The investigators found that a movement was being discussed among the colored people in Chicago to organize unions for colored artisans to act as strike-breakers whenever possible, until the American Federation of Labor asked them to join the white unions. This, of course, is the very worst thing they could possibly do, as the colored people in Chicago have not yet recovered from the animosity excited against them during the stock yards strike when colored men from the South were imported as strike breakers. The colored people themselves believe that their difficulty in finding work is often due to the objection of the employers to treating the colored man with the respect which a skilled mechanic would command. Certainly the colored laborer is continually driven to lower kinds of occupation which are gradually being discarded by the white man.
Corporations
Usually Refuse
Employment
Certainly the investigators found that the great corporations, for one reason or another, refused to employ negroes. Department stores, express companies and the public utility companies employ very few colored people. Out of the 3,795 men employed in Chicago by the eight leading express companies, only twenty-one were colored men. Fifteen of these were porters. The investigators found no colored men in Chicago employed as boot and shoe makers, glove makers, bindery workers, garment workers’ trades in factories, cigar box makers, elevated railroad employes, neckware trades, suspender makers and printers. No colored women are employed in dressmaking, cap making, lingerie, or corset making. The two reasons given for this non-employment by the employers are first, the refusal of the white employes to work with the colored people; second, that the “colored help” is slower and not so efficient as the white. Some employers solve the second difficulty by paying the colored help less. In the laundries, for instance, where colored people do the same work as the white, the latter average a dollar a week more.
The Field of
Undesirable
Occupations
The effect of these restrictions upon the negroes are, first, that they are crowded into undesirable and underpaid occupations. As an example, about 12 per cent of the colored men in Chicago work in saloons and pool-rooms. Second, there is a greater competition in a limited field with a consequent tendency to lower the already low wages. Third, the colored women are forced to go to work to help earn the family living; this occurs so universally as to affect the entire family and social life of the negro colony.
Pullman Company
the Largest
Employer of
Colored Men
A large number of negroes are employed on the railroads, largely due to the influence of the Pullman Palace Car Company. There is a tradition among colored people that Mr. Pullman inserted a clause in his will urging the company to employ colored men on the trains whenever possible, but while the investigators found 1,849 Pullman porters living in Chicago, they counted 7,625 colored men working in saloons and pool rooms. There is also a high percentage of them employed in the theaters, more than one-fourth of all the employes in the leading theaters of Chicago being colored men.
Contrast Between
Employment
by Local
and Federal
Government
The Federal Government has always been a large employer of colored labor; 9 per cent of the force in all the Federal departments are negroes. In Chicago the percentage of colored men is higher. Out of a total of 8,012 men, 755 or 10.61 per cent of the whole are colored, approximately their just proportion to the population. The negroes, however, do not fare so well in local government. A study made of the city departments in Chicago showed the percentage of colored employes to be 1.87 per cent, in Cook County to be 1.88 per cent. Three colored men have also been elected as County Commissioners, and there is said to be no instance on record in Chicago of a negro office holder having betrayed his trust.
The Colored
Man in
Business