Chapter XIV: Public Opinion Regarding the Migration (1)

It was to be expected that a movement which so profoundly affected the social and economic life of the South would be widely discussed, and that the resulting discussions, wherein were set forth at length the views of whites and negroes, would throw much light upon the conditions existing prior to the movement. How the South viewed this taking away of a large part of her labor supply was stated in letters to the newspapers and in newspaper editorials. There were two views as to the effect of the migration on the South. One view held that the movement would benefit the South in that the negro population would be more evenly distributed over the entire country and as a result the race problem would be more truly national. The other view was that negro labor was a necessity for the South, and the drawing of a considerable part of this labor north was seriously detrimental to the South's economic interests.

The following are examples of expressions by those holding the view that the migration would benefit the South:

The New Orleans _Times Picayune_ said:

Despite the attitude of certain extreme papers of the North
that there was a broad conspiracy existing here to prevent
the negroes from leaving, the records show that many southern
papers and people welcomed the movement, believing that it
would have a beneficial effect on the South by removing the
negro majorities in many districts and in at least two
States, South Carolina and Mississippi. The problems of negro
majorities is rapidly working itself out. Louisiana, a State
in which the negro was more numerous a few decades ago, is
white today by several hundred thousand, and will have a
million more whites by the next census. South Carolina and
Mississippi expect to report white majorities in the next
ten years as they are drifting rapidly in that direction, and
negro emigration will help this condition along.

During the first months of this negro movement northward, a
number of South Carolina papers, led by the _Columbia State_,
instead of expressing apprehension over these departures,
showed satisfaction that the State was getting rid of its
excess of negroes. At the Southern Commercial Congress in
a session at Norfolk, Judge Francis D. Winston, of North
Carolina, expressed this same view of the situation in a
resolution which declares that: "The complete industrial,
intellectual and social development of the southern States
can be secured only when the negro becomes a part of the
citizenship of our sister States, and that we will encourage
all movements tending to an equitable distribution of our
negro population among the other States of the Union.

It is not likely that there will be any serious objection to
a declaration of this kind in favor of the more equitable
distribution of the negroes throughout the country as the
question involved can then be better handled. No encouragement
to the negroes to leave the South will be held out, but there
will be no effort made to keep the negroes from going beyond
explaining the situation to them.[156]

A comment of the _Nashville Banner_ was:

From a logical point of view that looks beyond immediate
emergencies, the southern whites should encourage negro
emigration to the North, not for the cynical motives that
impelled the late Hon. Jeff Davis while Governor of Arkansas
to pardon negro convicts on condition that they go to
Massachusetts to live, but to relieve the South of the entire
burden and all the brunt of the race problem, and make room
for and to create greater inducements for white immigration
that the South very much needs. Some thousands of negroes
going north every year and a corresponding number of whites
coming south would affect a distribution of the races that
would be in many ways beneficial and that at the very least
would take away from the race problem all sectional aspects,
which is and has always been the chief cause of sectional ill
feeling. And it would in the end give the South a homogeneous
citizenship.

The _Vicksburg Herald_[157] was of the opinion that:

Adjustments and compensation will, we have faith, come. The
northern drift as it continues, and carries thousands with it,
will lower negro congestion in certain sections of the South.
Such a change, restrained and graduated against violent
progression, promises ultimate benefit. In the South, the
effect of losing thousands of negroes from lands in southern
Mississippi is already ... producing a wholesome farm
diversification and economic stimulation. Then, too, a more
equitable distribution of the sons of Ham will teach the
Caucasians of the northern States that wherever there is a
negro infusion, there will be a race problem--a white man's
burden--which they are destined to share.

Among those holding the view that the South needed the negro was the _Memphis Commercial Appeal_.[158] Concerning this an editorial in this paper said that not only does the South need the negro, but that he should be encouraged to stay.

The enormous demand for labor and the changing conditions
brought about by the boll weevil in certain parts of the South
have caused an exodus of negroes which may be serious. Great
colonies of negroes have gone north to work in factories, in
packing houses and on the railroads.

Some of our friends think that these negroes are being taken
north for the purpose of voting them in November. Such is
not the case. The restriction of immigration because of the
European war and the tremendous manufacturing and industrial
activity in the North have resulted in a scarcity of labor.
The negro is a good track hand. He is also a good man around
packing houses, and in certain elementary trades he is useful.

The South needs every able-bodied negro that is now south of
the line, and every negro who remains south of the line will
in the end do better than he will do in the North.

The negro has been a tremendous factor in the development
of agriculture and all the commerce of the South. But in the
meantime, if we are to keep him here, and if we are to have
the best use of his business capacity, there is a certain duty
that the white man himself must discharge in his relation to
the negro.

The business of lynching negroes is bad, and we believe it
is declining, but the worst thing is that the wrong negro is
often lynched. The negro should be protected in all his legal
rights. Furthermore, in some communities, some white people
make money at the expense of the negro's lack of intelligence.
Unfair dealing with the negro is not a custom in the South.
It is not the rule, but here and there the taking of enormous
profits from the labor of the negro is known to exist.

It should be so arranged that the negro in the city does not
have to raise his children in the alleys and in the streets.
Liquor in the cities has been a great curse to negroes.
Millions of dollars have been made by no account white people
selling no account liquor to negroes and thus making a whole
lot of negroes no account. Happily this business is being
extinguished.

The negroes who are in the South should be encouraged to
remain there, and those white people who are in the boll
weevil territory should make every sacrifice to keep their
negro labor until there can be adjustments to the new and
quickly prosperous conditions that will later exist.

Among those holding the same view that the South needed the negro was the _Georgia Enquirer Sun_ of Columbus, Georgia.[159] An editorial in this paper said that not only does the South need the negro but that he should be encouraged to stay.

The _Enquirer Sun_ further emphasized the fact that the South needs the negro:

With the certainty that a number will differ with us, we state
that the negro is an economic necessity to the South. Our
plantations are large, our climate is peculiar, and we
ourselves are not accustomed to doing the work that we ask
the negro to do. Serious labor conditions have confronted us
before, and it is exceedingly rare to find the native land
owning white farmer, who has been accustomed to employ negro
labor, taking the negro's place when the negro leaves his
neighborhood. The same conditions exist in the industries
where we of the South have been depending upon the negroes as
artisans in our industries or mines.

The South has refused to accept immigration as a means of
supplying our demands for labor. The farmers stand up and howl
about preserving the pure blood of the South and invent all
sorts of reasons for prohibiting the immigration of the same
classes of people who have been making the North and East rich
for years; the same classes that build the eighth wonder of
the world--the Middle West. Now, if we are going to prohibit
immigration, we must consider the economic status sufficiently
seriously to preserve the only reliable supply of labor which
we have ever known. That is the negro. We should ponder over
the situation seriously and not put off until tomorrow its
consideration, because this movement is growing every day.
We should exercise our influence with our landlords and our
merchants to see that a fairer division of profit is made with
the negro and should watch the prices charged him as well as
the interest charged him. We should see that the industries
offer and pay to him a full and fair wage for his labor which
will compare favorably with the wages offered in the East.
We should see to it that the police in our towns, cities and
counties cease making distinction between the negro and the
white man when the negro is not absolutely known to be a
criminal. When we do these things, we will keep our labor and
we need to keep it.

In connection with the discussion of the need of the South for the negro, the duty of the South to the negro was pointed out. According to the _Columbia_ (S.C.) _State_:[160]

If the southern white people would have the negroes remain,
they must treat the negroes justly. If they refuse to do so
their hope of keeping negro labor is in the unwillingness of
the North to treat them justly, and we fear that this hope is
more substantial than the North likes to admit. Justice ought
to be cultivated everywhere for its own sake. Surely common
sense will dictate to the South that it ought to forestall the
disruption of our industrial establishment by causing negroes
to understand that they are safe where they are.

The Macon _Telegraph_ said of negro labor: "If we lose it, we
go bankrupt." Yet this same paper only a few months before
was advocating the sending of 100,000 negroes into Mexico
to conquer the "mongrel breed," and at the same time rid the
South of that many worthless negroes.

The black man has no quarrel with the Mexican, but, on the
other hand, he certainly has a disagreement with conditions as
they affect him in the South, and, when he desires to improve
those conditions by getting away from them, he must be
checked. Plenty of "sound advice" is given him about staying
in the South among his friends and under the same old
conditions. The bugaboo of cold weather is put before him to
frighten him, of race antagonism and sundry other things, but
not one word about better treatment is suggested to lighten
the burden, no sane and reasonable remedy offered.

The black labor is the best labor the South can get, no
other would work long under the same conditions. It has
been faithful and loyal, but that loyalty can be undermined,
witness the exodus.

A letter published in the Montgomery _Advertiser_[161] truly says:

And the negro will not come back once he leaves the South.

The World War is bringing many changes and a chance for the
negro to enter broader fields. With the "tempting bait"
of higher wages, shorter hours, better schools and better
treatment, all the preachments of the so-called race leaders
will fall on deaf ears.

It is probable that the "well informed negro," who told the
Birmingham editor that it was good schools that were drawing
the negro, could have given other and more potent reasons had
he been so minded. He could have told how deep down in the
negro's heart he has no love for proscription, segregation,
lynchings, the petty persecutions and cruelties against him,
nor for the arresting of "fifty niggers for what three of 'em
done," even if it takes all of this to uphold the scheme of
civilization.

From Savannah alone, three thousand negroes went, from sixteen
year old boys to men of sixty years. There must be something
radically wrong when aged negroes are willing to make the
change. There is greater unrest among negroes than those in
high places are aware.

Let the _Advertiser_ speak out in the same masterful way, with
the same punch and pep for a square deal for the negro, that
it does for democracy and the right for local self-government.

What was the attitude of the northern whites toward the migration? Although the North had been accustomed to the adding of a million foreigners annually to her population, these newcomers were white people and as such did not occasion the comment or create just the problems which a large influx of negroes created. The migration of the negro attracted a great deal of public attention. A wide and extended discussion of the movement was carried on through the press. The attitude which the white people assumed toward the migrants was expressed in this discussion.

The _New Republic_ of New York City[162] pointed out that the movement gave the negro a chance and that he, the South and the nation, would in the end, all be gainers.

When Austria found the Serbian reply inadmissible, the
American negro, who had never heard of Count Berchtold, and
did not care whether Bosnia belonged to Austria or Siam, got
his "chance." It was not the sort of chance that came to the
makers of munitions--a chance to make millions. It was merely
a widening of a very narrow foothold on life, a slightly
better opportunity to make his way in the industrial world of
America.

In the beginning such a migration of negroes would increase
the present race friction in the North. Within certain limits
a racial minority is unpopular directly in proportion to its
numbers. Only as it increases to the point where political
and economic power makes it formidable, does it overcome
opposition. The negro's competition for jobs and homes will
probably exacerbate relations. As the negroes increased in
numbers they would not only seek menial and unskilled work,
but also strive to enter skilled trades where they would meet
with antagonism of white workers. Moreover, the negroes would
be forced to seek homes in what are now regarded as "white"
neighborhoods, and a clamor would be raised at each new
extension of their dwelling area.

The antidote to persecution, however, is power, and if the
northern negroes are more numerous and more urgently needed
in our industrial life, they could protect themselves from the
worst forms of discrimination. If by 1930 the negro population
of the North has become three millions, instead of the
fraction over one million which it is today, and if these
three millions live better and save and spend more per capita
than today, they will profit more than they will lose from
their greater numbers. Their custom will be more valuable,
their political power greater and, as wage earners, they will
be strong enough to strike. Once they have completely filled
a new neighborhood, opposition will cease. Moreover, the
industrial competition with white workmen, while severe at
certain crucial points, should not permanently be dangerous,
since the very conditions which bring the negro north also
make for higher wages for the white workers. What the white
wage earner desires is not an industrial exploitation of the
negro, but the maintenance of the white man's superiority of
position.

For the nation as a whole, such a gradual dissemination of
the negroes among all the States would ultimately be of real
advantage. If at the end of half a century, only 50 or 60 per
cent, instead of 89 per cent of the negroes, were congregated
in the southern States, it would end the fear of race
domination, and take from the South many of its peculiar
characteristics, which today hamper development. To the negro
it would be of even more obvious benefit. The race would be
far better educated, considerably richer, and with greater
political power. Success for the negroes of the North would
mean better conditions for southern negroes. For if the
southern negro, finding political and social conditions
intolerable, were able to emigrate to the North, he would have
in his hand a weapon as effective as any he could find in the
ballot box.

The Oshkosh, Wisconsin, _Daily Northwestern_ felt that a large influx of colored people would bring to the North the same perplexing problems that long have disturbed the people of the southern States.

This, in fact, is the most serious aspect of this reported
migration of southern blacks, and it is suggestive of no end
of trouble for some of the northern States, which heretofore
have regarded the so-called negro problem as something which
little concerns them. The South has struggled for years to
solve this problem, with its many phases and angles, and
never yet has found a satisfactory solution. Should the same
baffling questions be forced on the North it would give the
people something to think about, and many will gain a new
appreciation of the perplexities of the southern whites. And
the necessity of facing this new problem may come to the North
much sooner than generally is expected.

The Springfield, Massachusetts, _Union_[163] was also of the opinion that:

The North has been strong for the negro, considered as a
political entity, but our communities are manifestly not
desirous of supplying a field for him to expand and adapt
himself to the social structure, and their leaders experience
more difficulty in this regard than do their co-laborers in
the South, with its vast colored population. This in itself
furnished food for careful thought.

In a way, there is justification for a disinclination on the
part of New Englanders to add a large negro element to their
number. We have enough of a problem already to absorb and
educate the large alien element that has come into our midst
from the Old World. Our duty toward our colored residents
should not go unrecognized, and the first step toward a just
and fair disposal of related problems is to admit frankly that
a rather strict color line is being drawn among us.

The Beloit, Wisconsin, _News_[164] held that the migration had brought the negro problem north and made it national:

The negro problem has moved north. Rather, the negro problem
has spread from south to north; and beside it in the South is
appearing a stranger to that clime--the labor problem.

It's a double development brought about by the war in Europe,
and the nation has not yet realized its significance. Within
a few years, experts predict the negro population of the North
will be tripled. It's your problem, then, or it will be when
the negro moves next door.

Italians and Greeks are giving way to the negroes in the
section gangs along northern railroads, as you can see from
the train windows, and as labor agents admit. Northern cities
that had only small colored populations are finding their
"white" sections invaded by negro families, strangers to the
town. Many cities are in for the experience that has befallen
all communities on the edge of the North and South--gradual
encroachment of colored folks on territory occupied by whites;
depreciation in realty values and lowering of rents, and
finally, moving of the white families to other sections,
leaving the districts in possession of colored families with a
small sprinkling of whites.

This means racial resentment--for the white family that moves
to escape negro proximity always carries, justly or not, a
prejudice against the black race. It hits your pocket too.

Negroes will enter trades now monopolized by white men,
at first, perhaps, as strike breakers; later, as non-union
competitors, working for smaller wages. It will take some
time, probably, to get them into the labor unions' way of
thinking.

Politicians, both good and bad, will seek the ballot of a
large new element, which will vote largely in the lump. Now,
what will be the effect in the southern States? Already the
offers of better jobs further north have caused strikes among
southern negroes--something almost unheard of. The South gets
no immigration, but the negro has been an ever present
source of cheap labor. With the black tide setting north, the
southern negro, formerly a docile tool, is demanding better
pay, better food and better treatment. And no longer can the
South refuse to give it to him. For when the South refuses the
negro moves away. It's a national problem now, instead of a
sectional problem. And it has got to be solved.

The _New York Globe_[165] said that:

For more than a year a migration of men and women of color to
northern States has been going on that has already deprived
thousands of southern farmers of cheap labor. And the movement
bids fair to continue. That it will have both good and bad
effects is obvious. It will distribute the negro population
more evenly throughout the States and thus tend to diminish
race friction. But unless there is a change of spirit on the
part of northern unions, it will increase the danger of labor
troubles in case of industrial depression.

The Pittsburgh _Dispatch_[166] held that the migration was helping the negro. It was of the opinion that:

This movement eastward and westward of unskilled negro labor
will both directly and indirectly help the negro. The younger
element, those of ambition and of some training in the
schools, will be constantly emerging from unskilled to the
semiskilled classes, with a consequent increase in their pay
rolls and a betterment in their methods of living.

A decidedly better treatment of the negro, both in the North
and the South, will grow out of the fact that the demand for
his labor has been limited and the supply unlimited.

In the spring of 1918 the Walla Walla, Washington, _Bulletin_[167] summed up the situation thus:

There was much alarm a year or two ago over the migration of
negroes to the North in large numbers. It was felt that they
had far better stay in the South, in a familiar and congenial
environment, and keep on raising cotton and food, than crowd
into the inhospitable North for unaccustomed factory work. We
have heard less of that lately; it is still doubtful whether
the change is good for the negro himself, and there's no
question that his coming has complicated housing conditions
and social problems in northern cities. But economically the
matter appears in a new light. At a time when war industries
were starving for labor, the negro provided the labor. He is
recognized as a new industrial asset.

The migration has been unfortunate, to be sure, for the
communities thus deprived of agricultural labor; but it is
said that from a broad, national standpoint the gain to the
manufacturing industries more than compensates. And there has
been an actual increase in the output of energy. The negro
works harder in the North. He produces more. He is thus of
more use to the community. And for the benefit he brings,
communities are more willing than they were at first to
tolerate the inconvenience due to his coming.

Some of the negro newspapers opposed the migration. Prominent among these was the _Journal and Guide_ of Norfolk, Virginia, and the _Voice of the People_ of Birmingham, Alabama. In speaking against the migration, the _Journal and Guide_[168] said:

It is difficult, if not impossible, to check the operation of
an economic law, and it is perfectly natural that men should
seek fields of labor in which they are promised higher
wages and better conditions, but those who go and those
who encourage the going of them should get the facts of the
so-called inducements and learn the truth about them before
lending their influence to a movement that can not only
promise no permanent good to laborers, but works untold injury
to the foundation of their own economic structure.

Another phase of the matter, and one that invites the
condemnation of all honest persons, is the manner in which
negro labor is at present exploited to satisfy the selfish
whims of a group of misguided and ill-advised agitators and
fanatics on the race question. All of the nice talk about
"fleeing from southern oppression," and going where "equal
rights and social privileges" await them is pure buncombe. It
is strange that negro labor should stand the oppression of the
South for fifty years and suddenly make up its mind to move
northward as an evidence of its resentment.

The truth of the matter is that the element of negroes in the
South that feel the oppression most is not concerned in the
migration movement. Nor are they going to leave their homes
and accumulations of half a century as a solution of their
problems. They are going to remain here and fight out their
constitutional rights accorded them here in the land of their
birth.

The editor of _The Star of Zion_, Charlotte, North Carolina,[169] conceded the right of the negro to go wherever he had opportunity to go; on the other hand, it was doubtful whether a wholesale exodus was for the best. He said:

While I concede the black man's right to go where he likes,
for he has the right of liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
yet I doubt the wisdom of such wholesale exodus from the
South. There are some things which the negro needs far more
than his wages, or some of the rights for which he contends.
He needs conservation of his moral life.

In the North a negro is brought face to face with new
problems; among the many is the problem of adjusting himself
to the abundance of freedom into which he comes so suddenly.
His new freedom brings him new changes, as well as new
opportunities, for among the roses there lies the thorn....
While the inducements of the North are very alluring, in the
end the negro problem must be wrought out in the South.

Concerning the _Journal and Guide's_ position, the Raleigh, North Carolina, _Independent_[170] took issue and said:

Our disagreement with our estimable contemporary, the Norfolk
_Journal and Guide_, we are persuaded, is far less real than
seeming. Essentially we are in accord. We are certain that the
_Journal and Guide_ is not advocating the limitation of the
negro to any one section of the country. If the exigencies
of the present war have created a demand for his labor in the
North at better wages than he can secure in the South like
other people, he should take advantage of it and plant himself
firmly in the industrial life of the section.

There are two ways by which we may improve our condition in
this country. The one is segregation--voluntary segregation.
The other is "scatteration." If we can come together, build
up communities of our own, promote them into towns and even
cities, we shall do well. If, on the other hand, we shall
scatter all over the land and have nowhere a numerical
congestion, we strengthen our cause.

The _Dallas_ (Texas) _Express_[171] said:

The strangest thing, the real mystery about the exodus, is
that in all the Southland there has not been a single meeting
or promoter to start the migration. Just simultaneously all
over the South about a year ago, the negro began to cross the
Mason and Dixon line. Indeed, this is a most striking case
where the negro has been doing a great deal more thinking than
talking, knowing he is not given the freedom of speech. Who
knows, then, what the providence of God is in this exodus.
This exodus is not by any means confined to the worthless or
the ignorant negro. A large per cent of the young negroes
in this exodus are rather intelligent. Many of the business
houses in Houston, Dallas and Galveston, where the exodus is
greatest in Texas, have lost some of their best help. To tell
the truth more fully, the negroes generally throughout the
South are more dissatisfied with conditions than they have
been for several years and there are just reasons why they
should be. Every negro newspaper and publication in this broad
land, including pamphlets and books, and the intelligent negro
pastor with backbone and courage are constantly protesting
against the injustices done the negro. And possibly these
agents have been the greatest incentives to help create and
crystallize this unrest and migration.

How the negro should be treated and what would hold him in the South was discussed at length and on many occasions in the columns of the _Atlanta_ (Georgia) _Independent_.[172] An example of this discussion follows:

Last week we discussed at length the negro exodus. We tried to
point out in plain, simple and manly language the reason and
remedy for moving north. We warned our white neighbors that
city ordinances and legislation could not stem the tide;
that humane treatment would do more to settle the negro's
industrial and economic unrest than anything else; that the
South was his natural home and he desired to stay here; but in
order to keep him at home he must have contentment; he had to
be assured of protection of life and property; assured of
the enjoyment of public utilities; assured of educational
advantages, ample and adequate, to prepare his children for
useful and helpful citizenship; he must be permitted to serve
God unmolested and to assemble in the community where he
lives, in church, in society and politics; for his own moral,
intellectual and physical benefit he must be given living
wages and reminded in his daily dealings with his white
neighbor that he is a citizen, not a negro, and that he is
charged with responsibilities like other citizens. The negro
is conscious of his racial identity and not ashamed of it. He
is proud of his race and his color, but does not like to have
the word "negro" define his relation as a citizen. The white
man should understand that the negro is making progress;
that he is getting property and education; that his wants are
increasing in common with the white man's wants and that he is
not going to be bottled up or hemmed up in any community, so
long as there is another community on the face of the earth
where he can breathe freely and enjoy the pursuits of life,
liberty and happiness in common with other men.

_The Christian Index_[173] the official organ of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, published at Jackson, Tennessee, was of the opinion that:

There are two sets of causes for the negro leaving the South
at this time. One set may be known as the surface causes and
the other set beneath-the-surface causes. The surface causes
are easily seen and understood. These are economic causes. The
war in Europe has called home foreigners out of the industrial
centers of the North and West. These large factories and other
industrial enterprises, representing enormous investments,
had to turn in some other direction for labor. These large
industrial opportunities with higher wages made strong appeals
to the southern negro.

The beneath-the-surface causes are to be found in the
handicaps under which the negro labors in the South and
the uncivilized treatment to which he is subjected. He is
segregated. To this he most strenuously objects. There is a
difference between segregation and separation, especially so
in the southern interpretation of segregation as observed
in the practice of the South in its enforcement of the idea.
Separation in matters social and religious is not necessarily
objectionable. Left alone each race group instinctively seeks
separation from other race groups. But segregation, as we
have it, means more than separation; it means inferiority and
humiliation. It means not only another section of the city for
the negro, but a section that is inferior in improvement
and protection; it means not only a different school, but an
inferior school both in building and equipment; it means not
only separate accommodations on the railroads, but deplorably
inferior accommodations; this, too, in the face of the fact
that the negro pays the same price that is paid by others.

Another cause is the code of laws, or rather the practice of
it, that gives more concern to the color of a man's skin than
to the merits of a case he may have in the courts of justice.
The negro is taught not to expect justice in the courts,
however industrious, honest, law abiding he may be, when his
lawful rights to liberty and protection are contested by a
white man. The negro suffers in the courts, not always because
he is guilty, not because he lacks character, but because his
skin, not his heart, is black.

What was the attitude of the northern negroes toward the migration? With some exceptions, negroes north assumed a friendly attitude toward the migrants. Many of these residents of the North were themselves but recently come from the South. The newcomers were looked upon as brethren, just coming into the "Promised Land." They were welcomed in the churches and otherwise made to feel at home. In some cities there were organizations of resident negroes to look after the welfare of the new arrivals. In the northern race newspapers, the attitude of the negro north was fully set forth, as the following extracts from the _New York News_[174] indicate:

We hail with no alarm whatever the influx of colored men
from the South. The colored people of the North will be
strengthened by the hard working, ambitious laborers added to
their numbers. The laboring conditions and life of the masses
of the colored people in the South will be made better and
brighter by their leaving.

Yet a heavy responsibility rests upon every colored leader,
moral and civic, in these northern States to take an especial
interest in their newly arriving brethren. You must teach
them not to take their liberty to be ladies and gentlemen for
license to degrade themselves and their race here. You must
urge them to avoid the deadly vice and wasting extravagance of
the unhealthy congested city. They should find their homes and
rear their families in the suburbs, where they can buy their
own homes and properly train their children in head, hand and
heart. Urge them to get steady work and settle down. Urge them
to become good citizens and better parents. Urge them to go to
church, to lead patient Christian lives and all will come out
well in the end.

The Philadelphia _Christian Recorder_[175] took the ground that:

1. The negro is an American. He speaks the language of the
country and is, therefore, superior to the foreigner in this
respect.

2. He knows the customs of the country and here again has the
advantage of the foreigner.

3. He is a peaceable worker and is glad to have an opportunity
to make good.

4. The negro is physically the equal and morally the superior
of the immigrant from Europe.

There are reasons why the negro should succeed in the North.
So we have no doubt that many will come.

Indeed, if a million negroes move north and west in the next
twelve months, it will be one of the greatest things for the
negro since the Emancipation Proclamation. And the movement of
a million negroes should not alarm anybody, especially when we
remember that a million immigrants were coming every year to
this country before the war.

Let the good work go on. Let every community in the North
organize to get jobs for our friends in the South. Let a
million come. In coming the negroes will get higher wages.

They will get first class schools, running nine months a
year--a thing worth leaving the South for, if there were no
other advantages.

They will have a chance in the courts. If they should happen
to have a difference with a white man, they will not take
their lives in their own hands by standing up for their side.

They will be able to defend their homes, their wives and
children in a way no negro can now protect them in the South.

They will have the right to vote. The foreigner must wait
seven years for this--the negro only one year. If a million
negroes come north, they will soon get sufficient political
power, which combined with their economic power will be able
to force the South to do some things she is now unwilling to
do.

With labor competition for the negro between North and
South with the North offering higher wages, better living
conditions, better education, protection and a vote, the South
must bestir herself if she would keep the best labor in the
world. And southern statesmen will see that the South must
cease to lynch, begin to educate and finally restore the
ballot.

"But," says an objector, "these negroes coming north will
increase prejudice." What if they do? Then the northern
negro will sympathize more with his southern brother. But
if prejudice increases, the negro has the ballot which is an
effective way to combat it. If a million negroes come here
we will have more negro businesses, better churches, more
professional men and real political power, and the negro in
the North will begin to get a social position not based on
mere charity.

What were the causes of migration? A very large part of the discussion of the movement was taken up with setting forth the causes. The Montgomery _Advertiser_ was of the opinion that the chief causes of the negro's leaving central Alabama were floods and the cotton boll weevil:

The negro from middle Alabama is going north because of
economic conditions which he can not help and which he can
not overcome. He is not being forced out by pressure from
the white race. The relations between the two races in this
section were never better; the negro is not subjected to
oppression or to any outbreaks of violence, which have induced
the negro to leave certain sections of the South.

The negro is going because he is the most unfortunate of the
victims of the combined disaster this year of the flood and
the boll weevil. There have been actual want and hunger among
some of the negroes on the plantations. The heads of negro
families have been without present resources and without
future prospects. The wise planter and farmer has said to his
negro employes and tenants:

"You have not made anything this year. I have not made
anything this year. But we will do our best and I will see
what resources I can get together to keep you until next year,
when we can all make a fresh start."

Another class of farmers, and we suspect that their number
is too large, has said, "You never made anything this year.
I never made anything this year. I can not afford to feed you
and your family until the beginning of the next crop year. You
must go out and shift for yourselves."

This cold blooded business view of the situation, we suspect,
has been the best assistance that the labor agent has
received. It is not difficult to know what a negro farm hand
will do when he and his family are facing hunger, when a
labor agent offers him a railroad ticket and a promise of two
dollars and a half a day in the industrial works of the North
and East.[176]

Lynching was one of the reasons most often given as a cause of the migration.

Current dispatches from Albany, Georgia, in the center of the
section apparently most affected, and where efforts are being
made to stop the exodus by spreading correct information among
the negroes, say:

"The heaviest migration of negroes has been from those
counties in which there have been the worst outbreaks against
negroes. It is developed by investigation that where there
have been lynchings, the negroes have been most eager to
believe what the emigration agents have told them of plots for
the removal or extermination of the race. Comparatively
few negroes have left Dougherty county, which is considered
significant in view of the fact that this is one of the
counties in southwest Georgia in which a lynching has never
occurred."

These statements are most significant. Mob law we have known
in Georgia has furnished emigration agents with all the
leverage they want; it is a foundation upon which it is easy
to build with a well conducted lie or two, and they have not
been slow to take advantage of it.

This loss of her best labor is another penalty Georgia is
paying for her indifference and inactivity in suppressing mob
law.

If Georgia is injured, agriculturally and industrially by the
negro exodus, the white people here have no one to blame but
themselves.

The indictment is true, every word of it. The appeal to
humanity, to fairness and justice and right, has been
apparently without effect. It is unfortunate for the people of
Georgia that an appeal to the pocketbook should be necessary
to bring back the enthronement of law, but if moral suasion is
powerless, the question of personal interest has entered and
in no uncertain degree.

The trouble incident to the migration of negroes from Georgia
and the South is exactly as stated.

There is no secret about what must be done, if Georgia
would save herself from threatened disaster, which, in some
sections, has already become serious.

In the first place, there must be no more mobs. Mobs and mob
spirit must be eliminated completely, so completely that there
will be no danger of recurrence. If a negro be charged with a
crime, even if it be known that he is guilty, he must be given
the same fair treatment before the law that is accorded the
white man. If anything, it would seem that ignorance and
childishness demand even more consideration than the crime
which lacks that excuse.

But more than that, we must be fair to the negro. There is no
use in beating about the bush; we have not shown that fairness
in the past, nor are we showing it today, either in justice
before the law, in facilities accorded for education or in
other directions. Argue it as you will, these things which we
have not done are the things which we must do, or Georgia will
suffer for it in proportion as she fails.[177]

In connection with lynchings there was the general fear of mob violence. This fear was taken advantage of by labor agents, as the following indicates:

We are astonished, too, to learn that one of the reasons for
this unrest among the negroes who were born and reared here is
fear that all negroes are to be run out of Georgia. This idea,
of course, has been planted in the minds of the simple minded
of the race by the crafty and unscrupulous labor agents who
have operated in almost every section of the State.

The negroes have this idea from the fact that there are
localities in the State right now where a negro can not live.
And we do not know of anybody that is doing anything to change
this condition.

Labor agents are doing their best to put the fear into the
hearts of the negroes in this State that they are going to be
run out by the white people, some of them even fixing the time
as next June; but this work began long before the negro exodus
north was thought of. The example of one county in north
Georgia, which ran every negro out, was followed by other
counties adjoining, and the general public has little idea
how widespread the contagion became--for lawlessness is nearly
always contagious.

If Georgia is injured, agriculturally and industrially, by the
negro exodus, the white people here have no one to blame but
themselves. They have allowed negroes to be lynched, five at
a time, on nothing stronger than suspicion; they have allowed
whole sections to be depopulated of them; they have allowed
them to be whitecapped and whipped, and their homes burned,
with only the weakest and most spasmodic efforts to apprehend
or punish those guilty--when any efforts were made at all.

Has not the negro been given the strongest proof that he
has no assured right to live, to own property nor to expect
justice in Georgia?

When the negro is gone, his loss will be felt in every large
agricultural section and every industrial community of the
South. For the average white man can not do the heavier work
at the sawmills, naval stores plants and in many lines
of manufacture, that is now being done by the negro. As a
consequence, these plants and many large plantations must
stand idle or import a class of white labor that will be a
great deal worse than the black. Confronted with cheap
white labor, and white men of a race of which they have no
understanding--then will the South have its labor problems.

But at present, it seems, little can be done. Unless southern
white people who have their all invested in agriculture or
manufacturing take care of their own interest by seeing that
the negro gets justice when suspected and a fair trial when
accused, and assured that so long as he behaves he will be
guaranteed safety of life and property, it is perhaps as well
to let the negro go. It will mean an industrial revolution
for the South, but the present condition of affairs has become
intolerable.[178]

The negroes of the South used both the white and negro newspapers of that section in carrying on the discussion of the migration movement. The substance of what the negroes said through the press was that, first of all, the negroes wanted to stay in the South and were going north not only because there they could secure better wages than were generally paid in the South, but also because they would, in the North, get protection and have privileges not accorded in the South. Concerning the negro wanting to stay in the South, it was pointed out that in the South he did have economic opportunity and received encouragement. "The truth is that the negroes who are leaving the South in large numbers, and others who are thinking of going, do not want to go. They prefer to remain here."[179]

It was pointed out that the passing of stringent labor laws would not stop the exodus. The negro could not be kept in the South by force.

Various communities [said a negro] are passing stringent
laws with the view of making the business of agents either
impracticable or impossible. This will ultimately have the
very opposite effect of what was intended. I am a negro and
know the deeper thoughts and feelings of my own people. I know
their yearnings and the religious zeal with which they look
forward to the future for better days, and to other climes
than this for better conditions.

Now to pass severe laws to block this movement will not only
be a waste of time, but the most unwise way of dealing with
the problem. The problem can not be solved from the angle of
force.

In order for the negro to be kept in the South he must be made
to see, to feel, that on the whole it will be better for him
to remain in the South than to migrate to the North. Stop
lynching. Teach us to love the South and be contented here by
ceasing to abridge us in such extremes in common rights and
citizenship.

Another method of helping to keep the negro in the South is
for the better class of whites to get hold of the negroes.
In a word, there should be cooperation between the races. The
negroes should be given better schools and the whites should
set before the negroes better examples of law and order. The
North is offering better homes, better schools and justice
before the law. The South can do the same.

"One of our grievances," said a negro correspondent of the _Chattanooga Times_,[180] "is that in colored localities we have very bad streets, no lights, no sewerage system, and sanitary conditions are necessarily bad. Give the negro the right kind of a show, living wages, consider him as a man, and he will be contented to remain here."

A good presentation of the negroes' side of the case is given in the following letter from a negro minister to the Montgomery _Advertiser_.[181] He wrote:

Why should the South raise such objections to the jobless
man seeking the manless job, especially when it has held
that jobless man up to the ridicule of the world as trifling,
shiftless and such a burden to the South? Now the opportunity
has come to the negro to relieve the South of some of its
burden, and at the same time advance his own interests, a
great hue and cry is started that it must not be allowed,
and the usual and foolish method of repressive legislation is
brought into play.

Addressing the editor of the _Advertiser_, another negro correspondent said:

I have read with profound interest the many articles published
in your paper upon the great negro exodus from the South.

The negro has remained in the South almost as a solid mass
since his emancipation. This in itself shows that he loves the
South, and if he is now migrating to the East, North and West
by the hundreds and thousands, there must be a cause for it.
We should do our best to find out these causes and at least
suggest the remedy.

The time has come for plain speaking on the part of all. It
will do us no good to try to hide the facts, because "truth
crushed to earth will rise again." In the first place,
the negro in this country is oppressed. This oppression is
greatest where the negro population is greatest. The negro
population happens to be greater in the South than in the
North, therefore, he is more oppressed in the South than in
the North.

Take the counties in our State. Some are known as white
counties and others as black counties. In the white counties
the negro is given better educational opportunities than in
the black counties. I have in mind one Black Belt county where
the white child is given $15 per year for his education and
the negro child only 30 cents a year. See the late Booker T.
Washington's article, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" Now
these facts are generally known throughout this State by both
white and black. And we all know that it is unjust. It is
oppression.

This oppression shows itself in many ways. Take for example
the railroads running through the rural sections of the South.
There are many flag stations where hundreds of our people get
off and on the train. The railroads have little stops at the
platform about six feet square; only one coach stops at this
point; the negro women, girls and boys are compelled to get
off and on the train sometimes in water and in the ditches
because there are no provisions made for them otherwise.

Again take the matter of the franchise. We all agree that
ignorant negroes should not be intrusted with this power, but
we all feel that where a negro has been smart and industrious
in getting an education and property and pays his taxes, he
should be represented. Taxation without representation is just
as unjust today as it was in 1776. It is just as unfair for
the negro as it is to the white man, and we all, both white
and black, know this. We may shut our eyes to this great
truth, as sometimes we do, but it is unjust just the same.

Take the matter of the courts. There is no justice unless the
negro has a case against another negro. When he has a case
against a white man, you can tell what the decision will be
just as soon as you know the nature of the case, unless some
strong white man will come to the negro's rescue. This, too,
is generally known and the negro does not expect justice.