e an appeal in
behalf of the thoroughly clean city, knowing that since the germ does
not draw the color line, a city can not be kept clean as long as a
substantial portion of its citizens are crowded into one of its oldest
and least desirable parts, neglected by the city and avoided by the
whites. Doing now what science has hitherto failed to accomplish, this
peculiar economic need of the negro in the South has brought about
unusual changes in the appearance of southern cities. Darkened
portions of urban districts have been lighted; streets in need of
improvement have been paved; the water, light and gas systems have
been extended to negro quarters and play grounds and parks have been
provided for their amusement.

No less important has been the effect of the migration on the southern
land tenure and the credit system, the very heart of the trouble in
that section. For generations the negroes have borne it grievously
that it has been difficult to obtain land for cultivation other than
by paying exorbitant rents or giving their landlords an unusually
large share of the crops. They have been further handicapped by the
necessity of depending on such landlords to supply them with food and
clothing at such exorbitant prices that their portion of the return
from their labor has been usually exhausted before harvesting the
crops. Cheated thus in the making of their contracts and in purchasing
necessities, they have been but the prey of sharks and harpies bent
upon keeping them in a state scarcely better than that of slavery.
Southerners of foresight have, therefore, severely criticized this
custom and, in a measure, have contributed to its decline. The press
and the pulpit of the South are now urging the planters to abolish
this system that the negroes may enjoy the fruits of their own labor.
It is largely because of these urgent appeals in behalf of fair play,
during the economic upheaval, that this legalized robbery is losing
its hold in the South.

Recently welfare work among negroes has become a matter of much
concern to the industries of the South in view of the exceptional
efforts made along this line in the North. At the very beginning of
the migration the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes
pointed out that firms wishing to retain negro laborers and to
have them become efficient must give special attention to welfare
work.[101] A considerable number of firms employing negro laborers
in the North have u