The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-02
THE NEGRO IN NEW YORK.
MANY OBSTACLES WHICH HE IS
 TRYING TO OVERCOME.

Conditions Worse Now Than Former
 Elevate the Race and Lessen Whit,
 Prejudice-WorIs of CoIored Church.
 es and Missions.
 There are thirty thousand or more colored people in this city, and very large proportion of them are trying to help one another along in the world as well as to advance themselves. This is shown in one way in their churches.
 A Baptist church on F'ifty-third street has fourteen hundred members, and the collection every Sunday amounts to more than one hundred dollars. The largest income received by any one in the congregation is said to be scarcely twenty dollars a week. the smallest ings food, rent, clothes and incidentals must be supplied for one at least and perhaps for a dozen. It will be seen, therefore that the amount put on the collection plate must be approximately very large.
 Besides the colored churches there are also several little mission chapelS. One of these, up in Harlem, has been strug- gling along with little money for seve- ral years. Through the pastor, the Rev. MT. Epps, it has been doing a much needed work for colored servant girls MT. Epps in connection with his other duties runs an intelligence office, which insures for it's patrons desirable ser- wants and for the servants good homes. Most of these servants come up from the south on money furnished by their prospective mistresses, which they work out. On their arrival they are met and taken safely to MT. Epps' home and from there conducted to their places. No one not familiar with the abuses which have accompanied the bringing of servants from the south in times past can appreciate the work that MT. Epps has been doing.
 It was through Miss Matthews that the little White Rose mission was start ed over on the east side. Since Janua- ry the mission has been called a settle
 
 ready for business. There is a kinder garten class and manual training Is carried on. On Saturday afternoon the little children are kept from the streets with the bribe of kindergarten, and on Sunday afternoon there is singing and reading for all the children who will come.
 On Friday evenings one can hear the tinkle of the mandolin club and during the week there is a mothers meeting. Once 8 month the mothers have cup and saucer party, which can be turned into tea party if they will If they pay ten cents they can take home a pretty cup and saucer. If they pay fif- teen cents they can have a sociabe cup of tea with their friends and piece of cake and their cup and saucer as well. The White Rose settlement is just a tiny enterprise, and those interested in it are longing for money to carry it on. As soon as they get means they are planning to have a cooking class, a sewing class and other things.
 There are very few benevolent organi- cations devoted particularly to the ne- groes and yet in some ways no part of New York's population needs them more. A step in the right direction has been made by a number of colored men who have raised enough money to start a colored branch of the Young Mems Christian association on Fifty-third street The rent is paid for a year.
 Money is very hard thing for the negro to earn in this city. I'm a painter" one negro out of work ex- plained, land can't get job nohow. | can work. I can get more done than a white man alongside of me- but when | the boss sees my black face it's git | out" The black face shuts the negro out of | the labor unions. It shuts him out of | the non-union employers books also. ! White Americans won't work with a | black man, neither will foreign labor | CTS Excluded from most of the regu- lar lines of work many of the negroes | have occasional jobs as their only 
 With trades and industries of all | kinds in the city practically closed to | them, they have only the professions left to them and as ministers, doctors and lawyers they are most successful But unfortunately only a limited SUD- ply of the three can get living out of B certain community. Negroes cannot pray all the time, nor be i'll all the time, nor go to law more than once or twice In a lifetime, even to give their friends But Q colored minister, doctor or lawyer cannot extend his work beyond his own people. and the mass of the negroes, therefore must lind some other way of earning a living. At first glance it seems as if New York must be a better place for the ne- gro than the south, with its rigid dis tinctions, of which the separate colored waiting rooms and cars are only an in- dex. But say this to minister who nas lived in a city of Georgia for exam- ole and he will shake his head, as did he Rev. MT. Walker, who is known among his people as the black Spur yeon.
 "No," he replied. "In the south they discriminate against a colored man in he spending of his money Here they discriminate against him in the earning if it. I think it's easier to be able to ,arn it. In my city in some stores col ,red clerks are in confidential positions, ,ut you never get that here"
 A trying experience for the negro who