type, who straightway
proceeded to demoralize Hartford. The blunder was speedily detected
and the employers came back to New York, seeking some agency which
might assist them in the solution of their problem. Importuned for
help, the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes supplied
these planters with respectable southern blacks who met this unusual
demand for labor in Connecticut. Later, moreover, it appeared that on
the threshold of an unusually promising year the Poles, Lithuanians
and Czechs, formerly employed in the fields, were dwindling in number
and there was not at hand the usual supply from which their workers
were recruited. A large number of these foreigners had been called
back to their fatherland to engage in the World War.

In January of 1916, therefore, the tobacco growers of Connecticut met
in conference to give this question serious consideration. Mr. Floyd,
the Manager of the Continental Tobacco Corporation, offered a solution
for this difficult problem through the further importation of negro
labor. The response to this suggestion was not immediate, because New
England had never had large experience with negro labor. An intense
interest in the experiment, however, was aroused through a number of
men with connections in the South. It was decided that the National
League on Urban Conditions among Negroes, with headquarters in New
York City, should further assist in securing laborers. Because of the
seasonal character of the work, an effort was made to get students
from the southern schools by advancing transportation. The _New York
News_, a negro weekly, says of this conference:

Thus was born, right in the heart of Yankee Land, the first
significant move to supplant foreign labor with native labor,
a step which has resulted in one of the biggest upheavals in
the North incident to the European war, which has already been
a boon to the colored American, improving his economic status
and putting thousands of dollars into his pockets.[56]

The employers of the North felt justified in bringing about a more
equitable distribution of the available labor supply in America.
Discussing the labor situation before a conference in New York, Mr.
E.J. Traily, Jr., of the Erie Railroad said:

The Erie Railroad has employed a large number of the negro
migrants and we are still in need of more because of the
abnormal state of labor conditions in this part of the
c