CHAPTER XVI.

THE CONTACT OF THE RACES.

47. Color Prejudice.—Incidentally throughout this study the prejudice against the Negro has been again and again mentioned. It is time now to reduce this somewhat indefinite term to something tangible. Everybody speaks of the matter, everybody knows that it exists, but in just what form it shows itself or how influential it is few agree. In the Negro's mind, color prejudice in Philadelphia is that widespread feeling of dislike for his blood, which keeps him and his children out of decent employment, from certain public conveniences and amusements, from hiring houses in many sections, and in general, from being recognized as a man. Negroes regard this prejudice as the chief cause of their present unfortunate condition. On the other hand most white people are quite unconscious of any such powerful and vindictive feeling; they regard color prejudice as the easily explicable feeling that intimate social intercourse with a lower race is not only undesirable but impracticable if our present standards of culture are to be maintained ; and although they are aware that some people feel the aversion more intensely than others, they cannot see how such a feeling has much influence on the real situation or alters the social condition of the mass of Negroes.

As a matter of fact, color prejudice in this city is something between these two extreme views: it is not to-day responsible for all, or perhaps the greater part of the Negro problems, or of the disabilities under which the race labors ; on the other hand it is a far more powerful social force than most Philadelphians realize. The practical results of the attitude of most of the inhabitants of Philadelphia toward persons of Negro descent are as follows:

1. As to getting work :

No matter how well trained a Negro may be, or how fitted for work of any kind, he cannot in the ordinary course of competition hope to be much more than a menial servant.

He cannot get clerical or supervisory work to do save in exceptional cases.

He cannot teach save in a few of the remaining Negro schools.

He cannot become a mechanic except for small transient jobs, and cannot join a trades union.

A Negro woman has but three careers open to her in this city: domestic service, sewing, or married life.

2. As to keeping work :

The Negro suffers in competition more severely than white men.

Change in fashion is causing him to be replaced by whites in the better paid positions of domestic service.

Whim and accident will cause him to lose a hard-earned place more quickly than the same things would affect a white man.

Being few in number compared with the whites the crime or carelessness of a few of his race is easily imputed to all, and the reputation of the good, industrious and reliable suffer thereby.

Because Negro workmen may not often work side by side with white workmen, the individual black workman is rated not by his own efficiency, but by the efficiency of a whole group of black fellow workmen which may often be low.

Because of these difficulties which virtually increase competition in his case, he is forced to take lower wages for the same work than white workmen.

3. As to entering new lines of work :

Men are used to seeing Negroes in inferior positions ; when, therefore, by any chance a Negro gets in a better position, most men immediately conclude that he is not fitted for it, even before he has a chance to show his fitness.

If, therefore, he set up a store, men will not patronize him.

If he is put into public position men will complain.

If he gain a position in the commercial world, men will quietly secure his dismissal or see that a white man succeeds him.

4. As to his expenditure :

The comparative smallness of the patronage of the Negro, and the dislike of other customers makes it usual to increase the charges or difficulties in certain directions in which a Negro must spend money.

He must pay more house-rent for worse houses than most white people pay.

He is sometimes liable to insult or reluctant service in some restaurants, hotels and stores, at public resorts, theatres and places of recreation ; and at nearly all barber shops.

5. As to his children :

The Negro finds it extremely difficult to rear children in such an atmosphere and not have them either cringing or impudent : if he impresses upon them patience with their lot, they may grow up satisfied with their condition; if he inspires them with ambition to rise, they may grow to despise their own people, hate the whites and become embittered with the world.

His children are discriminated against, often in public schools.

They are advised when seeking employment to become waiters and maids.

They are liable to species of insult and temptation peculiarly trying to children.

6. As to social intercourse :

In all walks of life the Negro is liable to meet some objection to his presence or some discourteous treatment; and the ties of friendship or memory seldom are strong enough to hold across the color line.

If an invitation is issued to the public for any occasion, the Negro can never know whether he would be welcomed or not; if he goes he is liable to have his feelings hurt and get into unpleasant altercation ; if he stays away, he is blamed for indifference.

If he meet a lifelong white friend on the street, he is in a dilemma ; if he does not greet the friend he is put down as boorish and impolite ; if he does greet the friend he is liable to be flatly snubbed.

If by chance he is introduced to a white woman or man, he expects to be ignored on the next meeting, and usually is.

White friends may call on him, but he is scarcely expected to call on them, save for strictly business matters.

If he gain the affections of a white woman and marry her he may invariably expect that slurs will be thrown on her reputation and on his, and that both his and her race will shun their company.¹

When he dies he cannot be buried beside white corpses.

7. The result:

Any one of these things happening now and then would not be remarkable or call for especial comment; but when one group of people suffer all these little differences of treatment and discriminations and insults continually, the result is either discouragement, or bitterness, or over-sensitiveness, or recklessness. And a people feeling thus cannot do their best.

Presumably the first impulse of the average Philadelphian would be emphatically to deny any such marked and blighting discrimination as the above against a group of citizens in this metropolis. Every one knows that in the past color prejudice in the city was deep and passionate; living men can remember when a Negro could not sit in a street car or walk many streets in peace. These times have passed, however, and many imagine that active discrimination against the Negro has passed with them. Careful inquiry will convince any such one of his error. To be sure a colored man to-day can walk the streets of Philadelphia without personal insult; he can go to theatres, parks and some places of amusement without meeting more than stares and discourtesy ; he can be accommodated at most hotels and restaurants, although his treatment in some would not be pleasant. All this is a vast advance and augurs much for the future. And yet all that has been said of the remaining discrimination is but too true.

During the investigation of 1896 there was collected a number of actual cases, which may illustrate the discriminations spoken of. So far as possible these have been sifted and only those which seem undoubtedly true have been selected.²

1. As to getting work.

It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the situation of the Negro in regard to work in the higher walks of life : the white boy may start in the lawyer's office and work himself into a lucrative practice; he may serve a physician as office boy or enter a hospital in a minor position, and have his talent alone between him and affluence and fame ; if he is bright in school, he may make his mark in a university, become a tutor with some time and much inspiration for study, and eventually fill a professor's chair. All these careers are at the very outset closed to the Negro on account of his color; what lawyer would give even a minor case to a Negro assistant? or what university would appoint a promising young Negro as tutor ? Thus the young white man starts in life knowing that within some limits and barring accidents, talent and application will tell. The young Negro starts knowing that on all sides his advance is made doubly difficult if not wholly shut off by his color. Let us come, however, to ordinary occupations which concern more nearly the mass of Negroes. Philadelphia is a great industrial and business centre, with thousands of foremen, managers and clerks—the lieutenants of industry who direct its progress. They are paid for thinking and for skill to direct, and naturally such positions are coveted because they are well paid, well thought-of and carry some authority. To such positions Negro boys and girls may not aspire no matter what their qualifications. Even as teachers and ordinary clerks and stenographers they find almost no openings. Let us note some actual instances:

A young woman who graduated with credit from the Girls'Normal School in 1892, has taught in the kindergarten, acted as substitute, and waited in vain for a permanent position. Once she was allowed to substitute in a school with white teachers ; the principal commended her work, but when the permanent appointment was made a white woman got it.

A girl who graduated from a Pennsylvania high school and from a business college sought work in the city as a stenographer and typewriter. A prominent lawyer undertook to find her a position ; he went to friends and said, “Here is a girl that does excellent work and is of good character ; can you not give her work?” Several immediately answered yes. “But,” said the lawyer, “I will be perfectly frank with you and tell you she is colored ;” and not in the whole city could he find a man willing to employ her. It happened, however, that the girl was so light in complexion that few not knowing would have suspected her descent. The lawyer therefore gave her temporary work in his own office until she found a position outside the city. “But,” said he, “to this day I have not dared to tell my clerks that they worked beside a Negress.” Another woman graduated from the high school and the Palmer College of Shorthand, but all over the city has met with nothing but refusal of work.

Several graduates in pharmacy have sought to get their three years required apprenticeship in the city and in only one case did one succeed, although they offered to work for nothing. One young pharmacist came from Massachusetts and for weeks sought in vain for work here at any price; “I wouldn't have a darky to clean out my store, much less to stand behind the counter,” answered one druggist. A colored man answered an advertisement for a clerk in the suburbs. “What do you suppose we'd want of a nigger?” was the plain answer. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in mechanical engineering, well recommended, obtained work in the city, through an advertisement, on account of his excellent record. He worked a few hours and then was discharged because he was found to be colored. He is now a waiter at the University Club, where his white fellow graduates dine.³ Another young man attended Spring Garden Institute and studied drawing for lithography. He had good references from the institute and elsewhere, but application at the five largest establishments in the city could secure him no work. A telegraph operator has hunted in vain for an opening, and two graduates of the Central High School have sunk to menial labor. “What's the use of an education?” asked one. Mr. A____has elsewhere been employed as a traveling salesman. He applied for a position here by letter and was told he could have one. When they saw him they had no work for him.

Such cases could be multiplied indefinitely. But that is not necessary; one has but to note that, notwithstanding the acknowledged ability of many colored men, the Negro is conspicuously absent from all places of honor, trust or emolument, ·as well as from those of respectable grade in commerce and industry.

Even in the world of skilled labor the Negro is largely excluded. Many would explain the absence of Negroes from higher vocations by saying that while a few may now and then be found competent, the great mass are not fitted for that sort of work and are destined for some time to form a laboring class. In the matter of the trades, however, there can be raised no serious question of ability ; for years the Negroes filled satisfactorily the trades of the city, and to-day in many parts of the South they are still prominent. And yet in Philadelphia a determined prejudice, aided by public opinion, has succeeded nearly in driving them from the field:

A____, who works at a bookbinding establishment on Front street, has learned to bind books and often does so for his friends. He is not allowed to work at the trade in the shop, however, but must remain a porter at a porter's wages.

B____is a brushmaker ; he has applied at several estab lishments, but they would not even examine his testi monials. They simply said : “We do not employ colored people.”

C____is a shoemaker ; he tried to get work in some of the large department stores. They “had no place” for him.

D____was a bricklayer, but experienced so much trouble in getting work that he is now a messenger.

E____is a painter, but has found it impossible to get work because he is colored.

F____is a telegraph line man, who formerly worked in Richmond, Va. When he applied here he was told that Negroes were not employed.

G____is an iron puddler, who belonged to a Pittsburg union. Here he was not recognized as a union man and could not get work except as a stevedore.

H____was a cooper, but could get no work after repeated trials, and is now a common laborer.

I____is a candy-maker, but has never been able to find employment in the city ; he is always told that the white help will not work with him.

J____is a carpenter ; he can only secure odd jobs or work where only Negroes are employed.

K____was an upholsterer, but could get no work save in the few colored shops, which had workmen; he is now a waiter on a dining car.

L____was a first-class baker; he applied for work some time ago near Green street and was told shortly, “We don't work no niggers here.”

M____is a good typesetter; he has not been allowed to join the union and has been refused work at eight different places in the city.

N____is a printer by trade, but can only find work as a porter.

O____is a sign-painter, but can get but little work.

P____is a painter and gets considerable work, but never with white workmen.

Q____is a good stationary engineer, but can find no employment; is at present a waiter in a private family.

R____was born in Jamaica ; he went to England and worked fifteen years in the Sir Edward Green Economizing Works in Wakefield, Yorkshire. During dull times he emigrated to America, bringing excellent references. He applied for a place as mechanic in nearly all the large iron working establishments in the city. A locomotive works assured him that his letters were all right, but that their men would not work with Negroes. At a manufactory of railway switches they told him they had no vacancy and he could call again ; he called and finally was frankly told that they could not employ Negroes. He applied twice to a foundry company: they told him: “We have use for only one Negro—a porter,” and refusing either further conversation or even to look at his letters showed him out. He then applied for work on a new building; the man told him he could leave an application, then added: “To tell the truth, it's no use, for we don't employ Negroes.” Thus the man has searched for work two years and has not yet found a permanent position. He can only support his family by odd jobs as a common laborer.

S____is a stone-cutter ; he was refused work repeatedly on account of color. At last he got a job during a strike and was found to be so good a workman that his employer refused to dismiss him.

T____was a boy, who, together with a white boy came to the city to hunt work. The colored boy was very light in complexion, and consequently both were taken in as apprentices at a large locomotive works; they worked there some months, but it was finally disclosed that the boy was colored; he was dismissed and the white boy retained.

These all seem typical and reliable cases. There are, of course, some exceptions to the general rule, but even these seem to confirm the fact that exclusion is a matter of prejudice and thoughtlessness which sometimes yields to determination and good sense. The most notable case in point is that of the Midvale Steel Works, where a large number of Negro workmen are regularly employed as mechanics and work alongside whites.⁴ If another foreman should take charge there, or if friction should arise, it would be easy for all this to receive a serious set-back, for ultimate success in such matters demands many experiments and a widespread public sympathy.

There are several cases where strong personal influence has secured colored boys positions ; in one cabinet-making factory, a porter who had served the firm thirty years, asked to have his son learn the trade and work in the shop. The workmen objected strenuously at first, but the employer was firm and the young man has been at work there now seven years. The S. S. White Dental Company has a colored chemist who has worked up to his place and gives satisfaction. A jeweler allowed his colored fellow-soldier in the late war to learn the gold beaters'trade and work in his shop. A few other cases follow:

A____was intimately acquainted with a merchant and secured his son a position as a typewriter in the merchant's office.

B____, a stationary engineer, came with his employer from Washington and still works with him.

C____, a plasterer, learned his trade with a firm in Virginia who especially recommended him to the firm where he now works.

D____is a boy whose mother's friend got him work as cutter in a bag and rope factory ; the hands objected but the friend's influence was strong enough to keep him there.

All these exceptions prove the rule, viz., that without strong effort and special influence it is next to impossible for a Negro in Philadelphia to get regular employment in most of the trades, except he work as an independent workman and take small transient jobs.

The chief agency that brings about this state of affairs is public opinion ; if they were not intrenched, and strongly intrenched, back of an active prejudice or at least passive acquiescence in this effort to deprive Negroes of a decent livelihood, both trades unions and arbitrary bosses would be powerless to do the harm they now do ; where, however, a large section of the public more or less openly applaud the stamina of a man who refuses to work with a “Nigger,” the results are inevitable. The object of the trades union is purely business-like; it aims to restrict the labor market, just as the manufacturer aims to raise the price of his goods. Here is a chance to keep out of the market a vast number of workmen, and the unions seize the chance save in cases where they dare not as in the case of the cigar-makers and coal-miners. If they could keep out the foreign workmen in the same way they would ; but here public opinion within and without their ranks forbids hostile action. Of course, most unions do not flatly declare their discriminations ; a few plainly put the word “white” into their constitutions; most of them do not and will say that they consider each case on its merits. Then they quietly blackball the Negro applicant. Others delay and temporize and put off action until the Negro withdraws; still others discriminate against the Negro in initiation fees and dues, making a Negro pay 100, where the whites pay 25. On the other hand in times of strikes or other disturbances cordial invitations to join are often sent to Negro workmen.⁵

At a time when women are engaged in bread-winning to a larger degree than ever before, the field open to Negro women is unusually narrow. This is, of course, due largely to the more intense prejudices of females on all subjects, and especially to the fact that women who work dislike to be in any way mistaken for menials, and they regard Negro women as menials par excellence.

A____, a dressmaker and seamstress of proven ability, sought work in the large department stores. They all commended her work, but could not employ her on account of her color.

B____is a typewriter, but has applied at stores and offices in vain for work ; “very sorry” they all say, but they can give her no work. She has answered many advertisements without result.

C____has attended the Girls, High School for two years, and has been unable to find any work ; she is washing and sewing for a living now.

D____is a dressmaker and milliner, and does bead work. “Your work is very good,” they say to her, “but if we hired you all of our ladies would leave.”

E____, a seamstress, was given work from a store once, to do at home. It was commended as satisfactory, but they gave her no more.

F- had two daughters who tried to get work as stenographers, but got only one small job.

G____is a graduate of the Girls, High School, with excellent record; both teachers and influential friends have been seeking work for her but have not been able to find any.

H____a girl, applied at seven stores for some work not menial; they had none.

I____started at the Schuylkill, on Market street, and applied at almost every store nearly to the Delaware for work ; she was only offered scrubbing.⁶

2. So much for the difficulty of getting work. In addition to this the Negro is meeting difficulties in keeping the work he has, or at least the better part of it. Outside of all dissatisfaction with Negro work there are whims and fashions that affect his economic position; to-day general European travel has made the trained English servant popular and consequently well-shaven white men-servants, whether English or not, find it easy to replace Negro butlers and coachmen at higher wages. Again, though a man ordinarily does not dismiss all his white mill-hands because some turn out badly, yet it repeatedly happens that men dismiss all their colored servants and condemn their race because one or two in their employ have proven untrustworthy. Finally, the antipathies of lower classes are so great that it is often impracticable to mix races among the servants. A young colored girl went to work temporarily in Germantown ; “I should like so much to keep you permanently,” said the mistress, “but all my other servants are white.” She was discharged. Usually now advertisements for help state whether white or Negro servants are wanted, and the Negro who applies at the wrong place must not be surprised to have the door slammed in his face.

The difficulties encountered by the Negro on account of sweeping conclusions made about him are manifold ; a large building, for instance, has several poorly paid Negro janitors, without facilities for their work or guidance in its prosecution. Finally the building is thoroughly overhauled or rebuilt, elevators and electricity installed and a well paid set of white uniformed janitors put to work under a responsible salaried chief. Immediately the public concludes that the improvement in the service is due to the change of color. In some cases, of course, the change is due to a widening of the field of choice in selecting servants; for assuredly one cannot expect that one twenty-fifth of the population can furnish as many good workmen or as uniformly good ones as the other twenty-four twenty-fifths. One actual case illustrates this tendency to exclude the Negro without proper consideration from even menial employment:

A great church which has a number of members among the most respectable Negro families in the city has recently erected a large new building for its offices, etc., in the city. As the building was nearing completion a colored clergyman of that sect was surprised to hear that no Negroes were to be employed in the building; he thought that a peculiar stand for a Christian church to take and so he went to the manager of the building; the manager blandly assured him that the rumor was true ; and that there was not the shadow of a chance for a Negro to get employment under him, except one woman to clean the water-closet. The reason for this, he said, was that the janitors and help were all to be uniformed and the whites would not wear uniforms with Negroes. The clergyman thereupon went to a prominent member of the church who was serving on the building committee ; he denied that the committee had made any such decision, but sent him to another member of the committee ; this member said the same thing and referred to the third, a blunt business man. The business man said : “That building is called the Church House, but it is more than that, it is a business enterprise, to be run on business principles. We hired a man to run it so as to get the most out of it. We found such a man in the present manager, and put all power in his hands.” He acknowledged then, that while the committee had made no decision, the question of hiring Negroes had come up and it was left solely to the manager's decision. The manager thought most Negroes were dishonest and untrustworthy, etc. And thus the Christian church joins hands with trades unions and a large public opinion to force Negroes into idleness and crime.

Sometimes Negroes, by special influence, as has been pointed out before, secure good positions; then there are other cases where colored men have by sheer merit and pluck secured positions. In all these cases, however, they are liable to lose their places through no fault of their own and primarily on account of their Negro blood. It may be that at first their Negro descent is not known, or other causes may operate; in all cases the Negro's tenure of office is insecure:

A____worked in a large tailor's establishment on Third street for three weeks. His work was acceptable. Then it became known he was colored and he was discharged as the other tailors refused to work with him.

B____, a pressman, was employed on Twelfth street, but a week later was discharged when they knew he was colored; he then worked as a door-boy for five years, and finally got another job in a Jewish shop as pressman.

C____was nine years a painter in Stewart's Furniture Factory, until Stewart failed four years ago. Has applied repeatedly, but could get no work on account of color. He now works as a night watchman on the streets for the city.

D____was a stationary engineer; his employer died, and he has never been able to find another.

E____was light in complexion and got a job as driver; he “kept his cap on,” but when they found he was colored they discharged him.

F____was one of many colored laborers at an ink factory. The heads of the firm died, and now whenever a Negro leaves a white man is put in his place.

G____worked for a long time as a typesetter on Taggart's Times; when the paper changed hands he was discharged and has never been able to get another job ; he is now a janitor.

H____was a brickmason, but his employers finally refused to let him lay brick longer as his fellow workmen were all white ; he is now a waiter.

L____learned the trade of range-setting from his employer ; the employer then refused him work and he went into business for himself ; he has taught four apprentices.

M____is a woman whose husband was janitor for a firm twenty years; when they moved to the new Betz Building they discharged him as all the janitors there were white ; after his death they could find no work for his boy.

N____was a porter in a book store and rose to be head postmaster of a sub-station in Philadelphia which handles $250,000, it is said, a year; he was also at the head of a very efficient Bureau of Information in a large department store. Recently attempts have been made to displace him, for no specified fault but because “we want his place for another [white] man.”

O____is a well-known instance ; an observer in 1898 wrote: “If any Philadelphian who is anxious to study the matter with his own eyes, will walk along South Eleventh street, from Chestnut down, and will note the most tasteful and enterprising stationery and periodical store along the way, it will pay him to enter it. On entering he will, according to his way of thinking, be pleased or grieved to see that it is conducted by Negroes. If the proprietor happens to be in he may know that this keen-looking pleasant young man was once assistant business manager of a large white religious newspaper in the city. A change of management led to his dismissal. No fault was found, his work was commended, but a white man was put into his place, and profuse apologies made.

“The clerk behind the counter is his sister; a neat ladylike woman, educated, and trained in stenography and typewriting. She could not find in the city of Philadelphia, any one who had the slightest use for such a colored woman.

“The result of this situation is this little store, which is remarkably successful. The proprietor owns the stock, the store and the building. This is one tale of its sort with a pleasant ending. Other tales are far less pleasing.”

Much discouragement results from the persistent refusal to promote colored employes. The humblest white employe knows that the better he does his work the more chance there is for him to rise in the business. The black employe knows that the better he does his work the longer he may do it; he cannot often hope for promotion. This makes much of the criticism aimed against Negroes, because some of them want to refuse menial labor, lose something of its point. If the better class of Negro boys could look on such labor as a stepping-stone to something higher it would be different; if they must view it as a lifework we cannot wonder at their hesitation:

A____has been a porter at a great locomotive works for ten years. He is a carpenter by trade and has picked up considerable knowledge of machinery ; he was formerly allowed to work a little as a machinist; now that is stopped and he has never been promoted and probably never will be.

B____has worked in a shop eight years and never been promoted from his porter's position, although he is a capable man.

C____is a porter ; he has been in a hardware store six years ; he is bright and has repeatedly been promised advancement but has never got it.

D____was for seven years in a gang of porters in a department store, and part of the time acted as foreman. He had a white boy under him who disliked him ; eventually the boy was promoted but he remained a porter. Finally the boy became his boss and discharged him.

E____, a woman, worked long in a family of lawyers ; a white lad went into their office as office-boy and came to be a member of the firm ; she had a smart, ambitious son and asked for any sort of office work for him—anything in which he could hope for promotion. “Why don't you make him a waiter ?” they asked.

F____has for twenty-one years driven for a lumber firm; speaks German and is very useful to them, but they have never promoted him.

G____was a porter ; he begged for a chance to work up ; offering to do clerical work for nothing, but was refused. White companions were repeatedly promoted over his head. He has been a porter seventeen years.

H____was a servant in the family of one of the members of a large dry goods firm ; he was so capable that the employer sent him down to the store for a place which the manager very reluctantly gave him. He rose to be registering clerk in the delivering department where he worked fourteen years and his work was commended. Recently without notice or complaint he was changed to run an elevator at the same wages. He thinks that pressure from other members of the firm made him lose his work.

Once in a while there are exceptions to this rule. The Pennsylvania Railroad has promoted one bright and persistent porter to a clerkship, which he has held for years. He had, however, spent his life hunting chances for promotion and had been told “You have ability enough, George, if you were not colored—.”

There is much discrimination against Negroes in wages.⁷ The Negroes have fewer chances for work, have been used to low wages, and consequently the first thought that occurs to the average employer is to give a Negro less than he would offer a white man for the same work. This is not universal, but it is widespread. In domestic service of the ordinary sort there is no difference, because the wages are a matter of custom. When it comes to waiters, butlers and coachmen, however, there is considerable difference made; while white coachmen receive from 50-75, the Negroes do not get usually more than 30-6o. Negro hotel waiters get from 18-20, while whites receive 20-30. Naturally when a hotel manager replaces 20 men with 30 men he may expect, outside any question of color, better service.

In ordinary work the competition forces down the wages outside mere race reasons, though the Negro is the greatest sufferer; this is especially the case in laundry work. “I've counted as high as seven dozen pieces in that washing,” said a weary black woman, “and she pays me only 1.25 a week for it.” Persons who throw away 5 a week on gew-gaws will often haggle over twenty-five cents with a washerwoman. There are, however, notable exceptions to these cases, where good wages are paid to persons who have long worked for the same family.

Very often if a Negro is given a chance to work at a trade his wages are cut down for the privilege. This gives the workingman's prejudice additional intensity:

A____got a job formerly held by a white porter ; the wages were reduced from 12 to 8.

B____worked for a firm as china packer, and they said he was the best packer they had. He, however, received but 6 a week while the white packers received 12.

C____has been porter and assistant shipping clerk in an Arch street store for five years. He receives 6 a week and whites get 8 for the same work.

D____is a stationary engineer ; he learned his trade with this firm and has been with them ten years. Formerly he received 9 a week, now 10.50 ; whites get 12 for the same work.

E____is a stationary engineer and has been in his place three years. He receives but 9 a week.

F____works with several other Negroes with a firm of electrical engineers. The white laborers receive 2 a day : “We've got to be glad to get 1.75.”

G____was a carpenter, but could get neither sufficient work nor satisfactory wages. For a job on which he received 15 a week, his white successor got 18.

H____, a cementer, receives 1.75 a day ; white workmen get 2-3. He has been promised more next fall.

I____, a plasterer, has worked for one boss twenty-seven years. Regular plasterers get 4 or more a day ; he does the same work, but cannot join the union and is paid as a laborer—2.50 a day.

J____works as a porter in a department store ; is married, and receives 8 a week. “They pay the same to white unmarried shop girls, who stand a chance to be promoted.”

3. If a Negro enters some line of employment in which people are not used to seeing him, he suffers from an assumption that he is unfit for the work. It is reported that a Chestnut street firm once took a Negro shop girl, but the protests of their customers were such that they had to dismiss her. A great many merchants hesitate to advance Negroes lest they should lose custom. Negro merchants who have attempted to start business in the city at first encounter much difficulty from this prejudice:

A____has a bakery ; white people sometimes enter and finding Negroes in charge abruptly leave.

B____is a baker and had a shop some years on Vine street, but prejudice against him barred him from gaining much custom.

C____is a successful expressman with a large business ; he is sometimes told by persons that they prefer to patronize white expressmen.

D____is a woman and keeps a hair store on South street. Customers sometimes enter, look at her, and leave.

E____is a music teacher on Lombard street. Several white people have entered and seeing him, said : “Oh ! I thought you were white—excuse me! “or” I'll call again !”

Even among the colored people themselves some prejudice of this sort is met. Once a Negro physician could not get the patronage of Negroes because they were not used to the innovation. Now they have a large part of the Negro patronage. The Negro merchant, however, still lacks the full confidence of his own people though this is slowly growing. It is one of the paradoxes of this question to see a people so discriminated against sometimes add to their misfortunes by discriminating against themselves. They themselves, however, are beginning to recognize this.

4. The chief discrimination against Negroes in expenditure is in the matter of rents. There can be no reasonable doubt but that Negroes pay excessive rents:

A____paid 13 a month where the pieceding white family had paid 10.

B____paid 16 ; “heard that former white family paid 12.”

C____paid 25 ; “heard that former white family paid 20.”

D____paid 12 ; neighbors say that former white family paid 9.

E____paid 25, instead of 18.

F____paid 12, instead of 10.

G____, the Negro inhabitants of the whole street pay 12 to 14 and the whites 9 and 10. The houses are all alike.

H____, whites on this street pay 15- 18 ; Negroes pay l8-2I.

Not only is there this pretty general discrimination in rent, but agents and owners will not usually repair the houses of the blacks willingly or improve them. In addition to this agents and owners in many sections utterly refuse to rent to Negroes on any terms. Both these sorts of discrimination are easily defended from a merely business point of view; public opinion in the city is such that the presence of even a respectable colored family in a block will affect its value for renting or sale ; increased rent to Negroes is therefore a sort of insurance, and refusal to rent a device for money-getting. The indefensible cruelty lies with those classes who refuse to recognize the right of respectable Negro citizens to respectable houses. Real estate agents also increase prejudice by refusing to discriminate between different classes of Negroes. A quiet Negro family moves into a street. The agent finds no great objection, and allows the next empty house to go to any Negro who applies. This family may disgrace and scandalize the neighborhood and make it harder for decent families to find homes.⁸

In the last fifteen years, however, public opinion has so greatly changed in this matter that we may expect much in the future. To-day the Negro population is more widely scattered over the city than ever before. At the same time it remains true that as a rule they must occupy the worst houses of the districts where they live. The advance made has been a battle for the better class of Negroes. An ex-Minister to Hayti moved to the northwestern part of the city and his white neighbors insulted him, barricaded their steps against him, and tried in every way to make him move ; to-day he is honored and respected in the whole neighborhood. Many such cases have occurred ; in others the result was different. An estimable young Negro, just married, moved with his bride into a little street. The neighborhood rose in arms and besieged the tenant and the landlord so relentlessly that the landlord leased the house and compelled the young couple to move within a month. One of the bishops of the A. M. E. Church recently moved into the newly purchased Episcopal residence on Belmont avenue, and his neighbors have barricaded their porches against his view.

5. The chief discrimination against Negro children is in the matter of educational facilities. Prejudice here works to compel colored children to attend certain schools where most Negro children go, or to keep them out of private and higher schools.

A____tried to get her little girl into the kindergarten nearest to her, at Fifteenth and Locust. The teachers wanted her to send it down across Broad to the kindergarten chiefly attended by colored children and much further away from its home. This journey was dangerous for the child, but the teachers refused to receive it for six months, until the authorities were appealed to.

In transfers from schools Negroes have difficulty in getting convenient accommodations ; only within comparatively few years have Negroes been allowed to complete the course at the High and Normal Schools without difficulty. Earlier than that the University of Pennsylvania refused to let Negroes sit in the Auditorium and listen to lectures, much less to be students. Within two or three years a Negro student had to fight his way through a city dental school with his fists, and was treated with every indignity. Several times Negroes have been asked to leave schools of stenography, etc., on account of their fellow students. In 1893 a colored woman applied at Temple College, a church institution, for admission and was refused and advised to go elsewhere. The college then offered scholarships to churches, but would not admit applicants from colored churches. Two years later the same woman applied again. The faculty declared that they did not object, but that the students would ; she persisted and was finally admitted with evident reluctance.

It goes without saying that most private schools, music schools, etc., will not admit Negroes and in some cases have insulted applicants.

Such is the tangible form of Negro prejudice in Philadelphia. Possibly some of the particulur cases cited can be proven to have had extenuating circumstances unknown to the investigator ; at the same time many not cited would be just as much in point. At any rate no one who has with any diligence studied the situation of the Negro in the city can long doubt but that his opportunities are limited and his ambition circumscribed about as has been shown. There are of course numerous exceptions, but the mass of the Negroes have been so often refused openings and discouraged in efforts to better their condition that many of them say, as one said, “I never apply—I know it is useless.” Beside these tangible and measurable forms there are deeper and less easily described results of the attitude of the white population toward the Negroes: a certain manifestation of a real or assumed aversion, a spirit of ridicule or patronage, a vindictive hatred in some, absolute indifference in others ; all this of course does not make much difference to the mass of the race, but it deeply wounds the better classes, the very classes who are attaining to that to which we wish the mass to attain. Notwithstanding all this, most Negroes would patiently await the effect of time and commonsense on such prejudice did it not to-day touch them in matters of life and death ; threaten their homes, their food, their children, their hopes. And the result of this is bound to be increased crime, inefficiency and bitterness.

It would, of course, be idle to assert that most of the Negro crime was caused by prejudice ; the violent economic and social changes which the last fifty years have brought to the American Negro, the sad social history that preceded these changes, have all contributed to unsettle morals and pervert talents. Nevertheless it is certain that Negro prejudice in cities like Philadelphia has been a vast factor in aiding and abetting all other causes which impel a half-developed race to recklessness and excess. Certainly a great amount of crime can be without doubt traced to the discrimination against Negro boys and girls in the matter of employment. Or to put it differently, Negro prejudice costs the city something.

The connection of crime and prejudice is, on the other hand, neither simple nor direct. The boy who is refused promotion in his job as porter does not go out and snatch somebody's pocketbook. Conversely the loafers at Twelfth and Kater streets, and the thugs in the county prison are not usually graduates of high schools who have been refused work. The connections are much more subtle and dangerous ; it is the atmosphere of rebellion and discontent that unrewarded merit and reasonable but unsatisfied ambition make. The social environment of excuse, listless despair, careless indulgence and lack of inspiration to work is the growing force that turns black boys and girls into gamblers, prostitutes and rascals. And this social environment has been built up slowly out of the disappointments of deserving men and the sloth of the unawakened. How long can a city say to a part of its citizens, “It is useless to work ; it is fruitless to deserve well of men ; education will gain you nothing but disappointment and humiliation ?” How long can a city teach its black children that the road to success is to have a white face ? How long can a city do this and escape the inevitable penalty ?

For thirty years and more Philadelphia has said to its black children : “Honesty, efficiency and talent have little to do with your success ; if you work hard, spend little and are good you may earn your bread and butter at those sorts of work which we frankly confess we despise; if you are dishonest and lazy, the State will furnish your bread free.” Thus the class of Negroes which the prejudices of the city have distinctly encouraged is that of the criminal, the lazy and the shiftless ; for them the city teems with institutions and charities ; for them there is succor and sympathy ; for them Philadelphias are thinking and planning; but for the educated and industrious young colored man who wants work and not platitudes, wages and not alms, just rewards and not sermons—for such colored men Philadelphia apparently has no use.

What then do such men do? What becomes of the graduates of the many schools of the city ? The answer is simple: most of those who amount to anything leave the city, the others take what they can get for a livelihood. Let us for a moment glance at the statistics of three colored schools :⁹

1. The O. V. Catto Primary School.

2. The Robert Vaux Grammar School.

3. The Institute for Colored Youth.

There attended the Catto school, 1867-97, 5915 pupils. Of these there were promoted from the full course, 653. 129 of the latter are known to be in positions of higher grade ; or taking out 93 who are still in school, there remain 36 as follows: 18 teachers, 10 clerks, 2 physicians, 2 engravers, 2 printers, 1 lawyer and 1 mechanic.

The other 524 are for the most part in service, laborers and housewives. Of the 36 more successful ones fully half are at work outside of the city.

Of the Vaux school there were, 1877-89, 76 graduates. Of these there are 16 unaccounted for ; the rest are :

From one-half to two-thirds of these have been compelled to leave the city in order to find work ; one, the artist, Tanner, whom France recently honored, could not in his native land much less in his native city find room for his talents. He taught school in Georgia in order to earn money enough to go abroad.

The Institute of Colored Youth has had 340 graduates, 1856-97 ; 57 of these are dead. Of the 283 remaining 91 are unaccounted for. The rest are :

Here, again, nearly three-fourths of the graduates who have amounted to anything have had to leave the city for work. The civil engineer, for instance, tried in vain to get work here and finally had to go to New Jersey to teach.

There have been 9, possibly 11, colored graduates of the Central High School. These are engaged as follows :

It is high time that the best conscience of Philadelphia awakened to her duty ; her Negro citizens are here to remain ; they can be made good citizens or burdens to the community ; if we want them to be sources of wealth and power and not of poverty and weakness then they must be given employment according to their ability and encouraged to train that ability and increase their talents by the hope of reasonable reward. To educate boys and girls and then refuse them work is to train loafers and rogues.¹⁰

From another point of view it could be argued with much cogency that the cause of economic stress, and consequently of crime, was the recent inconsiderate rush of Negroes into cities ; and that the unpleasant results of this migration, while deplorable, will nevertheless serve to check the movement of Negroes to cities and keep them in the country where their chance for economic development is widest. This argument loses much of its point from the fact that it is the better class of educated Philadelphiaborn Negroes who have the most difficulty in obtaining employment. The new immigrant fresh from the South is much more apt to obtain work suitable for him than the black boy born here and trained in efficiency. Nevertheless it is undoubtedly true that the recent migration has both directly and indirectly increased crime and competition. How is this movement to be checked ? Much can be done by correcting misrepresentations as to the opportunities of city life made by designing employment bureaus and thoughtless persons ; a more strict surveillance of criminals might prevent the influx of undesirable elements. Such efforts, however, would not touch the main stream of immigration. Back of that stream is the world-wide desire to rise in the world, to escape the choking narrowness of the plantation, and the lawless repression of the village, in the South. It is a search for better opportunities of living, and as such it must be discouraged and repressed with great care and delicacy, if at all. The real movement of reform is the raising of economic standards and increase of economic opportunity in the South. Mere land and climate without law and order, capital and skill, will not develop a country. When Negroes in the South have a larger opportunity to work, accumulate property, be protected in life and limb, and encourage pride and self-respect in their children, there will be a diminution in the stream of immigrants to Northern cities. At the same time if those cities practice industrial exclusion against these immigrants to such an extent that they are forced to become paupers, loafers and criminals, they can scarcely complain of conditions in the South. Northern cities should not, of course, seek to encourage and invite a poor quality of labor, with low standards of life and morals. The standards of wages and respectability should be kept up ; but when a man reaches those standards in skill, efficiency and decency no question of color should, in a civilized community, debar him from an equal chance with his peers in earning a living.

48. Benevolence.¹¹—In the attitude of Philadelphia toward the Negro may be traced the same contradictions so often apparent in social phenomena; prejudice and apparent dislike conjoined with widespread and deep sympathy; there can, for instance, be no doubt of the sincerity of the efforts put forth by Philadelphians to help the Negroes. Much of it is unsystematic and ill-directed and yet it has behind it a broad charity and a desire to relieve suffering and distress. The same Philadelphian who would not let a Negro work in his store or mill will contribute handsomely to relieve Negroes in poverty and distress. There are in the city the following charities exclusively designed for Negroes :

Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons, Belmont and Girard avenues.¹²

Home for Destitute Colored Children, Berks street and Old Lancaster road.

St. Mary Day Nursery, 1627 Lombard street.

The Association for the Care of Colored Orphans, Forty-fourth and Wallace streets.

Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School, 1512 Lombard street.¹³

Magdalen Convent House of the Good Shepherd (Roman Catholic), Penn and Chew streets, Germantown.

St. Mary's Mission for Colored People, 1623-29 Lombard street.

Raspberry Street School, 229 Raspberry street.

The Star Kitchen, and allied enterprises, Seventh and Lombard streets.

Colored Industrial School, Twentieth street, below Walnut.

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, for Indians and Colored People, Cornwell's Station, Pa.

Men's Guild House, 1628 Lombard street.

House of St. Michael and All Angels, 613 North Forty-third street

The Industrial Exchange Training School and Dormitory, 756 South Twelfth street.¹⁴

Fifty-nine of the charities mentioned in the Civic Club Digest discriminate against colored persons. Fifty-one societies profess to make no discrimination ; in the case of the larger and better known societies this is true, as, for instance, the Home Missionary Society, the Union Benevolent Association, the Protestant Episcopal City Mission, the Charity Organization Society, the Children's Aid Society, the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Children, etc. Others, however, exercise a silent policy against Negroes. The Country Week Association, for instance, would rather Negroes should not apply, although it sends a few away each summer. Colored applicants at the building of the Young Woman's Christian Association are not very welcome. So with many other societies and institutions. This veiled discrimination is very unjust, for it makes it seem as though the Negro had more help than he does. On the other hand between donors, prejudiced persons, friends of the Negro, and the beneficiaries, the managers of many of these enterprises find it by far the easiest method silently to draw the color line.

Fifty-seven other charities make no explicit statement as to whether they discriminate or not. To sum up then:

On the whole it is fair to say that about one half of the charities of Philadelphia, so far as mere numbers are concerned, are open to Negroes. In the different kinds of charity, however, some disproportion is noticeable. Of direct almsgiving, the most questionable and least organized sort of charity, the Negroes receive probably far more than their just proportion, as a study of the work of the great distributing societies clearly shows. On the other hand, protective, rescue and reformatory work is not applied to any great extent among them. Consequently, while actual poverty and distress among Negroes is quickly relieved, there are only a few agencies to prevent the better classes from sinking or to reclaim the fallen or to protect the helpless and the children. Even the agencies of this sort open to the Negroes are not always taken advantage of, partly through ignorance and carelessness, partly because they fear discrimination or because they are apt to be treated the same whether they be from Addison street or Middle alley.

Much of the benevolence of the whites has been checked because the classes on whom it has been showered have not appreciated it, and because there has been no careful attempt to discriminate between different sorts of Negroes. After all, the need of the Negro, as of so many unfortunate classes, is “not alms but a friend.”

There are a few homes, asylums, nurseries, hospitals and the like for work among Negroes, which are doing excellent work and deserve commendation. It is to be hoped that this sort of work will receive needed encouragement.

49. The Intermarriage of the Races.—For years much has been said on the destiny of the Negro with regard to intermarriage with the whites. To many this seems the difficulty that differentiates the Negro question from all other social questions which we face, and makes it seemingly insoluble; the questions of ignorance, crime and immorality, these argue, may safely be left to the influence of time and education ; but will time and training ever change the obvious fact that the white people of the country do not wish to mingle socially with the Negroes or to join blood in legal wedlock with them ? This problem is, it must be acknowledged, difficult. Its difficulty arises, however, rather from an ignorance of surrounding facts than from the theoretic argument. Theory in such case is of little value; the white people as members of the races now dominant in the world naturally boast of their blood and accomplishments, and recoil from an alliance with a people which is to-day represented by a host of untrained and uncouth ex-slaves. On the other hand, whatever his practice be, the Negro as a free American citizen must just as strenuously maintain that marriage is a private contract, and that given two persons of proper age and economic ability who agree to enter into that relation, it does not concern any one but themselves as to whether one of them be white, black or red. It is thus that theoretical argument comes to an unpleasant stand still, and its further pursuit really settles nothing, nay, rather unsettles much, by bringing men's thoughts to a question that is, at present at least, of little practical importance. For in practice the matter works itself out: the average white person does not marry a Negro; and the average Negro, despite his theory, himself marries one of his race, and frowns darkly on his fellows unless they do likewise. In those very circles of Negroes who have a large infusion of white blood, where the freedom of marriage is most strenuously advocated, white wives have always been treated with a disdain bordering on insult, and white husbands never received on any terms of social recognition.

Notwithstanding theory and the practice of whites and Negroes in general, it is nevertheless manifest that the white and black races have mingled their blood in this country to a vast extent. Such facts puzzle the foreigner and are destined to puzzle the future historian. A serious student of the subject gravely declares in one chapter that the races are separate and distinct and becoming more so, and in another that by reason of the intermingling of white blood the “original type of the African has almost completely disappeared ;” ¹⁴ here we have reflected the prevailing confusion in the popular mind. Race amalgamation is a fact, not a theory; it took place, however, largely under the institution of slavery and for the most part, though not wholly, outside the bonds of legal marriage. With the abolition of slavery now, and the establishment of a self-protecting Negro home the question is, what have been the tendencies and the actual facts with regard to the intermarriage of races? This is the only question with which students have to do, and this singularly enough has been the one which they, with curious unanimity, have neglected. We do not know the facts with regard to the mingling of white and black blood in the past save in a most general and unsatisfactory way; we do not know the facts for to-day at all. And yet, of course, without this knowledge all philosophy of the situation is vain ; only long observation of the course of intermarriage can furnish us that broad knowledge of facts which can serve as a basis for race theories and final conclusions.¹⁵

The first legal obstacle to the intermarriage of whites and blacks in Pennsylvania was the Act of 1726, which forbade such unions in terms that would seem to indicate that a few such marriages had taken place. Mulattoes early appeared in the State, and especially in Philadelphia, some being from the South and some from up the State. Sailors from this port in some cases brought back English, Scotch and Irish wives, and mixed families immigrated here at the time of the Haytian revolt. Between 1820 and i860 many natural children were sent from the South and in a few cases their parents followed and were legally married here. Descendants of such children in many cases forsook the mother's race; one became principal of a city school, one a prominent sister in a Catholic church, one a bishop, and one or two officers in the Confederate army.¹⁶ Some marriages with Quakers took place, one especially in 1825, when a Quakeress married a Negro, created much comment. Descendants of this couple still survive. Since the War the number of local marriages has considerably increased.

In this work there was originally no intention of treating the subject of intermarriage, for it was thought that the data would be too insignificant to be enlightening. When, however, in one ward of the city thirty-three cases of mixed marriages were found, and it was known that there were others in that ward, and probably a similar proportion in many other wards, it was thought that a study of these thirty-three families might be of interest and be a small contribution of fact to a subject where facts are not easily accessible.

The size of these families varies, of course, with the question as to what one considers a family ; if we take the “census family,” or all those living together under circumstances of family life in one home, the average size of the thirty-three families of the Seventh Ward in which there were intermarried whites was 3.5. If we take simply the father, mother and children, the average size was 2.9. There were ninety-seven parents and children in these families, and twenty other relatives living with them, making 117 individuals in the families. Tabulated they are as follows:

Of the intermarried whites there are four husbands and twenty-nine wives. Let us first consider the families having the four white husbands:

FOUR WHITE HUSBANDS.

THEIR FOUR NEGRO WIVES.

The third family may be simply a case of cohabitation, and not enough is known of the fourth to make any judgment. The second family lives in a comfortable home and appears contented. The first family is poor and the man lazy and good-natured.

The twenty-nine white wives were of the following ages :

They were born as follows:

By rearranging this table we have for the known cases :

Those not born in Philadelphia have resided there as follows:

These wives are occupied as follows :

Only one of these women was reported as illiterate, and in the case of three no return was made as to illiteracy.

Fourteen of these wives had no children by this marriage ; 6 had i child, 6 had 2 children, 3 had 3 children ; making 27 children in all. Of the 14 having no children 5 were women under twenty-five recently married ; 2 were women over forty and probably past child-bearing. Several of the remaining 7 were, in all probability, lewd.

Of the colored husbands of these white wives we have the following statistics :

The social grade of thirty-two of these families is thought to be as follows:

First grade, four families. These all live well and are comfortable ; the wife stays at home and the children at school. Everything indicates comfort and contentment.

Second grade, fifteen families. These are ordinary working-class families ; the wife in some cases helps as a breadwinner ; none of them are in poverty, many are young couples just starting in married life. All are decent and respectable.

Third grade, six families. These are poor families of low grade, but not immoral; some are lazy, some unfortunate.

Fourth grade, seven families. Many of these are cases of permanent cohabitation and the women for the most part are or were prostitutes. They live in the slums mostly, and in some cases have lived together many years. None of them have children, or at least have none living with them at present.

Let us now glance a moment at the 31 children of these mixed marriages: 27 born of white mothers by Negro husbands, and 4 of Negro mothers by white husbands:

The homes occupied by these families and the rents paid monthly are :

The data here presented constitute too narrow a basis for many general conclusions even for a single city. Of the 2441 families in the ward these families represent 1.35 per cent. There are two or more other cases in the Seventh Ward not catalogued. If this percentage holds good in the remaining parts of the city there would be about one hundred and fifty such marriages in the city; there are no data on this point.

It is often said that only the worst Negroes and lowest whites intermarry. This is certainly untrue in Philadelphia ; to be sure among the lowest classes there is a large number of temporary unions and much cohabitation. In the case of the Seventh Ward several of such cases were not noticed at all in the above record as they savor more of prostitution than of marriage. On the other hand it is an error certainly in this ward to regard marriages of this sort as confined principally to the lower classes ; on the contrary they take place most frequently in the laboring classes, and especially among servants, where there is the most contact between the races. Among the best class of Negroes and whites such marriages seldom occur although one notable case occurred in 1897 in Philadelphia, where there could be no question of the good social standing of the parties.

As to the tendencies of the present, and the general result of such marriages there are no reliable data. That more separations occur in such marriages than in others is very probable. It is certainly a strain on affections to have to endure not simply the social ostracism of the whites but of the blacks also. Undoubtedly this latter acts as a more practical deterrent than the first. For, while a Negro expects to be ostracized by the whites, and his white wife agrees to it by her marriage vow, neither of them are quite prepared for the cold reception they invariably meet with among the Negroes. This is the consideration that makes the sacrifice in such marriages great, and makes it perfectly proper to give the aphoristic marriage advice of Punch to those contemplating such alliances. Nevertheless one must candidly acknowledge that there are respectable people who are thus married and are apparently contented and as happy as the average of mankind. It is difficult to see whose concern their choice is but their own, or why the world should see fit to insult or slander them.

1 Cf. Section 49.

2 One of the questions on the schedule was : “Have you had any difficulty in getting work?” another: “Have you had any difficulty in renting houses?” Most of the answers were vague or general. Those that were definite and apparently reliable were, so far as possible, inquired into further, compared with other testimony and then used as material for working out a list of discriminations; single and isolated cases without corroboration were never taken. I believe those here presented are reliable, although naturally I may have been deceived in some stories. Of the general truth of the statement I am thoroughly convinced.

3 And is, of course, pointed out by some as typifying the educated Negro's success in life.

4 Cf. Section 23.

5 Two newspaper clippings will illustrate the attitude of the workmen; the first relates to the Chinese apprentices taken into the Baldwin Locomotive Works:

The announcement that the Baldwins had taken five Chinese apprentices made quite a stir among labor leaders. Some of them worked themselves into quite a fever of indignation. Charles P. Patrick, grand organizer of the Boilermakers' Union, was quite outspoken on the subject.

He said: “All this plan of putting Chinamen in to learn trades sounds nice and charitable to the Christian League, but how does it sound to the ears of American mechanics who are walking the streets in search of employment ? I have traveled all over this country and Mexico, and I have never before seen Chinamen given places over the heads of Americans. In the West and in Mexico, Chinese labor is plentiful, but the Chinamen are given only menial positions. They are servants, helpers in the mines and laborers. I never before heard of a Chinaman being given a place as an apprentice in a shop.

“Our government excludes Chinese labor from this country, yet here is the Christian League seeking to put forbidden immigrants in a position where they, with their peculiarly cheap, even beggarly style of living, can compete with American labor. I have only been in this city for a few days, but I venture to say I have seen more beggars and men out of work around Eighth and Market streets than I have seen in the whole City of Mexico.”

Missionary Frederic Poole disposed of this argument in a few words. He said: “It is not my idea, nor the idea of Mr. Converse, that these men should at any time compete with American workingmen. It is not the wish of the men themselves. Mr. Converse would not have given them employment had any such thing been intended.

“To-day China is building a vast railroad to Pekin that will open up all the wealthy and fertile region of Central China. The enterprise is under the direction of the government. It will be in operation in about four years. Men of intelligence will be needed for engineers, and there my five protégés will find their life work. It is not unlikely that the Chinese Government will send for them before their apprenticeship is over.”

John H. Converse was rather interested when he learned of objections to his Chinese apprentices. “We might have expected such objections from professional agitators,” he said, “but I do not think you will learn of any among our employes.”

Continuing, he said: “The Baldwin Locomotive Works is now constructing eight locomotives for the Chinese Government, which will be the first to run over the great new railroad being built from Pekin to Tien-Tsin. American workingmen would be very narrow indeed if they cannot see that it is to their own immediate advantage that Chinese mechanics fit to look after American locomotives shall be trained at once, for the time is coming when thousands of American workingmen may be kept busy from the extension of railroad building in China.

“These five boys are Philadelphians. They were not brought here, and every broad-minded mechanic will believe that their apprenticeship in our shops, should they, as they probably will, return to China, must mean something for the American locomotive. They are the first to be admitted to a locomotive works in this country, and the news will in all likelihood create a more friendly feeling in the railroad department of the Chinese Government for American products.”

Mr. Converse said that his firm had no thought of extending the privilege beyond the present number of Chinese apprentices.—Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 5, 1897.

No Negro apprentices have ever been admitted.

The other clipping is a report of the discussion in the annual meeting of the Federation of Labor:

The Negro question occupied the major portion of the session, and a heated discussion was brought on by a resolution by Henry Lloyd, reaffirming the declarations of the Federation that all labor, without regard to color, is welcome to its ranks—denouncing as untrue in fact the reported statements of Booker T. Washington that the trades unions were placing obstacles in the way of the material advancement of the Negro, and appealing to the records of the Federation Conventions as complete answers to such false assertions.

This resolution caused much spirited discussion. Delegate Jones, of Augusta, Ga., spoke, claiming that the white laborer could not compete with the Negro laborer, though organization would improve conditions materially. President Gompers took part in the discussion, explaining that the movement was not against the Negro laborer, but against the cheap laborer, and that the textile workers of the Bast had been compelled to contribute most of their means to teach laborers in the South the benefits of organization.

He also made the point that the capitalist would profit by the failure of the Negro laborers to organize, thus making the Negro an impediment to labor movements.

C. P. Frahey, a Nashville delegate, insisted that the Negro was not the equal of the white man socially or industrially. He grew warm in speaking of President Gompers’ remarks regarding the Negro in the labor movement, and stated that the President had not revoked the commission of a National Organizer who had patronized a non-union white barber shop in preference to a union Negro barber shop.

The organizer had simply been allowed to resign and no publicity had been given the matter. In answer to a question desiring the name of the party, Frahey stated it was Jesse Johnson, president of the pressmen.

James O'Connell and P. J. McGuire spoke for the resolution. The latter insisted that Booker T. Washington was attempting to put the Negro before the public as the victim of gross injustice, and himself as the Moses of the race. M. D. Rathford insisted that drawing the color line would be a blow to the miners’ organization.

W. D. Mahon charged that Jones was not a representative of Southern trades unionism, having just joined the ranks. Jones then, in his own defence, declared he did not oppose the Negro, but did contend that the Negro laborer was lower than the white, citing an Atlanta case, where whites and blacks had been jointly employed and the whites struck.

He wanted to know if there had been any efforts made in the East to organize Chinese who came in conflict with the union labor. President Gompers then ruled that the discussion must cease.

The resolution which had caused the heated debate was adopted, and the delegates went into executive session.—Public Ledger, December 17, 1897.

6 From the facts tabulated, it appears that one-twentieth of the colored domestic servants of Philadelphia have trades, while in addition to this one-tenth have had some higher school training and are presumably fitted to be something more than ordinary domestics. Why then do they not enter these fields instead of drifting into or deliberately choosing domestic service as a means of livelihood? The answer is simple. In a majority of cases the reason why they do not enter other fields is because they are colored not because they are incompetent. Many instances might be cited in proof of this, were proof needed. The following cases are only some of those that were personally encountered by the investigator in one ward of one city.

One very fair young girl, apparently a white girl, was employed as a clerk in one of the large department stores for over two years, so that there was no question of her competency as a clerk. At the end of this time it was discovered that she had colored blood and she was promptly discharged. One young woman who had been a teacher and is now a school janitress, teaching occasionally when extra help is needed, states that she had received an appointment as typewriter in a certain Philadelphia office, on the strength of her letter of application and when she appeared and was seen to be a colored girl, the position was refused her. She said that her brother—whom people usually take to be a white man —after serving in the barbershop of a certain hotel for more than ten years, was summarily discharged when it was learned that he was of Negro birth. One woman, who was a seamstress and dressmaker, stated that she had on several occasions gotten work from a certain church home when she wore a heavy veil, on making her application at the office, but that on the first occasion when she wore no veil her application was refused and had been every time since. Of course many of the men in domestic service have had similar experiences. Ten men out of one hundred and fifty-six had trades, but none of them were members of the trades unions.

Mr. McGuire, vice-president of the Federation of Labor, stated to the present investigator that the Federation claims that colored men may be members of any trade union represented in the Federation. But what this profession amounts to may be judged from Mr. McGuire's further statement, quoted verbatim: “A majority are willing to have them admitted, but a strong minority will oppose it. Not a word will be said against it in discussion, but quietly at the ballot they will rule them out.”

How this profession of admission, which amounts to practical exclusion, looks from the workingman's point of view is shown in the experience of a first-rate colored carpenter and builder in the Seventh Ward who was induced to apply for admission to the Carpenters'Union. He asked an officer of the Amalgamated Association of Carpenters and Joiners, one of the allied societies of the American Federation of Labor, if it would be of any use for him to apply to the Union for membership. “If you know your trade and are a carpenter in good and regular standing, I see no reason why you should not become a member,” said the officer. “So he sent me to the present secretary of the association, and when I put the question to him, he said, ‘Well, he didn't know whether I could join or not, because they had never had a colored man in the Union, but he would report it to the association here [Philadelphia] and would write to headquarters in New York to see if it would be admissible to enter a colored man.’He put it on the ground of my color, you see.” This application was made in December, 1896. The applicant was told that the matter would be acted on in the Union on a certain night in January, 1897, and every attempt was made to send a man to report that particular meeting, but without success. What occurred is not hard to guess, however, since the colored carpenter whose case was then considered has received no word from the Union from that day to this. He has called at the secretary's office three or four times and left word that he would like to hear what action was taken regarding his application for admission to the Union, but December 1, 1897, he had received no answer to his application made in December, 1896.

The effect of this is well illustrated by the case of a young colored “waiter man” on Pine street, whose case may be taken as typical. He had studied three years at Hampton, where he had learned in that time the stone-cutter's trade. He could practice this in Georgia, he said, but in the South stone-cutters get only $2.00 a day as compared with 3.50, sometimes 4.00 a day, in the North. So he came North with the promise of a job of stone-cutting for a new block of buildings to be erected by a Philadelphian he had met in Georgia. He received 3.50 a day, but when the block was done he could get no other job at stone-cutting and so went into domestic service, where he is receiving 6.25 a week instead of the 521.00 a week he should be receiving as a stone-cutter.

The effect on domestic service is to swell its already over-full ranks with discontented young men and women whom one would naturally expect to find rendering half-hearted service because they consider their domestic work only a temporary makeshift employment. One sometimes hears it said that “our waiter has graduated from such and such a school, but we notice that he is not even a very good waiter.” Such comments give rise to the speculation as to the success in ditch digging which would be likely to attend upon the labors of college professors, or indeed, how many of the young white men who have graduated from college and from law schools would show themselves excellent waiters, particularly if they took up the work simply as a temporary expedient. A “match” between Yale and Hampton, where mental activities must be confined to the walls of the butler's pantry, and where there were to be no “fumbles” with soup plates, might bring out interesting and suggestive points.

ISABEL EATON.

7 “In the case of the Colored people, the number of mother wage-earners more than doubles the number of widows. This is due to the small average wage of the Colored husband—the smallest among the twenty-seven nationalities. The laundress is the economic supplement of the porter…. It is not because the Colored husband of this district neglects his responsibility as a wage-winner that so many Colored women are forced into supplemental toil, for 98.7 per cent of the Colored husbands are wage-earners, and only 92.2 per cent of the American, 90.3 per cent of the Irish, 96 per cent of the German, 93.7 per cent of the Italian, 93.1 per cent of the French. The Danes, 80 per cent; Canadians, 81.8 per cent; Russians, 85.7 per cent, and Hungarians, 88.8 per cent, have the smallest percentages. Of the more largely represented nationalities, the French most nearly approach the Colored people in the percentage of their wives who are wage-earners; but while the French percentage is 21.6 per cent, the Colored people's percentage is 53.6 per cent.” Dr. W. Laidlaw in the “Report of a Sociological Canvass of the Nineteenth Assembly District,” a slum section of New York City, in 1897.

8 Undoubtedly certain classes of Negroes bring much deserved criticism on themselves by irregular payment or default of rent, and by the poor care they take of property. They must not, however, be confounded with the better classes who make good customers ; this is again a place for careful discrimination.

9 Kindly furnished by the principals of these schools.

10 Cf. on this point the interesting article of John Stevens Durham in the Atlantic Monthly, 1898.

11 No attempt has been made here to make any intensive study of the efforts to help Negroes, which are widespread and commendable; they need, however, a study which would extend the scope of this inquiry too far.

12 Founded, and supported in part, by Negroes. Cf. Chap. XII.

13 Founded, and supported in part, by Negroes. Cf. Chap. XII.

14 Hoffman's “Race Traits and Tendencies,” etc., pp. 1 and 177.

15 Hoffman has the results of some intermarriages recorded, but they are chiefly reports of criminals in the newspapers, and thus manifestly unfair for generalization.

16 From a personal letter of a life long Philadelphian, whose name I am not at liberty to quote.