At times the damage has been to the extent of a loss of 50 per cent.

of the crop, estimated at 400,000 bales of cotton annually, about 4,500,000 bales since the invasion or $250,000,000 worth of cotton.[6] The output of the South being thus cut off, the planter has less income to provide supplies for his black tenants and, the prospects for future production being dark, merchants accustomed to give them credit have to refuse.

This, of course, means financial depression, for the South is a borrowing section and any limitation to credit there blocks the wheels of industry.

It was fortunate for the Negro laborers in this district that there was then a demand for labor in the North when this condition began to obtain.
This demand was made possible by the cutting off of European immigration by the World War, which thereby rendered this hitherto uncongenial section an inviting field for the Negro.

The Negroes have made some progress in the North during the last fifty years, but despite their achievements they have been so handicapped by race prejudice and proscribed by trades unions that the uplift of the race by economic methods has been impossible.