shows that the increase in the Negro population of
Cincinnati during the preceding decade was 9,987 and that of Chicago
65,491.

Notwithstanding this, these sections were certainly much gratified at
this influx of Negroes, because it was meeting the unprecedented
demand for labor. At this time the Negroes were sorely needed for
economic purposes, and nothing was done to obstruct their coming in.
That this was the case the following statement will show: "To-day the
shutting down of immigration, due to the war," said _The New
Republic_, "has created just such a demand for the Negroes. Colored
men who formerly loafed on street corners are now regularly employed.
Negro girls who found it once difficult to obtain good jobs at
domestic service have leaped into popularity. The market for labor has
taken up all the slack. There is a demand for all, for skilled
workers, unskilled, semi-employables, Negroes. The employment agencies
cannot meet the demand. Construction camps which formerly relied on
Italian or Polish laborers now seek to secure an alternative supply of
Negroes. Formerly the big contractor in the North could pick a few
hunkies from a long line of eager applicants for work. He could get
Poles, Italians, Greeks, in any number.... To-day he is willing to
take black men, and finds it hard to get even them."[109]

This most unusual demand for labor, coupled with the necessity of
having to be met wholly by thousands of Negroes from the South,
wrought a considerable change in the labor mores of the North. In its
employment of these laborers the North was compelled to adopt a policy
hitherto unknown. On this point let us proceed by referring to the
following testimony. "Until recently," said a contributor to _The
Living Age_, "the Negro in the northern cities was restricted to
certain occupations that are unskilled and outside the range of
organized labor. To-day he is being welcomed on the farms of New
England and the Middle West and in the industrial centers, where
hitherto the employer has not wanted him and the white workman has
regarded him as a dangerous intruder. In Chicago, Cincinnati,
Pittsburgh and many other cities large numbers of Negroes are found in
factories and workshops where until lately the Negro laborer was never
admitted even as a visitor. This is especially true of the iron and
steel works and the factories, while many thousands have been
absorbed by the railroads and street railway companies."[110