rers throughout the North.[7] Women of color formerly excluded from
domestic service by foreign maids are now in demand. Many mills and
factories which Negroes were prohibited from entering a few years ago are
now bidding for their labor. Railroads cannot find help to keep their
property in repair, contractors fall short of their plans for failure to
hold mechanics drawn into the industrial boom and the United States
Government has had to advertise for men to hasten the preparation for war.

Men from afar went south to tell the Negroes of a way of escape to a more
congenial place. Blacks long since unaccustomed to venture a few miles
from home, at once had visions of a promised land just a few hundred miles
away. Some were told of the chance to amass fabulous riches, some of the
opportunities for education and some of the hospitality of the places of
amusement and recreation in the North. The migrants then were soon on the
way. Railway stations became conspicuous with the presence of Negro
tourists, the trains were crowded to full capacity and the streets of
northern cities were soon congested with black laborers seeking to realize
their dreams in the land of unusual opportunity.

Employment agencies, recently multiplied to meet the demand for labor,
find themselves unable to cope with the situation and agents sent into the
South to induce the blacks by offers of free transportation and high wages
to go north, have found it impossible to supply the demand in centers
where once toiled the Poles, Italians and the Greeks formerly preferred to
the Negroes.[8] In other words, the present migration differs from others
in that the Negro has opportunity awaiting him in the North whereas
formerly it was necessary for him to make a place for himself upon
arriving among enemies. The proportion of those returning to the South,
therefore, will be inconsiderable.

Becoming alarmed at the immensity of this movement the South has
undertaken to check it. To frighten Negroes from the North southern
newspapers are carefully circulating reports that many of them are
returning to their native land because of unexpected hardships.[9] But
having failed in this, southerners have compelled employment agents to
cease operations there, arrested suspected employers and, to prevent the
departure of the Negroes, imprisoned on false charges those who appear at
stations to leave for the North. This procedure could not long be
effective, for by the mo