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OLD PROBLEM FOR NEWA Philadelphia institution has undertaken to train negro girls and women for domestic service with a view to producing colored i servants similar to those famed of old and thus solve the vexingj servant problem. The aim is worthy and its success would bring j joy and peace to the hearts of American housewives, but for aj I number of reasons the alluring prospect is not likely to be realized, j ! Better trained and more intelligent servants can be produced, but i no approximation of the southern colored “mammy” of blessed j memory is possible in these limes. The “northern invasion” of the ^ j negro is not bringing tiic typical “mammy” of war times, but a j restless, dissatisfied element in no way comparable with the useful i class of colored folk now' living here.In a recent magazine article Katharine S. Crankshaw relatedj some experiences and observations that may be useful Lo the Phila-UJdphia domestic school, for they disclose the fact that the south,!despite its great negro population, has its own servant problem.Says Miss Crankshaw: jI was in Alabama lam summer and. on every *ido were complaints! inborn Hie Help question. I wnnl with my hostess to a negro village to get i a girl who bad formerly served in the house where I visited. There we j 1 found dozens of negro women living in squalid quarters, half of .them j without shoes on their font, dirt and poverty everywhere. But not one of j them would go to work. Why? Because they are indolent and lazy and; had rather live in filth and rags as long as the weather is warm and they j have their small gardens, the crops from which keep them in food. Do you; .think for a mi nu to that it would cause the south grief if the inhabitants j j of that village migrate?i Many northern people of my acquaintance have visited and lived in ;• jtlic south, and of them there is not one who docs not thoroughly endorse! the view the southerners lake of the negro question. There is a type of j old-fashioned negro without which the south would bo incomplete. But j .that type will not migrate. They arc devoted and faithful, and in return i j their while people love them in a way that northern people can not under- j I stand. Nowhere is there the opportunity for the willing, industrious negro j j that there is in Hie south. But the day that the south sees the migration j lot the last restless, dissatisfied negro will he the happiest day it has known.; l iDespite the effort of southern stales to check the negro j I exodus, it seems likely that Miss Crankshaw is right. If the truly j j valuable servant type of colored folk will not leave their happy | homes, the south will lose little lv the departure of the worthless * negro, and instead of solving its servant problem the north will j merely find itself confronted with a new perplexity, Possibly | neither the north, the south nor the negro, in this instance, knows j what is for the best.
Newspaper Details
La Crosse Tribune and Leader Press
La Crosse, Wisconsin, US
Tue, Feb 13, 1917
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
La C.
WI, USA 17 Jun 2024
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