Negro Migration during the War Part 11

This company, however, within 18 months had employed 300 negroes from the South.

Concerning the range of wages for negroes in these lines the data provided by these firms gave some means of information.

Firms Male Female

Plankington Packing Co. 43c to 64c an hour 30-1/2c an hour Faulk's Manufacturing Co. 35c to 47c an hour Hoffman Manufacturing Co. 32-1/2c an hour Tunnell Construction Co. $4 a day Albert Trostel Co. 40c an hour 30c an hour Milwaukee c.o.ke and Gas Co. $3.67 to $4.79 a day A.J. Lindeman-Hoverson Co. $3 to $5 a day National Malleable Iron Co. 35c an hour to $4 a day Pfister-Vogel Tannery $22 to $24 a week

The quality of the workingmen is of interest both to the employers and social workers. To get uniform data employers were asked the princ.i.p.al faults and princ.i.p.al merits of their negro workmen. To the question, "What are the princ.i.p.al faults of your negro workmen?" these answers were given:[123]

None that predominate.

The princ.i.p.al fault of negro workmen is, they are slow and very hard to please.

Not good on rapid moving machinery, have not had mechanical training; slow; not stable.

Inclined to be irregular in attendance to work.

Very unsteady.

Leave in summertime for road work.

To the question, "What are the princ.i.p.al merits of your negro workmen?" these answers were given:

They are superior to foreign labor because they readily understand what you try to tell them.

Loyalty, willingness, cheerfulness.

The skilled men stick and are good workmen.

Generally speaking they are agreeable workmen.

Quicker, huskier, and can stand more heat than other workmen.

The att.i.tude of white and black workmen toward one another in none of the plants visited presented anything like a serious situation. The following are answers to questions relating to this sentiment as returned by the important industries:[124]

No feeling--no complaints--no comments.

White and black get along well. There was a little trouble some time ago between a Jewish foreman and his negro workmen.

All the negroes quit. The matter was investigated and the foreman discharged.

Good.

The relations are favorable, although negroes appear a bit clannish.

Good fellowship prevails.

Negroes do not stay long enough to get acquainted.

Good in most cases. Very little opposition. They are working as helpers with whites. Few objections.

As a final effort to get the opinion of employers themselves concerning the best means of improving their labor, a suggestion from them on this matter was solicited. Their views are subjoined:[125]

A rather broad question and one that could only be answered after considerable study. Believe the great trouble with negro labor has been the fact that a poor cla.s.s of negroes has been employed by many. We have a good lot of workers now.

Some means should be devised to get them away from their general shiftless ways.

Education.

As a negro can be very contented and happy on very little, if their living conditions were improved and the desire created in them to improve their condition, this would be a help towards encouragement in bettering their social condition.

In fact, we feel that anything that would help to better the social attention of the negro would make him a better workman.

Better housing and supervision through some responsible organization. Some way to keep sympathetic watch over them.

Without doubt there is an element of truth in each of these comments.

It is unquestionably true that a large number of these men register by their actions instability, irregularity and general shiftlessness.

Some of these cases are inexcusable, and the only reason for their connection with the industry is the fact that they were brought from the South, where they were voluntarily idle, by agents of employers.

The importation merely shifted the scene of their deliberate loafing and spasmodic contact with work.

Employers in all of the plants know that they have had difficulty in holding their negro labor, but do not know why. Most of the men willing to leave the city were unmarried men with few responsibilities. These are the ones who found employment there and, being dissatisfied, quit. The highest negro labor turnover was in the leather factories. But for this there was a reason. The only employment permitted negroes there was wet and very disagreeable beam work, and at wages not in excess of those paid by neighboring plants with a different grade of work. Inquiries among laboring men reveal reasons plausible indeed to the laborers themselves, which in many cases would have been found reasonable also by the employers.

It is generally known that all cla.s.ses of labor of all nationalities are in an unsettled state. Shifting to the higher paid industries is common. In consequence the disagreeable and poorly paid ones have suffered. The instability of negroes, especially in those industries that have been so hard pressed as to find it necessary to go South for men, is not so much a group characteristic as an expression of present tendencies in labor generally.

Reasons of a more intimate nature advanced by the men for changing jobs are numerous. Among these are dissatisfaction with the treatment of petty white bosses, the necessity for ready money for the care of their families, the distance of the plants from the district in which the negro workmen live[126] and the unpleasant indoor work in certain factories.

The social condition of negroes in Milwaukee is not alarming. There are indicated, however, unmistakable maladjustments which require immediate attention. But even these will not become alarming, if checked now, when preventive measures can be made practicable, attractive and easy.

The neighborhoods in which negroes live have long showed evidence of physical and moral deterioration. The addition of 1,400 negroes from the South, over 70 per cent of whom were brought to the city by companies seeking labor, hastened the deterioration and gave rise to problems where only tendencies existed before. Neighborhood life is conspicuously lax and the spirit of the community quite naturally comports with the looseness and immorality of the district. Though such conditions are plainly evident, no organized influence has been projected to correct them. As with the neighborhood, so with housing, crime, delinquency, education, recreation, industry, and the like, the conditions which r.e.t.a.r.d developmental habits must have constant vigilance and treatment.

[Footnote 110: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]

[Footnote 111: Ibid.]

[Footnote 112: The Detroit branch of the Urban League reported, for example, that a great percentage of its applicants for work were from Chicago.]

[Footnote 113: The two large houses accommodated fifty to sixty men.

One of these was known as the Tuskegee Club House and housed only men from Tuskegee Inst.i.tute.]

[Footnote 114: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]

[Footnote 115: In May, 1917, the Sherman House on Genesee Street in the heart of the city became a negro hotel. It has 19 bedrooms and accommodates 35 men. It was poorly managed and dirty. A barber shop, pool room and dining room were run in connection with it and were also poorly managed. The manager of the hotel is one of the newcomers.

A rooming house and dance hall for negroes is operated in another section of the city. The Wilder Tanning Company was building a hotel for 50 single men and individual houses of five, six, seven and eight rooms for families. Houses for white workmen were to be built by the company after these were completed. Lawrence Wilder, president of the company, stated that the building of these houses was no "experiment."

"They are being put up to stay." Hot and cold water, hot air, heat, electric lights, and shower baths will be in the hotel. Single rooms will rent for $1.25, double rooms $2.50 per week. No women will be permitted to live in the hotel. A social room will be within easy access of all occupants. No meals will be served at the hotel, but will be served at the plant. The houses will be one and two stories and can be purchased on a monthly basis. A street car line will connect the plant and the subdivision.

Before the influx the Cyclone Fence Company and the Calk Mill Company were said to have sworn never to employ negro labor. The Wilder Tanning Company and the American Steel and Wire Company have standing invitations for negro men with references.--Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]

[Footnote 116: They were employed by the Ga.s.selli Chemical Company, Goldsmiths Detinning Company, the International Lead Refining Company, the United States Reduction Company, the United States Refining Company, Hobson and Walker's Brick Yard, the Inland Steel Foundry, Interstate Mill, the Cudahy Soap Factory and the Republic Rolling Mill. The Hobson and Walker's Brick Yard employed 200 and provided houses within the yards for the families of the workmen. The International Lead Refining Company provided lodging for its men in remodeled box cars. Wages for ordinary labor ranged from $2.50 to $4.50 per day. This did not include the amount that might be made by overtime work. The brick yard employed negroes for unskilled work at 35 cents an hour. A few skilled negroes employed were receiving from $4.75 to $7 a day.

Negroes are fairly well scattered throughout the foreign residential section. A small area known as "Oklahoma" or "Calumet" had perhaps the largest number. The houses were overcrowded, dark, insanitary, without privacy and generally unattractive. All of the rooms were sleeping rooms, usually with two beds in a room accommodating six men. Rent was high, and ranged from $15 to $25 a month for four and five room flats in very unattractive buildings. Single lodgers paid from $1.50 to $1.75 a week. Restaurant rates were exorbitant and food was so high that many of the families bought their provisions in Chicago.