Metropolis weekly gazette. (Metropolis, Ill.) 1???-19??, 1916-09-15


we have to revise our notions
The South wants the Negro, after all,
and wants him so badly that Ii isn't
going to let him get away If 1t can help
Ii. Listen:
"Americus, Ga. police and sheriff's
office have thrown out a dragnet for
the agents who have been leading Ne
groes out of the country with promises
OF work in Connecticut special dis
patch to the Atlanta Constitution reads
Several industries have been par
alyzed by the Negroes leaving their
work.
Then there is the old boyle of alien
immigration. Listen again, this time
to the Washington Post:
"There is growing need for com
mon labor" which may become $50
acute as to cripple industry" and which
is due partly to prosperity and partly
to the impairment of immigration"
The same paper summarizes the sit
uation as follows:
mot long ago agents acting In be-
half of the Russian government trans
ported from Norfolk, Va, complete
force of shipbuilders. including fore
men. craftsmen, mechanics and ordi-
nary laborers. The shipbuilding force
was removed In a body to Russia. so
that the Russian government might
have better facilities for shipbuildlng.
1.-The need for labor. both for agri-
cultural and industrial development, Is
as great In the South as In the East.
Recently two thousand Negro laborers
left Savannah. Ga, to work on the
Pennsylvania railroad. The laborers
were taken from a point four miles
out of Savannah because the local
council had passed an ordinance requir-
ing a 81 900 license fee for any agent
sending laborers out of the state.
"All of the factories in he South are
taking precautions against draining OF
their labor resources. Their situation
is not different from that which pre-
walls in the East. Some months ngo
one of the large motor car compa-
MES In the East had strike and with
In "a hours agents Of the large mu-
milton companies were on the field
inducing the strikers 10 accept employ
ment In the munition plants"
But suppose we follow the Negroes
to Connecticut and let the Hartford
Courant tell about II:
Zone way In which the labor short
age that has been felt In the North dur
Ing the present. period of Intense In
dustrial prosperity has been met Is by
the importation of Negro laborers from
the South. The tobacco plantations In
the immediate vicinity of Hartford
have made particular use of this ex-
pedient.
Marcus l.. Floyd, general manager
of the Connecticut Tobacco corpora.
ton. now has las Negroes M work. and
expects soon TO have 200 working on
the GO acres that are being cultivated
under cloth by the corporation.
ION the Griffin Neuberger plantation
at Grifths. Conn. there are now s.
Negro workers, and here will be 13c
before the season Is over.
These Negro workers are paid s.
day and housed free"
And here Is the explanation:
1.-The cause of the labor shortage In
this section, according to Mr.. Floyd, Ii
that the high wages offered by NUM-
ton factories to unskilled laborers
drew most of them into the work. This
with the fact that immigration has al
most ceased"
So the war, which brought the indus
trial prosperity and also cut of the I'm
migration upon which American EN-
ployers so long have depended, is to be
both praised and blamed And In the