Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-11-17
SERVANTS SCARCE
IN WASHINGTON.
T Minneapolis Journal,1

IN WASHINGTON.
[Minnea polls Journal.]
AS it is natural to rejoice in other
peoples troubles, it may please many
people to hear that the people of Wash
ington have at last been overtaken by
that servant girl problem. Until the
last few months dwellers in this city
have listened with complaisance TO the
walls from Chicago, Minneapolis, New
York and other northern cities, where
scrub ladies We're going in for clubs
and societies. They felt quite superior
when they heard that people were flock
ing to hotels and boarding houses, be-
cause they could no longer keep their
homes. For in Washington there were
the unfailing colored people, trained in
the south, competent, cheerful and civil.
In Washington there are $4,000 colored
population. Many of them have been
going out of service, accepting mod
crate wages, and going home nights.
They were the comfort and mainstay Of
the houskeeper.
But something has happened. The
same kind of a something which licked
up the good, old fashioned" girls in
other places, has caused them to evapo-
rate from here. The complaint is uni
yersal, competent servants are scarcer
than hens teeth. A newspaper man took
the trouble to canvass the intelligence
Offices and was told the same thing by
all-the demand is greatly in excess Of
the supply. The newspapers show the
same thing daily in their want adj
columnS-scores of advertisements for
servants, offering big wages, telling Of
the smallness of the family, specifying
that there is no washing to be done,
and setting forth the attractiveness and
ease of the situation in glowing terms.
In the same paper will be short quar-
ter of a column of Situations wanted
female
At one intelligence Office it was learn
ed that white servants are being brought
to Washington from New York and
other places in considerable numbers.
The small towns of Virginia and North
Carolina are being canvassed for white
as well as colored girls who are willing
to come north. 1t is also declared that
the colored servants are being rapidly
displaced by the white people. The
colored servant is rapidly declining in
favor, and many good housekeepers de-
clare that they will not have that kind
in the house. They object to them be-
cause they frequently are not clean, be-
cause they live nights in questionable
places, because they steal food and car
ry it home to families of their own, and
because they are not the courteous race
they once were. Whether or not this
is a true bill against the colored SER
wants in Washington as a class, the fact
remains that they are rapidly falling
into disrepute and being replaced by
the white race.
People who are interested in looking
for reasons for such changes are dis
posed to attribute it to the education of
the race. The new generation which
has been reared since the war has had
the same educational advantages in this
city as the whites. They have their
grammar schools and high schools,
maintained at public expense, and they
all go, and most of them go with an
ambition to become teachers them
selves, or to enter some profession.
They readily absorb ideas of equality
which is interpreted as superiority to
the kind of labor performed by their
mothers and fathers. Many become
superior to work Of any kind, and are
supported by their Woodworking par
ents until they get into trouble and the
workhouse. Seventy per cent of the
crime of the District of Columbia is
contributed by the colored population,
tho they number but a third of the
city's residents. There are no training
schools where the rising generations
may learn to cook or sew or to do any
of the things which might enable them
to make a comfortable living. They
learn to read, and what they read in the
newspapers of lynchings in the south
and west does not tend to make them
any more contented. The race antipa-
thy is secretly nurtured, and 1T mani
tests itself at frequent intervals. in
what the house mistress calls "impertl-
nence." 1t crops out also in little rude
pesses on street cars and in other public
places, and causes elderly people to re-
mark on the change that has come over
the colored people since they were
young. People who come up from the
south are shocked, and will descant elo-
quently on the difference between the
southern and northern niger" With
difficulty are the southern colonies" re-
strained from violent assaults upon
occasion.
There is no place on earth where the
colored race has had the advantages
which they have enjoyed in Washington
since war times. Many of the people
have profited by them, and some of the
city's best and quietest citizens are OF
that race. Instances are not infrequent
where they have bought real estate and
profited by it's rise in value, until they
are now very rich. There are probably
q score of families which maintain their
own carria ges, and one or two boast OF
white coachmen They have their
clubs and churches, some of the latter
being quite large and well supplied with
funds. But the social barriers have
never been let down, except on the
memorable occasion when Booker T..
Washington dined with the president.
The refined and educated members OF
the race are more exclusive than the
same class among the whites. But
their exclusiveness is a lonely one.
There are not many of their kind among
their own race, and they are forever
barred from association with those OF
the other race who might be congenial.
But the number of those who have