Labor through its Negro Workers' Advisory Committees and through its state supervisors of Negro Economics appointed by the Department? In Florida, in Mississippi, in Georgia in North Carolina and in Virginia these committees, made up of representative Negro citizens and representative white citizens, together with these supervisors, who are Negroes of ability, have been large factors in securing conferences of the races and frank discussion of local labor problems from the thinking people of both groups. In this way, more amicable adjustment of working and living conditions in the South is being promoted. Similar committees and officials have been appointed in five northern states.

It should be emphasized, that although these efforts to adjust relations of white employers and Negro wage-earners in the South during the unusual war conditions have been largely experimental, the experiment has been successful beyond the most sanguine expectations. The experiment, North and South, has established beyond question the practical value of the plan by which representatives of Negro wage-earners meet representatives of white employers in committees and conferences. It has demonstrated that such committees and conferences can achieve substantial results in adjusting the local Negro labor problems, which changing conditions and relations have produced.

Let us turn, now, to the effect of war conditions on Negro labor through the gradually changing attitude of white wageearners. This part of the question is largely to the forefront in the North. In many of the war industries, there was such a demand for labor, both North and South, that large numbers of white workmen passed to the higher-paid occupation. As a consequence, Negroes were freely admitted to many of the occupations formerly monopolized by white workers and from which Negroes were previously excluded. With the demand for labor so much greater than the supply, the fear of white workmen that Negroes would be their competitors at a lower wage was greatly lessened in many semi-skilled and skilled occupations.

It may be well to remember that this danger of paying Negroes lower wages exists not because Negroes want lower wages than other workers but because, as in the case of women

workers, there is a prevalent idea that Negro wage-earners should be paid less than white wage-earners for the same work. We have actually had governmental wage-fixing authorities to act upon this idea.

Those who accept this notion seem to overlook the fact that the Negro buys his bread, butter and beefsteak in the same market as other purchasers; that investigations have shown that he pays higher rent for similar houses, and that his clothing must be bought at current prices in about the same quantity as other workers. It would seem that the Negro is expected to produce from his dark skin some sort of alchemy which will transmute smaller pay than white workers receive into equal standards of food, shelter and clothing in spite of similar demands from grocer, landlord and clothier.

Some of the most striking evidence of the change in the attitude of white workmen is the growing recognition given Negro workmen by white labor unions. In many of the city centers where union organization is strong, the unions are opening their doors to Negro members. In such centers as Chicago and Cleveland Negroes are represented in labor locals and union councils. But there still remains considerable fear of competition in the future and this reacts in some occupations to keep up the hostility of white workers toward the Negro's entry into these fields. It is reasonable to conclude, however, that white wage-earners today look upon the entrance of Negroes into the higher grades of occupations with less opposition than existed before the war.

The contact in industry and in the community of the white and Negro working classes offers one of the most delicate and difficult problems of the changing order. It is here, also, that the experiment of the Department of Labor with its Negro Workers' Advisory Committees has pointed a significant way to secure the introduction of the Negro into industry by peaceful agreement and understanding of all whose interests are affected rather than by force and the confusion of misunderstanding. Already race disturbances in East St. Louis; Chester, Pa. and Philadelphia have called attention to the need of peaceful adjustment. The federal government as the best and most impartial agent may well come to the aid of citizens, white and black, in these local communities and help

adjust such racial labor problems before outbreaks occur rather than make investigations afterwards. Many private organizations such as were referred to a few minutes ago are eagerly doing their best. They are ready to join hands under government co-operation.

We come, now, to the third decided effect of war conditions upon Negro labor: namely, the effect upon the Negro himself. The first effect upon the Negro was to increase his mobility. Let me remind you that when the great war started not only did immigration from Europe practically cease, but thousands of the foreign born went home in response to the call of their countries' needs. Northern employers who had depended upon the immigrant for labor found their labor supply vanishing. At the same time their contracts for European war orders were increasing by leaps and bounds. The owners and operators of Northern mines, factories and railroads faced a serious labor shortage. They soon discovered an unworked labor supply in the Negroes of the South. Early in the spring of 1915, their agents began to comb the South seeking these workers.

Preceding the appearance of Northern labor agents in the South, floods and drouths, the spread of the boll weevil in the cotton states, the low price of cotton for several years preceding the war, lynchings and other racial friction, together with other unsatisfactory local conditions, had created economic and community situations that caused unusual restlessness in the Negro population. There was needed only the creation of such a labor vacuum in the North and the guiding hand of the labor agent to draw thousands of unskilled Negro workers, along with some of the skilled workers, into Northern industrial centers. It has been estimated that by January 1, 1918, between four hundred thousand and five hundred thousand Negroes had migrated north. The Department of Labor has now in the press a report on this migration. The larger part of the investigation was made by three Southern white men. And they attribute this movement to specific causes as outlined in this general statement just given.

This effect of war conditions on Negro labor not only increased its mobility by moving about a half million of Negroes from one section of the country to the other, but it also acceler

ated the constant, slower migration to Northern centers, a movement which has been going on for more than a generation. The change under war conditions did more than this. Not only did thousands move, but also there was created in the mind of Negro rural peasants and urban wage-earners a new consciousness of the fact that they have the liberty and the opportunity to move freely from place to place. The migration broke down much of their timidity. It gave the rank and file the belief that they could move to another part of the country and succeed in gaining a foothold in its industrial life and activity.

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The effects of the war changes went even further. The mind of the masses of the Negro people received the impression that all kinds and types of work might at some time be open to them; that they need not be content with clinging to poorer paid occupations but might aspire to those requiring greater efficiency and affording larger pay. And here let me emphasize what a change in Negro life this means. years past in New York and other cities Negro boys and girls dropped out of school in the lower grades because they repeatedly said there was no use in going any further, when a Negro could only get a menial job anyway and that they were already prepared for that. I sometimes surmise what the American public would do if in some way it could understand that North and South, on railroads, in factories, in erection of buildings and in government projects, thousands of workmen have been denied the fundamental opportunity of earning an honest living at jobs for which they were competent for no other reason than because they are Negroes. A prominent writer several years ago said Negroes could get any job under the sun. He overlooked the fact that today much of industry is carried on in the shade.

To sum up the point in a sentence, the migration of these thousands of Negro workers to the North and the consequent changes under war conditions brought consciously to their minds the fact that freedom for any one means liberty to move freely from place to place and opportunity to change his job when it is advantageous to do so.

In parenthesis, let me add that this new consciousness of liberty which is dawning upon the Negro people calls not only

for the best guidance their own leaders can give, but also for the sympathetic understanding of white Americans. Negroes are faced with the problem of walking the narrow path of liberty and of avoiding the precipice of license. To shake off the bondage of servility and to take on the restraints of civility is no easy task for any people.

Another effect of the war upon the Negro himself has been to open up a wider range of occupations, in the North especially. This might logically be discussed under the point of the relation of Negroes to white employers, but the result has been felt largely within the Negro group. Hence it is placed in this part of the discussion. This change has been more far-reaching than the most hopeful might have expected for the next twenty years.

In 1910 there were 5,192,535 Negroes of the nation gainfully employed. This was about one-half of the total Negro population. More than one-half of those gainfully employed were engaged in agriculture and nearly one-half of those in agriculture were only farm laborers. In manufacturing, in transportation and in trade occupations the large majority of Negroes, male and female, previous to the war had been given opportunity to work principally as laborers, porters and the like the poorer paid places. Furthermore, more than onefifth of the Negroes gainfully employed in 1910 were classified as engaged directly in domestic and personal service. In 1908-9 I made some studies of the Negro at work in New York and other northern cities. At that time probably more than 85 per cent of Negro women gainfully employed in northern centers and about 75 per cent of Negro men were engaged in domestic and personal services.

War conditions have made some changes. Just how great the changes have been we cannot tell before the census of 1920. But in some northern cities, the changes have been significant. In Detroit, Michigan, in 1914, for example, there were probably not a thousand Negroes in all the factories in that great automobile center. The latest report from Detroit about two months ago stated that probably between twelve and fifteen thousand are now engaged in the automobile industries of that city alone. In the steel districts of Pittsburgh, within twelve months, the number of Negro workers in the various plants