toward work, he said, "How in the
world can you expect a man to work faithfully all day long for fifty
cents?"[35]

Among the important stimuli were the rumors in circulation. When a
community is wrought up, it is less difficult to believe remarkable
tales. To persons beyond the influence of this excitement it is
somewhat difficult to conceive how the rumor that the Germans were on
their way through Texas to take the southern States could have been
believed. And yet it is reported that this extravagant fiction was
taken seriously in some quarters. On the outskirts of Meridian,
Mississippi, a band of gypsies was encamped. The rumor gained
circulation that the Indians were coming back to retake their
land lost years ago. It was further rumored that the United States
Government was beginning a scheme to transport all negroes from
the South to break up the Black Belt. Passed from mouth to mouth,
unrestrainedly these reports became verities.

It was further asserted on the word and honor "of one in position
to know" that the Chicago packing houses needed and would get fifty
thousand negroes before the end of the year. One explanation of the
belief that the South was overrun with labor agents was the fact
that every strange face came to be recognized as a man from the North
looking for laborers. If he denied it, they simply thought he was
concealing his identity from the police, and if he said nothing,
his silence was regarded as sufficient affirmation. Hundreds of
disappointments are to be traced to the rumor that a train would leave
on a certain date. Hundreds would come to the station prepared to
leave and, when no agent appeared, purchased their own tickets.

The questions of wages and privileges were grossly featured. Some men,
on being questioned, supposed that it was possible for every common
laborer to receive from $4 to $10 a day, and that $50 a week was not
an unusual wage. The strength of this belief has been remarked by
several social agencies in the North which attempted to supply the
immigrants with work. The actual wages paid, though much in excess of
those they had been receiving, were often disappointing. Similarly
in the matter of privilege and "rights" it was later revealed that
unbounded liberty was not to be found in the North. The singular cases
of misconduct, against which the more sober minded preached, possibly
had their root in the beautiful and one-sided pictures of the North
which came to the S