Negroes In Chicago

Dnring the last three months I nave spent most of the time in Chicago. My hotel is ouly three blocks distant froin my office, yet I rarely walk from one place to the other without being accosted by one or inore beggars. I the warm weather one of the serious drawbacks to the comfort of sitting in front of my hotel evenings and smoking my after-dinuer cigar was the certainty of being accosted by some stalwart snppliant forthe price of a meal. I do not write this for the purpose of complaming of the pólice or of asking whether there is any ordinance against beggiug in Chicago, and, if so, why is it not euforced. My purpose is to note the significant fact that amoug all these side walk beggars I have not seen a single colored man. The negro population o Chicago is about 30,000,. and it is greatly to its credit that it furnishes no contingent, so far as my observation goes, to the great army of mendicants that infest the principal thoroughfares of the city. On a sleeping car a few nights ago 1 made the acquiatance of the editor of the Chicago weekly newspaper which serves as the special organ for the colored population of the city. I told him of my experience with the Chicago beggars and asked him how he accounted for the nonappearance of negroes among thetn. To my surprise his answer was this : That the negroes are an industrious class and do not long remain out of a job. Now the popular idea of the average colored citizen is that his one paiticular vice is laziness. My frieud, the editor, insisted that whatever natural tendencies may be inherent in the negro race that makes them want to sit in the sun and do nothing, this tendency bas been pretty well eliminated by a heredity of niauy generations of hard work. He called attention to the great disabilities the colored people still labor under by reason of the fact that most of the avocations in which white men engage are closed to them by a custom that is stronger than law. In spite of the barriers which popular prejudice has thrown around these people to keep them out of nearly all hanüicratts, mercantiie pursuits ana employments connected wlth transportation, it is certainly remarkable that nearly all of them manage to be selfsustaining and independent. The colored men can be a barber, a waiter, a porter, house servant or a janitor in a business block, but these are about, all the üccupations in which he can find employment. The colored editor pointed out with considerable animation tlie difflculties whicli lie in the way offsuccess for a young colored boy who bas gone through the schools with credit, who has a good hume and refined associrttions aiui u ho wants to uiake soinething of himselt in life. If hu bas meclianical talent, uu shop wants hiui tor au apprentice. il he thinks lie has abiliiy for trade, uo store willadm.it him as a clerk. He cannot be an accouptaut ui" a boukkeeper, no matter liow good he may be in miithematics. He will not be accepted as a street car conductor or motorman ur in any of the branches of rail way service. In fact, there is scarcely any avocation open to him which does not wear the badge of servility. He must be servant in one way c r another. It is true that a few, a very few, colored men are able to rise above the surving clat-s. There are in Chicago tiiirty colored lawyers and about twenty colored doctors. Probably there are iifty colored ministers. The colored people of Chicago own about $500,000 worth of church property. In the district largely peopled by negioes a few colored uien keep small stores to supply people of their own race. In politics, however, tac negrees appear to nave a very lair chance in Chicago. The tliird ward has long had a colored member of the legislature. There are now about thirty colored rnen on the pólice torce. Carter Harrison was the first mayor to make the innovation of putting a pólice uniform on a negro. When he was asked to appoint two negroes on the forcé he said they would have to wear citizen's ciothes or they would be killed. The colored delegation that went to hiiii to make the application said that the two men they recommended were brave íellows and willing to take there chances. "Well said Harrison, "let them put on the uniform and get killed if they want to." There was good deal of talk at the time about white men being arrested by "niggers," but the two colored policemen performed their duties without any special peril. My friend, the colored editor, said that the popular prejudice against bis race is particularly hard on the youug woman. Many oí them gradúate from the schools with high honors and are ambitious to earn something to help in the support of their households. They read good books, belong to literary societies and are iutellectually the equals of the average youug white girls of the working classes. For, the young white girl of good education there are mauy occupations open in the city, but for the colored girl there is absolutely nothing but to becoine a hoase servant. She cannot be a clerk in a store, a bookkeeper, a milliner, a stenographer or a teacher. She probably has the same aversión to domestic service that a white girl of equal intelligence naturally feels. She must eitlier work as a cook or chambermaid or stay at home and do nothing. ïhis unreaspnable prejudice against the colored race is the last remaining survival of the ciyilized country. You see nothing of it in Eugland or in any of tlie nations of continental Europe. In tliose countries uoavocation ig closed to colored men or wouien hy rensun of race prejudice. How niucli lonj: i will ;i dark skin be regarded in America asa lifelong badge of social and industrial inferiority ? - E. V. Snialley.