Black Attitudes Toward Immigrant Labor in the South 1865 1910

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THE FILSON CLUB HISTORY QUARTERLY

VOL. 54 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, APRIL, 1980 NO. 2

BLACK ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRANT LABOR IN THE SOUTH, 1865-1910 BY DAVID J. HELLWIG* Black jubilation at release from bondage clashed with the im- pact of slavery on them and on southern whites. The slave heritage, especially the dearth of education and capital, eroded the freedmen's capacity to secure the economic and social benefits of their new legal status. Whites, taught to perceive blacks as subordinates, were equally crippled by the past. They had little inclination to treat them as equals much less to transfer resources to the former bondsmen. Some sought to resurrect the traditional social struc- ture; others dreamed of a "new" South. Few wanted blacks to occupy positions of power in post-bellum society. One manifestation of white disdain for freedmen was the conviction that the South could not rely on their labor. Various as- sumptions and fears supported the notion and accounted for its persistence in the half-century following the Civil War. Some whites used the Negro as a scapegoat to explain defeat and were eager to be rid of them. Those not touched by vindictiveness were often positive that ex-slaves lacked the self-discipline and initiative to function in a free labor system. Some contended that a low birth rate meant there would eventually be insufficient black labor. The reputation of the free Negro as a drifter, enforced by the westward and urban migration of blacks in the South, worried others.1

•DAvro J. H•LWIO, Ph.D., teaches at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. 1Nero York rimes, JUly 5, 1868, p. 5; May 7, 1869, p. 5; November 3. 1888, p. 3; April 12, 1893, p. 2; April 14, 1883 p. 3; Robert H. Woody, "The Labor and Immigration Problem of South Carolina During Reconstruction," Mis•.ssippt Vailed/ Historical Review, 18 (Sep- tember, 1931), 195-96; Joseph F, Steelman, "The Immigration Movement in North Carolina, 1865-1890" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1947), pp. 11-18, 22-23, 42; Row- l•-nd T. Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes Toward Immigration, 1865-1914," Jol•rna! o• SOUthern History, 17 (August, 1951), 329-31; Bert J. Loewenberg, "Efforts of the South to En. courage Immigration, 1865-1900," South Atlantic Quarterly, 33 (October. 1934), 365-67; James L. Roark, Masters WithOUt 8laves: Southera Planters in the Civt• War and Reccrn- $tructto• (New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 157-64.

151 152 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

The Black Codes of the immediate post-war years and the subse- quent systems of sharecropping, tenantry, peonage, and convict labor were designed in part to ease the black labor "problem." Singularly and in conjunction, they failed to relieve anxieties regarding the labor force. The quest for able and abundant labor and the determination to control black workers led to repeated and largely unsuccessful efforts to secure laborers from outside the area. The movement was strongest in the decade following Appomattox and at the turn of the twentieth century. Some whites viewed newcomers as a supplement to the traditional labor force; others wanted to rid the South of the "Negro problem" and stimulate economic growth through an entirely new labor supply. Schemes to secure immigrants blossomed throughout the South in the late 1860s. Some planters worked independently; others joined immigration societies. Entrepreneurs anticipated quick and easy profits from transporting migrants from Europe, Asia, and the North to the cotton fields, mines, and railroad camps of the South. Railroads, land developers, and speculators of all kinds participated. Even plans for cooperation on a regional basis were made. State governments established agencies to promote and facilitate the flow of foreigners. So eager were some white South- erners for new workers that they were not particular about their origins. Most preferred northerners or European immigrants. But when neither source delivered, Chinese "coolies" were solicited.2 Records of the black response to the possibility of large scale immigration to the South during Reconstruction are scarce. Fur- thermore, they do not reflect a cross-section of the Afro-American community. The largely unlettered population left little in the way of written statements, and few black periodicals existed.

2 For diSCussions of southern interest in immigration following the Civil War, see Woody, 185-212; Steelman. passim; Berthoff. 328-60; Loewenberg, 363.85; C. U. Bellssary, "Tennes- see and Immigration, 1865-1880," Tennessee Histor•aZ Quarterl•, 7 (September, 1948), 229-48; Roberta S. Turney, "The Encouragement of Immigration in West Virginia, 1863- 1871," West Virginia HLsto•, 12 (October, 1950), 46-60; Robert Gllmottr, '"the Other Emancipation: Studies in the Society and Economy of Alabama Whites During Recon° structlon.'* (Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins Unlverslty, 1972), pp. 32-43; E. RUSS Wil° liams, "Loulslana's Public and Private Immigration Endeavors: 1866°1893," Loui•ana Himo tov• 15 (Spring, 1974), 153-73: George E. Pozzetta. "Foreigners in Florida: A Study of Immigration Promotion, 1865-1910." Florida Historlcal Quartedy, 53 (October. 1974), 164- 80; Henry M. Booker. "Efforts of the South to Attract Immigrants. 1860-1800." (Ph.D. dissertation, University of West Virginia, 1965); Etta B. Peabody, "Effort of the South to Import Chinese Coolies, 1865-1870." (M.A. thesis, Baylor University, 1867); Roark, Master8 Without Slaves. pp. 165-68; Robert F. Futre11, "Efforts of Mlssls•Ipplans to En- courage Immigratlon, 1865-1880," Jo•vna! o• JV/i.•ssippl History. 20 (April, 1958), S9°70. These studies devote little, if any, attention to the responses of Afro-Americans to the attempts to secure immigrant labor or to the Immlgrants, 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 153

Many possible sources were not collected. But from the scattered records, the observations of white sojourners in the South, and the small but zealous black press it is possible to indicate how many felt. Clearly, blacks recognized that plans to recruit Northern and alien workers directly affected them. Most interpreted the movement as a potential threat to their newly acquired political power and to their traditional economic role. As early as November, 1865, for example, a black political convention meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, reacted to talk of immigration. In an address to whites, the delegates protested the desire "to bring foreigners into the country, the clear intent of which is to thrust us out, or reduce us to a serfdom intolerable....-3 The anxiety of South Carolina blacks persisted into the 1870s. White travellers commented on the "selfishness" of Afro-Ameri- cans who opposed the arrival of newcomers to aid in the development of the state. The material interests of South Carolina clearly demanded immigration, wrote the conservative northern journalist James S. Pike in 1874. But politics led the Negro to resist immigration. According to Pike, blacks were preparing to fight what they believed to be an effort to crowd them out.4 An English visitor Edward King also reported little black enthusiasm for immigration. "The negro is not especially anxious to see immigration come in," he commented. "The spirit of race is strong within him. He is desirous of seeing the lands in the commonwealth in the hands of his own people before the rest of the world's poor are invited to partake. He is impressed with the idea that South Carolina should be in some measure a black man's government, and is jealous of white intervention.''5 Black spokesmen were especially disturbed about plans to recruit Chinese. Such proposals convinced them that the white South had not yet accepted abolition. Chinese were sought to replace blacks as slaves or to reduce freedmen to semi-servitude. "An American

3 "Addre• of the State Convention to the White Inlmbltants of South Carolina," reprinted in Herbert Aptheker, ed,, A DocuTnentary Hf•t•r• o! the Negro People • the United •;tate8 (2 vols.; New York: Citadel Press, 1951}, II, 546. 4James S. Pike, 2"he Prostrate South.: Sou•h Carolina Under Negro Goverament (1874; reprinted New york: Harper and F,ow, 1968), p, 55. 5Edward King. The Great Sou•h (2 vols.; 1875; reprinted New York: Bur• Franklin, 1969), II, 452-53. Blacks in other states also feared the immigrant, Lawrence D. Rice, The Negro • Texas, 1574-1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univer•ty Pre•s, 1971). p. 160; E. Merton Coulter, Civil War and Readjustment tn Kentucky (Chapel Hill: University o• North Carolina Press, 1926), p. 346. 154 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

motive" derived from "pride, bitterness, and revenge," warned Frederick Douglass, was behind Chinese immigration. Southern leaders continued to cling to rule by the white aristocracy, the plantation system, and a subservient labor force. "They believed in slavery and they believe in it still," he reported. The same motives that led to the African slave trade inspired interest in the "coolie trade." The South preferred laborers who would work for nothing, but since the Afro-American refused, it turned to Chinese who would toil for next to nothing. Should the plans succeed, abolition would be a blessing for the white South since it would then possess both independence from blacks and a cheap, dependent labor force,s John M. Langston, professor of law at Howard University, agreed. "Designing persons, partially enslav- ing" sought to make Chinese the rival and competitor of freedmen, he noted,v These fears prompted conventions of Afro-Americans meeting in Baton Rouge and elsewhere in 1869 to consider means of preventing the introduction of Chinese workers into the nation,s While not opposed to Chinese or Europeans as such, blacks vigorously objected to foreigners recruited to drive them out or compel them to accept whatever conditions planters offered. In 1870, George T. Downing, a successful Newport caterer and political associate of Douglass, made note of a proposal before Con- gress to promote emigration to the South by establishing a steam- ship line to carry mail to Europe, India, and China from the South. The endeavor could be "right and desirable," he confessed, but he was inclined to associate it with "the names of rebels, of their bailors, of unrelented, bitter haters of the colored man" determined to drive him into the Gulf.9 Some, however, advocated greater immigration. Population ex- pansion, they argued, would not necessarily hurt freedmen. Thus, in North Carolina a number of "industrious and well-to-do looking colored men" joined the North Carolina Immigration Association

6"Composite Nation," a lecture given at Boston, 1867, p. 9, Frederick Douglass Papers, microfilm of originals in The Frederick Douglass Memorial Rome, Anaeosfla, Washlng?on, D.C.. reel 13: Nero National ETa (Washington. D.C.]. August 10, 17, 18/1. 7 New Era, January 13, 1870. Reactions of blacks in Chinese immigration to the South are considered in Arnold Shankraan, "Black on Yellow: Afro-America•s View ChLnese- Americans. 1850-1935," phl;lon. XXX/X (March, 1978), 7. 8New York Herald. October 22, 25, 1869; National Anti.Slaver• Standard ]New York], December 18, 1869; San Francisco E•evulov. December 3. 24, 1869; Philip S. Foner. Organ- Ized Labor and the Black Worker. 1619-1973 (New York: Praeger, 1974), pp. 24, $6-37; Coulter. Civil War and Read•wstmen$ in Kentucky, pp. 345-46. 9 New Era, March 3. 1870. See also New Era. July 21, 1979; New Na$iona| Eva a•d C•ti- zen tWashtngton. D.C.], Octobe4• 9. 1873. 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 155 in 1868 and 1869.1° Blacks in New Orleans explicitly denied rumors that they opposed immigration. While expressing hope that the criminally-oriented foreigners infesting New York City would not come, the New Orleans Tribune remarked that it simply was not true that Negroes objected to immigration. On the contrary, the state needed enterprising, intelligent, and industrious people to provide capital, labor, and new ideas. Too long had the area stressed cotton and sugar to the exclusion of other pursuits. As there was room for all, blacks had no fear of being displaced. With a growing population and a diversified economy labor would be in greater demand than before. Everybody would benefit as life and property became more secure: We say, let people come to the rich lands of Louisiana, from the North, from Germany and elsewhere; let the vast plantations be divided up into small farms to suit the wants and means of all; let the unoccupied territory be rescued from the swamps and alligators, and inhabited and owned by a free enterprising population, and we shall witness such prosperity for all classes as never yet fell to the lot of Louisiana in her palmiest days. Then shall we have churches and school-houses all over the State, and then will the days of Lynch-law and bush-whacking be numbered. Therefore do we favor immigration, tl The New Orleans Louisianian agreed that the state should en- courage immigration provided it was not done to oppress the Afro- American. The abolition of slavery meant the South could realize all the advantages foreigners brought to other sections of the nation. Southern whites, the paper noted, had failed to displace the Negro. The well-being of both races could be enhanced through an enlightened immigration program. But success depended upon the willingness of planters to accept "existing facts" and abolish the monopoly of land by a few. The best strategy would be for the state to purchase plantations and lease, rent, or sell them to farmers from Germany, France, and the Scandinavian countries.12 Black reactions to proposals for encouraging immigration to the South during Reconstruction indicated their concern was with the white southerner and not the immigrant. Foreigners were a distant danger; Afro-Americans faced more immediate and pressing mat- ters: The threat to their survival was white reluctance or refusal to accept them as equal citizens and to recognize their legitimate claims to a livelihood in their native land. Afro-Americans seldom

I0 Wilmington Daily Journal, quoted in Steelman. "Immigration Movement." p. 31. II New Orlem•s Tribune, February 9. 25. 1869. See also letter of Sebastian Seller to Carl Schu..-z, ibid., September IS, 1865. lZNew Orleans Lou•ania•, January 22, 1871. 156 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

attacked immigrants for they symbolized the struggle of op- pressed people to alter their condition. Also, if isolated from the influence of vindictive whites, foreigners could serve as catalysts for changes in southern society of benefit to blacks and whites, native and foreign-born alike. Despite the widespread interest and the official and unofficial solicitation of new sources of labor, few immigrants came. Many who did soon left. At the end of Reconstruction the ratio of aliens to natives in the South either remained as before or declined. No single factor accounted for failure of the schemes. Many Europeans held unfavorable images of the South and rather than face the climate and social disorganization they settled in the North or West where opportunities appeared much better. Those who came were often disappointed with the wages and living conditions of- feted by planters who assumed immigrants would accept being treated like the former slaves. Even the Chinese demanded better wages and living conditions than the freedmen. Furthermore, some planters had opposed immigration from the start; others lost interest when they realized the difficulty of obtaining alien workers. Southern Republicans, encouraged by northern sympathizers, stymied efforts to use state agencies to replace blacks while some Democrats feared immigrants might join their political opponents. Most important, however, was that the vast majority of blacks remained available for work on the plantations. They provided a cheaper and more docile labor force than the immigrant. By the end of Reconstruction southern fascination with immigration had largely evaporated.13 Yet the South never totally forgot the alien worker. The notion of black inferiority persisted along with the need for scapegoats. In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth the foreigner reassumed a posture of importance in black-white relations. New South advocates saw reliance upon the Afro-American as a barrier to development. Economic necessity, they declared, called for the region to overcome its hostility toward outsiders. As during Reconstruction, public and private agencies promoted the flow of aliens.14

13Woody. "Labor and Immigration Problem of South Carolina." 211; Belissary. "Termes- see and Immigration," 245; Vernon L. Wharton, The Negro in Mississippi. 1865-1890 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1947). pp. 97-101. I05; Berthoff. "Southern AtU- tudes." 328; Gunther Barth. Bitter Strength: A History oS the Chlne•e in the U•tited States. 1850-1370 (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard Unlversity Presa. 1964). pp. 194-95; Steelman. "Im- migratlon Movement," pp. 86-88. 182. 14New York Tim•, November 3. 1388. p. 3; April 12. 1893. p. 2;. April 14. 1•. p. $; 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 157

Afro-American interest in immigration fluctuated with that of the white South. In the 1880s, for example, the black press rarely commented on immigration to the South. The following decade brought occasional notices of aliens entering the region. By the middle of the first decade of the new century, however, practically every black American periodical, northern and southern, made the subject a major concern. After 1907, interest tapered off and by the end of the decade the topic seldom received mention. The growing pressure of foreign competition in the North replaced apprehension over immigrants south of the Mason-Dixon line. The reaction of black Americans to the revival of southern interest in immigration was not uniform. The response was generally negative, though some saw cause for optimism. To many the effort to obtain immigrants was simply another white plot to exclude or re-enslave them. The South was not really interested in alien workers; what it wanted was a submissive labor force,z5 The new and disturbing ingredient was northern complicity. By establishing an immigrant station in Galveston, Texas, Alexande•s Magazine reported, the federal government had advanced an action "whose sole purpose is to get rid of the Negro." The move represented a desire to divert the flow of "refuse Europeans" southward where they would displace black workers as they had in the North. Northern collaborators had joined the old slavoeracy to gain sectional reconciliation at the expense of the Negro by shifting the burden of foreigners into the beckoning arms of the white South.16 While consensus existed that immigrant labor was directed at them, blacks disagreed over the consequences. Some accepted the prediction of the North Carolina correspondent of the New York Age that expanded immigration would be "the greatest calamity that has befallen the Negro since he set foot upon this continent."

Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes," 322-35; Robert L. Brandfon, "The •d of Immigration to the Cotton Fields." Mississippi Va•e• lttstortca• Review, 50 (March, 1964). •92o94; C. Vain Woodward, Origins oi the /•e• South. 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1951). pp. 297-98; Charles Shanabruch, "The LouLsiana Inunlgration MovemenL 1891- 1907: An Analysis of Efforts, Attitudes, and Opportunities," Louisiana nt•ory, 18 (Spring. 1977), 203*26. 15 Voice o• the /VegTo [Atlanta], July. 1905. p. 453; January and February 1907. p. 12. 16A]exander'J •f•azin• [New York]. June 15. 1906, pp. 16-17. See also the comments of the Washington correspondent of the Chicago Delender, August 14. 1914. Statements of the commissioner-General of Lmmlgration in 1906 support the contention that the federal government was cooperating in promoting a direct trans-Atlantic line to southern ports and in encouraging a shift of immigration from the North and West to the South. U.S, commissioner-General of Immigration, Annua• Report (Washington: Government PrinOn• Office. 1906), pp. 64-66. 158 The FiIson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

Southern Afro-Americans lacked resources to create employment. If driven from the South, they had no place to go since foreigners and unions had already destroyed job opportunities elsewhere.Z• The Washington, D. C., lawyer and author Archibald Grimk6 shared the conviction that only evil could derive from an influx of immigrants. They would soon learn to hate blacks and join or lead mobs against them. He warned that instead of contributing to the economy, aliens would combine with the existing white labor and "together with this class [sink] to the dead level of the industrial inefficiency of the great body of Southern labor."zg The fact that the largest group of immigrants was Italian rather than Swedish, Russian, or Irish alarmed the editor of the AME Church Review, the most influential black religious periodical. The climate of the South had effectively eliminated competition from northern Europeans, but with Italians the situation was different. Being from a warm climate they found Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas to their liking. Since Italians were accustomed to hard work and had few superiors in truck gardening, they would provide stiff competition. A low standard of living would allow them to work for less and forego luxuries. As if these considerations were not sufficient cause of alarm, the editor noted that Italians had no social ambitions; they sought only to accumu- late enough for an occasional trip home. He concluded that, "These things, taken in connection with the Southern man's dislike of the Negro's ambition to rise to the full stature of an American citizen, makes the danger to the black worker very near and real. ''19 But most blacks did not take such a pessimistic view. Many counseled against becoming unduly disturbed since the schemes were destined for failure. They commented on the troubles the South experienced in obtaining alien workers and predicted immigrants would avoid it no matter how hard whites worked to attract them. The few who• settled would be unsuited for the region's needs. Furthermore, the South had underestimated the

17 New York Age, July Ig. 1906. In 1880 a Baptist minister who had lived in Texas for forty*one years and who was leading a group to Africa gave as one of his reasons for eralgrating the likelihood that white Immigrants would eventually force the Negro out of the South. A[riean Repository [Washington. D.C.], April, 1880. p. 57. 18 New York Age, June 22, 1905. Also. Alexander's Magazine, June 10, 1906. pp. 16-17; Washington Bee, July 22, 1905. 19AME Church Review [Philadelphia]. July, 1905, p. 63. Jean Scarpacl noted that little conflict developed between blacks and Itellar• in the Loulatena sugar parishes. "Immi- grants in the New South: Italians in Loulslana's Sugar Parishes, 1889-1910," Journal o] Labor History, 19 (Spring. 1975), 176. Black reacttons to Italians in the South are treated in detail in Arnold Shank.man, "This Menacing Influx: Afro-Americans on Italian Immi. graBon to the South," Mi•$tsstpp/ Quarterly, 81 (Winter. 1977-78), 67-88. 1980] Black, and Immigrant Labor 159 migrant. Immigrants, the Shreveport Herald remarked, were not fools. They were unlikely to go South since "they are fleeing from the bear and they are not going to seek refuge in the mouth of the lion.''39 The Cleveland Gazette agreed : "Until the south ceases washing its face in the blood of innocent Afro-Americans and consequently puts a stop to the nefarious and damnable work of its outlaw and murderous element" it could not expect immigration.91 Many noted white opposition to foreigners. There was in the South, observed the Indianapolis Freeman, "a great surplus of Negro labor which must be employed, both for the benefit of the workers themselves and the States in which they live. A large idle population is bad for all concerned." Also; the bulk of the immigrants was not a hard-working peasantry but the "riff raff element" of Europe. "The wise southern planters see plainly that to exchange their long tried Negro labor for these European dagoes would be worse than swapping 'the devil for a witch.'" Southern planters and farmers, the Age stated, were used to Negro help and knew it to be the most desirable, the least expensive, and the most easily managed available anywhere. So while complaints about the Negro and talk of immigration would per- sist, practical-minded southerners would squash efforts to replace the black worker." For the shortsighted, contact with Italians and other Europeans would teach a long overdue lesson. Aliens would convince the white South of its folly in rejecting blacks. Where could the South find people as faithful, loyal, docile, and hard-working as the Afro- American ? The South should recognize it was well off with the "immobile but reliable labor machinery in the faithful arm of the black." It would be a massive economic blunder to bring the "scum of Europe" to the area with "the sunniest-dispositioned, the most patient, the most law-abiding, the meekest and the best working people in the world.''23 Not only were blacks "tractable" but, also unlike the alien, they had no desire for the hand of the employer's daughter in marriage.94

29 Reprinted in Topeka Weekly Call, August 5, 1993. 21 CIeveland Gazette. May 20. 1893. Also, Detroit Platndealer, October 24. 1890; April 21, 1383; Sutton E. Gziggs, Needs o• the South (Nashville: Orion Publishing Co., 1908}, p. 18. 93 Indimnapells Freeman. February 4, 1903; March 23, 1903; March 9, 16, 1907; New York Aye, May 11. 1808. Also, Colored American Magazine (New York], September. 1907, p. 174. 23Voice o• the Negro, April, 1905, p. 971: September, 1905. p. •99. Also. St. Paul Appeal, ,Tune 10. 17. 1909; S•. "This Menacing Influx" 73-73. 241ndlanapolis Freeman. March 9, 1907. 160 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

Some black opponents of alien labor even portrayed the reputed economic habits of the race as virtues. The Afro-American worked hard for little and spent it rapidly. "The Negro laborer," stated the Colored American Magazine, "is a good spender. The dollar received Saturday quite often finds its way back to the white man's pocket Monday morning." Immigrants, on the other hand, saved to return home. If they did not leave, they sent every dollar earned, spending only enough to sustain life. Or worse yet, through frugality they would acquire land and control the stores of the region. To dramatize the potential of immigrant competition for all southerners, the St. Paul Appeal cited Tarpon Springs, Florida, where the economy had become dominated by Greeks.33 The potential consequences of immigration led the former Texas Populist John B. Rayner to call for greater unity among southerners. Racial hostility, he warned, threatened the southern way of life. Rather than deprive Afro-Americans of rights and replace them, the white South should employ them as shields against alien influence. If the South were to preserve its traditions, southerners must own all land and businesses. Negrophobta, however, was leading to the arrival of unacclimated aliens who were buying up the best land and gradually dominating political and economic activities. "The foreigner is after the Southerner's wealth, business, land and political power, and Vardamanism will not let the South see this very imminent danger." As long as the region belonged to native whites and blacks, the right of the southerners to rule would remain secure. Since the fate of the two races was inseparable, whites should recognize the loyal, patient, and stable qualities of the Afro-American and reject the temptation to welcome strangers.28 On occasion blacks sought to capitalize on the pride of the white South in its "pure white" racial composition. The introduction of "semi-white" eastern Europeans, warned the Voice of the Negro in 1905, would imperil the racial integrity of the South. Was not one race problem enough? Was it wise to tax the limits of wisdom and statecraft by introducing the Italian, Pole, Russian, Dutch, and Boer? The young Morgan State College Dean William Pickens returned to this theme a decade later. The South could thank

28Colored Amevtca• Magazine, May, 1907, p. 332; September, 1907, p. 174; Topeka Weekly Call, April 28, 1894; St. Paul Appeal, October 22, 1910, 28"Vard•," n.d+, {1912], "Southern Chivalry and the l•egro," n.4,, $ohn B. P.ayner Papers, Sohomburg Collection, New York Public Library. 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 161 blacks for being able to boast of its Anglo-Saxon blood. "The Negro has been the vaccine in the body of the South which has impregnated the system against the worst diseases of southern Europe and Asia. But for the Negro, Atlanta would today be as much of an interracial hedge podge as is Boston or New York.''• Furthermore, immigrants would not provide as inexpensive a labor supply as the black American. Swedish and German women would not "wash and work, and scrub and nurse" for $1.25 a week or take part of their pay in old clothes as Negroes did. Not only would alien domestics demand as much in a week as colored help received in a month, they would only do what they were hired to do. Nor would they accept the housing provided for the Negro. And as soon as the employer found he could not cheat the immigrant, he would note his profits had disappeared. "The Italian and the Irish are different in every way from the Negro," concluded the Baltimore Afro-American, "and the South will soon find out to its costJ'28 Another virtue of black workers was stability.. The immigrant would come as "a migratory denizen, ready to leave when he shall have acquired sufficient means to take him back to his native land," remarked Bishop W. J. Gaines. Negroes, on the other hand, had a fixed habitation; they sought only to be like whites, and to share in and contribute to American civilizatlon.28 The core of the black response to the southern quest for immigrant labor involved the portrayal of foreigners, and Italians in particular, as disruptive to American life. With the arrival of significant numbers of aliens anarchy, violence, strikes, mobs, and numerous other evils of decadent Europe and the North would plague the Southland. In the North the "un-American foreigner" demanded more pay and cursed American institutions as soon as he learned the language, the Voice of the Negro recalled. The South, which had taken great pride in the absence of strikes, would soon be subjected to labor uprisings which would destroy property, paralyze business, and breed discontent. Only the absence of foreigners and the presence of the Negro accounted for the lack of dynamite-making and throwing in the South. "But with

27 Voice of O•e Negro, September, 1905. p. 595; June. 1905. p. 423; William Pickens. The New IfeDro: His Political, Civil and Mental Statv.• (1916; reprinted New York: Negro Uni- versities Press, 1969), p. 67. 28 AMg Chuvck Review, April. 1906, p. 384; Indianapolis Fvec•'nan, September 9. 1905; Baltimore Alto.American, January 20, 1906; February 9, 1907. 29 W. J. Gaines, The Negro and •he White Ylan (1897; reprinted New York Negro Uni. verstUes Presa. 1969), pp. 97-98. 162 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

the coming of this element, the whole brook of discontent, revolution, strikes, bomb throwing and desperate rioting will become a terrible certainty.30 Though whites could expect only trouble from aliens, blacks might gain. As the Nashville Globe said in 1907, a few old world ideas were much in need in the South. European freedom from racial hostilities and refusal to tolerate conditions which irritated them could ignite a new era in race relations. The immigrant presence might alter black behavior. They might gain a spirit of restlessness from European malcontents and join them to secure better treatment. Italians and other aliens would side with the Negro against conditions in the South. Stimulated by the example of foreigners and strengthened by their support, blacks would rise in protest. As a consequence of changes in labor and race relations, political power would shift also.31 In raising such possibilities they sought to exploit white fears, rooted in slavery, that blacks might ally with other groups against them. The point was clear: instead of mistreating the Afro-American and recruiting undesirables, the South should reform itself. Though far from perfect, blacks would work hard and be a genuine asset if treated as others expected to be. They had proved their ability to provide the labor for prosperity and economic development; now whites should acknowledge their contributions. Only by doing so could the South avoid a painful, expensive, and ultimately futile experience with immigrant labor.• Many Afro-Americans, however, professed indifference to Eur- opean migration. They doubted that the South could attract aliens in light of its treatment of the existing labor force, lynchings, and general lawlessness. Other factors eliminated any fears Roscoe Conkling Bruce, the well-known educator and lecturer, may have had. He observed that only three percent of the Alabama black belt population was foreign born and that almost one-half resided in

80 Voice of $he Ne•e,o, June, 1905, p. 423; Atlanta Independent. April 29, 1905; Novemb•- 3. March 24. 1906: Nashville GZobe, August 9. 1907. 31 New York Age. January 19. 1905, ?uno 15, 22, 29. 1905; Cleveland Oaze•e, February 25. 1905; January 5. 1907; April 13, 1912; Valce o• the Negro, July. 1905, p. 453; January and February, 1907, p. 12; 8tar oS Zion [Charlotte, N.C.]. December 22. 1904; July 27. 1905; Wa.•hlngton Bee, Suly 22, 1905; Anna $. Cooper. A Voice from the South by a Black Woma• o• the •outh (1892; reprinted. Hew York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 173; Shank- man, "This Menacing Influx." 82-83. 32Baltimore A•To-Amerlca•, January 20. 1906; February 9. 1907: Voice o• the h'egvoj Sune. 1905. p. 423; September, 1905, pp. 595-•: Clevelmnd Gazette, May 20, 1893; Savannah • T•b•ne, April 22, November 18. 1905; Atlanta Independent. March 23, 1907; Shmmbruch. "Louisiana Immlgration Movement." 221-22. The Southern Workma• [Hampton, Va.h March. 1906. p. 136; January. 1908, p. 5, •ared this view. 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 163

Montgomery. Despite the inducement of fertile soil, there was no reason why the forces which retarded immigrant settlement in the past would cease to be effective. Furthermore, should newcomers arrive, experience indicated they would congregate in pre- dominantly white counties. Talk of an "Italian peril," he concluded, was purely a matter of "hypothetics.''•z A few blacks even claimed to welcome immigration. Foremost was Timothy Thomas Fortune, editor of the New York Age. In a 1901 issue of the AME Church Review he developed themes elab- orated in his paper. Immigrants, he said, faced declining opportunities in the North and West due to the closing of the frontier and surplus urban labor. Meanwhile, positions were opening in the South as prejudice drove Afro-Americans to cities and out of the region. An influx of foreigners Would have three consequences, all advantageous to blacks. First and most important, it would dis- solve the old conservative aristocracy. This would end caste rule and foster a general revolution as the South took on the traits of the North and West. In the transformation, foreign labor competition would compel the Negro to scatter throughout the nation. Since the lot of the black Americans was best where the fewest lived, dispersion would improve race relations. The second by- product would be to force the Afro-American into new occupations. The third result stemmed from the others: the rate of absorption of the Negro into the "bone and sinew" of American life would accelerate.• Few shared Fortune's professed optimism. Many saw immigration as beyond their control and advised the race to make the best of it. This view was particularly strong in the thought of Booker T. Washington and his followers. If blacks were properly prepared, immigration need not weaken them. Indeed, by providing competition immigrants could actually be a blessing. References to immigration were scattered throughout Washing- ton's speeches and writings. He addressed himself to both southern whites and blacks. He pleaded with whites for recognition of the Negro's role in the development of the region. This was a theme in the famous Atlanta Exposition Speech of September, 1895 :

33 Roscoe Conkling Bruce, "The Economic Future of the Negro -- Discussion." Pub|lca- ttons o• the American Economic Auoctation, 3rd Series, 7 (Feb•ary, 1906}, 296-99. For expressions that immigrants could not be attracted to the South. see W. E. Burghardt DuBols, "The Economic Future of the Negro," Ibid., 240; Portland, Oregon, New Age February 11, 1905; Savannah Trtbitne. November 18, 1911; Na•hvlne Globe, October 11, 1907. 34Timothy Thomas Fortune, "Race Absorption." AME Church l{evIew, July. 1901, pp. 62-64. See editorials in the New York A•e, January 19, May 11, June 29, 1905; July 19, 1906. 164 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your buckets among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent repre- sentation of the progress of the South. If properly treated, blacks would stand by whites with a devotion no foreigner could approach.•5 A decade later Washington made essentially the same appeal. The South offered immigrants economic opportunity, but it could not turn them into the "law-abiding, useful and God fearing people" who had lived and toiled there for three centuries. Whites should not forget their debt to black Americans or their duty to complete the task of civilizing them.• By 1911, however, Washington had tired of appealing to the good will and intelligence of southern whites. Or perhaps his recent trip to Europe had caused alarm. In any case, he predicted dire consequences of a large European migration. The result, he feared, would be a racial problem "more difficult and more dangerous than that which is caused by the presence of the Negro." At least no one could question the desire of the Afro-American to assimilate and adapt to existing conditions; with the immigrant one could not be sure.3• As Washington implored whites not to desert black workers, he addressed himself to the fears of black Americans. He predicted the foreigner would not do the type of work done by Negroes. Also, given the labor shortage and millions of unused acres in the South, the immigrant posed no immediate danger. If anything, "healthy competition" of aliens was an asset: "A thousand strong, sturdy, thrifty foreigners in each county will go far toward quickening our energy and sharpening our wits," Washington counseled. The race's survival lay not in excluding others, but in utilizing existing resources effectively. The immigrant was a threat only if Afro- Americans failed to realize fully opportunities afforded by the

33The BookeT T. Washln•on Papers. ed. Louis R. Harlan (Urbana: Unlverslty of Ininols Press. 1972-). III. 584.85. 36Booker T. Washington. The NeFeo in Burgess (Boston: Hertel, Jenkins and Company, 1907), pp. 314-17. Also. speech at Talladega, Alab•a. June •. 1906. New York Age, June 14. 1906; Washington, "Some Results of the Arresting Idea," Southern Workman, March. 1909, pp. 177-78. 37WaShlngton. "Races and politics," Outlook, June 3. 1811, p. 264. 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 165

South or if they became complacent. To prepare for the anticipated arrival of skilled workers young blacks should be trained to replace those who had learned trades as slaves. It was also imperative that blacks establish more businesses and purchase land.• Followers of the Tuskegeean employed the prospect of expanded immigration to advance the gospel of self-help, land ownership, hard work, and industrial education. The rising tide of aliens in the South constituted a real danger, noted the AME Church Review in 1905. To defend against the "Latin invasion" the Negro should take immediate precautions:

He must increase his efficiency as a laborer, doing more and better work than his macaroni-fed competitor; he must stick more closely to his job and erase the railroad excursion day from his almanac; he must learn that while it is a sin to work on Sunday, it is not to work on Saturday; he must learn to eat less meat and, in fact, less of everything; he must let red liquor alone; he must buy the farm he has been renting so long; he must open an account with the bank instead of the old stocking, and he must keep everlasting at it. In short, he should practice the doctrines propounded by Booker T. Washington for the past twenty years.• But even those who discounted the perils of immigration were relieved by the failure of foreigners to come in large numbers. After 1905 notices of the inability of the South to recruit and keep foreign workers gradually overshadowed alarm at their presence. The black press could not help but gloat over news of aliens who

38 Speech at TaHadega. Alabama, June 5, 1906, New York Age, June 14, 1906: speech at Atlanta. Georgia, August 29. 1906, ibid., September 6. 1906; Washington, The Negro in Bus•ne•, p. 311; Washington, "Signs of Progress Among the Negroes," Century, January, 1900, pp. 476-77• Selected Speeche• oF Booker T. Washlngt•n. ed. E. navldson Washington €Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, norton and Company, 1932), p. 263. Although most of Washington's references to immigration are from the last two decades of his ]|te, as ear]y as 1882 he alluded to the Itkelihood of immigration to the South to support his views on education "Speech Before the A|abama State Teachers' Assoctetion. Selma. Atabama, April 7. 1882," in The Booker T. Washington Papers, If, 194. Washington's optimistic tone no doubt was influenced by his desire to have blacks remain in the South, his emphasis on agriculture and rural landow•ershlp, and his mlddle-class, Social Darwinistic philosophy stressing the value of struggle in achieving success. 39AME Church Review, July. 1905. p. 63. For other statements stressing the social philosophy of Washington, see Savannah Tribune, April 12, 1902; January 22, 1910; Cleveland Gazette, April 13, 1912; Washington Bee, February 17, April 28, 1906; Indianapolis Freeman. November 18, 1911; New York Age, November 16, 1905; July 19. December 27, 1906; .Tanu° ary 13, 1907; November 30. 1911: AME Church Review, October. 1906, pp. 111o19; Coinred Araerican Magazine. January, 1905, p. 5; May. 1905, p. 240; Atlanta Independent. May 13, October 14. 21, November 4, 1905; Jtme 2, 1906; Nashville Gtobe, March 18, 1910. As with other aspects of Washington's thought, the relationship between European immigration to the South and industrial education for the freedmen had been" stressed by other black• before the Atlanta Exposition Address of 1895. See William H. Crogman. "Beneflelent Effects of Christian Education," speech of AUgust 13, 1883. Tal•s of the Times (Atlanta: Franklin Printing Company, 1896). p. III; Savannah Tribune. April 22, 1893. See August Meier, Negro Thought In America, 1880-1915: Racla| Ideologies in the Age o• Booker T. Wazhthgton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1963}. pp. 100-18, for a dlscpsslon of Washington's ideologY. 166 The Filson Club History Quarterly [VoI. 54 proved to be poor competition. In reporting the fear generated by the yellow fever epidemic in the Italian community of New Orleans in 1905, the Voice of the Negro observed that "the prejudice against Italians has spread throughout Mississippi and Louisiana, and nowhere in the other Southern States is there much of the vigorous call for the Italians that we heard a month ago." The Savannah Tribune wrote that many aliens failed to secure employment and were being cared for by the public. The fate of others would be the same, it predicted. So poor were conditions for the migrant that many returned to their former homes. Yet while some black Americans derived satisfaction from the success of the race in defending its position, others were more cautious and warned that serious problems remained.49 Scattered references to white interest in foreign migration to the South continued until the Great Depression. But only twice after 1910 did the issue arouse serious discussion. In late 1914 two important black newspapers, the Washington Bee and the Chicago Defender reacted negatively to the suggestion that Belgians displaced by war be settled in the South. And in the mid-twenties some blacks detected a desire among southern whites to secure foreigners to replace blacks leaving in the Great Migratlon.41 Of equal importance to the persistence of black concern over immigrant labor was the depth and breadth of attention given the topic. In the first decade of the twentieth century in particular, interest in the foreigner in the South surpassed that directed to the much larger flow of aliens to the North and West. Blacks outside the South were at least as involved with the subject as their southern kin. Almost all had roots in the South. They or their ancestors had moved north for basically the same reasons Euro- peans left their homes. But increasingly the black quest for a better existence was being hampered by the arrival of aliens who, because of skin color, were granted opportunities denied black natives. Experiences with immigrant competition alerted them

40 Voice of the Negro, September, 1905. p. 595; Savannah Tribune, April 6. 1907; February 22, 1908; Indianapolis Freeman, December 7, 1907; Nashville Globe. March 9, 1907; Atlanta Independent, AugUst 0, 1907• St. Paul Appeal, September 9, 1905; Baltimore Afro.ATnerican, February 9, 1907; Colored Arnerlcan Magazine, September, 1907, p. 174; Voice o• the Negro, April. 1905. p. 271. White sympathizers also wrote reassuringly of the disillusionment of the South With schemes to replace blacks with Europeans. Sou£hern Work•n, March. 1906, p. 136; Ray Stannard Baker, Foilowthg the Color Line (New York: Doubleday. Page eand Company, 1009), pp. 268-95. For a more cautious vlew see New York Ace, March 9, 1919. 41 Washington Bee, Decernbe• 5, 1914; Chicago Delender. December 15, 1914, Savannah T•Ibune, May 31. 1923; February 12. 1995; Norfolk JOUrnal and Guide, August 18, 1923; March 15. 1924; May 2, 1905. Also, editorial by William Plckens in WilUam Pickens Record Group, Box 7, 1923-1927, Schornburg Collection. 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 167 to the perils of immigration and bred pessimism about the capacity of southerners to survive an influx of foreign workers. The well-being of all was wed to the future of the black southerner. With opportunities diminishing outside the South, displaced blacks could not escape alien competition. Indeed, massive migration of blacks from the South in response to the arrival of foreigners might add to the deepening plight of northern blacks. A flood of unlettered and unskilled rural people to northern cities could undermine the precarious existence of earlier migrants. It was easy, then, for relatively well-off northern blacks to advise southerners to remain in the traditional home of the Afro-Amer- ican even should large-scale white immigration materialize. Con- sequently, blacks regardless of section or class condemned schemes to attract immigrants to the American South. Black concern was always greatly disproportionate to the number and importance of foreign workers in the South. As in the immediate post-Civil War years, little came of efforts to recruit aliens for the cotton fields and railroads in the twentieth century. Immigrants remained reluctant to compete with blacks, especially when the South offered fewer opportunities than the North and West. Those who came were more likely to settle in cities than to compete with black field hands. Furthermore, immigration pro- ponents never succeeded in alleviating white distaste for aliens.42 In 1910, whereas the foreign-born population composed almost a fifth of the total in the North and West, in the eleven former Con- federate states and Kentucky, less than two percent of the populace was foreign-born.4s Afro-Americans could hardly attribute their plight to the relatively few aliens in the South, and they seldom sought to do so. Blacks held many negative stereotypes regarding foreigners, especially Italians. They also were familiar with the low opinion white southerners had of foreigners. Blacks never lost sight of the fact that the threat to their survival was native white refusal to accept them as equals and to recognize their legitimate claims to a livelihood in their native land. Some found grounds for hope in the arrival of outsiders. The majority who did not refrained

42Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes," 342-59; Brandfon, "The End of Immigration," 605-11; Baker, Following the Color Line, pp. 268, 295; Shanabruch. "Louisiana Immigration Move- ment." 213-17; Pozzetta "Foreigners in Florida," 174-80; George E. Cunntngham. "The Italians, A Hindrance to White Solidarity in Louisiana, 1890o1898," Journa! o] Neffro His- tory, 50 (January, 1965). 23°36; Shankman, "This Menacing Influx," 84-88. 43 Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes," 342. 168 The Filson Club History Q•rterly [Vol. 54 from attacking the foreigner. Instead of searching for scapegoats among newcomers, Afro-Americans tried to exploit white nativism by exaggerating dangers inherent in the presence of strangers. Little could be lost in such an endeavor. If white behavior was not altered by the image of hordes of eager foreigners about to flood the South, blacks might at least prepare to face the onslaught.