Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1917-07-28

ever DeIOfe. lnlS represents large I'LL
gratory movement, probably larger than
most other groups of ten million in the
world can show.
Why did these people move? Despite all
efforts to becloud the issue and despite
well-known exceptions the grievances Of
the colored population in the South are per-
fectly clear and we'll understood by them
and by their friends They may be set
down as follows: .- i
l. Low wages and medieval working
conditions.
2. Insecurity Of life and limb.
g. Insecurity of property.
4. Disfranchisement.
g. "Jim- Grow" legislation which means
persistent public insult in almost every
walk Of life
These grievances do not mean that the
white South has been wholly stationary or
reactionary The South has moved and
moved tremendously in it's attitude toward
blacks since 1863. Slowly, very slowly, but
surely it is coming to realize that lynching
is poor investment for an industrial COM
munity; it is beginning to believe that in
telligent labor is better than ignorant
poems; it knows that the methods Of enforc-
ing "Jim-C Grow" legislation and caste GUS
toms are unjust disgraceful and dangerous,
and it sees in the near future the ousting
Of political oligarchy by real democracy
from which it sees no way to exclude, per-
manently, Negroes or women.
All this is true and here most American
philosophers seem content to rest and sing.
But the truth is far more complicated than
this indicates. Fast as the white South
has moved the modern world and the Ne
gro have moved faster. The white South
with all it's increasing liberalism has not
fO with o6v IF
modern philanthropic thought or with the
expanding power and aspiration of 10000
600 people Of Negro descent The South
still remains compared with the rest of
the land, provincial, lawless and oligarchic.
Grant all that may be claimed as to the
advancement Of the white South it remains
true that no modern white laborer would
for moment submit to the labor conditions
under which the mass Of Negroes work if
he could escape; no modern white laborer
would submit to the labor conditions under
which the mass Of Southern white laborers
work if the competition of the Negroes low
wage did not compel him.
What is the result? The intelligent
black laborer does not propose to submit
to present Southern conditions a moment
longer than he must.
Whittier can he escape?
There have appeared to him several pos
sibilities:
1. TO fight his way up in the South
2. To go to the free land in the West
3. To 60 to freer conditions in the North.
4. To emigrate from the country.
His efforts to fight his way up in the
South rested on faith that the spiritual and
social development of the white South
would progress so fast that oppression of
the Negro and unbearable caste insults
n11Il C1o
pear. In this thought he has been grev-
ously disappointed. Disfranchsement has
increased rather than d ecreased lynching
has not perceptibly 1essened common
school training for blacks is worse today
than twenty years ago; industrial legisla-
ton to hamper Negroes, segregation ordi-
nances, and discriminating laws have be-
come more numerous
In spite of this there has arisen per-
sistent effort, backed by unlimited North
ern money and influence, and advocated by