The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

I. INTRODUCTION

1. NEGRO WORKING POPULATION IN 1920

Between 1910 and 1920 the Negro population of Chicago increased from 44,103 to 109,594. Of this number it is estimated that about 70,000 were engaged in industries in 1920 as compared with about 27,000 in 1910.[49]

Questions which naturally suggest themselves for answer in connection with this great increase in the Negro working population in Chicago are: How did this large number of Negroes fit into the industrial life of the city? What were and are the opportunities open to them? Have they given satisfaction to employers? Are they discriminated against by employers or fellow-workers? Has racial friction developed because of competition between white and Negro workers? Were the riots of 1919 in any sense the result of labor troubles? What part have the Negroes taken in strikes? What is the relation of the Negro to organized labor? What is the outlook for the Negro in industry? These and other questions guided the inquiries and investigations of the Commission in the industrial field.

2. OPPORTUNITIES CREATED BY THE WAR

The Negro's position in the industrial life of Chicago is so intimately connected with the changes due to the war that a brief reference to certain facts of common knowledge in connection with the war will be helpful. With the beginning of the war in 1914 came an abnormally large demand by the belligerent countries for American munitions, food products, clothing, leather, iron and steel products, and other manufactured goods. Existing establishments were enlarged and new ones were erected in response to the demand for increased production. It was not uncommon for a plant to double or treble its labor force. A typical case was one of the large packing-plants in the Chicago "Yards" which increased its workers during the war from 8,000 to 17,000.

The war stimulated the demand for goods, and therefore for labor, and at the same time decreased the available labor supply. Immigration from the belligerent nations immediately ceased, and there was a marked decrease in immigration from other countries; aliens in large numbers departed to join the fighting forces of their native lands.

The labor shortage became acute soon after the United States entered the war in 1917, and enlistments withdrew hundreds of thousands of men from northern industries. An unprecedented demand for Negro workers was the result. The migration from the South was mainly a response to the call of larger opportunity and higher wages in the North.

3. INDUSTRIAL BACKGROUND OF NEGRO WORKERS

For the United States as a whole in 1910 the industrial condition of the gainfully occupied Negro population is shown in Table XVIII:

Industry	Both Sexes	Percentage	Male	Female
Agriculture	2,893,674	55.7	1,842,537	1,051,137
Domestic and personal service	1,074,543	20.7	234,063	840,480
Manufacturing and hand trades	657,130	12.6	575,845	81,285
Transportation	276,648	5.3	274,565	2,083
Trade	132,019	2.5	123,635	8,384
Professional service	69,471	1.3	39,400	30,071
Public service	26,295	0.5	25,838	457
Others	62,755	1.4	62,671	84
Total United States[50]	5,192,535	100.0	3,178,554	2,013,981

In 1910, more than three-fourths of the gainfully occupied Negroes in the United States were engaged in two forms of industry—agriculture and domestic and personal service. In the South at that time 78.8 per cent of the Negro population lived in rural communities[51] and 62 per cent of those employed were engaged in agriculture.[52] It is evident, therefore, that the northward migration involved a sudden transition of the southern Negro from farms or small towns to the highly specialized industries of northern cities, with marked changes in modes of living.

On many southern plantations the Negroes were required to buy food and clothing on credit at such high prices that their shares of the return were usually spent before the crops were harvested.[53] This system encouraged careless spending and did nothing to induce habits of thrift. Even the hardest-working Negroes frequently found themselves in debt to their landlords at the end of the year.[54] Incentive to sustained effort and regular work was lacking in the hand-to-mouth existence under this prevailing system of share rent and credit. It naturally produced habits such as drawing against wages and working irregularly under the spur of temporary need. Men handicapped by such habits joined the migration in great numbers. Though ill-fitted for the keen competition, business-like precision, and six-day-week routine of northern industry, the southern Negro, in spite of these handicaps, has succeeded in Chicago.

II. THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO INDUSTRIES IN 1910 AND 1920

Of the Negro population of 44,103 in Chicago in 1910 the gainfully occupied numbered 27,317. The distribution of this number, according to industrial classification, is given in Table XIX, which shows that 60 per cent of all such Negroes were engaged in domestic and personal service, as compared with 15 per cent in manufacturing and 3 per cent in clerical occupations.

TABLE XIX
Negroes Gainfully Occupied in Chicago in 1910[55]

Industries	Both Sexes	Percentage	Male	Female
Manufacturing and mechanical	4,071	15	3,073	998
Transportation	1,852	7	1,849	3
Trade	1,241	5	1,148	93
Public service	224}	4	{224	0
Professional	963}		{640	323
Clerical occupations	934	3	771	163
Domestic and personal service	16,389	60	9,426	6,963
Agriculture, mining, and unclassified	1,643	6	1,306	337
Totals	27,317	100	18,437	8,880

1. METHOD AND SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION

To discover the industries in Chicago which were employing Negroes in appreciable numbers in 1920, preliminary questionnaires were sent to 850 employers compiled from lists furnished by: (1) the Chicago Association of Commerce (covering 591 establishments, with a total of 350,000 employees); (2) the Employment Department of the Chicago Urban League; (3) the Illinois Free Employment Bureau; (4) the Federal Employment Bureau; and (5) the classified telephone directory.

Questionnaires were returned by 460 establishments of 850 to which they were mailed. We are satisfied that the replies received cover the field of Negro labor, and that no establishments of importance in this field have been overlooked. Table XX shows the results:

Negroes Employed	Number of Establishments	Total Negroes Employed
No Negroes	264	0
Less than five Negroes	59	111
Five Negroes or more (manufacturing)	69	12,854
Five Negroes or more (non-manufacturing)	68	9,483
Totals	460	22,448

Answers came from 156 manufacturing establishments employing fifty-one or more wage-earners. The representative character of this group is indicated by the fact that over three-fourths of the total wage-earners in Chicago engaged in manufacturing in 1914 were employed in factories of this class. The United States Census of Manufactures for 1914 reported the total number of wage-earners employed in manufacturing in Chicago in that year as 313,710; of this number, 244,827, or 78 per cent, were employed in 1,032 establishments employing fifty-one or more wage-earners. The 156 questionnaires therefore represented 15 per cent of the 1,032 establishments in this class (in 1914) and included 107,403 wage-earners, or almost 44 per cent of the total wage-earners in this class and 30 per cent of the total wage-earners engaged in manufacturing in 1914.

Questionnaires reporting Negro employees were returned by 104 manufacturing establishments of all classes. Of these, sixteen employed one to fifty wage-earners, representing a total of 435 wage-earners; and eighty-eight employed fifty-one or more wage-earners, representing a total of 78,919 wage-earners.

Since thirty-five of the manufacturing establishments reporting Negro labor (or 33 per cent of the 104 so reporting) employed less than five Negroes each, or a total of seventy Negroes in all, while sixty-nine employed 12,854 Negroes, or 99.4 per cent of the total Negroes reported by manufacturing establishments, it seemed advisable in this report to consider only those employing five Negroes or more, in order not to give undue weight to conditions where only a relatively few Negroes were concerned. A similar situation was disclosed by the returns furnished by non-manufacturing establishments, and the returns from twenty-four employing a total of forty-one Negroes have been disregarded in this report in order to give proper weight to conditions in the sixty-eight employing five or more Negroes which reported a total of 9,483 Negroes.[56] The combined number of establishments, both manufacturing (69) and non-manufacturing (68), employing five or more Negroes each was 137.

INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
120 INDUSTRIAL CONCERNS EMPLOYING 24,286 NEGROES

On the basis of the returns reported in the preliminary questionnaires certain establishments and industries were selected for more intensive study through personal interviews with employers, conferences participated in by employers and members of the Commission, and interviews with employees. The basis on which the selection was made was either the number of Negroes employed or the length of time during which Negroes had been employed, special attention being given to those industries and establishments which had employed Negro labor for the first time since the war. The industries employing large numbers of Negro workers which were selected for further study were: slaughtering, meat packing, and other food products; iron foundries and iron and steel products; laundries; needle trades; hotels; railroads; Pullman and dining-car services; tanneries; taxicab upkeep and repair; mail order.

An investigator for the Commission visited 101 establishments of the 137 reporting five or more Negro employees (ten establishments employing less than five Negroes each were also visited). Four industrial conferences or informal hearings were held by the Commission, large employers of Negro labor being invited to co-operate with the Commission by giving it the benefit of their experience with Negro labor. Among those who reported were general superintendents, assistant superintendents, employment managers, and other representatives of the large employers of Negro labor in Chicago as shown in Table XXI:

	No. of Negroes Employed in 1920
Pullman Car Shops	450
Armour & Co., Stock Yards	2,084
Morris & Co., Stock Yards	1,400
Swift & Co., Stock Yards	2,278
Wilson & Co., Stock Yards	818
Corn Products Refining Co., food products	500
International Harvester Co., agricultural machinery	1,551
Yellow Cab Co., taxicab	250
American Car and Foundry Co.[57]	20
American Brake Shoe and Foundry Co.	265
Brady Foundry Co.	125
National Malleable Castings Co.	427
Western Foundry Co.	200
Sears, Roebuck & Co., mail order	1,423
Montgomery Ward & Co., mail order	350
Gage Bros. Wholesale Millinery	73
Spring-filled Products Co., automobile cushions	250
Total	12,464

2. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF NEGRO EMPLOYEES

The number and percentage of Negro employees to the total employees in 136 establishments reporting five or more Negroes are shown in Table XXII.

Industry	Number of Establishments	Total Employees	Negro Employees	Negro Percentage of Total
Manufacturing:
Box manufacturing (paper)	3	995	143	14
Clothing	9	1,405	203	14
Cooperage	2	327	106	32
Food products	8	35,278	7,597	22
Iron and steel products (iron foundries)	27	37,773	3,879	10
Tanneries	7	2,230	462	21
Miscellaneous:
Lamp-shade manufacturing	1	275	75	27
Auto-cushion manufacturing	2	500	250	50
Other industries (manufacturing)	10	2,571	139	5
Totals	69	79,354	12,854	16
Non-manufacturing:
Hotels	9	1,714	923	53
Laundries	20	1,736	764	44
Mail order[58]	1	17,450	1,423	8
Railroads, dining- and Pullman-car service	16	7,816	5,408	68
Miscellaneous industries[59]	21	10,028	615	6
Totals	67	38,744	9,133	23

3. INCREASE IN NEGRO LABOR SINCE 1915

The data obtained from questionnaires, interviews, and conferences with employers disclosed the fact that there has been a remarkable increase since 1915 in the number of Negro workers employed in manufacturing, in clerical occupations, and in laundries. As was to be expected, the number of Negroes in personal service (hotels, dining-cars, and parlor-cars) also increased, but the increase was negligible in comparison with the gain in the other fields mentioned.

Inability to obtain competent white workers was the reason given in practically every instance for the large increase in the number of Negroes employed since 1914. All of the large employers of Negro labor attending the conferences assigned shortage of labor as the principal reason for the increased number of Negroes reported. A few establishments (not represented in the conferences) reported that Negroes had first been employed to take the place of strikers, and increasing numbers had been employed thereafter. The establishments so reporting were hotels, a small clothing factory, and a warehouse company. Because of the labor shortage in the North, large numbers of Negroes left the southern states.

Industries	Number of Establishments	1915	1916	1917	1918	1919	1920
Box making	3	3	3	116	116	145	143
Clothing	9	75	110	140	108	161	203
Other needlework	3	0	0	0	25	325	325
Cooperage	2	29	34	95	110	15	106
Food products[61]	16	1,103	2,529	4,765	6,518	5,789	5,379
Iron and steel[62]	22	121	672	1,115	1,580	3,002	3,829
Tanneries	7	0	17	36	87	229	462
Miscellaneous manufacturing	10	15	15	24	48	75	140
Totals	62	1,346	3,380	6,291	8,592	9,881	10,587

Industries	Number of Establishments	1915	1916	1917	1918	1919	1920
Hotels	9	544	559	615	684	693	956
Laundries	20	118	180	220	350	520	764
Mail order (clerical occupations)	2	0	0	0	664	1,650	1,400
Railroads (dining- and parlor-car service)	16	3,939	3,940	4,274	4,493	4,506	5,363
Totals	47	4,601	4,679	5,109	6,191	7,369	8,483

4. CHICAGO EMPLOYERS AND SOUTHERN NEGRO LABOR

During the course of its inquiry the statement was frequently made to members of the Commission or to its investigators that large employers of labor in Chicago, and particularly the packers, had imported many Negroes from the South. Although the Commission made a thorough investigation of such statements, no evidence of any value was discovered to support them.

The general superintendents of the Armour, Morris, Swift, and Wilson plants who attended conferences declared emphatically that their companies had not engaged in any encouragement of migration.

Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, being asked through correspondence from the Commission if he could furnish any evidence tending to prove the importation of Negroes into the Chicago district by employers, replied, "There is a plentitude of such evidence," but when Mr. Gompers was urged to cite the evidence, his reply was: "It cannot be unknown to you that some 30,000 Negroes were imported into the Chicago district during the steel strike. They did not go there of their own volition, but through inducements which were held out to them by the agents of employers who visited southern and western cities."

As, however, the Chicago race riot occurred a year prior to the steel strike, importation of Negroes at the latter time could not have affected the situation out of which the riot came. But the fact remains that labor leaders insist that employers in the Chicago district imported Negroes from the South, notwithstanding their inability to cite facts in support of this belief.

5. CLASSIFICATION OF NEGRO WORKERS

An accurate classification of Negro laborers into skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled would help to an understanding of the position of the Negro in industry. In manufacturing, such a classification was attempted, but the results were unsatisfactory. These classes cannot be strictly defined, and different employers give them different meanings. In a number of important cases employers reported the total number of skilled and unskilled, and that figures for each class could not be compiled without great labor. In all such cases the total is listed as "unskilled." This class is thus unduly enlarged at the expense of the semi-skilled and the skilled. So the number of semi-skilled workers appears to be less than the skilled. These facts show that accuracy cannot be claimed for the classification in Table XXV.

Industry	Number of Establishments	Total Negroes	Skilled	Semi-skilled	Unskilled
Box manufacturing	3	143	...	...	143
Clothing	9	203	57	29	117
Cooperage	2	106	8	45	53
Food products[64]	8	7,597	229	12	7,356
Iron and steel	27	3,879	434	180	3,265
Tanneries	7	462	175	...	287
Miscellaneous	10	139	24	1	114
Total[65]	66	12,529	927	267	11,335

The attempt to classify Negro workers according to occupation failed because the necessary information was not obtainable, especially from large employers. Nevertheless the number of workers in certain occupations reported by a few establishments is suggestive of the fields recently opened to Negroes in Chicago. In 1910[66] there were only thirty-one Negro molders in Chicago, while in 1920 there were 304 reported by ten establishments. In 1910 there were but twenty-eight factory sewers or machine operators, while in 1920 there were 382 in twelve factories. In 1910 there were 934 Negroes employed in clerical occupations as compared with 1,400 in two concerns in 1920. In 1910 there were but 287 Negro laundry operatives in Chicago, while there were 764 reported by twenty laundries in 1920.

6. WAGES OF NEGRO WORKERS

The period of this industrial investigation—the spring and summer of 1920—was one of exceptional demand for labor and of high wages. Employers were glad to get workers of any sort at high pay.[67] In branches of employment where Negroes were permitted to work, their wages were generally the same as those of the white workers. In interviewing many Negro workers the Commission's investigators found practically no complaints of discrimination in wages on the same tasks. And the Chicago Urban League which, through its industrial department, places more Negroes in employment than any other agency in Chicago reported that it had very few complaints of such discrimination.

Some discrimination was practiced by foremen in placing or keeping Negroes at work on processes that yielded smaller returns than those to which white workers were assigned. In the field of common labor, where the largest number of Negroes are employed, some kinds of piecework yield greater returns than others. The tendency of foremen in some plants was to place Negroes on those processes yielding the smallest returns. The following are instances of such discrimination in favor of the white workers in the same plants.

In two large foundries white molders were given standard patterns, which remain the same throughout the year and permit the working up of speed; while patterns that were changed frequently, and made production slower were given to the Negroes. As speed determined the piecework earnings, the Negroes could not earn as much as the white molders in the same foundry.

In the several plants the white workers were favored in the distribution of overtime work; or Negroes were not permitted to work at all on overtime at "time and a half" rates or on Sundays at "double pay" as long as white workers were available.

While in the larger industries there was seldom any complaint about inequality in the basic rate of pay for common labor, restrictions upon the promotion and advancement of Negroes frequently prevented them from earning higher wages. In one department of a large food-products plant Negroes reached the maximum rate of 61 cents per hour after a few months' employment. No further advancement could be had because the superintendent was not willing to place Negro foremen over white workers. A Negro in the starch-mixing department held a skilled position as starch tester. It became apparent that in carrying out his duties many of the starch mixers would be subject to his immediate direction. The foreman apparently did not approve of this and ordered him to teach his duties to a Polish workman. The Negro declined to do this, and the matter was referred to the general superintendent. After an investigation it was decided to permit the Negro to retain his position as tester, but he was given no authority over the men.

In view of the fluctuations in wages, the impracticability of getting actual records of wages from all plants, and the discrepancies which in some instances did appear between reported and actual wages, it seemed desirable to supplement the information of the Commission's investigators. The records of the industrial department of the Chicago Urban League afforded the most complete data on wages received by Negroes that could be found in Chicago. During the year 1919 it placed more than 14,000 Negroes in plants in the Chicago District. In each case, when securing Negro employment, it kept a record of the wages actually offered and of conditions of work. If the Negro made complaint that the wage or work conditions did not prove to be as stated, it investigated the complaint.

Included in these records are the Pullman Company, Wilson & Company (packers), Armour & Company, Morris Company, Swift & Company, Illinois Malleable Iron Company, National Malleable and Castings Company, International Harvester Company, the General Can Company, the Republic Box Company, Chicago Fire Brick Company, Sears, Roebuck & Company, Superior Process Company, Consumers Coal Company, Corn Products Refining Company at Argo, United States Quartermasters' Department, Adams & Westlake Company, Griess Pfleger Tanning Company, and Inland Steel Company.

In the industries listed above, the minimum wage rate per hour is 42.5 cents, which is the minimum rate for the packing industries. The maximum rate is sixty-one cents per hour paid by the Corn Products Refining Company at Argo and the International Harvester Company. Neither of the latter, however, represents a basic wage. The average wage for the thirty-six companies is 48.7 cents. These wage rates cover the most arduous tasks found in the list of common labor. Three items for track laborers are included. Others include freight handlers, yardmen, truckers, sweepers, foundry laborers, etc. Six companies work ten hours per day, twelve companies nine hours, one company nine and one-half hours, seventeen companies eight hours. Four pay bonuses, not including packers, who also pay a bonus in compliance with the award of a judge acting as mediator between the packers and the union.

The building trades are not included, but of the three independent contractors listed the wage paid common laborers is 50 cents per hour, 60 cents per hour, and 70 cents per hour, respectively, for eight hours, while the union rate of pay for common labor is $1.00 per hour for eight hours, time and one-half for overtime, and double time for Sunday.

7. WOMEN EMPLOYEES IN INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS

Negro women employed in thirty-one industrial establishments worked, in five of them forty-four hours a week, in fifteen of them forty-eight hours, in seven of them forty-nine hours, and in four of them fifty-one hours. The weekly pay ranged from $9.00 to $15.00 a week as clothing folders, to as high as $20.00 to $35.00 a week as clothing drapers or finishers. Map mounting paid $15.00 a week, book binding $15.00, paper-box making $13.00, tobacco stripping $16.40, core making (foundry work) $16.40, twine weaving $17.40, silk-shade making $10.00 to $18.00, food packing $12.00 to $15.00, mattress making $12.00 to $22.00, riveters (canvas) $15.00, paper sorters $12.00, steam laundry workers (unskilled) $13.00 to $16.00, steam laundry hand workers $18.00 to $29.00, power-machine operators on men's caps $15.00 to $18.00, on aprons $14.00 to $18.00, on dresses $15.00 to $18.00, on overalls (union shop) $18.00 to $25.00, and on overalls (non-union shop) $15.00 to $18.00.

Of fourteen companies employing colored girls as operators, five paid on a piecework basis only. Two paid from $12.00 to $18.00 per week, depending on the skill of the operator, two companies paid $14.00 per week to beginners, one paid $15.00 per week to beginners, three paid $12.00 per week to beginners, one paid $18.00 per week to beginners, the latter being a union shop.

Considerable unrest has been traceable to delay on the part of the managers in promoting beginners above the beginning wage. Girls have been retained at a beginning wage for an unreasonable time after acquiring satisfactory skill and production. This condition is known to the Women's Trade Union League, but no well-directed effort has ever been made to unionize colored workers in the garment trades, except when they have been called in as strike breakers to replace white workers. An instance of this was the strike at the C. B. Shane Company, manufacturers of raincoats, where colored girls were employed to replace striking white union workers. At that time very few colored girls were members of the local union. According to an official of the Women's Garment Workers' Union not more than 125 colored workers have become members.

8. HOTEL AND RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES

Men.—In about twenty-five hotels and restaurants in which colored men are employed, wages are as follows:

Chief cooks	$25.00 to $50.00 per week
Waiters	25.00 to 40.00 per week
Bus boys	14.00 to 20.00 per week
Hotel porters	45.00 to 65.00 per month
Dishwashers	15.00 to 20.00 per week
Second cooks	20.00 to 35.00 per week
Bell-boys	40.00 to 45.00 per month
Shoe shiners and washroom porters	15.00 to 17.00 per week

In all of the above-listed occupations the wages are augmented by tips. It is difficult to form an accurate estimate of the amount earned in tips for the reason that it is conditioned upon the character of service rendered and the inclination of the person served to pay for personal service. It would be fair to estimate that in hotels and restaurants known to employees as "good houses" the tips range from $2.00 to $5.00 per day. In a colored restaurant in the neighborhood of Thirty-first and State streets a wage of $5.00 per week is paid to waitresses, while the tips have been known to total five times that amount.

Women.—The twenty-five hotels and restaurants concerning which the Chicago Urban League's Industrial Department has records, employ women in the occupations and at the wages listed as follows:

Waitresses	$ 8.00 to $15.00 per week and tips (board)
Chambermaids	25.00 to 45.00 per month and tips (board)
Pantry girls	15.00 to 18.00 per week and board
Kitchen help	9.00 to 16.00 per week and board

Allowing an average of 35 cents per meal for three meals, $1.05 per day or $7.35 per week should be added where board is included. This would make the following schedule of wages:

Waitresses	$15.35 to $22.35 per week
Chambermaids	54.40 to 74.40 per month
Pantry girls	22.35 to 25.35 per week
Kitchen help	16.35 to 23.35 per week

In clerical positions colored men have had very little opportunity, except in the post-office. There are exceptions, however, such as shipping clerks, storekeepers, and bookkeepers.

The girls employed as long-hand entry clerks, typists, checkers, routers, and Elliott-Fisher and adding-machine operators received during 1920 from $15.00 to $16.00 as a beginning wage. The chief supervisor (colored) in charge of 600 girls in one of the large mail-order houses received $23.00 per week, and the assistant superintendent, a white man, received $50.00 per week while studying the mail-order business under the chief supervisor. When the management's attention was called to the inequality, two additional supervisors were added and the work lessened without increase of pay.

Another firm employing several hundred colored girls paid a welfare worker $20.00 per week, while another with half that number of girls paid $25.00 per week.

There was a deep-seated suspicion existing among the clerical force of a firm employing a large number of colored girls that the white girls employed by the same company received a higher wage than that paid the colored girls. The suspicion grew out of the mistake of an employment manager in mistaking a colored girl for a white one.

9. RAILROAD WORKERS

Dining-car men.—According to the records of the Railway Men's International Industrial Benevolent Association, wages of dining-car waiters prior to 1916 were universally $25.00 per month, with the exception of the Santa Fe, which paid from $35.00 to $40.00 per month for "preferred" runs. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy allowed an additional $3.00 to the $25.00 standard for men in service ten years or more.

In 1918, after the roads had been federalized, the minimum wage became $48.00 per month. In May, 1919, a further increase to $55.00 per month and overtime on a mileage basis was granted. This gave an average of $62.00 per month for so called "transcontinental" runs, that is, service between Chicago and the Pacific Coast.

Effective February 1, 1920, wages were adjusted to an hourly basis, which gave payment for overtime in excess of 240 hours per month. On July 20, 1920, most roads allowed a general increase to dining-car men which brought the average to $65.00 per month.

An official of the Railway Men's International Industrial Benevolent Association estimated that the tips and salary of the average waiter were $105.00 per month, including three meals valued at 35 cents per day. This estimate was accepted by the Federal Railway Labor Board. This low estimate is arrived at because it is generally the custom to feed waiters and kitchen crews on leftovers which would otherwise become waste.

Porters.—The wages of porters, including tips, is estimated at $105.00 per month. The present salary paid to porters is $65.00 per month. In May, 1919, the minimum basis was $60.00 per month on a mileage basis of $.0055 per mile in excess of 11,000 miles per month. In December of the same year a final adjustment of the wage scale was made in which length of service was taken as a basis. For three years or less the pay was $63.00 per month; for from three to ten years the pay was $66.00 per month; for ten years or more the pay was $69.00 per month. The Railway Men's International Industrial Benevolent Association furnished the above information.

According to the same authority, on January 1, 1921, most roads reduced the hourly overtime for waiters, cooks, and stewards and placed it on a straight time service, with pay ranging between $60.00 and $65.00 per month. A twenty-four-day month was also established. This was equal to a reduction of wages for the class of labor referred to.

In the case of thirty-one orders for porters in stores, restaurants, cafés, and drugstores, office buildings, etc., the wages ran from $12.00 per week to $25.00. Some difficulty was experienced in determining a minimum wage, for the reason that in many instances full time is not required, porters being allowed to do odd jobs on their own account. Of these thirty-one, three received $12 a week, one $13, four $15, two $16, one $17, four $18, two $19, six $20, three $21, one $21.25, one $22 and two $25.

Apartment-house janitors usually are affiliated with the labor unions. An instance of financial benefit is as follows: F——, who is engineer for an apartment in Evanston, before joining the union received $45.00 per month for his services, with quarters in a basement apartment. He now receives $125.00 per month with the same quarters.

Firemen with licenses were offered from $125.00 to $150.00 per month in ten different positions filled by the League.

10. DOMESTIC WORKERS

Eighty-one orders for maids for service in private families were listed with the following results: maximum, $18.00 per week with room and board; minimum, $6.00 per week with room and board; average, $12.84 per week with room and board. Of these, twenty-six were paid $15, eight $14, twelve $12, fifteen $10. Three received $18, and one $20.

Children's nurses.—Fifteen were listed, of whom five were paid $15.00 per week with room and board, six were paid $12.00, one was paid $7.00, two were paid $5.00, and one was paid $3.00.

Cooks.—Sixteen were listed as follows: one was paid $25.00 per week with room and board, four were paid $18.00, three were paid $16.00, six were paid $15.00, and two were paid $14.00.

The minimum wage for cooks indicated is $14.00 per week with room and board. The maximum wage is $25.00 per week with room and board, while in the case of children's nurses the maximum wage is $15.00 per week and the minimum $3.00 per week for part time.

Housemen.—Out of a list of twenty-five orders, a minimum of $40.00 per month with room and board, a maximum of $100.00 per month with room and board, and an average of $65.00 per month with room and board.

Chauffeurs.—Minimum of $100.00 per month with room and board and maximum of $150.00 per month with room and board. It is difficult to outline the duties of chauffeurs for the reason that they often perform the duties of butler, houseman, yardman, etc., in addition to that of chauffeur.

Couples.—(Man and wife.) Out of twenty-five orders listed, the following wages were offered: minimum of $85.00 per month with room and board. A maximum of $165.00 per month with room and board.

Laundresses.—Usually employed by the day. The prevailing rate per day over the past year was $4.00 and car fare, with one meal. This wage was asked by common understanding and without any visible form of organization. Since November 1, 1920, when the unemployment situation became manifest, $3.60 per day, car fare, and one meal has been accepted.

From 1918 to November 1, 1920, a serious shortage of domestic help was noted. Colored girls and women deserted this grade of work for the factories, where shorter hours and free Sundays were secured. The larger pay of domestic employment did not attract the average worker, for the reason that free evenings for recreation and amusement were apparently more desirable than the isolation and long hours of domestic service.

Recently housekeepers secured Negro girls from the southern states and imported Negro girls from the British West India Islands[68] in an attempted solution of the domestic-help problem. Transportation and clothes were furnished by employers and some sort of verbal agreement entered into by which the girls were expected to work out this indebtedness. Instances have come to the attention of the Chicago Urban League which seem to indicate that these agreements have not worked out satisfactorily. For example: One colored woman was brought from a small town in Florida to a Chicago suburb by a white family on such an agreement. After a few weeks' service the employer complained that the work performed by the woman as a general maid was unsatisfactory. Abuse followed. The woman sought to go to a Negro family under the pretence that she wished to return a pair of borrowed shoes. Her employer, fearing that she wished to escape, drove her to the home of the Negro family in his automobile. Once inside the home, she told a story of how her employer had kicked, beaten, and threatened her with a revolver if she attempted to leave. The Negro family gave asked-for shelter and informed the employer that she would not return. After threatening to take her away by force, the employer went away and the woman remained. A suit followed on a charge of assault and battery and the employer was discharged for lack of evidence.

A few weeks ago a white resident of another Chicago suburb applied to the juvenile court for the guardianship of a colored girl. The court, being unable to handle the case, requested the advice of the Chicago Urban League. The details of the case were substantially as follows:

A Roman Catholic organization in Jamaica, British West Indies, sent ten or twelve Jamaican girls to the United States, upon applications of housekeepers, to serve as domestics. Some verbal agreement had been entered into whereby the girls were to accept service as domestics and work out the cost of transportation and clothing at a stipulated rate per week. The arrangement seems to have progressed fairly until the girls became acquainted with other colored people residing in the neighborhood. It was then discovered that they were working at a wage considerably lower than the usual wage. The girl in question, who was a minor but seems to have misrepresented her age when applying for a passport, was receiving $6.00 per week, one dollar of which was paid in cash and the balance deducted to cover the expense of clothing and transportation. After becoming dissatisfied with these wages, the girl left the home of her white employer, who sought to be appointed her guardian so that he could restrain her. A guardian has not thus far been appointed, for the reason that the legal status of the girl and the legality of the contract entered into are doubtful.

III. EMPLOYERS' EXPERIENCE WITH NEGRO LABOR

The entrance of Negroes in large numbers into manufacturing industries and clerical occupations is one of the striking facts shown by this investigation. Shortage of labor due to war conditions created many openings for the Negro. Whether he will remain in these fields and become an increasingly important factor in them will depend in a large degree upon his efficiency and reliability, as well as upon absence of racial friction, satisfactory wages, etc. It was therefore deemed important to learn how the Negro improved his industrial opportunities.

The Commission made some investigation of this subject, seeking the opinion of as many employers as possible who had had experience with Negro workers. The inquiry covered two points: (1) a general question in the preliminary questionnaire, to learn whether Negro labor had proved satisfactory; and (2) a comparison of the Negro with the white worker in efficiency, reliability, regularity, and labor turnover. The facts under each head are considered separately below, following a brief consideration of the difference between the southern and northern Negro.

1. SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN NEGROES COMPARED

Many employers drew a distinction between the recent southern migrants and northern Negroes, and commented upon certain shortcomings of the former, although they expressed themselves as satisfied on the whole with Negro labor.

For instance, the representative of a foundry company with 200 Negroes out of a total of 950 employees said:

It appears to me that the men coming from the South get here and for a limited length of time seem to have a different view of things. They do things that probably the Chicago Negro wouldn't do. They don't seem to know exactly how to control themselves. They are unsettled and to a great degree unsteady. The northern-born Negro is more active. He is brighter in a way and a little more ambitious. The southern Negroes are inclined to work today, lay off tomorrow, and be back the next day on the job again.

A representative of a large machinery-manufacturing establishment employing 1,500 Negroes out of a total of 23,000 employees in Chicago expressed the same opinion in these words:

Our experience with Negroes has a tendency to show that these people do not realize that there is such a thing as steady work. They work for possibly a week or two, then say they are obliged to lay off for some imaginary cause and will probably return within a week or four weeks. We believe they are improving and will be better as time goes on and they become more used to the way work and business are done in the North.

The superintendent of a foundry which increased its Negro employees in five years from six to 125 out of a total of 466 employees was of the following opinion:

The Negro up here from the South never heard of working six days a week and being on time every morning and staying until the job was done. It is entirely foreign to his idea of things, but with a little persistent effort and showing him that it is necessary he soon learns the system the same as the others, and I do not believe he is any worse than the white man after he has been here a year or two.

The superintendent of a company employing more that 2,000 Negroes out of a total of 10,000 employees in Chicago declared:

The southern Negroes have not yet become thoroughly reconciled to working six days a week. Down South they are accustomed to taking off Saturdays, and they are quite frequently absent on Saturday. That is not true of the colored man who has been with us a long time. He is accustomed to the regularity of six days a week, but the men from the South have the weakness of being away on Saturdays.

In general it was the employers of large numbers of Negroes who differentiated between the southern and the northern Negro. Employers of Negroes in small numbers were more inclined to judge all Negroes by those recently arrived from the South.

2. NEGRO LABOR SATISFACTORY

One of the questions contained in the preliminary questionnaire was: "Has your Negro labor proved satisfactory?" Of 137 questionnaires returned by establishments employing five or more Negro workers, 118 reported that Negro labor had proved satisfactory and nineteen that it had not proved satisfactory.

The significance of these returns is disclosed by Table XXVI, in which the establishments are classified by industries, and the number of Negro employees in establishments reporting Negro labor satisfactory is shown to be 21,640 as contrasted with 697 Negro employees in the nineteen establishments reporting Negro labor unsatisfactory.

TABLE XXVI
Negro Labor Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory in EstablishmentsClassified by Industries

Industry	Total Number Establishments	Total Negroes Employed	Establishments Reporting Negro Labor Satisfactory		Establishments Reporting Negro Labor Unsatisfactory
			Number	Number of Negroes Employed in These Establishments	Number	Number of Negroes Employed in These Establishments
Manufacturing:
Clothing	9	203	8	191	1	12
Food products	8	7,597	7	7,547	1	50
Iron and steel	27	3,879	22	3,750	5	129
Tanneries	7	462	6	421	1	41
Miscellaneous[69]	18	713	13	464	5[70]	249
Totals	69	12,854	56	12,373	13	481
Non-manufacturing:
Railroads	16	5,408	16	5,408
Hotels	9	923	8	911	1	12
Laundries	20	764	16	587	4	177
Mail order	2	1,773	2	1,773
Public service	4	42	4	42
Taxicab upkeep	1	250	1	250
Miscellaneous[70]	16	323	15	296	1	27
Totals	68	9,483	62	9,267	6	216
Totals, all industries	137	22,337	118	21,640	19	697

3. NEGRO AND WHITE LABOR COMPARED

At a conference at which Negro and white workers were under discussion a large foundry representative suggested that such a comparison was unfair to the Negro because he was still a newcomer in manufacturing industries and could not be expected to be as efficient, reliable, and regular as the white worker who had been thus engaged much longer. Other employers felt that this point should be borne in mind.

Efficiency.—Comparing the efficiency of the Negro worker and the white worker, seventy-one employers interviewed (thirty-four manufacturing and thirty-seven non-manufacturing establishments) considered the Negro equally efficient, and twenty-two employers (thirteen manufacturing and nine non-manufacturing) considered the Negro less efficient.[71]

The seventy-one establishments which reported Negro labor as equally efficient as white labor included all of the large employers of Negro labor, with very few exceptions. Ability shown by Negro workers in widely dissimilar occupations and industries was commented upon. The following instances are of interest:

Foundries: "Our star molder in the foundry is a Negro who has been with us twenty years. Our best truck driver is a Negro who has been with us about eighteen years." "About the best grinder we have in one department is a colored man." The superintendent of a large foundry employing 125 Negroes said:

I covered thirty foundries, members of the National Association when I was serving on a certain Committee, and I know that in their departments Negroes have made very good. Out of the thirty foundries, there are half or more which have colored men in now which did not have colored men two years ago. One of the instances, a little foundry I know of, had four men in the grinding department; one colored man and his partner wanted to take the job of running the grinding room. The partner wanted to do it all himself, and is now doing what four men were doing formerly.

That the Negro is apt in learning new work is illustrated by an instance cited by the same superintendent:

I know of a Pullman porter who has been with the Pullman Company twenty years who turned out to be as good a helper as we had in the foundry. Take a man who has made beds for twenty years, put him to carrying melted iron in a ladle, which is a real man's job, and make good at it, and I think he's going some! We had one man who did that and did it well. He was a helper that the different foremen tried to get hold of, wanted to have him with them.

Public service: The probation department of the juvenile court reported six Negro employees. "The colored employees are intelligent, efficient persons. With one exception they are probation officers. One employee is in charge of the probation clerk's office and not only works with white clerks but directs the work of nine white persons."

The office of the recorder of deeds reports seventeen Negro employees in the folio or record-writing department. "The employees are marked on their efficiency. Percentages of efficiency run from 94.5 to 98 per cent among the colored clerks, and several of them averaged 97.9 per cent and 98 per cent for the past three years."

Stock Yards: "Negroes make skilled workmen. They are among the best of what are known as 'knife-men' we have."

Whether Negro labor shows greater efficiency in a working unit composed entirely of colored workers or in a mixed unit of Negro and white workers is an unsettled question. Only a few employers expressed an opinion on this point (not affording a sufficient basis for generalization), but it is interesting to note that of four foundries, one favored the separate unit and three the mixed unit, while a large food-products company had found both satisfactory.

Several employers mentioned the fact that, because of his knowledge of English, the Negro is frequently more efficient than the foreign-speaking worker. One wool warehouse company, for example, reported that Poles were satisfactory under the old method of shipping wool in carloads from a single shipper, but the new system, with shipments of hundreds of sacks tagged with the names of as many shippers, required laborers unloading the cars to separate the shipments into sections. This the Poles were unable to do, while the Negroes did the work very efficiently.

Reliability.—Does the Negro require more supervision than the white worker in order to secure equally good results? An opinion was expressed on this point by ninety-two employers; sixty-three (thirty manufacturing and thirty-three non-manufacturing establishments) considered that the Negro did not require more supervision while twenty-eight (sixteen manufacturing and thirteen non-manufacturing establishments) considered that he did. The general superintendents of two of the large packing companies expressed contrary views on this point during one of the conferences. One said:

Negroes do not require as much supervision as some of those racial groups who do not understand the language. We can talk to a man and tell him what to do, where to go to do the work and how to do it, we can accomplish a whole lot more than if we had to send an individual with him constantly from place to place to show him how to do it. To that extent the Negro has the advantage over the man who cannot talk the English language.

The superintendent of the other company expressed the opinion that Negroes require more supervision than white workers:

For example, when they are working together in groups, especially after pay-day, they are inclined to wander into isolated spots and shoot craps. We've a good deal of trouble of that kind. They spend their money when they get it more recklessly than white people.

The representative of a food-products company with 500 Negro employees in the working force of 3,000 stated that the company had found no need of greater supervision of Negro workers than of white.

A representative of a taxicab company employing 250 colored workers stated:

We have some colored employees we trust absolutely and as far as any white employees. We have some colored men in the garage, and they take more supervision not because they are colored but because they lack education and are shiftless, but this you would find in the same grade of white workers.

A preliminary questionnaire returned by the president of a laundry company employing eighty-two Negroes out of a total of 110 employees reported:

We have a number of exceptionally good and reliable Negro employees. These men and women need very little supervision. We get some, who have never worked in industries, who require more supervision and are not very steady. On the whole we are pleased with our Negro employees.

Regularity.—Of the employers interviewed, fifty-seven (twenty-three manufacturing and thirty-four non-manufacturing establishments) expressed an opinion that "absenteeism" among colored workers was no greater than among white workers, while thirty-six employers (twenty-four manufacturing and twelve non-manufacturing establishments) reported that it was greater. In this connection the habits of the southern Negro, commented upon above, would naturally exercise great influence. The superintendent of one of the packing companies employing 2,084 Negroes reported:

Previous to the war and up to the war the Negro was the poorest in attendance in the plant. Since the war his attendance compares favorably with any other class of employees in the Yards. It is pretty hard to explain excepting this, as they lived here longer they acquired better habits, I mean more ambition, and ambition brought about the necessity for better methods of living, better clothing, and they required more money and I guess they found out in a short time that work brought its compensations.

The tendency to work and accumulate a little and then take a vacation is no more pronounced among the colored workers than among the white workers, according to the representative of a food-products company employing 500 Negroes out of a total of 3,000 employees.

Labor turnover and "hope on the job."—Of the fifty-two employers expressing an opinion on the comparative labor turnover of Negro and white workers twenty-four (eleven manufacturing and thirteen non-manufacturing establishments) considered the labor turnover about equal, and twenty-eight (eighteen manufacturing and ten non-manufacturing establishments) considered the turnover greater among the Negro workers.

Closely connected with the question of labor turnover among Negroes is the question of "hope on the job," as one alert Negro expressed it. The desire to secure improved conditions of work and higher wages is shared by all workers irrespective of race. If Negro workers are not allowed to advance to better positions in a given plant, or if they are discriminated against by having their efficiency underrated by foremen, the turnover of Negro labor will naturally be high. The attitude of foremen largely determines whether Negro workers will succeed or fail. Superintendents of large plants realizing this fact have taken special care to educate foremen in the treatment of Negro labor.

For example, the superintendent of a tannery with 175 Negroes out of a total of 600 employees notified his foremen that he intended to use Negro labor, and that any foreman who felt that he could not teach colored workers would have to yield his place to someone who could. Frequent lectures to foremen were necessary to make them realize that fairness to Negro labor meant tolerance of a beginner's awkwardness and shortcomings and refraining from the use of insulting terms such as "nigger," etc.

Another company reported that when it attempted to fill skilled positions with Negroes the foremen said they would never be able to teach them as long as they lived. "It couldn't be done." The foremen were told they had to do it, and they now agree that it can be done and are "quite won over to the point of employing Negroes." The experience of this plant led the superintendent to the conclusion that no particular race is especially fitted for any given kind of work.

The superintendent of a foundry employing 2,500 men, of whom 427 are Negroes, said:

The foremen told me one time that they never could get a colored man to grind because he was afraid of the wheel. I thought we'd better try out a few of them. We found that was not the fact at all. One of the best grinders we now have is a colored man.

In discussing the attitude of foremen toward colored labor, the superintendent of another large foundry made this significant statement:

I think 50 per cent of what trouble we who employ Negro labor have is due to inefficient foremen, and the failure is in the foreman directly over the man to understand the Negro. As I see it, the Negro must be handled differently from the Pole whom we have usually had in the common labor capacity. We cannot handle the Negro the same as we could the Pole. Our foremen have not been accustomed here in Chicago in our shops to handling Negroes, and at times I have a real fight to see a Negro get an absolutely square deal.

The industrial secretary of the Chicago Urban League, referring to a large firm engaged in the manufacture of machinery, remarked:

I find the attitude of the company liberal. Negroes are advanced to high-grade positions, although some foremen need education in order to have them take the proper attitude toward the employment of Negroes. One foreman set their efficiency down to 75 per cent; the matter was taken to the efficiency department and his statement was found to be untrue. This bears out the point that Negroes will not succeed where foremen do not intend them to succeed.

Despite occasional statements that the Negro is slow or shiftless, the volume of evidence before the Commission shows that Negroes are satisfactory employees and compare favorably with other racial groups.

4. NEGRO WOMEN IN INDUSTRY

Before the war created openings in industry for Negro women, they were even more definitely restricted in their choice of occupations than were Negro men. Restricted opportunity is evident from the fact that, in 1910, almost two-thirds of the gainfully occupied Negro women in Chicago were engaged in two occupational groups, "servants" and "laundresses not in laundries," these being included among those in domestic and personal service who numbered more than three-fourths. The enumeration of Negro women gainfully employed in Chicago in 1910 classified in the census according to industries is given in Table XXVII.

NEGRO WOMEN AND GIRLS EMPLOYED IN A LAMP-SHADE FACTORY
Work room is poorly lighted and generally unattractive.

Industry	Number	Percentage of Total
Manufacturing and mechanical industries	998	11
Trade and transportation	96	1
Professional service	323	4
Clerical occupations	163	2
Domestic and personal service:
Laundresses not in laundries	2,115}
Servants	3,512}	78
Other domestic and personal service	1,336}
General and unclassified occupations	337	4
Total gainfully occupied	8,880	100

Industry	Number of Establishments Reporting	Total Employees	Total Negro Employees	Total Negro Women Employees
Manufacturing:
Tanneries	1	600	175	50
Iron and steel	3	10,435	1,729	74
Slaughtering and packing	3	20,990	4,818	437
Cooperage	2	327	106	30
Clothing	9	1,405	203	202
Other needle trades	3	775	325	325
Box making (paper)	3	995	143	104
Miscellaneous	3	1,543	95	73
Totals	27	37,070	7,594	1,295
Non-manufacturing:[73]
Hotels	4	550	250	69
Taxicab upkeep	1	1,600	250	100
Laundries	16	1,511	664	543
Mail order (clerical occupations)[74]	2	...	1,773	1,400
Totals	23	...	2,937	2,112

To learn the special problems concerning Negro women in industry, one conference was devoted to the industries recently opened to them. Representatives of four establishments employing a total of 1,713 Negro women attended the conference. The investigation of the 101 establishments (employing five or more Negroes) disclosed the presence of women in a large majority of cases, but in a number of instances the management was unable to tell the sex of workers from the records kept and gave the investigator the total number of Negroes employed without classification by sex. Of the 137 establishments reporting, forty-two had no Negro women employees; forty-five kept no separate sex records; fifty reported separately the number of Negro women workers.

Comparing the industries in which Negro women were employed in 1910 with the figures quoted for 1920, a striking increase is seen in the total engaged in manufacturing, 998 being the total Negro women reported for all manufacturing establishments in Chicago in 1910, as compared with 1,295 Negro women reported by twenty-seven establishments in 1920.

Comparisons for special industries and occupations show the contrasts between 1910 and 1920 in Table XXIX.

Industry	1910	1920	Number of Establishments
Sewers and sewing-machine operators in factories	25	527	12
Slaughtering and packing-house operatives	8	437	3
Box making (paper)	3	104	3
Tanneries	0	50	1
Clerical occupations	163	1,400	2
Laundry operatives	184	543	16
Taxicab cleaning	0	100	1

Labor shortage was given as the reason for employing Negro women and girls by all of the firms employing them in large numbers. The outlook for Negro women in industry when there is a labor surplus is uncertain. Employers employing 1,713 Negro women represented at a conference, May 18, 1920, agreed that there were no indications of a reduction of employment. This question is considered at length hereafter in "Future of the Negro in Chicago Industries."

EXPERIMENTS WITH NEGRO WOMEN WORKERS

Employers' opinions regarding the character of Negro labor without reference to sex were considered above. Particular comments concerning male workers were quoted there, comments upon women workers are now given. Four employers of Negro women in large numbers within the past two years gave the Commission the benefit of their experience. They were two mail-order concerns, a manufacturer of automobile spring cushions, and a wholesale millinery shop.

NEGRO WOMEN EMPLOYED ON POWER MACHINES IN A LARGE APRON FACTORY
This concern when it increased its number of Negro women, combined its four shops and moved into this modern daylight factory building.

The mail-order house which established a large office for Negro entry clerks in September, 1918, was the first to try the experiment. It had no precedent to guide it and "did not know how the colored girl would act in business." The unit was opened with ninety girls, and increased in the fall of 1919 to 650 girls, who were given the promise of advancement and Negro supervision. In the early summer of 1920, when the investigator visited this office, there were 311 girls at work, as follows:

Operators on Elliott-Fisher machines	30
Mail-order workers	76
Instructing new girls	9
Checkers	138
Supervisors	5
Mail opening, sorting, etc.	27
Posting	26

They were above the average in education, 75 per cent being high-school graduates and 12 per cent having had two or more years in college.

The employment manager said that misunderstandings had arisen occasionally, due to the colored girl being oversensitive and suspicious. "The colored girl seems to suspect that her employer is going to put something over on her. She is suspicious of any whites that come in her vicinity and is ready to believe that any white person is prejudiced against her on account of race."

The Negro welfare worker for this unit suggested that what might seem supersensitiveness was often overzealousness on the part of girls who have not had experience enough to judge their limitations or qualifications. Being eager to succeed, they are very much disappointed when advancement does not reward their efforts: "I think the best type of colored girl we have in business is very ambitious. This is her first opportunity, and she feels that she is really a pioneer making history for her race. She is possibly a little overzealous, but can be made to get the right attitude and accept it all very gracefully."

Another characteristic of Negro girls, in the opinion of the employment manager, was an "excitable nature" which made it possible for a good leader to influence them readily:

They complain of a change of supervisors, for instance. You attempt to shift supervisors from one point of the office to another and you immediately receive a petition signed by all the girls, saying, "We love So-and-So, and please don't change her." This is not to be criticized too harshly, but it does represent something that does go on. It shows inexperience. The white girl would expect that those things would take place. The colored girl, not having been in the office very long, would feel that the fact that the supervisor was changed was something derogatory to the supervisor.

The whites didn't want to act as instructors, and the colored girls didn't want to receive instructions from the whites. By being very careful in the girls that were selected, and showing the white girls where they were wrong, and then attempting to show the colored people that these girls were not to exercise supervision, but were merely to be instructors, both sides came to an understanding on it, and we had pretty good results. The white girls that we had over there became very used to it and usually hated to leave, but we have always insisted that they leave as soon as the girls learned the work.

During the conference on Negro women in industry the representative of this mail-order establishment was asked why the Negro workers were put into a separate unit instead of being intermingled with white girls. He answered:

The first reason is that we haven't any room. The second is, I imagine, because the officials who started the office and who have carried it on since felt that it wouldn't be policy. We haven't discussed the question because we've never had occasion to consider such a move seriously. Our main office is not large enough to accommodate any more employees than we have white employees in the house. We keep that office constantly recruited up to its present strength, and there has never been any necessity or any reason to seriously consider bringing colored girls in with the white girls....

Another thing to consider there would be the type of girl that we employ. They are all young girls, mostly under twenty-five years, and they don't think for themselves; they are influenced very easily by what other girls say. You take one girl in an office of that size who was very anti-colored, and it wouldn't be very long until her sentiment would spread and pretty soon you'd have a strong sentiment against the colored girls.

If a colored girl should want to obtain employment in that part of our concern where we now employ all white girls, even if she were very competent she would undoubtedly have some trouble in securing employment in that department.

The result of the experiment with the colored unit, he said, was highly satisfactory: "We have been very favorably impressed.... The girls have made very rapid progress, in fact they surprised all of us. Their progress along lines of leadership, as supervisors, etc., has been remarkable."

About six weeks after this conference the colored unit was closed. The reasons given were lack of business, trouble with the lessor of the office, and failure to find another convenient location. A letter of recommendation was given to each employee showing that her service had been satisfactory, and a letter was also sent to the Urban League, through which the women had been employed, explaining why it had been necessary to close the office and emphasizing the fact that this action should not be considered in any sense a reflection upon the Negro workers employed.

The other mail-order house opened a unit for Negro women in the fall of 1918, with 650 women who worked until the end of the "fall rush" in January, 1919. In the following fall the unit was again opened, with 1,050 Negro women; and the office was still in operation in 1920. This office was just outside the "Loop" district. The sudden influx of Negro girls there caused complaints by the local restaurants, fearing the loss of old patrons in handling this new business. The company then installed an "at cost" cafeteria service. The work of these girls was clerical, billing, labeling, addressing, etc. Considering their inexperience, their service has been highly satisfactory. The employment manager said: "It's not a defect in their minds, it's a defect in the country. They haven't had the opportunity to gain the education and experience needed for responsibility; the Negro girl is equal to the Italian or Bohemian in working ability and superior for executive work, such as instructing or supervising." Among 143 girls interviewed in the entry offices of these two mail-order houses only three expressed dissatisfaction with the conditions of work. The girls seemed to take pride in the fact that they had succeeded in "making good" in a new and attractive field of work.

The experiment of the establishment manufacturing automobile spring cushions had a very modest beginning. A factory was rented in the Negro residential area on the South Side, and twenty machines were installed to test out Negro women as sewing-machine operators. Gradually the number increased to 120 in this plant, and a second plant was opened in the same vicinity with about the same number of operators. During the year 1919-20 there were 250 Negro women employed as machine operators in these two plants. The superintendent considered that they required less supervision than the white workers in the company's other shops and rated them equal to white workers in efficiency. "We could take our best white girl and our best colored girl, and they earn about the same amount of money on piecework rates, in the same number of hours."

The superintendent of the wholesale millinery establishment represented in conference considered that the employment of Negro women in that industry had outgrown the experimental stage. Although a long period of training is necessary in order to become a skilled milliner (four years for hand sewers, eight years for machine operators), Negro women were keen to learn the trade and willing to accept the low wages paid to beginners. Of the forty-seven Negro women employed on the day of the investigator's visit, thirty-three received less than $12.00 a week and forty-two received less than $15.00 a week. These women were all employed as hand sewers, and in the opinion of the superintendent they had done "just as well as the white. They learn as quickly and are as persevering, and in every respect equal to the whites as far as their work is concerned. We are absolutely satisfied with their work."

Other industries in which Negro women are engaged in considerable numbers include laundering, the manufacture of clothing, lamp shades, gas mantles, paper boxes, barrels, and cheese making. An investigator from the Commission visited establishments employing Negro women in each of these industries.

Laundry operatives.—The fact that 543 Negro women laundry operatives were reported by sixteen laundries, as contrasted with 184 in all Chicago laundries in 1910, gives evidence of an increase in the number of Negro women in this field proportionately much greater than the increase in Negro population in Chicago in the same decade. The opportunity to work in a laundry was practically denied to Negro women until labor shortage forced laundry owners to tap this reserve labor supply. Negro women were eager to desert work as domestic servants and "family washer-women," with the social stigma and restricted human contact involved, to enter laundries where more independence was possible, hours were better standardized, and association with fellow-workers enlivened the work day. The employment department of the Urban League experienced great difficulty in supplying the demand for domestic servants and laundresses in the home, but had no difficulty in filling openings in laundries.

The work of Negro women in this field has proved satisfactory except in a few establishments. Of the twenty laundries which reported Negro labor satisfactory or unsatisfactory (included in Table XXVI), four failed to report separate figures covering male and female employees. Of the remaining sixteen establishments, twelve, with a total of 409 Negro women, reported Negro labor satisfactory, and four with a total of 134 Negro women, reported Negro labor unsatisfactory. The complaint in two instances was unwillingness to work overtime and on Sundays. In both these instances the employees interviewed complained that hours were long (nine-hour day) and the treatment by the management harsh and inconsiderate.

Laundries which did not make a practice of requiring overtime and Sunday work found Negro women workers cheerful, loyal, and industrious. The employees interviewed in these establishments expressed satisfaction with working conditions and with hours.

One efficiently managed laundry, employing seventy-six Negro women and six Negro men, out of a total of 110 employees, reported: "We have a number of exceptionally good and loyal Negro employees. These men and women need very little supervision. We got some who have never worked in industries. They require more supervision and are not very steady. On the whole, we are well pleased with our Negro employees."

Sewing-machine operators and sewers.—Denial of opportunity to enter the sewing trades is evidenced by the small number of Negro women listed in the 1910 census as sewers and sewing-machine operators in factories, the number being twenty-five. That this exclusion was not because of any natural inaptitude for sewing is indicated by the fact that the 1910 census listed 867 Negro women as seamstresses not in factories. Negro women have entered millinery work and proved apt hand workers; they have also proved efficient sewing-machine operators in the manufacture of automobile cushions. The lampshade manufacturers employed Negro women as hand sewers and found them to be efficient workers. The clothing establishments which reported Negro women workers found them satisfactory machine and hand workers, with the exception of one apron factory which complained that they are shiftless, often unreasonable, and do not stick to the job. An investigation of this establishment by the Urban League disclosed the following facts: The shop was located in a shabby-looking, unclean store, inadequately heated by a coal stove. The work day was nine and one-half hours, and piece rates on several operations were so low that it was impossible to earn a decent wage. In this case the large labor turnover was evidently a healthy protest against poor working conditions.

NEGRO WOMEN AND GIRLS IN A LARGE HAT-MAKING CONCERN
This shop has been partitioned for the accommodation of Negro women workers. The workshop is unattractive and the lighting extremely poor for the character of work required.

Other industries.—Three paper-box-making plants employing Negro women were investigated. They reported that Negro women had proved unsatisfactory, either slow or lazy. The experience of a cheese factory is worth noting in this connection. Because Negro women appeared to be slow at their work it was decided to measure their tasks. It was then found that many were doing as well as and some better than the white girls in whose places they were working.

Whether such tests had ever been made in the box-making plants does not appear. The employees interviewed in one box factory complained of low wages and no chance for advancement. Negro women in this plant were averaging only $2.40 a day. A cooperage company reported fifteen women stave carriers and fifteen machine operators. Negro labor in this plant was reported satisfactory. Negro women in the garage of a taxicab company, cleaning automobiles, have shown themselves not afraid of hard work; 100 Negro women were reported working in this capacity. Negro women as Pullman-car cleaners have also proved satisfactory.

Before the war Negro women were popularly thought of as a class of servants unfitted by nature for work calling for higher qualifications. It is difficult to say how long this popular misconception might have survived had it not been for the labor shortage which forced employers to experiment with Negro women workers and to learn with surprise that they were as teachable as white women and became as efficient workers after receiving the necessary training.

IV. INDUSTRY AS THE NEGRO SEES IT

1. ATTITUDE TOWARD INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITIES

In order to learn the attitude of the Negro toward his work, and his special problems, including the treatment accorded him by foremen and by fellow-workers, 865 Negro employees were interviewed by a Negro investigator at their work or at home. Less than 1 per cent of those interviewed complained of disagreeable treatment by white workers. Approximately one-half had no complaints to make about conditions of work. On the contrary, they expressed themselves as being glad of the opportunity to work and earn good wages.

The attitude of a large number of the workers interviewed is illustrated by the following:

C—— W—— was referred to in one of the industrial conferences before the Commission. The superintendent of the foundry said he was the "star molder" in the plant. When interviewed C—— W—— said he had come to Chicago in 1910 from Kentucky because he was tired of being a flunkey. He had been in the high school for two years, but could only get work as janitor in a public building in his home town. After coming here he worked in a foundry as a molder's helper until he learned the trade. "I was getting 38 cents an hour then, but I got on piecework and my wages have steadily gone up. I'm an expert now and make as much as any man in the place. I can quit any time I want to, but the longer I work the more money it is for me, so I usually work eight or nine hours a day. I am planning to educate my girl with the best of them, buy a home before I'm too old, and make life comfortable for my family. There is more chance here to learn a trade than in the South. I live better, can save more, and I feel more like a man."

R—— N——, who is working as a helper in the same foundry, says he has just gone from one job to another. In the South he worked on a section gang on the railroad most of the time. "Didn't have to know much to get a job on the section gang—just able to lift." Friends here wrote him of the chances to make money, so he came because he was just drifting anyway. When he got here he thought Chicago was "full of life." Every night for a month he went to cabarets. He likes his work and his wages. "My wife can have her clothes fitted here; she can try on a hat and if she don't want it she don't have to buy it. I can go anywhere I please on the cars after I pay my fare, and I can do any sort of work I know how to do."

When M—— G—— came to Chicago in 1900 he thought it "the biggest place in the world and the world didn't reach much further. Life is easier here because you can make more money. Working conditions are better than in the South, but they could be better still." He worked as a butler in the South, but when he came to Chicago he got out of personal service and became a laborer in the Stock Yards. Later he went to Gary, Indiana, to the steel works, where he is earning about $40.00 a week. His wife is doing clerical work in a mail-order house and is going to night school three nights a week to learn typing.

H—— B—— with his family left Mississippi in 1916 and came to Chicago, where he found work as a coal heaver at $3.20 a day. His wife sorted paper in a junk house at $10.00 a week, and his daughter entered a canning department at the Stock Yards at $18.00 a week. When Mr. B—— was interviewed in June, 1920, he was working in the Stock Yards and earning $27.00 a week for an eight-hour day. He said he didn't have to work nearly as hard here as in the South and was earning enough money so his wife could stay at home. "In the South you had to work whether you wanted to or not unless you were very sick. White people did not work there as they do here. They made the Negro do the work. Men and women had to work in the fields. A woman was not permitted to remain at home if she felt like it. If she was found at home some of the white people would come to ask why she was not in the field and tell her she had better get to the field or else abide by the consequences. After the summer crops were all in, any of the white people could send for any Negro woman to come and do the family washing at 75 cents to $1.00 a day. If she sent word she could not come she had to send an excuse why she could not come. They were never allowed to stay at home as long as they were able to go. Had to take whatever they paid you for your work."

M—— H—— "likes the air of doing things here." He is able to earn enough to keep the family without having his wife go out to work. There are four "youngsters," the oldest being eight years old. Mr. H—— came to Chicago in 1918 from Tennessee. He complained that there was not much work for a man in his home town. He did whatever odd jobs turned up. People there were talking about the chances in Chicago, so he came here and went to work as a monument setter on the West Side. Later he found a better-paying job in a mattress factory and was able to send for his family. He is now working in a foundry and makes $35.00 a week but finds it hard to live on this. If he can go to night school he feels he will be able to earn more money.

Mrs. L—— works as an entry clerk in a mail-order house and likes everything connected with the place. She used to be a maid in a private family but says she wouldn't work in service again "for any money. I can save more when I'm in service, for of course you get room and board, but the other things you have to take—no place to entertain your friends but the kitchen, and going in and out the back doors. I hated all that. Then, no matter how early you got through work you could only go out one night a week—they almost make you a slave. You can do other work in Chicago and you don't have to work in such places."

Mrs. L—— had taught school in Atlanta, Georgia. After her husband died she had tried to get back in the school but could not. Friends here advised her to move to Chicago, so she sold her property in 1915 and came here. She got work in the Stock Yards but gave music lessons on the side to help keep up expenses. "I hated the surroundings at the Yards and the class of people who worked there, so when I had a chance to work in a mail-order house I changed. The first work here was filing. I learned it very quickly and tried so hard to make good that they made me a supervisor." She likes the freedom of the North and the opportunities to advance in work. Her ambition is to get into the public schools as a teacher.

Miss T—— S——, twenty-two years old, started to work when she was fourteen, helping her mother cook for a large family in Lexington, Georgia. Her mother died when she was about seventeen, and she continued to work in the same family about three years. Then some relatives persuaded her to come north with them in 1919. She worked as a waitress in Chicago until her cousin got her a job in a box factory. "I'll never work in nobody's kitchen but my own any more. No, indeed! That's the one thing that makes me stick to this job. You do have some time to call your own, but when you're working in anybody's kitchen, well, you're out of luck. You almost have to eat on the run; you never get any time off, and you have to work half the night, usually. I make more money here than I did down South, but I can't save anything out of it—there are so many places to go here, but down South you work, work, work, and you have to save your money because you haven't any place to spend it."

Many of those interviewed were grateful for the opportunity to work overtime at overtime rates. A number complained that they were able to spend but little time with their families, or in recreation, because they were compelled to live in districts far from the plants in which they worked, so that two, and often three, hours a day were wasted on the cars. The Negroes who had come to Chicago within the past two or three years as a rule were satisfied with conditions of work, including hours, wages, and treatment.

2. COMPLAINTS ABOUT CONDITIONS OF WORK

Among the Negroes who had lived in Chicago for a longer period the most insistent complaint was lack of opportunity for advancement or promotion. This was occasionally coupled with the complaint that foremen discriminated in favor of the white workers. In certain industries no complaint of treatment by foremen was made, while approximately 10 per cent of those interviewed in three industries (mentioned below) complained of discrimination in favor of white workers, in the distribution of work, in recognition of efficiency, or in permitting the earning of overtime rates. The industries registering the greatest percentage of complaints were: (1) foundry and iron and steel mills, (2) Stock Yards, and (3) railroad dining-car and Pullman service. The common complaints in each of these fields are considered briefly below.

Foundries and iron and steel manufacturing.—The ninety-three Negro employees interviewed in fourteen establishments in this field were of different grades of skill: fifty-nine unskilled, twelve semi-skilled, nineteen skilled, and three apprentices to skilled trades. The length of time in the plant varied from a week to twenty years (forty-one employees less than one year, and eighty less than five years). To the inquiry, "Is anything wrong with your conditions of work?" fifty answered, "No"; sixteen complained that hours were too long (in these cases the men were working a twelve-hour day and a seven-day week); ten complained of low wages; six that foremen or straw bosses were not fair in the distribution of work or of "heats"; four complained that straight-time pay only was allowed for overtime, three that working gangs were reduced without decreasing the work demanded or increasing the pay of the men who remained; one thought that Negroes were paid lower wages than white workers; one said the work in his plant was much dirtier than it need be; and two were dissatisfied because shower or locker accommodations were insufficient.

A foundry company employing twenty Negroes out of a total of eighty employees was one of the establishments reporting Negro labor unsatisfactory. Negroes interviewed there complained of harsh and unfair treatment by bosses and said that Negroes usually did not stay longer than thirty days. The employment manager of a large foundry employing 427 Negroes out of a total of 2,488 employees told the investigator that the foremen in the plant would refuse to use Negroes if white labor could be obtained, and if such a time should come the foremen would have their way, because it took years to make a foreman, but a laborer could be picked up any day. The investigator was not permitted to interview any of the employees at this plant, but he visited some of them at their homes. They complained of harsh treatment by foremen, reduction in piece rates without notice, and discrimination in favor of white workers. The labor turnover reported by this plant was 70 per cent for Negro as compared with 14 per cent for white workers. This contrast is readily accounted for when the attitude of foremen toward Negroes is known.

Negroes interviewed at one of the plants of another foundry company employing seventy-five Negroes out of a total of 300 employees complained that the foreman in one department established conditions discouraging to Negro workers. He had an even number of Negro and white workers employed as partners on a certain process of piecework rates, each doing one-half of a joint task. When a man was absent, partners would be shifted about so that a Negro worker would be left without a partner instead of a white man. This handicapped the single worker by slowing down the process so he could not earn a full day's pay. Complaint was also made that the same foreman allowed white workers to accumulate a supply of material for their work, although he ordered Negro workers to stop this practice, thus forcing them to lose time in making frequent trips for material.

In a large iron and steel plant a few of the workers interviewed complained of unfair and abusive treatment by foremen. Numerous complaints had likewise come to the attention of the industrial secretary of the Urban League, who took the matter up with the chief of the industrial-relations department of the company. An investigation was ordered, and it was found that a certain foreman had made a threat to drive all the "niggers" from the department. This foreman, who had been employed by the company for more than sixteen years, was discharged as a result of the investigation. The company states that considerable pressure has been brought to bear for the foreman's reinstatement, but that it will not reinstate him because it wants his case to be a warning to others in the plant who may be prejudiced against Negro workers. The discharged foreman has been told that he may seek employment with the company in some other capacity, with the loss of his seniority rights.

In contrast with conditions in the preceding cases, the investigator found no complaints of mistreatment by foremen or other causes for dissatisfaction among Negro workers at another foundry which employs 125 Negroes out of a total force of 466 employees. Negro labor in this foundry was reported "satisfactory" and as efficient as white labor. The attitude of foremen evidently contributed to the contentment and success of Negroes in this plant.

Stock Yards.—Interviews with seventy-four Negroes employed in the Stock Yards disclosed much dissatisfaction with treatment by foremen. Specific instances of discrimination were cited in great detail, leaving no doubt in the mind of the investigator that these workers felt that they did not have an equal chance with white workers in many departments in the Yards. Some of those interviewed were well pleased with the treatment of present foremen, but had worked in other departments in the same plants where they said foremen had been unfair and insulting to Negroes. The Negroes interviewed, with one exception, considered their treatment by white fellow-workers good or "O.K." The following are typical of the complaints made by the men interviewed in three of the large establishments in the Yards:

G—— R—— had worked in one plant in the Yards for four years. He said that he was not given a chance to make overtime, while Poles who had not been with the company as long as he had were given this privilege.

Another worker had been dismissed by a foreman when a white worker in the boiler room had shut off the supply of water for washing hogs. No blame was attached to the real offender, but the Negro worker was discharged. He wrote a letter to the general superintendent, who investigated and ordered his reinstatement. The foreman then tried to reinstate him as a new hand, which would deprive him of his seniority rights.

Another worker interviewed said that one assistant foreman had openly made the statement that he would not work with "niggers."

The foreman over pipe fitters was accused of placing new Negroes on the hardest work, with no one to give assistance. He permitted white men to work as helpers for two or three months, and then to quit for a month or two and return as pipe fitters, advancing them over Negroes who had more training for the work.

The foreman in the sheep-killing department of one of the plants was said by one worker to make advancement difficult, if not impossible, for Negroes. Another worker complained that this foreman had recently taken one man off the jaw-trimming machine but ran the chain just as fast, with the evident intention of overtaxing the remaining Negroes and reporting that they were not equal to the job.

The foreman in the hog-killing department was charged with showing preference to the Poles in shoulder sawing. If a Negro made complaint to the superintendent and was sent back with instructions to the foreman, the latter would try to "burn" the Negro out with work.

It would seem from the discussion of the representatives of the packing companies before the Commission that the Negro in reality has little opportunity for promotion in the Yards. There are no Negro foremen over mixed gangs. The highest position a Negro is able to reach is that of subforeman over a group of Negro workmen. The general superintendent of one of the packing companies admitted that he had never tried out a Negro as foreman over a mixed gang because he wouldn't want to work under a Negro himself. Such an attitude on the part of a general superintendent closes the door to experimentation and limits the opportunities of even the most capable Negroes. It was this same official who said, as previously noted, that Negro labor required more supervision than white labor, and that the turnover of Negro labor was greater. Lack of "hope on the job" would seem an adequate explanation of both conditions.

Railroad dining-car and Pullman service.—Negroes are used as dining-car waiters on all roads running out of Chicago which carry such accommodations. Certain of the roads also use Negro cooks and kitchen help. The dining-cars on all roads are in charge of white stewards. The source of greatest complaint among the 204 Negro waiters interviewed was the arbitrary use of authority by the stewards and the fact that color bars Negro waiters from becoming stewards. They say that when stewards are needed, intelligent and experienced Negroes are passed over and white men, often entirely ignorant of the work, are taught their duties by these Negroes and are then placed in authority over them. One road carrying seven dining-cars uses white stewards on two cars and the remaining five cars are in charge of Negroes called "waiters in charge." Negroes complained that these men get little more than the wages of a waiter, and in many cases do all that is required of steward and waiter.

The outstanding complaint concerned the drawing of the color line in promotion. In view of the fact that many college graduates are serving as waiters, it would seem absurd to say that Negro waiters are incapable of performing a steward's duties, which consist of receiving and checking supplies for the car, seating dining patrons and issuing checks to them, having general supervision of the other employees on the dining-car, and making daily reports to the car superintendent of business transacted. Race prejudice on the part of administrative officials of railroads seems to be the only explanation for barring Negroes from becoming stewards, in view of the fact that Negro waiters have been used in dining-cars for over forty years and have been accepted by the white traveling public as a matter of course, though some contend that some patrons who accept Negroes as waiters would object to seeing them in positions of stewards, particularly if that brought white employees under them.

Negroes are employed in large numbers in Pullman cars as porters, cleaners, cooks, and mechanics. The main complaint made by the sixty porters interviewed was poor wages and necessity of dependency on tips to make a decent living. The wages of porters, as stated by a representative of the Pullman Company before the Commission, are:

The minimum rate for a porter on a standard sleeping or parlor car is $60.00 per month; when running in charge of one car the rate is $70.00 per month; when running in charge of a private car the rate is $75.00 per month; but when operating in charge of two or more cars the rate is $155.00 per month.

In 1914 the minimum was either $27.50 or $30.00 per month. Asked whether the Government Railroad Administration had anything to do with the increase granted by the Pullman Company, he indicated that the Pullman Company was under the direction of the Railroad Administration.

Another complaint by Pullman porters was that no promotion was possible for them, since only white men are used as Pullman-car conductors. The explanation of the company, given by one of its representatives at a conference with the Commission, was: "It is merely carrying out an ancient and honorable custom—we started out with white conductors and colored porters and have always continued that way."

Interviews with Negro workers revealed individual differences in attitude and temperament, but the more ambitious and thoughtful Negroes expressed the conviction that they were barred by color from positions for which they were better qualified than the white men who held them. Their complaints were largely variations of the same theme—race discrimination.

V. INDUSTRIES EXCLUDING THE NEGRO

Several important industries in Chicago have not yet employed Negroes. The traction companies (both elevated and surface) do not employ them as conductors, motormen, guards, or ticket agents. The large State Street department stores have no Negro clerks, and taxicab companies do not employ colored drivers. In these industries, which depend directly upon the public for patronage, it is to be expected that the employing of Negro help will be determined by the employer's views of the wishes of his patrons. If there is any fear that they are unfavorable, any individual employer in a competitive industry will hesitate to try the experiment alone. The employment managers of five State Street department stores made the following statements:

1. Our customers would object to colored salespeople, I am sure.

2. We have never employed any Negroes in our Chicago establishments. I don't care to go into the matter. It will not do you any good and will not do us any good.

3. Customers and white employees would object if they were used as clerks.

4. No Negroes are ever employed because we have sufficient white applicants.

5. If we ever tried using Negroes as clerks the white workers would make trouble, I am sure of that. Our customers would object. A good many are from the South and would make trouble even if Chicago people did not.

One large taxicab company, employing 250 Negroes for repair work and upkeep of automobiles, does not employ Negroes as drivers. A representative of this company stated that the company had gone as far as many employers, and often farther, in the employment of Negro labor; that it had done this in a progressive way, one step after another, but had "not yet got as far as employing Negro chauffeurs," although this might come in time. When asked whether he thought such action would affect the company's business unfavorably he said, "I do not know. It is a matter that I have never thought about."

The Chicago Telephone Company does not employ Negro telephone operators. Its only Negro employees are porters, window washers, and maids. A representative stated that it has always had sufficient white applicants for positions as telephone operators and has not considered taking on Negro girls, although the suggestion has often been made that Negro operators be used at the Douglas Exchange (located in the Negro area of the South Side). This official thought there was very little possibility that they would employ Negro operators in the future. He feared objection from white employees.

In connection with the foregoing it may be borne in mind that the company has answered complaints of poor telephone service within the past few years with the statement that it is difficult to secure capable girls, and that the Telephone Company is continually advertising for girls as operators.

Social waste involved.—The industrial secretary of the Urban League has called attention to the large number of educated Negro girls who are unable to secure industrial openings where education is required. It is impossible to estimate how great a social waste is involved in relegating trained and educated Negroes to inferior positions, and there is evidence that such waste is considerable. Negroes with college training are found working as waiters; young women college graduates are frequently forced to serve as ladies' maids, theater ushers, or in some other capacity where they are unable to use their educational training. The fact that it was not difficult to find over 1,500 Negro women of more than average education for clerical positions in two Chicago mail-order houses when the opportunity offered is some indication of the extent of the social waste when Negroes are not used in other positions which require training.

VI. RELATIONS OF WHITE AND COLORED WORKERS

The entrance of Negroes into new industries and occupations means that the workers already in these fields will meet increased competition. The self-interest of white workers in a given shop may therefore cause them to resent the presence of Negro workers. On the other hand, through contact and association with Negroes during working hours, white workers may come to look upon Negroes, not as members of a strange group with colored skin, but as individuals with the same feelings, hopes, and disappointments as other people. Whether the hostile attitude prompted by self-interest or the friendly attitude born of understanding, acquaintance, and daily association will prevail in any given shop depends on many factors, over some of which the workers involved have no control. Some of these are:

1. The attitude of the management when Negro labor is first introduced.

2. Circumstances under which Negroes are hired, whether because of recognized labor shortage, or as strike breakers, or to reduce labor costs.

3. The attitude and characteristics of the particular Negroes employed.

4. The attitude of the white workers toward Negroes as a result of previous contacts with Negroes.

The spirit displayed in the shop is likely to spread beyond it and affect relations between the races on the streets and in cars and other public places. It is therefore important to know what the relations between white and Negro workers are, both because of their importance to the Negro in industry and their bearing on the broader social aspect of race problems.

1. RACE FRICTION AMONG WORKERS

Information concerning race relations in industry was received from employers through questionnaires returned by 137 establishments employing a total of 22,337 Negroes, through interviews at places of business with representatives of 101 employers, through industrial conferences held by the Commission, and through interviews with 865 Negro workers. Since the best judges of the existence of race friction would be the Negro workers themselves, who would bear the brunt of any ill-treatment resulting from such friction, it was considered that any extended canvass of opinion among white workers beyond the inquiries made in connection with the trade-union investigation was unnecessary.

Race friction between white and Negro workers sufficient to interfere with output would militate against the use of Negro labor. The fact that Negro labor has proved satisfactory in the great majority of cases where it has been used is therefore indirect evidence that race friction is not pronounced in Chicago industries. Direct evidence from employers on this subject was also secured in answer to a specific question on the point. Out of 137 establishments employing Negroes, which returned questionnaires, only two reported that race friction was a disturbing factor in their plants. The facts in these two cases were as follows:

In a steel-manufacturing plant there was a total of 1,300 employees, of whom seventeen were Negroes, eleven men and six women. During the steel strike of 1919 Negroes were employed in this plant in large numbers. Feeling was antagonistic on the part of the whites, "particularly Austrians and Slavonians." The total number of Negroes employed during the strike and the turnover were reported as "an average force of 175."

Friction in the foregoing case was probably due to the heritage of bitterness over the use of Negroes as strike breakers and to irritation caused by the low grade of workers employed more than to difference in color. They were described by the manager as "irresponsible and shiftless."

In the other case fear of Negroes' competition rather than race prejudice was apparently the cause of friction. The manager of a wholesale millinery house employing forty-three girls in one department, out of a total of 700 employees, said:

We decided to take on colored help in June, 1919. Our white people resented very much the fact of employing colored people in our business, and I believe the blame, if there is any, lies as much with the whites as with the blacks in the difficulties we have had. I find a great resentment among all our white people. I couldn't overcome the prejudice enough to bring the people in the same building, and had to engage outside quarters for the blacks. We had a meeting of our colored operators after employing the hand workers. We thought it would be nice if we would start a school for machine operators. It was, of course, rumored that we were going to do this, and I received a delegation from our sewing hall who said they resented the idea. They wouldn't listen to it at all, and I had to abandon the project. Their argument was: "If you let them in it won't be long until we are out entirely." The attitude against the colored is only the same as it was against the Slavs or the foreign races when they first intruded in the field. There was no prejudice, particularly against the color. In millinery establishments in New York City colored girls and white girls work together and do not seem to have any trouble, but, we can't do it here.

The resentment felt by the white girls in this shop may be accounted for in part by a fact to which the manager apparently attached no importance. In speaking of the loyalty and good spirit of the Negro girls, he said casually:

In a few instances, where we have had difficulty in getting work done by the whites, we have been able to use the colored workroom as a level. We have sent it over to them and gotten it out. The white girls have refused either through stubbornness or some condition to get the work out.

Friction was also reported between women employees in a plant where relations between the men of both races were reported harmonious. This plant which manufactures machinery, has a total of 6,647 employees, including 1,225 Negro men and sixty Negro women. A representative of the company said:

Among the girls we had quite a lot of trouble in some departments against our hiring colored girls. To every colored girl employed we lost five white girls. There was friction in the washrooms due probably to race, though it may have been personal.

The report from a foundry employing 950 men, of whom 200 were colored, said:

As a rule if any objection is made to working together it comes from the white men (Polish) on the grounds that the colored man is being given the preference.

A laundry company employing ten Negroes out of a total of thirty-five employees, reported that when the first Negro girl was employed the white girls threatened to quit. The manager asked them to wait a week and, if they still objected, he would let her go. There was no further objection; they grew to like her.

The reports of employers regarding the absence of friction between white and Negro workers is borne out by the testimony of Negro workers themselves. Among 865 Negroes interviewed in all the industries covered, the number who complained of disagreeable treatment by white workers was practically negligible. It is possible that some Negro workers among those interviewed at their work places, sometimes with white fellow-workers and foreman near by, felt hesitancy in voicing such complaints. But the fact that the information was sought by an investigator of their own race, and confidentially for the Commission, may be considered as a factor likely to encourage the expression of any grievance, especially if felt at all deeply.

Conditions of work in large foundries would seem to offer plenty of opportunity for friction even where workers are all of the same race. This is particularly true of foundries where the piecework system prevails. The work is done in the confusion of smoke, heat, dust, and noise, with men shouting at each other, each striving to be first to receive this pouring of molten iron from the vats. Notwithstanding the fact that the work is carried on under great tension, the ninety-three Negroes interviewed in fourteen foundries, when asked how they got along with the white men with whom they worked, said: "Good," "Fine," or used other words to indicate friendly relations. Not a single complaint was made against treatment by white workers in any of the foundries or iron and steel establishments investigated.

One interesting instance of happy working relations in which several nationalities of whites were involved was found at Hull-House. A Negro has been in charge of the Coffee House there for six years. He had nine employees working under him: three Negro girls, one German boy, one Greek man, two Polish girls, and two Italian women. The Greek man and the two Polish girls were in the employ of the Coffee House when he took charge. The others have all been employed for a considerable period. In commenting upon the amicable relations of people representing so many different races and under a Negro manager, he said, "We are all working for a living, and there will be no discrimination. It is very simple. The thing to do is to get acquainted."

2. WORKERS REFLECT ATTITUDE OF MANAGEMENT

When the employment of Negroes is decided upon, there is an effort to make the change with as little disturbance as possible to white workers. Frequently the manager tries to imagine himself in the place of his white workers in order to discover what their reaction will be. In so doing, he considers, not what they will think or feel, but what a man with his own social background would feel in their position. The attitude of the management therefore determines whether Negro workers shall be segregated or treated like other workers in the plant without regard to color. Separation once decided upon and partitions erected, white workers may insist upon the distinction being maintained where they would not have raised the point in the first instance. Establishments following both courses gave the Commission the result of their experiences. Of 101 establishments employing five or more Negroes each, eighteen maintained separate lavatory and toilet accommodations for Negro workers. This condition was accepted without complaint in some establishments, while in others it was a source of dissatisfaction among the Negro workers, who resented this manifestation of "Jim Crowism" in the North. The fact is worthy of note that the eighteen establishments reporting separate accommodations or separate departments for colored workers employed but 2,623 Negroes out of a total of 22,337 covered by the investigation, or slightly more than 11 per cent. The remaining 89 per cent, or 19,714, were using all accommodations in common with white workers.

One large foundry company employing 427 Negroes out of a total of 2,488 employees tried a different method in each of its three plants. In one a partition in the locker and shower rooms was erected, to which the Negro workers objected. The general superintendent said he would not have consented to the erection of the partition in the first place, but he was afraid to take it down. In the second plant separate lavatory accommodations were provided in connection with separate departments for Negro and white workers on different floors, and there was no trouble. In the third plant, where no color distinctions were made, all workers using the same lavatory accommodations, the manager never heard of any complaint from white or Negro workers.

In another foundry employing 125 Negroes out of a total of 466 employees the representative said that the Polish workers had objected "that the colored people used the showers and basins all the time and they did not get a chance to. We checked up on this and limited some of our showers to colored only, and we only had two men use the white showers in something like two weeks, time, and in the colored there was something like 200 baths taken." The use of the same accommodations in this plant caused no further complaint after this incident. Another foundry reported that the white and Negro workmen ate lunch and smoked together. There were no separate accommodations and there was no ill-feeling whatever. Another firm employing 500 Negroes out of a total of 3,000 employees reported: "The relationship between our Negro and white employees is very friendly. During the past year we have not had a single encounter of any kind between the white and colored workers. They work together in most of our departments, use the same locker rooms and washrooms, and eat in the same restaurant in the plant." In one foundry the superintendent was nearly compelled to install separate accommodations because of stealing in the locker rooms. Suspicion was aroused against the Negro workers, and the white workers had a shop meeting to demand separate accommodations. The manager said: "The same day the janitor caught a red-headed Irish boy red-handed. We paraded him through the shop and made quite a grandstand operation out of it, and it ended my troubles from that time on, but if I hadn't caught him I might have had to maintain separate locker rooms."

There were only six establishments which maintained separate departments for Negro workers. In some cases segregation was effected by a partition; in others by maintaining a complete Negro unit in a different part of the city. The second plan has worked satisfactorily, but segregation by partition in the same plant is resented by Negro workers. Representatives of the largest employers of Negro labor expressed the opinion that erecting a partition, by drawing the "color line," causes friction which in all probability would not otherwise appear.

The industrial secretary of the Urban League, who has been actively interested in extending the range of opportunity for the Negro in industry, firmly believes that the attitude of the management on racial matters is reflected by the employees, that wherever an uncompromising stand is made for fair play for all employees, racial differences do not cause annoyance. He cites the following incident as one of several tending to support his view:

During the fall of 1919 the general manager of the S—— F—— P—— Company was approached on the subject of employing colored girls. To our surprise, it was discovered that colored girls were already employed by him in all branches of the industry, and mixed freely with white employees. There was no discrimination in the character or kind of work or the use of plant facilities. Mr. N—— explained that he had never thought of segregating white and colored workmen, and the wisdom of his plan had been proved by the experience of his father, who employs both white and colored girls, but keeps the groups separated by a partition. According to Mr. N—— the partition had been a source of trouble for the reason that the placing of the partition itself indicated that the company intended to make a difference between white and colored workers. This put each group in a frame of mind which caused them to resent the presence of any worker on the side of the partition on which she was not employed. The elder Mr. N—— realized his mistake but did not dare to take the partition down, fearing that by so doing he would precipitate further trouble which would result in the most desirable girls in each group quitting the plant.

Foremen, because they personify the management in the mind of the workmen, play a large part in shaping the attitude white workers adopt toward Negroes. If the foremen are antagonistic or insulting in their treatment of the Negro, white workers find favor with the foremen by adopting the same attitude. A construction company employing sixty Negroes reported:

There were always difficulties with this gang when the Italian foreman was here, as he constantly endeavored to place Italians at work displacing some very good Negro workers. When I was sent here I dug under the difficulties and found the Italians were very clannish and were using the foreman to carry out the plan of giving every Italian who came along a job, at the expense of some Negro's job. I am a French Canadian and have worked with colored men before. After failure in trying to get Italians to see how bad the old system was, I was forced to let all the Italians go. I have an excellent gang of Negroes now.

The representative of a large foundry said:

I believe I have a harder time to get the Polish foremen to handle Negro help than any other. Our foremen are accustomed to handling the Polish workers pretty rough. While employers don't want that, it goes on that way. A Pole is "cussed" around and does not care what he is called. It's all the same to him, but a colored man is a pretty thin-skinned individual. You call a colored man something, and he will grab his hat and is gone. He thinks that when the foreman uses those words he means it. He will not stand for the same kind of language that the Polak will.

3. USE OF NEGRO LABOR TO UNDERMINE WAGES

If Negroes are introduced into a plant during a strike and retained afterward, a period of strained relations between white and Negro workers is almost certain to ensue. They are given a similarly unfavorable start when they are introduced to reduce labor costs. In the smaller establishments, where wages and conditions of work were not well standardized, white workers were suspicious that Negroes were working for lower wages, and the Negroes suspected that they were being paid lower wages than white workers. It is obvious that where mutual distrust and suspicion are present, friction readily develops which may lead to serious social consequences.

To what extent Negroes are being paid lower wages than white workers it is impossible to say. In this connection the Chicago Urban League made the following statement:

The charge of inequality in the wages of white and colored workers is frequently made, but the League is not always permitted to inquire into wage scales, and therefore verification of some of these rumors has been impossible.

The League has taken up this matter with such companies as ——, ——, ——, and numerous others, with the result that in each instance the statement has been made that white and colored workers receive the same pay for the same work. There is a deep-seated suspicion, however, that this is not true. In some cases this suspicion seemed to be justified. Complaints have come to our attention where colored people have been mistaken for white in the offices of the —— Company and employed at a higher rate of pay than that given colored girls for similar work. This, however, has never been verified. Pay inequalities have been explained away by larger experience, seniority, superior production, etc., in favor of whites.

The employment manager of one company has told representatives of the Chicago Urban League that the colored girls employed in their South Side Branch Office started at a wage in excess of that given white girls for similar work in their main office.

The statement can be correctly made, however, that many employers of colored girls, particularly in the needle trades, have refused to pay colored workers a wage equal to that of white. There are well-known instances of sweatshop tactics used on colored girls because of their inexperience in industry and lack of organization.

An official of the Women's Garment Workers' Union reported that —— Company, upon finding that they had to pay the union scale of wages, requested the local to supply white girls instead of the colored girls who were already in his employ. The colored girls were employed to replace the striking whites.

No complaint has come to our attention of inequality of wages in union shops employing white and colored workers, or in any of the larger industries. Colored workers are usually exploited in the smaller shops. White workers have been known to refuse to work in shops paying white and colored workers the same wage.

All of the representatives of employers appearing in conferences and all but one of the representatives interviewed stated that Negro and white workers were being paid equal wages in their establishments. The exception was a wholesale hardware company where the employment manager admitted paying Negroes "a dollar or two less per week" because they could not be shifted from one department to another as readily as white workers on account of prejudice of workers or foremen in certain departments.

It was learned that employers occasionally refuse to hire Negro unionists when they learn they must pay them "white men's wages." Unionists allege that even Negro employers object to paying Negroes the same union scale as white workers. To the extent that Negro labor is being used to undermine wage standards, misunderstanding and race friction develop.

4. RELATIONS OF WHITE AND NEGRO WORKERS DURING THE RIOT

In contrast with the violence that characterized street encounters during the riots it is significant that no unfriendly demonstrations occurred between workers in any of the establishments covered by the investigation, according to statements made by representatives of employers. On the contrary, white workers are said by employers to have expressed sympathy in many ways with their Negro fellow-workers. The general superintendent of one of the largest packing companies in the "Yards" emphasized the good feeling that existed between the workers at this critical time:

I think this Commission ought to know that there wasn't a single case of violence in what we call Packingtown during the race riot, and the morning that the Negroes were brought back to work in this packing-house there was not a single argument—there wasn't a single indication in this plant of any racial feeling. In fact the two classes of common labor we have are the Slavs and the Negroes, and they met as old friends. In many instances they put their arms around one another's necks. In one particular instance a Negro and a Pole got on an elevated truck and rode all around this plant simply to signify to the rest of the workers that there was a good spirit existing between the two. There was nothing in the contact between the Negro and the Pole or the Slav that would indicate that there had ever been a race riot in Chicago, and there was nothing from the beginning of the race riot to the end that would indicate that there was any feeling started in the Stock Yards or in this industry that led up to the race riot.

That there was at least one case of mob violence is shown by the report of the coroner's jury which investigated the riots. William H. Dozier, a colored man, was killed in the Stock Yards, according to this report. The jury's finding in this case was:

We find that during the race riots at a point about Cook Street and Exchange Avenue in the Union Stock Yards, and at about 7:15 a.m., July 31, 1919, deceased, a colored man, was struck by a hammer held and wielded by one Joseph Carka, that the deceased ran east on Exchange Avenue toward the sheep pens at Morgan Street, that he was followed and chased by a mob of white men, and that while so running the deceased was struck by a street broom, held and wielded by one Joe Scovak, and that he was also struck by a shovel in the hands of an unknown white man, and by one or more stones or missiles thrown by one or more unknown white men; injuries sustained causing death.

This was the only serious case of violence in the Stock Yards discovered, although a number of rumors were investigated, which could not be substantiated by facts.

Because of the nature of the work in the "Yards" and the presence of knives and other dangerous implements which could be turned to ready use, it is significant that more rioting, with deaths and injuries resulting, did not take place. But it is also true that the riot, which started on Sunday afternoon, became so serious by Monday morning that few Negroes made an effort to reach their work at the Stock Yards.

VII. FUTURE OF THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO INDUSTRIES

The investigation of the Negro in industry points to the conclusion that Negro labor has made a satisfactory record, and that there is little race friction in evidence between white and Negro workers. What the future will hold for him depends upon many complicating factors, some of which are: renewal of immigration in large volume, depressed business conditions, attempted reductions in labor costs, increasing unemployment, falling wages, the announced determination of many employers' associations throughout the country to undermine the strength of unions by establishing the "open shop" which might involve the use of Negro labor, and the admitted prejudice of foremen against Negro labor in many plants. It was labor shortage which forced employers to experiment with Negro workers in new fields. Whether Negro employees will be retained when a surplus of white labor is available is an open question.

Employers' representatives, in April and May, 1920, stated (with one exception) that no reduction in labor force was contemplated; that when such reduction became necessary, efficiency and seniority rights would determine which workers would be retained; that the question of color would not enter into the decision in any way. The employment manager of a firm employing a very large number of Negroes expressed the general opinion of the employers' representatives when he said:

I feel that our house will continue to run a colored office as long as they can run it as efficiently and economically as they could a white office; while, on the other hand, if they could not run it as efficiently and economically of course they wouldn't run it, because it's just a matter of dollars and cents, and as far as charity and good will goes, all good business men have it, but they are not going to run their business according to that entirely.

On the other hand, the employment manager of an establishment which had experienced friction between white and Negro workers was of the opinion that white workers resented the intrusion of Negroes. He thought that this feeling would be a factor if a time came when there was an oversupply of labor; that Negroes would then have to give way because no employer would be strong enough to resist the resentment of white workers; and Negro workers would thus be thrown out of work and would be a standing menace to the community.

The investigations and inquiries of the Commission in industry took place almost entirely in the period from March to September, 1920, and the statistics concerning Negroes employed were gathered in the earlier part of this period. During these months the general industrial situation was such as to demand all the labor, both white and Negro, that could be secured. In the autumn of 1920, however, a period of decline began, with increasing unemployment. This affected both white and Negro workers. Its own investigational staff no longer available for additional service, the Commission sought information concerning these changed conditions, so far as they affected Negro workers, from the industrial secretary of the Chicago Urban League. Through its industrial department the League places more Negroes in employment than any other agency in Chicago. The industrial secretary made the following statement on November 20:

At the present time the unemployment among colored people has reached what seems serious proportions. While there is no indication that colored people are suffering more in this respect than any other group, the constantly swelling number is a cause for grave concern. For three weeks our employment office has been crowded with job seekers. At first it appeared that those who failed to take their work seriously suddenly found themselves unable to get employment, but now hundreds of men with good records have been forced out by temporary "shut downs" and reduced forces of various plants.

During the working days included between November 15 and 20, our attendance record is 1,073 job seekers with only 131 openings. One month ago the attendance figure was 571 persons for the equal period (259 men and 312 women).

Our labor reports for May, 1920, indicated an attendance of 941 males and 739 females; about 1,000 orders for male help and about 500 for female help; there were 722 placements for males and 371 for females. The total attendance was 1,680; orders, 1,500; placements, 1,093.

A casual survey including most of the leading industries ... shows a general decline and a letting off of workers. Some few report difficulty in keeping their present forces.

There have been some complaints of discrimination against colored workers, but few comparatively.... Most industries are keeping their proportionate share of Negroes. In some instances the proportion has been slightly increased....

During the week, workers have registered from cities in states from Mississippi to Michigan. Detroit predominates, where the automobile industries show a marked depression.

Women's work presents a very discouraging outlook. Hundreds of needle workers are out of employment by the closing of many of the smaller shops which employed colored girls. The Women's Trade Union League reports many workers unemployed, due to the slowness of the trade. Immigrant white girls are said to be consuming much of the work offered to domestics.... Colored women seem in most cases as reluctant as ever to accept domestic employment.

The present unemployment problem is probably as serious as any the League has known. What shall become of the army of jobless men is a problem serious and perplexing.

As a result of the necessity of reducing costs in response to depressed business conditions, managers of establishments employing both white and Negro workers may be tempted to pit Negro and white workers against each other, paying Negro labor less than white labor as a means of forcing down wages or undermining labor-union organizations. Such attempts would certainly be conducive to increased racial animosity. On the other hand, managers who are hostile to Negro labor may take advantage of the change in the labor situation by discharging Negroes indiscriminately, replacing them with white workers.

During the period of business depression which had already begun, both white and Negro workers seemed certain to lose some of the advantages which they had gained as a result of the labor shortage caused by the war. After the industrial depression has passed, discrimination against the Negro, to whatever extent it may exist, will make the recovery of lost ground more difficult for Negro workers than for white workers. In considering the question of race discrimination, it is evident that the Negro who has lived in the North for a number of years feels keenly the fact that color bars even the most capable members of his race from the hope of promotion to executive or administrative positions, while prejudice on the part of persons in authority prevents the rank and file of Negroes from developing the degree of efficiency which they could develop if they knew their efforts would be judged on merit alone. Where advancement is precluded by color, the incentive supplied by recognition of effort is lacking.

One door of escape from the discouraging prospects held out in industries managed by white men, where there is no chance for promotion to executive positions, is the opportunity for an increasing number of the more ambitious Negroes to enter business among members of their own race. According to Black's Blue Book (1919-20) there were over 1,200 Negro business houses and professional offices in Chicago in 1920. Among others, the list included five banks, forty dentists, fifteen druggists, twenty-four employment agencies, six hotels, three insurance offices, forty-eight real estate offices, eleven newspapers and magazines, 106 physicians, seventy lawyers, 161 barber shops and billiard rooms, and 120 hairdressing parlors. Although the list of Negro business men in Chicago is growing rapidly, it must necessarily remain but a small percentage of the total Negro population. The great majority of Negroes gainfully occupied will continue to be employees in industry. Therefore the fact that a large number of Negroes feel that discrimination is practiced and that, no matter what abilities they show, they can "go so far and no farther" in industries managed by white men is of great importance in any consideration of race problems. These men are the more thoughtful, aspiring members of their race, and their opinion accordingly carries more weight than the opinion of an equal number of care-free Negroes who may consider that the high wages of the present are an offset for all handicaps. Negroes who feel keenly the injustice of unequal opportunities are the ones to seek expression in Negro newspapers and magazines with the aim of arousing widespread resentment against race discrimination. Men who frequently would not resent discrimination directed against themselves are stirred to resentment by well-told recitals of injustice to others. Specific instances may seem to be of trifling importance, but in being retold they reach an ever-widening audience, which is constantly growing more race conscious.