Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/875

 REVIEWS 855

certain facts which have hitherto been explained in false and inade- quate ways." The negro lost the monopoly of the southern labor field, not through his own carelessness, but because he could not meet the competition of his more skilled white competitor, and on account of the industrial changes in the country. "The negro was especially ignorant in the very lines of mechanical and industrial development in which the South has taken the longest strides in the last thirty years." The fact that the negro almost invariably worked for lower wages than other persons is accounted for on the ground that when white con- tractors, after emancipation, began to hire him, there was no one, as formerly, to see that he was adequately paid. Again, " as the white mechanics pressed forward, the only refuge of the negro was in lower wages." Further, it was only through lower wages that he secured any share in the new industries. " By that means he was enabled to replace white laborers in many branches, but he thereby increased the enmity of trades unions and labor leaders."

It is maintained that the granting of the suffrage was economically necessary. After emancipation,

What the negro mechanic needed then was social protection the pro- tection of law and order, perfectly fair judicial processes, and that personal power which is in the hands of all modern laboring classes in civilized lands,

viz., the right of suffrage If the whole class of mechanics here, as in

the Middle Age, had been without the suffrage and half- free, the negro would have had an equal chance with the white mechanic, and could have afforded to wait. But he saw himself coming more and more into competition with men who had the right to vote, the prestige of race and blood the negro saw clearly that his industrial rise depended, to an important degree, upon his political power, and he therefore sought that power.

The results of the study are summarized as follows : The slavery-trained artisans were for the most part careless and ineffi- cient. Industrial schools are needed. They are costly, although not yet well organized or very efficient, but they have given the negro an ideal of manual toil, and helped to a better understanding between whites and negroes in the South. There are a large number of negro mechanics all over the land, but especially in the South. Some of these are progressive, efficient

workmen There are signs of lethargy among these artisans, and work

is slipping from them in some places ; in others they are awakening and seizing the opportunities of the new industrial South. The labor unions, with 1,200,000 members have less than 40,000 negroes, mostly in a few unions, and largely semi-skilled laborers, like miners. Color prejudice keeps the mass of negroes out of many trades. Employers on the whole are satisfied