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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 1916)
General Race News CONTRIBUTING EDITOR NEW YORK AGE WINS PRIZE Over Eight Hundred Contestants. Philadelphia, October 19 — James Weldon Johnson, contributing editor of the New York Age, won the third prize of $200 in the editorial contest in the Public Ledger. He was one of the three winners who wrote on “Why Charles E. Hughes Should Be Elect ed.” There were also three prizes of fered to those who wrote the best essays on “Why Woodrow Wilson Should Be Re-elected.” One thousand dollars in prizes were offered on each side. The judges did not know that the New York editor was a colored man, each contestant being required to sign a pen name. Mr. Johnson wrote under his middle name, Weldon. His editorial, which appeared on the front page of the Public Ledger Wed nesday morning, October 18, severely arraigns the Wilson administration for its vacillating policy. Mr. Johnson is the author of a num ber of books, one of which is “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,” published anonymously in 1912. He also is a contributor to a number of the best magazines. He speaks several languages. The Age has the following editorial comment on Mr. Johnson’s success: “To win recognition in a contest participated in by eight-hundred trained writers is nothing short of an achievement, and Mr. Johnson has signally distinguished himself, The Age and his race. His accomplish ment is another body blow to the argu ments of some that the colored man’s brain is inferior to the white man’s. It would be absurd to pit a colored man of untrained mind against a white man with a trained mind for honors in a contest in which brains were to prominently figure, and vice versa. However, Mr. Johnson has shown what a Negro with a cultivated mentality can do. “The Age, for a number of years, has claimed the best editorial staff ever collected in Negro journalism. This is no idle boast. Its leading writers are not ‘good Colored newspa permen,’ but good newspapermen, who have measured arms with the best journalists in the country and won recognition. They write well and interestingly on subjects of general concern as well as matters affecting ■the Negro. To us it is gratifying that the pub lic—colored and white—is gradually waking up to this fact. In winning third prize in the editorial contest con ducted by the Public Ledger, James W. Johnson gives Negro journalism a big boost. PLAN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 19.—Juulis Rosenwald, the Chicago philanthropist and others are behind a movement to start a Negro vocational school near Independence. Charles D. Irvin, of Steubenville, O., has invented a new and useful im provement in skimmers and troughs for blast furnaces. The invention has for its primary object, a novel method for conveying the residue of a skim mer trough to moulds or ladels, there by dispensing with a side-gate here tofore used in a trough for removing the residue and forming pigs or pieces of iron. The Arkansas Synod of the Pres byterian Church in U. S. A., had a heated discussion over a proposed re port offered against lynching. The motion was defeated, because the ma jority held that the question was not a proper one for the synod. Let me leave with you two thoughts, the first, that it is not possible to know a race or a people without con tact with them; and second, that Col ored and white people are exactly alike in their qualities of heart and their mental abilities where they have had equal advantages. Nothing is worse for a race than to be thought different or odd.—From speech of Mr. Win. D. Brigham, at Washington. The strike of the Colored workers in the Panama Canal zone, which be gan two weeks ago, is about over. An attempt to revive the strike in Colon was a failure. Ten carloads of Colored people left Alabama for the North last week and the city council of Birmingham be came so “het up” over the situatioi that they have passed a law imposing a fine of $100 upon any person or persons trying to iiduce their Colored citizens to leave Dixie. A newly discovered novel of Alex ander Dumas has just been published in England. It is called “The Neapol itan Lovers.” Nelson, the great ad miral of English history, is the hero. Howard Drew, the well known Col ored sprinter, will locate in Des Moines, Iowa, it is reported. He will engage in the newspaper business, and at the same time will prepare to study law at Drake University. James A. Cobb, former special as sistant United States Attorney, has been appointed as a -member of the faculty of the Howard University Law School, to succeed the late A. A. Bir ney. William White, Colored private in service schools detachment at Ft. Lea venworth, was sentenced to hang for the killing of Sergt. J. F. Jackson. December 15th was the date set for the execution. An impending strike of the native labor of Porto Rica has resulted in a hurried call for American Colored la bor. It will probably be unheeded from the fact that the wages are exceeding ly lower than that of the wage scale of the United States. The Southern papers asert that the Colored Schools exhibit at the Chatta nooga fair is one of the best to be seen. Over two thousand Colored men are now employed by the Bethlehem Steel Company, at Sparrows Point, Pa. Charles Schwab is reported as saying that the company will give employ ment to Colored men in any depart ment for which they have qualifica tions. The Tri-State Fair at Memphis, Teni., was entertained by a jubilee chorus of 500 Colored voices, on two occasions last week. The first, on Wednesday, as a matter of program, and the last on Sunday by special re quest. _, t . , . t , , t t T-r > , t i r t^t t -■ » » » » - > • EMMET G. SOLOMON REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR COUNTY TREASURER RESIDED IN THE COUNTY 48 YEARS. WAS COUNTY COMMISSIONER-COMPTROL LER 1906-1909. AND CHIEF DEPUTY COUNTY AND CITY TREASURER 1910 TO DATE EXPERIENCED BUSINESS SERVICE Geo. A. Magney I Democratic Candidate I fir County Attorney ..... «■». .... . t Vote For WILL N. JOHNSON LAWYER FOR PUBLIC DEFENDER Republican Candidate --— ...... VOTE FOR James M. Fitzgerald DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR POLICE JUDGE A Man You Can Depend Upon Election Nov. 7th ........