Not unnaturally the Negro charges these competitive difficulties which he has to meet in the North (as he has been accustomed to do in the South) to the white man; he calls it colour prejudice, when as a matter of fact, it is often only the cold businesslike requirement of an industrial life which demands tremendous efficiency, which in many lines of activity has little more feeling than a machine, that is willing to use Italians, or Japanese, or Chinese, or Negroes, or Hindus, or any other people on the face of the earth. On the other hand, no doubt exists that many labour unions, especially in the skilled trades, are hostile to Negroes, even though they may have no rules against their admission. I heard the experiences of an expert Negro locomotive engineer named Burns who had a run out of Indianapolis to the South. Though he was much in favour with the company, and indeed with many trainmen who knew him personally, the general feeling was so strong that by soaping the tracks, injuring his engine, and in other ways making his work difficult and dangerous, he was finally forced to abandon his run. If there were space I could give many accounts of strikes against the employment of Negroes. The feeling among union labour men has undoubtedly been growing more intense in the last few years owing to the common use of Negroes as strike breakers. With a few thousand Negroes the employers broke the great stockyards strike in Chicago in 1904, and the teamsters' strike in the following year. Colour prejudice is used like any other weapon for strengthening the monopoly of the labour union. I know several unions which are practically monopolistic corporations into which any outsider, white, yellow, or black, penetrates with the greatest difficulty. Such closely organised unions keep the Negroes out in the South exactly as they do in the North. A Negro tile-setter, steam-fitter or plumber can no more get into a union in Atlanta than in New York. Of course these unions, like any other closely organised group of men, employ every weapon to further their cause. They use prejudice as a competitive fighting weapon, they seize upon the colour of the Negro, or the pig-tail and curious habits of the Chinaman, or the low-living standard of the Hindu, to fight competition and protect them in their labour monopoly. [Illustration: WARD IN A NEGRO HOSPITAL AT PHILADELPHIA] [Illustration: STUDIO OF A NEGRO SCULPTRESS] And yet, although I expected to find the Negro wholly ostracised by union labour, I discovered that where the Negro becomes numerous or skilful enough, he, like the Italian or the Russian Jew, begins to force his way into the unions. The very first Negro carpenter I chanced to meet in the North (from whom I had expected a complaint of discrimination) said to me: "I'm all right. I'm a member of the union and get union wages."