New-York tribune., 1918-01-06

MI come North in the last two
lVA years 100000 grains 6f black
,owder lying around the Northern in
auxtr;al centres threatening danger.
rber have cut across the organization
~ the labor world. created great hous-
;,v difficulties AND provided a tindcr
tsat may burst into race war at hun
d,ed places as 1t has already done at q
few.
TIE North has given much advice to
the South on the negro question. Now
I. finds the great race problem on its
own doorstep.
The exodus has taken from the South
q great portion OF its best farm hands,
its cotton picAers, its mechanics, its
factory operators and even its domos-
tic servants The Southern states are
knowing labor shortage for tho first
time. They face Gripping of all their
Industries, lost crops, discomfort In
tho home Several have tried in vain
sy Law to stop the exodus. and the
South is now searching its own heart
.s TO its treatment Of the black. It has
new negro question.
These two great new problems are
among the most difficult and most i'm
portant In the vast welter of issues
shs. must come I'd when the war ends,
and that are even now demanding far
more attention than has been given
them. The answer is not in sight, but
The Tribune has here gathered the
best information that Is obtainable on
conditions as they are to-day.
The negro has come North with fea1.
and uncertainty, but with n new nope
in his trembling heart-a hope OF bet
ter living conditions, better wages, a
faircr chance before the law, greater
freedom and perhaps with some Of that
dream OF social equality which swept
the black world in reconstruction days
and has never wholly died. He has
found some Of these things, but he has
also met violence. torture and death in
forms that rival the worst records Of
Southern lawlessness.
The East st. Louis massacre and
the Chester massacre will be repeated
in the North before the negro laborcr
becomes q stable part of the Northern
industrial forces. But in the end there
wiI be peace says John T. Clarke,
.ieid secretary Of the National League
on Urban Conditions Among Negroes,
With grim optimism.
Problem Is Mostly
Economic
The problem is largely an economic
one Race hatred. OF course, gives edge
10 economic warfare, and often through
It's effect on officials provides license
for the aw!ess, but the chief trouble
is due to the resentment Of white
workers who find their places taken OF
believe their solidarity threatened by
the influx Of negro Workmen.
The exact total of negroes who have
come North can only be estimated, bu
there seems little doubt that it has
considerably passed the half-nlillior
mark. In Manhattan Island alone the
negro population has increased 25 pei
cent in the past few years. Through
groes each week arrived in New York
Trainloads and shiploads of these new
workers were thrown up by ever,
transportation line from the South an(
we're parcclled out among the industra
plants of Jersey City, Newark, Hobo
ken. Paterson and Hartford.
"The hundred thousand negroes nov
on Manhattan Island arc in no DANCE,
from any one. and no one is in DANCE
from them,' Dr. W. +. B. Dubois, edi
Tor Of The Crisis" negro paper, ex
nlained. But the negro laborer VIII,
comes into competition with the whit
laborer encounters both a race and a,
economic antagonism."
The effect which the negro influx ha
IN the great conflict between capita
and labor is tremendous. The Social
ISIS, in organizing the workers for th'
DAY when labor would dominate pro
duction, ignored the negro. Union labor
IN working for its monopoly in labo
10 dominate the wage scale, also ig
nored the negro. When the negr;
comes North in sufficient numbers, q
at present, to provide an importan
proportion Of the labor needed in tn,
great factories, the labor unions suffe
by competition. He stands q profitabl
black surplus in the labor market, an,
he has no friends. Therefore, the out
ragged whites have been able, as at Eas
st. Louis, to attack him with a triba
ao~!, race and economic hatred blend
Ing.
DR.. Dubois, who made a careful in
Vvestlgation at East st. Louis, sums u
'Ae situation there:
"Organized labor OF East st. Loui
dlrected no violent protests against tn
employers who brought the ncgroe
there and kept them there. That woul,
require courage. Besides the police
sherifs deputies and the militia woul'
protect the employers, but not tn
negro.