the problem of
housing conditions and the other problems incident to a large number
of migrants being within her borders. To assist in caring for the
situation a Negro Welfare League was organized with branches at
various points in the State.

Writing on the situation in New Jersey, a contributor of _The Survey_,
for February 17, 1917, states:

The native negro residents of the city and suburban towns have
been kind and generous in helping the southern stranger. They
have collected money to send numbers back home, and when
the bitter cold weather began they collected and distributed
thousands of garments. Resident negroes have also taken
hundreds of newcomers into their own homes until rooms could
be found for them. But, while different churches and kind
hearted people had been most active in helping individually,
there was no concerted movement to bring all these forces
together until the organization of the Negro Welfare League
of New Jersey. Industries of New Jersey have utterly failed
to provide the housing which would enable their negro help
to live decently and in enough comfort so that while growing
accustomed to their unusual work, they might be stimulated to
become useful and efficient.

In the last two weeks the Negro Welfare Committee, with the
help of an investigation of 120 self-supporting families, all
of whom were found in the worst sections of the city, showed
that 166 adults--only twenty of whom are over forty years of
age--and 134 children, a total of 300 souls, are all crowded
into insanitary dark quarters, averaging four and two-sevenths
persons to a room. These fifty-three families paid a total
rent per month of $415.50, an average of $7.66. The average
wage of these people is $2.60 a day. In not one of the 120
families was there a wage earner making the maximum wage of
$3 and $4 a day. Some of the reports in brief were: "Wife and
children living over a stable. Husband earning $11 a week."
Three families in four rooms, "a little house not fit for a
chicken coop." "A sorry looking house for so much money, $15 a
month; doors off the hinges, water in the cellar, two families
in five rooms." "Indescribable; so dark they must keep the
light burning all day." "This family lives in three rooms on
the second floor of a rickety frame house, built on the side
of a hill