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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 1915)
The Monitor A Weekly Newspaper devoted to the civic, social and religious Interests of the Colored People of Omaha and vicinity, with the desire to contribute something to the general good and upbuilding of the community. Published Every Saturday. Entered as Second-Class Mail Matter July 2, 1915, at the Post office at Omaha, Neb., under the act of March 3, 1879. THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor and Publisher. Lucille Skaggs Edwards, William Garnett Haynes and Ellsworth W. Pryor, Associate Editors. Joseph LaCour, Jr., Advertising and Circulation Manager. SUBSCRIPTION RATES, $1.00 per year. Advertising rates, 50 cents an inch per issue. Address, The Monitor, 1119 North Twenty-first street, Omaha. WHERE WILL IT END? We never underestimated the evils that “The Birth of a Nation” would do the race. We knew that the picture would fan the fires of hell wherever it was exhibited, and have feared that in some localities these fires would burst into a conflagration; but, even so, we find that we did not realize how far its baleful power would extend. A watchful correspondent has sent us an advertisement clipped fiom the Atlanta Constitution. At the top of the advertisement is the picture of a hooded horseman bearing a torch in his hand, and underneath the picture is the following reading matter: KNIGHTS OF THE KLUKLUX KLAN, For Home, Country and Each Other. A high class order for men of intelligence and character. THE WORLD’S GREATEST SECRET, SOCIAL, PATRIOTIC, FRATERNAL, BENEFICIARY ORDER. Chartered by the State of Georgia, December 6, 1915. Col. W. J. Simmons, Founder and Imperial Wizard, 85 Peachtree Place, Atlanta, Ga. Here we have “The Birth of a Nation,” not merely set forth in a moving picture show, BUT PERPETUATED in an active organization; an organi zation which will grow and spread, and whose virulent power compared with that of “The Birth of a Nation” will be as a cancer compared to a cat boil. There can be no mistaking the character and objects of this so ciety. The name, “Knights of the Kluklux Klan,” coupled with the legend, “For Home, Country and Each Other,” fully reveal them. A few months ago the press of the entire country denounced some of the citizens of Georgia, and the state indirectly, for the lynching of Leo Fiank. The lynching of Frank marks a dark day in the history of Georgia; but here we have the state itself authorizing and sanctioning a reversion to a whole epoch of blackness. We appeal to the press, both north and south, to take notice of the “Knights of the Kluklux Klan.” The above editorial from the New Y’ork Age is respectfully commended to the attention of those who have been inclined to minimize the effect of Dixon’s photoplay propaganda. TOO NOISY Did you ever notice how noisy a certain class of our people are? It just seems to be natural for some to be noisy. This class talks loud on the streets, in the street cars or wherever they may be. Of course, the undiscriminating public finds it quite convenient to put us all in the same class and to say we are all noisy. This, of course, is not true, but the noisy, loud-mouthed fellows make so much noise and there are so many of them, as compared with the more refined class, that the impression pre vails that all Negroes are noisy. Now, some of you noisy fellows are going to read this. Of course you are. You don’t think you are harming anybody by your noise, and you doubtless think that it is your own noise and that it is therefore nobody’s business how much noise you make. Perhaps you are wholly unconsci ous of the fact that you are noisy. But if you think your noisiness harms nobody you are wrong. For in the first place it harms you. It puts you down as an ignorant or clowmsn chap. It may be keep you out of a good job. And then it harms the race to which you belong. In the eyes of many the whole race is judged and condemned by your noisiness and clownishness and through you certain privileges may be restricted or de nied. True, people may only want an excuse to deny these privileges, and you furnish that excuse. Did you ever think of it in that light? Empty wagons are noisy. Loadeu wagons make very little noise. Ever notice it? Don’t be satisfied to be an empty wagon. Next time you are in a bunch of fellows notice how noisy they are and see if you cannot be a little less noisy yourself and induce the other fellows to be a little less noisy, too. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your race. Let us correct our faults whatever they may be, and being too noisy and boisterous is one of these faults. ALWAYS IN IT. “One of the added guests was Ma tilda Braxton, an old negro mammy of VV’ytheville, who has been a servant in the bride’s family all her life.”— News Item Wilson-Galt Wedding. Did you ever notice how we are always in it? No matter what the occasion be, Blithe and cheerful as a linnet; We’re always somewhere round, you see; They may damn us; they may flout us, But somehow they can’t do without us. The “anti-ignominy ordinance” has passed Because the show is ended; Nor can it now be harrassed, Or by the authorities offended. They let it have full swing, you see; Until quite ready to depart; But now they’ve crawled down the tree; And bravely taken heart. Judge Marcus Kavanagh. “Notwithstanding the white blood in Booker T. Washington, it must always be remembered that he was a Negro—a Negro in his tem perament, a Negro in his character, a Negro in his heart, and remember, too, that he was one of the great men of his country and his time. In the face of that remembrance now that he is dead, how contemptible grow the men who a few years ago screamed out their rage when a president of the United States dared to treat him as an equal. They deemed him inferior; how inferior any one of them, how inferior the whole crowd of them put together appear when measured against the genius, the devotion and the infinite patience of this great man. His life is a great lesson in Negro character to the white man, an unanswerable argument to the bigot, a rainbow of hope to the Negro himself." Mrs. J. S. Monroe, who has been very sick in her home, is improving. Something About Government Ownership No. 4 It was an epoch in the world’s history when the Bell System opened a long distance line between New York and Chicago, in 1893, and demonstrated that speech could be transmitted 1,000 of the great Bell route from New York to San Francisco, and transcon tinental conversations ov er the Bell System will be one of the wonders usher ed in by the Panama-Pa c i fi c Exposition miles. Today the busi ness man in Den ver sends his voice clear and distinct into the office of the New York mer next spnng. Last year the first 900-mile tele phone line was built in Europe, where practically chant, 2,000 miles distant. A small army of skilled telephone workmen in the Rockies are now building the home stretch all telephone systems are government owned, two decades after a thousand mile line had been in suc cessful operation in the United State*. Bell Telephone Service Has Set the Standard for the Rest of the World. NEBRASKA TELEPHONE COMPANY A Christmas! Gift j Send him or her I The 1 Monitor | Only One Dollar a Year Fill out this blank. Send it with $1.00 to The Monitor, 1119 North Twenty-first Street, Omaha, Neb. Send The Monitor for One Year To . ,; Street . Town . State . . Signed . ;