The bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-09-01
AFRO-AMER|CAN cULL|NCS

A wave Of Industrial prosperity an
we have to revise our notions.
Inc south wants the Negro, after al
ana wants him so badly that it ism
going to let him get away If it can hel
1t. Listen:
Americus, Ga, police and sheriff
office have thrown out q drugnet TO
the agents who have been leading Ne
groes out OF the country with promise
OF work In Connecticut" special dis
patch to the Atlanta Constitution reads
several Industries have been par
aiyZed by the Negroes leaving thei
work"
Then there Is the old bogie Of alieI
immigration. Listen again. this tm'
to the Washington Post:
There Is a growing need for com
mon labor" which may become "st
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, a complete
force Of shipbuilders, including fore
men. craftsmen. mechanics and ordi
nary .aborers. The shipbulding force
was removed In u body to Russia. SC
that the Russian government might
have better facilities for shipbuldng.
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. Ca, to work on the
Pennsylvania railroad The laborers
We're taken from a point four miles
out OF Savannah because the local
council had passed an ordinance requir-
ing a $1,000 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 ago
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 to accept employ
ment in the munition plants"
But suppose we follow the Negroes
to Connecticut and let the Hartford
Courant tell about 1t:
"One 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 Capnactic,'t- TOBACCO corpora
ton, now has 145 Negroes at work, and
expects soon to have 200 working on
the 62O acres that are being cultivated
under cloth by the corporation.
ION the Griffin-Neuberger plantation
at Grifiths, Conn, there are now So
Negro workers, and here will be 100
before the season Is over.
"These Negro workers are paid 81
a day and housed Free
And here Is the explanation:
1.-THE cause of the labor shortage in
this section, according to Mr.. Floyd. Is
that the high wages offered by NUM-
ton factories to unskilled laborers
drew most of them into the work. This
with the fact that immigra ton has al
most ceased"
So the war, which brought the indus
trial prosperity and also cut off the i'm
migration upon which American en-
blowers SO long have depended, is to be
both praised and blamed. And in the