Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1917-05-03
Promoting Industrial Safety

\/lRGlNlA'S Industrial Council of Safety
already has begun to justify its existence.
The model ordinance prepared by the coun-
ellis chairman, Richard Evelyn Byrd, and
submitted by him to the authorities of all
the cities and towns in the State, is an ex-
cellent device for dealing with the migration
Of negro labor. and should be adopted and
enforced without delay
In brief, 1t requires that all persons,
whether principal agent who shall engage
IN this State in the business Of recruiting
other persons for employment outside the
state shall be required to pay license tax
or from $500 TO $1,000 and furnish a bond
Of not less than 10000 for the faithful per-
formance OF every contract into which they
enter In our Judgment, the maximum
license tax should be placed at $4,000 rather
than $1,000. but with this exception we have
approved in advance the suggestions MIR. Byrd
makes.
Many OF these employment agents are
honest men, but many others are wholly un-
scrupulous. Their one interest is in deliver
Ing laborers at the points where labor is re-
CURED For this they are paid, and after
delivery and payment their concern with what
may happen vanishes. Case after case of
has been brought to the
notice OF the council" writes Mr. Byrd
wherein labor has been enticed away from
the State by glowing promises of higher
wages. excellent living accommodations and
ohoiI hours' Oily 10 Hnd That the conditions
of work and life which they were forced to
accept on arrival at their new Jobs were i'm
measurably worse than those they had left,
lhere has been long correspondence be-
tween Labor Commissioner Doherty and the
labor commissioner OF Ohio, in which the de-
tails OF many such cases have been given at
length by the Ohio official. 1t was because
deceived and helpless negroes abandoned bv
the unprfncipled agents who had enticed
them from their homes, were becoming q
charge on and menace to Ohio that Mr..
Dohertys aid was sought in effecting some
reform.
The negroes who are leaving Virginia and
other Ss2thern States in such large numbers
are those who most readily fall victim to the
arts OF the labor shark. They are not crafts
men who. as every one knows--the negro
craftsman best Of al-fare infinitely better
In the South than in any other part of the
country The negro carpenter or bricklayer
who has tried the experiment knows what
sort OF reception he is likely to receive from
the labor unions of Northern cities. It is the
unskilled city laborer who Is going, with the
skilled farm aborcr Their migration Is a
blow 10 the industry Of the South-to South
ern agriculture particulary-and in this view
a most serious blow to the welfare Of the
whole nation.
Mr. Byrd is perfectly correct when he saws
we cannot reasonably expect any man 10
S'"eo W "oih at hlSheF wages outside or
the State If he Is really benefting himself"
we cannot SO expect. and, In SO far as the
demand is legitimate and the benefits offered
are real, no legislation will prevent migrati ton
ihat situation must be met by making wages
and conditions Of employment as attractive
In the South as they are anywhere else.
Legislation, however. can check the activities
or INSCRIPTIONS agents. and 30 greatly reduce
the volume Of the movement
Agricultural CONSUMPTION must come short
ly. but that is matter for the national
government, and In the meantime the States
and cities cannot do better than proceed on
the lines which The Times Dispatch has sug-
Gested and which the Industrial Council of
Safety now has approved