ever, it voted to take steps to recognize and
admit Negro unions. At last it seemed to realize the necessity of making
allies of Negro workers, and of course any such change of front on the
part of white workmen would menace some of the foundations of racial
strife in the South and indeed in the country at large. Just how
effective the new decision was to be in actual practice remained to be
seen, especially as the whole labor movement was thrown on the defensive
by the end of 1920. However, special interest attached to the events
in Bogalusa, La., in November, 1919. Here were the headquarters of the
Great Southern Lumber Company, whose sawmill in the place was said to be
the largest in the world. For some time it had made use of unorganized
Negro labor as against the white labor unions. The forces of labor,
however, began to organize the Negroes in the employ of the Company,
which held political as well as capitalistic control in the community.
The Company then began to have Negroes arrested on charges of vagrancy,
taking them before the city court and having them fined and turned over
to the Company to work out the fines under the guard of gunmen. In the
troubles that came to a head on November 22, three white men were shot
and killed, one of them being the district president of the American
Federation of Labor, who was helping to give protection to a colored
organizer. The full significance of this incident remained also to be
seen; but it is quite possible that in the final history of the Negro
problem the skirmish at Bogalusa will mark the beginning of the end of
the exploiting of Negro labor and the first recognition of the identity
of interest between white and black workmen in the South.

3. _The Great War_

Just on the eve of America's entrance into the war in Europe occurred
an incident that from the standpoint of the Negro at least must finally
appear simply as the prelude to the great contest to come. Once more,
at an unexpected moment, ten years after Brownsville, the loyalty
and heroism of the Negro soldier impressed the American people. The
expedition of the American forces into Mexico in 1916, with the
political events attending this, is a long story. The outstanding
incident, however, was that in which two troops of the Tenth Cavalry
engaged. About eighty men had been sent a long distance from the main
line of the American army, their errand being supposedly the pursuit of
a deserter. At or near the