VI
NEW INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Consideration of the question of work for colored people shows that it presents three important features; (i) the opening of doors to new occupations so that skilled men will not have to stay in the common labor group all their lives; (2) getting men and women trained to perform skilled or unskilled labor and coaching them when on a job so that they will hold on; (3) creating a sentiment among employers so that no colored man or woman will be dismissed merely because of race.
These three aspects of the colored man's labor problem are worthy of careful study. They go to the root of the most perplexing immediate phase of what is called the race problem. It is economic equality that gets the emphasis in the speeches and the writings of the colored people themselves. They hate Jim Crow cars and lynching and all acts of race discrimination, in part, because back of these is the big fact that, even in the north, in many skilled occupations, as well as in many unskilled, it is useless for any colored man or woman to ask a job. And so, from year to year, we find the organizations of colored people checking up, listing the new occupations they have entered, pointing to new doors opening to men on the basis of ability where color does not count one way or the other.
The new doors of opportunity opening in Chicago in the last two years, are told here:
Molders. Every foundry in Chicago, according to the Urban league employment office, which chiefly handles the labor situation for colored people, is ready to hire colored molders, who have no difficulty in getting jobs.
Tanneries have opened their doors to both skilled and semi-skilled colored workers.
Colored shipping clerks have entered freight warehouses. Such a statement might seem to have little significance. As in all these instances, however, it is the record of a new precedent. A door once inscribed, "No hope," now says, "There is hope."
Automobile repair shops now employ colored mechanics. The two largest taxi companies make no discrimination on account of color.
One large mattress factory has opened the doors to colored workers.
At the Central Soldiers' and Sailors' bureau at 120 West Adams street, are available for employment colored men who served with the 8th infantry regiment in the Argonne and the St. Mihiel sectors in front line action. There are fifty chauffeurs, twenty first and second cooks, thirty miscellaneous kitchen helpers, five valets and ten butlers of experience, five shipping clerks, five actors, five sales clerks, two stationary engineers, two firemen, two night watchmen and five elevator men.
According to Sergt. H. J. Cannasius, in charge of the division dealing with colored labor, a considerable proportion of the men are justified in refusing to take jobs at heavy labor. "These men were gassed or otherwise wounded in service in the Argonne or in the St. Mihiel actions," he said. "We sent one who had been gassed to take a job as porter in a shoe store in State street. He was in a basement trying to handle a big box of goods. This was the first approach to heavy work he had tackled since he was mustered out. He keeled over, and was taken to a hospital, and it was four days before the doctors would let him go.
"Men who were gassed in France we find are sensitive to dust or fumes. We tried a number in the cement works at Buffington, Ind., but they all came back after a few days. At coal shoveling and at work in coke and coal at gas houses or around vats and retorts where there are fumes these men can't stand up to the work. They come back almost with tears, saying they tried to hold out, but couldn't.
"The Northwestern railroad dining car service has employed a number of ex-soldiers as waiters. Some restaurants and hotels have taken porters and pantrymen at $11 a week and board. We would have no trouble filling calls for more workers in this field. A call came today for a colored bookkeeper to go to a normal school at Elizabeth, N. C.
"Some of the returned men of the 8th infantry went to see about getting places as sleeping car porters. They found they would have to stand an initial fee of $35 for uniforms, and as they had no money they gave it up.
"Three of our applicants can fill positions as interpreters or secretaries who are required to know the chief South American and European languages. It is noticeable that some whose homes are in the south say they are going to stay in Chicago, and under no consideration will they go back to Mississippi, Georgia and other states that draw the color line hard and fast. We have five or six applicants a day, new ones, coming in and saying they have chosen the north to live in. They pound on my table and say, "I'll be stiff as this table before I go back south."
Sergt. Cannasius told the story of Edward Burke, of 3632 Vincennes avenue. Burke volunteered for naval service in California before the draft and became chief commissary steward on the ship Mauben. He was discharged at Norfolk and took the best position he could get, that of first cook on a dining car. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese—practically all languages spoken in South America or in central or western Europe—are fluently spoken by Burke. His aspirations are toward a position as interpreter or secretary, but thus far destiny bids him fry eggs and stew beef with his many languages.
The Chicago Whip, a new weekly newspaper, voices appreciation of two utility corporations that have opened the doors of employment to colored men.
"The Peoples Gas company breaks precedent by employing four meter inspectors at salaries of $100 per month and four special meter readers who are boys, 16 years old, at salaries of $55 per month," says the paper. "The experiment of the gas company proved so successful that the Commonwealth Edison company immediately followed suit by placing six colored men in the meter installation department."