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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (April 14, 1917)
The Monitor A Weekly Newspaper devoted to the civic, social and religious interests of the Colored People of Nebraska and the West, with the desire to con tribute something to the general good and upbuilding of the community and of the race. Published Every Saturday. Entered aa 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 and William Garnett Haynes, Associate Editors. George Wells Parker, Contributing Editor and Business Manager. Joseph LaCour, Jr., Lincoln Representative, 821 S. St., Lincoln. SUBSCRIPTION RATES, *1.50 PER YEAR Advertising Rates, 50 cents an Inch per Issue. Address, The Monitor, 1119 North Twenty-first street, Omaha. Telephone Webster 4243. COLORED AMERICANS! Noblesse Oblige; Our County Calls; Defend Your Record. We hold it to be the bounden patri otic duty of the Negro press to let the American people and government know that colored Americans are by no means satisfied with the proscrip tion and civic and industrial disabil ities under which they rest. We are tremendously dissatisfied with segre gation, disfranchisement, lynching and Jim Crowism, tolerated abuses, which are a disgrace to this enlightened re public. If we were satisfied to suffer these injustices without protest, we would be recreant to every instinct of our God-given manhood. We protest against injustice with the same principle that this country, OUR COUNTRY, is now acting in declaring war against Ger many in defehse of our just national rights and honor, which, it is believed by many, have been trampled upon and disregarded to that degree that war remains the sole expedient. We protest as a race because in the denial of our rights “the rights of hu manity are at stake;” for so long as the rights of the humblest individual in a republic may be ruthlessly and wantonly violated, the sacred rights of humanity are not safeguarded. So the protest of the colored American the protest of the Colored American he is the victim involves principles which lie deeper than the proscrip tion of a well-defined racial group in our polygenous nation. And we must not cease our protest, and do not in tend to cease our protests, until our full rights are guaranteed us as American citizens—“physically free from peonage; mentally free from ig norance; politically free from dis franchisement; socially free from in sult;” industrially free from narrow occupational opportunities. AND WE, OURSELVES, MUST PROVE OURSELVES WORTHY OF THE RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CIT IZENS FOR WHICH WE MUST EAR NESTLY CONTEND AND VALIANT LY DEFEND. Our opportunity for proving our selves worthy of American citizenship is again before us. A crisis confronts our nation. A crisis confronts the world. Crisis means not only a de cisive point or moment. It means more than that. It means judgment, a separating, discernment, readjust ment. All of these ideas are involved in the present world conflict Into which as a nation we have now en tered. In- the womb of war democ racy and brotherhood are travailing. The United States which is OUR COUNTRY, is at war. Our duty, as American citizens, is plain. That duty is to volunteer our services for the country’s protection and defense. While other groups of Americans seem to be hesitating to enlist, let us freely, willingly and cheerfully offer our services. The volunteering of thousands of our race—now that there is a willingness to accept us—will be miration and respect of the most prej udiced. It will have a moral force that will be absolutely irresistible. Above all, there will be the conscious ness of having done one’s full duty as a man, to God, to home and father land. Before self-effacing patriotism, which does its full duty in spite of disabilities and glaring injustices which chill true patriots to the very marrow, no barrier can stand. Colored Americans, noblesse oblige. We have a record to defend, no trea son to atone. Let us show that our patriotism, like our Americanism, is without alloy. Volunteer—enlist. Show that no conscription is necessary for the race which has never produced an anarchist or traitor to defend our country, as we have always done when the country had need of us, despite the fact that our country has not dealt with us as native sons, but has treated us as aliens. Colored Americans, noblesse ob lige. Our country needs us. Defend your record. Volunteers First; Conscripts Last. President Wilson favors conscrip tion. We believe that at this early stage of our entrance into the world war, the magnitude of which we do not underrate, we believe conscrip tion to be both unwise and unneces sary. Unwise, because it places us on the same level with the militaristic autocracies of the old world and is violative of the principles of democ racy, and as such will awaken a feel ing of resentment; unnecessary, be cause in the face of an imperative danger, if our cause is just, Ameri cans will respond to the call to the colors with the same spirit and en thusiasm as they did in 1861. We believe that there should be a call for volunteers first and that con scription should be rosorted to when it is proven that the spirit of patriot ism is at such a low ebb that Ameri cans must be drafted to defend their country and institutions. It may become necessary before the conflict upon which we are entering is ended to resort to conscription; but we do not think that time is now. Let there be a call for volunteers first, for army and navy, open to all American citizens upon equal terms of enlistment, and conscription can well afford to wait as a last resort. Volunteers first; conscripts last SKITS Or SOLOMON. Hustle. Hustle brother, hustle. Grim war lias ' idit us on lie aft side of our rig gings and knocked us into ti,^ mael strom of the worll scrap W ;’re in for it, that’s all, we’re in for it. The whole of Euro ie touldnt lick let kaiser and now we are’ going to help them. It won’t lie a newsboys’ picnic with ham sandwiches, pop and ice cream floating around gratis. There's going to be some real sure enough war. Of course things are sort of favorable to Uncle Sam, but Uncle will be a few degrees skinnier than he is now when peace slips the laurel wreath. It may be that the govern ment will tell you how much to eat oefore things are over. The Allies want us to feed them and our burst ing granaries aren’t so perpetual tlia* thej can feed the world forever. Grab the blues and pat the thin dimes before you let them slip out of your jeans. Start that garden spot and nurse along a few spuds, tear-starters and b-b-beans. Put a chain around yourself and your job and fasten both ends with the biggest padlock you can f'nd. Of course Uncle Sam doesn’t want you for a soldier, but you can do much for your country by staying home and hustling. Be patriotic and forget that you’ve got a sore spot. The latter will be healed by and by. Just saw wood, keep your bazoo shut and hustle. MOCK CULTURE There is something prevalent among us as a race for which no better term than mock culture can be found. It is the tendency to assume a veneered imitation of white culture and to dis cain anyib'i.g in literature, music or art that is fundamentally Negro. There are colored people who would be ashamed to have their children read the Uncle Remus stories, the only folk-lore this country has produced. There are those who would be ahsam ed to sing one of the old jubilee songs and who through ignorance speak dis paragingly of this body of most beau tiful and noble music. There are those who feel that there is something degrading about a poem or song writ ten in Negro dialect, forgetting that Bobby Burns made the Scotch dialect an immortal classic, and not knowing that, for singing, Negro dialect is su perior to straight English. This class of colored people always wait to take their tip from the white people. They are unable to recognize ' artistic merit in anything that is pure ly Negro, unless they are first told by the white people that it is great. There were colored people, and per haps there are still some left, who as recently as fifteen years ago thought that a poem written in Negro dialect was a reflection on the race; after the white people pointed out >!*at the dialect poems written by Paul Dunbar were works of art, there sprung up all over the country lit erary societies, and schools, and ba bies, and various other institutions named in honor of Dunbar. We intend to follow up this subject of mock culture. New York Age. The Sinful South doesn’t know any other way to keep the Negroes from coining north so they say they are or ganizing the Ku Klux Kian to keep him loyal. Awful thin, Jimmie, awful thin. The Democratic administration thinks it can do without the Colored soldier, eh? Let’s see. Lincoln thought he could do without them until the second battle of Bull Run. If you have as much as a two-foot patch, Marjory, plant potatoes and onions, because you will surely need them this fall. Eats won’t be any cheaper and not half so plentiful. Rev. Mr. Savidge, the would-be re forn er, begins to look like a statue a', which boys have thrown mud. As Marcus Aurelius said in Paris, “Don’t Dother a reformer. He will break bis own cervical ver’ebrae.” Maybe there is something in meteor ology, but if our vu other man were a fortune teller he would starve to death. Russia says she will consider peace if the German people will boot der kaiser off his high chair. Dollars to doughnuts the Deutsche press better not repeat this offer, what? For every dollar you make, Henry, tiy i) save two bits of it. Yc 1 will surely need a lb tie bank account a year from now. Remember that your race lies-' never begged. Thank you for your undivided at tention, we will now proceed to enlist subscriptions and money from delin quent recruits. B If A ITU VV A11 E’N A N TI10L0G Y. Criticism, honestly given, is the spur that helps on to triumphs. The New York Times gives a review of Braith waite’s Anthology and while praising highly his work it suggests that per haps he is too severe in his rules for choosing great poetry. We read, “But with all Mr. rBaithwaite's sins of ora mission and inclusion thick upon him his annual collections fill a very real need. If they could only be censored before publication with a lighter hand —preferably one un-Bostonian—they would be well nigh perfect.” In The Editor we find a stinging rebuke administered to Braithwaite’s Poetry Review, a rebuke that should be considered. The writer says, “Braithwaite’s Poetry Review doesn’t even acknowledge letters of inquiry about material.” ! Dunham & Dunham! V T * MAKERS OF THE BEST i $15.00 SUITS AND OVERCOATS IN THE WORLD. f x •S' REPAIRING, CLEANING AND PRESSING. i } 118 South 15th Street. Omaha, Neb. .*. ❖♦X"X"X44X"X~X”X,*X"X4*X*4X~X~X**4X«*X~X”X"X~X~X"X"X~X"X"X“:< Street Car Transfer Points The transfer point between any two lines is usually the first point of intersection. As there are some exceptions to this rule, however, the public is requested to ask the conductor in all cases of doubt. Omaha & Council Bluffs Street Ry. Co.