The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-30
.PATHOS STIRRED BY VISIT ID A FORMER BIRMINGHAM NEGRO With Half Starved Look She Has Found Detroit Far
 From Utopia IS UNABLE TO BUY
 REAL NECESSITIES Former Birmingham Mistress Visits Her in New Home and Finds
 Her Eager to Come
 South Again
nv DoLLY DALRYMpLE

By DOLLY DALRYMPLE
 Please publish the facts in the Br- mingham newspapers so that others may profit by our mistakes and set down con ditions as they are and tell the negroes when they've got good homes in Bir- mingham to stay there and not be led away by high sounding stories of big wages and less work, for it is all a fairy tale and there's nothing to it." This was the gst of what wellt Birmingham negro woman told her for mer mistress recently who went to see her in distant city where the maid and her husband had gone some months ago, drawn thither by the marvellous stories she had heard of big wages, little work and general improvement over condi- tions in her home town
 The woman in question who went to see her old family servant to whom she and her entire household was devoted-a splendid, high -classed type of negro woman, capable and honest and in every way worthy the consideration which she received at the hands of warm-hearted family, who treat their servants kindly and with consideration and do their share of reciprocity in making the life of their servants happy and pleasant, she said in repeating the incident few days ago to little group of friends that she never felt as sorry for anybody in all her life as she did for this negro girl
 VISITED HER AT HOME
 T jumped into a taxi when got to Detroit, and, having the address of my former maid, I went out to see how she was getting along" she said. Imagine my amazement when l discovered her huddled up in a group of five little houses, sheltering 40 or more negroes small rooms, poor accommodations and pay $S for tiny room; $2 for a stove to cook her food on. in large public room where there were dozens of others cook ing, and S1 for laundry tub. Contrast that with her surroundings in Birning- ham, where she had a nice, comfortable room, bath and plenty of good, whole some food, and friends of yearsf stand ing'
 "Of course it was impossible for the woman to make enough money to even half way defray her current expenses and her husband, working in one of the big automobile factories in Detroit, the speaker continued, was on a night shift and not able to meet his expenses by the wages he was receiving.
 ..The woman told me that her husband had received numerous letters from friends in Birmingham recently telling him of the good wages they were mak- ing in the mines here, which far exceeded the wages he was getting.
 And added to this, she continued, was the difficulty the negroes are meet ing with in buying food. It is impossible for them to get sugar, flour, or syrup at any price. Not a pound of granulated sugar had they been able to buy for l0 days. Everything is high and nobody cares anything about the negroes, ana the situation is pathetic
 LOOKED HALE STARVED
 This girl was as thin as rail, the speaker said, and looked half starved and tired to death, and she begged me to bring the news home that the negroes are making a mistake in leaving the south and the best friends they ever had. She would have been glad to return to Blr- mingham right then and there, but, ol course she hadn't the money, and her husband was to be considered. She told me that she had sought work and found
  that work was so heavy and confining that it would take more than one to do 1t and yet it was expected that a single servant must do it all. She said at one place she couldn't help saying to the lady of the house: Our madames in the south have different maids for different work, and one person IS not expected to do the work of all-'
 Sad commentary upon Hitting, vision ary humanity who never knows when It is well off.
 | AMONG THEIR BEST FRIENDS Here in the south the negro is trained with a consideration that is far better than that shown them in any other sec ton of the country. The negroes are | paid good wages; they are well fed; they are given days and evenings for thelr own pleasures. church work. to De with their friends. In other words, they are treated like human beings, and yet Tn flocks, droves, hundreds-nay, thousands, they have left this section of the country within the past year to go to places that they wot not of' carried away by veri- table fairy tales, dreams of Utopia, where money grows on trees and "de gettin' up horn don't blow"
 East St. Louis riots have been published to the world. showing the unkind treat ment accorded the negroes who have Hooked there. In Detroit, within d stone's throw of where the negro woman whose story has been told here, lives, dagos have fought with each other and committed frightful deeds, in which the negroes have suffered; in other sections the story is repeated, and yet, they can't learn except by the bitterest personal ex- , perience they must go through them selves.
 The southern people are the best | friends the negros have ever had, and the time doesn't seem far distant when they will find that this is the real truth and the story told by the negro girl of hard ships and disappointments, low wages and scarcity of food, high rents and lack of friends, will be only one of many and 1t must undoubtedly bring them to