In considering the field of employment for colored women, the professional women must be discussed separately. They admit fewer difficulties and put a brave face on the matter, but in any case their present position was gained only after a long struggle. The education is the less difficult part. The great effort is to get the work after having prepared themselves for it. The Negro woman, like her white sister, is constantly forced to choose between a lower wage or no work. The pity is that her own people do not know the colored girl needs their help nor realize how much they could do for her.

Two of the musicians found the struggle too hard and were compelled to leave Chicago. One girl of twenty-three, a graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music, is playing in a low concert hall in one of the worst sections of the city, from 8 in the evening till 4 in the morning. Her wages are $18 a week, and with this she supports a father and mother and younger sister.

There are from fifteen to twenty colored teachers in the public schools of Chicago. This information was obtained from the office of the superintendent, where it was said no record was kept of the number of colored teachers. When they are given such a place they are always warned that they are likely to have difficulty. As a rule they are in schools where the majority of the children are Negroes. They are all in the grades, but they say that their opportunities for promotion are equal to those of white women. Indeed, they say that there are two places where they are not discriminated against because of their color. One is in the public schools, the other is under the Civil Service Commission.

However, the professional women do not have the greatest difficulty. The real barriers are met by the women who have had only an average education—girls who have finished high school, or perhaps only the eighth grade. These girls, if they were white, would find employment at clerical and office work in Chicago’s department stores, mail order houses and wholesale stores. But these positions are absolutely closed to the Negro girl. She has no choice but housework.

When the object of the inquiry was explained to one woman she said: “Why, no one wants a Negro to work for him. I’ll show you—look in the newspaper.” And she produced a paper with its columns of advertisements for help wanted. “See, not one person in this whole city has asked for a Negro to work for him.”

A great many of the colored women find what they call “day work” most satisfactory. This means from eight to nine hours a day at some kind of housework, cleaning, washing, ironing or dusting. This the Negro women prefer to regular positions as maids, because it allows them to go at night to their families. The majority of the women who do this work receive $1.50, with 10 cents extra for carfare. There was a higher grade of day work for which the pay was $2 a day besides the carfare. This included the packing of trunks, washing of fine linen and lace curtains, and even some mending.

The records of the South Side Free Employment Agency showed that the wages of colored women were uniformly lower than those of white women. Of course, there is no way of judging of ability by records, but where the white cooks received $8 per week the Negro cooks were paid $7, and where the white maids received $6, sometimes, but not as frequently as in the case of the cooks, the Negro maid received less. One dollar and a half was paid for “day work.” At the colored employment agency which is run in connection with the Frederic Douglas Centre they have many more requests for maids than they have girls to fill the places. Good places with high wages are sometimes offered, but the girls are more and more demanding “day work” and refusing to work by the week. At the South Side Free Employment Agency during the months of January, February and March of this year forty-two positions for colored women were found.^[2] These forty-two positions were filled by thirty-six women, some of them coming back to the office two or three times during the three months. The superintendent said it was difficult to find places for the colored women who applied, and they probably succeeded in placing only about 25 per cent. of them. In the opinion of those finding the work for the girls in this office, the reason for the difficulties they encounter are the fact that they do not remain long in one place and have a general reputation for dishonesty. The fundamental cause of the discrimination by employers against them is racial prejudice either in the employer himself or in his customers.

One girl who has only a trace of colored blood was able to secure a position as salesgirl in a store. After she had been there a long time she asked for an increase in wages, such as had been allowed the white girls, but the request was refused and she was told that she ought to be thankful that they kept her at all.

In many cases, especially when the women were living alone, the earnings, plus the income from the lodgers, barely covered the rent. When they work by the day they rarely work more than four days a week. Sometimes the amount they gave as their weekly wage fell short of even paying the rent, but more often the rent was covered and a very small margin left to live on.

Such treatment has discouraged the Negro woman. She has accepted the conditions and seldom makes any real effort to get into other sorts of work. The twelfth question on the schedule, “What attempts have you made to secure other kinds of work in Chicago or elsewhere?” was usually answered by a question: “What’s the use of trying to get work when you know you can’t get it?”

The colored women are like white women in the same grade of life. They do not realize the need of careful training, and they do not appreciate the advantages of specialization in their work. But the Negro woman is especially handicapped, for she not only lacks training but must overcome the prejudice against her color. Of the 270 women interviewed, 43 per cent. were doing some form of housework for wages, yet all evidence of conscious training was entirely lacking. This need must be brought home to them before they can expect any real advancement.

A peculiar problem presents itself in connection with the housework. Practically this is the only occupation open to Negro women, and it is also the only occupation where one is not expected to go home at night. This the Negroes insist on doing. They are accused of having no family feeling, yet the fact remains that they will accept a lower wage and live under far less advantageous conditions for the sake of being free at night. That is why the “day work” is so popular. Rather than live in some other person’s home and get good wages for continued service, the colored woman prefers to live in this way. She will have a tiny room, go out as many days a week as she can get places, and pay for her room and part of her board out of her earnings, which sometimes amount to only $3 or $4.50 per week.

Occasionally laundry, sewing or hair work is done in their homes, but the day work is almost universally preferred.

Many of the Negroes are so nearly white that they can be mistaken for white girls, in which case they are able to secure very good positions and keep them as long as their color is not known.

One girl worked for a fellowship at the Art Institute. Her work was good and the place was promised her. In making out the papers she said Negro, when asked her nationality, to the great astonishment of the man in charge. He said he would have to look into the matter, but the girl did not get the fellowship.

A young man, son of a colored minister in the city, had a position in a business man’s office, kept the books, collected rents, etc. He had a peculiar name, and one of the tenants remembered it in connection with the boy’s father, who had all the physical characteristics of the Negro. The tenant made inquiries and reported the matter to the landlord, threatening to leave the building if he had to pay rent to a Negro. The boy was discharged.

A colored girl, who was very light colored, said that more than once she secured a place and the colored people themselves had told the employer he had a “Negro” working for him. The woman with whom she was living said: “It’s true every time. The Negroes are their own worst enemies.”

To summarize, the isolation which is forced upon the Negro, both in his social and his business life, constitutes one of the principal difficulties which he encounters. As far as the colored woman is concerned, as we have shown, the principal occupations which are open to her are domestic service and school teaching. This leaves a large number of women whose education has given them ambitions beyond housework, who are not fitted to compete with northern teachers and yet cannot obtain clerical work because they are Negroes. Certain fields in which there is apparently an opportunity for the colored women are little tried. For example, sewing is profitable and there is little feeling against the employment of Negro seamstresses, and yet few follow the dressmaking profession.

Without doubt one fundamental reason for the difficulties the colored woman meets in seeking employment is her lack of industrial training. The white woman suffers from this also, but the colored woman doubly so. The most hopeful sign is the growing conviction on the part of the leading Negro women of the city that there is need of co-operation between them and the uneducated and unskilled, and that they are trying to find some practical means to give to these women the much-needed training for industrial life.

COLORED MEN LYNCHED WITHOUT TRIAL.

The policy usually carried out consistently in the South of refusing the colored woman the courtesies accorded the white woman leads to some unfortunate results. One of the courtesies refused is the title of “Mrs.” or “Miss.” Thus a Kentucky newspaper, in its recent educational news, notes “the resignation of Mrs. Mattie Spring Barr as a substitute teacher and the unanimous election of Miss Ella Williams,” while a few paragraphs below it says that “Principal Russell of the Russell Negro School asked that Lizzie Brooks be promoted to the position of regular teacher and that Annie B. Jones be made a substitute.” Here we have two groups of women doing similar important work for the community, yet the group with Negro blood is denied the formality of address that every other section of the country gives to the teacher in a public school.

How much the South loses by this policy is shown by a Northerner’s experience in the office of one of the philanthropic societies. Two probation officers, volunteers, were going out to their work. The secretary of the society addressed the first, a white woman, as Mrs. Brown: the second, a little middle-aged black woman, he called Mary. When they had left the Northerner questioned the difference in address. “I couldn’t call a nigger Mrs. or Miss.,” the secretary expostulated. “It would be impossible.” “But here in your own city,” the Northerner answered, “I happen to know a number of educated colored girls, some of them college graduates, who have a desire for social service. Under you they might learn the best methods of charitable work, but they would not care to be called ‘Annie’ or ‘Jane’ by a young white man. Can you afford to lose such helpers as these?”

He had but one answer. “It would never do for me to say Mrs. or Miss to a nigger. It would be impossible.”

Throughout the country there are a number of colored postal clerks. These men, with others in the service, belong to the Mutual Benefit Association. At a recent meeting in Chicago the delegates to this Mutual Benefit Association voted in the future to admit only clerks of the Caucasian race. According to one of the colored clerks, the meeting that passed this vote was “packed,” colored members receiving no notice to elect delegates to it.

The black servant is more acceptable to some people than the educated colored man. As an instance of this is Mr. U. of Washington, a highly cultivated Negro of some means. As owner of a cottage and a few acres of land in a small Virginia town, he good-naturedly allowed an old black woman to live rent-free upon his place. On her death he went down to claim the property, but found the woman’s daughter had put in a counter claim. The case went to court, and in his plea before the jury the woman’s lawyer said: “Are you going to take property away from this black mammy’s daughter to give it to a smart nigger from Washington?” And despite Mr. U.’s former yearly payment of taxes, despite the deed which he himself held, he lost his suit.

In Wilcox County Ala., there are 10,758 Negro children and 2,000 white children of school age, making a total population of 12,758. The per capita allowance for each child in the State this year is $2.56. According to the recent apportionment of the school fund on this basis, Wilcox County receives $32,660.48. Of this amount the 10,758 Negro children have been allowed one-fifth, or $6,532.09, about 60 cents each, while the 2,000 white children receive the remaining four-fifths, or $26,128.39, about $13 each. Further investigation shows that only 1,000 of the 10,758 Negro children are in school, leaving 6,758 with absolutely no provision for obtaining even a common school education.

A most interesting and instructive morning was given at the Berkeley Lyceum on Wednesday, December 7, under the auspices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The weather was bitterly cold, and although the great fall of snow during the night had made getting about a not only troublesome but dangerous experience, the little theatre was well filled with many well-known women in sympathy with the cause and interested in all sorts of activities for progress. The chairman, Mr. John Haynes Holmes, introduced Madame Hackley, who gave the musical part of the program, and did it well with her customary finish and appreciation.

Madam Hackley was trained in Paris, and gave several French selections with great skill.

Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, the speaker, was most enthusiastically received, and made, as usual, a most effective and touching speech, to which her audience listened with not only interest but surprise, as many present had never dreamed of the struggles of these women in their efforts for educational advancement.

Without doubt Mrs. Terrell is one of the best orators we have to-day. She has much dignity, with a very easy and fluent mode of speaking. She is direct, and when, as on this occasion, she is talking for the women of her race, her enthusiasm and sincerity carry conviction to her listeners. When she had finished Mrs. Terrell was warmly congratulated, and the enthusiastic daughter of the great orator, Robert Ingersoll, Mrs. Walston R. Brown, declared that “Mrs. Terrell must tell her story again to a larger and fuller audience.” In her remarks Mrs. Terrell told of the obstacles which confront colored women and girls in their efforts to better their conditions. Often having to battle against this great evil of race prejudice which yet lingers in our land and which so often stands in the way of progress for these women, not only, said Mrs. Terrell, must she struggle with the handicap of color, but only too often she gets no sympathy from the white woman, who should be at least willing to give a helping hand to these colored friends who, like herself, are more or less looking forward to perfect freedom and all which that means for womanhood. The speaker thought that right here was a big field for the American woman’s activities, and hoped for the co-operation of her white friends.

Mrs. Stanton Blatch, who was in the audience, made a short but forceful speech for the cause of women, and thought “the vote” would help along quicker than anything else all reforms of this or any other nature. The secretary of the Trades Woman’s League also spoke, and declared that she would do her part toward opening the doors of her association to all women, whether white or colored.

After a most delightful rendering of several Negro melodies, Mrs. Hackley told how she so much hoped to establish a school of music for her people. No one hearing her direct, simple and earnest story doubted for a moment her ultimate success in this worthy effort, and she most certainly will have the co-operation of every musical member of her audience.

The chairman made a few remarks with his usual dignity and precision, and the first musical morning was voted a real success. Those having boxes were Mrs. Villard, Mrs. E. W. Harkness, Mrs. Paul M. Warburg, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Mrs. Robert Ingersoll, whose daughter, Miss Maud, acted as one of the ushers; Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, Mrs. Frederick Nathan, Mrs. Frances R. Keyser, Mrs. Charles W. Anderson, together with many other well-known women, white and colored.

The arrangements were in charge of Miss Frances Blascoer, executive secretary of the Association.

The annual report of British East Africa for the year 1908–09, which was issued a few months ago, states that the period was not marked by any salient events, but the Protectorate had made steady progress in spite of weather conditions somewhat unfavorable to agriculture. There had been little or no friction with native tribes. Labor difficulties still exist, but show a tendency to diminish. European overseers of the native railway laborers have proved far more satisfactory than the Indians formerly employed.

The report says of slavery:

“The ordinance for the abolition of the legal status of slavery has worked well and without friction during the year. Altogether 3,593 cases have been settled by the District Courts, and compensation to the amount of £7,053 has been awarded.”

PERIODICALS.

Plea for the Conservation of Another Great National Resource. F. P. Chisholm. Education, November.

Dip of the Tar Brush. M. A. H. New England Magazine, October.

Special Plea of a Southerner. E. Harlan. New England Magazine, October.

Prince Henry of Portugal and the African Crusade of the Fifteenth Century. C. R. Beasley. American Historical Review, October.

Excavation of Cyrene. F. W. Kelsey. Nation, October 27.

Diary of Gideon Welles. Atlanta, December.

Cuban Experiences. Frederick Funston. Scribner’s, December.

A Hero’s Conscience. G. Bradford, Jr. Atlanta, December.

BOOKS.

Wilson, Lady S. D. A.—South African Memories. Longmans.

Shotwell, W. G.—Life of Charles Sumner. Crowell. 733 pp.

Steffens. Alexander H., Recollections of. Doubleday, Page & Co. 572 pp.

Newton, J. H.—Lincoln and Herndon. Torch Press. 367 pp.

Sylvester, H. M.—Indian Wars of New England. Clark. 3 vols.

Haring, C. H.—The Buccaneers of the West Indies in the 17th Century. Dutton. 298 pp.

Hagood, Johnson.—Memoirs of the War of Secession. State Co. 498 pp.

Deutsch, G.—History of the Jews. Bloch. 122 pp.

Shoemaker. M. M.—Islam Lands. Putnams. 251 pp.

Withers, P.—Egypt of Yesterday and To-day. Stokes. 293 pp.

Addams, Jane.—Twenty Years at Hull House. Macmillan, 462 pp.

Documentary History of American Industrial Society. Vol, IX: Labor Movement. Clark. 378 pp.

THE LADY OF THE SLAVE STATES.

Mrs. George Haven Putnam, in a very charming essay in the Contemporary Review for December, discusses “The Lady of the Slave States.” She deals gently enough with her subject; she says that the slave-owner’s wife like everybody else with slavery was blighted by its curse, but she demolished very effectually the myth of the gracious fascinating woman of culture who ruled family and estate by the charm of her personality.

The ante-bellum Southern lady never had much to say for herself and was in short not “the Gothic saint in her niche” that tradition pictures, but a kindly little creature surrounded by “Orientalism” and little better off, so far as opportunities for development went, than any lady of the harem.

Mrs. Putnam quotes Miss Martineau, who traveled extensively through the slave States, to show how the system limited the white women and made them “the greatest slaves on the plantation.” Patience was the supreme virtue of the ante-bellum lady—they made the best of a bad state of affairs. Logic she had little or none, and her up-bringing tended to make her a delightful girl but a middle-aged woman of only moderate attractions. And while she was often very kind to her slaves her sensibilities seemed in some measure blunted by perpetual sight of suffering and injustice.

When the war ended the ex-mistresses of slaves showed how good was the material that had been buried under the “Orientalism” of the plantation.

RACE PREJUDICE IN THE ORIENT.

Race Prejudice: An address by Melville E. Stone to the Quill Club, New York City.

The best review of this remarkable little pamphlet will be a few extracts from its pages:

What is to be the outcome? What does all this mean for the future of the world? Let us view the problem from the political, the commercial and the moral aspects. How long will the 6,000 soldiers we have in the Philippines be able to keep our flag afloat among 8,000,000 of natives? How long will the 75,000 English soldiers in India be able to maintain British sovereignty over 300,000,000 of Asians? Believe me, these are not idle questions. They are up to us for an answer, whether we will or no, and upon our ability to make answer will depend the future of what we are pleased to call our Western civilization. I would not be an alarmist, and yet I would have you feel that Macauley’s suggestion of the New Zealander on a broken arch of London Bridge, sketching the ruins of St. Paul, has come to be more than an extravagant figure of speech. And I am convinced that there is real danger awaiting us unless we mend our ways. It is not the Asian who needs educating; it is the European. I am not worrying half so much about the heathen in his blindness as I am about the Christian in his blindness. Asia is awake and preparing for the coming struggle. And we are doing very much to force the issue and to prepare her for the contest. For a century we have been sending at enormous cost our missionaries to all parts of the hemisphere to civilize. There may be doubt as to the amount of proselyting we have been able to accomplish; there can be no possible doubt of the work we have done to strengthen the Asian people politically and commercially.

We shall never meet the problems growing out of our relation with the Far East unless we absolutely and once for all put away race prejudice. I believe the European snob in Asia is distinctly the enemy of the civilized West. And his coadjutor in this country is a fitting criminal yoke-fellow. Let me give you some illustrations of what I mean—cases which came under my personal observation. From Bombay to Yokohama there is not a social club at any port or treaty point where a native, whatever his culture or refinement, will be admitted. At the Bengal Club at Calcutta last year a member in perfectly good standing innocently invited an Eurasian gentleman—that is, one who is half native and half European—to dine with him. It became known that the invitation had been extended, and a storm of opposition broke among the members. The matter was finally adjusted by setting aside the ladies’ department of the club, and there the offending member and his unfortunate guest dined alone. The next day the member was called before the board of governors and notified that another like breach of the rules would result in his expulsion. The beating of native servants and workmen in India is a daily and hourly occurrence. It formerly was so at Hong Kong and Shanghai, but Mr. Sprague, the representative of the Standard Oil Company at Shanghai, told me that since the Russo-Japanese war the natives would not stand it, and that all beating of them by Europeans in that city had ceased.

The son of a maharaja goes to England, is educated at Oxford or Cambridge, is lionized in the West End of London—mayhap he is honored with an invitation to Windsor. When he goes back home he may enter no white man’s club; if he be fortunate enough to be invited to a white man’s function, no white woman will dance or associate with him; and if by any luck he should marry a European, he, his wife and his children become outcasts. Although native troops, like the Sikhs, have shown undying loyalty to the British flag and on frequent occasions have exhibited courage in the highest degree, no one of them ever has or ever can achieve the Victoria Cross.

Socially they are all saying to us: “Stop cheating us, stop swindling us, stop your treating us as your inferiors who are to be beaten and robbed.” Japan is crying out, “Treat us fairly and we will go more than half-way. Leave to us the question whether Japanese laborers shall go to America to annoy you, and we will stop them. But do not say that you will admit the lazaroni of Hungary and Italy and Russia, simply because they are white, and shut us out because we are yellow.”

The Sinhalese, natives of Ceylon, while I was in Colombo, addressed a remarkable communication to the Governor-General. They said a hundred years ago there was established in the United States a new theory of government—that there should be no taxation without representation. “Now,” they said, “we ask a share in the government of the island. We pay taxes. You may fix a property qualification and say that no one having less than a thousand pounds sterling shall share in the government. We shall not object. You may also fix an educational qualification. You may say that no one but a college graduate shall take part in the government. We will not object. In short, you may fix any qualification except a racial qualification. That would not be fair.” “And what answer have you to make?” I asked Mr. Crosby Rolles, editor of The Times of Ceylon. “To meet their request,” he replied, “would mean to turn over the government of Ceylon to them at once, because there are 6,000 of them and only 5,000 English men, women and children. We must stop educating them.”

What do you think of that for a remedy? Personally. I do not think it will work, any more than I think any rule of arbitrary repression can endure. I cannot bring myself to sympathize altogether with the views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt in his recent Guildhall speech. I take refuge in what seems to me the larger experience and riper judgment of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who in July, 1904, was also given the freedom of the City of London in Guildhall, and on that occasion used these words: “Depend upon it, you will never rule the East except through the heart, and the moment imagination has gone out of your Asiatic policy your empire will dwindle and decay.

“In smug complacency you may close your doors which look toward Asia, while you open wide those which look toward Europe; you may refuse the Oriental admission to your schools, while you accord the privilege to any child of a European; you may pile import duties mountain high, and raise our standards of living to any pitch of extravagance; you may build warships without limit, and you may continue to treat the Asian as legitimate prey. But I am confident that it will not avail.

“As a soldier, whether at Omdurman, in the Sudan, or on 203–Metre Hill, at Port Arthur, the man of color has shown himself a right good fighting man; in commerce he has, by his industry, perseverance, ingenuity and frugality, given us pause; and before the eternal throne his temporal and his spiritual welfare are worth as much as yours and mine.”

When our readers wish to know where to buy the best books on race and other human problems they should consult this list:

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