated that a partial solution could be found in inducing both negro and white people who could afford to build or buy houses to do so, and thus free more houses for those who can not afford to buy them. It was asserted that unless something should be done before cold weather the housing problem would become acute.¹³² To assist in meeting the house shortage a group of prominent negroes organized "The Realty Housing and Investment Company."¹³³

The negro churches and other organizations cooperated in the effort to solve the problem of caring for the newly arrived negroes. In December, 1917, all the organizations and agencies working to aid the migrants were united in the Negro Welfare Association of Cleveland.¹³⁴ William R. Connors, a negro social worker, was employed as executive secretary of the new organization, beginning January 1, and offices were opened in the Phyllis Wheatley Association Building at East 40th Street and Central Avenue. The budget for the first year was estimated at about $5,000.

The organization acted as a clearing house for all the problems confronting the negro people there and cooperated with other agencies in the following activities: relief work, nursing service, legal aid, employment, promoting thrift, providing recreation through the public schools and otherwise, studying the delinquency problem, caring for discharged prisoners in cooperation with the workhouse and promoting community singing. It investigated the social conditions among negroes, with a view to establishing those agencies which are needed, or to point out the needs to the organization already established. It endeavored to educate the negro public to a full appreciation of the possibilities of a definite social program and to its responsibility for seeing that it is carried out.

In June, 1916, a call was issued for a statewide conference of representative white and colored people to be held at the capital of the State, Columbus, on July 12, 1916, to take steps toward caring for the 100,000 negro migrants believed to have remained in Ohio. Among those who signed the call were J. Walter Wills, President of Cleveland Association of Colored Men; Reverend H.C. Bailey, President of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; W.S. Scarborough, President of Wilberforce University; Charles Johnson, Superintendent of Champion Chemical Company, Springfield, and Edward T. Banks, member of Charter Commission, Dayton.¹³⁵ The mayors of Ohio cities named delegates to the conference. At this conference the Ohio Federation for the Uplift of the Colored People was formed, and an extensive program designed to improve economic and social conditions was outlined. Branches of the Federation were soon established at Akron, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Piqua, Steubenville, Youngstown and other points.

Reports showing labor, housing, general welfare and health conditions among the negroes throughout the State were compiled and distributed broadcast. It was also decided to send lecturers through Ohio cities to visit negro centers for the purpose of instilling within the race a desire for better living conditions. A campaign was waged also to bring about greater censorship of motion pictures. Efforts were made to have the State Council of National Defense and the State and City Labor Bureaus actively interest themselves in the problem of negro employment.¹³⁶

The State of Ohio also undertook an investigation of the migration movement. Reports to the Ohio branch, Council of National Defense, indicated a very serious situation resulting from the exodus of negroes. An investigation at direction of Governor Cox was conducted by the Council and State Department, to get as much information as possible concerning the unprecedented migration. The first work was a study of health conditions in several cities by the State Department of Health, which took immediate steps to correct evils. The negroes who were coming into the State were being crowded into the negro sections of the various cities in such a way that the health of these communities, in many cases was being seriously threatened. The Council of National Defense asked the Ohio branch for information on the migration, particularly to learn if it had been artificially stimulated and accelerated by agencies that have paid so many dollars a head for every negro from the South.¹³⁷

Detroit, because of its importance as an industrial center, was one of the places to which the largest number of migrants to Michigan went. The negro population of the city in 1910 was 5,741. It is now estimated that the city has between 25,000 and 35,000 blacks, three-fourths or more of whom have come there during the past two years. As elsewhere, the majority of the negroes are in unskilled occupations. There is, however, a considerable number of skilled and semiskilled workers. Detroit was formerly a city where the negro was restricted to a very few lines of work.

The wartime pressing needs of the industrial enterprises have caused the barriers to be removed. The available evidence that Detroit has removed the barriers from the employment of negroes in many lines is considerable. There were calls for 336 truckers, 160 molders, 109 machinists, 45 core makers and for a number of other miscellaneous skilled and semiskilled men. Most of the women were wanted in domestic and personal service in private homes, but 32 calls came from a garment factory, 18 from a cigar factory and 19 for ushers in a theater.

Their wages were exceptionally high according to Dr. George E. Haynes' intensive study of the returns of 407 families. One received between $30 and $39 a month; three received between $40 and $49, six received between $60 and $69; 20 received between $70 and $79; 96 received between $80 and $89; 6 received between $90 and $99; 27 received between $100 and $119; 21 received between $120 and $129, and 4 received $140 or more a month. There was a man working at $6.30 a day. The number of days they were employed a month could not be ascertained. There were 161 men whose monthly wages were doubtful or unknown, two men were the owners of a business and five were unemployed. Of the 45 women who were the heads of families, 13 were doing day's work at $2 a day and one at $2.50 a day, but the number of days they were employed could not be ascertained and so the monthly wages could not be calculated. There were two women earning between $40 and $49 a month and three earning between $70 and $79 a month. The monthly wages of 26 were doubtful or unknown. "As far as these figures are typical of the wages of negro workmen in Detroit," says Dr. Haynes, "they show that the prevailing wages of the men are from about $70 to $119 a month; for, 159 of the 194 men whose wages were ascertained were receiving wages ranging between these amounts. The prevailing wage for women is about that of those doing day work, $2 a day."¹³⁸

In Detroit, as in other places, there is conflict of opinion as to the value of the negro as a laborer. The survey of the migrants there showed that there were diverse views about the suitability of negro labor. Mr. Charles M. Culver, General Manager of the Detroit Employers Association, thought some employers were highly pleased with negro workmen and some were not. He said:

There are two lines of adverse opinion about the negro as a workman; first, nine-tenths of the complaints of employers are that he is too slow. He does not make the speed that the routine of efficient industry demands. He is lacking in the regularity demanded by routine of industry day by day. Second, the negro has been observed to be disinclined to work out-of-doors when the cold weather comes. Employers have discussed this and have not found the negro satisfactory on this point. Unless the negroes overcome this practice employers will turn to other sources of supply when their present extreme needs are past. Employers must have a labor supply upon which they can depend at all seasons—laborers who will work out-of-doors winter as well as summer.