The proportion of those returning to the South, therefore, will be inconsiderable.
Becoming alarmed at the immensity of this movement the South has undertaken to check it.

To frighten Negroes from the North southern newspapers are carefully circulating reports that many of them are returning to their native land because of unexpected hardships.[9] But having failed in this, southerners have compelled employment agents to cease operations there, arrested suspected employers and, to prevent the departure of the Negroes, imprisoned on false charges those who appear at stations to leave for the North.

This procedure could not long be effective, for by the more legal and clandestine methods of railway passenger agents the work has gone forward.

Some southern communities have, therefore, advocated drastic legislation against labor agents, as was suggested in Louisiana in 1914, when by operation of the Underwood Tariff Law the Negroes thrown out of employment in the sugar district migrated to the cotton plantations.[10] One should not, however, get the impression that the majority of the Negroes are leaving the South.

Eager as these Negroes seem to go, there is no unanimity of opinion as to whether migration is the best policy.