496 
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN RE VIE W 
people moved northward by the hundred thousand, glad to escape 
from the heavier oppression of the south. To-day, while the great 
majority of Negroes are still in the south, the largest groups of 
American Negroes are in northern cities. New York City has more 
than 158,000 which is the largest single group of colored people in 
the western world. Other large colored centers are Philadelphia, 
Chicago, Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. This will 
make the Negro problem of the future more of a national problem 
and more likely to be dealt with by national legislation. The lessen¬ 
ing of the supply of cheap black labor in the south will also tend to 
better the condition of the colored people remaining there. 
Another thing has had and will have a large influence on the 
relations of colored Americans with other Americans: the participa¬ 
tion of colored people in the World War. Colored men have taken an 
honorable part in all the wars of the United States, from the Revolu¬ 
tionary War of the Colonies down to the present day, but in the great 
World War they made their largest record. The United States had 
about 4,000,000 men under arms, and about one-tenth of these were 
colored Americans, mostly in their own units. They produced thou¬ 
sands of officers and performed some of the most brilliant feats of the 
war. A colored regiment from New York won the earliest honors of 
all the American outfit, and when the war closed, the great Negro 
Division, the 92nd, stood in the place of honor; that is, the place of 
danger before the mighty fortress of Metz. 
Very naturally these thousands of young men, many of them 
graduates of the best colleges, after carrying Victory on the banners 
of their country, are disposed to claim something better at home than 
disfranchisement, Jim Crowism, segregation, and burning at the stake. 
This makes the problem temporarily more acute, more critical, more 
dangerous—but of better promise. Many of these men are inclining 
more and more toward radical parties in their search for a remedy 
against these awful conditions. 
The future of this problem is still an enigmatical question mark, 
but a hopeful prophecy is seen in the gradual getting together of the 
better elements of whites and blacks in “interracial” committees, con¬ 
ferences and movements all over the country and especially in the 
south. This is perhaps the guaranty and the herald of a better day. 
