CHAPTER V

THE NEGRO HOUSING PROBLEM

A. A STUDY OF NEGRO FAMILIES

Consideration of the housing problem as a continuing factor in the experience of Negro families led to an effort to study it from a new angle of approach--through histories of typical families in the Negro community.

The data thus gathered afford an opportunity to present an interpretative account of Negro family life, setting forth the intimate problems confronting Negroes in Chicago, their daily social difficulties, the reflection in their home life of their struggle for existence, just how they live, how they participate in the activities of the Negro community and the community at large, their own opinions concerning civic problems, their housing experience, how much they earn and how much they save, how much they spend and what value they receive from these expenditures, how they spend their spare time, and how they seek to improve their condition in the community.

A selection was made of 274 Negro families living in all sections of Chicago. Three Negro women, well equipped to deal intelligently and sympathetically with these families, gathered this information. These 274 families lived in 238 blocks, the distribution being such that no type of neighborhood or division of the Negro population was overlooked. The questionnaire employed contained five pages of questions and required an interview of about two hours. Special effort was made to secure purely social information without the aid of leading questions.

I. GENERAL LIVING CONDITIONS

For the most part the physical surroundings of the Negro family, as indicated by these family histories, are poor. The majority of these houses fall within the classifications noted as Types "C" and "D" in the discussion of the physical condition of housing.[22]

On the South Side, where most of the Negro population lives, the low quality of housing is widespread, although there are some houses of a better grade which are greatly in demand.

The ordinary conveniences, considered necessities by the average white citizen, are often lacking. Bathrooms are often missing. Gas lighting is common, and electric lighting is a rarity. Heating is commonly done by wood or coal stoves, and furnaces are rather exceptional; when furnaces are present, they are sometimes out of commission.

Under the heading of "Housing Conditions" such notations as these are often found:

No gas, bath, or toilet. Plumbing very bad; toilet leaks; bowl broken; leak in kitchen sink; water stands in kitchen; leak in bath makes ceiling soggy and wet all the time. Plastering off in front room. General appearance very bad inside and out. Had to get city behind owner to put in windows, clean, and repair plumbing. Heat poor; house damp. Plumbing bad; leaks. Hot-water heater out of order. Needs repairing done to roof and floors. In bad repair; toilet in yard used by two families. Toilet off from dining-room; fixtures for gas; no gas; just turned off; no bath; doors out of order; won't fasten. Sanitary conditions poor; dilapidated condition; toilet won't flush; carries water to bathtub. Plumbing bad; roof leaks; plastering off; no bath or gas; general repairs needed; very dirty. Plumbing bad; plastering off in toilet; window panes broken and out; no bath or gas. Plastering off from water that leaks from flat above; toilet leaks; does not flush; washbowl and bath leak very badly; repairs needed on back porch; rooms need calcimining. No water in hydrant in hall; no toilet, bath, or gas; general repair needed. Water not turned on for sink in kitchen; water for drinking and cooking purposes must be carried in; toilet used by four families; asked landlord to turn on water in kitchen; told them to move; roof leaks; stairs and back porch in bad order. Sewer gas escapes from basement pipes; water stands in basement. House dirty; flues in bad condition; gas pipes leak; porch shaky. No heat and no hot water; no repairing done; no screens; gas leaks all over house; stationary tubs leak. Water pipes rotted out; gas pipes leak. Toilet leaks; plastering off; windowpanes out. Plastering off; large rat holes all over; paper hanging from ceiling.

This is the common situation of the dweller in the districts mentioned. The variations are in degree rather than kind. To dwellings a little better in sanitation and repair than those just described, the adjective "fair" was given.

Occasionally a Negro family manages to escape from this wretched type of dwelling in the "Black Belt." Some who were financially able purchased homes in Woodlawn, for example, where they live much as white residents do, supplied with the comforts and conveniences of life and in fairly clean, wholesome surroundings. There, as a rule, the physical equipment of their dwellings is good and is kept in repair. In some instances they have hot-water heating, electric lighting, and gas for cooking purposes. They ordinarily redecorate once a year, take proper care of their garbage, keep the lawns cut and the premises clean; and otherwise reveal a natural and normal pride of ownership.

In this respect the Negro residents of Woodlawn are far more fortunate than many of their race brothers who have purchased dwellings in the "Black Belt." Many of these purchases have been made by migrants on long-time payments, and large expenditure would be required to put the houses in repair and keep them so. Purchases made by Negroes in Woodlawn have been chiefly of substantial dwellings, not necessarily new but in good condition and needing only ordinary repairs from time to time.

II. WHY NEGROES MOVE

Except where the property is owned by Negroes there is frequent moving. The records obtained of these movements give a great variety of reasons. A strong desire to improve living conditions appears with sufficient frequency to indicate that it is the leading motive. Buying a home is one of the ways of escape from intolerable living conditions, but removal to other houses or flats is more often tried. For example, a man who now owns his home near Fifty-first Street and South Wabash Avenue--living there with his two brothers and five lodgers--has moved six times, "to live in a better house and a better neighborhood." A family now living near Thirty-first Street and Prairie Avenue, resident in Chicago since 1893, has moved four times, three times to obtain better houses in better neighborhoods and once to get nearer to work. A man and wife living near Fifty-third and South Dearborn streets have moved four times since coming to Chicago in 1908. A family living on East Forty-fifth Street and paying $60 a month rent for six rooms has moved twice since 1900 to "better and cleaner houses." Another family paying $65 a month for eight rooms on East Bowen Avenue has moved twice since 1905 into better houses and neighborhoods. "Better house" and "better neighborhood" were the most frequently given reasons.

Of kindred nature are these: leaky roof; house cold; dirty; inconvenient; did not like living in rear flat; to better conditions; better houses away from questionable places; landlord would not clean; first floor not healthy; small and undesirable; not desirable flat; poor plumbing; didn't like neighborhood; moved to better quarters; landlord would not repair; house too damp; no windows; owner would not fix water pipes; more room wanted; better environment for children; better street; no yard for children; better people; house in bad condition; more conveniences for roomers.

III. THE FAMILY GROUPING

The normal family is generally recognized as consisting of five persons--two parents and three children. Properly they should make up a single group and live by themselves. The 274 families studied were chosen as follows: in the most populous district, from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth streets and from Wentworth Avenue to Lake Michigan, ninety-nine family histories were taken; in the district north of Thirty-first Street to Twelfth Street and from Wentworth Avenue to the Lake, forty-six; in the narrow strip in Hyde Park known as the Lake Park district, thirty-seven; in the district from Thirty-ninth to Sixtieth streets and from Wentworth to Cottage Grove Avenue, thirty-six; on the West Side, sixteen; in the Ogden Park district, fifteen; on the North Side, fourteen; and in Woodlawn, eleven. For convenience, as well as to show contrasts or like conditions, the material has been analyzed and interpreted by districts.

There was found a wide variation in the family groups, comprising six classifications, in three of which no lodgers appear. A lodger here means an adult not a member of the immediate family. Thus relatives, unless infants or children, are classed as lodgers. The three groups without lodgers are: (1) man and wife; (2) two parents and children; (3) a parent and children. The other three groups with lodgers are: (1_a_) man and wife and lodgers; (2_a_) man, wife, children, and lodgers; (3_a_) man or woman, surviving head of the family, with lodgers.

Of the total 274 family groups there were 104 without lodgers and 170, or 62 per cent, with lodgers. For the most part the lodgers were found in "2_a_" classification--in families. There were ninety-two such groups and only sixty-one families with no lodgers. Forty-two couples had lodgers, and in thirty-six instances a man or woman living alone had lodgers. Thirty-nine couples were living alone, and in only four instances was there a parent alone with a child.

The Negro colony in Woodlawn approaches most nearly the normal family grouping. Home ownership in that district is fairly common, and the houses for the most part are substantial and well fitted and suited to the families. In the eleven Woodlawn families there was but one where the mother or father was dead or not living with the family. Lodgers were found in only four of the eleven families: two were couples, one a family, and the other a single woman. In the eleven families there were seventeen children.

A marked contrast with this section is found in the congested Negro district between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets. Out of a total of ninety-nine families seventy-two had lodgers, or 72 per cent as contrasted with 36 per cent in Woodlawn and 62 per cent for the total 274 cases. In this district there were forty-two families with children, thirteen couples without children, and seventeen where a man or woman took lodgers. There were only fourteen families without lodgers, and thirteen couples living alone.

North of Thirty-first Street in this South Side area were similar conditions. Of forty-six households studied, twenty-seven, or 58.7 per cent, had lodgers: of these sixteen were families with children, nine were couples and two were man or woman with children. Of the households without lodgers, there were twelve families with children, five couples living alone, and two instances of parent and child.

The percentage of families with lodgers was highest in the Lake Park district, 75.6 per cent. On the West Side it was 68 per cent, a trifle higher than for the entire 274 families. On the North Side it was 57 per cent, on the South Side between Thirty-ninth and Sixtieth streets, 41.6 per cent, and in the Ogden Park district 40 per cent.

The Ogden Park district, with a relatively low percentage of families having lodgers, resembles the Woodlawn district in many respects. The houses are built for single families and are largely owned by Negroes who have lived in that locality for many years. Of the fifteen families there visited, nine had no lodgers; and of the seven with lodgers, four were families and two were couples without children.

_Room crowding._--A study of Negro housing made in 1909 by the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy brought out the fact that, although Negro families find it extremely difficult to obtain a flat of three or four rooms, they do not crowd together as much as white immigrants; that Negroes take larger flats or houses and rent rooms to lodgers to help pay the rent, and thus lessen crowding among the members of the family. Among the 274 families studied by the Commission there was comparatively little overcrowding. One room to a person is a standard of room occupancy generally accepted by housing authorities as involving no overcrowding. Of these 274 Negro households, only sixty-seven exceeded the standard. There were, of course, wide divergences from the standard. For example, there were eight instances of six persons living in five rooms; six of eight persons living in six rooms; four of six persons living in four rooms; one of six persons living in three rooms; one of seven persons living in three rooms; two of seven persons living in four rooms; two of eight persons living in five rooms; one of nine persons living in five rooms; and one of eleven persons living in five rooms.

In the cases of unusually large families, either in the number of children or lodgers, there was a corresponding increase in the number of rooms. Thus in the case of fourteen persons making up one family, they were living in ten rooms.

The five-room dwelling was the most common, with fifty-nine families; six-room, forty-seven; seven-room, forty-two; four-room, forty-one.

In the Ogden Park district the standard of one person to one room was most closely adhered to. All the fifteen families studied in that district were housed in four-, five-, or six-room dwellings; ten of them in five-room dwellings. In Woodlawn the tendency was toward somewhat larger dwellings. There were no four- and five-room dwellings, but five of seven rooms and three of six rooms, one each of eight and three rooms. The four-room dwelling was most prevalent on the North Side. Of the fourteen families studied there, six were in such dwellings. There were two dwellings of six rooms, two of seven, one of five, two of three, and one of eleven rooms.

On the West Side, also, thirteen of the sixteen families were housed in four-, five-, six-, or seven-room dwellings, the five-room type predominating. In the Lake Park district the five-room type was most frequent, there being eleven of these out of a total of thirty-seven, six of six rooms and seven of seven rooms, the next largest group being five of eight rooms.

On the South Side in the district from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street, out of a total of ninety-nine there were eighteen families in five-room dwellings, seventeen in four-room, nine in three-room, ten in six-room, fourteen in seven-room, and eight in ten-room dwellings. In the district north of Thirty-first Street the predominating size was six-room dwellings, of which there were eleven, and there were nine of four rooms, seven of five rooms, and seven of seven rooms, the rest scattering from one-room dwellings to one dwelling of thirteen rooms. From Thirty-ninth to Sixtieth streets, six-room dwellings were most frequent, there being eight of these out of a total of thirty-six, and there were seven of five rooms, six of six rooms, and six of seven rooms. The dwellings occupied by Negroes south of Thirty-ninth Street, it should be noticed, are larger than those north of that street.

The grouping of the 274 families according to number of persons is as follows:

Families Persons to Family 48 4 40 2 35 3 37 5 30 7 29 6 22 8 17 9 or more 16 Not recorded ----- 274

Four persons to a "family" was the most common type, there being forty-eight of these out of the 274. In the Woodlawn and Ogden Park districts the group of three was predominant. The North Side district grouping of two persons to a family is partly due to the inclusion of nine "groups" of one person each who were interviewed mainly for data bearing upon industrial relationships. The tables show a total of sixteen such groups in the eight districts; but they are not deemed sufficient to vitiate the statistics.

Negroes have more space in their living quarters than do other Chicago people housed in similar grades of dwellings. They were usually found in dwellings of five rooms for each family, while the prevailing size among the foreign groups was four rooms, as disclosed by the Chicago School of Civics housing studies from 1909 to 1917. In the School's earliest study of the Negroes it was said:

The colored families do not as a rule live in the small and cramped apartments in which other nationalities are so often found. Even the families who apply to the United Charities for relief are frequently living in apartments which would be considered adequate, as far as the number of rooms is concerned, for families in comfortable circumstances.

Some marked exceptions, of course, were found.

The four-room dwelling was found to prevail among the Slovaks of the Twentieth Ward, the Lithuanians of the Fourth Ward, the Greeks and Italians in the neighborhood of Hull-House, the various central and southern European nationalities who work in the South Chicago steel mills and live near-by, and among the Jews, Bohemians, and Poles of the West Side.

_The lodger problem._--The prevalence of lodgers is one of the most conspicuous problems in the Negro housing situation. It is largely a social question. The difficulty of finding a home adequate for a family of four or five persons at a reasonable rent has forced many Negroes to take over large buildings in better localities and in better physical condition but with much higher rents. To meet these rents they have taken lodgers. It was seldom possible to investigate the character of the lodgers. The arrangement of these large houses, originally intended for single-family use, prevents family privacy when lodgers are added, making a difficult situation for families with children. Again, the migration brought to the city many unattached men and women who could find no other place to live except in families. Thus it happens that in Negro families the lodger problem is probably more pressing than in any other group of the community. Not only do lodgers constitute a social problem for the family, but, having little or no interest in the appearance and condition of the property, they are in many instances careless and irresponsible and contribute to the rapid deterioration of the buildings.

As previously explained, the term "lodgers," in this report, includes relations as well as other adults unrelated to the family. It was apparent in the study that there was a large number of relative-lodgers in Negro families. The recent migration from the South had a distinct bearing on this situation. Many Negroes came to Chicago at the solicitation of relatives and remained in their households until they could secure homes for themselves. The migration further accounts for the accentuation of the lodger problem during the period immediately following it. The 274 family histories include 1,319 persons, of whom 485, or 35 per cent, were lodgers, living in 62 per cent of the households. The greatest number of households with lodgers were those living in five-room dwellings. There were thirty-eight such households. Living in six-and seven-room dwellings were thirty-four families with lodgers. Families with only one lodger were most numerous. There were fifty-five such families as compared with thirty-nine having two lodgers, twenty-five with three lodgers, twenty-three with four lodgers, thirteen with six lodgers, eight with five lodgers, and seven with more than six lodgers.

Naturally the lodger evil was found in its worst form in the congested parts of the South Side. In the district from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth streets seventy-two of the ninety-nine families had lodgers. In twenty-two families there was but one, however, as against twelve with three and four, eleven with two, and six with five and six lodgers. Two families had ten each, and one had thirteen. This last case was that of a widow who rented nine sleeping-rooms in her ten-room house, in addition to catering at odd moments. It was a typical rooming-house as distinguished from a family taking lodgers. One family that had ten lodgers consisted of a man, his wife, and a son twenty-five years old; they had eight bedrooms, seven opening into a hall. The other family that had ten lodgers consisted of the parents and two children, a boy of eight and a girl of seven, and had a ten-room house. The lodgers were two men and three women, with five children. Five of the ten rooms were used as sleeping-rooms.

In the district north of Thirty-first Street an increased number of lodgers appeared in only one family, that of a man and his wife, without children. They lived in a ten-room house, using eight of the rooms for sleeping purposes and accommodating seven male and five female lodgers.

In the district from Thirty-ninth to Sixtieth Street was one instance of seven male lodgers in a seven-room house with the man who owned the property. Two of the lodgers were his brothers. There was no heat and no bathroom. The house had been reported to the health department.

In the Lake Park district one, two, or three lodgers were the rule, only five of the twenty-eight families with lodgers in that district being outside of those three classes. Eight lodgers were found in an eight-room dwelling. The family consisted of man and wife, and the only female lodger was their niece. Five rooms were used for sleeping purposes.

In the other district no instances of excessive overcrowding due to lodgers were found.

Complaint has often been made of the numerical preponderance of lodgers over children among Chicago Negroes, and comment has been made on the economic significance. It has been suggested, for example, that economic pressure had lowered the birth-rate among Negroes and increased the infant-mortality rate. As indicated by the 274 family histories, the number of lodgers among the Negro population exceeds the number of children, that is, the number of boys less than twenty-one years and girls less than eighteen. The School of Civics and Philanthropy, in its housing studies, counted as children those less than twelve years of age. On this basis it found in its study of the Negroes of the South and West sides that there were less than half as many children as lodgers on the South Side, but a more normal situation in the West Side. Even extending the ages of children, as has been done in the present report, the situation does not appear in a much better light.

The proportion of lodgers and of children in the districts covered by the Commission is shown in Table IX.

TABLE IX

===================================================================== | Percentage of | Percentage of District | Lodgers | Children -------------------------------------+---------------+--------------- South Side: | | Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth | 45.9 | 15.4 Twenty-second to Thirty-first | 37.8 | 20.4 Thirty-ninth to Sixtieth | 30.1 | 21.4 West Side | 21.8 | 32.0 Lake Park | 42.1 | 16.9 North Side | 15.2 | 25.0 Woodlawn | 26.9 | 30.0 Ogden Park | 12.3 | 45.0 +---------------+--------------- Total of 274 families | 35.0 | 22.7 -------------------------------------+---------------+---------------

By way of comparison similar figures from other housing studies of the Chicago School of Civics might be mentioned, the children in each instance being less than twelve years old.

Among the Slovaks of the Twentieth Ward, 13 per cent were lodgers and 32 per cent children; in South Chicago, 27.3 per cent lodgers and 25.7 per cent children; among the Greeks and Italians near Hull-House, 13 per cent lodgers and 30 per cent children; among the Lithuanians of the Fourth Ward, 28 per cent lodgers and 27 per cent children.

As far as the South Side is concerned, the situation with regard to the balance between lodgers and children has become aggravated since the earliest School of Civics report was issued, whereas the situation on the West Side has improved somewhat.

Where there were children and lodgers together, a considerable number of instances were found which suggest probable injury to health or morals, and sometimes both. Even where lodgers are relatives, impairment of health and morals is threatened in certain circumstances, especially if the over-crowding is flagrant. For example, a household on South Dearborn Street near Thirty-fourth Street consisted of a father, mother, a son of nineteen years, and a baby girl of four months, with three lodgers, two men and one woman--seven persons living in seven rooms and sleeping in all parts of the house. One of the lodgers was a sister-in-law, another a nephew by marriage, and the third, a stranger, had a bedroom to himself. In a ten-room house in East Thirty-second Street parents having a boy of eight years and a girl of seven years were found to have taken in ten lodgers, two of whom were men. In another instance five children, four of them boys of eight, five, four, and two years and a girl of eleven, lived with their parents and two lodgers in a six-room house.

In Ogden Park, a district which shows a high percentage of children, lodgers sometimes are added to the family. In one house of five rooms, for example, there were found living twelve persons--father, mother, two sons, sixteen and seventeen years of age, four daughters, thirty-three, twenty-four, twenty-two, and thirteen years of age, and four lodgers--a daughter, her husband, and their two infants. There were only two bedrooms for the twelve persons. Another instance was that of a family of father, mother, four sons, nine, five, three, and two years, and two daughters, seven years and three weeks, with a sister of one of the parents for a lodger. The nine persons lived in five rooms. There were only two beds in the house, and one of the bedrooms was not in use.

On the South Side near Thirty-first Street there was a case where a man lodger occupied one bedroom, the other being used by the parents and their eight-year-old daughter--four persons in a four-room flat. On South Park Avenue near Twenty-ninth Street two lodgers, a son-in-law and a nephew, occupied two of the six rooms, while the husband and wife, a son of twenty-three years, and a daughter of twenty-one years lived in the other four rooms, which included the kitchen and dining-room. A similar instance was found, on Indiana Avenue near Thirtieth Street, where two male lodgers lived with a family consisting of the parents, a son of twenty, and a daughter of eighteen, all in six rooms, two of which were not sleeping-rooms. On Lake Park Avenue near Fifty-sixth Street a family, including father, mother, and daughter of twenty, slept in the kitchen in order that three lodgers, one male and two female, might be accommodated in the five-room flat. In a five-room flat on Kenwood Avenue near Fifty-third Street the two male lodgers occupied both bedrooms, while the mother and her boy of nine and girl of seven years lived in the kitchen and dining-room. Seven persons were found living in a six-room house on East Fortieth Street; they were father, mother, a son of five years, a daughter of seven years, and an infant, with a male and a female lodger, friends of the parents. Virtually the whole house was used for sleeping purposes.

These are examples of the arrangements that sometimes occur when children and lodgers are found in the same dwelling. The fact that in the main Chicago Negroes live in more rooms per dwelling than immigrants, whose standard of living has not yet risen, does not necessarily mean that the Negroes have a greater appreciation of a house with more rooms. The explanation in many cases is that the Negroes take whatever living quarters happen to be available, which often are large residences abandoned by well-to-do whites, and then adapt their mode of living to the circumstances. Lodgers are one of the sources of revenue that aid in paying the rent. Negro families often expressed a desire to live by themselves if they could find a dwelling of suitable size for reasonable rent. They sometimes complained of lodgers and declared that they would prefer not to take them at all, especially women lodgers. The objection to married couples and unattached men was not so pronounced.

Smaller houses thus would seem to be a factor in the solution of the lodger problem. A Negro real estate dealer was asked if the Negro was as contented or as much disposed to live in a cottage as white people, or whether he wanted to live in spacious quarters where he could draw a revenue from roomers. The reply was that the Negro would rather live by himself. This is evidenced by the fact that many Negroes would rather live in an apartment and rent two or three rooms than take a large house and have it full of roomers.

Lodgers are often found in the smaller dwellings occupied by Negroes. Rent is often the determining factor in the selection of the smaller dwelling. When it is so high that it forms too large a proportion of income, economic necessity often drives the Negro family to admit one or more lodgers at the expense of overcrowding and its attendant harmfulness. This was noted in certain districts where the dwellings as a rule were small.

_Rents and lodgers._--An effort was made to determine the economic necessity for lodgers as expressed by the relation of the wages of heads of families to the amounts of rent paid. It is assumed that in a normal family budget rent should not exceed one-fifth of the income of the head of the family. Wide variations from that proportion were revealed.

Facts as to both rent and wages were difficult to secure, owing to the variable earnings of various members of the family, variable sums received from lodgers, and other factors. For example, seventeen occupants owned their houses. In seventy-eight other cases information obtained by the investigators was not adequate or could not, for various reasons, be used in calculations.

The remaining 179 cases out of the 274 provided data from which the following facts are presented: In three instances the rent exceeded the income of the head of the family; in thirty-one instances the rent equaled one-half the income of the head of the family, and in an equal number it amounted to one-third. In one case the rent was equal to three-fourths of the income, and in twenty-three cases the rent equaled one-fourth. Thus eighty-nine instances were disclosed in which the rent was in excess of one-fifth of the income of the head of the family. In most of these cases, particularly the extreme ones, the income of the head of the family was greatly supplemented by money received from lodgers or from earnings of other members of the family.

The remaining ninety families in which the rent amounted to one-fifth or less of the income of the head of the family were divided as follows: Twenty-four fell in the one-fifth column, twenty-seven in the one-sixth column, fourteen in the one-seventh column, eleven in the one-eighth column, while fourteen were in the "low" column. The last named included those ranging from one-ninth to one-twenty-third.

On the South Side, in the district from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street, rents exceeded the one-fifth proportion in one-half of the sixty-two families studied, two of them paying rent in excess of income, eight paying one-half of income for rent, fourteen paying one-third, and seven paying one-fourth. Of the remaining thirty-one families in that district, seven fell in the one-fifth column, twelve in the one-sixth column, six in the one-seventh column, four in the one-eighth column and two in the "low," being one-ninth and one-eleventh.

Rents were high also in the Lake Park district, where twenty-five families of a total of thirty-six were paying in excess of the one-fifth proportion. Fourteen of these paid one-half of the income for rent, five paid one-fourth, four paid one-third, one paid three-quarters, and in one instance rent exceeded income. In only five instances was the normal one-fifth paid, two paid one-sixth, two paid one-seventh, while two paid one-ninth and one-eleventh respectively.

In the district north of Thirty-first Street, eighteen out of a total of thirty-eight families paid in excess of the one-fifth proportion, four paid one-half, nine paid one-third, and five paid one-fourth. Six families paid the normal one-fifth, five paid one-sixth, two paid one-seventh, one one-eighth, and six less than that, running as low as one-twenty-third.

The Ogden Park area was found to be a district of low rents. None of the eight families studied paid as much as the normal one-fifth. Two paid one-sixth, one paid one-seventh, three one-eighth, one one-ninth, and one one-twelfth.

The other districts did not show much variation from the normal proportion.

Examination was made of all the factors in instances where the rent equaled one-half or more of the income of the head of the family or amounted to one-third. With regard to the former it was assumed, for the purpose of the study, that it compelled renting rooms to lodgers. With regard to the one-third column, lodgers were assumed to be an economic necessity when they offered the only source of income in addition to that of the head of the family. On these bases it was found that in forty-six families supplementary income afforded by lodgers was necessary, that in three instances they were the sole source of the income, while one instance was presented of a widow whose children partly supported her, but insufficiently for their common needs.

While in most instances of high rents and low income on the part of the head of the family good reason appeared for taking lodgers, in not a few instances further analysis revealed other sources of income which might indicate that there was no economic necessity for lodgers. There was one instance on Forest Avenue, for example, where the relation of the rent to the father's income was one-third, but where his sons earned more than double his income. In another family on South State Street near Thirtieth Street, the father earned $125 a month and paid $50 a month rent, but additional income was derived from the wife, son, and daughter, in addition to that obtained from lodgers. There was likewise the case of a waiter living on Lake Park Avenue whose rent was $30 a month as against wages of $10 a week. In addition to the tips he doubtless received in his work, his wife earned $18 a week, and $6 a week was derived from lodgers. In one instance a man living near Fifty-sixth Street and Wabash Avenue paid rent equal to one-third of his wages, but had considerable income from investments.

Such instances tend to explain why only forty-eight families were found in which lodgers seemed to be an economic necessity in aiding to pay rents, when eighty-nine cases were revealed in which the rent was in excess of one-fifth of the wages of the head of the family. The family histories also showed that various means besides lodgers supplemented the insufficient income of a family head. In some cases the wife or children worked, and not infrequently their incomes exceeded those of the father.

Lodgers were often found in families where the income from that source did not appear to be needed. This was the case in a number of families with unusually high wages and abnormally low rents. High wages and low rents explain most of the cases shown where the rent ranges from one-ninth to one-twenty-third of the income of the head of the family. In the one-twenty-third case the couple lived in two rooms on South State Street for which they paid $6 a month. The man earned $35 a week in an iron foundry, while the wife added $18 a week to the common fund. Another instance was that of a man who paid $16 a month rent and earned $48 weekly at the Stock Yards. His wife and a relative added $23.60 a week to the family income. A man in Ogden Park whose income as a contractor was $48 a week paid $16 a month rent. A man living on the West Side earned $48 a week and paid $15 a month rent. His children added $43.50 a week to the family income.

Even in circumstances such as these, lodgers were sometimes taken. In one case where the rent was one-tenth of the wages of the head of the family the man paid $15 a month rent for a five-room dwelling out of his $36 weekly wages earned in a coke plant at Gary. His son and lodgers increased the monthly income by $28. There was a teamster earning $30 a week who paid $15 a month rent for a six-room dwelling in which nine persons lived. The proportion of rent to his wages was as one to eight. His wife, one of his children, and lodgers added to the income. As in numerous instances where the income was high, a large amount was spent for food in this family.

An instance was found of a man earning $9.50 to $10.50 a day. His wife was a caterer. There was a daughter of fifteen years. They took three roomers. There was no need for the woman to work, but she said she wanted the money. She was a good cook, having served in that capacity in the South, and she said she earned $15 when she went out for a week-end of catering. In this instance there seemed to be little need for lodgers.

Another case was that of a man and his wife and two grown children living in a nine-room dwelling on Calumet Avenue and having nine lodgers. The man was earning $40 a week, and the lodgers paid $33.50 a week. The wife occasionally did day work, earning $3.65 a day. The monthly expenditure for food was $100, clothing $33, and rent $60.

Another instance was that of a widow with three children who lived on State Street near Thirty-seventh Street, in a three-room flat. Though the children's earnings amounted to $78 a week, the inevitable lodger was present, contributing $4 a week to the common fund. This little family spent $120 a month for food.

Large amounts spent for food were not uncommon in some families that took lodgers. A typical instance was that of the man and wife with three children and two lodgers who lived on Prairie Avenue. The man earned $25 a week, while $82 a month was derived from the lodgers. Food for the family alone cost $100 a month.

A man on North Wells Street earned $57 a week for the support of his wife and three adopted children. They lived in an eleven-room house which also accommodated the man's sister and brother. One of the sons earned $75 a week, and the lodgers paid $45 a month. This family spent $180 a month for food. Another earned $22 a week in the Stock Yards. Besides his wife and child they had in their nine-room house on East Thirtieth Street six lodgers paying $20 a week. This family spent $100 a month for food and $34 for clothing. Another man and wife on Forest Avenue paid $25 a month rent and spent $88 a month for food and $43 for clothing. They derived $3.75 a week from their two lodgers. A similar case was that of a family which lived on East Thirty-second Street. The man earned $30 a week in a foundry. He and his wife have one child, and they had ten lodgers, who paid $72 a week. In this family $80 was spent for food each month and $50 for clothing.

The heaviest expenditure for food in any one family was $330 a month. This was explained by the fact that there were twenty table boarders. The husband earned $22.50 a week, and there were three lodgers who paid $13 a week. The boarders collectively paid $13 a day. Rent was $55 a month, and $25 a month was spent for clothing.

Other reasons for the ready acceptance of lodgers in Negro dwellings were apparent, among them friendship and the desire to be obliging and to assist others in a new environment. Most Negroes would regard it as a breach of good faith to encourage friends and relatives to come to Chicago from the South and then fail to help them after their arrival. This accounts for the frequent designation of "relatives" and "friends" among the lodgers. Sometimes these lodgers seemed to be permanent, but often they were taken only until they could adjust themselves.

During the period of greatest migration, 1915-20, hundreds of unattached men and women could be seen on the streets as late as one or two o'clock in the morning, seeking rooms shortly after their arrival in Chicago. One instance was reported of a family to whose house four men came at midnight looking for rooms. Lack of lodging-houses or of hotels where accommodations could be had at reasonable prices was partly responsible for this swarm of migrants seeking shelter in private homes. The meager provision of such places for the accommodation of unattached Negroes has been a factor in the lodger problem.

IV. HOW NEGRO FAMILIES LIVE

How Negroes earn their living in Chicago, what occupational changes those from the South have undergone since arrival, how their present occupations differ from those in their former homes--information on all these points was gained from the family histories. Almost without exception, the Negroes interviewed declared that their economic situation had improved in Chicago. In most instances they were able to earn more; some said they were obliged to work harder but felt well recompensed because of their improved economic condition.

From the occupations of persons included in the study it appears that there is a distinct departure from the domestic and personal service in which Negroes were commonly found a few years ago. Among the 274 families visited, the heads of 225 families were men. Of this number eighteen were idle at the time of the investigation, in the summer of 1920, nine were professional men, nineteen were in business, twenty-two were in some skilled trade or work, 110 were doing unskilled work, and only forty-seven were engaged in personal service. The latter term includes such occupations as doorman in a hotel or club, bellboy, bootblack, cook, waiter, porter, elevator operator, and chauffeurs who lack training as mechanics. These are chiefly functions which bring employees in contact with the public or with white employers in a more or less personal capacity.

Before coming to Chicago, forty-five of the 225 were farmers. Practically all of these entered the field of unskilled occupations here. Only sixty-four of the 225 had been doing unskilled work in their former home. Six more did skilled work in their former homes than were doing such work in Chicago; two more were in personal service; two less were in business; and one more was in a profession.

Of these 225 family heads, 122 migrated to Chicago, chiefly from the South, during the period from 1916 to 1920 inclusive. Three periods in the industrial history of the family head were taken: (1) occupation in the former home; (2) occupation on first arrival in Chicago; and (3) adjustment to new conditions in Chicago and occupation at the time of investigation, during the spring and early summer of 1920.

Many of these migrants had not yet made their adjustment to the new occupations at that time. However, certain tendencies were manifest. For example, in the former home thirty-one were farmers and forty-five were unskilled workers. In the period of adjustment seventy-seven were doing unskilled work. The unskilled occupations had apparently, in the shifting about, absorbed the farmers. The difficulty of continuing in skilled occupations in the North was evidenced. In the South fourteen of the 122 men were engaged in skilled occupations of some sort; in the period of adjustment there were fifteen; but at the time of the investigation there were but twelve.

In the South nineteen of the 122 were in personal-service occupations; during the transition period, eighteen; and at the time of the investigation, sixteen. In the South seven were in business; during the period of transition, three; and at the time of the investigation, five. In the South four were in practice as professional men; during the period of transition only three; while at the time of the investigation there were five, one just beginning to practice.

As to whether any previous occupational training was used or abandoned after coming to the North, it appeared that of the 225 only 91 utilized such training. In 134 cases previous training was not used, but these included many who were farmers in the South.

Of forty-nine who had been engaged in personal-service occupations before coming to Chicago, only twenty still continued in such work. Six were unemployed at the time of the investigation, nineteen were in unskilled work, one was doing skilled work, and three were in business.

Forty-nine women were heads of families as revealed by the 274 family histories. This does not include all the Negro women shown by the histories to be engaged in gainful occupations in Chicago. Often daughters were working. There were thirty instances in which man and wife both worked outside of the home. Before coming to Chicago 129 wives were employed, while in Chicago sixty-seven wives were gainfully employed, including the thirty who were working in addition to their husbands. During the period of transition, it appears, they helped out, since the records show that 132 were then at work. But the tendency plainly is to abandon the practice as soon as the family becomes settled in the new environment.

Of seventeen women who had worked as house servants in their former homes, seven were found in factories, three in offices, two in stores, and five in unskilled manual labor.

Some of the transitions in occupation are especially interesting. One oil-field worker in the South had become a shoemaker. A farmer had become a postal clerk. A former superintendent of a label factory attended high school during the adjustment period and became an undertaker. One who was a schoolboy in the South worked in a hotel on coming to Chicago but became a grocer. A barber in Kansas City became first a painter in Chicago, then a janitor. A bottler from Memphis, Tennessee, went to work in the Stock Yards but became a canvasser. A farmer from Alabama worked first in the Yards and later in woolen mills.

One man was a porter in a store in Mississippi. In Chicago he became a chauffeur. A farmer from Louisiana on arriving worked as a butcher and then secured employment in a tannery. A porter in a wholesale grocery in Memphis, Tennessee, who worked first in Chicago as a lard maker in a packing-house, later became a building laborer. A preacher from Tennessee worked at Swift's packing-house until he could become established in a church.

A Mississippi plumber who served as a butter maker for a time after reaching Chicago became a contractor within three years. A hotel porter from Alabama came to Chicago in 1918 and went to work in a steel foundry and later in a soap factory. A farmer who worked on shares in Georgia tried work in the Stock Yards in Chicago, but changed to a paint shop. An Alabama man who worked in a sawmill there found a job in a steel foundry in Chicago, and later went to the Stock Yards. A man who worked in an ice plant in Texas became a railroad porter after coming to Chicago and then found a job as a butcher at the Stock Yards.

A man who began life as a bootblack in Atlanta came to Chicago in 1893 and sold newspapers until he could enter business for himself. For many years he has been a jeweler. In the South his wife was a musician by profession. To aid her husband in his struggle she worked in a box factory for a time after arriving in Chicago.

Clergymen sometimes abandon their profession for more remunerative employment. One of these came to Chicago from Boston in 1904. For a time he worked as a fireman and later in a packing-house. One who served as a waiter on first coming to Chicago became an insurance agent, and another, who was a reporter on a Negro newspaper on arrival in Chicago, became the manager of a manufacturing company.

Few migrants continued in Chicago the employment in which they worked in the South.

The family histories show that the Stock Yards industry absorbed many of the migrants, and a large number went to work in the steel mills and iron foundries, as well as in lighter manufactures.

Many Negro women have become hairdressers and manicurists after a course in a school of "beauty culture" which also teaches the use of cosmetics. Considerable skill is often required in this work, and the earnings often supplement very substantially the husband's income and may be sufficient to make an individual self-sustaining in case of need. Hairdressing is most frequently done in the homes.

An occasional teacher, cateress, or seamstress was found among the Negro women. Some of them remained in personal-service occupations, but a decided tendency was noticeable toward office and factory employment.

In summary it is scarcely necessary to remark that wages in the North far exceed those in the South. The difference in some instances is so great that many foolish expenditures are indulged in before the relatively higher cost of living is appreciated, or other conditions are properly understood. High wages, supplemented by income from other sources, often proved a temptation to unnecessarily heavy expenditures for material comforts, such as food and clothing. With relation to food it did not appear that Negroes were deliberately taken advantage of in their buying, but that they frequently bought articles without considering prices that had been refused by others because they were deemed excessive.

Insurance of one kind or another was often carried in the families studied. In spite of high living costs, a considerable number of families were found to have bank accounts, Liberty bonds, War Savings stamps, and good interest-paying investments.

The testimony of Negroes who at some time had lived in the South was mainly that they were obliged to work harder for what they got North. They also declared that they were unable to save as much as they hoped or expected, because of high prices. But in the great majority of cases satisfaction was expressed over the improvement in their economic situation. While their movements in search of better housing in Chicago were extremely frequent, they still felt that they were better housed than in their former homes, where bathtubs, steam heat, and electric lighting were almost unknown. Being accustomed to a certain measure of dilapidation in their home surroundings in the South, the Negro is not necessarily dismayed by the extent of dilapidation in Chicago's Negro housing, though usually it is not long before he begins to think of more substantial dwellings in better surroundings than those he first obtains.

Also in Chicago he finds available and accessible to his home many churches, some with large memberships and adequately housed; the best schools he has ever known; fine hospitals and dispensaries at his command; some playgrounds, bathing-beaches, parks, and similar facilities for his recreation and that of his children; settlement houses; libraries; and many other civic and recreational societies that make a strong appeal to his interest and promote his ambition for physical and mental development. He finds many motion-picture theaters and other amusements for his leisure hours.

Where the habit has not already been established, he is learning to make liberal use of all these facilities through the guidance and direction of Negro newspapers and organizations working especially for the improvement of the Negro group. There are indications of improvement in moral standards, health, and civic consciousness through these contacts and the use of these up-building social agencies.

The opinions of migrants and their feeling toward the community were solicited. It appeared that above all they prized the social and political freedom of the North. Satisfaction was expressed over the escape from "Jim Crow" treatment in the South. They valued the independence possible in the North, and sometimes spoke of having come North "out of bondage." They recalled frequently the "shameful treatment received by the Negroes from the white people in the South," the "intimidation and discrimination," and they were surprised and sometimes amazed at the fact that they could go and come at will in Chicago, that they could ride in the front of a street car and sit in any seat. Satisfaction was also expressed over the fact that they could get a job at good wages and did not have to buy groceries at plantation stores where they felt they had been exploited.

Thus, while they may have to work harder and may find it difficult for a long time to adjust themselves to the environment, few indicated any intention of returning to the South. In some instances, where adjustments have not been made, some discouragement was evidenced, and they sometimes expressed the feeling that they were no better off in Chicago than in their former homes. The prevailing sentiment, however, was in favor of remaining in spite of some greater difficulties.

Often Negroes from the South said they missed the care-free social greetings and relationships that prevail in the rural South. They thought that people in the North were "colder," that they did not show sufficient hospitality.

Asked what conditions they would change if they could have their way, the most frequently expressed desire was for more and better housing. Improvement of social, moral, or political conditions followed. Some emphasized the necessity of improving the management of the migrants from the South, whose new-found freedom had led them to become offensive in their conduct. Interviews with migrants, however, indicated that instruction was being received without offense from many social agencies on how to act, dress, and speak in such a manner as not to create unfavorable impressions.

There were some complaints of political exploitation and of being obliged to live in proximity to gambling and vice that were encouraged by political bosses in their neighborhoods.

The inquiry showed that membership in clubs, lodges, and kindred organizations was almost as universal as church affiliation. There were only a few families in which no member had any association with a fraternity or club.

V. A GROUP OF FAMILY HISTORIES

The general statistical treatment of these 274 Negro families takes away many of their human qualities. For this reason a selection has been made of various types of Negro families in order that a rounded picture of the whole unit may be given. The family stories that follow include typical migrant Negroes from the South--common laborers, skilled laborers, salaried, business, and professional men. They illustrate the commonplace experiences of Negroes in adjusting themselves to the requirements of life in Chicago.

AN IRON WORKER

Mr. J----, forty-nine years old, his wife, thirty-eight years, and their daughter twenty-one years, were born in Henry County, Georgia. The husband never went to school, but reads a little. The wife finished the seventh grade and the daughter the fifth grade in the rural school near their home.

They worked on a farm for shares, the man earning one dollar and the women from fifty to seventy-five cents a day for ten hours' work. Their home was a four-room cottage with a garden, and rented for five dollars a month. They owned pigs, poultry, and a cow, which with their household furniture, were worth about $800. The food that they did not raise and their clothing had to be bought from the commissary at any price the owner cared to charge.

They were members of the Missionary Baptist Church and the wife belonged to the missionary society of the church and the Household of Ruth, a secret order. Their sole recreation was attending church, except for the occasional hunting expeditions made by the husband.

_Motives for coming to Chicago._--Reading in the _Atlanta Journal_, a Negro newspaper, of the wonderful industrial opportunities offered Negroes, the husband came to Chicago in February, 1917. Finding conditions satisfactory, he had his wife sell the stock and household goods and join him here in April of the same year. He secured work at the Stock Yards, working eight hours at $3 a day. Later, he was employed by a casting company, working ten hours a day and earning $30 a week. This is his present employment and is about forty minutes' ride from his home. Both jobs were secured by his own efforts.

The family stayed in a rooming-house on East Thirtieth Street. This place catered to such an undesirable element that the wife remained in her room with their daughter all day. She thought the city too was cold, dirty, and noisy to live in. Having nothing to do and not knowing anyone, she was so lonely that she cried daily and begged her husband to put her in three rooms of their own or go back home. Because of the high cost of living, they were compelled to wait some time before they had saved enough to begin housekeeping.

_Housing experience._--Their first home was on South Park Avenue. They bought about $500 worth of furniture, on which they are still paying. The wife then worked for a time at the Pullman Yards, cleaning cars at $1.50 a day for ten hours' work. Their house leaked and was damp and cold, so the family moved to another house on South Park Avenue, where they now live. The house is an old, three-story brick, containing three flats. This family occupies the first flat, which has six rooms and bath. Stoves are used for heating, and gas for light and cooking. The house is warm, but dark and poorly ventilated. Lights are used in two of the rooms during the day. The rooms open one into the other, and the interior, as well as the exterior, needs cleaning. There are a living-room, dining-room, and three bedrooms. The living-room is neatly and plainly furnished.

The daughter has married a man twenty-three years old, who migrated first to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then to Chicago. He works at the Stock Yards. They occupy a room and use the other part of the house, paying half the rent and boarding themselves. A nephew, who was a glazier in Georgia, but who has been unable to secure work here, also boards with Mr. and Mrs. J----, paying $8 a week. He is now unemployed, but has been doing foundry work. Mrs. J---- occasionally does laundry work at $4 a day.

_How they live._--The cost of living includes rent $25; gas $5.40 a month; coal $18 a year; insurance $9.60 a month; clothing $500 a year; transportation $3.12 a month; church and club dues $3 a month; hairdresser $1.50 a month. Little is spent for recreation and the care of the health. The family carries insurance to the amount of $1,700, of which $1,200 is on the husband.

The meals are prepared by the wife, who also does the cleaning. Greens, potatoes, and cabbage are the chief articles of diet. Milk, eggs, cereals, and meat are also used. Meat is eaten about four times a week. Hot bread is made daily, and the dinners are usually boiled.

_Relation to the community._--The whole family belongs to the Salem Baptist Church and attends twice a week. The wife is a member of the Pastor's Aid and the Willing Workers Club, also the Elk's Lodge. The husband is a member of the Knights of Pythias. He goes to the parks, bathing-beaches, and baseball games for amusement. The family spends much of its time in church and helped to establish the "Come and See" Baptist Mission at East Thirty-first Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. They have gone to a show only once or twice since they came to the city. During the summer they spend Sunday afternoons at the East Twenty-ninth Street Beach.

Heavier clothes were necessary because of the change of climate, and more fresh meat is used because of the lack of garden space and the high cost of green vegetables.

The wife thinks that northern Negroes have better manners, but are not as friendly as the colored people in the South. She says people do not visit each other, and one is never invited to dine at a friend's house. She thinks they cannot afford it with food so high. She thinks people were better in the South than they are here and says they had to be good there for they had nothing else to do but go to church.

She feels a greater freedom here because of the right to vote, the better treatment accorded by white people, the lack of "Jim Crow" laws. She likes the North because of the protection afforded by the law and the better working conditions. "You don't have an overseer always standing over you," she remarked.

Life here is harder, however, because one has to work all the time. "In the South you could rest occasionally, but here, where food is so high and one must pay cash, it is hard to come out even." The climate is colder, making it necessary to buy more clothes and coal. Rent also is very much higher here. They had to sell their two $50 Liberty bonds.

_Economic sufficiency._--With all this, Mrs. J---- gets more pleasure from her income because the necessities of life here were luxuries in Georgia, and though such things are dear here there is money to pay for them. Houses are more modern, but not good enough for the rent paid. They had to pay $2 more than the white family that moved out when they moved in.

_Sentiments on the migration._--Mrs. J---- says "some colored people have come up here and forgotten to stay close to God," hence they have "gone to destruction." She hopes that an equal chance in industry will be given to all; that more houses will be provided for the people and rent will be charged for the worth of the house; and the cost of living generally will be reduced. She does not expect to return to Georgia and is advising friends to come to Chicago.

A FACTORY HAND

In his home town in Kentucky, Mr. M---- was a preacher with a small charge. Now, at the age of forty-nine, in Chicago, he works in a factory and is paid $130 a month. He has an adopted son, twenty-three years of age, who is an automobile mechanic in business for himself, drawing an income of $300 a month.

Mr. M---- might still be a preacher on small salary but for the intervention of his wife. He came to Chicago about 1900. His wife came from Nashville, Tennessee, in 1902, and they were married in 1904. Mrs. M---- felt that she was too independent to "live off the people" and persuaded her husband to give up the ministry. He got a job as foreman at a packing-house, where he earned $25 a week for a ten-hour day. Next he worked for the Chicago Telephone Company, and finally secured the position with a box-manufacturing company which he now holds.

_Family life._--The M----s have adopted three children, having had none of their own--the adopted son already mentioned, an adopted daughter now twenty years of age, and another foster son of thirteen. The latter is in a North Side school. The girl is in a normal school in Alabama. Both Mr. and Mrs. M---- completed high school. All speak good English.

Wife and husband have separate banking accounts. Living expenses for such a large family are, of course, heavy. For example, the bills for food aggregate from $42 to $45 a week, and more than $200 a year is paid in insurance premiums. Frequently a woman is hired to come in and help with the housework. Food in good variety is used. Illness prevented adding to the bank accounts during the year of 1920. An operation performed on Mrs. M---- cost $650 and the illness of Mr. M---- and the daughter consumed between $900 and $1,000.

_Housing experience._--The M----s' first home in Chicago was a cottage in the "Black Belt." They wanted a large house and found one on South State Street. The neighborhood, however, was displeasing to them, and they moved to the North Side to be near a brother's children. The house was too small, and they moved again to another North Side address. Again the neighborhood proved distasteful, so they bought the three-story dwelling on the North Side where they now live. It is in good sanitary condition and is supplied with gas. As lodgers they have the wife's sister and brother, who are actually members of the family.

_Community participation._--They belong to the Baptist church. Affiliations of a secular nature include the Masons, the Household of Ruth, the Court of Calanthe, the Eastern Star, the Heroines of Jericho, the North Side Men's Progressive Club, the Twentieth Century and Golden Leaf clubs, and the Young Matrons and Volunteer Workers. Mrs. M---- is president of a settlement club and a member of the Urban League. After coming to Chicago three years passed before she mingled much with people. She had always done community work in her southern home and feels that her reluctance here was due to the fact that she did not know what the northern people were like. She found them friendly enough when at last she did associate with them.

_Sentiments on community problems._--They came to Chicago because they had visited here and liked it well enough to come back and settle. Conditions are not all that they would like. They would like to see Negroes allowed to live anywhere they choose without hindrance, they would suppress moving pictures that reveal murder, drinking, and similar acts that lead young people to commit crimes. They would also like to see newspapers abandon their habit of printing articles that are derogatory to the Negro, thus creating prejudice, and of printing items unfit for children. Also they would like to see better homes for Negroes.

For the Negroes, they feel, life in the North is considerably easier than in the South, since they can always get plenty of work and do not have to work so hard as in the South. The mixed schools in the North are especially appreciated because no discrimination can creep in. The general lack of segregation on street cars, in parks, and in similar public places also pleases them. Still they see difficulties for southern Negroes who come North to live and are easily led astray. Southern Negroes are not accustomed to the new kinds of work and are inclined to slight it. This is, of course, unsatisfactory to their employers and accounts in some measure for the frequency with which they change jobs. This may also account for the fact that white people are averse to paying migrants well.

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

Mr. L---- was graduated from the Carbondale (Ill.) high school and the Southern Illinois State Normal School, while Mrs. L---- was graduated from Hyde Park High School and the Chicago Normal School. The latter is a music teacher. Before coming to Chicago, Mr. L---- was a school principal in Mounds, Illinois, and Mrs. L---- also was a teacher. They are northern people, the husband having been born in East St. Louis and the wife in Chicago. They have a daughter, three years of age, and have living with them a niece and nephew, six and five years old, as well as two adult women relatives.

_Economic sufficiency._--As a railway mail clerk, Mr. L---- earns $125 a month. He owns a house and lot in Carbondale and carries insurance on his life and property. They spend $37.50 a month for rent, about $10 for miscellaneous items, $15 a week for food, $4 a month for gas, $1 for barber's services, and always $10 a month is added to the family's bank account.

_Housing and neighborhood expenses._--In April, 1919, a flat building south of Sixty-third Street, previously occupied by white people, was opened to Negroes. The L---- family were the first of the Negroes to move in. A few white families wished to remain and lived in the same building with the Negroes. Mr. L---- says: "We objected, as they were not the kind of people we wanted to live with. My sister-in-law acted as agent of the building, and the condition of some of the flats was terrible. The owner was arrogant when the Negroes first came in, but he soon found that we would not be pleased with just anything. He told us he saw that we were particular and wanted things nice, and, said he, 'Seeing that you are that way, I'll do the best I can for you, as I believe you will take care of the flat.' The Negroes insisted on the laundry being cleaned and it is now being used."

The L---- family has had three stoves since moving in. After thoroughly renovating the building and making many of the repairs themselves, the sanitary conditions are good, and the owner makes no further objection to maintaining the good order of things.

The white people of the neighborhood objected to having the building occupied by Negroes. White boys of the neighborhood stoned the building, and its tenants were obliged to call upon the police for protection. This antagonism now seems to have disappeared. The white and Negro children play together amicably.

_Community participation._--Mrs. L---- attends the First Presbyterian Church regularly and Mr. L---- is a member and secretary of the board of trustees of the A.M.E. Mission. He is a Mason and a member of the Woodlawn Community Organization, which has the betterment of the neighborhood as its aim. He plays tennis for recreation and goes to concerts and the movies for entertainment. The children in the family have made use of public playgrounds and libraries. Bathing-beaches have been sought occasionally, and contacts have been made with the St. Lawrence Mission, a neighborhood institution.

_Opinions on race relations._--Mr. L---- thinks that agitation is of no assistance to the problem and draws attention to the fact that lack of agitation on the part of newspapers averted a riot in connection with one recent racial disturbance. "Housing is the greatest difficulty confronted by the migrant from the South." It is his opinion, further, that the Negroes are not understood, that the white people fear them until they become really acquainted with the Negroes. "Contact," he says, "is the only thing that will help to make conditions better. It is just a question of understanding each other."

A MULATTO

Mr. A---- was born in Chicago and his wife in Helena, Arkansas. He was educated in the Chicago public schools, and his wife attended Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, and afterward the Chicago Musical College.

Mr. A---- is light in complexion and is frequently mistaken for a white man. Several years ago, without announcing his race, he obtained work in a label factory and remained for some time until it was discovered that he was not a white man, and therefore the only Negro in the establishment. The officials, being the first to learn his racial identity, decided to keep him as long as no objection came from the other white employees. In a few years he became superintendent of the factory, which position he held for eight years. He was treated as an equal by members of the firm, who visited him at his home and invited him to their club. He was also president of the company's outing club.

A short time ago he decided to enter business for himself, and both he and his wife took courses in an embalming school. He now has a business with stock and fixtures valued at $10,000.

_Economic sufficiency._--His business income affords a comfortable livelihood and a surplus for investment. He has bought one house and built another. These two are valued at $8,000 and yield $90 monthly. He also owns stock in the Pennsylvania Railroad and a fire insurance company, has $300 invested in Liberty bonds and owns a $1,000 automobile.

_Community participation._--Mr. and Mrs. A---- attend Congregational church services every Sunday and get much pleasure from concerts, lectures, and shows in the "Loop." Their principal recreation is motoring. Mr. A---- is president of an association of business men and of a charity organization. He is a member of several fraternal organizations, contributes to Provident Hospital, United Charities, and the Urban League. His wife is an active committee member of a charity organization.

_Opinions on local race problems._--Mr. A---- thinks there would be no housing problem if prejudice were not so marked. He mentioned a subdivision east of Stony Island Avenue where it is specifically stated that Negroes are not desired. Homes there are being sold for prices within the reach of Negroes, and he feels that at least 500 Negroes would be glad to pay cash for such homes anywhere in Chicago if they were given the opportunity. He feels that proper protection should be given Negroes against bombers.

A TRANSPLANTED HOUSEHOLD

Mr. B---- is seventy-two years old and his wife sixty-four. They came to Chicago during the migration. They had difficulty in finding work suited to their advanced age and in accustoming themselves to the simplest changes in environment. Neither of them can read or write.

_Home life in the South._--In Alabama they owned an eight-acre farm and a four-room house and raised hogs, chickens, and cows. They both had worked twelve hours a day for years and by denying themselves even a comfortable home had saved $2,000. They were members of a church, although they could not actively participate in church or other affairs of their rural community. When the migration fever struck them they sold their property, drew out their $2,000, and followed the crowd.

_Home life in Chicago._--They first secured rooms and began the search for work. Mr. B---- finally secured a job in a livery stable at $18 a week, but the work was uncertain and the wages insufficient. Mrs. B---- went to work cleaning taxicabs. Illness and frequent lapses in work depleted their savings. They rented an eight-room house and took in lodgers, hoping to insure a steady income. They have nine lodgers in these eight rooms, in addition to themselves. There is no furnace heat; the bathroom is out of repair, the halls dark and dirty, and they are using their old furniture brought from the South. Three of the women lodgers came from the same Alabama community. The habits and customs of this household are unchanged. They go out seldom, and all of the women smoke pipes and use snuff.

Of the original $2,000 which Mr. B---- brought with him, he has $250 left.

They make no use of civic and social agencies and do not go to church because they think Chicago Negroes are unsociable. They prize the fact, however, that work is plentiful for the lodgers, and they have no intention of returning South.

A BARBER FROM MISSISSIPPI

Mr. D---- was a migrant and a member of a party of over a hundred Negroes who left Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in the autumn of 1916.

He was a barber at home and earned an average of $25 a week. Mrs. D---- was a good housewife. They owned a house and lot valued at $1,000 and furniture valued at $500. They have two children.

_Motive for coming to Chicago._--Mr. D---- had always read the _Chicago Defender_, and usually got in a supply of these papers to sell to his customers and to supply topics for barber-shop discussion. His daughter, then a student at Straight College in New Orleans, was to be graduated that year, and he went to New Orleans to spend a week. While there he worked in a barber shop. He found that the migration was being much discussed. One day a man came into the shop and said he was a representative of a northern industry that was anxious to get Negroes to come North and work for it. He argued that the North had freed the Negroes, but had left them in the South where they had not received good treatment, so that at this late date the North was trying to right an old wrong and was now offering to Negroes a chance to work. On the other hand the Negroes were indebted to the North for their freedom.

When Mr. D---- returned home he sold his barber shop and left for the North with his wife and children.

_Life in Chicago._--Opening a place of business in Chicago, he called it the Hattiesburg Barber Shop. It is patronized largely by Hattiesburg people who came up in his party. His earnings are larger here, but at first his wife was forced to work in the Stock Yards at $10 a week to help meet the family budget. Occasionally now she works as a hairdresser. They pay $46.50 a month for rent. Their clothing bill amounts to $650 a year. Last year they spent $200 for medicine and an average of $18 a week for food. Their insurance premiums total $6 a month.

_Community participation._--In the South the entire family was active in church affairs. In Chicago they have continued their church connections, and Mr. D---- is one of the officials at the Olivet Baptist Church. They go to church four times a week.

_Adjustments to Chicago._--They were quick to begin adjustment to their new surroundings, profiting by the advice and instructions of their present pastor. At the end of six months they felt themselves quite at home. They feel the need for using more careful English and are more formal in their greetings and relations with persons whom they meet. They enjoy the "freedom of speech and action" allowed in Chicago, the privilege of voting, the freedom from segregation, and the absence of Jim Crow laws. They think Chicago is fair to Negroes in so far as laws are concerned, but believe there should be better enforcement of the laws. They find life easier here, although there is more work to be done. They feel a great satisfaction in the more modern homes and other comforts and pleasures they are able to obtain. Each month they add a small amount to their bank account. They suggest that Negroes who have become adjusted to Chicago should take pains in a kindly spirit to inform newcomers concerning the proper deportment. They believe that if advice is offered in the right manner it will always be gladly received. They do not intend to return South.

A STOCK YARDS LABORER

A son-in-law of the B---- family, also from Mississippi, is employed at the Stock Yards. His impressions throw light on the adjustment of migrants and on their views. He said:

"A friend met me when I first came to Chicago and took me to the Stock Yards and got me a job. I went to the front of the street car the first time I entered one here because my friend told me to; I would not sit beside a white person at first, but I finally got courage to do so.

"At Swift's the whites were friendly. There I was in the dry-salt department at 22½ cents an hour. The foreman, a northerner, had been there thirty-five years. He was fair to all. I worked with Americans, Poles, and Irish. But the work was very hard, and I had to leave. I carried my lunch with me. Negroes and whites there eat together when they wish. I am now working at Wilson's. The Irish and Poles are a mean class. They try to get the Negroes to join the union. When the Negroes went to work Friday after the riot, most of the Irish and Poles quit and didn't come back to work until Monday. They came back jawing because the Negroes didn't join the union. White members of the union got paid when their houses had been burned--$50 if they had families and $25 if they were single. Colored members of the union got nothing when their houses had been burned. That's why I won't join. You pay money and get nothing. The whites worked during the riot; we had to lose that time. I lost two weeks. It seemed strange to me. It looked unfair. They are still mean and 'dig ditches' for us. They go to the foreman and knock us, just trying to get us out of jobs. The foreman so far hasn't paid any attention to it. I am working in the fresh-pork department, handling boxes.

"The Negroes stick together and tend to their business. Some of the Americans and Polish are very friendly. Everybody does his own work. We use the same showers and locker-rooms. They don't want us to work because we are not in the union. One asked me yesterday to join. The Poles said non-union men would not get a raise, but we got it."

_Opinions on race relations._--"When I first came I thought the city was wide open--I mean friendly and free. It seems that there is more discrimination and unfriendly feeling than I thought. I notice it at work and in public places. Wages are not increasing like the high cost of living. As soon as one gets a raise, the cost of living goes up [May, 1920].

"The whites act just as disorderly on cars as the Negroes. Monday evening two white laborers sitting beside a white woman cursed so much that I had to look around. Nothing is ever said about such incidents.

"Rent goes up whenever people think of it. We have to pay $8 more since April. Things are getting worse for us and we need to think about it. Still it is better here than in the South."

AN OLD SETTLER

Mr. S---- was born in Baltimore in 1851. At the time of the gold rush to California, his father took his family and started out to seek his fortune. They had got as far as Chicago when his father was robbed and the journey ended. Mr. S---- has lived here since. He has seen many changes during his sixty-three years' residence in Chicago. When he came here the city limits were Twelfth Street on the South and Chicago Avenue on the North, and there were no street cars. The Negro population was 175. His parents took him on Sunday to the Railway Chapel Sunday School, started in 1857 in two passenger cars by a Presbyterian minister, Father Kent. The first building occupied by this congregation was on the site where the Board of Trade now stands, 141 West Jackson Boulevard. This was destroyed in the fire of 1871. The second church was at the corner of State and Thirteenth streets, where the Fair warehouse now stands. The next site of the church was that of the Institutional Church at Thirty-eighth and Dearborn streets.

_Early housing experience._--Prejudice, Mr. S---- says, was unknown in the early days. He has lived south of Thirty-first Street for thirty-five years. They were the first Negro family to enter the block in which they now live. He built his home there and has been living there twenty years.

A BASEBALL "MAGNATE"

Mr. G---- was born in La Grange, Texas, the son of a minister. As a boy he worked on his father's farm, went to school, and progressed as far as the eighth grade. He was a good baseball player. He played first in Forth Worth, Texas, then in New York and Philadelphia, and finally came to Chicago in 1907. The highest amount he had been able to earn was $9 a week. His first job in Chicago netted him about $1,000 a year. In 1910 he had acquired ownership of the team, and now, at the age of forty, it nets him $15,000 a year. His team has traveled extensively, having covered the principal cities in the United States at least twenty-five times.

_Home life._--Mrs. G---- was born in Sherman, Texas. She completed the first-year high school at her home. She is a modest woman and a good housekeeper. They have two children, a son of nine and a daughter of three. Mr. G---- has moved four times in Chicago, seeking desirable living quarters for his family. He owns a three-story brick building containing nine rooms, the house in which he now lives. In addition he owns $7,000 worth of Liberty bonds and values his baseball team and other personal property at about $35,000.

_Community participation._--Both Mr. and Mrs. G---- were church members in the South. This membership is continued in Chicago. Mrs. G---- belongs to an A.M.E. church and is interested in and helps support Provident Hospital and Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls, while Mr. G---- is a member of several fraternal orders, City Federation of Clubs, and the Appomattox Club. Their recreation is baseball and dancing, and they find entertainment in attending theaters and orchestra concerts principally in the "Loop." Mr. G---- is very much interested now in a playground which is being established near his home and a tennis and croquet club for young people in the same vicinity.

AN OLD RESIDENT

Before coming to Chicago in 1886 Mrs. L---- had lived in Washington and Detroit. Mr. L---- was successively a railroad porter, a night watchman, and a janitor. There are four children, three daughters and a son. Two of the daughters are married and have families. One is a dressmaker, another a stenographer, and another an accomplished musician. The son is a typist. Several years ago Mr. L---- purchased a lot near Forty-seventh Street on Wells Street on which he built his home. In this neighborhood the family was reared. Mr. L---- died several years ago.

_Riot experience._--Although the L---- family has been living at Forty-seventh and Wells streets for over thirty years, and relations between the family and the white neighbors in the block were cordial, gangs of hoodlums from other districts practically destroyed their property. The house was attacked, some of the furniture was stolen, and some was destroyed. The heavy pieces of furniture were broken up and burned in the street. The building was so badly damaged that they were forced to move into a boarding-house for a time.

_Community participation._--The L---- family lived in a section of the city in which there were few Negroes, but maintained an active relationship with organizations of the Negro community. They are members of the A.M.E. Church and Sunday school and of two fraternal organizations. Mrs. L---- is a member of the Linen Club of the Provident Hospital and is actively interested in the Old Folks Home. Miss L----, one of the daughters, is well known in the community as a musician and composer.

A PHYSICIAN

Dr. W---- and family came to Chicago in 1910. He had lived in Mexico City until the revolution made living there hazardous. He was in good circumstances, maintaining a comfortable household with servants. Since he has been in Chicago he has had considerable difficulty in finding a home in a neighborhood fit for rearing his children. He finally purchased a home on Grand Boulevard which is valued at more than $25,000. It is a three-story building with brown-stone front, ten rooms and two baths, and many works of art installed by the artist, Holslag, who formerly owned the house, and who himself painted some of the decorations. Dr. W---- has spent several thousand dollars on the furnishings.

_Home life._--Besides the doctor and his family there are two other relatives. The physician's income is adequate to maintain this establishment and in addition two high-class automobiles. Mrs. W---- is a social leader and does much entertaining. She is a patron of community drama and attends grand opera and the leading theaters in the "Loop." They were formerly Catholics but now attend the Bahai Assembly. Dr. W---- is a member of two fraternal orders and two social clubs. Their recreation is tennis, boating, motoring, and bathing. He is a director of the Chicago Health Society. He is an examining physician and a member of the board of directors in a life insurance company. Both are members of the Art Institute and are active in supporting the settlements and hospitals of the community.

In addition to her social duties Mrs. W---- continues the study of music. She is chaperon at the regular dances of a post of the American Legion held in the South Side Community Center; a member of the Library Committee of the Y.W.C.A., and is interested in the entertainment of Negro students of the University of Chicago.

They are living in a neighborhood in which several bombings of homes of Negroes have occurred, but Mrs. W---- says that their relations with the white neighbors are friendly.

A NATIVE OF CHICAGO

Mr. C---- was born in Chicago in 1869. His grandmother was part Indian and his grandfather of Scotch extraction. The grandfather was born in Cincinnati, and was graduated from Oberlin College. His father's brother was a personal friend of Owen Lovejoy and Wendell Phillips. In Leavenworth, Kansas, a monument had been erected to him as the first Negro captain of a volunteer company. He fought with General Buckner in New Orleans, was active as an abolitionist, and his wife was one of the women sent to Kansas to establish schools among Negroes. She taught school for thirty-six years and was one of the first women in the country who were graduated as kindergarten teachers. His maternal grandfather bought a home in Chicago in 1854 and lived where the Federal Building now stands. At the time of Mr. C----'s birth his father lived on Plymouth Court, then called Diana Place. They lived for thirty-one years on South La Salle Street, where they owned their home.

_Economic sufficiency._--Mr. C---- is a graduate of the Chicago College of Dental Surgery and practiced his profession until ill health forced him into other fields. He has been a clerk in the county treasurer's office, assistant bookkeeper in a white bank in Memphis, which position he held for two years, and assistant electrician for a telephone company. Now, at fifty-one, he is superintendent of the Western Exposition Company's building. Twice he has lost his savings by bank failures. He lost $9,000 through the failure of the Day and Night Bank in Memphis, Tennessee. He owns a house and lot, oil and mining stocks valued at $4,600, Liberty bonds, Thrift stamps, and carries a small bank balance. His present home is a four-room flat in a building on South State Street, which contains forty apartments and two stores. With him lives the family of his younger brother, who has a twelve-year-old son. He is a member of the Baptist church and two fraternal orders. His chief recreation is swimming, and he finds his entertainment in the "Loop" theaters and the city library.

A MISSOURI FAMILY

Mr. and Mrs. T---- came to Chicago in 1919, the wife arriving one month before her husband. They had been living in St. Louis, Missouri, where Mr. T---- was employed as a roller in an aluminum works. Prior to that time he had been a houseman, and before that a teamster.

There are two children. One is fourteen years old and in the first-year high school, and the other is seven and in the first-grade grammar school.

Mrs. T---- has always been a substantial aid to her husband, and, as she says, she "doesn't always wait for him to bring something to her, but goes out herself and helps to get it." Accordingly, when reports were being circulated that Chicago offered good jobs and a comfortable living, she came up to investigate while her husband held his job in St. Louis.

_Home life in Chicago._--The family lives on State Street over a store. They have moved four times since coming to Chicago in 1919, once to be nearer work, once to get out of a neighborhood that suffered during the riot, and twice to find a more desirable neighborhood for their family. They are not satisfied with their present home and are planning to move again as soon as a more suitable place can be found. With them live a sister-in-law and her child, who are regarded as members of the family. The house is in poor sanitary condition. The toilet is in the yard and used by two families. There is no bath. The sister-in-law is a music teacher but does not earn much. She pays board when she can afford it.

Mr. T---- is forty-seven and his wife forty-six years old. He is employed at the International Harvester Company and earns $35 a week for a nine-hour day. He consumes an hour and a half each day going to work.

Although Mr. T---- lived on a farm and too far from school to attend, he taught himself to read and write. Mrs. T---- went as far as the eighth grade in grammar school.

_Community participation._--The entire family belongs to a Methodist church. Mr. T---- is a member of the Knights of Pythias and Mrs. T---- is a member of the Sisters of the Mysterious Ten. They have no active recreation. For amusement they attend motion-picture shows in the neighborhood. The children regularly use the playground near their home and the Twenty-sixth Street Beach.

_Adjustment to Chicago._--Their most difficult adjustment has been in housing. They think landlords should be forced to provide better homes for the people in view of the high rents.

AN EMBALMER

Mr. B---- was born in Texas, lived for a number of years in Tuskegee, Alabama, moved to Montgomery, and thence to Chicago in the summer of 1906. His first position here was that of coachman for $30 a month, room, and board. His next position was that of porter, working fifteen hours a day for $30 a week. He accumulated a small amount of money, and, wishing to enter business for himself, and not having sufficient funds to attend a specialized school, he secured a job with an embalmer and worked for him four years. In 1913 he entered the undertaking business for himself. He is now buying a two-story brick building on a five-year contract, to serve as a place of business and a home. The business is young and was begun on small capital. To establish himself he exhausted his little bank account and sold his Liberty bonds. His equipment is still incomplete, and he rents funeral cars and other equipment necessary for burials.

_Community participation._--Both Mr. and Mrs. B---- are members of several local improvement clubs; they attend Friendship Baptist Church, and each belongs to three fraternal orders.

_Sentiments on local conditions._--Mrs. B---- thinks the town too large for much friendliness. Mr. B---- believes that there should be a segregated vice district. His principal objection to the present scattering of houses of prostitution is that his wife, who is frequently obliged to return home late at night, is subjected to insults from men in the neighborhood. He thinks there should be a law requiring that landlords clean flats at least once a year.

A YOUNG PHYSICIAN

Dr. C---- is a good example of the numbers of young Negro professional men in Chicago. His office is on State Street near Thirty-fifth. He was born in Albany, New York, and his wife in Keokuk, Iowa. They have lived in Chicago since 1915.

_Early experiences in profession._--Through a civil-service examination Dr. C---- secured a place as junior physician at the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium. At the same time he passed with high rating an examination for interneship at the Oak Forest Infirmary. At the latter place he was promptly rejected because of his color, and at the former he was asked to leave nine hours after he reported for duty.

_Economic status._--Dr. C---- owns a house and lot in his former home, Albany, which he values at $14,000 and other property and stock holdings valued at $13,000.

_Education._--Dr. C---- was graduated from the Brooklyn Grammar School, the Boys' High School of Brooklyn, and Cornell University, where he obtained his A.B. and M.D. degrees. Mrs. C---- is a graduate nurse. He is at present an associate surgeon and chief of the dispensary of a local hospital.

_Community participation._--He has already assumed a position of leadership in the social activities of the community, is a trustee of the new Metropolitan Church, a thirty-second degree Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias, Chicago Medical Society, American Medical Association, Urban League, and a director of the Community Service, and also an instructor at the Chicago Hospital College.

_Opinions on race relations._--He believes that the recent migration of Negroes has been an advantage in teaching Chicago Negroes the value of property ownership and co-operation. He thinks the scarcity of homes for Negroes can be relieved by allowing Negroes "as much freedom as the American dollar." Definite suggestions for improving conditions within the race he gives as follows:

1. Establishment of a permanent medium for understanding between the two races--a permanent commission to act in the adjustment of difficulties of any kind. This body should be composed of Negroes and whites.

2. Rigid enforcement of existing laws.

3. A systematic campaign under the direction of the commission among Negroes to teach them personal hygiene.

4. Negroes should join labor unions and refuse to serve as strike breakers.

5. When Negroes do act as strike breakers, the doctor thinks, race friction is created and labor is cheapened. Negroes can obtain a square deal from the unions only when they have joined them in sufficient numbers to demand justice by becoming an important factor in the unions. If they are not permitted in certain unions they should form groups of their own for collective bargaining.

A YOUNG LAWYER

Numbers of young Negro lawyers are establishing themselves in Chicago, and their influence already is being felt in the community. A good example of this group is Mr. J----, who, although only twenty-eight years old, has been actively practicing law six years. He was born in Kentucky and has lived in Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, New York, and Oklahoma.

_Education._--He completed high school in Kansas, graduated from Oberlin College, and then went to Columbia University, New York, and received the degrees of Master of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. His wife completed the junior year in college in New York, studied art in New York City, and is skilled in china painting.

_Home life._--Mr. and Mrs. J---- have one child of four years. They live in one of the 1,400 buildings owned by a real estate man of that district who "notoriously neglects his property." The struggle to establish himself during the first few years in Chicago was difficult. Now Mr. J---- has the confidence of a large number of people, and a clientèle which provides a comfortable income.

_Community participation._--Mr. J---- is a trustee of the institutional A.M.E. Church, chairman of the United Political League, member of the Y.M.C.A., Knights of Pythias, a Greek-letter fraternity and the Urban League, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Friends of Negro Freedom.

_Civic consciousness._--He thinks that if working Negroes and working white men can be led to regard one another as workingmen interested in the same cause the color question will be forgotten. He believes that prejudice is based on the economic system. With respect to housing he thinks a Negro should, as an American citizen, be free to purchase real estate wherever he is able to make a purchase; that as long as artificial barriers are set up there can be no successful solution of the color question; that a man's respect for the rights of others increases in proportion to his intelligence, and that the press can be a great source of evil or good in educating the people. He believes that there should be clubs and educational meetings to instruct some of the less refined classes of Negroes in conduct.

A MIGRANT PROFESSIONAL MAN

Mr. and Mrs. F---- lived in Jackson, Mississippi, until 1917, the year of the migration, when they moved to Chicago. He followed his clientèle and established an office on State Street near Thirty-first Street. Mr. F---- received his commercial and legal training at Jackson College and Walden University. Mrs. F---- is a graduate of Rust College and the University of Chicago.

_Home life._--The F---- home evidences their economic independence. It contains ten rooms and bath and is kept in excellent condition. They own six houses in the South, from which they receive an income. Mr. F---- is the president of an insurance company incorporated in Illinois in 1918, which has a membership of 12,000. He has also organized a mercantile company, grocery and market on State Street, incorporated for $10,000, of which $7,000 has been paid.

They have two sons, nineteen and twelve years of age, and three adult nephews living with them. One nephew is a painter at the Stock Yards, another is a laborer, and the third a shipping-clerk.

_Community participation._--They are members of the Baptist church and of the People's Movement, while Mr. F---- is a member of the Appomattox Club, an organization of leading Negro business and professional men. In addition to membership in three fraternal organizations, they are interested in and contribute to the support of the Urban League and United Charities.

_Opinions on race relations._--Concerning housing, Mr. F---- feels that some corporation should build medium-sized cottages for workingmen. He thinks that the changes in labor conditions make it hard for Negroes to grasp immediately the northern industrial methods. Patience will help toward adjustment, he thinks.

He thinks that colored women receive better protection in Chicago than in the South. His experience in the courts leads him to believe that Negroes have a fairer chance here than in the South. Agitation by the press in his opinion can have no other effect than to make conditions worse.

B. PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF NEGRO HOUSING

The purpose of this section of the report is to describe by a selection of types the physical condition of houses occupied as residences by Negroes. This description includes the structure, age, repair, upkeep, and other factors directly affecting the appearance, sanitation, and comfort of dwellings available for Negro use.

In 1909 the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy included Negro housing in a series of general housing studies. This study was confined to the two largest areas of Negro residence, those on the South and West sides. Both of these were studied generally, and in each a selected area, of four blocks in one case and three blocks in the other, was studied intensively.

The South Side area included parts of the Second, Third, and Thirteenth wards between Fifteenth and Fifty-fifth streets, with State Street as the main thoroughfare. The four blocks bounded by Dearborn Street, Twenty-seventh Street, Armour Avenue, and Thirty-second Street were intensively studied. It was found that within these four blocks 94 per cent of the heads of families were Negroes. The buildings were one- and two-story, with a considerable amount of vacant space in the lots. Half the lots had less than 50 per cent of their space covered. The houses were for the most part intended for single families but had been converted into two-flat buildings. Rooms were poorly lighted and ventilated, the sanitation bad, and the alley and grounds about the houses covered with rubbish and refuse.

Comparisons with other districts studied showed the following: Of houses in a Polish district, 71 per cent were in good repair; in a Bohemian district, 57 per cent; Stock Yards district, 54 per cent; Jewish and South Chicago districts, 28 per cent; and in the Negro district, 26 per cent. A study made three years later by the School of Civics covering the same area showed a decrease of 16 per cent of buildings in good repair. Five buildings had been closed by the Department of Health as no longer fit for habitation. There were leaks in the roofs, sinks, and windows of five-sixths of the dwellings. In describing a typical house in this area, the report said:

There was no gutter and the roof leaked in two places, the sink drain in the basement leaked, keeping it continually damp, the opening of the chimney let the rain come down there, the windowpane in front rattled from lack of putty. The conditions in these houses are typical; almost every tenant tells of rain coming in through roof, chimney or windows, and cases of fallen plaster and windows without putty were too common to be noted. One aspect of the situation that should not be overlooked is the impossibility of putting these old houses in good condition. Leaks may be repaired, plaster may be replaced, windows may be made tight, and these things would certainly improve most of the houses, but when all were done it would not alter the fact that these are old houses, poorly built, through which the wind can blow at will.

Lack of repairs to the houses in the "Black Belt" is accounted for by the fact that owners do not regard the buildings as worth repairing, and that tenants can always be found, even though it is necessary to reduce rents somewhat. This reduction is indeed notable. The School of Civics found that while in 1909 50 per cent of the houses examined on the South Side rented for as much as $16 a month, in 1917 only 13 per cent could command as high a rental as that; that in 1909 the prevailing rents were $15 and $16 as against $10 and $12 in 1917.

On the West Side the area studied generally was that bounded by Lake Street, Ashland, Austin, and Western avenues. Here the situation was little better. One-third of the families visited in the three selected blocks bounded by Fulton and Paulina streets, Carroll Avenue and Robey Street were Negroes. The remaining two-thirds represented sixteen nationalities. It was reported that the white residents could get advantages and improvements for their houses that a Negro could not. While 35 per cent of the houses were reported in good repair, 31 per cent were described as "absolutely dilapidated" and in a worse state of repair than those in any other districts studied except the Jewish district. The report said:

Broken-down doors, unsteady flooring, and general dilapidation were met by the investigators at every side. Windowpanes were out, doors hanging on single hinges or entirely fallen off, and roofs rotting and leaking. Colored tenants reported that they found it impossible to persuade their landlords either to make the necessary repairs or to release them from their contracts; and that it was so hard to find better places in which to live that they were forced either to make the repairs themselves, which they could rarely afford to do, or to endure the conditions as best they might. Several tenants ascribed cases of severe and prolonged illness to the unhealthful condition of the houses in which they were living.

That there was a continuing demand even for the shacks and shanties of the "Black Belt" is evidenced in a report made by the Urban League of Chicago in 1917 that only one out of every thirteen Negro applicants for houses to rent could be supplied. At the height of the demand applications for houses were coming in at the rate of 460 to 600 a day, and only ninety-nine were available for renting purposes. This was due, of course, to the growing stream of Negroes arriving daily from the South.

Covering the same area on the South Side as that studied by the School of Civics in 1917 a canvass was also made in 1917 by Caswell W. Crews, a student at the University of Chicago. He found that tenants had remained in these dwellings in some instances as long as twenty years after their unfitness had become evident, because the rent was low and they could find nowhere else to go. He mentioned the mass of migrants from the South who, because of their ignorance of conditions in Chicago as to what was desirable and what was to be had for a given sum, fell an easy prey to unscrupulous owners and agents. Mr. Crew's description said:

With the exception of two or three the houses are frame, and paint with them is a dim reminiscence. There is one rather modern seven-room flat building of stone front, the flats renting at $22.50 a month and offering the best in the way of accommodations to be found there. There is another makeshift flat building situated above a saloon and pool hall, consisting of six six-room flats, renting at $12 per month, but in a very poor condition of repair. Toilets and baths were found to be in no condition for use and the plumbing in such a state as to constantly menace health. Practically all of the houses have been so reconstructed as to serve as flats, accommodating two and sometimes three families. As a rule there are four, five, and sometimes six rooms in each flat, there being but five instances when there were more than six. It is often the case that of these rooms not all can be used because of dampness, leaking roofs, or defective toilets overhead.

The owners are in most instances scarcely better off than their tenants and can ill afford to make repairs. One house in the rear of another on Federal Street near Twenty-seventh had every door off its hinges, water covering the floor from a defective sink, and windowpanes out. A cleaning of the house had been attempted, and the cleaners had torn loose what paper yielded readily and proceeded to whitewash over the adhering portion which constituted the majority of the paper. There were four such rooms and for them the family paid $7 a month.

In 1920 a cursory examination by investigators from the Commission showed that the only change in the situation was further deterioration in the physical state of the dwellings.

The movement of the Negro population across State Street eastward into the area once occupied by wealthy whites began as early as 1910. Wabash Avenue was the first street into which they moved. Gradually they scattered farther east toward Lake Michigan. Following the migration from the South the Negro area east of State Street expanded to the lake and pushed southward. The houses which they found in the new territory, although from twenty to forty years old, were a vast improvement over those they had left west of State Street. These houses do not permit of any general classification, for some are very bad while others, though not new, are in a state of good repair, largely according to the care taken by previous occupants. Along with descriptions of Negro homes must be considered the tendency among those Negroes who were able to move away from the congested areas of Negro residence. Some of the best houses occupied by Negroes in 1920 were in districts until recently wholly white.

A rough classification of Negro housing according to types, ranging from the best, designated as "Type A," to the poorest, designated as "Type D," was made by the Commission on the basis of a block survey comprising 238 blocks, covering all the main areas of Negro residence, and data concerning 274 families, scattered through these 238 blocks, one or two to a block, whose histories and housing experiences were intensively studied by the Commission's investigators. Approximately 5 per cent of Chicago's Negro population live in "Type A" houses, 10 per cent in "Type B," 40 per cent in "Type C," and 45 per cent in the poorest, "Type D."

I. "TYPE A" HOUSES

Type A houses, with those of the other types, were not concentrated wholly in any one section but were found widely scattered; there were none, however, in the areas which in 1910 held practically the whole Negro population. Examples of Type A were found on South Park Avenue between Thirty-third and Thirty-fifth streets, where some Negroes had lived for six years; on Grand Boulevard between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-eighth streets, where a few had lived for three years; on Champlain, Evans, Vincennes, and Langley avenues, between Forty-third and Forty-seventh streets, where some Negroes had lived four and five years; and on Wabash Avenue between Fifty-first and Fifty-third streets. In Woodlawn there are a few of recent occupancy, one of which was built by its Negro owner.

Most of the Type A dwellings are of substantial construction, principally of brick and stone. Some are old family residences in formerly high-class neighborhoods, built to withstand the test of years. Consequently, although they have been subject to the usual deterioration, they still afford a fairly high standard of comfort and convenience. Some are large and exceptionally well equipped with luxurious fittings and adornments installed by former owners. Most of these houses were built and owned by people of wealth who abandoned them. Many of them have since passed through several stages of occupancy. Somewhat less permanent in their physical aspects perhaps are the Type A houses in Woodlawn. Many of the houses in this district are of frame structure, and they are not as commodious as those in the formerly fashionable white districts. But they provide a desirable measure of comfort, with less waste space and superfluous rooms.

_Comforts and conveniences._--Type A dwellings are fitted with all the conveniences required by well-to-do whites. Some of them have more than the customary one bathroom, have electricity and gas, and are well heated by steam or hot-air furnaces. One example of Type A housing is a three-story, stone-front, ten-room house on South Park Avenue owned and occupied by a lawyer and his family. There is a garage, and the place is kept in good condition. A twelve-room house, also on South Park Avenue, owned and occupied by a physician and his family, has two bathrooms, steam heat, and electricity, and is in excellent repair. Another physician on the same street owns a three-story brown-stone house, with a garage. It contains ten rooms and two bathrooms, has steam heat and electric lights, and is in good condition. For this property he paid $35,000. A three-story brick house on Vernon Avenue is owned and occupied by a business man. In addition to other modern conveniences there are lavatories in four of the bedrooms. The house is in excellent condition. A nine-room house on Langley Avenue, in good repair, owned by another business man, has gas, furnace heat, and a bathroom.

_The occupants._--Although these buildings are occupied by the wealthier Negroes, business or professional men, it often happens that others secure and occupy such houses. High wages during the war and immediately afterward permitted some Negroes who arrived in Chicago during the migration to live in the best class of housing available for Negroes. For example, an undertaker owns such a house on Langley Avenue, with seven rooms, with gas, a bathroom, electricity, and hot-water heat. This building is ornate and in excellent repair. A postal clerk who has been in Chicago since 1897 owns a seven-room house on Champlain Avenue south of Sixty-sixth Street, where he lives with his wife and child. In the block south of Forty-third Street on Prairie Avenue is a nine-room house occupied by an employee of the American Express Company. In order to help pay the rent, four lodgers are taken, who together pay $20 a week. The house, which includes a bathroom, is furnace-heated and lighted by electricity. A transfer man pays $65 a month rent for an eight-room house of this class on Bowen Avenue. He earns $35 a week, and two lodgers pay $50 a month. The house has bath, electricity, and furnace. A railroad porter, who has been a doctor's assistant and has lived in Chicago since 1886, owns a house on Rhodes Avenue near Sixty-sixth Street. It has seven rooms and is provided with a furnace, gas, bathroom, and electricity.

_Neighborhood conditions._--Surroundings of Type A houses are generally far more pleasant than those in areas where the majority of Negroes live. The streets and alleys are usually clean, except where Type A houses are in neighborhoods surrounded by poorer houses. The premises are generally well kept. This is especially true where the occupants are owners. When space permits, there is a lawn or a garden that shows signs of pride and attention. One block was noted, however, where the residents reported that the street was watered twice a day until Negroes moved in, after which it received no such attention.

II. "TYPE B" HOUSES

Type B designates a class of houses which have not the size, durability, permanence, architectural embellishments, or general standard of comfort and convenience of those classed as Type A. They are usually flat buildings, whether originally intended for that purpose or not. Frequently dwellings are rearranged by landlords, when Negroes are given occupancy, to accommodate two or more families in place of the one for which they were built. Type B houses have less floor space, the average number of rooms is fewer, and they have, as a rule, fewer modern conveniences. Still, they are good houses and much superior to the habitations in which Negroes are most often found.

Occupants of Type B houses are frequently found to be clerical workers, postal clerks, railway mail clerks, small tradesmen, artisans, and better-paid workers in steel mills and Stock Yards.

Most of the houses in the part of Woodlawn inhabited by Negroes are of Type B. Another district in which this type of house is found extends from Fortieth to Forty-seventh streets on Langley, Evans, Champlain, Vincennes, and St. Lawrence avenues. Although in this area a few dwellings are of Type A, the greater part of them fall under Type B. About 5 per cent of the dwellings occupied by Negroes on the West Side--for example, some of those on Oakley and Washington boulevards--might also be classed as Type B. Brick or stone dwellings predominate in the districts where this type is found. For example, the block survey made by the Commission covered twelve blocks in the Negro residence in Woodlawn on which there were 190 brick or stone and 119 frame houses. Practically all the Type B dwellings are one- and two-family houses, and the majority are two-family houses. The Commission's study shows that these dwellings are not overcrowded and house their families comfortably. Many of the occupants own their homes.

_Comforts and conveniences._--Most of these houses have baths, electric lights, steam, hot-water or hot-air heating, and gas for cooking. Only a few are heated by stoves or lack electrical fixtures. They were found to be in good repair, well kept and clean. Special pride is taken by home owners of this class in keeping the property presentable and preventing rapid deterioration. Family histories reveal that most of the Woodlawn residents are long-time residents of Chicago.

_Neighborhood conditions._--In the neighborhoods where Type B houses were found, no uniform standard of cleanliness was evident in streets and alleys or in adjoining properties. They were as frequently unkempt as tidy. Although the premises of Type B houses were generally kept neat, surrounding untidiness often detracted from their appearance. But a block containing a majority of this type usually had an appearance of being better kept, whether the surrounding property was occupied by whites or Negroes. In the Woodlawn area the surroundings of the houses were well cared for, and sanitary measures were commonly observed. In some blocks in the Langley Avenue neighborhood carelessness and neglect were evident. Vacant lots were no more littered with rubbish than in white areas of a similar grade.

III. "TYPE C" HOUSES

Type C houses are the most common in areas of Negro residence. In this classification are included about 50 per cent of the houses on the South Side east of State Street, most of those in the North Side area, about 60 per cent of those in the West Side area, practically all those in the Ogden Park area, and many dwellings in the little Lake Park district.

Heads of families occupying Type C houses were usually unskilled wage-earners, or in personal service. Their incomes were such that they could rarely afford more than $20 a month rent.

_Types of houses._--Eleven blocks on the North Side were included in the Commission's block survey. In these blocks 146 of the buildings were of brick or stone, and 123 frame. Fifteen were single houses, four were double, and 167 housed three or more families, the largest proportion of such buildings in any district examined. There were also four rows of houses. They were in a fair state of repair. Four-room houses or flats predominated among the fourteen families whose histories were taken. In one instance seven persons were living in four rooms, in another nine persons were living in seven rooms, in another eleven persons were living in seven rooms. The dwellings were mainly one- and two-story buildings, with a few three- and six-flat buildings.

A large proportion of buildings housing three or more families was found also in Ogden Park. In eleven blocks there were 109 such buildings. There were also sixty-eight single and no double houses. The frame buildings numbered 189, and brick or stone forty-eight. Most of the houses were one- and two-story frame buildings. The majority were in good or fair repair, though one block showed gross neglect of repairs to exteriors, and practically all needed painting. Five-room dwellings predominated among the fifteen families whose histories were recorded. Overcrowding was frequent. In one instance eleven persons lived in five rooms; in another nine persons in five rooms.

In the part of the South Side area east of State Street and between Twenty-second and Thirty-first streets forty-two blocks were surveyed. Michigan, Indiana, and Prairie avenues have excellent dwellings, practically all of which are still occupied by whites. Until a few years ago these were fashionable residential streets, and the buildings are large, well built, and often ornate. Surrounding them, however, are hundreds of houses, old and difficult to keep in repair. In these forty-two blocks there were 767 buildings of which 163 were frame and 604 brick. About 37 per cent of these are of Type C.

The surroundings of these buildings appear in brief comments on some of these blocks, taken from investigator's notes, as follows:

Property has been allowed to run down.

Five vacant houses; yards full of rubbish; lodgers transient; families do not move.

Vacant lot dirty.

Two vacant lots; yards well kept.

Garbage piled up on vacant lot; Negroes moving in.

Roomers move often; one poolroom; empty church building.

Vacant lot used as dump; yards well kept.

Two vacant houses robbed of plumbing fixtures.

Yards poorly kept; whites moved out three years ago, except one family.

Vacant lot used as dump; one poolroom, two hotels; yards well kept; Negroes moving in.

Yards unkempt; mostly renters.

Formerly questionable houses for whites.

Mostly newcomers; property run down.

Yards well kept; boarding-houses.

People move in because they can't find anything better.

Between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets east of State Street seventy-eight blocks were surveyed. There were seventy-eight frame and 1,523 brick and stone buildings, 620 single houses, 559 double, 254 accommodating three or more families, and nine apartment houses. Of this group 51 per cent were of Type C. The property and general surroundings showed age and the beginning of rapid deterioration everywhere; in some cases there had been attempts to care for the premises and in some cases neglect was obvious. The streets, except Michigan Avenue and South Park Boulevard, showed much neglect, and the alleys generally were dirty. Many of these houses were occupied by their Negro owners. Negroes were found to occupy about 40 per cent of these Type C houses.

_Conveniences._--In these two parts of the South Side area conveniences and ordinary sanitary facilities are often absent. Gas is the common form of lighting, and often it is not used. Family-history data revealed that there were about as many homes without as with bathrooms. In a large number of buildings families were obliged to use common toilets located in halls or back yards. The dwellings were out of repair in some respects in nearly every instance. Defects of this kind were often in the plumbing. Leaky toilets or water pipes were common complaints. Some toilets did not flush. Some sinks were leaky, as were some of the roofs. In some houses windows or doors were broken, loose, or sagging. Some houses were very dirty.

On the West Side a situation not essentially different was found among the Type C dwellings. Possibly baths were a little more frequent. Occasionally there was a furnace, though stove heat was most common. Gas was the usual means of lighting. The situation as to toilets was about the same, and the buildings, being chiefly old, were usually out of repair in some respect. The number of brick and frame dwellings was about equal. There were more double houses in proportion to the single ones, and none that had three or more families. Five-room dwellings were most numerous, and there was little indication of overcrowding.

_Neighborhood conditions._--Only two blocks in the West Side area were rated as merely "fair," four in the North Side area were dirty, while only one in the Ogden Park area was not cleaned. In the North Side and Ogden Park areas distinct efforts were observed to keep yards clean. Premises showed signs of care and attention, though an occasional vacant lot showed use for dumping. Alleys in all three districts gave evidence of neglect. Some were badly littered with garbage and rubbish.

IV. "TYPE D" HOUSES

Type D housing is the least habitable of all. The houses were usually dilapidated, and in many cases extremely so. Most of the buildings are among the oldest in the city. They were occupied only by Negroes at the foot of the economic scale, many families living from hand to mouth, frequently in extreme poverty.

This class of houses predominates in those parts of the South Side area from Twelfth to Twenty-second Street along State Street and Wabash Avenue, and from Twelfth to Thirty-ninth streets and Wentworth Avenue. Many Negro dwellings in the North Side area and about 35 or 40 per cent of those in the West Side area were of Type D. Even in the area of the South Side between State Street and Lake Michigan many of the older frame and brick buildings fall into this classification. It is safe to say that 43 per cent of the housing for Negroes is of this type.

Most of these dwellings were frail, flimsy, tottering, unkempt, and some of them literally falling apart. Little repairing is done from year to year. Consequently their state grows progressively worse, and they are now even less habitable than when the surveys quoted at the beginning of this section were made. The surroundings in these localities were in a condition of extreme neglect, with little apparent effort to observe the laws of sanitation. Streets, alleys, and vacant lots contained garbage, rubbish, and litter of all kinds. It is difficult to enforce health regulations.

Although there has been protest by Negroes against the necessity of living in places so uncomfortable and unhealthful, improvement comes slowly. Contentment with such insanitary conditions is usually due to ignorance of better living. For the poorest buildings low rents are offered to encourage continued occupancy and to forestall requests for repairs. Prompt vacating of many of these houses usually follows when a family can secure better accommodations in a better neighborhood.[23]

V. NEIGHBORHOOD IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS

Among the more intelligent Negroes neighborhood organizations were found similar to those of white people. Dissatisfaction with local conditions, failure of authorities to sweep and sprinkle streets or to provide adequate street lighting, corner signs, and similar equipment usually prompt these efforts. Three or four such societies have been instituted by Negroes in Chicago. One example is the Middlesex Improvement Club, organized following the riots of 1919 in a neighborhood including three blocks on Dearborn Street near Fiftieth. Among other things it seeks to promote a friendly spirit among the people of both races in a neighborhood which was turbulent during the riots. It has extended some financial aid to its members when required. It is financed by Negro business men with some help from white business men of the locality.

Woodlawn has a community organization which reflects the friendly attitude between the races in that district. Both whites and Negroes are members, with a common community interest. This organization goes somewhat beyond the usual neighborhood improvement association in scope and purpose. While it embodies the usual purposes, it also seeks to induce full use by all the people of the district of all public and semi-public institutions that contribute to good citizenship. One of the notices sent out by the association urged attendance at night sessions of public schools. It briefly set forth the advantages for both young and older people, suggesting that their usefulness to the community might thus be enlarged, that they might be trained for profitable employment, and incidentally that young people could be kept off the streets and away from demoralizing places. Attention was drawn to the fact that "business men of the city are seeking young people, both colored and white, for positions as stenographers, clerks, and trades people." The notice closed thus:

We are desirous that you use your influence to maintain a spirit of friendliness and good will among all citizens, white and black, and especially among the school children, paying especial attention to the conduct of pupils to and from school. We earnestly seek your co-operation in these matters.

In the neighborhood of Fifty-sixth Street and Wabash Avenue is another of these neighborhood leagues; all the members are Negroes. Meetings take place periodically at the houses of members, and special attention is given to such matters as the condition of their premises, care of lawns, etc.

VI. EFFORTS OF SOCIAL AGENCIES

Social agencies likewise have given considerable attention to the instruction and encouragement of Negroes in better living. While this effort has been directed mainly to the newer arrivals from the South, it has also had an effect on many who have lived in the city for some time but have not yet adjusted themselves to city life and more rigid standards of sanitation and deportment.

One of these agencies is the Urban League. Among other activities it issued placards to be kept in sight in Negro homes, graphically contrasting good and bad habits of living. Pictures showed the front porch of a Negro family as it should and should not be used, with the pointed question, "Which?" underneath. Then followed a sort of pledge of conduct:

_I realize_ that our soldiers have learned _new habits of self-respect and cleanliness_.

_I desire_ to help bring about a _new order of living_ in this community.

_I will attend_ to the neatness of my personal appearance on the street or when sitting in front doorways.

_I will refrain_ from wearing dust caps, bungalow aprons, house clothing, and bedroom shoes out of doors.

_I will arrange my toilet_ within doors and not on the front porch.

_I will insist_ upon the use of rear entrances for coal dealers, hucksters, etc.

_I will refrain_ from loud talking and objectionable deportment on street cars and in public places.

_I will do my best_ to prevent defacement of property either by children or adults.

The guidance and instruction given by the South Side Community Service, pastors of churches and Negro newspapers have stimulated the Negro population to efforts at improvement of their property. One newspaper, for example, conducted a column containing hints on cleanliness, sanitation, and deportment. It printed items concerning objectionable conditions at given addresses and warned offenders that they were being watched by the neighborhood organization, which might take action against them if they did not improve their conduct.

Another way in which Negroes have been led to understand that habits of orderliness and cleanliness are expected of them in Chicago has been through a "Clean-up Week" in the spring of each year, when concerted efforts are made to collect and dispose of tin cans and other rubbish on vacant lots and yards. A "Tin Can Contest" was conducted by the Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A., which offered prizes to the children collecting the greatest number of tin cans beyond 300. The 1,000 youngsters who participated in the Second Ward were divided into eight regiments. The eleven-year-old Negro girl who collected the greatest number of tin cans had a total of 6,840 to her credit. Next in order was Hyman Friedman, whose total was 5,347. More than 100,000 tin cans in all were obtained.

VII. EFFORTS OF INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLDERS

Individual householders, especially those owning their homes, were found to be trying to keep their premises presentable often in the face of discouraging odds. Throughout the family histories appear repeated protests by tenants at the failure of landlords to maintain a decent state of repairs and improvements.

None of the houses occupied by Negroes are of as high a standard, generally speaking, as those occupied by whites of a similar economic status.

Negroes rarely live in new houses. Virtually all live in neighborhoods where the housing is old. Negro houses, even of the best class, were built from twenty to forty years ago. Conditions in these old neighborhoods do not make for high standards of sanitation and cleanliness, nor the best habits of living generally; and Negroes labor under a handicap in striving to attain such standards.

Less attention is paid by public authorities to the condition of streets and alleys in such neighborhoods than in localities where the housing is of a higher grade. The streets are not cleaned and sprinkled as often and the alleys are more likely to be dirty, unpaved, and generally uncared for.

In most of the localities where Negroes live, buildings that have not already reached a state of great dilapidation are deteriorating rapidly because of the failure of owners to make repairs and improvements.

Escape from undesirable housing conditions is difficult for any Negroes, and for the vast majority it is practically impossible, particularly during a period of acute general housing shortage.

C. NEGROES AND PROPERTY DEPRECIATION

No single factor has complicated the relations of Negroes and whites in Chicago more than the widespread feeling of white people that the presence of Negroes in a neighborhood is a cause of serious depreciation of property values. To the extent that people feel that their financial interests are affected, antagonisms are accentuated.

When a Negro family moves into a block in which all other families are white, the neighbors object. This objection may express itself in studied aloofness, in taunts, warnings, slurs, threats, or even the bombing of their homes.[24] White neighbors who can do so are likely to move away at the first opportunity. Assessors and appraisers in determining the value of the property take account of this general dislike of the presence or proximity of Negroes. It matters little what type of citizens the Negro family may represent, what their wealth or standing in the community is, or that their motive in moving into a predominant white neighborhood is to secure better living conditions--their appearance is a signal of depreciation. So it happens that when a Negro family moves into a block, most of the white neighbors show resentment toward both the Negro family and the owner or agent who rents or sells the property. Whites owning homes in the neighborhood become much exercised by fear of loss both of money and of neighborhood exclusiveness and desirability. The Negro suffers under the realization that, for reasons which he cannot control, he is considered undesirable and a menace to property values. Wherever Negroes have moved in Chicago this odium has attached to their presence. The belief that they destroy property values wherever they go is now commonly taken as a valid explanation of any unfriendliness toward the entire group. This feeling takes on the strength of a protective instinct among the whites.

So wide and menacing, indeed, has this feeling grown that the Commission deemed it necessary to make a thorough inquiry into its basis and to determine, if possible, to what degree the presence of Negroes is a factor in the depreciation of property values. Therefore it is essential to distinguish clearly between: (1) general factors in depreciation; and (2) presence of Negroes as an influence in these factors, and also as a direct factor.

What is meant by "depreciation"? Real estate men know it as "a loss in market value." Market value is "the price which a buyer who wishes to buy but is not forced to buy will pay to an owner who wishes to sell but is not forced to sell." Depreciation is reflected, not only in market values, but also in appraised or assessed valuations. Before purchasing property it is customary to take into account the surrounding conditions that affect its value, as well as its inherent value. Assessed valuations, fixed for taxing purposes by authorized public officials, fluctuate to some extent in harmony with appraised valuations. This analysis of the factors that tend to determine the value of real estate for one purpose or another gives a fairly dependable rule for finding whether it has risen or fallen in a given period. If property is thus shown to have decreased in value, it is said to have depreciated.

The value of real estate is determined largely by the human factors involved. This fact accounts for the striking differences in value of property, for example, on Sixteenth Street, on State Street, in the "Loop," on Chicago Avenue, and on Sheridan Road. Convenience, desirability, and other factors involving individuals who make up the public enter into the determination of realty values.

It is necessary to distinguish between land values and improved-property values. Usually buildings are erected that harmonize in cost with the value of the land on which they stand. But this harmonious relationship may not continue; developments in the neighborhood may increase materially the value of the land, while the value of the improvements decreases as time goes on. The values of the land and of the improvements do not necessarily rise and fall together, though improvements generally tend to add to the value of the land. Much, however, depends on the use to which the land is put, and even more on the use of adjacent land. That use may be such as seriously to impair the value of all the land within a given area or some particular tract in that area. Such impairment is a chief reason advanced for zoning, so that property values in various given districts may not be impaired through inharmonious uses, and that property values throughout a city may thus be stabilized.

It is also necessary to distinguish between "deterioration" and "depreciation." They are not interchangeable. Deterioration of improvements on land affects the value of the improvement, not necessarily the value of the land. The property as a whole may be depreciated by deterioration of improvements, but an increase in the land value might more than offset this loss. This would be accounted for by a possible change in the use of the land. For example, the buildings on the North Side in which Negroes now live are uniformly old and bad, yet the Negroes cannot buy them. The properties are in process of change from residence to industrial use, and the values placed upon them for the latter use are far beyond the financial capacity of the Negro residents.

I. GENERAL FACTORS IN DEPRECIATION OF RESIDENCE PROPERTY

Apart from any racial influence there are many causes of depreciation in property values, the responsibility for all of which has often been thoughtlessly placed upon Negroes. Throughout the city may be observed blocks, streets, and neighborhoods running a declining course in desirability for residence purposes, losing value, changing in character and, in short, depreciating, but in or near which no Negroes live. The following are important factors of depreciation not due to race:

_Physical deterioration._--The natural wear of time and the elements is a constant factor. Few houses are built to withstand these inroads over a long course of years, even though they have the utmost care. Neglect and lack of repairs and improvements hasten this deterioration sometimes greatly. Character of occupancy is often a factor. Some occupants are highly destructive, particularly in rented houses. Their careless or inept use of a house often adds vastly to the wear and tear and hastens deterioration. Overcrowding has a like effect.

_Change in the character of a neighborhood._--Depreciation in property values in large cities is due in marked degree to factors not purely physical. There is always a continuing yet varying fluctuation in the character of neighborhoods; a restless shifting of population and conditions due to growth which rarely has been orderly or scientific. The psychological factor of residential property values is such that they may change very rapidly with the advent into a homogeneous neighborhood of a few families of a different nationality or social status. Between Twelfth and Thirty-first streets in the South Side Negro residence area, once the most fashionable white residence section, property values based on residential uses slumped utterly, and then later began to increase because of industrial uses. Such a change is often due to an encroachment upon a residential district of commercial or industrial enterprises. Neighbors will move away rather than endure such disturbance of their peace and comfort. Their places may be taken by people less sensitive to such influences who may be drawn to the neighborhood by reduced rents resulting from the exodus of former residents. Then rapid deterioration usually sets in as the tone of the neighborhood falls. A like result follows a change from an exclusive residential district into one of rooming-and boarding-houses and large residences remodeled into flats.

The shifting of fashionable neighborhoods soon leads persons of means to abandon a high-grade residential section for some suburb or newer neighborhood which they think better suited to their social positions.

_Use of buildings for immoral purposes._--Such use, though clandestine, eventually becomes known; and although the property yields high rents, it lowers the standing and value of the block or neighborhood and of adjacent areas. It not only deteriorates the buildings thus used, but also drives decent people from the locality; and the deserted houses either remain vacant or are taken by less desirable occupants. Depreciation inevitably results.

_Public garages, theaters, and kindred nuisances._--People of a high-grade residential district do not wish to live too near a public garage, theater, bathing-beach, saloon, cabaret, dance hall, bowling-alley, or billiard room. If they are unable to keep such enterprises out of their neighborhood they will sell their property and find homes elsewhere.

_Changes in transportation facilities._--These may depreciate property in two ways: (_a_) they may themselves introduce obnoxious dirt or noise-making features or bring in industries with such features; (_b_) new transportation facilities often open up more desirable localities to which people are drawn from the older localities. In both cases depreciation ensues.

_Overbuilding._--Overbuilding is another and frequent cause of depreciation. Building booms are often followed by years of depression due to an oversupply of buildings.

II. DEPRECIATION ON THE SOUTH SIDE

The area from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Streets and State Street to the lake is now the center of the largest Negro residential area in the city, having approximately 20 per cent more Negroes than whites.

In the eighties and nineties this area was part of the most fashionable residential district in Chicago and included some of the city's most prominent families and business leaders. They lived in houses which they had built for their homes, and which were the first fine residences erected after the Chicago fire of 1871. Michigan, Prairie, and South Park avenues and Grand Boulevard were the most fashionable streets with the best houses.

The Negro population then lived immediately west, between Wentworth Avenue and State Street and north of Thirty-fifth Street.

The North Side and the North Shore had not yet developed as fashionable neighborhoods. Indeed, the most prominent residence on Lake Shore Drive and one of the earliest stood almost alone for many years before fashionable people settled around it.

As the North Side grew in fashionable favor the South Side began to lose its original exclusiveness, and its residences began to depreciate. These properties, while their original owners occupied them, were worth, many of them, from $30,000 to $100,000, including large grounds, elaborate interior decorations, and sometimes works of art. The usual range of the original costs of these houses was from $10,000 to $30,000. The change steadily continued, and these houses were rented and sold by the first owners at reduced prices to persons less prominent socially, until nearly all the original families had gone. A few refused to sell their houses and left them in charge of caretakers; and a very few still remain.

The gradual lowering of the market value of the property is pictured by prominent real estate men well acquainted with the neighborhood for many years:

It is a positive fact, an economic fact, that any time a poor class of people moves into a neighborhood formerly occupied by people who had an earning capacity greater than that of the people moving in, there is depreciation. That is true whether Italians move in, or Poles, Negroes, Greeks, etc. If the people moving into the neighborhood earn less and have less than the people formerly living in that neighborhood, there is depreciation.

Between 1900 and 1910 a few Negroes moved into Wabash Avenue. The houses were very old and built close together, with few single residences. Negroes did not progress farther eastward in any large numbers because the next street was Michigan Avenue, probably the most select of all the streets in the area. With the pressure of increasing numbers and ascending economic ability urging them out of the congested, uncomfortable, and unclean dwellings west of State Street, Negroes could and would pay higher rents than the class of white persons to which the oldest houses would next descend. In 1912, in the area east of State Street, practically all of the original residents had gone, and few Negroes had come in. Real estate men estimate that generally natural depreciation proceeds at the rate of 2 to 2½ per cent a year. When Negroes first came into the area the buildings were at least twenty years old, and many were much older, representing at the lowest figure a very substantial depreciation.

There was another important factor in the depreciation of the area. In 1912 the old vice district west of State Street and immediately northwest of this area was broken up. The inmates numbered approximately 2,000 and were by no means confined strictly within the recognized limits. They moved into the nearest good houses available where they could continue to ply their trade clandestinely. They could afford to pay high rents, and numbers of real estate owners profited greatly by dealing with them. As many of these houses stood, they again yielded rents almost as high as when they were new. Cabarets, saloons, and amusement places packed the side streets, and buffet flats opened up in the residence blocks. Raids and prosecution, night visits from men who did not live in the district, called attention to the changed character of the neighborhood, and property values sank lower. Pressure from prosecuting agencies, as well as the attraction of better houses in less conspicuous neighborhoods, urged the vice element southward. This southward trend is indicated in the maps, facing pages 342 and 346, showing the environment of the South Side Negro.

While property in this area could be bought cheaply it was also possible to obtain proportionately high rents by placing Negroes or prostitutes in houses not rented to either class before. Negroes were always charged higher rents than were the whites who immediately preceded them.

The Juvenile Protective Association in 1913 made a study called _The Colored People of Chicago_ and published it in a small pamphlet. Concerning the disposition of real estate men to profit in this way, the reports say:

... the dealer offers to the owner of an apartment house which is no longer renting advantageously to white tenants cash payment for a year's lease on the property, thus guaranteeing the owner against loss, and then he fills the building with colored tenants. It is said, however, that the agent does not put out the white tenants unless he can get 10 per cent more from the colored people.

The fact that for like quarters Negroes pay much higher rents than any other group in the city was discussed by the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy in a special study of housing for Negroes in 1911-12. The report says:

The explanation for this condition of affairs among the colored people is comparatively simple; the results are far-reaching. The strong prejudice among the white people against having colored people living on white residence streets, colored children attending schools with white children, or entering into other semi-social relation with them, confines the opportunities for residence open to colored people of all positions in life to relatively small and well-defined areas. Consequently the demand for houses and apartments within these areas is strong and comparatively steady, and since the landlord is reasonably certain that the house or apartment can be filled at any time, as long as it is in any way tenantable, he takes advantage of his opportunities to raise rents and to postpone repairs.

It was during this period that buildings could be easily purchased by Negroes. One white real estate dealer whose interests are almost exclusively in the area under discussion has purchased more than 1,000 such houses which he rents to Negroes. These buildings were not purchased from Negroes but from first, second, and third owners, and at a price much below the original value.

With an opportunity for renting or purchasing the houses in this area, Negroes began to move in, first in small numbers and soon in larger numbers. They naturally sought to abandon the generally and often extremely dilapidated houses west of State Street.

III. DEPRECIATION AFTER THE COMING OF NEGROES

Buildings twenty to thirty years old deteriorate rapidly unless expensive repairs are made. As Negroes were often unable to make such repairs while paying for the property, the depreciation continued.

Widespread buying of property in this district by Negroes began during the period of the migration. Many home-owning Negroes, having sold their property in the South and brought the money to Chicago, found it easier to buy a house here on a first payment of $200 to $500, and on monthly instalments thereafter, than to pay the rents demanded. Few, however, knew anything of city property values; they were often exploited by agents or assumed larger obligations than they could easily handle.

Many Negroes purchased fairly substantial dwellings on the long-time instalment plan without providing for repairs and maintenance. Usually the monthly payment to cover interest, taxes, and instalment on principal was about all the Negro and his family could carry, even though his wife's wages supplemented his. Thus nothing was left for upkeep.

Real estate agents before the Commission agreed that Negroes meet these obligations with reasonable regularity. One white real-estate broker said: "Those of us who have dealings with Negroes find that they make very fair clients on the whole, pay their way, and ask no favors that any other human being would not ask."

Another referred to Negroes as "wonderful instalment buyers" who have a "tendency to invest in a home earlier than whites," and said that in fifteen years' experience his firm had never foreclosed on a Negro home buyer; and in only two cases, due to exceptional circumstances, had contracts been forfeited. Two Negro real estate dealers said:

A colored man usually feels that he will go without food rather than not meet his obligations. That is one reason why sometimes his home is run down, because he has spent every dollar he can get to meet the payments on that property. He cannot spare the money sometimes to buy a lawn mower or sprinkling hose.

* * * * *

A colored man who buys a piece of property in a neighborhood has no financial connections. He meets his obligations promptly for three reasons: first, he wants a home; second, he knows they may squeeze him; third, that mortgage is coming due and he doesn't know where to go to get it renewed. We have no organization of our own to back him. If the fence is to be fixed or the house is to be painted, and a year from that date the mortgage is due, and he has $500 in the bank, he will not paint his house for the simple reason that, if he did, when the mortgage is due he will not be able to meet it. He saves, and when the mortgage comes due he has $500, $600, or $700 set aside to meet it.

Frequently Negroes overreach themselves in purchasing property. Charles Duke, a Negro, in a pamphlet on Negro housing in Chicago remarked:

A very harmful result of present tendencies is manifested in the acquisition of homes by colored people beyond their social or economic advancement. The economic waste in this particular has been especially great. They represent in many cases a considerable outlay of capital. The domestic facilities they afford are years beyond the needs of the people to whom they are allotted. In many instances it costs a small fortune annually to maintain one of these establishments, and when this is not done the depreciation is both rapid and spectacular.

There is such lack of hotels and lodging-houses for Negroes, especially for single men, that many Negroes have bought or rented houses with the intention of paying for them, in part at least, with income from lodgers or boarders. Such use leads to overcrowding, with consequent rapid deterioration and depreciation. This tendency is accentuated by the fact that the houses that Negroes can buy are usually old and deteriorated.

While new arrivals from the South soon learn that the poorest city tenement requires better care than plantation cabins, their carelessness meanwhile contributes to the property depreciation of their dwellings and neighborhood.

There are other factors of depreciation in this district which became active after the Negroes came, but for which they were not wholly responsible. One was the remodeling of residences for business purposes. While the remodeled property may bring larger returns, neighboring residence property declines in value. Many fine old dwellings on Michigan Avenue and Grand Boulevard have been transformed in recent years into lamp-shade factories, second-hand fur shops, and small business houses; and these changes have depreciated neighboring property for residence purposes.

Another factor of depreciation is the city's tolerance of gambling and immorality in and near areas of Negro residence. In most cities where Negroes are numerous a like tendency appears. Little consideration is given to the desire of Negroes to live in untainted districts, and they have not been able to make effective protest.

In 1916 the _Chicago Daily News_, in a series of articles on the Negroes, described some of the disorderly saloons and cabarets in the South State and Thirty-fifth streets region, with their vile associations of disreputable whites and blacks:

Other resorts in the district are worse; some are better. These are typical of the roistering saloons, a kind which would not be tolerated in any other part of the city since the old Twenty-second Street levee was broken up. White proprietors have brought them into the district, and many of them are patronized largely by crowds from other parts of the city. The resorts are forced on the colored people. Those colored families in good circumstances and desiring respectable surroundings move away, only to find disorderly saloons trailing after them.

At 301 East Thirty-seventh Street, on the southeast corner of Forest Avenue, is the saloon of C----. With this exception the district is a quiet, respectable residence quarter. When it was known that this property was to be used for saloon purposes a petition of protest was signed by 300 representative colored men and presented to Mayor Harrison.

At night this saloon is an animated place. Reputable colored families object to it chiefly on account of the numbers of disorderly white women who meet colored men in its diminutive back room. In the barroom an automatic piano thumps through the night until closing hours. On the mirrors are pasted chromos of "September Morn" and other poses of nude women.

Buffet flats and disorderly hotels are adjuncts of the bad saloons. They make a better harvest for the police than the saloons. The borderland of a colored residential district is the haven for disorderly resorts. Protests of colored residents against the painted women in their neighborhood, the midnight honking of automobiles, the loud profanity and vulgarity are usually ignored by the police.

In one block between South State and South Dearborn streets which was canvassed by the _Daily News_, five places were found openly admitted to be disorderly houses. Some were in flat buildings, the other tenants of which apparently were respectable, some raising families of children.

Many white owners of real estate who speak in horrified whispers of vice dangers view such dangers with complacency when these are thrust among colored families. Two years ago a woman of the underworld and her gambler husband decided to open a "high-class" resort on the South Side. She got a location as a neighbor of reputable colored people by purchasing the home of a former alderman and leader in a church, the one of which the Rev. John P. Brushingham, secretary of Mayor Thompson's Morals Commission, is the pastor. The woman was one of the most notorious of the demimonde. An oil painting of her, as she was before her husband in a fit of jealousy bit off a part of her nose, for years hung in a saloon of international reputation.

These are some of the influences which the colored population is forced to combat in its fight for decency and good citizenship. A few secure political preferment and others profit by catering to the city's vices, while the rank and file are hedged around by demoralizing influences and the race is discredited unjustly.

Another chapter of this series dealt with gambling in the South Side district. Here are two excerpts:

Colored men are in active control of the gambling situation in the big part of their district in the second ward. Back of them are white police officials at one end of the line and white politicians who keep them in power at the other end of the line. When second ward, and even some adjacent ward, gambling is discussed by gamblers on the inside, certain colored men are always mentioned. They are called "the syndicate," and their approval is said to be necessary if the police are to let anybody run in the ward.

* * * * *

Whether gambling is a more dangerous cause of demoralization of a community than are disorderly saloons, buffet flats and dissolute women is an often discussed question. Gambling is a man's game, is more open, and the connection between it, the police, and politics easier to trace. In order to gamble the police must be evaded, which is difficult, or made blind by a peculiar remedy for itching palms or by orders from political powers that be. However, it usually is the same police and the same politicians who are protecting both classes of vice.

The contamination of these influences depreciates property and casts a blight upon all who live within their unrestricted range. The taint extends beyond the blocks in which they exist and serves to promote prejudice and ill feeling against the Negroes who are the unwilling sufferers from these vicious resorts.

There are many landlords who exact high rentals from Negroes for the use of run-down houses. All investigations of Negro housing on the South Side indicated that as a rule the rents are excessive, considering the inferior dwellings, their disrepair, and unsanitary conditions. This neglect by the landlords not only directly depreciates the property but encourages a careless use of it by tenants that leads to the same end. One can hardly expect tenants to respect property that is not respected by its owners.

Owners and agents of property occupied by Negroes differ in their opinions of Negroes as tenants and in their ways of handling them. Of course there are differences in character, standing, and responsibility among Negroes as among whites, and this fact partly explains the following differences of opinion expressed by experienced real estate men:

One real estate firm, on Indiana Avenue, that makes leases to both white and Negro clients, said that property occupied by Negroes was more likely to run down. Another firm on East Fifty-first Street reported that it rented to Negroes on regular leases and had no trouble about collections. A young Negro real estate agent on Indiana Avenue said that he had no difficulty with collections: about half of his tenants came to the office, and collectors called upon the other half. When a building supports a janitor, he said, there is no trouble about repairs, but if the responsibility is upon the tenants it is difficult to keep a building in repair. The office manager for a firm on Cottage Grove Avenue said that the majority of its Negro tenants are on leases; all pay the rent at the office; if they fall in arrears collectors are sent.

A firm which for many years has conducted a real estate business on the South Side reported that 75 per cent of its Negro tenants are on a month-to-month basis with thirty days' notice to terminate; and 95 per cent of them are north of Thirty ninth Street. A firm on Indiana Avenue requires its tenants to sign leases; and in districts where there is much shifting about, or where the property is for sale, a sixty days' notice clause is inserted. It usually sends a collector, so that proper supervision may be kept of the property. Its head expressed the opinion that Negroes are just as good tenants as whites whose wages are on about the same scale.

The office manager of an owner with about 1,400 Negro tenants said that on the whole they compared very favorably with the white tenants who preceded them; while some Negroes are careless and ignorant, they all paid their rent promptly; his office did not average one eviction a month, and when Negroes are evicted they rarely cause trouble. Quite the contrary was the report of the office manager of a real estate firm on East Thirty-first Street, which does an extensive business with Negroes. Much depreciation, he said, can be attributed to Negro tenants; they are much harder on houses than white tenants of the same station in life; they do not take proper care of the furnaces or plumbing, and the higher rents paid by them merely cover the cost of the additional repairs; the recent comers pay their rent promptly when they have brought money with them or when they receive good wages, but later on become difficult to manage because they find it hard to adjust themselves to city life.

* * * * *

A firm on East Forty-seventh Street reported that it has a large number of Negro tenants, makes leases to them, has no difficulty in collecting rents, and considers them more desirable than the whites who preceded them; a firm on Indiana Avenue expressed the opinion that depreciation is very great in houses rented to Negroes. That Negro tenants pay their rent promptly was the experience of a real estate agent on Cottage Grove Avenue. He has many Negro tenants on leases and is well satisfied with them, although he does not think they take as good care of the property as do the whites; Negroes are usually occupants of old buildings, which are more difficult to take care of.

Another real estate dealer on Cottage Grove Avenue who leases to Negroes finds that usually they adhere to the terms of the lease, although they sometimes move without notice. A dealer on Wabash Avenue, who rents flats to Negroes, said that he looked up the housing record of Negroes carefully before letting them in, yet he sometimes had trouble with them. Once he rented a flat to a mother and daughter, and the next day he found another family living in it; but on the whole he was well satisfied to have Negroes as tenants.

A prominent official of the Grand Boulevard district of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association, which seeks to keep Negroes out of Hyde Park, stated that a fundamental fault in connection with the strained relations between whites and Negroes was the failure of white owners to keep their property in good condition so that it might be occupied "efficiently," that is, by white persons. Another official of that organization said that Negro tenants could not be expected to repair white men's property; that there are a great many dwellings in the South Side Negro district that ought to be condemned by the city health department, and that Negroes are compelled to live in them because they can get nothing better.

In analyzing responsibility for depreciation, in the area from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street and from State Street to the lake, it is difficult to determine to just what extent the Negroes are there because of prior depreciation, and to what extent present depreciation is due to their presence. It is certain, however, that a large part of the depreciation is not justly chargeable to them, and that their contribution is attributable partly to their economic status and partly to the deep-seated prejudice against them. There are many instances in which property occupied by them has appreciated in value. This will always be true when the use by Negroes, or the demand for such use, is higher or greater than any other use or demand. A symptom of the general prejudice is the very prevalent belief that if Negroes have once occupied property its value is thereby "destroyed" for white persons. This is true only until it has a value for use by whites greater than its value for use by Negroes. So long and only so long as Negroes as a class are, or are generally deemed to be, at the bottom of the economic scale will their presence in a neighborhood depreciate values. At present the fact stands out that Negro occupancy is an unmistakable symptom of depreciation--an indication that the value of property has fallen to their economic level, as well as an aid to depreciation in its last stages.

IV. DEPRECIATION IN HYDE PARK

The area bounded by Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets and Michigan and Cottage Grove avenues has several property owners' protective associations for the purpose of preserving property values. Their dominant interest has been the exclusion of Negroes because these associated property owners believe that Negroes always depreciate the values of real estate. Negroes have moved into the neighborhood and there has been depreciation. Therefore Negroes are the cause.

A complete understanding of the situation requires that it be determined to what extent property values decreased because Negroes moved in, and to what extent Negroes moved in because property values had decreased. There is no doubt that the thousands of protests against the "invasion" of Negroes were sincere. It is also true that scarcely ten Negroes now living there could have purchased their properties at the original prices.

A leading real estate dealer said that "when a Negro moves into a block the value of the properties on both sides of the street is depreciated all the way from $100,000 to $500,000, depending upon the value of the property in the block"; that it was a fact and that there was no escaping it.

It's a condition that is inherent in the human race ... a man will not buy a piece of property or put his money in or invest in it where he knows that he is liable to be confronted the next day or the next year or even five years hence with the problem of having colored people living alongside of his investment. This depreciation runs all the way from 30 to 60 per cent. Some time ago a survey was made as a result of which it was estimated that the influx of Negroes into white neighborhoods during the last two years had depreciated property on the South Side about $100,000,000.

He cited as evidences of this the increased difficulty of negotiating loans on South Side realty on any terms, and the fact that some loan companies refused to write them at all, and loan values there had dropped enormously.

The Grand Boulevard district of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association reported an even larger estimate of the depreciation caused by the coming of Negroes into property near that boulevard. A committee of the Association in a report made early in 1920 claimed that the coming of Negro owners and tenants into that territory had depreciated property values of $400,000,000 fully 50 per cent.

The advent of the first Negro families in a white district usually creates something like a panic. The white residents, in a great many instances, fearing contiguity with Negroes and property loss, hasten to offer their property for sale and move elsewhere. Even a threat that Negroes intend to occupy a certain block or neighborhood will cause an exodus of white people, and their property is customarily sold at a sacrifice. When many properties are thus thrown on the market low prices are the certain result.

When in recent years, Negroes moved into the Hyde Park district, animosity was aroused, and numerous bombings of property occupied by Negroes followed. One of the oldest South Side real estate dealers, quoted in the _Daily News'_ series of articles in the summer of 1919, expressed the tense feeling of an association there that was seeking methods to drive out and keep out the Negroes:

We want to be fair. We want to do what is right, but these people will have to be more or less pacified. At a conference where their representatives were present I told them we might as well be frank about it, "You people are not admitted to our society," I said. Personally I have no prejudice against them. I have had experience of many years dealing with them, and I'll say this for them: I have never had to foreclose a mortgage on one of them. They have been clean in every way and always prompt in their payments. But, you know, improvements are coming along the lake shore, the Illinois Central, and all that; we can't have these people coming over here. Not one cent has been appropriated by our organization for bombing or anything like that.

They injure our investments. They hurt our values. I couldn't say how many have moved in, but there's at least a hundred blocks that are tainted. We are not making any threat, but we do say that something must be done. Of course, if they come in as tenants, we can handle the situation fairly easily, but when they get a deed, that's another matter.

This fear of Negro neighbors has been used by some real estate agents in promoting speculative schemes. By sending a Negro to inquire about property, they alarm the neighbors so that they will consider offers of purchase much below the normal prices. When the excitement has abated values rise again, and a profit is made.

In the actual depreciation of Hyde Park property there were several factors, usually overlooked, that were in no wise attributable to the presence of Negroes. Some of Chicago's finest residences were located on Michigan Avenue and Grand Boulevard south of Thirty-ninth Street. This was an extension of the early fashionable South Side district and had residences that cost $350,000. But as in the case of the earlier South Side the neighborhood long since had lost some of its first settlers and had begun to decline. The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was near the Hyde Park neighborhood. To accommodate the millions of visitors at the Exposition hotels and apartment houses were built in that district far in excess of the normal need. The apartment houses, moreover, affected the exclusiveness of the residence streets. The buildings were speculations. Large sums were expended in the hope of immediate exceptional profits. Property on Sixty-third Street sold at the Exposition time for three times the price it could command today. This is typical of the speculative values that then prevailed there. After the Exposition the removal of the first residents to the North Side and to suburbs steadily increased.

The abnormal years just preceding the Exposition had brought in thousands of workmen, who were thrown out of work when the Exposition buildings were finished. This and the panic of 1893 made building costs very low and caused further construction of dwellings in that district. Mr. L. M. Smith, a prominent South Side real estate man, described this change at a meeting of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association:

The condition that existed after the World's Fair, if you will remember, in the material yards and the labor market was this: Every yard was loaded up, and the carpenters and the mechanics that were stranded here after the World's Fair were glad to take jobs as janitors at $25 a month, in order that they could have good warm places for their families, and buildings that were put up three and four years after the Fair, along in 1894, 1895, and 1896, could be built at about 30 per cent cheaper than those that were put up during the World's Fair. The consequences were that you could rent a flat cheaper in a brand-new modern building than you could in a building that was put up during the World's Fair, and as the older buildings could not be rented, the owners finally had to come down in their rent more and more; they got in less and less desirable tenants until finally the whole territory became undesirable.

These first "undesirables" were not Negroes, for Negroes had not then moved across State Street. And there were other causes for the vacancies and removals that admitted Hyde Park's first undesirables beside the overbuilding. One was the proximity of the Stock Yards. Since the South Siders could not have the Stock Yards moved, many of them moved themselves. The railroads along the lake front, with their cinders, smoke, and noise, were also a factor. Another was the creeping in of industrial plants that located in and near the district, frequently in the face of protests. A striking instance of this is the large assembly plant of an automobile company at Thirty-ninth Street and Michigan Avenue. During recent years the automobile industry has practically taken control of Michigan Avenue, once the most beautiful street of the South Side.

The coming of apartment houses and boarding-houses was another signal of declining values. It was shown that for twenty-five years scarcely a new residence had been built on Grand Boulevard, once noted for its handsome residences--due principally to the extensive building of apartment houses there.

Racial prejudice other than that against Negroes has operated in many instances to depress property values. The presence of Jews, Germans, Irish, Italians, and Swedes has at times been objectionable to neighborhoods of Americans or of another race. A leader in the movement to remove Negroes from the Grand Boulevard area gave evidence of this, saying: "I know the Irish killed a certain boulevard. I know the Jews hurt another one, and I know the gambling element hurt another one."

On the South Side the Negroes were preceded by Irish. The original settlers in the area around Thirty-first and Dearborn streets were mainly Irish laborers who worked in the lumber yards and mills, the Stock Yards, and other South Side industries. When they moved westward among their own people, thirty-five years ago, the Negroes took their places.

Sometimes social or sentimental values are involved in the depreciation brought about when a new race or nationality breaks down the exclusiveness of a residence district. After the Exposition, for example, when wealthy residents of Michigan Avenue, and Grand and Drexel boulevards deserted their houses for more fashionable locations, many of them were bought by Jews. This operated to depreciate adjacent property in the opinion of those who disliked Jews as neighbors.

How the changes take place was well described by an experienced real estate man: The original families have divided up and moved away; sons and daughters have married; the servant problem has become acute, making it difficult to maintain large houses; thus apartment houses have become popular; houses are older and deteriorated, apartments are new and modern. In 1915 when the number of apartments for rent was in excess of the demand, a tenant would spend $25 or $30 in order to move into an apartment across the street merely because it happened to be fitted with glass door knobs; a high-class residence at Forrestville Avenue and Forty-fifth Street was sold twenty years ago for $12,000; yet he told the purchasers ten years ago that the property would not sell for more than $4,000 to $6,000; and that was before Negroes had moved into the neighborhood. Apartments in that vicinity still command a price approaching their original cost of building, because the demand for them is stronger than for houses.

This real estate man made the broad statement that the depreciation has taken effect, in the majority of cases, before a Negro family has moved into a neighborhood. There is depreciation, he thought, due to prejudice, when a Negro family moves into a good neighborhood that has been exclusively white, but that there are very few such instances for the reason that Negroes prefer to live where they are welcome, where there is no antagonism. With regard to the district between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets, State Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, he stated that the entrance of the Negro had not appreciably affected values.

Another real estate dealer, experienced in South Side property and in selling to Negroes, expressed similar opinions. The greatest depreciation, he felt, was in the expensive residences, and he doubted whether property as a whole in the square mile centered at State and Thirty-fifth streets had been depreciated much if at all.

There was agreement among the authorities consulted that in an exclusive neighborhood of wealthy residents marked depreciation in large residences has taken place, followed by the introduction of apartment buildings. One of the men who had earnestly opposed Negro entrance into the Grand Boulevard district recalled when valuations on Grand and Drexel boulevards were from $400 to $600 a front foot; then they fell to $125 or $150 a foot; and then gradually climbed back to $175 or $200 a foot on account of the introduction of apartment buildings.

Such variations in value are the usual accompaniment of unguided growth in a large city. This unguided development brought depreciation, which was manifest before Negroes began to make their appearance in the area.

The spread of clandestine prostitution, discussed in connection with the area north of Thirty-ninth Street, did not stop at Thirty-ninth Street. As the environment maps indicate,[25] there was a noticeable increase from 1916 to 1918 in the number of houses or flats used by prostitutes in the area south of Thirty-ninth Street. These changes occurred before the spread of the Negro population reached the neighborhood. Two houses, for example, at 4404 and 4406 Grand Boulevard, bought by a Negro woman and bombed four times after she moved in, had been occupied by prostitutes just prior to her purchase.

_The coming of Negroes._--In 1916 hundreds of buildings in the Hyde Park area stood vacant and had been so for some time. Owners and real estate men were offering large concessions in the effort to get tenants. Values had fallen greatly. A prominent real estate man closely in touch with the neighborhood estimated that 25 per cent of the buildings there were vacant, and that there was little prospect of renting or selling them. Coincident with this oversupply in Hyde Park was an acute demand among Negroes for houses, intensified by the sudden addition of about 50,000 migrants. Many of them had sold their property in the South and brought the money with them. Hyde Park landlords were willing to sell or rent to them rather than lose their property entirely. Many Negroes, however, instead of renting, purchased the properties because of the exceptional terms offered.

This continued for about two years, when a demand for houses again arose among the white population. There was inactivity in building throughout the war period. Chicago was sharing in the housing shortage which affected the whole country, which was estimated in the early part of 1921 at 50,000 houses. As the demand of whites for housing became acute, Hyde Park owners began to feel that their property was at a disadvantage due to the presence of Negroes.

Plans for beautifying the lake front and improving Hyde Park were emphasized as a reason for holding on to property there. Alderman Schwartz, in addressing a meeting of the Grand Boulevard district of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association, said:

The South Side, and Hyde Park and Kenwood in particular, in past years has been the choice residential section of Chicago, the show place of Chicago. Grand Boulevard is the most magnificent street in the world, the finest boulevard of our wonderful boulevard system. I know that for many, many years, in this town, it was the ambition of people living in other parts of the city to arrange matters so that they could have their homes on the South Side in the place where you now live.

We have seen the rapid deterioration. In the council and in the committees we have decided that we must do something. The law has some very definite limitations written into our constitution and statutes. It cannot afford any relief. You yourselves must resurrect the South Side.

As one instance of what we attempted to do in the way of assuring to the people who reside here that the South Side can and will continue to be the great place we live in, we passed the Lake Front Ordinance. You people probably never realized what a wonderful thing that will be for the South Side. It will take in the lake front from Twelfth Street south to Fifty-first; it will affect the very choicest residential district in Chicago, the territory between Thirty-ninth Street and Forty-seventh Street--in this portion of the ward where we now are, something like $125,000,000 will be expended in reclaiming the lake front for you people, you men and women who must stand together to save your homes, see that your homes are kept as fine places to live in, that your neighbors are kept the most desirable neighbors in the city of Chicago, so that you may enjoy the benefit of that wonderful improvement that is to come. Think of that tremendous stretch, from Thirty-ninth to Forty-seventh, of bathing facilities, the finest in the world. More than a year and a half ago an estimate was made of the loss in property values in the Oakland district, north of Forty-third Street, and that was estimated to be $100,000,000. Now it is not only the loss of money that interests us. It means not only that somebody has lost a certain amount of wealth, but it means that somebody has lost comfort in living; someone has lost joy in his home; someone has lost the opportunity to give his children the environment that he wanted to give.

A survey made by the Hyde Park Property Owners' Association in 1920 showed that there were then 3,300 property owners in the area bounded by Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets, Michigan Avenue and Cottage Grove Avenue, and that of this number 1,000 were Negroes. Then began the attempts to move Negroes[26] back into "their own neighborhood."

Many of the Negroes who moved into this area had substantial resources enabling them either to buy property outright or so to arrange for payments through instalments and mortgages as to render themselves secure against efforts to remove them. But in so doing they further complicated the status of the neighborhood. Few white persons recognize the marked differences among Negroes, so that in purely commercial dealings they are not as careful in selecting Negro tenants as they would be among whites. As a result some Negroes who secured property there proved damaging to property values, just as would persons of a similar type from any other race.

Many of the houses for sale or rent were not suited to the incomes of ordinary wage-earners. White persons whose incomes were sufficient to pay the rental for such large houses preferred a different sort of house or neighborhood; and whites of smaller incomes could find more suitable houses elsewhere; while Negroes, hard pressed for houses, rented them, and took lodgers to fill them and help pay the rent.

The exclusive occupancy of a block by Negroes is usually followed by less care of streets and alleys. This neglect is general between Twenty-second and Thirty-ninth streets and is beginning to appear in the territory between Thirty-ninth and Forty-third streets where recently blocks have been "turned over" to Negroes. Community associations are being formed in some of these areas to protest against this laxity, and stimulate neighborhood interest in neat premises.

_Appreciation of property._--When values fall extremely due to a selling panic among white owners, it is often followed by a decided recovery as the Negro demand grows. Such a new market among Negroes, however, seems never to have been strong enough to send prices for residence purposes back to original levels. But many instances have shown that prices rarely stay at the low "panic" level and frequently rebound to a level much above that at which panic sales were made. Mr. Gates, a prominent South Side real estate dealer, said: "If a Negro family locates in a street where the population is all white, values are cut in two, but this would not be likely to occur if a large number of Negroes were ready and willing to buy adjacent property at established prices. Supply and demand would rule in such a market." Other real estate dealers expressed the opinion that "if the white owners were not over-anxious to sell when the Negro 'invasion' begins, they might later on obtain as much or more for their property than they could have obtained before the advent of the Negroes."

In numerous cases Negroes created a market for property when there was none. A prominent white business man long resident on the South Side told of a row of houses on South Park Avenue and Grand Boulevard that were vacant for years until sold or rented to Negroes: they could not be sold at all until they took on a value because Negroes were ready to buy them.

A prominent Negro physician bought a piece of property in an exclusive white Hyde Park neighborhood. He lived there seven years and then sold the property at an advance, and, to his knowledge, there had been no depreciation in adjacent property.

A white real estate dealer bought a house in Grand Boulevard between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth streets about five years ago. When Negro residents came some of the white people sold at a sacrifice. But he remained and four years later sold the property for $2,000 above its cost to him.

An interesting instance related to property on Langley Avenue into which a Negro family moved in 1919. The value of contiguous property remained the same as of property two and three blocks east where no Negroes lived. Six months later, across the street from this Negro family, a white man, aware of their occupancy, bought a house and paid $1,500 more than it had formerly been offered for.

Thus, notwithstanding the prejudice against Negro neighbors that usually obtains, a block or neighborhood into which Negroes move is not always and necessarily depreciated, so many and active are the other factors contributing to depreciation (or sometimes preventing); and so frequently has it occurred that these factors of depreciation have operated extensively prior to the arrival of Negroes.

The fluctuation of values in response to sentiment, both inherent and stimulated, manifested itself in a practice of certain real estate dealers on the South Side. Although it was stated and believed that values were irrevocably destroyed when a Negro family occupied a building, these agents boosted values by announcing that another building had been "saved" or "redeemed," _thoroughly renovated_, and restored to its "rightful occupants." The Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association stated that this plan had succeeded in sixty-eight instances of buildings "reclaimed" by the Association.

_A Prairie Avenue block._--To study the processes and factors of depreciation the Commission selected an obviously depreciated block on the once fashionable Prairie Avenue, between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth streets, into which no Negroes had yet moved.

In 1885-90 Prairie Avenue was one of Chicago's most fashionable and exclusive residential streets. Imposing brown- and gray-stone residences, with balconies of stone and ornamental iron, broad bay-windows, and large well-kept lawns behind high iron fences, gave evidence of the wealth and social position of their owners.

The gradual decline of Prairie Avenue, as North Side and North Shore neighborhoods became more fashionable places of residence, and long before the approach of Negroes was even thought of, was exemplified in this block. _Chicago Blue Book_, a broadly inclusive social directory, published annually, shows that in 1890 the families living at forty-nine of the sixty-one addresses in the block were listed; in 1900 there were eighteen of the forty-nine left; in 1910 there were only ten, and in 1915 only two. Second and third occupants of the houses took the places of fifteen of the original forty-nine in 1900, of nine in 1910, and of four in 1915. The _Blue Book_ listings at five-year intervals are shown in the table on the following page.

From 1895 on, those who moved away were to be found scattered all the way from Lake Shore Drive to Lake Forest. The newcomers who took their places appeared decreasingly in the _Blue Book_ and more and more frequently they had Irish or Jewish names.

A closer examination of the changing occupancy of the sixty-one houses in the block shows strikingly the rapidity and extent of the decline and reveals some of its causes.

"BLUE BOOK" LISTINGS IN PRAIRIE AVENUE BLOCK

===================================================================== | Number of Houses | | Number of Houses Year | Listed with no | Number of Houses | with Second and | Change in | Not Listed | Third Occupants | Occupants | | Listed -------------+------------------+------------------+----------------- 1890 | 49 | 12 | ..... 1895 | 26 | 25 | 10 1900 | 18 | 28 | 15 1905 | 12 | 36 | 13 1910 | 10 | 41 | 9 1915 | 2 | 54 | 4 -------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------

_The residents._--In a house with fifty feet frontage on Prairie Avenue lived a wealthy artist, son of a Chicago pioneer merchant and member of several exclusive clubs. He lived there until a large brick factory was erected at the rear of his residence which is now occupied by a medical fraternity. A prominent Chicago family lived in another house which they had built in 1885. In 1890, they moved to Cleveland and rented the property. For sentimental reasons they kept the property, although it was fast sinking in value. In 1919 a son living in Lake Forest proposed to remodel and improve the property, if by reasonable expenditures he could be assured by real estate men of "desirable" tenants. No real estate man felt able to do this, however, and the deterioration and depreciation were uninterrupted.

Another residence, formerly occupied by a capitalist and journalist since 1890, was a large two-story house with basement and attic and two-story brick barn. The family long since moved to the North Side, and the old mansion on Prairie Avenue is now a rooming-house of thirty-eight rooms, including the garage.

At another address lived the president of a large business corporation, in a two-story stone-front building. It is now cut up into flats; and in the window recently was a sign: "4th Flat for Rent, 6 Rooms, $20.00, _White Only_."

Only one or two of the fine old residences in this block are still occupied by Chicago's "first families" or owned by their estates.

There are now two relatively modern three- and four-story brick apartment buildings in the block, and five old residences are rooming-houses. One is a club for railroad men, and another is a fraternity house. About a third of the places are in fairly good repair.

The altered character of the block is revealed also in the number of persons now at each address. The polling lists for March, 1920, disclose that fourteen persons are registered from one address, ten from another, seven from another, six each from three others, and so on, indicating more adults than are usually found in a single family. These are probably roomers.

The problem, however, is a complex one, for, although no Negroes moved into this block, they occupied parts of neighboring blocks during that period, and their occupancy contributed to the final stage of depreciation.

The picture in neighboring Calumet Avenue is not essentially different; perhaps the early occupants represented fewer of the "first families," and the deterioration is more obvious.

The evidences of the oncoming of commerce and industry from the north are numerous and inescapable. In this and adjoining blocks are now garages, an auto-repairing shop, the South Side Dispensary of the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, a factory for grinding bearings, and a carpentry and glazing shop. An auto-laundry occupies the old church building.

This area is a comparatively short distance from the "Loop." In real estate parlance it is known as "close-in" property. A former president of the Chicago Real Estate Board stated that a large part of this "close-in" property depreciated because of its change from residential to commercial property. He mentioned Prairie and Calumet avenues, north of Thirty-first Street--which includes the block studied. The depreciation, he asserted, was also due to the "departure of many owners of costly homes to other districts."

With the city's growth, transportation became an increasingly influential factor. The automobile made it easy to reach the business center from outlying and suburban regions. It thus became less desirable to live near the "Loop," particularly as such districts are susceptible to changes that may quickly destroy an exclusive residence district.

The rapidly developing automobile industry gravitated very largely to this part of the South Side. Its salesrooms, shops for the sale of accessories, and kindred business places spread along Michigan Avenue from Twelfth to Thirty-fifth street. Michigan Avenue is only two blocks west of Prairie Avenue and one block west of Indiana Avenue. Garages, repair shops, welding factories, and the like accompanied this invasion, and spread into adjoining streets. For instance, on an Indiana Avenue corner a large eight-story factory was built immediately adjoining the rear of a handsome Prairie Avenue residence, and a one and one-half story garage and repair shop was built in the rear of 2900 Prairie Avenue. Just northeast of the block are factories and breweries with their noise, smoke, and heavy traffic; and from the west and south Negroes have recently been approaching--long after these other factors were operating.

A peculiar fact about the property in this block and northward on Prairie Avenue is that the lots are long and narrow, and the houses are built to the side lines. These lots, when threatened with encroachment by factories and the automobile industry, lost their residence value but did not easily take on a new industrial value because they were individually owned and it required several lots to make a suitable industrial site. The owners, though not desiring to live there, were yet loath to sell as cheaply as the individual strip sales would make necessary. And no investor would buy a single lot for industrial purposes unless certain of getting two or three others adjoining.

In 1910 land values on Prairie Avenue between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-eighth streets were $250 a front foot; and from Twenty-ninth to Thirtieth streets, $200; on Indiana Avenue between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-eighth streets, $200, and between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth streets $175. In 1920, however, values had dropped on Prairie Avenue to $60 a front foot while on Indiana Avenue, a semi-business street, they were $150 and $180.[27] Negroes first moved into the block on Prairie Avenue between Thirtieth and Thirty-first streets about 1917, though very few lived there at the time of the inquiry in 1920. In 1919 they purchased an abandoned church in this block which at one time was valued at $125,000.

To summarize the results of this investigation of depreciation: Negro occupancy depreciates the value of residence property in Chicago because of the prejudice of white people against Negroes, and because white people will not buy and Negroes are not financially able to buy, at fair market prices property thrown upon the market when a neighborhood commences to change from white to Negro occupancy; nevertheless a large part of the depreciation of residence property often charged to Negro occupancy comes from entirely different causes.

D. FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF NEGRO HOUSING

I. NEGRO PROPERTY CONSIDERED A POOR RISK

An important factor in the housing problem is the low security rating given by real estate loan concerns to property tenanted by Negroes. Because of this Negroes are charged more than white people for loans, find it more difficult to secure them, and thus are greatly handicapped in efforts to buy or improve property. The general opinion that condemns such property makes the risk poor, even for Negroes. A Chicago Trust Company representative said:

A Negro called to buy a mortgage. Our first thought was to submit to him one of the colored loans, which we did. We showed him a photograph; he liked the appearance of the building, and then he inquired, "Is this anywhere near the colored district?" He declined the loan on that account, showing that this uneasiness is not confined to the white investor.

When districts become exclusively Negro this reluctance to invest or to lend invariably appears. If there are sufficient Negroes with money to create a market the loss is somewhat relieved. Yet, deprived of the usual facilities for purchasing a home, they cannot relieve their housing shortage and are forced to seek houses in unfriendly neighborhoods.

The factors are similar to those in depreciation, often based on prejudices and erroneous beliefs concerning Negroes. Whatever depreciates real estate necessarily depresses its security value--whether the cause be fact or opinion. A South Side bank had difficulty in selling Negro loans to white people because "they say they don't keep up the property; they let it deteriorate; they don't improve it." The representative of another bank said:

I don't believe you could find enough colored people who could make a substantial first payment. There are a few that I have talked with recently who are on the police force, who wanted to know how we could help them out in buying places. One had in mind the purchase of a three-flat building; the price was around eight or nine thousand dollars. There was a first mortgage on it of about five. He had only $300 cash to buy it with.

A former president of the Chicago Real Estate Board said:

The percentage of Negro people in Chicago who will buy homes is comparatively small. The best evidence we have is that 85 per cent of the white people are tenants; 15 per cent of them are home owners. It follows, I think, that a smaller percentage of the colored race will buy homes, not more than from 3 to 5 per cent of the colored people at the present time.

A representative of a very large South Side realty business said: "There are ever so many mortgage men not familiar with the colored belt. That's one of their greatest reasons for refusing the loans--they are not familiar with the values."

Real estate men, white and Negro, were invited to present their views, and leading mortgage-loan houses and banks of the city were asked what they knew about Negroes as borrowers, investors, tenants, and clients, and their thrift and care of property. Their testimony, with the Commission's investigations, yielded a fairly accurate picture.

II. NEGROES AS HOME OWNERS

The first house in Chicago was a rude cabin built by a Negro in 1790. There were several Negro home owners when the city was incorporated in 1837. The first Negroes to settle near Thirtieth Street--long before the city had extended its limits that far--owned their homes. Although prior to 1916 most Negroes did not own homes, there were many, especially business and professional men, who had gradually acquired dwellings. The migration brought thousands of Negroes with ready cash who found it easy to buy dwellings on the South Side. The uncomfortable and inadequate dwellings of the "Black Belt" could be avoided only by the purchase of property elsewhere. Attention thus was directed, probably for the first time, to the question of home buying by Negroes. Indeed home owning is an essential feature of any solution of their housing difficulties.

Until the migration Chicago's Negroes had engaged chiefly in personal-service occupations that governed somewhat the location of their homes; when these were not in the "Black Belt" they were in shabby property in undesirable streets near their employment. Men who worked on dining- and sleeping-cars lived near the railroad stations--on State and Dearborn streets, Plymouth Place, and the surrounding neighborhood; they were generally renters and moved southward with the general trend.

_Home buying stimulated by high wages and the migration._--The war brought wages to the Negroes that seemed fabulous to many; and the wages brought the migration. The first migrants were mostly drifters. Then came a great many who had acquired considerable substance in the South, and having sold out they came to Chicago with ready money, in some instances large amounts. This class of Negroes bought dwellings. Several of them bought apartment buildings, said a real estate dealer, and in one instance the buyer paid $10,000 in cash; and there were very many who were able and ready to pay from $1,000 to $3,000 on the purchase of a residence in a respectable neighborhood. Another dealer said that he was not able to supply the buying demand: "We have put renters on the side list; buyers are taking up the time. We used to think $500 a good-sized payment for them, but now they often have $3,000, $4,000, or $6,000. A Negro customer lately wanted a twelve-flat building and would pay cash."

"The average newcomer is a home-owner," said another realty dealer; "he has sold his home in the South to come here. Some say the high wages are not attracting them so much as better schools."

Another dealer said that the average amount per family brought from the South was from $300 to $500, and he knew of one family that brought $6,000.

It was the experience of another firm that three or four years ago Negro purchasers paid down about $500, but that now (1920) they frequently make first payments of $1,000 or more.

This sudden wave of home buying impressed Carl Sandburg, who wrote (1919) in the _Chicago Daily News_:

Twenty years ago fewer than fifty families of the colored race were home owners in Chicago. Today they number thousands, their purchases ranging from $200 to $20,000, from tar paper shacks in the still district to brownstone and greystone establishments with wealthy or well-to-do white neighbors. In most cases, where a colored man has investments of more than ordinary size, it is in large part in real estate. Realty investment and management seems to be an important field of operation among those colored people who acquire substance.

Several other factors contributed to this house-buying movement. One was that Hyde Park had many available houses in the early years of the war, while the Negro was excluded from the market west of Wentworth Avenue, with its smaller and less expensive houses, by the vigorous antagonism of the Irish and other people living there. The southern Negroes were glad to find that--at first, anyway--access was not denied them to districts having good schools, churches, recreation and amusements, and convenient transportation facilities. This feeling was reflected in their purchase of churches; two of these, one on Washington Boulevard and one on Prairie Avenue, are in districts of extensive home buying by Negroes.

The high war wages contributed to home buying. Though in many instances they induced extravagant expenditures, a surplus remained for many, and with the frugal the savings were large.

High rents were another primary contribution. Many of the ambitious newcomers figured that they could buy a house for about the same monthly amounts required for rent. In many instances they thriftily contrived to make the property pay for itself. Two- and three-flat buildings would furnish a family with a home while providing a considerable revenue from the rented flats. When old-fashioned houses too large for one family were bought, lodgers and boarders were often taken. Frequently wife and children added to the family income so that they might own a home.

A real estate dealer in Hyde Park said: "The Negro has purchased 90 per cent of the property where he lives, and 75 per cent of these are 'high-class colored men.'" This estimate is too high, but it shows the impression made by the large number of Negro home buyers.

An inquiry in two blocks on Prairie and Forest avenues disclosed that 40 per cent of the Negroes living on Prairie Avenue were property owners, in the intervening block on Thirty-seventh Street over 90 per cent were owners, while on Forest Avenue the Negro property owners were few.

In 1920 the School of Civics canvassed a small area occupied by Negroes in the district west of State Street, a district where, because of their low economic status, they would not be expected to buy. Of 331 families, thirty, or 10 per cent, were owners, and all but one had been owners for from four to twenty years, so that they had not been influenced by the migration.

Of the impression made by the home-buying migrants a very intelligent Negro real estate dealer said, referring to the Chicago Negroes:

I will dare say that 90 per cent or even a greater number did not own their property. They rented. It seems there has been a different spirit instilled into the northern colored man. We bow to the southern man because he is a home owner. The northern man was satisfied to rent. I was born in Chicago and felt the same as others do.

The present trend was indicated in these statements of two well-informed white real estate dealers on the South Side: "The colored people are demanding homes and the tendency is to buy"; and that Negroes were continuing to buy homes in the district between Thirty-ninth and Forty-seventh streets, Cottage Grove Avenue and State Street, more sales being made to Negroes in that particular location than in any other. And this has been during a period of acute and general housing famine in every large city.

_Methods of purchase._--When Negroes first began to buy dwellings during the migration years, the average price was $4,000 to $5,000, and the initial payment, usually $500, ranged from $300 to $1,000. The time for payment was ordinarily three years, though some contracts were for five years. Later on Negroes began to buy houses or apartment buildings running as high as $8,000 or $10,000, and the payments were increased proportionately.

That the Negro assumed a heavy load, sometimes more than he could reasonably be expected to carry, was the opinion of several careful observers. While the surplus from his wages might be expected to cover the monthly payments, money for taxes, repairs, and insurance would have to come from the wages of wife or children, or from lodgers.

In April, 1920, when work at high wages was abundant, a well-informed Negro real estate dealer said that any Negro family head could then assume payments of from $40 to $55 a month on purchased property. But many Negroes made contracts calling for monthly payments of $65 to $75.

The opinions of experienced persons in close touch with the situation were divided as to whether, in making such purchases, Negroes had assumed too heavy obligations. One said his long experience showed that Negroes carry out what they undertake to do; that very few default on their payments, and when Negroes buy on the instalment plan "they pay out better than the whites do, as a rule."

Another said, though Negroes buy only old properties--and generally pay more than white people--they are careful in assuming their obligations and make their payments promptly. They pay down to the mortgage, in from three to five years, and sometimes within two years.

Another, who has been dealing with Negroes since 1907, gave his opinion that they undertake their obligations seriously, and as instalment buyers of property they are entirely satisfactory.

Still another South Side man who sells real estate to Negroes declared that he had been getting better payments recently than he did three or four years ago; in 1914, 1915, and 1916 he suffered considerable loss because of defaults in payments on purchases or in rents.

A former president of the Chicago Real Estate Board remarked that Negroes buy but do not build their houses, and are not yet sufficiently numerous to create a market for real estate; that white people will not buy back property once occupied by Negroes; that, as the numbers of Negroes increase, this situation might be changed, but that the Negro who tries to sell old property, on which he has put no improvements, will rarely find a buyer, because there is so much old property available.

Certain banks and loan firms thought there would be a general foreclosure of mortgages on recently purchased property as they fell due, that the Negroes are carrying such heavy payments on their contracts that they cannot reduce their mortgages and consequently renewals will be denied; that the Negro has not yet acquired sufficient stability to carry on payments over a long term of years, and if wage reductions become general they will fall most heavily on unskilled workers and render difficult the meeting of payments by such Negroes, who constitute the great majority.

Most of the firms that had dealings with Negroes, whether as buyers, borrowers, or renters, expressed satisfaction with their transactions with them. Typical of their comments was that of John A. Schmidt, who found Negroes to be prompter than Jews in making payments, and of Milton Yondorf, who said that Negroes, like the Italians, finish paying for one house before undertaking to buy another, and are eager to make the final payment.

While the preponderance of opinion was that the Negroes do meet their payments, it may be that experience is still too limited in Chicago and conditions have thus far been too abnormal to afford the basis for final judgment and future policy.

The first wave of buying by Negroes was stimulated by both Negro and white real estate agents because many dwellings had been unremunerative for several years. With the tightening up of the real estate market that ensued, Negroes became home hunters, and they are continuing to search.

There has been a wide variation in the prices paid by Negroes for dwellings. For some houses Negroes have undoubtedly paid more than could have been obtained from a white purchaser. One dealer's opinion was that the Negroes have paid full value. Another said that the Negro never pays higher for property unless the price is measured by what has been paid for it by white persons of the "fourth class"--referring to property that has descended from the original owner through three classes of whites before coming into Negro hands. Many purchases during the last two or three years have been made direct from the owners. An attempt made by white real estate men to come to an agreement regarding sales in new districts--whereby they would turn over to Negro agents all inquiries as to blocks where Negroes already lived, and Negro agents would not place Negroes in exclusively white districts--was unsuccessful.

III. REAL ESTATE LOANS TO NEGROES

The most formidable stumbling-block in the way of home owning by Negroes is the unsalability of their mortgages. Except in a limited field these loans have no market. The Negro demand for home property has become so large in recent years that the search for it has extended beyond the fringes of the main existing districts on the South, West, and North sides into the outlying territory adjoining Negro settlements in Blue Island, Woodlawn, Morgan Park, and Robbins. How the Negro is to be financed in his effort to improve his citizenship and home life through home ownership thus becomes a matter of great concern.

The Commission sought to learn from banks, trust companies, brokerage firms, and similar institutions their experience with Negro clients and property and their purpose and plans as to future dealings. To thirty such institutions questionnaires were sent, and twenty-three gave careful replies.

Only a few real estate firms that have a large number of Negro clients have funds available for such loans. These meet but a small part of the demand. The three banks that have large Negro deposits, the Lincoln State, the Franklin State, and Jesse Binga's, make such loans when deemed desirable, but they seem not a large factor in relieving the loan situation. Many of the banks that are depositories for Negroes' funds do not make loans to them, giving as their reason that they do not lend on the class of property purchased by Negroes. Some of them have no real estate department. Only three of the downtown investment bankers make no restrictions regarding Negro borrowers that are not common to all; they have dealt with Negro clients for many years and have found them entirely satisfactory. Possibly one reason for this is that they educate their buyers of mortgages concerning the value of these loans; and thus have succeeded, they say, in overcoming many objections based upon race prejudice.

Most large real estate firms and loan companies decline to make loans on property owned or occupied by Negroes. With some of them this is a blanket provision that covers generally property in changing or depreciated districts. Difficulty of disposing of such mortgages is one of the commonest reasons given for refusing to handle them.

Even among the agencies that handle such loans opinion is not unanimous on fundamental points involved. The Commission asked several brokers representing large interests this question: "Does your experience indicate that loans up to 50 per cent of the valuation on property in the residence districts from Twenty-sixth to Sixtieth streets and from State Street to the lake have a safe-and-sound investment value?" Among those favorable to Negroes the answer of Yondorf & Company, a downtown firm, is perhaps typical: It is necessary to consider each house separately, as conditions vary widely; consideration must be given to future uses of the property, the present condition of the improvements, and especially the stability of the person asking for the loan. As a general rule, loans on old residence property are not as good as those on houses in new districts; on an old house about $1,000 would be loaned on a market value of $5,000, whereas in new districts the contractor can borrow up to two-thirds of the cost of the house; no conscious discrimination is made in the nature of higher rates because a borrower happens to be a Negro; careful consideration is given to the margin of safety, and safeguards are arranged in the way provided for payments.

Lionel Bell, another downtown loan broker, regarded this general type of mortgages on old residence property as fully secured, and does not hesitate to recommend mortgages in the district mentioned.

John A. Schmidt, who handles a large number of loans on Negro property in that district, considers them of high value, though the risks are both physical and moral; it is essential to know both the client and the property; the amount of the loan asked on Negro property usually is not high as compared with its value. No distinction is made as to the color of the borrower, the condition and value of the property being the only basis for the loan; loans to Negroes are less in amount than to whites, though clients thus far accepted are commonly found satisfactory; the period of payment is about the same, varying between three and five years, according to the amount paid monthly, the kind of property involved, and so on. The usual range of amounts requested was one-third to one-half of the value of the property.

R. M. O'Brien & Company, an active South Side real estate firm which also deals largely in Negro mortgages, found that the average amount loaned to Negroes was smaller, and that it is a smaller percentage of the value of the property than in the case of loans to whites, and that the average period for loans to Negroes was three years.

Mead & Coe, another real estate firm, found that the Negroes usually are allowed $1,000 to the white man's $1,500; that only 35 per cent of the value of the property is loaned to the Negro, whereas 50 per cent is granted to whites. Maximum time of loan was five years for the white and three years for the Negro.

The Chicago Trust Company answered that the same requirements were made of white and Negro; the range was from $2,000 to $6,000, limited to 50 per cent of conservative valuation, and five years.

In general it was found that property values in the districts where Negroes usually buy are affected by more factors than is the property in districts where whites usually buy. Where Negroes are buying the majority of white people are renting.

It was sought to find out whether Negroes ask for renewals more often than do white borrowers; whether there was any marked difference between Negroes and other racial groups in the promptness of making payments, in asking for additional time, in the difficulty of collections, and in compelling foreclosure. Comparison of Negroes and whites was found to be difficult because of differences between various nationalities as to repaying loans. The Poles pay promptly when dealing through loan companies or banks conducted by Poles. The Italians are eager to get their property cleared. Jews are likely to ask for renewals and to expect the property to pay the mortgage out of earnings. The Negroes pay if they can, but sometimes have difficulty because they have arranged heavy payments on their contracts; during the period of high wages there has been little trouble, but the feeling was that as yet there had been no real test. Speaking generally, a representative of Yondorf & Company said it was estimated that only about 25 per cent of working people are thrifty and save anything; 75 per cent save nothing; and that proportion holds true of the Negroes.

Firms that deal with Negroes ask for no larger reduction when a Negro renews his loan, they say, than when a white person renews if the character of the property is the same. The facts as to the reliability, character, and standing of the borrower are established when the loan is first made. Negroes buy old properties where deterioration is rapid, and when the renewal is asked the value of the property has fallen in proportion. White persons do not buy the same class of property. So it is necessary to ask the Negro to reduce his mortgage considerably, except when his property is in a location of newer houses, such as Morgan Park or Woodlawn.

Difficulty is experienced by mortgage bankers and brokers in selling Negro mortgages to white clients. Yondorf & Company declared that while their old clients would buy regardless of the color of the borrower, others had to be convinced of the value of the property and of the earning power and stability of the Negro borrower. The Negro mortgages are usually for smaller amounts and hence within the reach of small investors. When white investors find that Negroes' loans are promptly paid they continue to buy such securities.

Lionel Bell reported some difficulty in selling Negro mortgages to white clients, though he generally succeeded, by showing their value and by inspection, that the Negroes were keeping their houses in good condition as to both sanitation and repair.

E. A. Cummings & Company have difficulty in selling such mortgages because many of their clients are out-of-town buyers who are suspicious of Negro property.

E. and S. Lowenstein find no market for such loans; non-resident buyers and even local buyers fight shy of Negro property in particular, and property in general that is undesirable because of overcrowding and consequent hard usage.

In general, the refusals to buy Negro loans are due to feeling against the Negro, a disbelief in the Negro's ability to pay them, and distrust of the old properties which Negroes commonly buy. The opinion was general that anything which would tend to stabilize values on the South Side, especially in the lower part of the district occupied by Negroes, would be desirable; that improvements such as the widening of South Park Avenue would aid materially.

Real estate men who have Negroes for clients are finding it advantageous to educate them in the meaning of mortgages, in the method of issuing and renewing them, and in what is expected of the mortgagor and what the mortgagor may expect. When the Negro is carefully informed of the processes involved in financing the purchase of a home, and the terms are thoroughly understood, there is much less likelihood of losing his property. Friendly real estate men are constantly helping Negroes to carry their mortgages and to find means of renewing when that contingency arises. It is helpful also to remind Negroes of the necessity of paying their taxes and meeting other obligations promptly, and of keeping their property in good condition. Some firms stated that the "natural honesty of the Negro and his love of home life" have been fostered by thoughtful friends and leaders, as well as by those who have business transactions with him. This pays dividends in better citizenship.

_Widening the market for Negro loans._--The white people need to know the obstacles in the path of the Negro who wishes to establish a good home for his family and thus improve his citizenship and serve as a good example to others of his race. How to finance Negro home buyers is a large difficulty in solving the Negro housing problem. The Commission held a conference devoted almost entirely to this topic, at which various experts and authorities were consulted. It was sought to ascertain the fundamentals for meeting the needs of the future, assuming that the Negro population in Chicago is likely to continue in normal growth, and that the demand for adequate housing for the Negro population is not likely to lessen for several years. Particular attention was given to the question of how a market might be created for the Negro's loans.

An appraiser for the Fort Dearborn National Bank suggested that a system involving partial payments represented by $25 bonds paying semiannual interest might be helpful. Bonds of such low denominations might, he thought, be purchased by Negroes. By such a system Negroes would learn to invest their money wisely, and by putting money into substantial securities would encourage real estate investments. These securities could be sold by Negro bankers and real estate brokers. But he expressed confidence that not a few white people would buy bonds of that character. They would be based on about 60 per cent of the value of the property.

One real estate broker averred that success in financing Negro home buyers would be contingent upon creating definite districts in any portion of the city where the colored men may find it necessary to live in order to be able to reach their business or their place of employment, districts to be known as their exclusive territory. Then it would be possible to go to a mortgage loan house and present a definite case when a mortgage falls due. Knowing that the property was that of a Negro, and knowing the district, one would have a definite basis for estimating future increase or depreciation of value. It was his opinion that white people would support a market of that nature, because it would not only protect the colored man and the white man alike but all of the property interests of the city. He disclaimed any desire to promote segregation. But he maintained that so long as the races mixed, clashes were inevitable, and that the problem of selling Negro loans, erecting houses, and renewing mortgages would solve itself under this plan, "because white men will be very glad to come to the assistance of colored."

It happens, however, that some subdivisions developed "especially for Negroes" present low standards as well as exploitation. One such subdivision is called Lilydale. An investigator reported on it as follows:

Lilydale is on a flat prairie and was laid out as a subdivision for Negro residents near the corner of Ninety-fifth and State streets several years ago. It is about five blocks square. The developer is a prominent white real estate dealer active in subdivision property generally. Another well-known real estate man, who is also a prominent local politician, is interested in establishing a Negro colony on this property. The latter is agent for a great deal of property on the South Side tenanted by Negroes.

Many Negroes purchased lots in Lilydale at fairly high prices, considering that virtually no improvements had been made to the property. Water has since been laid in some of the streets and some of them are supplied with sewers, but there is no paving and no lighting. Sidewalks are few, mud holes many. Yards, streets, and alleys are unkempt.

Those who promoted the subdivision set up the shells of a few houses, mainly of the bungalow type. Most of these were sold and the inside finish was supplied by the purchasers. Most of these sale houses, though, remain unfinished. The building of houses in Lilydale has been half-hearted, and most of the structures are so poorly constructed that they are conspicuously uncomfortable. Some of these were built by piecemeal with any kind of waste building material that could be gathered. The people in this isolated community apparently are making the best of a hopeless situation. They express a desire to recover the money they have invested. Provisions are obtained from two or three small stores. There is a church in the vicinity, but at the time of the investigation no services were being held in it. The children attend a branch of the Burnside School, which is conveniently located. The teacher is a Negro woman, a graduate of a southern normal school. She reported that there is apparently no prejudice between the white and Negro children; that their only differences are those to which all children fall heir. She regards the Negro colony of Lilydale as a bad mistake and would discourage other Negroes from making purchases there. She regards the investment there as of doubtful value.

There is a car line on Ninety-fifth Street which connects with the industries of South Chicago, where a number of the men of Lilydale are employed.

Adding to the loneliness of the general aspect is the fact that most of the surrounding area is still what is termed "acreage."

Pertinent also is the statement of a man who for years has been interested in the housing difficulties of Negroes.

Some people have suggested taking a vacant piece of property and building it up for colored occupancy, but there is the biggest hubbub raised when any such attempt is made. People complain: "You will ruin this whole neighborhood! You will ruin the street car line! Everything out in that neighborhood will be ruined all along the street, because if you build up a colored neighborhood in any one particular location nobody else will want to go out that way." So that I have come to the point where I say there is no solution. I can't do anything. I'd have been willing to put in a million dollars in property anywhere where there would have been a chance to get 5 per cent return on my money. There isn't any use in doing a thing that isn't economically sound. I wanted to bring this up to show that I had given it some thought, and that I am very desirous of having somebody make a suggestion that is feasible so that something can be done.

The difficulty of disposing of loans in a district inhabited by Negroes was touched upon by a loan expert from the Chicago Trust Company, which handles such loans. The trouble, he thought, centers on the character of the property and of the district, rather than on the fact that the property happened to be owned or occupied by Negroes. He said that even Negro investors object to property in such a district for the reason that it is old, little in demand, and generally a poor risk. He suggested the possibility of small mortgage bond issues with separate notes. This would save the expense of printing the bonds, which is considerable at present prices, and the investor would be afforded the same security. He also suggested having "baby" bonds printed in standard form, so that they could be simply filled in, thus saving expense.

Another real estate broker who had dealt in mortgages of South Side Negroes for a number of years declared that the average mortgage buyer seems to prefer those on new bungalows where the margin of security is less than that on property in the Negro district. Since the bungalow's cost of construction was less, the chance of revenue under adverse circumstances would be less. He maintained that a ten- or twelve-room apartment house in the Second Ward (South Side) affords a better margin of security than the ordinary cheap bungalow, and that it was therefore a question of educating mortgage buyers on the question of security. The best evidence on this, he maintained, would be the number of foreclosures. He had never had to foreclose with Negroes in the fifteen years of his experience. In that time only two contracts had been forfeited, both because of disputes between the heirs and the buyers. His firm had, however, made new contracts when illness or other adverse circumstances had halted payments, thus allowing the buyers to start over again. Means had also been taken to see that buyers paid their taxes, in which process they had required education. White people must be depended upon to buy the Negro's loans. Very few Negroes buy loans. Their tendency, he said, is to invest in a home earlier in their career than the white people, and they buy as soon as they have accumulated enough to make the initial payment.

According to a bank appraiser's opinion Negroes do not understand values, and they are often led to purchase a building at much more than its worth. In consequence the amount of loans they need is much greater than it ought to be. He had not found, however, that the Negroes allow their property to deteriorate unduly. A different situation had been found where white people lease to Negroes.

According to some real estate dealers, there are cases where houses are allowed to deteriorate, where the payment has been larger than the purchaser could carry conveniently. But "after he has taken care of the payment and has his deed, he will give attention to the improvement of the house." Others agreed that the Negro mortgage debtor is quite as reliable as a white debtor of the same class.

The president of the Cook County Real Estate Board suggested that one means of creating a market for Negro loans would be the passage of the "Home Loan Bank Bill." Its provisions are that no loan would be made in excess of $5,000, but loans would be made up to 80 per cent of the fair value of the property. Many of the loan houses, he declared, do not consider small loans, a fact confirmed by the Commission. He cited one house that will not consider a loan of less than $500,000. For this reason he suggested that this business should be handled by the building and loan associations, since they do business on a smaller margin of operating cost and he regarded them as the proper media for finding suitable markets for Negro mortgages.

Involved in the plan for funding the Negro's loans was the question of segregation. It has been maintained that not much financing could be expected from white people unless boundaries were allotted to the Negroes, so that investors in loans would know definitely what to expect. Opinions, of course, differed on segregation. It was admitted that a spreading out of the Negro population in Chicago is to be expected, that Negroes can hardly be expected to remain in the districts in which they have hitherto virtually segregated themselves. But the opinion was also given that their tendency is to remain among and near their own people.

IV. FINANCIAL RESOURCES OF NEGROES

The chief concern of investors, brokers, and real estate dealers is as to the ability of Negroes to meet obligations. There is a common belief, not shaken even by the satisfactory experiences of those who have dealt with them, that Negroes have no financial resources, and are thriftless and improvident. Inasmuch as a large part of the present housing difficulty hinges upon this point, the Commission made inquiries as to the thrift of Negroes. A group of large banks in the "Loop" and in neighborhoods of Negro residents were asked to give their experiences with Negroes as depositors and investors. In spite of contrary opinion it appears that the resources of Negroes in Chicago are astonishingly large. In the summer of 1920 in one of the South Side banks operated by white men Negroes had deposits of $750,000. One banker told of a Negro banker who sold among the Negroes a bond issue of $150,000 on an old building on Wabash Avenue, paying solicitors 10 per cent commission to make sales. The savings deposits in his bank recently had grown very materially. It was his experience that only a few Negroes buy bonds. They only inquire casually about them.

The sales manager for bonds at a large savings bank, however, told of the sale of $3,000 worth of bonds to a Negro woman who paid for them from a roll of bills of $10 to $50. Another "downtown" broker told of a Negro porter in a "Loop" hotel, who recently loaned $6,000 through his firm.

The information as to Negro deposits, sought by the Commission, was provided by seven trust and savings banks, three state banks, two national banks, and one trust company. These were able to isolate and check up their Negro deposits. One of the banks had $1,500,000 on deposit for Negroes; another $1,000,000. Still another had 4,000 Negro depositors. A state bank had $650,000 on deposit for Negroes, another $150,000 and one of the national banks had $47,000.

The average deposits of the Negroes are not so large as those of all the depositors. The comparison, however, reveals a fair proportion when it is considered that there are many very large individual depositors and business houses among the whites. This is how the amounts run, by institutions:

Average Individual Savings Balance Average Individual Balance (White and Negro Combined) (Negroes Only)

$125.00 $ 50.00 108.88 66.76 545.00 332.00 400.00 200.00 120.00 60.00 235.00 100.00 125.00 10.00 196.00 105.00 186.82 300.00 230.00 186.00

It was the almost unanimous report that Negroes are more likely to withdraw their accounts than are white people, that their accounts are less permanent. In two instances only was the opinion expressed that they were about the same with both races.

Accompanying the questionnaire to banks was a list of questions concerning real estate loans. One of these was: "Does your bank make loans to Negroes on real estate, collateral, commercial paper, or personal notes?" All except one of the trust and savings banks replied in the affirmative. One of the state banks buys commercial paper on proper security, but not real estate loans because of the difficulty in selling them. One of the national banks buys commercial or collateral paper on its merits, without regard to color. Indeed, it appears that no color line is drawn in this line of business except by the few institutions that decline all loans to Negroes.

In general it was found that the Negroes are showing strong tendencies to open bank accounts, that they are steadily improving in the amount of deposits made, in the steadiness of their accounts, and in thrift in general. However, it appears that in only a few of the banks are they welcomed and in most of them they are only tolerated. In banks located in neighborhoods in which Negroes live there is an amazing number of Negro depositors, who receive, as a rule, friendly advice and help in their financial transactions. Thus Negroes are taught banking formalities, while thrift is encouraged, and a good spirit is developed among the white employees toward Negro depositors. In some instances, however, Negroes, like their white brothers, show suspicion of banking institutions when they have suffered losses.

It appears also that, in addition to the growing desire to invest in homes of their own, Negroes are showing a strong tendency to engage in business ventures. They are developing insurance companies, co-operative stores, retail stores of various kinds, and kindred enterprises.

_Negroes' lack of opportunities for banking experience._--In order to carry forward successfully their business undertakings Negroes need practical personal experience and training in banking and financial methods. Yet there is a strong tendency to bar Negroes from employment in banks, except as porters or in some unskilled capacity, and they are thus denied the experience needed in solving financial problems among their own race.

Bankers were asked: "If Negroes competent to learn practical banking were available, could you employ them?" Here are some of the condensed replies:

1. Other employees would refuse to co-operate with them and associate with them.

2. They are not reliable as a rule.

3. Do not think so.

4. Yes.

5. No.

6. We have no objections beyond the fact that 95 per cent of our depositors are white; consequently we would not care to employ colored tellers or clerks in handling their business.

7. We could not have them in clerical positions.

8. In a general way we feel that the employment of Negroes by banking institutions would cause trouble with certain classes of our depositors.

9. Very difficult to work white and colored in same office or cages. White customers prefer to have white clerks wait upon them.

10. Clerks who were antagonistic to Negroes would bring about constant difficulties through the misplacing of papers, mistakes, etc., which would seem to be the fault of the Negroes.

11. Have found that a Negro will appear to be strictly honest for a period of years and then turn around and prove not to be.

12. Our section of the city is entirely white, but with a fear of colored invasion. There is, therefore, a strong prejudice against them. We have only about half a dozen accounts with colored people. Two of these are in the savings department and are maintained with large balances. These two customers are thrifty and careful with their money. The others are not.

13. In former years a bank position was eagerly sought and considered exceptionally good. At present, because of higher salaries which can be offered by concerns which make greater earnings than banks and can therefore pay more, the banks are not getting the same high grade of employees. With the former class it would have been possible to appeal to their sense of duty to help educate the Negroes and to overcome prejudice. With present conditions it is not likely that this appeal would have the same effect, and prejudice against Negroes would make trouble in our routine.

14. Social factors enter. For instance, banks often have dinners or other events for or among their employees. No "Loop" hotel would put on an affair for whites and Negroes. There is also the difficulty of washrooms, and lockers, etc., where prejudiced employees could make a great deal of trouble.

It would seem, then, that there is not much chance for the hundreds of intelligent Negro high-school and college graduates in Chicago to obtain a practical education in banking methods through direct experience. Banks owned by Negroes are few and small, and there is scarcely any opportunity to obtain similar experience in Negro building and loan, insurance, and other companies, which are also limited in number.