227

NOVEMBER 4, 1906

My dear Children:

… And now I inform you that I am healthy, but scarcely, from all this thinking which I have upon my mind.… I received your letter and 3 photographs; I gave one to Szczepańska and I have two left. I inform you that I am very much satisfied, dear daughter and son-in-law, may our Lord God bless you, and God’s Mother. May she help you in your work and in everything.… Now I write, your mother, to all of you, my children, in general. First to you, dear son, and to my daughter-in-law, and to the Bieniewskis and to the Brzostowiczs and to the Baranowskis, and I wish you every good, whatever you want for yourselves, my dear children.

Now I inform you about this land, that to these 2 morgs were added during the new division, 2 morgs of field and 1 morgs of forest to each.… So there are now 6 morgs of field and 2 of forest, 8 morgs together. Now I inform you, dear children, on what spots we received this addition. [Describes in detail.] You, Antoś, and you, Marysia, you know where it is and in what position.

Now, my dear children, it would be the best if we sold it, for I have nothing from it except trouble. I don’t sow the land, only [strange] people do, for I rented it, for I cannot manage it myself. Even if I wanted to sow myself, you know that there is no barn and there is no place to put the crops. I keep the forest, but again people steal. A man could guard it more easily, while it, a woman, what can I do? I have only trouble. So it would be the best, my dear children, to sell it, for all this is wasted for the land they pay [the rent]; but in the forest whatever anybody snatches is his own, and when I need money, I also sell some tree, and so all this is wasted. If you don’t do as I advise you, dear children, after a few years it will be much cheaper [worth less]. Now they would give money, for they want to buy it, as it is in good order, the forest and the field. For the 2 morgs of forest they would give now 400 roubles, and for the 6 morgs of land they would give perhaps 300. And perhaps they would give more.

My dear children, consult one another and write me, how I shall do. But it would be the best, my dear son Antoś, if it were your head, for you are my guardian. Arrange it so that we may sell it and that you may take me and Franek to America, for I don’t wish to farm here. I have the land, but I have no barn, nowhere to put [the crops], and you know that there is no place [near the house] to build it. So it would be the best to sell the field, if you don’t wish to be upon it [to settle here], and if I must only grieve [have trouble] alone, I can sell it myself, only send me, all you children, an authorization, and let your uncles send me also an authorization, for they belong to the same farm [they have a right to a part of it]. Then I shall sell it and come to you, and we shall live together, and you will get sooner something of it, for now the value is greater as long as the forest is entire and nothing is missing.… I beg you, dear son, if you allow me to sell it, do it at once.… I beg you, dear son, do it for me, and you all, my dear children, and you, my dear brothers, do it for me, for I would see you once more, as long as we are still alive. [Greetings.]

Franciszka Kozlowska

Dear daughter Marysia and son-in-law: Why are there in the [wedding-] photograph neither the Bieniewskis, nor the Brzostowiczs, nor my brothers, nor my sister-in-law, only strange people? This astonishes me much. What does it mean?

228

MARCH 4, 1907

Dear Son:

… You are obstinately bent against me and I am against you. I would not write to you, hut I must. I write you only: consult among yourselves [and decide] as you want to. The shoemaker’s wife made an inventory [of the farm, for auction]. We stood before the court, and she quarreled with me, tooth against tooth, and moreover she cursed you for neither taking her man to America nor paying her off. Our guardians asked her how much she wanted to be paid off. Then this old beggar, this carcass [her husband] wanted 70 roubles, and she asked 60. I will give her 50, and the guardians also tell her to take 50 and no more. But, dear son, I would rather give her nothing. What do you advise? I was everywhere [for advice], and I thought of either renting the field or selling the forest [to pay her]. But, dear son, I wish I had never lived until this new division and addition, since I am a hinderance to all of you and you are angry with me and you don’t write me for half a year. Were it not for this affair I would rather have died [zdechła, used here vulgarly like the English “rotted,” is properly used only of animals = German krepiren] and would not have written. Now, dear son, come rather to an understanding among yourselves, take it, sell it and make peace with this shoemaker’s wife. Let her not call God’s vengeance upon you and grieve me. And now after all this she intends to have an auction, for her part of the inheritance from your grandfather and your father. You left me here for sorrow only. Dear children, don’t believe anybody, when the shoemaker’s wife slanders me to people. Why, you get it [had words] also from her, dear son, into your eyes, and behind your eyes [proverbial, to your face and behind your back]. And you get still more from her. She says: “Much did he care for his mother! And when he came to Warsaw, he let his nails grow a sqżeń long [6 feet] pretending to be a gentleman.”

Dear son, I thank you for writing to me so often! But don’t think, dear son, that I write it from my whole heart [that I am grieved]. I say it simply because you write once in a year. If I had known that you would guard me so! May our Lord God and your children care for you as much as you do for me! If you had not gone into the world you would have known better what a mother is, while now in return for my education [of you] you are ashamed of me. But Mańka did the same. She accidentally wrote one letter, that we might know only that she got married. Dear son, please say to Mańka about this letter that she rejoiced me awfully, that I don’t know what to do in the country, and she gave me precisely such advice as the letters she writes [no letters, no advice]. To the shoemaker’s wife she can well send bows and write, but when her godmother sends her a gift—she sent her scapularies and a veil of God’s Mother—she did not even thank her. Dear son, and all my dear children together, I tell you sincerely I won’t write you any more letters since you are so turned to stone against me. Since you are so little curious to learn what is going on here with us I won’t inform you. I bless you all with the holy cross [old habit in bidding farewell].

Dear son, you said to Franek, “If you manage well I will send you some assistance.” And now you don’t even send a naked letter [without a stamp]. But if this shoemaker’s wife sells our land at auction then our assistance is over. Dear son, we keep two pigs for ourselves, but there can be no cow from them [probably alluding to some promise to send money for a cow], the less so if the shoemaker’s wife drags us about courts, as she is now doing. Dear son, I ask you, and do you answer me. Do you agree to pay her 50 roubles, as I wish, or not? Perhaps you will send us some money for this payment? For if we sell these pigs, we can have perhaps enough to buy a cow, I beg you, dear son, for a speedy answer. I salute you all, yourself and your wife and my grandchildren.

[Franciszka]

229

JUNE 2, 1907

Dear Children:

I inform you that I am not very healthy, for even an iron man would have no longer any health, I thank you heartily for this letter, dear children, which you sent me. And then, dear children, I received also the letter from Zosia. Dear children, I beg you all together, answer me, what is this “dirt” which I have on me? Answer me, who wrote that letter so that this “dirt” may not grieve me longer. Dear children, I have enough of my own trouble. Dear children, I can never in the world bear these troubles, for, dear children, in the week when I wrote this letter I went to Czerwin, and I hardly got there, for my feet were covered with blisters. And I went in vain, for not all of our guardians were there; 3 were and 3, not. Now I shall have to go again, and when winter comes and it is necessary to creep upon the snow, surely I shall die. And since the shoemaker’s wife made the inventory, the guardians won’t allow me to sell this property, for Franek is a minor.

And now, dear children, could you arrange so: Send me such a decision that I can rent [the farm] for some years. Now people are afraid to pay money down for some years, lest it be lost, I should be glad, dear children, to step away from her [the shoemaker’s wife’s] eyes. [Ślepie, in the original, is properly used only for the eyes of animals.] Let her not cause me any more grief. If I went to you perhaps God would guard me for a year or two, while thus, dear children, when these troubles fill my head I have [peace] neither day nor night. There is no work from me at all, and soon I shall go away from [lose] my reason, and I shall no longer understand any of your writing. O God my dear, God my dear, why do you keep me in this world? Dear children, I beg you, take me to you, I want to have one hour of relief at least and not have to listen to this [calling of] vengeance against you, dear son, and against Zosia. Moreover, she [the daughter] persuades some dogs like herself to write dirt against me. What dirt do they write against me? Perhaps she writes against me about this [man]? I who can hardly walk with my pains, and she writes dirt about me! For this land I should have more than one purchaser, but when I learned that the guardians won’t let it be sold, I have no more strength to bear all this. Oh, nothing can be done, my dear children, evidently she must kill me with trouble in this country!

Dear brother, you ask me in your letter about money. I did not see any money and probably I am to see none. When you sent me some, I saw it, but now when you don’t send, I see none.

I greet you also, my dear children. It is true that I received at last a letter from you, but I will remember it until my death—what [sorrow] you gave me about that dirt.

I have nothing more to write to you, dear children and brother. Remain with God. May God help you.

[Franciszka]

I salute my sister-in-law and my brother. Sister-in-law, why should we be angry with each other and what for? I have not seen you, sister-in-law, with my very eyes, and I shall die without seeing you. Well, my dear, let us kiss each other, at least by letter, at least through this paper; let us give hands to each other. I thank you so much, sister-in-law, for not forgetting me yet, and that you both remembered me. Dear brother, I thank you for this, for your knowing that I am your sister. Remember, dear, how you cared for me and I cared for you.

[Franciszka]

Dear children, I don’t want to make you any trouble about taking me [sending me a ship-ticket]. I should prefer if you sent me a few roubles [in cash], but I should find my way more easily if you take me [if you send me a ticket].

230

[JUNE 2 1907]

Dear Brother and Sisters:

Have pity and take at least our mother, let her have at least a few easier hours. Dear brother and sisters and brothers-in-law, I beg you, if you want to see your mother before she dies, take her to you. Have pity, for, dear brother and sisters, you have written already 4 letters, thanks to God, and in each of them you say that you will take us to America. So mother waits for this letter like the mercy of God. When the letter comes, mother kisses it from joy and wets it with tears, but when she opens it [she is deceived].

[Franek]

231

[JUNE 12 1907]

Dear Son Antoni:

Answer me how I shall manage, for my son-in-law Baranowski sent me a letter saying that he is sending me a ship-ticket for myself and for my son, and wishes to take us to America. And you, dear son, come to an understanding yourself with the others, whether all of you know about it or not, for I am not just as I stand, but I have land and forest, and I don’t know how to manage. It is true that my son-in-law is good. But you, my son, you are my guardian, and answer me, how I shall have it there [what conditions]. For, my dear son, there is a marriage opportunity for me, with Józef Plata, who is a very good man. So answer me, my son, as soon as possible, whether I may live in our country, for I don’t need to wander about the world in my old years, only my [youngest] son wants us to go. Dear son, answer me as soon as possible, for I am awaiting this letter with my journey and with my wedding.… Dear son, reflect all of you only once, but well, for my son-in-law tells me to rent the land and the forest.… I cannot sell it myself, a father can, but not I. I have nothing more to write, only I wish you health, happiness, and good success.… Dear son, when you receive this letter, don’t show it to my daughter Mania, and don’t tell her anything, for my son-in-law wishes to take me secretly to America [to surprise his wife].

Franciszka Kozlowska

232

SEPTEMBER 11 [1907]

… Dear Son:

… You advised me to go hut now I am not going. I have married that Plata who had Ewa Pieńkos as wife, from the same village I came from. What could I do in this misery? When I received the shiptickets I did at once what you ordered me to do. I rented the land for 3 years, I sold the cow which I had and the forest which was left after father’s death, while yours [inherited from the grandfather] is still there, I have wasted all the living which I had [store of grain, potatoes, etc.] and I have bought everything for the journey. And now living is expensive, and I spent some money on living, and I had to dress myself and Franek a little before going to you … and I bought 2 shawls for 13 roubles and 15 pounds of feathers for 12 roubles. [Went twice to the doctor, then to Libawa, and was sent back.] This journey cost us much, for everywhere money had to be paid, and I wasted everything. I have not written to you for I fell sick from grief and I waited until our Lord God changed [restored] me. But now I am somewhat better and I describe this to you. Hermanowiczowa [the “shoemaker’s wife”] moved to me, to my lodging and I live with Plata. He built a new house, and Franek is with me. How good he [the husband] is to me, thanks to God! May he be always as good! For when I am sick, he at least cares well for me, and it is well now. I had decided to go to America, but when these Baranowskis managed it so badly, I changed my mind, for now I have no land, and therefore I had to marry. Inform the Baranowskis how I did, and let them send their address, then I shall send them the shiptickets back. Don’t be angry with me for having done so, for I have wasted everything through this. And in the office [in Libawa] they said that these are tickets for a working-ship [steerage?]. And you can know what this journey has cost me. From Warsaw to Libawa alone 42 roubles.…

[Franciszka]

[Postscript]

And I inform you that we went [started] to America all three, the shoemaker went with us for money, for he borrowed it. When we returned he gave this money back at once, for he borrowed it from the priest and wished to go along with us.

I inform you also that when I intended to go to America I went to Goworowo to a doctor. He poured something into my eyes and almost burned my eyes. I went twice to Warsaw, and there the doctor said that I could have been blinded. You say that I did not wish to go. But I went twice to Ostrołęka to the [district-] chief for passports, and I paid once one rouble, then two. So much trouble and cost I had.

… Now I inform you, my dear children, daughter and son-in-law, that I received your letter and we answer you at once and we inform you that we are in good health [wishes]. Now you write to me, son-in-law; and you are angry with me. But nothing can be done. I am not guilty at all in this matter, my dear son-in-law, for I was already on the way, in the last station, in Libawa, and from Libawa we were sent back. Now, my dear children, would I have caused such a cost for you without wishing to go to you? Why, our Lord God would punish me severely for it. And as to this, dear children, that I got married, don’t persuade [reproach] this to me, for I got married only when I came back from my journey. If the ship-tickets had been good, I should be in America already, with you, for I wanted continuously [sic] to go to you. But since it happened so, nothing can be done, my dear son-in-law. You have made expenses for yourself, and I also, my dear children, have made expenses for myself, and I got totally ruined, for I wanted to go to you within an hour [immediately]. I had a cow; I wasted it. I had some small crops in the field; I wasted them also, for I prepared myself to go, and you don’t believe me and are angry with me. As to my getting married, dear children, it was from this misery, when we had been sent back home, for I had wasted everything, so how could I live? And this year all living is expensive here, grain and potatoes are expensive, and so in putting things together it is easier for me to live.

And as to my not having answered you and sent you the tickets back, it was because I had not your address, and I was afraid to send them to these other children, for perhaps they would not have given them back to you. Now as soon as I received your letter, I sent you at once the ship-tickets, and these signs [checks] of these agents from Warsaw, to whom you wrote to care for us, I sent them to you for controlling. Dear children, how much trouble and weeping I had in that Libawa, God forbid! It is impossible to understand these Germans [sic!]. Were it not for an interpreter who explains everything in Polish I should not have got these ship-tickets back, for they threw them away at once and I could not find them. They wanted red ones, and these were black, and therefore they sent us back and we have all so much expense.

And now I inform you, dear children, about these 60 roubles. I have them not, for I have spent them. I inform you that from Warsaw to Libawa the railway cost us 21 roubles and 21 roubles back. Now I bought you, Marysia, 2 shawls, I gave 13 roubles, and 15 pounds of feathers, I gave 12 roubles, and all this is lying here. Now, dear children, I don’t know what I shall do with all this myself, for I have my own shawl and I don’t want yours. Write me, dear daughter; perhaps I can send you these shawls by somebody. As to the rest, dear children, forgive me. When I have more money, I will send you at least one half. As to my daughter and your wife, don’t be angry, my son-in-law, that you did not take any fortune with her. If you want to come here, sell her part and take it, for it belongs to her. It is as if she had it in her pocket.…

Now I send you a greeting from myself, your mother, and from Franek, and from your father, my husband. Dear children, I did not marry a young man, only a man in the same age as I am, and he is good for me, and he does not hinder you at all, for he won’t waste your fortune; he has enough of his own to live. In another letter I will write you still more about my journey, for it is too much writing at once.

Your truly loving mother,
Franciszka Kozlowska

234

DECEMBER 24, 1908

Dear Son-in-law:

I inform you that we received your letter on December 21, for which we thank you heartily. But instead of being comforted, I was grieved, and I should even prefer if you had not answered me so soon, for I should think her still alive. Why did you send me, dear children, such a letter, at once about money and about my dear dead daughter? Probably you intend to push me alive into the tomb through such writing as you write to me! You write, son-in-law, and you trouble me about sending you at least roo roubles back. But I thank God that I have anything to put into my pot, for I have wasted everything through your fault. I rented the land, and I live now as I can, poor orphan, upon this world of God. And now, dear children, do you think that I grieve only about your money? Oh no, my children, I grieve because my beloved daughter is dead and the orphans are left. How do they live there, my dear little grandchildren? And I grieve, because Franek will have to go to the army, and you all scattered about the world, away from me, poor orphan. And you cause me still more grief by this bit of paper, asking me to give you this money back. I know that you wasted money on me, but I wasted also everything which I owned upon this journey to you. But I don’t deny what you sent me. Only, if you want to have this money, come back to our country, as other people do; you have your parts, sell them and you will have your money. But evidently you want to bury me alive into this holy earth, that I may not live any more upon this earth with my beloved daughter [sic!]. But why should you, dear son-in-law, persuade me that it is time for me to go into this holy earth? When I shall go to my tomb, you won’t even know it. So, my dear son-in-law, don’t make me grieve any more, for you made me grieve enough in a single letter.

Dear son-in-law B., I beg you, if it is very hard for you to be there with these children, I beg you, if it is possible, send me one child, so I can educate it. I beg you, dear son-in-law, do as you think the best. And I beg you, dear son-in-law Franu … [pet name], if you could send it, write me in a letter whether you will send it or not, my dear son-in-law!

Dear son-in-law [Janek] and daughter, although you are angry with me about this money, I beg you still, care for these orphans, for you see that they have no mother now. And if it is possible, I beg you, dear daughter, send me one child. I would keep it as long as my eyes shine upon this world. I beg you for it, my dear daughter. Reflect how you should act with regard to my words. May God grant us to live until this. Amen.

[Franciszka]

235

APRIL 18, 1909

And now, dear children, we answer you “In centuries of centuries, Amen.” And now we inform you that we received your letter on Good Friday, for which we thank you heartily, for not forgetting us [Health and wishes.] I am healthy, by the grace of God, only this death of Zosia torments me and gives me no peace. How is she buried there, and why was I not there when she was dying? But, dear daughter and son-in-law, try that at least these orphans get on well, that they don’t suffer hunger, for you see that they cannot have a mother any more, only you are their guardians. Care for them, and God and Mother Mary will care for you.

And I ask you, my dear children, how do you live without your sister and my dear daughter, for I think continually about her, day and night. I gave money for recording her, and if God helps me I will give also for a holy mass for repose of her soul. And I pray for her to God and to our Mother Mary, that God may take her to himself. Pray you also to God for her soul, and God will forgive her certainly.

And now, dear daughter, you mention these feathers, asking me to send them to you. You see, it is so, dear daughter. These feathers which I had bought began to be eaten by mites, so I sold a part of them, but if somebody happens to go to America, I will buy some and send them to you. But if nobody goes, then nothing can be done, and don’t be angry with me, dear daughter and son-in-law, for I am not guilty at all. It is true that it costs you a few roubles, but I have also lost everything which I had. So don’t be angry with me, my dear children, for if I cannot reward you, I will pray to God for your health and success, and God will help you in your work.…

[Franciszka]

And I greet you, dear brother Wincenty. I cannot give you my hand in this [help you], for I have nothing myself, but you, children, do your best and nourish your uncle as you can. Dear brother, can you not help yourself in any way? Come to an understanding with our brother and make some plan, so that it may be well.

You see, dear brother, when you were in good condition, you did not want to know anything about your wife and children, and now you remember them!

236

FEBRUARY 9, 1913

I received your letter, my dear children [Baranowskis], for which I thank you heartily, for I waited for it with longing. My dear children, you say that I am angry with you. Oh no, my dear children, I am not angry with you. You say that I did not answer your letter. It is true, my dearest children, that I did not answer you, but why? You see, it is true that you wished to take me to you, and I was glad because of your wish, but I don’t know whether that ticket was bad or those guides. And so you sent me money and I sold everything, or rather wasted everything [sold too cheap] and went. And when I was returned, was it my fault? I wasted your money, and very little of mine was left. When I returned home, I found a desert house. What could I begin then, poor orphan? Should I have called to you, my dear children, and related to you my trouble? But my voice could not have reached you, for you are in a far country, and I was left, an orphan, among waste and troubles, and I had slowly to provide myself once more with the outfit which I had wasted. You were angry with me, dear children, as if I did so intentionally in order to take the money without coming to you. Oh my children, our Lord God is above us, He sees and hears everything. Should I lie?’ Should I have renounced you and not [wanted] to go to you and not [wanted] to see you? Why, you know that I am left now alone, I have none of you, my dearest children, with me, I am left alone, an orphan, and I can see none of you alive, only I look continually upon these dead photographs. But you, dear daughter, surely you forgot me in truth, since you let a year pass without writing to me, and you forgot when I asked you for the photograph of that orphan after [left by] Zosia. You sent one to the shoemaker’s wife and you did not even mention me. I asked the shoemaker’s wife for this photograph, but she did not wish to give it to me.… Well, and now, dear daughter, you remembered that you have still a mother somewhere in the world, and you write, curious how I live here and how I succeed!.…

And now, dear daughter and son-in-law, please don’t be angry about that which I shall ask for, and send me a photograph of these orphans; let me see them once more at least.

Now I send an image and a toy for my granddaughter.…

[Franciszka]

237

[NOVEMBER 4, 1906]

I write to you both, my dear goddaughter, I, your godmother Szczepańska, and I wish you every good and whatever you want from our Lord God, the best. I thank you for not forgetting about me, so I send you a gift. These are those scapularies from Częstochowa, and in this one scapulary with the cross there is sewed up a [part of the] veil of God’s Mother of Częstochowa. This is important. I send you a blessing for your whole life. May God bless you, and God’s Mother. And my daughter Helcia is very glad that you don’t forget her.…

Szczepańska

238

[DECEMBER 28, 1908]

And now I, dear daughter, greet you, I, your godmother, greet you, Mania! Dear daughter, I write you about this: Why did you cause such costs for your mother that she might go to you, to America! Going to this America, your mother sold the forest and rented the land, and all the money which she had was wasted in journeying. She went twice to Ostrołęka; no little money was spent; twice to Warsaw on account of her eyes. Then at last they went to Libawa and there they remained for some time, and the rest of their money was spent on their living, for the ship-tickets were bad, and they had to return home. Your mother had sold everything, she had sold even her best petticoat for this journey, and when she came back, if Pl[ata] had not married her, I don’t know how she would live, for she had not a grosz left. Now, you wrote that Zosia is no longer alive, and I am also sad, and what do you think about your own mother? And you make her grieve still more about this money. You have no idea what a sad Christmas your mother had this year, for she is grieved because of the death of her beloved daughter. And this field which your mother rented is still sown by strange people, until the years are ended [the renting-term], and your mother, as you know, is fed by Pl[ata] until [the end of] this time. And now, dear daughter Mania, don’t be offended at my writing it to you, but your mother is almost senseless, and she continually cries and complains, what a bad fortune befell her upon this world.

I, who love you, my daughter,

Maryanna Szczepańska

Dear [god]daughter,

I have learned to know your mother now. If she could take her heart out, she would give it to you, but she cannot take it out and what will she do with her misery? And now I bid you all goodbye. May God grant it. Amen.

239

OCTOBER 24, 1907

Dear Sister and Brother-in-law: I send you holy images.… Dear sister and brother-in-law, you don’t believe us that we wanted to go to America; but … I, your brother, will draw my lot [be called to military service] in two years after next spring, so … I should be glad to see all of you at once.… Dear brother-in-law, I am very much grieved that you say that you will tear all the hair from your head [from despair]. Dear brother-in-law, it is not the fault of my sister.…

Franek Kozlowski

240

[APRIL 18, 1909]

And now I, Franciszèk [Franek], thank you, dear brother-in-law and sister, for at least not forgetting me, for my brother dear [irony] does not write me a single word. He is angry with me, I don’t know what for. Although we ought to love each other, for we are only two and I must go to the army instead of him, he does not care for me. Such a good brother, loving his brother! It is bitter and hard for me to remember such a brother! What is my fault toward him? O God, be merciful to us, your sinners!

And now, dear brother-in-law and sister, I go to Prussia, so please write me a letter there. I will send you my address. I was in Częstochowa, but I did not expect that a letter from you, dear sister, would come, or else I should have brought a greater token. Now I send you only scapularies of Mary the Virgin, already consecrated, ready to be put around the neck.…

[Franek]

241

JUNE 11, 1911

Dear Sister and Brother-in-law:

[Complains about military service.] May never any good man serve in the army, for here everybody must be a slave and is not free, as at home. And now I ask you, my dear sister Mania and brother-in-law, how do you succeed in that America, whether well or poorly. Write me please, dear sister, how are these orphans kept after Zosia[’s death], … for I am very curious [interested]. And answer me, whether our brother-in-law B. married [a second time] or not. [Describes military life.]

And now, dear Mania and brother-in-law, I beg you write a letter to our sorrowful dear mother, and don’t be angry with mother, for she is without guilt toward you, and sinful before God alone. Dear Mania and brother-in-law, you are probably angry since the time when you wanted to take her to America. But old mother then wanted to go to you as to God (without comparing it), and she rejoiced that in her old years she was to see her children. But what could she do when she was unable to go to you? And now, dear sister Mania and brother-in-law, you are angry with your sorrowful and grieved mother, while perhaps you won’t see her any more unless in the next world. And with this anger you will go into the next world, and so we shall look upon one another—and what will God say to this? How shall we justify ourselves? Dear sister and brother-in-law, mother writes to me always and says that she has no letter from you, and she always weeps in her letter, so it is not pleasant for me either, for she is my mother and yours.… If you saw our mother, you would never recognize her, how she is now without children, for always something new happens [some new trouble].

Franek Kozlowski

242

[JULY 12, 1907]

I, Józef Pl[ata], wish to take your dear mother for my wife. Answer as soon as possible whether you will take her or whether you tell her to marry me. I would give my life for her. I have nothing more to write, only I send a low bow to you all, to the whole family.

Your well-wishing
Józef Pl[ata]

[APRIL 18, 1909]

And now I, your father, salute you, together with your mother and my son, and we wish you every good, whatever you want for yourself from God. We greet [bless] also those little orphans. May God keep them in His holiest guardianship. And [if] perhaps anything in this letter displeases you, then please forgive, for your mother was terribly grieved.…

[Józef Plata]

244

MARCH 27, 1912

Dear Brother-in-law and dear Sister:

It is very painful for me that I cannot see my family, and don’t even receive a bit of paper that I might at least by letter speak with you. But God reward you even for this bit of paper which you send to mother, even this rejoices me. I should like to see my family there in America, but as I have no money I can do nothing, and there is nobody to help me. If you put together $10 each you could take me to you. I don’t want the wrong of anybody, and would give it back with thanks, if only God grants me health. For when you sent the ship-ticket for mother and for Franek, I told mother as a joke: “Take me with you to America, it will be more pleasant to go together.” I had then much running to do and many expenses to bear, for I had to go 3 times to Ostrołęka to take an application for a passport, and twice to Warsaw. At last we three went and I had a ship-ticket, bought from the agent in Warsaw for money, and we went to Libawa. In the office in Libawa they refused to accept these tickets which you sent, and besides my ticket they wanted 21 roubles for a passport. I begged mother to lend me this money since I had had already so many expenses. But she refused to help me; she said, “I cannot.” Then I said, “Send Franek instead of me, he will take these tickets with him and will settle the matter by words, and they [in America] won’t lose so much.” But mother answered, “I am not going and neither of you is going either,” and I had to come back. As to this, what mother said, that “The shoemaker drags me about courts,” I did not intend lawsuits as other people do, but I had to have a guardianship established, i.e., a family council. For mother received 2 morgs of forest, and wasted it half in vain. What was worth 5 roubles, she sold for 2, while now she must almost buy fuel herself. When I went once to the forest and said, “Why do you waste this timber?” they abused me, she and her son, and denied that there was anything to which I had any right. So I was obliged to have a guardianship established, because Franek was a minor and mother took rather too much liberty. And excuse me, don’t be angry with me, dear sister and brother-in-law, for I tell the truth always into one’s eyes, not behind one’s eyes. For so many years since you have been in America I have never had even a small sheet from you, except now this address, for which may God reward you. I should not go to America, except for my children. My daughter Mania can marry. She is 20 years old. My son Włęadzio is 16 years old, Zygmunt 6 years, Genia 4 years, and I am very sad that I cannot help them, for in our country there is no work and the expenses are big. What I earn is only enough for living, and when we have to pay the rent we must go hungry. If you could draw me to you I don’t know how I could reward you. [I should be so grateful.]

Antoni Herm[anowicz]

245

MAY 29, 1912

Dear Sister and Brother-in-law:

… As to the ship-ticket which I mentioned, I did not count on you alone, brother-in-law. For there are three of you. I don’t count B., for he is like a strange man. I am not acquainted with you, so I did not look [to you alone]. I beg your pardon politely for importuning you. For I believe everything you wrote about Antoni, as if I were there myself. You tell me to borrow 140 roubles, but it is not so easy, for here people lend only to a man who has something to look upon [some property]. Meanwhile, I live only from these five fingers; I have nothing but what I earn. Even so our beloved [= “loving,” ironical] mother, whenever she sees anything new of clothes upon us, wonders whence we get money for it. Instead of being glad that we manage to dress ourselves as we can, she is angry with us. How can I expect strange people to help us, when our own mother begrudges us a piece of bread? If I had wanted absolutely to be in America, I should have gone about 6 years ago when I went to Libawa with Franek and with mother. Then I had all my documents, and I begged mother to help me a little, but she did not want to. I said, “Then send Franek instead of me.” But mother said, “I don’t go and you shall not go either.” And so mothers act toward their own children! Because she ruined herself, she wanted to ruin her children. But she returned to her own house, while I returned like the farmer whose buildings are all burned and who is left without a roof above his head. The few roubles which I had, I lost them for mother’s sake, and later I was obliged to earn and economize again. And excuse me for writing this, for I tell the truth. As I believe you, so do you believe me, please. And now mother is angry for your not having sent money for Franek when he was going to the army.… Antośase [her son] sent her 10 roubles, and now Antoni [her brother] sent also 10 roubles, but all this is not enough for them.…

Antoni Herm—

The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, 1922

The Chicago riot of 1919 was one of the most violent racial conflicts of the century, and the official report on that riot is an extraordinarily informative document of race relations in a large industrial city. Chicago was a major destination for both southern blacks and European immigrants. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, African Americans held comparatively few jobs in Chicago’s manufacturing sector; they concentrated instead in personal and domestic service. But wartime demand for labor, which stimulated the massive black migration from the South, created a new situation. Between 1915 and 1920, sixty-three industrial firms reported an increase in the number of black employees of more than 1,000 percent, from roughly one thousand to well over ten thousand. Unionization battles in the city’s enormous meatpacking industry, and in other businesses, brought black and white (often immigrant) workers into sudden conflict with each other. This was one of several pressure points in wartime and postwar Chicago, along with schools and public recreational sites, that gave way to produce the violence of 1919. The following excerpt from the conclusions of the Chicago Commission report paints a fairly precise portrait of relations between the races in neighborhoods, schools, parks, beaches, stores, and workplaces. It also furnishes valuable evidence about attitudes and prejudices at work in urban America after the black migration to the North.

Source: The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922), pp. 613–639.

IV. RACIAL CONTACTS

The problems arising out of various occasions, both voluntary and enforced, for race association in Chicago, have, for convenience, been included in this report under the general classification of “racial contacts.” Attention is given to contacts in the public schools, in public recreation places, on transportation lines, and in other relations exclusive of industry and housing which require special treatment. Negroes in Illinois are legally entitled to all the rights and privileges of other citizens. Actually, however, their participation in public benefits in practically every field is limited by some circumvention of the law.

1. Contacts in Public Schools

The public schools furnish one of the most important points of contact between the white and Negro races because of the daily association of thousands of Negro and white children at an impressionable age. The Chicago Board of Education makes no distinction between the races and keeps no separate records. Certain schools, therefore, with white American, Negro, and white foreign-born preponderances, were selected for special study.

Physical Equipment of Schools

Twenty-two schools located in and near areas of Negro residence were selected and visited. Of these only five, or 23 per cent, have been built since 1900, and four of these five schools are in regions where the Negro population is smallest. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and only one after 1890. Of the 235 schools attended almost wholly by whites, 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899. The old buildings will not accommodate modern equipment and cannot be enlarged. The absence of modern buildings is in part due to the old residence areas in which Negroes must live. The gymnasiums in fifteen of these twenty-two schools of predominant Negro attendance are poorly equipped, and in the other seven schools there are none. Playground space is about the same in all the schools, and there was no exceptional overcrowding in schools attended largely by Negroes except in one case where by the “shift” system a double attendance was made possible. In the schools of mixed attendance one instance was conspicuous: Fuller School—a branch of Felsenthal which is well equipped, and under the same principal, who is an advocate of segregation—is in a neighborhood where the percentage of Negroes is the same as that around Felsenthal, but it has no playground, is run down, and neglected. Yet it has 90 per cent Negroes, while Felsenthal has 38 per cent. Unmanageable white children are sent to Fuller.

Retardation

The question of retardation of Negro children is of serious concern in race relations, since this fact is urged by advocates of separate schools as an unnecessary handicap for white children and a reason for segregation. Twenty-four schools were selected, with the aid of the Board of Education: six attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants. Of a total of 34,593 children there were 18,230, or 53 per cent, retarded—the same percentage as in the entire city; 10,250, or 30 per cent, normal; and 5,910, or 17 per cent, accelerated. In the schools attended mainly by white Americans, 49 per cent were retarded; in those attended mainly by children of immigrants 49 per cent; and in those attended mainly by Negroes 74 per cent. The percentage of retardation in schools attended mainly by Negroes ranges from 57 to 80 per cent; in schools attended mainly by children of immigrants from 32 to 71 per cent; and in schools attended mainly by white Americans from 40 to 62 per cent.

Predominating causes of this retardation of Negro children, according to the Board of Education’s classification, are: “late entrance to school,” “family difficulties,” “fathers or mothers working,” “lack of education in parents.” The majority of retarded Negro children are southerners, and their retardation can be readily understood when the gross inadequacies of southern schools for Negroes are considered.

Among the whites, late entrance, inability to speak English, ill health, backwardness, and low mentality are the various causes. It is interesting to note that while it is often maintained that Negroes are mentally weak and incapable, classification of retardation figures according to causes does not bear out that theory. Negro children retarded from “late entrance” have made excellent records in attaining a normal rating, some completing three grades in a year.

One hundred and sixteen Negro children were picked at random for an intensive inquiry by the Commission into causes of retardation. Of these, 101 had been in school before coming to Chicago; and of the 101 children, eighty had lived in the South and had gone to southern schools; those born and educated in the North showed no greater rate of retardation than the whites. For much of the retardation the school facilities for Negroes in the South appear to be responsible. In Mississippi, for example, only eighty days’ schooling is required in counties that do not absolutely reject the compulsory-education law. Other causes found were inadequate care and instruction at home due to the ignorance of parents, mothers working out, poor parental discipline, and the physical condition of homes.

Contact Problems

A wide variety of opinions was found among principals and teachers concerning the relations of white and Negro children. Several principals were distinctly antagonistic to Negroes, and in their schools the race relations of the pupils were not cordial. The most important factor in determining the attitude of teachers as well as of pupils was the attitude of principals. Kindergarten teachers found a natural, pleasant relationship existing between the young white and Negro children. As children grew older they became more race conscious, and in the high schools friction frequently arose from race groupings in class and social organizations. Negro teachers are assigned to schools attended by both Negroes and immigrants, and apparently have no difficulties with pupils or parents. Difficulties and bad feeling have been provoked by the disposition of certain white teachers to adapt their instruction in accordance with their assumptions concerning Negroes’ mental and emotional characteristics, putting stress on singing and handicraft instead of on basic studies in arithmetic and grammar.

2. Recreation

In its investigation of recreation places, the Commission listed 127 parks, playgrounds, recreation centers, and beaches under the supervision of the Municipal Bureau of Parks, Playgrounds, and Bathing Beaches, and of the South Park, West Park, and Lincoln Park commissions. Of these, thirty-seven are in or near Negro areas. Though this figure represents a fairly adequate distribution, it is not an accurate picture. Twenty-three of these places are playgrounds attached to schools, fourteen being in, and nine near, Negro areas; and only thirteen have more than 10 per cent use by Negroes. Three bathing-beaches are within, and two near, Negro areas, while only one has more than 10 per cent use by Negroes. There are seven recreation centers near Negro areas, none within, and only one with more than 10 per cent use by Negroes. Armour Square, for example, is a recreation center bordering on the area of the largest Negro population; but the hostility of whites, especially gangs of hoodlums, attacks on Negro children, and the indifferent attitude of the director render attendance by Negroes extremely hazardous. Of a daily attendance of 1,500, less than 1 per cent are Negroes, despite the fact that over 50 per cent of the immediately surrounding population is Negro. Natural barriers of distance, unofficial discrimination of officials, and the hostility of neighborhood groups are largely responsible for the lack of participation.

The beaches have presented the most difficult problems of race control. The riot of 1919 began at the Twenty-ninth Street Beach, and since the riot numerous smaller clashes have occurred there. At Thirty-eighth Street, also on the edge of the largest area of Negro residence, Negroes are entirely excluded, the policeman on duty and the attendant in charge assisting in this exclusion to prevent clashes. In neighborhoods with a small Negro population, attendance at the recreation places is always much below the percentage of Negroes to the total population in such neighborhoods, this being due to the hostility shown by whites, especially of the hoodlum element, and also to the reluctance of Negroes to go where they feel unwelcome.

Contacts

Most difficulties in parks and playgrounds have not been caused by the behavior of Negroes there. Such complaints against Negroes as have come from these contacts have concerned groups of rough or domineering children at the playgrounds rather than adults. Two playgrounds on the South Side make such complaints.

Race Relations of the Children

Lack of racial antagonism was reported at a large number of playgrounds. Apparatus was used by both groups without friction. Negro and white children mingled freely in their games and in the swimming-pools, and both Negroes and whites played on baseball and athletic teams. The occasional playground fights usually lack any element of racial antipathy. “There might be personal misunderstandings and disagreements between a white and a black just the same as between two whites,” said the director of Union Park, “but I wouldn’t lay it to race prejudice. They work together and play together and seem to harmonize in most instances.” When this director came to Union Park a year ago he found a tendency among Negroes and whites to separate into race groups, but steps were taken to bring them together in games of various kinds, and toward the end of the season the director felt that they “harmonized better and worked together more cordially than they did before.” When the Commission’s investigator visited Union Park Playground he saw small children of both races playing together on the same pieces of apparatus—a Negro child on one end of a teeter ladder and a white child on the other. Occasionally there is a disturbance, usually starting from a dispute over the apparatus; but on the whole the children play together peacefully.

Voluntary Racial Grouping

Voluntary racial grouping appears to be more characteristic of the large parks and beaches which adults frequent than of the playgrounds, which are used mainly by children. One instance of voluntary grouping among children was found at Copernicus Playground. The playing space is in the shape of an “L,” one end intended for boys and the other for girls, but by common consent the children divide along race lines rather than sex.

In the general use of Lincoln and Washington parks the Negroes and whites stay in separate groups. There has never been any difficulty, according to the Lincoln Park representative, arising from the fact that Negroes have taken possession of a spot desired by whites for a picnic or other amusement. No part of either park is especially set aside for the use of one race, and groups of both Negroes and whites are seen everywhere in the parks, but they do not mingle.

Some directors attempt to regulate these contacts to avoid any mingling of groups. At the Municipal Pier, for example, an investigator learned that when Negro couples went on the dancing-pavilion floor the floor manager informed them that they were not dancing properly and took them to one side to acquaint them with the approved style of dancing; no matter how well they danced, they were to be prevented from going on the floor by the manager’s judgment of their dancing. More recently, however, Negroes have reported that they have been able freely to use this dance floor.

Clashes in the various recreation places as early as 1913 were found to have been started mostly by gangs of white “roughs.” On one occasion, for example, the secretary of boys’ work of the Wabash Avenue department Y.M.C.A. (for Negroes) conducted a party of nineteen Negro boys to Armour Square. They had no difficulty in entering the park, but on leaving they were assailed by crowds of white boys. Some of them were tripped, trodden upon, and badly bruised. They took refuge in a neighboring saloon, where they remained for a half-hour, when a detachment of police scattered the white gang. On another occasion a group of boys from the same institution were driven from the lake at Thirty-first Street. In 1915 Father Bishop, of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, took a group of Negro boys to Armour Square to play basketball. The entire party, including Father Bishop, were beaten by white boys and their sweaters taken from them. In the same year an attempt was made by a Negro boys’ club director to take seventy-five Negro boys through the Stock Yards. They had received tickets of admission to the stock show. In spite of the presence and efforts of four adult leaders, these boys were struck by sticks and other missiles while passing from one section of the show to another. Police assistance was required to get them from the pavilion to the street cars.

Gangs of white boys, sixteen and seventeen years of age, from the neighborhood of Fifty-ninth Street and Wentworth Avenue frequently interfered with Negro participants in baseball games in Washington Park, especially during the spring and summer of 1918 and 1919. They also annoyed Negro couples on the park benches. Where the Negro showed fight, minor clashes resulted. Park officials have not been able to restrain the ill feeling which these conflicts engender.

Clashes were noted in Ogden Park as early as 1914 and frequently since that time. A Negro playground director testified that he and other Negroes had been slugged while attending band concerts or attempting to use shower baths after a game in the park. At the boathouse in Washington Park, in the early summer of 1920, there were numerous clashes between Negroes and whites. In the following year, however, considerably fewer instances of friction were reported. Playground directors are of the opinion that friction is likely to occur where groups of Negro children for the first time come into parks theretofore exclusively used by whites. Adjustment is likely to follow after this period. In some cases, however, when the proportion of Negroes has grown larger than that of whites, a Negro director has been placed in charge of the park with the unofficial understanding that it should be turned over to Negroes.

The two causes of neighborhood antagonism back of the friction in the parks most commonly cited are the housing and sex problems. The playgrounds and parks usually share in a general way the sentiments of the mixed neighborhoods in or near which they are located.

One source of racial disorders is lack of co-operation between park and city policemen. The park police stop a fight between white and colored children and send them out of the park. When the fight is renewed outside the park they have no power to interfere. Spectators may then get into the fight, and serious clashes may be well under way before the city police can be summoned.

The most important remedies suggested to the Commission for the betterment of relations between Negroes and whites at the various places of recreation were: (1) additional facilities in Negro areas, particularly recreation centers which can be used by adults; (2) an awakened public opinion which will refuse to tolerate the hoodlum and will insist that the courts properly punish such offenders; (3) selection of directors for parks in neighborhoods where there is a critical situation who have a sympathetic understanding of the problem and will not tolerate actions by park police officers and other subordinate officials which tend to discourage Negro attendance; and (4) efforts by such directors to repress and remove any racial antagonism that may arise in the neighborhood about the park.

3. Contacts in Transportation

The study of contacts between whites and Negroes in street cars and other public conveyances was prompted by a usually unexplained emphasis on apparently trivial incidents connected with public conveyances, together with the observation that the greatest disturbances during the riot of 1919 commonly occurred along transportation lines and at transfer points.

Although many clashes and other instances of racial friction on the street cars were not serious enough to be reported to the newspapers or to be made the subject of complaint, information obtained by investigators for the Commission showed that the attitude of both Negroes and whites toward each other was being affected by contacts on the cars.

As affecting attitudes on race relations, transportation contacts, while impersonal and temporary, are significant for several reasons. Many whites have no contact with Negroes except on the cars, and their personal impression of the entire Negro group may be determined by one or two observations of Negro passengers. Unlike contacts in the school, playground, and workshop, transportation contacts are not supervised, and if there is any dispute among passengers the settlement usually rests with themselves. Suspicion or prejudice on either side because of the difference in race accentuates any misunderstanding. And transportation contacts, at least on crowded cars, involve physical contact between Negroes and whites, which rarely occurs under other circumstances and sometimes leads to a display of racial feeling.

The Commission’s investigators, white and Negro, men and women, made many trips for observation on the twelve lines carrying the heaviest volume of Negro traffic and therefore involving the greatest amount of contact. Counts of passengers, Negro and white, were made, behavior and habits were noted, and passengers and car crews were drawn into conversation. Officials of surface and elevated lines, starters, and station men were interviewed. Instances of friction which came to the attention of the Commission were noted and the circumstances studied.

Traffic counts made by the Chicago Traction and Subway Commission in 1916 showed 3,500,000 surface-railway and 500,000 elevated-railway passengers carried in a twenty-four-hour day. Negroes constitute 4 per cent of the city’s population and probably about that percentage of the city’s street-car traffic. Negro traffic, however, instead of being scattered over the city, is mainly concentrated upon twelve lines which traverse the Negro residential areas and connect those areas with the manufacturing districts where Negroes are employed. Because of this concentration the proportion of Negroes to whites on these twelve lines is much higher than 4 per cent, and on such lines as that on State Street, the principal business street of the South Side Negro residence area, it often happens that the majority of the passengers are Negroes.

There is no “Jim Crow” separation of races on street cars in Chicago. Contacts of Negroes and whites on the street cars did not provoke any considerable discussion before the period of migration of Negroes from the South, when occasional stories of clashes began to be circulated; and even then, such friction as developed did not come prominently to public attention. Only one incident involving a clash was reported in the newspapers. Even since the migration began, there have been very few complaints based upon racial friction. The Elevated Railroad Company, whose South Side line has the largest Negro traffic of any elevated line, replied to inquiries that, except during the riot of 1919, when a few cases of racial disorder were reported, there had been no complaints from motormen or trainmen since 1918, when a trainman was cut by a Negro. No complaints from white passengers had been received since the spring of 1917, when white office workers objected to riding with Stock Yards laborers, mainly Negroes, on the Stock Yards spur of the elevated. White laborers in the Stock Yards mostly live within walking distance of their work, but Negroes found it necessary to use car lines running east to the main area of Negro residence. The Chicago Surface lines replied that complaints due to racial friction were negligible.

Many of the migrants are laborers who must use these lines going to and from work, and many of them are rough-mannered and entirely unfamiliar with standards of conduct in northern cities. Another serious factor is the recent entrance of Negroes into industry. Before the war the great majority of Negroes gainfully employed were engaged in some form of personal service which did not require use of transportation lines in their working clothes to and from the manufacturing centers. The migrants, many of them coming to a city like Chicago with no “Jim Crow” segregation, felt strange and uncertain as to how they should act. In fact, peculiarities of conduct on the part of these were noted by Negroes of longer residence in Chicago, and it has been remarked by whites and Negroes that they could tell a Negro migrant by his uneasy manner and often by his clothing. Conspicuous points of behavior of migrant Negroes before they became urbanized, which many whites noted and commented on were: “loud laughter and talking,” “old and ill-smelling clothes,” “roughness and his tendency to sit all over the car.” These are easy to understand when one considers the background of the southern Negro. There are, on the other hand, exceptional cases where Negroes have walked miles rather than take a car, thus avoiding possible embarrassment. A Negro who has been in Chicago for a long time is not self-conscious about sitting near white persons. Negroes who get into trouble with whites about insisting on their right to a seat often belong to the class of suspicious and sensitive Negroes who fear that an attempt is being made to segregate them, and sometimes they are simply “greenhorns.”

Soiled and ill-smelling clothing was found to be an objection applying to white as well as Negro laborers. These complaints came, for the most part, from clerical workers who objected to physical contact with persons who might “rub off.” A difficulty involving this feature was adjusted by one packing company by dismissing its clerical workers and its laborers at different hours. A frequent source of misunderstanding has been a situation in which it appeared that Negroes had taken seats intended for white women. In several such cases thoroughly examined by the Commission’s investigators the difficulties were found to have resulted from misunderstood actions.

Most of the difficulties in transportation contacts reported and generally complained of seem to have centered around the first blundering efforts of migrants to adjust themselves to northern city life. The efforts of agencies interested in assisting this adjustment, together with the Negro press and the intimate criticisms and suggestions for proper conduct of Chicago Negroes, have smoothed down many of the roughnesses of the migrants, and as a result friction from contacts in transportation seems to have lessened materially.

4. Crime and Vicious Environment

Many students of the race problem look upon public crime records as a register of the failure of Negroes to adjust themselves to the social fabric. Study of infractions of law by Negroes, of provocation to lawlessness, and of the history of their crimes would indeed reveal an interesting background of their present behavior in relation to whites, if such a study were possible from present records. The Commission carried its investigations into this field and found no means of determining how great a proportion of the city’s crimes is committed by Negroes.

The prevailing impression that Negroes are by nature more criminal than whites and more prone to commit sex crimes has restricted their employment, increased unfair measures of restraint, and blackened the name of the entire Negro group. Two important facts were apparent from the Commission’s study: (1) the danger inherent in the vicious environment in which Negroes are forced to live, and (2) the misrepresentative character of the statistics of Negro crime.

Environment

The limitations imposed on Negro residential areas have provided undue cause and occasion for crime. The entire population, good and bad, is thrown together, exposing children to the sight and temptation of vice and immorality. Ninety per cent of the Negro population has always lived near the city’s former segregated vice districts, partly because white sentiment excluded them from other neighborhoods, partly because rents in the neighborhood of vice were low enough to meet their meager economic resources, and partly because their weakness made their protests against the proximity of vice less effective than the protests of whites. When the vice districts were broken up and the inmates scattered, they entered the better neighborhoods of Negro residence and clandestinely plied their trade. In fact, according to the report of the Chicago Vice Commission in 1911, at one time prostitutes were promised immunity by the police if they confined themselves to a certain area in which Negroes predominated. The spread of the Negro population has always been accompanied by the spread of clandestine prostitution. The Vice Commission’s report said:

The history of the social evil in Chicago is intimately connected with the colored population. Invariably the large vice districts have been created within or near the settlements of colored people. In the past history of the city every time a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side, the colored families were in the district moving in just ahead of the prostitutes. The situation along State Street from Sixteenth Street south is an illustration.

So whenever prostitutes, cadets, and thugs were located among white people and had to be moved for commercial or other reasons, they were driven to undesirable parts of the city, the so-called colored residential sections.

Most of the vicious resorts in the “Black Belt” are owned and operated by whites and are not interfered with by the authorities. Protests from Negroes have never succeeded in removing them. Opportunities for wholesome recreation in the Negro districts are limited, and commercial amusements, though probably no worse than in some other sections of the city, are of a distinctly inferior type and carelessly supervised. In such an infective environment it is not unnatural that many criminals should be developed.

But the study of crime statistics, aside from showing the unreliability of records due to careless methods of obtaining and presenting data, revealed that Negroes suffer gross injustice in the handling of criminal affairs. The general inaccuracy of criminal statistics is shown by the fact, for example, that the police reported 1,731 burglaries, or persons arrested for burglary, in 1919, while the Chicago Crime Commission reported 5,509 burglaries during the first eleven months of that year. The evidence at hand indicates that Negroes are debited with practically all their crimes, while others are not. It further appears, from the records and from the testimony of judges in the juvenile, municipal, circuit, superior, and criminal courts, of police officials, the state’s attorney, and various experts on crime, probation, and parole, that Negroes are more commonly arrested, subjected to police identification, and convicted than white offenders; that on similar evidence they are generally held and convicted on more serious charges, and that they are given longer sentences. This bias, when reflected in the figures, serves to bolster by false figures the already existing belief that Negroes are more likely to be criminal than other racial groups.

V. THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO INDUSTRIES

Out of Chicago’s Negro population of approximately 110,000 in 1920, it is estimated that 70,000 were gainfully employed. The opportunity for engaging in industry in large numbers came to Negroes following the outbreak of the world-war. With the enormous demand from the belligerent countries for American goods, existing establishments were enlarged and new ones created. As an example of the increased demand for workers, one of the packing-plants in the Chicago Stock Yards increased its force during the war from 8,000 to 17,000. Immigration was almost wholly cut off. The labor shortage became acute after the entrance of the United States into the war in 1917. The migration of Negroes from the South during that period was mainly in response to this demand.

Prior to the beginning of the war in 1914, Negroes had been virtually limited to personal and domestic service in almost every city in the North. In 1910 more than 60 per cent of those gainfully employed were so engaged, 15 per cent in manufacturing, and 3 per cent in clerical occupations. The Commission’s inquiries covered 136 establishments reporting five or more Negroes. In these were employed 118,098 whites and 21,987 Negroes—12,854 in manufacturing and 9,133 in non-manufacturing industries.

1. Increase in Negro Labor

Between 1915 and 1920 there was a remarkable increase in the number of Negroes employed in industries which before 1915 had either employed them in small numbers or not at all. In a total of sixty-two such plants there was an increase from 1,346 in 1915 to 10,587 in 1920, or more than 1,000 per cent. Labor shortage, or inability to obtain competent white workers, was the reason given in practically every instance for the large increase in Negro employees.

Frequent complaints have been made that large employers, particularly the packers, imported Negroes from the South and were thus responsible for the difficulties that followed. Definite effort was made to determine the facts, but the Commission found no basis for the statement.

2. Classification of Negro Workers

Absence of standards of classification for skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled work invalidated the Commission’s effort to classify Negro workers. In sixty-six industries with definite divisions in grades of work, it was found that out of 12,529 Negroes employed, 927 were skilled, 267 semi-skilled and 11,335 unskilled workers. In other returns, not capable of full classification, ten establishments reported 304 Negro molders; there were thirty-one Negro molders in 1910. Twelve factories reported 382 machine operators; in 1920 the census reports showed only twenty-eight.

Wages of Negroes in the branches of employment where they were permitted to work were generally the same as for white workers. There were instances, however, of discrimination in placing or keeping Negroes at work on processes in which they could not earn as much as in processes on which white men were engaged. Also there were instances of discrimination in piecework, the foremen invariably giving Negroes only the jobs yielding a low rate. For common labor the average wage was 45 and 50 cents an hour for an eight-, nine- and ten-hour day for men; $15 to $20 a week for women, and an average of $ 15 a week, with room and board, for domestics were the going wages.

3. Employers’ Experience with Negro Labor

Whether or not the Negro will be able to hold the position in industry made possible for him by the war depends much on employers’ attitude toward him as a worker. Common explanations given before this period as a reason for not employing Negroes more were that they were lazy, shiftless, irresponsible, and inefficient. Generalizations of this sort demonstrate their weakness in the fact that employers were not speaking from their own experiences. To reach a fair conclusion employers of Negroes in large numbers were interviewed by the Commission’s investigators.

Employers drew a distinction between northern and southern Negroes; they thought that the latter had shortcomings when they first began work, but that this was due to former habits of work and familiarity with only simple industrial processes. Many of these southern workers were irregular at first in reporting for work and frequently drew their wages before pay day, thus confusing the bookkeeping. They were soon forced, however, to abandon these habits.

One question asked of all employers was: “Has your Negro labor proved satisfactory?” Of the 137 establishments employing five or more Negro workers, 118 reported that Negro labor had proved satisfactory; nineteen reported that Negro labor had not proved satisfactory. The 118 establishments reporting Negro workers as satisfactory employed 21,640 Negroes, while the nineteen reporting them as unsatisfactory employed 697. Comparing the efficiency of Negro and white workers, seventy-one employers interviewed (thirty-four manufacturers and thirty-seven non-manufacturers) considered the Negro equally efficient, twenty-two employers (thirteen manufacturers and nine non-manufacturers) considered the Negro less efficient. The seventy-one establishments included almost all the large establishments. A few gave the Negro a higher rating than the foreigners because of his knowledge of English.

Regarding reliability, ninety-two employers gave opinions. Sixty-three (thirty manufacturers and thirty-three non-manufacturers) believed that Negroes did not require more supervision than white workers, while twenty-nine (sixteen manufacturers and thirteen non-manufacturers) thought they required more supervision. Of the employers interviewed, fifty-seven expressed the opinion (twenty-three manufacturers and thirty-four non-manufacturers) that “absenteeism” among Negro workers was no greater than among whites, while thirty-six reported it was greater.

One plant employing 2,084 Negroes stated that the better living standards and ambitions had brought up the rating of Negro workers during the war period.

4. Labor Turnover

Of the thirty-two employers giving figures on relative labor turnover, twenty-four (eleven manufacturers and thirteen non-manufacturers) reported the Negro turnover to be the same as the white, and twenty-eight (eighteen manufacturers and ten non-manufacturers) believed the turnover to be greater. Closely connected with the labor turnover among Negroes is the question of “hope on the job,” as one Negro expressed it. When Negroes are not allowed to advance to better positions in a given plant, or are discriminated against by foremen underrating their efficiency, the turnover in the plant is high.

5. Negro Women in Industry

Before the war Negro women were even more definitely restricted than Negro men in choice of occupations. Two-thirds of those gainfully employed were in two occupation groups: “servants” and laundresses, not in laundries, and domestic servants. Of the 137 establishments studied, forty-two had no Negro women employees, forty-five kept no separate records, and fifty reported a total of 3,407 Negro women workers. Although this study does not include all industries employing women, the total given represents a large increase over the figure of 998 Negro women enumerated by the 1910 census as engaged in all industries in Chicago.

Many of the establishments in question had employed large numbers of Negro women as an experiment and had found them satisfactory. One mail-order house employed as many as 650 girls for clerical work. When the plant was investigated in 1920, there were 311 girls, 75 per cent of whom were high-school graduates, while 12 per cent had had two or more years in college. These employers said the girls felt that they were making history for the race and were, if anything, a little over-zealous. They were thought to be excitable and suspicious of the actions of the white girls.

Millinery establishments, manufacturers of clothing, lamp-shades, gasmantles, paper-boxes, and cheese makers reported satisfactory experience with Negro women. Of twenty laundries employing Negro workers, satisfactory or unsatisfactory, four did not keep separate records. Twelve with 409 Negro Women reported their work satisfactory, and four with 134 Negro women reported it unsatisfactory. The chief complaint was unwillingness to work overtime or on Sundays. In both instances, however, employees interviewed complained that the hours were long (nine hours a day) and their treatment by the management harsh and inconsiderate.

Of 865 Negro employees interviewed, less than 1 per cent complained of disagreeable treatment by white workers and less than 50 per cent complained of conditions of work. Others expressed themselves as glad of the opportunity to earn good wages. Complaints against conditions of work were found in the iron and steel mills, Stock Yards, and dining-car and sleeping-car service.

6. Industries Excluding the Negro

Several important industries have not opened their doors to Negroes except as janitors and porters. Among these are the traction companies, elevated and surface, the State Street department stores, and the taxicab companies. Employers in these establishments express the belief that the public would object to Negroes.

Attention has been called to the waste involved in the limitations of Negroes in industry. Men with college training are forced to work as waiters and porters, and young-women college graduates are frequently forced to work as ushers in theaters and as ladies’ maids. This condition helps to account for the ease with which 1,500 Negro girls with more than average schooling were recruited in less than two months for the mail-order houses.

7. Relations Between White and Negro Workers

Through working together friendliness between white and Negro workers has been increased, according to prevalent views. Information concerning relations was secured from all the 137 plants studied. Two reported that race friction was a disturbing factor in the plants. Minor instances of friction have occurred, but it appeared that as a rule the workers reflected the attitude of the management. The setting up of partitions separating the races developed an antagonistic sentiment, and in some instances this antagonism was removed when the partitions were taken down. Of 101 establishments visited eighteen, or 11 per cent, with 2,623 Negroes, maintained separate accommodations. This constituted a continuous source of dissatisfaction for Negro workers, who felt themselves “Jim Crowed.” In the remaining 89 per cent, employing 19,714 Negroes among more than 100,000 whites, all accommodations were used in common by both races.

8. The Period of Industrial Depression

Following the war’s inflation of industry a slump came in the winter of 1920–21. Common labor was reduced in all the large plants from 20 to 50 per cent. Negroes, mostly common laborers, suffered most from this reduction. At one period there were as many as 15,000 Negroes unemployed in Chicago. They were cared for during their enforced idleness by the Urban League and Negro churches and by popular contributions from working Negroes. The reduction of labor was usually carried out by employers with some system, and few instances of gross race discrimination were reported.

9. Organized Labor and Negro Workers

Clashing interests have manifested themselves conspicuously in the relations between union labor organizations and Negro workers, and this antagonism has been carried over into the relations of whites and Negroes generally. The efforts of union labor to promote its cause have built up a body of sentiment not easy to oppose by workers unsympathetic toward the labor movement. Circumstances have frequently made Negroes strike breakers, and thus centered upon them as a racial group all the bitterness of the unionist toward strike breakers as a class.

On the other hand, Negroes have often expressed themselves as having little faith in the union labor movement because the unions have manifested prejudices against permitting them to share equal benefits of membership; and again they have gained their first opportunity in a new industry frequently through the desire of a strike-bound employer to keep his plant running when his white employees have walked out.

From its beginning the American Federation of Labor has declared a uniform policy of non-racial discrimination, but this policy has not been carried out in practice by all its constituent or affiliated bodies. At several of its conventions resolutions have been passed embodying the official sentiment of the federation, but no means has yet been discovered to effect a uniform policy of fair dealing throughout all its affiliated bodies. Aside from those unions in which the membership privilege for Negroes is modified, eight of the 110 national or international unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor explicitly bar the Negro by provisions in their constitutions or rituals. These unions are: Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America, International Association of Machinists, American Association of Masters, Mates, and Pilots, Railway Mail Association, Order of Railroad Telegraphers, the Commercial Telegraphers’ Union of America, and American Wire Weavers’ Protective Association.

The general exclusion policy of the railway brotherhoods and several unions of the Railway Department of the American Federation of Labor has created a feeling of bitterness among Negroes, many of whom are employed in branches of the railway service. As a protest against this policy there has been formed the Railway Men’s International Benevolent Industrial Association with seventeen locals in Chicago and a local membership of 1,200. Mr. Mays, president of this organization, stated that its purpose was merely to safeguard the ranks of Negro workers, and said that it was ready to merge itself into the general unions as soon as they were ready to accept them without discrimination and accord the same privileges as white railway workers.

The Commission obtained information from local unions in Chicago with a membership of 294,437, of whom 12,106 were Negroes. On the basis of policy toward the Negro, unions in Chicago may be divided into four classes or types:

A.  Unions admitting Negroes to white locals

B.  Unions admitting Negroes to separate or co-ordinate locals

C.  Unions admitting Negroes to subordinate or auxiliary locals

D.  Unions excluding Negroes from membership

Wherever and whenever Negroes are admitted on an equal basis and given a square deal, the feeling inside the union is nearly always harmonious. Examples of type A are the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of the World, Hodcarriers, Flat Janitors, and Ladies’ Garment Workers. In some of these organizations Negroes hold office.

Unions of type B give as reasons for organizing Negroes into separate locals, first, preference of Negro workers for locals of their own, and, second, unwillingness of white workers to admit Negroes to white locals. The Negro Musicians’ Union belongs to this type and has the same wage scale as the white union. There appears to be little difficulty here because there is no conflict in contracts for work in the city. The painters, however, have had difficulties which have “hung fire” for more than a year; after being given a temporary charter they still were unable to work.

Unions of type C, admitting Negroes to subordinate locals, are few in number, apparently because Negroes strongly resent this form of affiliation. There is, however, one example of this type which permits Negro helpers in a certain trade to be organized as an auxiliary under the jurisdiction of the white local unions having jurisdiction over their district. By constitution it is provided that their minutes be submitted to the white locals and their grievances placed before the white locals. The constitution also provides that there shall be no transfer of colored helpers to any except Negro auxiliaries, and that Negro helpers shall not be promoted to skilled trades or to helper apprentice, and shall not be admitted to shops where white helpers are employed. These Negro locals are represented by delegates selected by the white locals in their districts.

Unions of type D, excluding the Negro from membership, do so either in conformity with the laws of their national unions or in the exercise of local option. In addition to the eight internationals which exclude the Negro by constitutional provision, there are other locals which are known to reject Negro applicants. The Machinists’ Union, for example, although complying in its constitution with the American Federation of Labor policy of no racial discrimination, still effectually bars the Negro by a provision in its secret ritual. With the Machinists’ Union must be grouped such unions as the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers’ International Alliance, the Electrical Workers, and the Plumbers and Steam Fitters.

Some Negro leaders, in view of these practices, have been strong in their advocacy of non-affiliation with union organizations, holding that the employers, after all, offer for Negroes the fairer terms, and that they have, in fact, given Negroes their first opportunity in industry. However, certain other Negroes have taken advantage of the rift between employers and labor unions to exploit Negro laborers. They have played upon racial sentiment to establish separate unions for Negroes, both in lines of work where they are admitted to the general unions and in lines of work where they are excluded. This type of leadership has been irresponsible and dangerous; it has made ridiculously generous promises, and has addressed its appeal to the less intelligent classes of Negro workers. Its literature has in turn provoked extreme bitterness among labor union members and officials, who have mistakenly accepted it as representative of the sentiment of all Negro workers.

Interviews with Negro workers outside of the unions reveal an attitude of indifference or suspicion which is attributed by both white and Negro labor leaders and union men to the following reasons: (1) the usual treatment of Negroes by white men, (2) traditional treatment of Negroes by white men, (3) influence of racial leaders who oppose unionism, (4) influence of employers’ propaganda against unionism. Many of them, it was learned, have a distorted view of the purposes and principles of unionism, and many others, while sympathetic with the movement, object to the practices of the locals. An experience frequently referred to was the waiters’ strike in 1911, when Negro union men walked out with white union men and were replaced by white girls, while the white union men returned to their jobs; since that time Negro waiters have been out of the more desirable hotel jobs.

The explanations by labor leaders of the practices of local unions are to the effect that while the general public race prejudice might be expected in organizations of white workingmen, the unions, as a group, are fairer to the Negro than other groups; that unions are blamed for conditions which are really due to general public opinion. They cite as an example the fact that Negroes are not employed in Chicago as motormen or conductors on the surface or elevated lines because of public objection, and that they cannot be organized until they are in positions. Views were also expressed in condemnation of the exclusion policy of one local. These union officials believe that the unions will eventually be the most powerful agencies in the removal of race prejudice.

VI. PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS

A. Opinions of Whites and Negroes

The “Negro problem” is deeper and wider than the difficulties which center about the more specialized problems of Negro housing, Negro crime, and industrial relations involving Negroes. All such special studies conducted by the Commission left a baffling residuum of causes of racial discord, deep rooted in the psychology of the white and Negro groups in contact. The beliefs and attitudes, firmly fixed and accepted prejudices of the one race as to the other, grouped under the term “public opinion,” thus became the subject of a novel but most interesting inquiry.

Public opinion with respect to the Negro forms a body of sentiment so definite and compact as to make it an excellent laboratory case for analysis and study; but the Commission’s aim in investigating it was merely to make apparent and objective its place and importance in race relations; to indicate some of the ways in which it has developed; how it expresses itself; how it affects both the white and Negro groups; how, in its present state, it is strengthened, weakened, polluted, or purified by deliberate agencies or even by its own action; and finally how it may be used to reduce, if not prevent, racial unfriendliness and misunderstanding.

Public opinion is regarded here as a phase of the social mind, but nevertheless as a definite reality. For purposes of examination, therefore, its study gives attention to that body of sentiments, beliefs, attitudes, and prejudices which, taken together, give to public opinion its content and meaning.

To present this subject intelligently, the following plan has been employed:

1.   Beliefs and sophistications regarding Negroes, which exercise so great an influence in determining the conduct of white persons in relation to them, are described as they apply in the local environment, and in origin and background are traced suggestively to their responsible sources in literature and circumstance.

2.   Types of sentiment which, in Chicago and similar northern communities, are variants of these basic beliefs are presented with a view to making them intelligible and classifying them according to resolvable factors of misunderstanding.

3.   Since personal attitudes and beliefs are molded by traditions and heritages apart from the exclusive influence of literature, more significant material collected through intimate inquiry is presented objectively to describe the processes by which they appear to be created and grow. Replies to a searching questionnaire on attitudes and opinions are, in the instances quoted, the result of painstaking self-analysis.

4.   The opinions and sentiments of Negroes on these same issues are described and illustrated with a view to making them understandable, and their interpretations of current white sentiment are explained as far as possible.

5.   The report then turns to the agencies by which these opinions are made and perpetuated and the individual attitudes created. The chief of these are: (a) the press, (b) rumors, (c) myths, (d) propaganda. The conscious and unconscious abuse of these instruments of “opinion making” is pointed out and explained.

6.   Finally, the study is intended to suggest means by which public opinion, where it is faulty, may correct itself and employ its own instruments in the creation of wholesome sentiments among Negroes with respect to whites, and among whites with respect to Negroes.

1.   Beliefs of Whites Concerning Negroes

The conduct of individuals is largely determined by their attitudes toward a subject and their general beliefs concerning it. Definite beliefs concerning Negroes may be found in the North as well as in the South, varying with the individuals who hold them, according to degrees of contact with the Negro group and the individuals’ traditional background. These may be divided according to their character and effect into two general classes: (a) primary beliefs or those fundamental and firmly established convictions which have, all around, the deepest effect on the conduct of whites toward Negroes and are pretentiously supported by statistics, authorities, and scientific research; (b) secondary beliefs, or modifications and variants of important assumptions as to cardinal attributes.

A) PRIMARY BELIEFS

Among these primary beliefs are the following:

1.   Mentality: That the mind of the Negro is distinctly and distinctively inferior to that of the white race. Some believe that this is due to backwardness in ascending the scale of civilization; some that the Negro belongs to a different species of the human family.

2.   Morality: That Negroes are not yet capable of exercising social restraints common to white persons; that they are unmoral as well as immoral.

3.   Criminality: That Negroes possess a constitutional character weakness, and a consequent predisposition to sexual crimes, petty stealing, and crimes of violence.

4.   Physical unattractiveness: That physical laws prompt whites to avoid contact with Negroes.

5.   Emotionality: That Negroes are highly emotional and for that reason are given to quick, uncalculated crimes of violence as easily as to noisy and emotional religious expressions.

B) SECONDARY BELIEFS

As continued repetition of any plausible statement without correction of its error eventually gives it credence, these secondary beliefs have rooted themselves deep in the public mind. Among other things it is believed that Negroes are: (1) lazy, (2) “happy-go-lucky,” (3) boisterous, (4) bumptious, (5) over-assertive, (6) lacking in civic consciousness, (7) addicted to carrying razors, (8) fond of shooting craps, (9) flashy in dress and like gaudy, brilliant colors, especially red.

2.   Background of Prevailing Beliefs Concerning Negroes

Soon after the first emergence of Negroes from slavery their illiteracy and general behavior in response to the novel experience of freedom created situations which appeared to justify judgments concerning their group traits. Scholars rationalized and tried to explain these apparent traits: If they were illiterate as a group they must be incapable of learning, and if they committed crimes, they must be fundamentally lacking in social restraints.

Dr. Jeffries Wyman, of Harvard, Professor A. H. Keene, author of Man Past and Present, Dr. J. C. Nott, author of Types of Mankind, and almost all the other anthropologists of that period, gave the stamp of scientific authority to the view that Negroes were of a different species and could never reach the level of the Caucasian. Even more recently mental tests were carried out on the same assumption and were made to prove it in some instances where the facts were unexpectedly contrary. Students of the race problem in the South continued to generalize about Negro character from selected specimens, other more popular writers and speakers, with their anecdotes, stories, and jokes, all of which went uncorrected, tended to strengthen this body of beliefs to a point where any difference of views was intolerable. Although the status of the Negro has changed, the beliefs remain the same, and have led to bitterness and resentment among Negroes, with consequent misunderstandings and friction.

In Chicago sentiments collected from a wide variety of sources and involving the views of several thousands of white persons indicate the persistence of these archaic beliefs and fears, so deep set and of such long standing that they are assumed by many persons to be instinctive.

To secure definite information upon the traditional background of beliefs concerning Negroes, fifteen white persons with no special interest in Negroes were selected at random from professions, business, and other vocations and submitted to a careful and searching inquiry. They were asked eighteen carefully prepared questions to draw out the raw material of their unqualified reactions on the question of the Negro and, as far as possible, the background in their early experience. They were asked for their opinions concerning Negroes, whether or not they believed that they possessed distinguishing traits of mentality and character; their attitudes were solicited by questions and propositions designed to provoke an expression of attitude. Questions were put regarding instances and experiences involving Negroes in their early experience; their first consciousness of racial differences; their first contacts; and information was sought on the definite sources of their knowledge or opinions concerning Negroes.

All the persons questioned had clear-cut opinions and thought that Negroes possessed distinguishing traits ranging from “affectionate loyalty” to “mental and moral handicaps imposed by evolution.” An abolitionist’s son, for example, thought that “Negroes should desire segregation”; a man who had observed Negroes at Tuskegee and Lewis institutes would increase their education and meet the demands produced by education. One whose only contact had been with his “black mammy” thought that the Negroes were “affectionate and loyal, but lacking in racial pride, though evolutionarily handicapped, possessing the qualities of children.” Another who had had an unfortunate experience with his Negro chauffeur thought that Negroes were characterized by “distinctly inferior mentality, deficient moral sense, shiftlessness, good-natured, and a happy disposition.” They knew little about the activities of Negroes, their leaders, their papers, or their problems, and the sources on which they relied for their information, except in two instances, were undependable.

3.   Negro Opinion

Negroes, although exposed to various forms of social contact, have been intellectually isolated from the white group. They have not participated fully and freely in community and cultural activities. The pressure of the white group in practically every ordinary experience has kept their attention and interest centered upon themselves, and they have become race conscious. Their thinking, therefore, on general questions, whether they involve race relations or not, is conditioned and largely controlled by the relation of these questions with group interests. The opinions of Negroes, therefore, on race relations are largely negative. White persons know very little about what Negroes are thinking, because they are not familiar with their experiences; they frequently do not accredit them with the sensibilities that they do possess; and are not acquainted with the processes of thought by which the opinions of Negroes are formed. Thus it is that many of the statements and expressions of feeling of Negroes are unintelligible to persons outside of their group. Similarly, many statements and expressions of feeling by white persons are unintelligible to Negroes. But in the understanding of white persons Negroes have the advantage, because they do read their papers, see them in the privacy of their homes, and are forced constantly to interpret their actions.

Among Negroes there may be found a group control as strong and binding as among white persons. One striking instance of the operation of this group control was the complete ostracism of a prominent Negro lawyer who was reported to have made a public statement contrary to the views and aspirations held by his group. When this Negro was reported in the press to have said, “This is a white man’s country, and Negroes had better behave or they will get what rights they have taken away,” he was first snubbed, then his life was threatened, and for several weeks he was forced to go about under police protection. He was seriously criticized and finally ostracized. In less than a year he died. His friends declare that he was slanderously misquoted.

The sentiments of Negroes fall into somewhat the same classification as those of whites, but with one or two notable exceptions: there is (1) more discussion of race problems, more criticism of the conduct of leaders, more discussion of the practicability of programs of action; and (2) a great deal of literature and other expressions concerning the development of a defensive philosophy. In this latter are included various defensive policies, the stimulation of race pride, the explanation of behavior, and the struggle for status. There might also be included frequent evidences of the development of race consciousness. The emotional background, class consciousness, and the influences of group control are as evident in the sentiments of Negroes as of white persons.

A wide selection of views was obtained from Negroes and presented under the classifications in which they appeared naturally to fall. To get a more precise statement of views, a questionnaire was sent to Negroes representing a class intellectually able to subject themselves to self-analysis and to discuss various confusing angles of the race question. They were asked concerning interracial problems; whether or not race relations appear to be growing better or worse; whether the acquisition of wealth, or 100 per cent literacy, or unrestricted suffrage could affect race relations; they were asked questions concerning their adjustment to the present social system, their most pronounced mental complexes experienced in adjusting personal desires to the present social system; whether they were prejudiced against white persons; whether or not they were conscious of a feeling of race inferiority, or of a desire to compensate for a supposed inferiority. Concerning Negro problems they were asked whether or not there should be recognized leaders of Negroes; their criticisms of the policies of Negro leaders. Their racial philosophy was solicited. They were asked the distinction that they made between segregation and racial solidarity, and information was sought on the agencies responsible for their opinions. A most interesting array of views was secured, ranging from suspicion and abuse of the questions themselves to dispassionate analysis.

The war has produced a new type of sentiment. It not only brought disappointment and disillusionment for Negroes led into a new hope by the promises that accompanied the manifest efforts to stimulate patriotism, but actually gave to Negroes new experiences. Following the return of Negro soldiers from France, measures of restraint were increased, and from the usual lawlessness of the period of reconstruction they probably suffered more severely than others because they are to a much larger extent dependent upon law enforcement for security and comfort. Race riots, which are an expression of both loose machinery of community control and the development of a more determined resistance on the part of Negroes, grew more frequent in number and more serious in consequences. A new note was sounded in radical Negro literature, which appeared to carry a very popular appeal.

B. Factors in the Making of Public Opinion

1.   The White Press of Chicago

Aside from the agencies ordinarily responsible for providing the individual with his views, there are others equally as powerful in developing and influencing opinions. Most important of these is the press. For that portion of the public which depends upon the press for its contact with the Negro group and its information concerning it, this agency holds a controlling hand. Throughout the country it is pointed out, by both whites and Negroes, that the policies of many newspapers on racial matters have made relations more difficult, at times fostering new antagonisms and even precipitating riots by inflaming the white public against Negroes. A study was made of the three principal white daily newspapers of Chicago, covering a two-year period. Included in this study were 1,347 news items, 108 letters to the press, and ninety-six editorials on the Negro.

As an example of the type of publicity given to racial news concerning Negroes and the types of articles considered to have good news value, of the 1,338 articles published, 606, or nearly 50 per cent, dealt with riots, crime, and vice. Each of these articles specifically identified the persons involved as Negroes.

Constant identification of Negroes with certain definite crimes could have no other effect than to stamp the entire Negro group in the public mind as generally criminal. This in turn contributes to the already existing belief that Negroes as a group are more likely to be criminal than others, and thus they are arrested more readily than others. Publication of their names with race identification and with the crimes alleged against them keeps up a vicious circle. The unfortunate emphasis on sex offenses involving race, the subtle fanning of latent animosities by innuendo and suggestion, attaching the crime not only to the individual but to the race, direct a current of fear, intolerance, and ill will against the whole Negro group. An apt illustration, frequently cited by Negroes, is that if each time a crime was committed by a red-headed man, he was so described in telling of his crime, a popular fear and prejudice would soon develop against all red-headed men.

Crimes involving Negroes alone receive little attention. As with the Italians, as long as crimes are committed within the group, and this group is regarded as an isolated appendix of the community, they hold very little news value. When, however, a member of the isolated group comes into conflict with the community group, whether in industry, housing, or any relation, its representative significance is thus established, and the information becomes news. Publicity on housing, for example, stresses the conflict with other neighborhoods, the “invasion” of white districts, and plans for segregation. News items on politics involving Negroes get more space and prominence when they describe graft and corruption. In the list of articles studied are included sixty-three articles particularly ridiculing the Negro group.

Incidents occurring during the activities of the Commission were checked up with reports of them appearing in the papers, and serious misrepresentations of the Negro group were revealed. One example was an article in the Herald-Examiner on January 4, 1920, with two-inch headlines across the entire first page: “Reds Plot Negro Revolt,” “I.W.W. Bomb Plant Found on South Side.” The article mentioned the alleged secret activities of Negroes and their plans to revolt against the government. The bomb plant and many of their secret plans were reported to have been discovered by the state’s attorney. The article further said: “In Chicago it was learned that the headquarters for Negro revolutionary propaganda are centered in these four organizations: the Free Thought Society, Universal Negro Improvement Association, Negro Protective League, and the Soldiers and Sailors Club.” The article and the reported “discoveries” of the state’s attorney’s office are evidence of the absurd ignorance frequently manifested by members of the white group concerning the activities of Negroes. Each of the organizations named was known to the Commission and visited by its representatives on numbers of occasions. All of their meetings are open to the public, though attended almost entirely by Negroes. The Universal Negro Improvement Association publishes all of its plans in its newspaper, the Negro World. Its slogan is “Back to Africa” and not “Down with the United States.” The Free Thought Society mentioned is an organization designed to provide a medium of expression for persons who seek the “attainment of truth.” Its discussions concern religion and philosophy, and it numbers among its members prominent Negro and white professional men. The Negro Protective League is an employment office and day nursery. The full name of the organization is the “Negro Equal Rights and Protective Association.” The Soldiers and Sailors Club is a community house located on the South Side and a branch of the local War Camp Community Service. Eugene T. Lies, formerly of the United Charities, was its director. The occasion of the publicity in question was a convention of a national Negro Greek-letter fraternity, which held its meetings in the auditorium of the Soldiers and Sailors Club. This fraternity, like all others of its kind, excluded non-members and by so doing aroused the suspicion of the newspaper’s informants. No correction appeared in the paper, and to date no further “discoveries” have been made.

Articles of this type illustrate the possible effect on the public mind of such misrepresentations of the Negro. One newspaper has abandoned its policy of identifying Negroes with reports of incidents, in recognition of the gross unfairness of the practice.

2.   The Negro Press

The development of the Negro press was stimulated by several necessities important among which were:

a.   The indifference of the white press to the Negro group; its emphasis on the unfortunately spectacular, and the consequent loss of items of interest about Negroes throughout the country.

b.   The importance of developing the morale of the Negro group, creating a solidarity of interest and purpose for measures of defense, correcting the impressions created by general opinion, and centering the attention of Negroes upon themselves and their advancement.

Three of the most important local Negro weekly papers were studied. Their news items showed bias in reporting just the reverse of that which characterizes the reports of many white papers. They emphasize the Negro’s view and may be said to provide a compensatory interpretation of the news. When, for example, the Chicago Tribune reports the approval in the Illinois Constitutional Convention of a civil-rights bill with the headline: “Miscegenation Is O.K.’d in New Constitution; Negroes Given All the Rights of Whites,” the Chicago Whip, a Negro newspaper, headlines the same incident: “Morris Gets Civil Rights into Constitution; Victory for Race Won at Springfield.”

The most important function exercised by the Negro press is its control of the Negro group and of their education in conduct. All of these papers give considerable space to such popular education.

3.   Rumor

Rumor if unchecked, can do incalculable damage to race relations. Included under the term “rumor” are those unfounded tales, incorrectly deduced conclusions, partial statements of fact with significant content added by the narrator, all of which are given wide circulation and easy credence by the public. Other forms of rumor are tales of unheard-of brutality and of plots and plans which are either fabrications or partial statements of fact and serve only to stimulate resentment, fear, and a desire for retaliation. Of the rumors predicting riots, one example will illustrate: During the riot a white man was caught in the act of crawling beneath a house in which Negroes lived. In his pocket was found a bottle of kerosene. He confessed that his mission was arson and justified his act by repeating to the police the current rumor that it was known that Negroes had set fire to the houses of whites “back of the Yards.”

A persistent tale circulated during and for a long time after the riot was to the effect that the bodies of hundreds of Negroes were taken from Bubbly Creek where they had been thrown after being killed by white rioters. The story was so frequently repeated that it was accepted and even repeated in Congress. It caused an intense feeling among Negroes. Investigation by the coroner, Police Department, and other agencies showed that no bodies had ever been thrown into Bubbly Creek or recovered from it.

A rumor given official sanction and carried into the files of the Department of Justice illustrates other possible dangers of this kind. This rumor concerned two prominent and highly accredited organizations for Negroes. Rumors connected them with “I.W.W. plots and plans to overthrow the government.” These reports were founded upon scarcely anything more than suspicion due to lack of information and acquaintance with the Negro group. The National Urban League, for example, an organization of responsible Negroes and whites with branches in thirty-one cities, was reported to have asked William D. Haywood, head of the I.W.W., to speak at its convention in Detroit. This report grew out of the misreading of the name of William Hayward, a United States district attorney in New York, who is a member of the executive board and whose name appears on the stationery of the organization. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also a reputable organization of whites and Negroes, was reported to be “planning to flood the colored districts with I.W.W. literature.” This was entirely false, but the reports went to the Department of Justice headquarters secretly and could not be corrected by the persons most affected.

4.   Myths

Group myths, like those about the American Indian, the Oriental, and the Jew, are very common. Usually they are the expression either of a wish or of fear, which sociologists call a negative wish. Mythical stories and anecdotes about Negroes, accepted by whites, are usually popular. Many of them may have had a reasonable origin, but as a matter of fact have long outgrown it. So long as they are uncorrected they hold and exercise a marked degree of control over personal conduct.

In the category of myths fall the popular beliefs of whites concerning the mentality of Negroes, and the more definite myth that the mind of the Negro child ceases to develop when he reaches the age of puberty. The sex myth is always in evidence. It involves the fear obsession of Negro men held by many white women, fear of miscegenation, the condonation of lynchings, repressive social restrictions, as well as attempts at legislative restraints. Negroes are by these myths shown to have a predilection for sex crimes. This sex myth has been stressed in almost every riot. It precipitated the Washington riot; it provoked the most brutal murder of the Chicago riot, and it was responsible for the brutality of the Omaha and Tulsa riots. Always resident in the background of popular consciousness, it shows the same head and features in almost every clash of races.

5.   Propaganda

Conscious control of public opinion by propaganda has been used with tremendous effect by social, political, and religious organizations seeking popularity and support for their movements and reforms. Both Negroes and whites employed propaganda, sometimes openly, sometimes insidiously. Racial propaganda has probably a more powerful appeal than any other type because it is based upon the instinct of race and race differences, rivalry and jealousy. The most common forms of propaganda may be classified into the following types: (a) educational, (b) radical and revolutionary, (c) defensive, (d) malicious.

The activities and programs of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fall under the classification of educational propaganda; this propaganda is directed to the white public principally and is intended to change public opinion by providing a foundation of actual facts for the public’s judgment.

The more striking examples of the radical and revolutionary propaganda are the appeals sent out by the Industrial Workers of the World to Negroes, carrying their doctrines and extending open arms to Negro workers and offering them what most other organizations refuse—the privilege of association and membership on the basis of brotherhood.

Defensive propaganda is more apparent within the Negro group and is usually designed for the purpose of combating aggression and injury to their purposes and aspirations from without. The appeals of this propaganda are directed first to Negroes as a means of cementing the group from within, and indirectly to the white group by way of impressing them with the strength of solidified opposition to insults. The Protective Circle of Chicago, organized to “oppose segregation, bombing, and defiance of the Constitution,” admitted employing propaganda to accomplish its purpose.

Malicious propaganda is by far the most dangerous because it is founded upon race antagonism. In the appeal to the emotions facts are soon lost. Anti-Negro propaganda is not wholly new in the North, but when employed it has usually been done insidiously because “Negro-baiting is considered in bad taste.” Recently, however, there have been conspicuous instances of open and organized efforts to influence the minds of whites against Negroes. Ignorance and suspicion, fear and prejudice, have been played upon deliberately. The stated purpose of the propaganda was to unite white property owners in opposition to the “invasion” of other residential areas by Negroes, but in the actual carrying out of the propaganda it was extended to all Negroes, and many methods were employed which could have no other effect than to arouse bitterness and antagonism leading to clashes. The Property Owners’ Journal, the organ of an association of real estate men, became so violent in its preachments that the protest of whites forced its discontinuance. Appeals were made not only to the instinct of race but to the sex instincts and the protective instincts of white men. A pamphlet sent to the wives of prominent residents in that neighborhood, entitled An Appeal of White Women to American Humanity, recounted the “horrible conduct of French Colonials on the Rhine and the abuse of German white women,” although there was little apparent connection between the conduct of Chicago Negroes and that of the black soldiers in the French Army of Occupation on the Rhine. This pamphlet, however, served to increase the fears of Negro men by white Women and to arouse the resentment and hatred of white men.

Carl C. Brigham, A Study of American Intelligence, 1923

Carl C. Brigham was a professor of psychology at Princeton University. His book A Study of American Intelligence, which appeared in 1923 at the height of the immigration restriction campaign, gave powerful support to that cause, offering “scientific” proof for the nativist theories of Madison Grant, whose book The Passing of the Great Race (1916) had alarmed Americans about the deleterious effect of immigrants and blacks on the nation’s mental condition. Interpreting the intelligence tests that the U. S. Army had administered to American soldiers during World War I, Brigham concluded that these tests proved the Northern European (Nordic) race to be mentally superior to all others. Because a number of influential psychologists believed that intelligence was racially inherited, these tests were entangled from the start with racialist theories. In 1910 psychologists began testing immigrants at Ellis Island, and they promptly determined that a high percentage of newcomers were “morons” (the term for adults with a mental level of twelve or below) who would lower the national intelligence as they produced children. Brigham was determined to follow the same line of argument, even though the data suggested that environmental factors, such as the length of time an immigrant lived in America, strongly affected an individual’s mental score. He also strained to discredit studies that showed Jewish immigrants testing as high as white Americans. In 1930 Brigham recanted his racialist interpretation, too late to undo its effect on American immigration policy.

Source: Carl C. Brigham, A Study of American Intelligence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1923), pp. 182 (part), 205 (part)–210.

SECTION X

Comparison of Our Results with the Conclusions of Other Writers on the Subject

In a very definite way, the results which we obtain by interpreting the army data by means of the race hypothesis support Mr. Madison Grant’s thesis of the superiority of the Nordic type: “The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers, and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant and democratic character of the Alpines. The Nordic race is domineering, individualistic, self-reliant, and jealous of their personal freedom both in political and religious systems, and as a result they are usually Protestants. Chivalry and knighthood and their still surviving but greatly impaired counterparts are peculiarly Nordic traits, and feudalism, class distinctions, and race pride among Europeans are traceable for the most part to the north.” “The pure Nordic peoples are characterized by a greater stability and steadiness than are mixed peoples such as the Irish, the ancient Gauls, and the Athenians, among all of whom the lack of these qualities was balanced by a correspondingly greater versatility.” …

We may consider that the population of the United States is made up of four racial elements, the Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean races of Europe, and the negro. If these four types blend in the future into one general American type, then it is a foregone conclusion that this future blended American will be less intelligent than the present native born American, for the general results of the admixture of higher and lower orders of intelligence must inevitably be a mean between the two.

If we turn to the history of races, we find that as a general rule where two races have been in contact they have intermingled, and a cross between the two has resulted. Europe shows many examples of areas where the anthropological characteristics of one race shade over into those of another race where the two have intermixed, and, indeed, in countries such as France and Switzerland it is only in areas that are geographically or economically isolated that one finds types that are relatively pure. The Mongol-Tatar element in Russia is an integral part of the population. The Mediterranean race throughout the area of its contact with the negro has crossed with him. Some of the Berbers in Northern Africa show negroid characteristics, and in India the Mediterranean race has crossed with the Dravidians and Pre-Dravidian negroids. The population of Sardinia shows a number of negroid characteristics. Turn where we may, history gives us no great exception to the general rule that propinquity leads to opportunity and opportunity to intermixture.

In considering racial crosses, Professor Conklin states that “It is highly probable that while some of these hybrids may show all the bad qualities of both parents, others may show the good qualities of both and indeed in this respect resemble the children in any pure-bred family. But it is practically certain that the general or average results of the crossing of a superior and an inferior race are to strike a balance somewhere between the two. This is no contradiction of the principles of Mendelian inheritance but rather the application of these principles to a general population. The general effect of the hybridization of races can not fail to lead to a lowering of the qualities of the higher race and a raising of the qualities of the lower one.”

And as to the possibility of a cross between races in the future, Professor Conklin writes: “Even if we are horrified by the thought, we cannot hide the fact that all present signs point to an intimate commingling of all existing human types within the next five or ten thousand years at most. Unless we can re-establish geographical isolation of races, we cannot prevent their interbreeding. By rigid laws excluding immigrants of other races, such as they have in New Zealand and Australia, it may be possible for a time to maintain the purity of the white race in certain countries, but with constantly increasing intercommunications between all lands and peoples such artificial barriers will probably prove as ineffectual in the long run as the Great Wall of China. The races of the world are not drawing apart but together, and it needs only the vision that will look ahead a few thousand years to see the blending of all racial currents into a common stream.”

If we frankly recognize the fact that the crossing of races in juxtaposition has always occurred in the past, what evidence have we that such crosses have had untoward consequences? Our own data from the army tests indicate clearly the intellectual superiority of the Nordic race group. This superiority is confirmed by observation of this race in history. The Alpine race, according to our figures, which are supported by historical evidence, seems to be considerably below the Nordic type intellectually. However, our recruits from Germany, which represents a Nordic-Alpine cross, are about the same as those from Holland, Scotland, the United States, Denmark, and Canada, countries which have on the whole a greater proportion of Nordic blood than Germany. Again, the Nordic and Alpine mixture in Switzerland has given a stable people, who have evolved, in spite of linguistic differences, a very advanced form of government. The evidence indicates that the Nordic-Alpine cross, which occurred in Western Europe when the Nordics overwhelmed the Alpines to such an extent that the type was completely submerged and not re-discovered until recently, has not given unfortunate results.

This evidence, however, can not be carried over to indicate that a cross between the Nordic and the Alpine Slav would be desirable. The Alpines that our data sample come for the most part from an area peopled largely by a branch of the Alpine race which appeared late and radiated from the Carpathian Mountains. It is probably a different branch of the Alpine race from that which forms the primitive substratum of the present population of Western Europe. Our data on the Alpine Slav show that he is intellectually inferior to the Nordic, and every indication would point to a lowering of the average intelligence of the Nordic if crossed with the Alpine Slav. There can be no objection to the intermixture of races of equal ability, provided the mingling proceeds equally from all sections of the distribution of ability. Our data, however, indicate that the Alpine Slav we have imported and to whom we give preference in our present immigration law is intellectually inferior to the Nordic type.

The Mediterranean race at its northern extension blends with the Alpine very considerably, and to a less extent with the Nordic. At the point of its furthermost western expansion in Europe it has crossed with the primitive types in Ireland. Throughout the area of its southern and eastern expansion it has crossed with negroid types. In this continent, the Mediterranean has crossed with the Amerind and the imported negro very extensively. In general, the Mediterranean race has crossed with primitive race types more completely and promiscuously than either the Alpine or the Nordic, and with most unfortunate results.

We must now frankly admit the undesirable results which would ensue from a cross between the Nordic in this country with the Alpine Slav, with the degenerated hybrid Mediterranean, or with the negro, or from the promiscuous intermingling of all four types. Granted the undesirable results of such an intermingling, is there any evidence showing that such a process is going on? Unfortunately the evidence is undeniable. The 1920 census shows that we have 7,000,000 native born whites of mixed parentage, a fact which indicates clearly the number of crosses between the native born stock and the European importations.

The evidence in regard to the white and negro cross is also indisputable. If we examine the figures showing the proportion of mulattoes to a thousand blacks for each twenty year period from 1850 to 1910, we find that in 1850 there were 126 mulattoes to a thousand blacks, 136 in 1870, 179 in 1890 and 264 in 1910. This intermixture of white and negro has been a natural result of the emancipation of the negro and the breaking down of social barriers against him, mostly in the North and West. In 1850, the free colored population showed 581 mulattoes to a thousand blacks as against 83 in the slave population. At each of the four censuses (1850, 1870, 1890 and 1910) the South, where the social barriers are more rigid than elsewhere, has returned the smallest proportion of mulattoes to a thousand blacks. The 1910 census showed 201 in the South, 266 in the North and 321 in the West, and the West has returned the highest proportion at each of the censuses except 1850.

We must face a possibility of racial admixture here that is infinitely worse than that faced by any European country today, for we are incorporating the negro into our racial stock, while all of Europe is comparatively free from this taint. It is true that the rate of increase of the negro in this country by ten year periods since 1800 has decreased rather steadily from about 30% to about 11%, but this declining rate has given a gross population increase from approximately 1,000,000 to approximately 10,000,000. It is also true that the negro now constitutes only about 10% of the total population, where he formerly constituted 18% or 19% (1790 to 1830), but part of this decrease in percentage of the total population is due to the great influx of immigrants, and we favor in our immigration law those countries 35% of whose representatives here are below the average negro. The declining rate of increase in the negro population from 1800 to 1910 would indicate a correspondingly lower rate to be expected in the future. From 1900 to 1920 the negro population increased 18.4%, while the native born white of native parents increased 42.6%, and the native born white of foreign parents increased 47.6%. It is impossible to predict at the present time that the rate of infiltration of white blood into the negro will be checked by the declining rate of increase in the negro blood itself. The essential point is that there are 10,000,000 negroes here now and that the proportion of mulattoes to a thousand blacks has increased with alarming rapidity since 1850.

According to all evidence available, then, American intelligence is declining, and will proceed with an accelerating rate as the racial admixture becomes more and more extensive. The decline of American intelligence will be more rapid than the decline of the intelligence of European national groups, owing to the presence here of the negro. These are the plain, if somewhat ugly, facts that our study shows. The deterioration of American intelligence is not inevitable, however, if public action can be aroused to prevent it. There is no reason why legal steps should not be taken which would insure a continuously progressive upward evolution.

The steps that should be taken to preserve or increase our present intellectual capacity must of course be dictated by science and not by political expediency. Immigration should not only be restrictive but highly selective. And the revision of the immigration and naturalization laws will only afford a slight relief from our present difficulty. The really important steps are those looking toward the prevention of the continued propagation of defective strains in the present population. If all immigration were stopped now, the decline of American intelligence would still be inevitable. This is the problem which must be met, and our manner of meeting it will determine the future course of our national life.

Franz Boas, “The Question of Racial Purity,” 1924

Franz Boas (1858–1942), one of the pioneers of anthropology, was born in Prussia into a well-educated and assimilated Jewish family. He emigrated to the United States in the 1880s and was a professor at Columbia University from 1899 until his death in 1942. In addition to his innovative scholarship in physical anthropology, linguistics, ethnology, and folklore, Boas claimed an important place within American popular thought. He was one of the first major thinkers in the United States to attack racialist theories that vaunted the superiority of the Nordic or Aryan race over all other peoples. By the 1920s his emphasis on the cultural rather than the genetic sources of human differences was well on the way to becoming a mainstream idea, pushing racist pseudoscience toward the fringes of American society. Since the 1910s Boas had spearheaded the intellectual battle against scholars who used hereditary theories to support the crusade for immigration restriction. Although he lost this battle, he would win the long-term academic war. In his 1924 essay “The Question of Racial Purity,” excerpted below, Boas sets out his argument against the racialist position.

Source: Franz Boas, “The Question of Racial Purity,” American Mercury (October 1924): 163–69.

Seventy-one years ago Count Arthur de Gobineau published the first volume of his famous “Essay on the Inequality of the Races of Man.” In it he tried to prove that the historical fate of a nation depends upon its racial constitution, that purity of race is the deciding element in the development of a people, and that only the Aryans are or can be the founders of a truly great civilization. He sought thereby to lay a solid foundation for the views of the importance of racial descent which had been expressed previously by Gustav Klemm in his “General History of Civilization” (1842–53) and by Karl Gustav Carus (1849). He was followed by the Americans, Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon (1854), and since that time further attempts to prove the biological superiority of the white race, and more particularly of the blond Northwest European, have been made by many writers, among them Vacher de Lapouge, Renan, Collignon, Stewart Houston Chamberlain, Wilser, Woltmann, Penka, Günther, Keith, and, in our own country, Madison Grant, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Charles Brigham and others. It is easily recognized that the majority of defenders of the superiority of this Northwest European type are swayed, not by scientific arguments but by prejudice, but it is equally true that the defenders of race equality who have risen to combat their views are no less influenced by a desire to defend the position of those races that have been designated inferior.…

The fundamental difficulty that besets us is that of differentiating between what is inherent in bodily structure, and what is acquired by the cultural medium in which each individual is set, or, to express it in biological terms, what is determined by hereditary and what by environmental causes.…

With our increasing knowledge of the laws of heredity and the exactness with which the distribution of traits in each generation of offspring can now be predicted, a strong incentive has been given to search for a definite distribution of mental traits in various races. If it is found that the individuals of a certain group behave in a manner that differentiates them from other groups, the inference readily presents itself that we are dealing with a phenomenon of heredity. However, this inference cannot be accepted without proof, because environmental cultural conditions may bring about a precisely similar result. To give an example: Among nations that, on account of their size and self-sufficiency, are not compelled to have frequent dealings with foreigners or to use foreign languages, the linguistic faculty seems to be at a low ebb, but it is highly developed in small nations that are compelled to use several languages. The United States on the one hand and Holland and Switzerland on the other are typical. But it would certainly be rash to argue that the lack of linguistic ability in the United States and its high development in Holland are due to hereditary causes. Often, however, the relation of cultural characteristics and external causes is less apparent. It seems, for instance, a justifiable question whether the mental reactions of the Negro in America are not conditioned by what psychologists like to call an inferiority complex.…

Investigators are too much inclined to consider as instinctive and hereditary every action that occurs without conscious reasoning. Thus, the particular kind of modesty that exists in our civilization is regarded as instinctive, but a study of the customs of different times and different cultural groups proves clearly that every particular form of modesty is almost entirely socially determined. While modesty itself may be instinctive, the particular form that we exhibit is acquired by the bringing up of each individual. It is automatic, not instinctive. In many cases close observation is required to prove that a reaction is automatic and not instinctive. The feeling engendered by the differences between races is of this character. There is no such thing as instinctive aversion between races; whatever race-aversion exists is automatic, not instinctive. An adult who has become completely adjusted to this automatic reaction understands only with difficulty its acquired character, but its lack of universality in mankind and in members of the same race who live under different conditions is convincing proof of its non-instinctive character. Thus, in a scientific study of racial characteristics we must reject the assumption that mental traits are hereditary unless satisfactory proof of their biological foundation in the human organism is given.

A second argument that must be rejected is the one derived from cultural achievement. Claimants for the superiority of the white race point out its position in the modern world. From this they conclude that the white race is the only one that could or can ever achieve eminence, and that the fact is due to its hereditary qualities. In order to prove the weakness of this argument we need only consider the conclusions that a Maya Indian in the days when his civilization was at its height might have drawn from a comparison of his culture with conditions in Northwestern Europe. Lo, the poor Nordic! He was then an uncouth barbarian, without any arts or knowledge that could be compared with those of the Maya. Would not the Maya have been justified in calling him an inferior who would never achieve eminence? We must put aside all such faulty methods.…

We have the right to speak of the hereditary characteristics of family lines but not of the hereditary characteristics of nations or of races, because the latter vary within wide limits. Only if it is proved that the family lines constituting two races are through-out distinct can we speak of racial characteristics. For European local types such as the Northwest European or the Mediterranean such proof cannot be given. On the contrary, the variability of the types is so great that the forms in different European localities overlap–that is forms occurring in one area are not absolutely confined to that area.…

In a scientific investigation of the problem I should demand, therefore, as an indispensable part of the inquiry a determination of the adjustability of the individual to different demands, and of the adaptability of different individuals to the same demands.

It seems to me that the psychological tests which enjoy such a vogue at the present time fail in this respect. The mass of individuals subjected to the tests are not equally adjusted; therefore, before accepting the results of the tests as criteria of hereditary intelligence, as is done by many psychologists, we ought to insist that each individual be given an opportunity for adjustment. On the other hand, the reactions of the same individual under different environmental conditions should be studied in much greater detail than is ordinarily done. This is one of the reasons why the results obtained by Brigham in his study of the intelligence of immigrants in the United States are entirely unconvincing. When he finds that immigrants who came here twenty, fifteen, ten and five years ago do not respond equally well to his tests, the most recent arrivals showing the lowest records, we have to consider that they are not equally adjusted. The differences in the reactions do not prove anything in regard to their hereditary intelligence, as we are asked to believe.…

The claim made for the superiority of pure races has never been substantiated. As I have pointed out, the purity of any given racial type is a debatable question, and the claim that only extreme types are pure is founded on a misconception. Ethnological evidence is certainly not in favor of the assumption that mixed races are in any way culturally incapable. We may point out here again that Central Italy, a region which for very long periods has been a meeting ground of different races, has been one of the most powerful centres in the development of civilization. It is equally true that the people who have been historically most important in the development of Africa are found in the region where the North African tribes and the people of the Sahara come into close contact, and have intermingled. A general review of cultural forms the world over does not indicate that there is any correlation between the achievements of races and their supposed racial purity.…

Our knowledge of the reactions of men living in diverse cultural forms and the study of the cultural forms themselves lead us to infer that hereditary characteristics are irrelevant as compared to social conditions, and that anatomical form does not determine the cultural history of a people. It is particularly worth remarking that the current unfavorable opinion of the Negro is based largely on complete ignorance of African native conditions, and of Negro achievements in the industries and arts and in political organization, and that likewise the glorification of our own race is founded exclusively on a consideration of the cultural opportunities given to the few and on the complete neglect of the cultural primitiveness of the great mass of individuals, which finds expression intellectually in the uncritical acceptance of traditional attitudes and emotionally in the ease with which they succumb to the power of fashionable passions. We may say with certainty that the local types of a single race like the European are each so variable that fixed hereditary differences in mental characteristics between the types as a whole are most unlikely. We may say, furthermore, that cultural anthropology makes the existence of fundamental racial differences very improbable.

Gong Lum v. Rice, 1927

The last major Supreme Court decision in favor of segregated schooling, Gong Lum v. Rice (1927), arose from a Mississippi case in which a Chinese American man, Gong Lum, sued for the right to enroll his daughter Martha in the white public high school in their district. As in other Southern states, the Mississippi constitution provided that “separate schools shall be maintained for children of the white and colored races.” Gong Lum argued that Martha was of pure Chinese ancestry and did not belong to the “colored races.” Therefore, as no separate school existed for Asians, she should be allowed to attend the school set up for whites. The school authorities rejected Gong Lum’s attempt to register Martha. The U. S. Supreme Court upheld the state’s right to assign students to schools in whatever manner it chose, as long as each child had access to a public education.

Source: Gong Lum v. Rice (1927), Findlaw Internet site http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcasepl?navby=case&court=US&vol=275&page=78

U.S. Supreme Court

GONG LUM v. RICE, 275 U.S. 78(1927)

275 U.S. 78

GONG LUM et al.

v.

RICE et al.

No. 29.

Submitted Oct. 12, 1927.

Decided Nov. 21, 1927.

Mr. James N. Flowers, of Jackson, Miss., for plaintiffs in error. [275 U.S. 78, 79] Messrs. Rush H. Knox, of Jackson, Miss., and E. C. Sharp, of Corinth, Miss., for defendants in error.

Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was a petition for mandamus filed in the state circuit court of Mississippi for the First judicial district of Bolivar county.

Gong Lum is a resident of Mississippi, resides in the Rosedale consolidated high school district, and is the father of Martha Lum. He is engaged in the mercantile business. Neither he nor she was connected with the consular service, or any other service, of the government of China, or any other government, at the time of her birth. [275 U.S. 78, 80] She was nine years old when the petition was filed, having been born January 21, 1915, and she sued by her next friend, Chew How, who is a nativeborn citizen of the United States and the state of Mississippi. The petition alleged that she was of good moral character, between the ages of 5 and 21 years, and that, as she was such a citizen and an educable child, it became her father’s duty under the law to send her to school; that she desired to attend the Rosedale consolidated high school; that at the opening of the school she appeared as a pupil, but at the noon recess she was notified by the superintendent that she would not be allowed to return to the school; that an order had been issued by the board of trustees, who are made defendants, excluding her from attending the school solely on the ground that she was of Chinese descent, and not a member of the white or Caucasian race, and that their order had been made in pursuance to instructions from the state superintendent of education of Mississippi, who is also made a defendant.

The petitioners further show that there is no school maintained in the district for the education of children of Chinese descent, and none established in Bolivar county where she could attend.

The Constitution of Mississippi (Const. 1890, 201, 206) requires that there shall be a county common school fund, made up of poll taxes from the various counties, to be retained in the counties where the same is collected, and a state common school fund to be taken from the general fund in the state treasury, which together shall be sufficient to maintain a common school for a term of four months in each scholastic year, but that any county or separate school district may levy an additional tax to maintain schools for a longer time than a term of four months, and that the said common school fund shall be distributed among the several counties and separate school districts in proportion to the number of educable children in each, to be collected [275 U.S. 78, 81] from the data in the office of the state superintendent of education in the manner prescribed by law; that the Legislature encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement, by the establishment of a uniform system of free public schools by taxation or otherwise, for all children between the ages of 5 and 21 years, and as soon as practicable, establish schools of higher grade.

The petition alleged that, in obedience to this mandate of the Constitution, the Legislature has provided for the establishment and for the payment of the expenses of the Rosedale consolidated high school, and that the plaintiff Gong Lum, the petitioner’s father, is a taxpayer and helps to support and maintain the school; that Martha Lum is an educable child, is entitled to attend the school as a pupil, and that this is the only school conducted in the district available for her as a pupil; that the right to attend it is a valuable right; that she is not a member of the colored race, nor is she of mixed blood, but that she is pure Chinese; that she is by the action of the board of trustees and the state superintendent discriminated against directly, and denied her right to be a member of the Rosedale school; that the school authorities have no discretion under the law as to her admission as a pupil in the school, but that they continue without authority of law to deny her the right to attend it as a pupil. For these reasons the writ of mandamus is prayed for against the defendants, commanding them and each of them to desist from discriminating against her on account of her race or ancestry, and to give her the same rights and privileges that other educable children between the ages of 5 and 21 are granted in the Rosedale consolidated high school.

The petition was demurred to by the defendants on the ground, among others, that the bill showed on its face that plaintiff is a member of the Mongolian or yellow race, and [275 U.S. 78, 82] therefore not entitled to attend the schools provided by law in the state of Mississippi for children of the white or Caucasian race.

The trial court overruled the demurrer and ordered that a writ of mandamus issue to the defendants as prayed in the petition.

The defendants then appealed to the Supreme Court of Mississippi, which heard the case. Rice v. Gong Lum, 139 Miss. 760, 104 So. 105. In its opinion, it directed its attention to the proper construction of section 207 of the state Constitution of 1890, which provides:

“Separate schools shall be maintained for children of the white and colored races.”

The court held that this provision of the Constitution divided the educable children into those of the pure white or Caucasian race, on the one hand, and the brown, yellow, and black races, on the other, and therefore that Martha Lum, of the Mongolian or yellow race, could not insist on being classed with the whites under this constitutional division. The court said:

“The Legislature is not compelled to provide separate schools for each of the colored races, and unless and until it does provide such schools, and provide for segregation of the other races, such races are entitled to have the benefit of the colored public schools. Under our statutes a colored public school exists in every county and in some convenient district, in which every colored child is entitled to obtain an education. These schools are within the reach of all the children of the state, and the plaintiff does not show by her petition that she applied for admission to such schools. On the contrary, the petitioner takes the position that, because there are no separate public schools for Mongolians, she is entitled to enter the white public schools in preference to the colored public schools. A consolidated school in this state is simply a common school conducted as other common schools are conducted; [275 U.S. 78, 83] the only distinction being that two or more school districts have been consolidated into one school. Such consolidation is entirely discretionary with the county school board, having reference to the condition existing in the particular territory. Where a school district has an unusual amount of territory, with an unusual valuation of property therein, it may levy additional taxes. But the other common schools under similar statutes have the same power.

“If the plaintiff desires, she may attend the colored public schools of her district, or, if she does not so desire, she may go to a private school. The compulsory school law of this state does not require the attendance at a public school, and a parent under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States has a right to educate his child in a private school if he so desires. But plaintiff is not entitled to attend a white public school.”

As we have seen, the plaintiffs aver that the Rosedale consolidated high school is the only school conducted in that district available for Martha Lum as a pupil. They also aver that there is no school maintained in the district of Bolivar county for the education of Chinese children, and none in the county. How are these averments to be reconciled with the statement of the state Supreme Court that colored schools are maintained in every county by virtue of the Constitution? This seems to be explained, in the language of the state Supreme Court, as follows:

“By statute it is provided that all the territory of each county of the state shall be divided into school districts separately for the white and colored races; that is to say, the whole territory is to be divided into white school districts, and then a new division of the county for colored school districts. In other words, the statutory scheme is to make the districts, outside of the separate school districts, districts for the particular race, white or colored, so that the territorial limits of the school districts need [275 U.S. 78, 84] not be the same, but the territory embraced in a school district for the colored race may not be the same territory embraced in the school district for the white race, and vice versa, which system of creating the common school districts for the two races, white and colored, do not require schools for each race as such to be maintained in each district; but each child, no matter from what territory, is assigned to some school district, the school buildings being separately located and separately controlled, but each having the same curriculum, and each having the same number of months of school term, if the attendance is maintained for the said statutory period, which school district of the common or public schools has certain privileges, among which is to maintain a public school by local taxation for a longer period of time than the said term of four months under named conditions which apply alike to the common schools for the white and colored races.”

We must assume, then, that there are school districts for colored children in Bolivar county, but that no colored school is within the limits of the Rosedale consolidated high school district. This is not inconsistent with there being at a place outside of that district and in a different district, a colored school which the plaintiff Martha Lum may conveniently attend. If so, she is not denied, under the existing school system, the right to attend and enjoy the privileges of a common school education in a colored school. If it were otherwise, the petition should have contained an allegation showing it. Had the petition alleged specifically that there was no colored school in Martha Lum’s neighborhood to which she could conveniently go, a different question would have been presented, and this, without regard to the state Supreme Court’s construction of the state Constitution as limiting the white schools provided for the education of children of the white or Caucasian race. But we do not find the petition to present such a situation.

[275 U.S. 78, 85] The case then reduces itself to the question whether a state can be said to afford to a child of Chinese ancestry, born in this country and a citizen of the United States, the equal protection of the laws, by giving her the opportunity for a common school education in a school which receives only colored children of the brown, yellow or black races.

The right and power of the state to regulate the method of providing for the education of its youth at public expense is clear. In Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528, 545, 20 5. Ct. 197, 201, persons of color sued the board of education to enjoin it from maintaining a high school for white children without providing a similar school for colored children, which had existed and had been discontinued. Mr. Justice Harlan, in delivering the opinion of the court, said:

“Under the circumstances disclosed, we cannot say that this action of the state court was, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, a denial by the state to the plaintiffs and to those associated with them of the equal protection of the laws, or of any privileges belonging to them as citizens of the United States. We may add that, while all admit that the benefits and burdens of public taxation must be shared by citizens without discrimination against any class on account of their race, the education of the people in schools maintained by state taxation is a matter belonging to the respective states, and any interference on the part of federal authority with the management of such schools cannot be justified, except in the case of a clear and unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the supreme law of the land.”

The question here is whether a Chinese citizen of the United States is denied equal protection of the laws when he is classed among the colored races and furnished facilities for education equal to that offered to all, whether white, brown, yellow, or black. Were this a new question, [275 U.S. 78, 86] it would call for very full argument and consideration; but we think that it is the same question which has been many times decided to be within the constitutional power of the state Legislature to settle, without intervention of the federal courts under the federal Constitution. Roberts v. City of Boston, 5 Cush. (Mass.) 198, 206, 208, 209; State ex rel. Garnes v. McCann, 21 Ohio St. 198, 210; People ex rel. King v. Gallagher, 93 N. Y. 438, 45 Am. Rep. 232; People ex rel. Cisco v. School Board, 161 N. Y. 598, 56 N. E. 81, 48 L. R. A. 113; Ward v. Flood, 48 Cal. 36, 17 Am. Rep. 405; Wysinger v. Crookshank, 82 Cal. 588, 590, 23 P. 54; Reynolds v. Board of Education 66 Kan. 672, 72 P. 274; McMillan v. School Committee, 107 N. C. 609, 12 S. E. 330, 10 L. R. A. 823; Cory v. Carter, 48 Ind. 327, 17 Am. Rep. 738; Lehew v. Brummell, 103 Mo. 546, 15 S. W. 765, 11 L. R. A. 828, 23 Am. St. Rep. 895; Dameron v. Bayless, 14 Ariz. 180, 126 P. 273; State ex rel. Stoutmeyer v. Duffy, 7 Nev. 342, 348, 355, 8 Am. Rep. 713; Bertonneau v. Board, 3 Woods, 177, 3 Fed. Cas. 294, No. 1,361; United States v. Buntin (C. C.) 10 F. 730, 735; Wong Him v. Callahan (C. C.) 119 F. 381.

In Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 544, 545 S., 16 S. Ct. 1138, 1140, in upholding the validity under the Fourteenth Amendment of a statute of Louisiana requiring the separation of the white and colored races in railway coaches, a more difficult question than this, this court, speaking of permitted race separation, said:

“The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of states where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced.”

The case of Roberts v. City of Boston, supra, in which Chief Justice Shaw, of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, announced the opinion of that court upholding the separation of colored and white schools under [275 U.S. 78, 87] a state constitutional injunction of equal protection, the same as the Fourteenth Amendment, was then referred to, and this court continued:

“Similar laws have been enacted by Congress under its general power of legislation over the District of Columbia (Rev. Stat. D.C. 281, 282, 283, 310, 319), as well as by the Legislatures of many of the states, and have been generally, if not uniformly, sustained by the courts’ citing many of the cases above named.”

Most of the cases cited arose, it is true, over the establishment of separate schools as between white pupils and black pupils; but we cannot think that the question is any different, or that any different result can be reached, assuming the cases above cited to be rightly decided, where the issue is as between white pupils and the pupils of the yellow races. The decision is within the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools, and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Mississippi is affirmed.

The Mexican Immigrant, 1926–1927

Manuel Gamio (1883–1960), an important Mexican archaeologist and anthropologist, produced one of the most valuable studies of immigrant life in the United States in the early twentieth century. Based on interviews Gamio and his researchers conducted in 1926–1927, The Mexican Immigrant: His Life-Story contains more than seventy first-person accounts of Mexicans living in the United States. Some of the people surveyed had been living in America for a few years and some for decades. As a result The Mexican Immigrant presents an excellent series of snapshots of Mexican American life, particularly in the West and Southwest, from around 1900 through the 1920s. It is important to remember that these interviews took place during the “jazz age,” when Americans and especially the younger generation were caught up in new and provocative forms of music, fashion, and demeanor. The public behavior of American women, in particular, was much more assertive than had been the case prior to World War I, and it contrasted sharply with the more conservative protocol for women in Mexico. The excerpts below illustrate the complexity of attitudes about the way of life on both sides of the border. (The interviews were translated from Spanish, and the personal names were changed.)

Source: Mario Gamio, The Mexican Immigrant: His Life-Story, Autobiographic Documents Collected by Manuel Gamio (1931; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969).

JESUS GARZA

This man is a native of Aguascalientes, mestizo, markedly Indian; twenty-four years of age.

“I have been in this country for three years and a half, for even though I went to Aguascalientes to see my parents about a year and a half ago I didn’t stay more than a month. It had been my purpose to stay at home and work there but I found everything changed and dull, in other words different from this country, and now I like it better here and if I were to go back to Mexico it is only to visit a while and then return.

“Since I was very small I had the idea of going out to know the world, to go about a lot in every direction. As I had heard a lot about the United States it was my dream to come here. My father, however, wouldn’t let me leave home because I was too small. He was very strict. I reached the third grade in school. I was in a school where my father was teacher but when the revolution came and months went by without their paying him and there was a lot of trouble, my father resigned. He then started a store but I went on in a school where an uncle of mine, a brother of my father’s, was a professor. This uncle, however, didn’t take much interest in my learning so I quit school and studied at home and helped my father in the store. My father was very strict. He would hardly let us go out on the street. I had two brothers and two sisters. My mother died last year. I was here at that time, and although I would have liked to have gone back, I couldn’t because I only had $24.00 saved in the bank. I had just got back to Phoenix and that money wouldn’t have been enough to even get to El Paso. Well, as I was telling you, when I was about twenty I decided to leave home and come here. I waited one day until my father went out and then I took money out of the strong box, gold coins especially. I took out enough to take me to San Antonio and took the train for Nuevo Laredo. I crossed the border there. I had no trouble, although it was the first time I had come. I paid my $8.00, passed my examination, then changed my Mexican coins for American money and went to San Antonio, Texas. When I arrived there I looked for work but couldn’t find any so that I went to the agency of renganches and contracted to work. They said that it was to go and work on the traque. I didn’t know what that was but I contracted to work because my money was giving out. I only had three dollars left. I gave one to the renganchista, and he then took me with a lot of Mexicans to a railroad camp. I worked all day, but as I wasn’t used to such a heavy kind of work I thought of leaving. I could hardly finish out working that first day, I thought that I was going to die because the work was so hard. At night I asked the boys slyly where Dallas, Texas, was or some other large city and they told me down the tracks and said that if I wanted to go I should catch a freight train and go as a tramp. But I didn’t let them suspect anything but told them I was only fooling. I also asked them how one could get there on foot and they said by following the tracks but that one should be careful and cross the bridges in a hurry so that a train wouldn’t overtake one. In that part of Texas there are many bridges. On the next day, without their noticing it, I left on foot, and went down the tracks. I left at about seven in the morning and reached the outskirts of Dallas at about six in the evening. It was already getting dark and I only had a dollar with me as I hadn’t even gotten my day’s pay. On reaching the outskirts of Dallas I saw a man who seemed to me to be a negro and at the same time a Mexican and I thought of speaking to him. As I didn’t know English I said to myself, if he is a negro he isn’t going to pay any attention to me. Finally I spoke to him in Spanish and it turned out that he was Mexican, although to tell the truth he looked like a negro. I told him how I had come and he said that I could spend the night there in his house. He gave me something to eat and a mattress on which to sleep. On the next day the same man took me to the house of an old man who rented rooms. This old man received me very kindly into his home and gave me a room. When I told him that I didn’t have either money or a job he said that I shouldn’t worry. I could pay him when I had some. I was there about a month without working and the man and his wife, both of them quite old, took as good care of me as though I was paying them. They gave me food, my room, and even cleaned my clothes. They have some children now grown up. Finally I managed to get work laying pipes and I was working for two weeks earning $2.50 a day. Then they laid me off because they said that I wasn’t strong enough for that hard work. I returned to be without work and then a Mexican advised me to look for work in the hotels and restaurants because that fitted me, but I couldn’t find that, because it is necessary to speak English for those jobs. Then I got a job with an electric company. I thought that it was some office work or some decent job of engineering but it turned out that they wanted me to go down into a well with a pick to make it deeper. I think that it was 20 meters deep and I also had to wheel stones. This work was so hard that I could hardly finish the day, for at about four o’clock in the afternoon the foreman wanted me to lift a rock so big that I couldn’t even move it much less lift it. He then said that if I couldn’t do that it was better that I quit so that I asked for my time, and they gave me $2.50. I kept on looking for work and in about three days I found one in a restaurant as “vegetable-man” (peeling vegetables). I stayed there about two months and on account of a Mexican who went to tell the manager that I couldn’t do that work they fired me. Then I went to another restaurant and hotel and there they gave me a job as dish-washer. I was then learning a little English. When they needed a new “vegetable-man” I told the foreman that I could do that work and he gave it to me with an increase in pay. I think that they paid me $45.00 a month and my food. That boss was an American but very good and he told me that he was going to teach me how to do everything so that when anyone was missing I could take their place. He taught me to be a cook and to do all the work of the kitchen, bake, etc. He even increased my pay until I was getting $75.00 a month and my food. By that time I stopped living at the house of the old man of whom I have told you. That was because I don’t like to live at the edges of the town. In the outskirts there are no police nor authorities and one can be assaulted and even killed and no one will notice it. But I have remained very thankful to that old man and I told him that I would always be his friend and would go to visit him. I paid the old man there $4.00 a month but then I found a good friend with whom I took in the pueblo a room for which we paid between the two of us $15.00 a month, $7.50 each. I worked ten hours a day and he did also. My pal was a Mexican and we cared for each other more than brothers. When one didn’t have money the other did and we helped each other in everything. We went on a vacation to San Antonio, Texas, once. I like that city because it is pretty and there are many Mexicans. But wages are very low there and work is very scarce. Once I told my friend that we should go to Mexico but he said not, because he was in love with a girl here who was his sweet-heart. I then told the boss to give me my time. The boss asked me why I wanted to go and if I wanted permission to go he would let me go for two weeks or a month. I then told him that I was going to Mexico to see my people. He answered that if I was going I should know that I always had my job there anytime that I should come back. I then went to Aguascalientes taking a lot of clothes with me and a little money. I went to my home and my parents were very happy. But I found everything different, very dull, and very changed. I no longer wished to stay there but to return to Dallas. Then without my people knowing it I left again leaving all of my clothes for I only brought what I had on and a little money. I came to Ciudad Juarez and from there I went to El Paso without any trouble. There I sent a telegram to my boss in Dallas. He answered saying that my job was ready for me there. I was all ready to go to Dallas when some friends told me that Los Angeles was very pretty, that one could earn a lot of money there and a lot of other things, so that I took the train to Los Angeles. But as I came on the train I got sick and I decided to stay in Phoenix for I was afraid of getting sicker. As soon as I was well I began to look for work. Earlier I didn’t mind being without work for weeks but now I did. I soon found work at a sanatarium of this city, there in the out-skirts. They paid me $65.00 a month and my board and room but I worked more than 10 hours for as soon as a patient came I had to give him water and food and had a lot of trouble. Once a patient got hard-boiled because I was late with the food. It wasn’t my fault for the cook was late. I told him so and he said ‘shut up, Mexican.’ I then called him a ‘son of a viche’ and he said that he was going to ask to have me fired. I told him all right and then went to the doctor and asked him to give me my time. Then I told him what had happened and he told me not to answer the patients, not to pay any attention to them for they were like children or crazy people and said that the reason why we Mexicans don’t get ahead is because we can’t get used to staying in one place. I told him to give me my time and that was all, for I wasn’t used to have anyone shout at me. He gave me my time but he told me that when I wanted to come back he would give me work. Then I came here to the town and got a job again as a ‘vegetable-man’ but when the boss saw that I knew how to cook and everything he raised my pay to $75.00 and put me as a cook together with the other cooks who are Americans or Greeks. I am the only Mexican there is in this hotel. The only thing is that here we don’t have a day off for as there is little business they have few cooks and they can’t substitute very easily. Only once in a while when I ask for rest do they give it to me and put a boy in my place. I began working ten hours but lately they have made it eleven. I don’t mind that so much for the boss likes me a lot. I have more privileges than the others. When he goes out I take charge of the safe and a great many people have told me, and I don’t tell you to flatter myself, that the boss says that I am the best worker he has had there. Besides he gives me tips, one or two dollars a week so that I can go to the movies or wherever I may want. I am waiting until June or July to go to Los Angeles for that is the time when they say there is the most work there. I want to go back to Aguascalientes but only to visit and then come back. I have two wool suits in which to go out on the streets and two pairs of shoes, my felt hat for the winter and I buy a straw one in the summer. I also have trousers and shirts to work in the kitchen with. All told I live very happily here. I don’t lack anything and I am free. I write very often to my family, especially to a sister of mine who is the one who cares for me most. I send her money once in a while and I also have my savings in the bank for it is better to be foresighted. I would also like to quit being a cook and enter the theatre for I think I could work as an artist singing and dancing. That is my ambition, to be an artist.

“I have learned a little English on account of all that I have heard and because I have happened to always work with Americans and hearing and speaking English all day but I have never gone to school. I would like to take a course by correspondence but I have never done it out of lazyness. A short time ago I received a letter from a friend of mine in Dallas telling me that he had married and that I should go there to live with him and he would get me a girl so that I wouldn’t be alone. I am not thinking of getting married now, but if I ever marry it will be with a Mexican even though she be born in the United States. I don’t think that an American can care for one like one of one’s own blood, nevertheless to have a good time I like the Americans because they are cleaner. I have been with American prostitutes and nothing has ever happened to me but the other day I went to a Mexican and I got sick with gonnorea and other social diseases and had to go to the doctor. I won’t go back to the Mexicans, it is better for me to go to the Americans.

“I am Catholic and although I almost never go to Mass or pray, I do keep Holy Thursday and Friday ever year for I am accustomed to do that. At home I was very Catholic but that was on account of my parents.

“I haven’t learned to cook Mexican style. I only cook American style and I have gotten used to eating American food. Only when I am hungry for it do I go to eat Mexican style in some restaurant in this city. In one of those restaurants I have my sweet-heart, her mother is the proprietor, my sweetheart is the waitress but she is very pretty. She is from here in Arizona but she is Mexican.” …

CARLOS IBÁÑEZ

Sr. Carlos Ibáñez, native of San Francisco, Zacatecas, says that he has lived in this country for more than twenty-five consecutive years. Ibáñez is mestizo, markedly Indian.

“I came to this country more than twenty-five years ago. My object, like that of all those who come here, was to seek a fortune; I wanted to work hard in order to see if I could get something together for old age. But although I have had good opportunities I haven’t been able to do what I wanted for various reasons, but very especially on account of my weakness for women. In Zacatecas, at the time when I left there, I worked as a peon in San Francisco and scarcely earned my food and a few cents daily. It was so little that I don’t even remember how much it was. For that reason I decided to leave in search of fortune and I came to California. After living here for a while I went to work in the beet fields, in the railroad tracks, and at other jobs from one place to another until finally I came back to this city [Los Angeles] because here it isn’t as hot nor as cold as in other places. At times I have had work and at other times I haven’t. When I have had work I have saved a little of my wages in order to meet the situations when I have been without work. I haven’t wanted to get married because the truth is I don’t like the system of the women here. They are very unrestrained. They are the ones who control their husband and I nor any other Mexican won’t stand for that. We are rebels and our blood is very hot, and in this country a man who opposes his wife loses her and even his wages if he isn’t careful, for the laws and the authorities are on the side of the woman. Now the Mexican women who come here also take advantage of the laws and want to be like the American women. That is why I have thought it better not to marry; and if I do get married some day it will be in Mexico.

“I have never had any trouble in any of the jobs I have had since I have been in the United States. No one has shown prejudice against me. I have been treated like the other Americans. I have rather to complain against the ‘Raza’ who get very bad as soon as they get to this country, very egotistical and don’t want to give the others a chance. That is why they say that ‘the wedge in order to tighten must be of the same wood.’ Here in this country the Mexican has the place which he earns for himself. It is plain that if one doesn’t try to get a good job and is subservient the others will do with one as they please. I have never had anything bad happen to me. I have lived in peace with everyone.

“I would rather cut my throat before changing my Mexican nationality. I prefer to lose with Mexico than to win with the United States. My country is before everything else and although it has been many years since I have gone back I am only waiting until conditions get better, until there is absolute peace before I go back. I haven’t lost hope of spending my last days in my own country.

“I am a Catholic, for that is the religion which my fathers taught me, but I hardly ever go to Mass or pray because I have forgotten. I used to pray before going to bed, but little by little I kept forgetting. I don’t believe in witches or in the evil eye and other such things. I don’t even know if there are that kind of people here in California. Perhaps there are among the Mexicans but it is very rare, while over there in Zacatecas, in my town there were many and there are many witches almost all over Mexico.

“I have learned a little English especially at my work. I do anything and work hard when there is work. It is certain that I live better here than in Mexico, but I wouldn’t change my citizenship on that account for anything in the world.

“I like music to dance with and especially the American music because one can dance very well with the jazz music. I know almost all the Mexican dance halls in this city and I go to all of them to have a good time.

“I eat Mexican style, American, Italian and every style. Sometimes I go to Mexican restaurants, other times I go to one of the American ones and so on. I eat when I am hungry and it doesn’t make any difference to me what it is. Of course I like the Mexican food best, tamales and frijoles, enchiladas and other dishes. But as I have said food doesn’t make any difference to me, it is the same to me whether it is of one style or another for it all ends up in the stomach and gets mixed up there.

“I like everything about this country, the business, the movies, driving around, the work too, because one can make good money. The only thing that I don’t like, as I have said before, is the way the women carry on, so that they are the ones who boss the men and I think that he who lets himself be bossed by a woman isn’t a man.” …

SRA. PONCE

Sra. Ponce is originally from a humble class. Her outward appearance and speech have not altered. Her house has a typical appearance, with pictures of the heroes Hidalgo and Juarez, a Virgin of Guadalupe, a Mexican flag, typical multicolored advertisements and gourds from Michoacan on the walls.

“I came to the United States fourteen years ago. We first came to San Antonio and were there four days. It is a very Mexican city, for they even sell tamales in the parks as they do in Mexico. My husband established a small restaurant and he also worked as a painter. But he was not like those of this country who only do one thing, whether it be painting pictures, walls or signs. My husband was like the painters of Mexico who do all of them. That was why he didn’t want to work here as a painter and preferred to give his time to our restaurant.

“I am Catholic. I don’t go to confession, but I go when I can to the church near here, which is French, on Saturdays. I no longer feel about those things as I did in Mexico. I am from Puebla, and there the people prayed in the morning to give thanks for breakfast, at noon for dinner and at night for supper, and they often beat themselves on the breast. Since something happened to me in Mexico I haven’t gone to confession myself. Just imagine, I was about nineteen when I was married and my husband was sixty-six. I respected him but I didn’t love him. His two former wives had died. My husband didn’t know what was the matter with me and he gave me a card so that I would go to a priest and confess myself. I went to confession and told the priest that I didn’t love my husband. The poor fool went and told my husband the next day and he got angry. We then came to the United States. That is why I no longer go to confession. My husband was very jealous and didn’t want me to go out on the street, so that in the fourteen years that I was here I only went out twice, until a short time ago, when he died at an age of more than eighty. He was very strong and the Porto-Rican doctor who was taking care of him and who had known him since we had come here, would tell him jokingly that since he had had three children by me at his advanced age he was going to exhibit him in a park as a curiosity. He thought that a great joke. I always remember my Mexico but I haven’t wanted to go back, although the Consul offered to help me. I want my children to finish their education here and after that if they want to take me to Mexico, I will go. The children are in school and they talk English and Spanish, for they hear me and the other Mexicans and others who speak Spanish, but they speak it incorrectly. I speak very little English. I can only make myself understood enough to buy things. I import Mexican products from San Antonio and El Paso.

“The mole which I make is not as hot as it would be made in Mexico because my customers wouldn’t like it. But there are many Mexicans who ask for very hot sauce. I make the tortillas by hand, out of corn.

“I have a son by a former marriage who is a musician. Although I expect to stay here you see that I have sarapes and the Virgin of Guadalupe. The children are Protestant now.” …

ANASTACIO TORRES

He is white, a native of Leon, Guanajuato.

“I was about seventeen years old, in 1911, when I came to the United States with my brother-in-law. I had worked until then as a clerk in a small store in my home town and also knew something about farm work. My brother-in-law managed to get me across the border without much trouble. We crossed the border at Ciudad Juarez and when we got to El Paso, Texas, we signed ourselves up for work in Kansas. We first went to work on the railroad and they paid us there $1.35 for nine hours of work a day. As that work was very hard I got a job in a packing house where I began by earning $1.25 a day for eight hours work but I got to earning as much as $2.00 when the foreman saw that I was intelligent and that I was very careful about my work. They almost always paid me a cent or two more an hour than my companions and as I was intelligent they didn’t give me the hardest jobs.

“I was educated in a Catholic school and if it hadn’t been that my mother was poor, I might perhaps have been a doctor or a lawyer, for I was one of the most advanced in the school. I even learned how to help to say mass although that has hardly helped me in any way in this country. I keep on being Catholic although I don’t go to church very often. I was married to a girl from La Piedad, Michoacan, in Kansas City. She died there after we had been married about a year, leaving our little son. While working in the packing plant I broke my leg and then I wanted to collect damages but I wasn’t able to. I was thinking of going to ask the Mexican Consul there to help me but some countrymen told me not to go to that Consul because he didn’t help anybody. At about that time the time of the Great War came and they gave me a war registry questionnaire. They wanted me to go to the war with the American army but I told them that I wasn’t an American. They then asked me why I lived in this country and they kept on trying to persuade me. I told them that I had a son and finally, so that they wouldn’t keep on bothering me, I went to California where a brother of mine was. I worked for a long time in California and then I did register for the draft, but at the same time declaring that I was a Mexican citizen and that I wasn’t willing to change my citizenship. I was in the Imperial Valley, in Calipatria. I worked there first as a laborer with some Japanese. As they are very good and intelligent they showed me how to run all the agricultural implements, a thing which I learned easily with my intelligence. About the end of 1918 I went to Ciudad Juarez for my sister and her children. My father also came with her. Then we went to Calipatria and the whole family of us engaged in cotton picking. They paid very well at that time. They paid us $2.00 or $1.75 for every 100 pounds of cotton which we picked and as all of the family picked we managed to make a good amount every day. When the cotton crop of 1919 was finished we went to Los Angeles and then I got a job as a laborer with a paper manufacturing company. They paid me $3.40 a day for eight hours work. I was at that work for some time and then returned to the Imperial Valley for lemon picking. They paid me $3.00 a day for eight hours work. I became acquainted with a young lady in the Valley from San Francisco del Rincon, Guanajuato, and was married to her. This was my second marriage. In 1921 a Japanese friend for whom I was working as a laborer told me to keep the farm, for he was going to go soon. The owner of the land who was an American furnished the land, the water and the seeds, and we went on halves on the other expenses. Half of the crop was his and half mine. The first planting that I made was of 13 acres of lettuce. I also planted squash and tomatoes. We did very well on those for the crops turned out first class. I don’t have anything to say against the Japanese for they have been very good people to me. They showed me how to use a plow, the cultivator, the disc and the planting machines and they have been my best bosses. Neither can I complain of the Americans, for in Kansas City when I was working in the packing plant, as well as in Los Angeles and wherever I have been and have worked with them they have treated me well.

“Afterwards, encouraged by the first good crop that I got, I rented forty acres of land at $30 a year for each acre. I had to furnish the water and the seed and this time things went bad for me. The crop wasn’t any good, the seed was lost and I had to go and look for work elsewhere. I went from one place to another working in different ways. At times I earned $ 2.00 a day and at others as much as $4.00. Recently I had a job as a gardener in Beverly Hills. I was very well there, for they paid me $4.00 a day for taking care of the garden. I also had a little piece of land on which I could plant vegetables, which also brought in something. But one day they told me that as I wasn’t an American citizen they were going to take away my job and put an American in my place. Then I went back to cultivating some land with an American. I planted forty acres again on halves. The crops turned out well, but the American took the products to a packing house which went bankrupt, so my partner and I were left without anything.

“I believe in God, but I have my doubts, for I was convinced in the Catholic school that all those beliefs are useless. They exploit the poor man anyway and steal his work.”

He has had four children by his second wife, so that he has five children in all. He has baptized all of them according to what he says. He says that his wife is and isn’t a Catholic, for she doesn’t go to church very often nor does she have any saints in the house. Referring to his first days in school he says:

“I might perhaps have been a lawyer or a doctor if my parents had even sent me to a government school. But the school where I was was Catholic and they had us praying all day. As I was the most advanced in the class, for I had learned to read in less than a year, the parish priest taught me how to say Mass. I was getting big then and saw that they didn’t do anything but pray in the school so I once asked the teacher to show me something about numbers so that I could keep accounts. I was then given some multiplication, which was foolish, for I couldn’t even add. I then told the teacher that perhaps he himself couldn’t do that multiplication and for that reason I stopped going to school.

“I don’t have anything against the pochos, but the truth is that although they are Mexicans, for they are of our own blood because their parents were Mexicans, they pretend that they are Americans. They only want to talk in English and they speak Spanish very poorly. That is why I don’t like them.” …

SOLEDAD SANDOVAL

I have lived in El Paso for nine years. “I am a native of Parral, Chihuahua. My family was one of the most well-to-do there. My parents had several pieces of property and mining interests and had a certain amount of money. I was in a secondary school, when the revolution of 1911 began. In spite of the revolution at first everything in our town went on well, in peace. There was work for everyone and business prospered. Then the famous Pancho Villa began his campaign, beginning by going to Parral. As he knew that people with money were living there he began to impose forced loans. Villa visited the city often with the sole purpose of securing loans and more loans until finally tired of these abuses many of the men of Parral, among them the men of our family, decided to join a federal army to fight Villa. They went to Ciudad Juarez and stayed there for some time, and then on account of the same revolution they had to go to El Paso, Texas. Finding themselves there alone they decided to send for their families and we, four sisters, came with our mother.

“We established ourselves in El Paso. I first studied English a little and then worked. I was employed by a Mexican newspaper which was published in this city and then on account of my work I got to be manager of that publication.

“I had a sweetheart in Mexico City. He was an aviator. He came here to El Paso and we were married in 1920. As soon as we were married we went to Mexico City to live with the parents of my husband.

“I ought to first say that I had a real desire to know the capital of our country and in general all of the interior. I was Popularity Queen several times in Ciudad Juarez and I liked to dance a lot. I have enjoyed myself a lot but I have never been able to accustom myself to the flapperism of this side [of the Border], like many girls of the middle and poor classes of Mexico who no sooner get here than they immediately turn flappers. Many of them say bad things about our country and don’t want to speak Spanish.

“I was very happy in Mexico with my husband, enjoying all kinds of comforts and well being and the love of the parents of my husband who loved me as much as they did him, when my husband decided to make an acrobatic trip across the Republic. But a terrible accident occurred in which my husband was killed. He was making acrobatic maneuvers in the plane which they were piloting when something went wrong with the apparatus, and my husband was killed. I kept on living for some time with my parents-in-law who loved me more and more each day, but no longer finding any reason for living in Mexico I came to the home of my parents.

“I live with my family like a young unmarried lady, as if I was a child, and to tell the truth I feel that I lack something, and that is the love of my husband. It seems to me an irony of fate that I was left a widow two years after marrying and in my youth.

“In order to overcome my heart-aches somewhat, I decided to work and I am now working with a newspaper in this city. I translate from English the most important notices for the paper. At times I myself take charge of the type setting, also see to it that the paper circulates widely. I don’t really have any definite work but I do everything that I can so that the publication will grow in strength and importance.

“As I was educated in Catholicism I am Catholic but I am tolerant not fanatic. What is more, as a result of my reading and general studies I believe only in an all powerful Being, God. I wouldn’t attempt to define it, but I know that there is something superior to us which rules the destiny of mankind and of the universe.

“I pray every night. It doesn’t matter that I have gone to some festival or that I have danced, I pray the evening rosary, a litany and other prayers before going to bed. I pray for my husband, not because I believe that his soul is suffering but for a certain spiritual feeling which draws me near to him and our happy past; that is the only reason why I pray.

“I don’t believe in the sanctity or in the purity of the priests, or that they are invested with super-human powers. To me they are men like all the rest. That is why I don’t pay any attention to their preachings.

“I make confession once in a while, but not because I have committed sins—I don’t believe that I have any—but to talk with an intelligent man such as the priest to whom I make confession. When I go to him in the confessional the priest doesn’t know me. If he asks me of what sins I wish to accuse myself I say “Father, I haven’t killed, or robbed, or spoken ill of my neighbor, and I accuse myself of all the other sins for I am a woman, or rather, a human being.” Then I talk for a long time with the priest, if he lets me, always trying to keep him from knowing me. I unbosom all my troubles to him and tell all that which I can’t tell my parents nor my friends, so that I talk in a shrine where everything that I say stays. After one of those confessions I am happy, as if I had been freed from a load.

“When I was married I didn’t confess myself for I then had a husband to whom I could tell all that spiritually tortured me or that bothered me in some way.

“In regards to my life in this country I ought to say that I haven’t gone out of El Paso. Even though I have wished to visit other cities it is very hard for me to do so, for if I went alone I would meet the opposition of my parents and my family on the one hand and on the other, one is always rather weak to struggle for one’s living alone. I also believe that woman was made for the home and for nothing more than that.

“I can’t adapt myself to certain customs of this country. To tell the truth I am even opposed to its tendencies of dominion and of power. It wouldn’t bother me much to attack it hard.” …

ELISA SILVA

Elisa Silva is from Mazatlan, Sinaloa, she is white, she has lived in the United States for three years with her family.

“I am twenty-three years old. I was married in Mazatlan when I was seventeen. My husband was an employee of a business house in the port but he treated me very badly and even my own mother advised me to get a divorce. A short time after I was divorced my father died. Then my mother, my two sisters and I decided to come to the United States. As we had been told that there were good opportunities for earning money in Los Angeles, working as extras in the movies and in other ways, we sold our belongings and with the little which our father had left us we came to this place, entering first at Nogales, Arizona. From the time we entered I noticed a change in everything, in customs, and so forth, but I believed that I would soon become acclimated and be able to adjust myself to these customs. When we got to Los Angeles we rented a furnished apartment and there my mother took charge of fixing everything up for us. My sisters and I decided to look for work at once. One of my sisters, the oldest, who knew how to sew well, found work at once in the house of a Mexican woman doing sewing. My mother then decided that my youngest sister had better go to school and that I should also work in order to help out with the household expenses and with the education of my sister. As I didn’t even know how to sew or anything and as I don’t know English I found it hard to find work, much as I looked. As we had to earn something, a girl friend of mine, also a Mexican, from Sonora, advised me to go to a dance-hall. After consulting with my mother and my sisters I decided to come and work here every night dancing. My work consists of dancing as much as I can with everyone who comes. At the beginning I didn’t like this work because I had to dance with anyone, but I have finally gotten used to it and now I don’t care, because I do it in order to earn my living. Generally I manage to make from $20.00 to $30.00 a week, for we get half of what is charged for each dance. Each dance is worth ten cents so that if I dance, for example, fifty dances in a night I earn $2.50. Since the dances are short, ten cents being charged for just going around the ball-room, one can dance as many as a hundred. It all depends on how many men come who want to dance. Besides there are some who will give you a present of a dollar or two. This work is what suits me best for I don’t need to know any English here. It is true that at times I get a desire to look for another job, because I get very tired. One has to come at 7.30 in the evening and one goes at 12.30, and sometimes at I in the morning. One leaves almost dead on Saturdays because many Mexican people come from the nearby towns and they dance and dance with one all night. In Mexico this work might perhaps not be considered respectable, but I don’t lose anything here by doing it. It is true that some men at times make propositions to me which are insulting, but everything is fixed by just telling them no. If they insist one can have them taken out of the hall by the police. One man whom I liked a lot here in the hail deceived me once. He was a Mexican. But since that time it hasn’t happened to me again. My mother takes a lot of care of me so that I won’t make any bad steps. My sisters do the same.

“Of the customs of this country I only like the ones about work. The others aren’t anything compared to those of Mexico. There the people are kinder than they are here, less ambitious about money. I shall never really like living this way, besides since I don’t know English and believe that it won’t be so easy for me to learn it, I don’t believe I will ever be able to adjust myself to this country. I don’t have time to study English, nor do I like it.

“Life, to be sure, is easier here because one can buy so many things on credit and cheaper than in Mexico. But I don’t know what it is that I don’t like. My youngest sister, who is in a business college learning English, says that she likes this city a lot and the United States as a whole and that if we go to Mazatlan she will stay here working. She is thinking of learning typewriting and stenography, both in English and in Spanish, so as to work in some American business, which will pay her well.

“I don’t suffer in the matter of food, for my mother cooks at home as if we were in Mexico. There are some dishes which are different but we generally eat Mexican style and rice and beans are almost never lacking from our table.

“I am a Catholic, but I almost never go to church. Sometimes before coming to the dance hall I go to church, even if it only be to pray a little. I think that I have only confessed myself some four times in my life. My mother is very Catholic. She, and my younger sister also, go to mass every Sunday. At home we have a large image of the heart of Jesus and my sisters pray to it at night.

“I don’t think of remarrying because I am disillusioned about men, but perhaps if some day I should find one who would really care for me I would love him a lot. If I do marry some day it would be with a Mexican. The Americans are very dull and very stupid. They let the women boss them. I would rather marry an American than a pocho, however.” …

SRA. ANTONIA VILLAMIL DE ARTHUR

This woman is a native of a little town near Zamora, Michoacan. She has lived in Arizona for more than thirteen years. She is married to an American.

“My mother was married very young. She must have been about twelve years old. This was due to the fact that her step-mother abused her a good deal. Three years after she was married, that is when she was about fifteen years old, I was born. My father died when I was four years of age so that I can say I never got to know him. My mother had several pieces of property in Zamora, which my father had left her, but we did not remain there but went about to different parts of the state until we settled permanently in Morelia. I finished growing up there and went to school there. I had some aunts there and some other relatives. I was left an orphan there, for my mother died when I was about fifteen. She left me some money with which I established a little store and this enabled me to live comfortably without worrying or working very much. Shortly after reaching the age of fifteen I was married. After six or seven years of married life I was left a widow with one child. My husband when he died left me several properties, among which were two little houses which I still retain and which shall some day be my son’s. He is already quite grown up and is in Los Angeles now. It has been about fifteen years since I have seen him. I lived in Morelia until 1910. When the revolution began I went to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. There I lived with a family who were friends of mine. This family afterwards came to Texas, first to San Antonio and afterwards to other places, until we got to El Paso. We were only sight-seeing and I had left my son in the care of a sister of mine. In El Paso I became acquainted with Arthur who is now my husband. At that time I returned to Morelia. Arthur went there too, and we were married. Then we came right back to Phoenix. Here he continued for a time his work on the railroad, but later he became a cook in a restaurant. He knows how to cook very well. Then he left this work and we established a fruit and drink stand. We remained a number of years with this business for we made money at it. Then we started a grocery store and engaged in some other business but just lately we bought this hotel. [They have bought the furnishings, the business rights, etc., but not the building.] The two of us take care of it. In the morning we clean all the rooms, make the beds, and do all the work that there is to do in a hotel. My husband takes charge of cooking the food for the two of us, I make the purchases and he cooks. At times he cooks Mexican food but almost always, as it is so warm here, we prefer to eat vegetables for they are more healthful. Sometimes we go to the movies at night. I go mostly because my husband doesn’t like the movies and the films hurt his eyes. When I don’t have anything to do I read some Spanish novels because often months and months go by when I don’t speak the language. Only Americans come to the hotel and they all speak English. It is true that my husband speaks Spanish. If he hadn’t spoken it I wouldn’t have married him but he no longer likes to talk it and it seems as though he was forgetting it. I hardly ever read any Mexican newspapers. We only get the morning daily in English. Once in a while some fellow countryman comes here to the hotel, as you have, and then I take real pleasure in speaking the language. We have a phonograph with several Mexican pieces, ‘La Golondrina,’ ‘Entrada a los Toros,’ ‘Perjura’ and others which are very pretty so that even the Americans like to hear them a lot. Since I have been in this country so long I have learned to speak English a little, to read it and to understand it. I understand it better than I can speak it but I have to speak it anyway in order to wait on those who come to the hotel. I used to know how to sing a lot in Spanish but I am forgetting that for I hardly even have time to sing. I am now reading a novel El Suplicio de una Madre which I like a lot. My husband doesn’t know that I have two pieces of property in Zamora because I haven’t told him. As he is a foreigner one can’t help but be a little suspicious of him. Anyway, as my first husband left me that property I am going to leave it to my son because they really belong to him. An aunt is now taking care of them. She rents them and keeps the rent, for I have told her to do so. What is bad is that the little houses are hardly taken any care of and they are going to pieces. Anyway I am going to give them to my son when he is a little bit older. It has been many years, about fourteen, since I have seen my son because I haven’t seen him since I was married. He grew up gradually and I know that he learned the mechanic’s or carpenter’s trade in some way. He came with some friends to the United States. It seems to me that he has been in Chicago and other large cities of this country but now he is in Los Angeles, for he has written me from there. I have hopes of seeing him soon for he has said that he is coming to see me. I wish that he would come with all my heart. I have no reason to complain of my husband, only he is blunt once in a while and very serious, as all Americans are. [By what the interviewer has seen, Mr. Arthur treats his wife with rudeness and the latter suffers this with patience as is the custom with Spanish-American women.] I live very happily with him, although at times we have our misunderstandings, for the truth is one can’t ever make one’s self understood as one can with a Mexican. I like everything that there is in this country, the ease with which one can go around alone, can go to the movies, and so on. I think that it would be hard for me to go back to the customs of Mexico. Some six or seven years ago I went to visit in Morelia. My uncle found me very much changed. I remember that one night we went alone to the movies and we were going home in the darkness when a man frightened us. I was quite shocked and always lived in fear, for nothing but shots and revolutions were talked about. My aunt said that ‘they must be cowards in the United States for they get scared at nothing’ and that I had made myself like the Americans ‘in all my ways.’ The truth is that I felt very queer there, for even to go to the toilet I asked to be accompanied. The toilets there are almost always outside and far from the house, and the same is true of the bath. There are many inconveniences. Here I have gotten used to going out alone and to not being afraid of anyone. But here it is very different. Men respect women and the police always watch everything. Almost always when I go to the movies at night my husband leaves me at the door of the theatre and waits there for me at the time when he figures the show is over. The last time he didn’t come to meet me so I went alone to the corner to wait for the streetcar, for we were then living rather far away. A man went by and stopping very slowly asked me if I wanted a ride. I acted as though I hadn’t even seen him. In a moment a policeman came up and asked if I knew the man in the automobile and I told him that I didn’t. He then asked me if he had said anything to me and I said that he had invited me for a ride. He then went to arrest him but the man in the automobile had gone out of sight. On Sunday mornings I go to the Church to Mass, for I am Catholic and I like to carry out the orders of the Holy Mother Church. The only thing that I hardly ever do is to confess. My husband doesn’t even like me to do that. I always pray at night before going to bed. I think that every good Christian ought to do that. In Mexico I was more Catholic than here but there is more religion there, more churches and, above all, fewer things to do. I get very tired here from working all day and at night I read and go to bed at about twelve, after saying my prayers. I get up at 5 in the morning, pray, and then lie down a little while longer until six or seven to begin work again. That is my life and the way I do. The people who live in the hotel are the only friends I have here.”

Fats Waller, “Black and Blue,” 1929

The great trumpet player and singer Louis Armstrong (1901–1972) immortalized the Fats Waller song (words by Andy Razaf) “Black and Blue,” which he recorded in 1929. It is impossible to understand the impact of the song without hearing Armstrong sing it, but the words below will convey at least a sense of its pathos and irony. In one respect “Black and Blue” was a signature tune for Armstrong, who had a unique ability to reject racial prejudice through performances that captivated both white and black audiences.

Source: “Black and Blue” (recorded by Louis Armstrong, 1929; written by Fats Waller).

Cold empty bed
Springs hard as lead
Feel like old Ned
Wished I was dead,
What did I do
To be so black and blue?

Even the mouse
Ran from the house
They laugh at you
And scorn you too
What did I do
To be so black and blue?

I’m white inside
That don’t help my case
Cause I can’t hide
what is in my face

How would it end?
Ain’t got a friend
My only sin
Is in my skin
What did I do
To be so black and blue?