White worker

“ Deeper was the call for workers. Black men poured in and red anger flamed in the hearts of the white workers. The anger was against the wielders of the thunderbolts, but here it was impotent because employers stood with the hand of the government before their faces; it was against entrenched union labor, which had risen on the backs of the unskilled and unintelligent and on the backs of those whom for any reason of race or prejudice or chicane they could beat beyond the bars of competition ”

“ As we saw, white workers for the most part have long objected to working with Negroes, and where this was the case, employers usually adopted the policy of non-employment of Negro laborers. With the coming of the hordes of immigrants from southern and south-eastern Europe this policy assumed a more rigid permanency, because from these foreign groups the employers could recruit all the labor they needed, and at the same time that sort of labor to which little or no objection could be made on the ground of race and color. ”

“ Omitting for the present the professional class, we have reviewed the Negro as a worker, and neither in wages nor choice of occupation has he risen far to success. In domestic service he has gone a little down the ladder, serving in less desirable positions than in former years. ”

“ To all this was added a series of labor laws making the exploitation of Negro labor more secure. All this legislation had to be accomplished in the face of the labor movement throughout the world, and particularly in the South, where it was beginning to enter among the white workers. This was accomplished easily, however, by an appeal to race prejudice. No method of inflaming the darkest passions of men was unused. ”

“ Indeed, the number of Negroes taking the places of striking whites and of skilled white workers is so small that it is hardly appreciable. They are, as we have seen, largely taking the places which were left vacant by the unskilled foreign laborers since the beginning of the war, and the new places created by the present industrial boom. No effective effort has been made to organize these unskilled laborers by the recognized American labor movement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The white laborer therefore brought to America the habit of regular, continuous toil which he regarded as a great moral duty. The black laborer brought the idea of toil as a necessary evil ministering to the pleasure gift of the white laborer made America rich, or at least made many Americans rich, it will take the psychology of the black man to make it New and better organization of industry and a clearer conception of the value of effort and a wider knowledge of the process of production must come in, so as to increase the wage of the worker and decrease rent, interest, and profit ”

“ Some of the managers told the agent at the United States Employment Bureau that they were making the change because white servants were more efficient than Negro workers. Other managers, some of whom had used Negro [Pg 415] labor for more than fifteen years, simply said that $16.50 a week was too much to pay Negroes, and, therefore, wished white workers instead. The few hotels and restaurants that retained Negroes as a rule put them on a much shorter working week than 48 hours, thus reducing their 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This competition was brought about by a policy pursued by Northern employers, the practice of deliberately importing Negro laborers from the South to replace white workers who went on strike. This naturally served to fan the flames of hatred of the white workers against the Negroes, and actual expressions of this were seen in the serious race riots which followed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when I saw the way things were going; when I heard the way you were herded alongside a crowd of lousy niggers, and set to work with 'em, like a pack of galley slaves; when I heard these things, and learned that these dirty blacks were taking the place of legitimate white workers for less wages, then my blood just got red hot, and I couldn't sleep o' nights. Say, boys, it broke me all up. I couldn't eat nor sleep till I'd rushed through a financial arrangement with other labor organizations, which sets you clear beyond the chances of want. There's money and plenty for a strike right now. ”

“ We commend to the attention of employers who fear clashes or loss of white workers by taking on Negro workers the fact that in 89 per cent of the industries investigated by this Commission, Negroes were found working in close association with white employees, and that friction between these elements had rarely been manifested. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the labor movement turned their backs on those black men when the white world dinned in their ears. Negroes are servants; servants are Negroes. They shut the door of escape to factory and trade in their fellows' faces and battened down the hatches, lest the 300,000 should be workers equal in pay and consideration with white men. ”

“ I have stated before that it is the labor question, more than any other, which causes the Colored people to suffer greater indignities than any other class of Americans in this country, and I believe it is not on account of their color, so much as it is the desire of white laborers to do the work and to receive pay which might go to him. It is an admitted fact that these same laborers or mechanics in search of a job, will go South, where the Colored men have charge of such work, or nearly so, and will not only work with them, but hire to them and be bossed by them. ”

“ But this is just what the manumission of the black people of this country has accomplished. They are more absolutely under the control of the Southern whites; they are more systematically robbed of their labor; they are more poorly housed, clothed and fed, than under the slave régime; and they enjoy, practically, less of the protection of the laws of the State or of the Federal government. ”

“ It is to be hoped that there may be a gradual broadening of the views of white laborers in this vital matter and a change of attitude by the trade unions that they dominate. Can we reasonably expect this? As matters now stand, it is the individual Negro artisan, often a master contractor, who can work at his trade and give employment to his fellows. ”

“ It is clear the white population cannot be employed in raising cotton or tobacco, because in doing so they can earn but twelve and a half cents per day, since the same quantity of labor performed by a slave is worth no more. I am told also that the wages of overseers, mechanics, &c. are higher than the white labor of the North; and it is well known that many mechanics go from the North to the South, to get employment during the winter. These facts suggest the inquiry whether this cheap slave labor does not paralyze the industry of the whites? ”

“ White labor began to see that it would be better to lift the Negro up to the same scale with itself, by admitting him into their organization, than to seek his debasement. If Negroes were in a condition to work for fifty cents per day and would do so, and capital would employ them, then white men must accept the same terms or get no work! ”

“ The old planters seemed utterly despondent about raising cotton by free negro labor. A few thought of 373watching the Yankees and imitating their policy; but the most of those who did not propose flying to Brazil, were dreaming of imported white labor. The following was one of their fine schemes:
“White Labor Agency.—Rates of Hire of White Laborers:
Payable at the end of the year.
They contract for one year, to do the same work as the negro; live in the same cabins, and on the same rations; clothe themselves and pay their own doctor’s bills. Time lost by sickness deducted from wages. ”

“ Against both of these the negro is almost proof. Now, while white labor is so high, it is evident that no one can hire a white laborer, except at a rate that would consume his profit. Not so with negro labor. That species of labor might be obtained for half the amount which you would have to pay for white labor. The result would be a profit alike to the hirer and seller of slave labor. There is no doubt, in my judgment, that almost any number of slaves might be hired out in California, were the whites willing to allow it, at from eight to ten hundred dollars a year. ”

“ Here has been his vantage-ground at the South, because his productive power was so great—by numbers and by his inherited and traditional skill,—that there was no choice but to employ him. At the North, where he is in so small a minority as to be unimportant, he has been crowded into an ever narrowing circle of employments. Precisely the same sentiment, though not so ingeniously formulated, which makes the white gentleman refuse to receive the black gentleman in his drawing-room, inclines the white carpenter or mason to refuse to work alongside of his negro fellow-laborer. ”

“ They do not want to work by the side of the black man. This, however [Pg 168] is but a good excuse in the mouth of the white man for it is accepted as satisfactory by the white employer. An examination into labor conditions in our Northern cities reveals a deplorable condition so far as the Colored man is concerned. He cannot get a job calling for the skilled artisan however skilled he may be. The Union will not permit him to win his bread by the sweat of his brow. He cannot work because he is not allowed to work. ”

“ The blame which belongs to his own class he shifts from them to the shoulders of labor. It becomes us to test the truth of that assertion by the light of reason, and by appeals to indisputable facts. Of course the land-owners of the South may be expected to view things differently from the landless. The slaveholders always did look at things a little differently from the slaves, and we therefore insist that, in order that the whole truth shall be brought out, the laborer as well as the capitalist shall be called as witnesses before the Senate Committee of Labor and Education. ”

“ The operations of the vast landed estates of the South produced all the industrial disjointments which have afflicted the South since the war. The white man was taught to look upon labor as the natural portion of the black slave; and nothing could induce a white man to put his hand to the plow, but the gaunt visage of starvation at his door. He even preferred ignominious starvation to honest work; and, in his desperate struggle to avoid the horror of the one and the disgrace of the other, he would sink himself lower in the scale of moral infamy than the black slave he despised. ”

“ Under such a system all labor is bound to suffer. Even the white laborers are not yet intelligent, thrifty, and well trained enough to maintain themselves against the powerful inroads of organized capital. The results among them, even, are long hours of toil, low wages, child labor, and lack of protection against usury and cheating. But among the black laborers all this is aggravated, first, by a race prejudice which varies from a doubt and distrust among the best element of whites to a frenzied hatred among the worst ”

“ This, of course, demoralized the country to a very great extent, and it has only been in the past few years the negro laborers have realized their true condition and gone to work with a view of making a support for themselves and families. ”