for his “impudence.”  He promptly knocked down the ringleader with a hammer.  The mob then set upon him, nearly killed him, and at length threw him into the jail.  A few hours later, fearing that the sheriff would secretly remove the prisoner, it returned, dragged the wounded man forth, and then hanged and shot him, after which proceedings warning was sent to his family to leave the county by the middle of the next month.

It will be observed that in these five noteworthy occurrences, in only one case was there any question of criminal assault.  On the other hand, in one case two young women were included among the victims; another was really a series of lynchings emphasizing the lot of some Negroes under a vicious economic system; and the last simply grew out of the jealousy and hatred aroused by a Negro of independent means who knew how to stand up for his rights.

Such was the progress, such also the violence that the Negro witnessed during the decade.  Along with his problems at home he now began to have a new interest in those of his kin across the sea, and this feeling was intensified by the world war.  It raises questions of such far-reaching importance, however, that it must receive separate and distinct treatment.

2. Migration; East St. Louis

Very soon after the beginning of the Great War in Europe there began what will ultimately be known as the most remarkable migratory movement in the history of the Negro in America.  Migration had indeed at no time ceased since the great movement of 1879, but for the most part it had been merely personal and not in response to any great emergency.  The sudden ceasing of the stream of immigration from Europe, however, created an unprecedented demand for labor in the great industrial centers of the North, and business men were not long in realizing the possibilities of a source that had as yet been used in only the slightest degree.  Special agents undoubtedly worked in some measure; but the outstanding feature of the new migration was that it was primarily a mass movement and not one organized or encouraged by any special group of leaders.  Labor was needed in railroad construction, in the steel mills, in the tobacco farms of Connecticut, and in the packing-houses, foundries, and automobile plants.  In 1915 the New England tobacco growers hastily got together in New York two hundred girls; but these proved to be unsatisfactory, and it was realized that the labor supply would have to be more carefully supervised.  In January, 1916, the management of the Continental Tobacco Corporation definitely decided on the policy of importing workers from the South, and within the next year not less than three thousand Negroes came to Hartford, several hundred being students from the schools and colleges who went North to work for the summer.  In the same summer came also train-loads of Negroes from Jacksonville and other points to work for the Erie and Pennsylvania Railroads.