AMERICA’S BLACK PROBLEM.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3321, 28 October 1919, Page 7

AMERICA’S BLACK PROBLEM.

15,000,000 NEGR-OE-S -AND THEIR» FUTUTRE. t By Henry M. Hyde, (London Correspondent, the Chicago Tribune). One summer before the war I took a, tutor down from Chicago to my farm in 'Vil'gini?t'~. The presiding genius of the farmh-ouse is a huge, extremely competent, and very black woman, named Mrs Mary Hopkins. The tutor was what we call la‘t home a “fresh” youth just out of college, with somewhat free and airy manners. - Bustling, uninvited, on the morning of his arrival into Mrs Hopkin’s inviolnte kitchen, he greeted her eheerily, and in accordance with the best practice of negro dialect stories. with “Good morning Aunt Mary!” Mary bowed her great bulk, and somehow held the youth in the doorway with the warning light in her eye. “Ah’m afraid, suh,” she said softly, “that I knint. claim the honuh of bein’ any kill uv you’s.” All the countryside is full of negro homes, some of them quite comfortable even by white standards. Negroes keep stores, run small businesses, a few of them save money. , They have their own schools and churches and frolics. They make any sacrifice ‘to keep tli"c"ir cllildl'qn in school until they can at least read and write.‘ THE ICOLOUR LINE.

It is true the negro men do not vote. Neither do the “poor whites.” On the railro§ds the negroes must ride by themselves in “Jim Crow” cars; they must occupy -the back seats in the tram ems in town. The solour line is‘ drawn pretty closely. And it is noticeable Ythat the negr-ores draw _t.,lle colour line themselves. Into Chicago the year before the United States entered the warswarm—ed; more ithun 60,000 negroes from the south. We had sent tens of thensands of men to join the armies of the Allies.l_ The negroes came. up to fill their places in the factories. They came from States where for years they had obeyed certain. laws and rules laid down by. -the white man. They were lured north by articles in their own negro papers telling them that in the north they were just as good as or a little better than any white man. 'l.abour agents of northern factories also be-gniled ‘them.

They could earn three dollars to four dollars..or more a day in Chicago and “do as they please.” . They found work at good wages, But they knew nothing of life in a big city. Sanitary conditions in the open country, with sun and air pouring into open windows and doors for nine months in the year, are quite (l‘ifl’erent from those in unaccustomed city tenements. They knew nothing about cold weather. The zero winter climate torturerl them. In almost all the south prohibition had ruled for years. In Chicago were plenty of low dive keepers———m-any of them black men——— to sell gin and whisky. -Local politicians pandered t-0 them. They grow insolent. ORGANISE TI-IE NEGROES? Also the white workmen ~neitller_in the United States -nor anywhere. else will stand undercutting in wages on the part of negroes. One of the fundamental causes of race friction everywhere is the economic question. Negroes have been used in the past as‘ strike-«breakers in Chicago. And when members of a labour union have after .a struggle of years won good working conditions and fair wages they will fight desperately to prevent men of lower intelligence from breaking -down these protective barriers. Of course the thing to do is to organise the negroes. The Amercan Federaton of Labour has recognised that necessity by deciding at ‘its convention to start. it union as rapidly as possible among black workmen. ‘There are plenty of Gdiicated, well-to-do, and respectable negroes in Chicago: Many of them have lived there for years. One of the best dentists in -the city is a black man, -and his clients are almost; exclusivxely white. But fundamental question of race prejmlico remains, while some people prefer to blink or deny. There are betwen» twelve and fifteen millions of negroes in the Cnitetl States. They present one of the “two or three most diFficult. domestic problems we have to face. I -3111 Corry I have no certain and quick solution. to ofl"e.r.