The Negro at Work in New York City Part 9

One of these was a corporation that ran a garage, furnished storage and other care for machines and operated a line of taxicabs, employing from nine to eleven men. Three of the firm members had been employed chauffeurs and thus got the idea and the money to start the firm.

There was storage s.p.a.ce for about 50 cars. One of the proprietors came from Georgia, another from North Carolina. They had a book-keeper and the usual books for a business house. Five Negro owners and about forty white owners were storing cars with them.

Another enterprise was a corporation of undertakers with a board of eight directors, who held nearly all of the stock. In size they had four employees, occupied a floor s.p.a.ce of about 1,200 square feet at a monthly rental of $150. The investments represented about $1,500 in dead-wagon and fixtures and a stock on hand of about $1,000. The gross business was between $9,000 and $10,000 in 1907, the first year of the business; and over $20,000 in 1908. At its organization there were ten corporators who subscribed about $300 each to float the enterprise. It is interesting to note that a hotel-keeper, a minister, three men in other lines of business and the manager of the concern were among these ten.

Two other corporations were printing establishments, each with six original incorporators. One firm did job printing. The other was a publisher of popular songs and has produced several of New York's most popular airs. They had two and ten employees, occupied about 158 and 3,000 square feet of floor s.p.a.ce, respectively. The larger firm had a plant valued at between $4,000 and $5,000, kept several hundred dollars worth of stock on hand and did a gross business of about $15,000 in 1907, and about $17,000 in 1908. The smaller firm had been organized in 1909. The larger had run more than four years. The corporators of the smaller concern included an editor, a messenger, silk-factory employee, and laundry employee; those of the larger, a liquor dealer, two actors and three composers of popular songs.

The four other corporations were real estate firms, a line of business requiring considerable capital and attracting the higher grade of business ability. In these instances, all except one firm was composed of the few original incorporators, making the arrangement only a little removed from a partners.h.i.+p. The one exception was a large concern with a capital stock of over $500,000. The previous occupations of the princ.i.p.al promoters of this company included a lawyer, a pharmacist and two real estate brokers.

The stock of this concern was held by small investors in many parts of the United States. The firm at one time employed over 200 people in and out of New York, and claimed to have done an annual business of over $200,000. At some period in its history it may have done so large a business, but this was probably only for an exceptionally prosperous year. This may have led to too sanguine attempts on the part of the promoters. Because of other poor business methods and bad attempts at investment the enterprise failed in the winter of 1910-11.

Three obvious points are shown by the facts concerning these corporations: First, they were composed of only a few members and therefore were not far removed from large partners.h.i.+ps. This set a large limit to command of capital for there were no large capitalists in New York among Negroes. Second, this form of combining capital and business ability has been tried in a few lines of business only--three in all, if we exclude the garage. Third, as seen in their previous occupations, the promoters were men above the average in ability and of some experience.

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

The significance of the foregoing facts is clearly indicated by the summaries following each set of figures. The road to the conclusions is straight. Turning to the preceding chapters, let us see what conclusions are warranted.

The urban concentration of the Negro is taking place in about the same way as that of the white population. In proportions, it varies only to a small extent from the movement of the whites, save where the conditions and influences are exceptional. The constant general causes influencing the Negro population have been similar to those moving other parts of the population to cities. The divorce from the soil in the sudden breaking down of the plantation regime just after the Civil War and the growth of industrial centers in the South, and the call of higher wages in the North, have been unusually strong influences to concentrate the Negro in the cities. It is with him largely as with other wage-earners: the desire for higher wages and the thought of larger liberty, especially in the North, together with a restlessness under hum-drum, hard rural conditions and a response to the attractions of the city, have had considerable force in bringing him to urban centers. Labor legislation in the South has played its part in the movement.

The growth of the industrial and commercial centers of the South, the larger wages in domestic and personal service in the North, and social and individual causes of concentration bid fair to continue for an indefinite period. The Negro responding to their influence will continue to come in comparatively large numbers to town to stay.

But the Negro's residence in the city offers problems of maladjustment. Although these problems are similar to those of other rural populations that become urban dwellers, it is made more acute because he has greater handicaps due to his previous condition of servitude and to the prejudiced opposition of the white world that surrounds him. His health, intelligence and morals respond to treatment similar to that of other denizens of the city, if only impartial treatment can be secured. Doubtless death-rate and crime-rate have been and are greater than the corresponding rates for the white populations of the same localities, but both crime and disease are a reflection of the urban environment and are solvable by methods similar to those used to remedy such conditions among white people, if prejudiced presuppositions, which conclude without experiment or inquiry that Negroes have innately bad tendencies, give place to open-minded trial and unbiased reason. Snap-shot opinions should be avoided in such serious questions and statesmen, philanthropists and race leaders should study the facts carefully and act accordingly.

The study of the wage-earners among the Negroes of New York City has disclosed conditions and led to conclusions in line with the foregoing inferences. The Negro population was solidly segregated into a few a.s.sembly districts, thereby confining the respectable to the same neighborhoods with the disreputable. This population is made up mainly of young persons and adults of the working period of life, attracted to the city largely from the South and the West Indies, princ.i.p.ally by the thought of better industrial and commercial advantages. Single persons predominate and the percentage of the aged is low. High rents and low incomes force lodgers into the families to disturb normal home life.

From the early days of the Dutch Colony the Negro has had a part in the laboring life of this community. While most of the wage-earners have been engaged in domestic and personal service occupations, figures that are available warrant the inference that the Negro is slowly but surely overcoming the handicaps of inefficiency and race prejudice, and is widening the scope of employment year by year. What the individual asks and should have from the white community is a fair chance to work, and wages based upon his efficiency and not upon the social whims and prejudices of fellow-workmen, of employers, or of the community.

In domestic and personal service the Negro is poorly paid compared with the cost of living. And even in skilled occupations, where unions admit him and wages are offered equal to those of white workmen, the Negro must be above the average in speed, in quality of work done, and in reliability to secure and hold places.

In domestic and personal service, the verdict from a large body of evidence is that, judged by the testimony of employers as to the length of time employed, the capability, sobriety and honesty of the workers, Negroes furnish a reliable supply of employees that need only to be properly appraised to be appreciated. What is needed for the workers in this cla.s.s of occupations and for those in the skilled trades, is that more attention be given to adequate training, that more facilities be offered and that a more sympathetic att.i.tude be shown them in their efforts for better pay and better positions.

In reviewing the Negro's business operations judgment should be tempered by consideration of his past and of the tremendous odds of the present. There are handicaps due to the denial of the chances of getting experience, to inefficiency born of resulting inexperience, to the difficulty of securing capital and building credit and to the low purchasing power of the patronage to which a prejudiced public limits him. He is not only denied experience, sorely limited in capital and curtailed in credit, but his opportunities for securing either are very meagre. In spite of all this, there has been progress which is prophetic of the future.

From the days of slavery Negroes have tried the fortunes of the market place and under freedom their enterprises have increased in number and variety. At the present time Southern-born and West Indian Negroes form the bulk of the business men, the latter far in excess of their proportion in the Negro population. This success of West Indians is partly a result of training and initiative developed in a more favorable environment, as they had the benefit of whatever opportunities their West Indian surroundings offered.

Although they gained the meagre capital chiefly from domestic and personal service occupations, Negroes have entered and maintained a foothold in a number of lines of business unrelated to these previous occupations. One of the most important findings is that Negroes form few partners.h.i.+ps and that those formed are rarely of more than two persons. Co-operative or corporate business enterprises are the exceptions. This fact has its most telling effect in preventing acc.u.mulations of capital for large undertakings. But co-operation in business is largely a matter of ability born of experience and where can Negroes get this experience in well-organized firms, under experienced supervision? For it is more than a matter of school instruction in book-keeping and the like. In practically the entire metropolis, they rarely get beyond the position of porter, or some similar job. Some fair-minded white people who wish to help the Negro help himself could do great service for the economic advancement of the Negro by throwing open the doors of business positions to a number of ambitious, capable Negro youths, who would thus enter the avenues of economic independence. The writer knows of three Negroes in New York City who proved themselves so efficient in their respective lines that they were taken in as members of large firms.

Another serious matter is connected with this point. All 309 firms were retail establishments, all of them bought from wholesale suppliers who so far as could be ascertained were white firms. In some lines, there were sufficient retailers to support a wholesale house if their purchases were combined. For example, the group of 50 barber shops or of 36 grocers would each support a jobber if they pooled their patronage. But this would demand an organizing power, a business initiative, a fund of capital and a stretch of credit, which only some men experienced in the method of the modern business world could possess.

The small size and scope of Negro enterprises cannot be attributed to lack of business capacity alone. For the gross receipts of the selected years taken in connection with the valuation of tools and fixtures, and with the stock of merchandise on hand showed considerable diligence and thrift in turning these small resources to active use.

The variety of the many small establishments indicates also the initiative of the Negro in using every available opportunity for economic independence. As we have seen, some of the proprietors had early ambitions for business careers, and others had worked hard and saved carefully from small wages that they might rise from the cla.s.s of the employed to that of employers. The public to which the Negro business man caters should accept his wares and his services for their face value and not discount them because of the complexion of his face. Then, too, Negroes must learn that the purchasing public desires to be pleased and is larger than the limits of their own people.

Negro wage-earners and business men have great difficulty in scaling the walls of inefficiency and of race prejudice in order to escape the discomforts and dangers of a low standard of living.