Negro Migration during the War
to the North, he would have in his hand a weapon as effective as any he could find in the ballot box.

The Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Daily Northwestern felt that a large influx of colored people would bring to the North the same perplexing problems that long have disturbed the people of the southern States. This, in fact, is the most serious aspect of this reported migration of southern blacks, and it is suggestive of no end of trouble for some of the northern States, which heretofore have regarded the so-called negro problem as something which little concerns them. 

The South has struggled for years to solve this problem, with its many phases and angles, and never yet has found a satisfactory solution. Should the same baffling questions be forced on the North it would give the people something to think about, and many will gain a new appreciation of the perplexities of the southern whites. And the necessity of facing this new problem may come to the North much sooner than generally is expected.

The Springfield, Massachusetts, Union was also of the opinion that: The North has been strong for the negro, considered as a political entity, but our communities are manifestly not desirous of supplying a field for him to expand and adapt himself to the social structure, and their leaders experience more difficulty in this regard than do their co-laborers in the South, with its vast colored population. This in itself furnished food for careful thought. In a way, there is justification for a disinclination on the part of New Englanders to add a large negro element to their number. We have enough of a problem already to absorb and educate the large alien element that has come into our midst from the Old World. Our duty toward our colored residents should not go unrecognized, and the first step toward a just and fair disposal of related problems is to admit frankly that a rather strict color line is being drawn among us. 

The Beloit, Wisconsin, News held that the migration had brought the negro problem north and made it national: The negro problem has moved north. Rather, the negro problem has spread from south to north; and beside it in the South is appearing a stranger to that clime--the labor problem. It's a double development brought about by the war in Europe, and the nation has not yet realized its significance. Within a few years, experts predict the negro population of the North will be tripled. It's your problem, then, or it will be when the negro moves next door. Italians and Greeks are giving way to the negroes in the section gangs along northern railroads, as you can see from the train windows, 
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