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.