Ellis Island at
the rate of more than a million a year. The usurpation here brought
no clash, for the number of negroes in the North scarcely equalled a
year's immigration. From the ranks of unskilled labor, accordingly,
they were effectively debarred, being used occasionally, and to their
own detriment, as strike breakers and forced to receive smaller wages
and to make more enemies. From the field of skilled labor they have
been similarly debarred by the labor unions.

The labor unions have felt that they had a good case against the negro
workman. The complaints most commonly made are that he could be too
easily used as a strike breaker and that he lacked interest in
the trade union movement. As a matter of fact, both are true. An
explanation of this attitude at the same time brings out another
barrier opposed by the North to the free access of negroes to trades.
Considerable wavering has characterized the attitude of the trade
unions toward negro labor. The complexity of their organization
makes it difficult to place any responsibility directly for their
shortcomings. The fact remains, however, that despite the declaration
of the constitution of the federated body that no distinction shall
be made on account of sex, color or creed, negroes have been
systematically debarred from membership in a great number of labor
bodies. Even where there has been no express prohibition in the
constitution of local organizations the _disposition_ to exclude
them has been just as effective. Refused membership, they have easily
become strike breakers. The indifference on the part of negroes to the
labor movement, however, may well be attributed also to ignorance of
its benefits. In a number of cases separate organizations have been
granted them.

With the foreign immigration silently crowding him back into the
South, the labor unions, the prejudices of his white fellow workman
and the paucity of his number making him ineffective as a competitor,
driving him from the door of the factory and workshop, the negro
workman, whatever his qualifications, was prior to 1914 forced to
enter the field of domestic service in the North and farming in the
South. The conditions of livelihood in both sections kept him rigidly
restricted to this limited economic sphere. In 1910 the total number
of negroes ten years of age and over gainfully occupied in the United
States was 5,192,535 or 71 per cent of the total number of negroes ten
years of age and