According to the United States Constitution and all the laws thereunder, my color has been erased and I am an American to all intents and purposes, the same as you.” After recovering from his swoon, the census taker goes out to the nearest saloon, takes some refreshments and begins a movement to have the legislature enact a law, prohibiting Colored Americans from breathing the same atmosphere as other Americans. But the scheme fails because when it comes to the question of color, the Jews, Spaniards, Italians, Frenchmen, Mexicans, and so on, would be affected. Of course this appears ridiculous. It is not intended to be ridiculous, however, but suggested in sober earnest. It is what has been going on in this country for several decades, and it is time to stop such folly. 61The main point is, that the whole of the United States is the fair field for the exploitation by Colored Americans. And there will not be the slightest obstacle in the way of such exploitation, if Colored Americans drop the past and look to the future. It is not supposable that ten millions of people, who, in another generation will number twenty millions, can be extirpated or crowded out of the enjoyment of human rights because of the prejudices of a few persons who judge from their own standpoint. 61 To show how fast this field is being exploited by Colored Americans would require a large volume of statistics, but the essentials may be given so that it may be inferred that the field is in a fair way of being occupied. Our most valuable account, strangely enough, comes from an English source: In 1911 a commission was sent by the English Board of Trade to the United States to investigate the cost of living in American towns, but the report included important information concerning the occupations of Colored Americans in cities of the United States. It appears from the report that the Colored Americans in New York City, in spite of the industrial barriers that exist there, contain within themselves most of the elements, professional, trading, and industrial, that go to make up the life of other and more normally situated communities. BRICKLAYERS AND CARPENTERS In Atlanta, Georgia, about three-fourths of the bricklayers are Colored Americans, but the majority of the carpenters are white. Nominally, the rate
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