"Go North "

" Go North "

" Go north, Piccaninny, go north," is the advice which the breezes have been whispering to the Negroes of the South. The Negroes have responded with remarkable willingness. And now Southern business men and legislators are seeking a means to stop the migration northward, and much is being said and written of the effects of this migration.

The facts: According to recent estimates by the Department of Labor, 312,000 Negroes migrated from South to North in the last eight months. This constitutes about 3% of the entire Negro population of the U. S. During the War (1916-1919) a similar movement took place; 450,000 Negroes went north, but about half of the number returned later. The present migration is on even a greater scale, however; for the migration has been three-quarters as great in less than one-quarter the time.

The center of Negro population, according to the census of 1920, is three-quarters of a mile northeast of Rising Fawn, Ga., in the extreme northwestern corner of the state. (The center of entire population of the country is near Whitehall in southwestern Indiana.) This indi- cates that the Negro population is spread east-and-west about as the white population, but as a whole is decidedly farther south. Between 1910 and 1920 the center of Negro population moved 9.4 miles east, and 19.4 miles north. Before that, its general trend had always been south- westerly.

Georgia, which contains the center of Negro population, also has the largest Negro population (1,206,365) of any state in the Union. It has been the hardest hit by the present migration. According to several re- ports from various sources, about 80,000 Negroes (not to mention 30,000 whites) have left Georgia this year. Since Georgia gained only 30,000 in Negro population between 1910 and 1920, its Negro population is probably less than it has been in several decades. There are said to be 47,000 vacant farms in the state and 1,665,720 acres of farm land al- lowed to go untilled. Calculating a loss of about $12 a year for each untilled acre, the loss amounts to about $27,000,000 a year for the state.

The remainder of the South has been similarly affected, but on the whole probably not so seriously. Tennessee and Kentucky are least affected. But the length of time which it will take the South to repair its losses is indicated by an increase of Negro population of only 1.9% from 1910 to 1920. The condition is further aggravated by the steady fall of the Negro birth rate. Due almost totally to this cause, the increase of Negro population throughout the country declined from 18% in 1900 to 6.5% in 1920.

The causes: There is general unanimity as to the causes of the present migration.

1) Wages in the North are high; wages in the South low. The Department of Labor estimates that cotton-mill workers are paid 99.53% more in Massachusetts than in the South, and that other wages are at least proportional. In Georgia a Negro farm worker gets about $1.25 a day; in the Pennsylvania steel mills he is offered $4.50 a day and "all the overtime he wants."

2) There are better school advantages for Negro children in the North.

3) The Negroes are better treated and have better living conditions in the North.

It seems that of these factors the most important is the first, which of course affects the item of living conditions, in the third. The other conditions are doubtless factors, but not of controlling importance. (For example, North Carolina now spends more than three times as much per year for Negro education as it spent on all education in 1900, yet 30,000 Negroes have left the state since last April.)

Strong evidence is given for the economic argument for migration by the fact that the period of migration is chiefly between November and July, when immigration from abroad is at its lowest. (See page 4.) Then the labor demand in the North is most keen and Negroes are most strongly attracted by good wages.

The significance: Dire as the results of Negro emigration are for Georgia and the other Southern states, this movement is likely to bring good results to the country as a whole by helping to balance economic forces. In the North a shortage of labor will be relieved. The Negroes will get better pay and gradually achieve better standards of living. In the South the departure of the Negroes will cut down cotton production somewhat. The result will be higher prices for Southern farmers, better living conditions, improved methods of farming and better conditions for the Negroes who remain in the South. As Secretary of Agriculture Wallace suggested, the problem of the wheat region of the West will probably find its ultimate solution in a similar way. Meanwhile the South is suffering by the migration. But for the country as a whole, if a Negro in the cotton fields is worth $1.25 a day, and a Negro at the steel mills $4.50 a day, every Negro that goes north is worth three and a half times as much as if he stayed south.

Said James S. Peters of Manchester, Ga., President of the Georgia Bankers' Association: " Wages must necessarily increase to par with those of the North and East, with proper allowance for the difference in the cost of living. . . . The emigration will continue until the oversupply either brings down the wage level in the North and East, or the undersupply here justifies an increase."