Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1918)
f ; The Monitor >r==n A National Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the Interests of Colored Americans THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor $1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy _OMAHA. NEBRASKA. JANUARY 12. 1918 Vol. III. No. 28 (Whole No. 131) * National Association Holds Annual Meeting .Sessions Are Attended by Prominent Persons of Both Bares Interested in Important Work of Great Organi zation. NOTABLE ADDRESS BY STOREY New York, January 2.—The migra tion of the Negro northward, lynch ings, race riots, the annulment of seg regation laws, the Negro in the army and other questions of racial interest were discussed at the seventh annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo ple, which was in session here from Thursday, December 27 until Sunday aftemoon, December 30, when it came to an end with a big mass meeting at the Palace Casino. The sessions were _ __ attended by prominent men and wo men of both races. Among the many prominent speak ers were Oswald Garrison Villard, edi tor of the New York Evening Post; Dr. DuBois, editor of the Crisis; Miss Mary White Ovington, Mrs. Butler It. Wilson, of Boston; Dr. D. A. Gregg, of Jacksonville; Eugene Kinckle Jones Moorefield W. Storey, the president of the association; George B. Vashon, who told of scenes he witnessed dur ing the riots at East St. Louis, and Rev. George Frazier Miller of Brook lyn. A chart detailing lynchings during the past twenty years was on exhibi tion. The Work Accomplished. The work of the association during the past year includes: The knocking out of race residen . tial segregation laws through the d> - r cision of the United States Supreme Court abrogating the Louisville segre gation ordinance. A successful fight for the estab lishment of the officers’ training camp at Dcs Moines, which resulted in more than GOO young Colored men receiving commissions in the army. Aid to victims of the East St. Louis massacre. Investigation of the East St. Louis j riots. Investigation of the horrible lynch- i ing of Eli Parsons at Memphis, Term. An impartial investigation of what led to the rioting between member. of the 24th Infantry and citizens or i Houston. The starting of a probe into the re cent horrible lynching at Dyersburg Tennessee. Defense of individuals discriminated against, especially in the civil service.: The annual address of Pre.-ld.-ni Storey was a plea for justice to the ; race. He said in part: President Storey’s Address. “The year that lias just passed ha- I witnessed much that is most encoiirag- j ing, and out of the war that is devaa- j tating the world has come some good | to the Negro. Today black and white alike hold commissions, and the at tempt to keep the Negro in menial positions I .as failed completely. In dealing with this question we owe much to Secretary Baker’s courage anrl sense of fairness, and to his manly stand against segregation among citi- : zens who are glad to risk their lives for their country. "There are some who thought that - , black and white should serve indis criminately . in the same companie. . but I never shared that view. The 1 man who is fighting wishes to be sure ! that men at his side and behind him are his true comrades, who sympathize , with him and believe in him without j reserve. Thus we have Scotch regi ments, Irish regiments, Yorkshire, Pennsylvania and Alabama regiments, put together, because they speak the same language and think the same thoughts. For the same reason we should have Colored regiments and i white regiments. "We all know that if a black man does wrong the fault is laid to his race; if the white man, the fault is laid to the individual. It is all the more important that in this war the repre sentatives of the race should be able to win glory for their race, and not have their victories ascribed to the help of the white men. “The Negro is taxed. Now he has been called on to fight for his country. In the future will it be possible under the unwritten law, or such laws as the grandfather clause, to impose upon the Negro the duties and responsibili ties of citizenship and deny to him itB privileges? In a word, can we make him welcome to the bullet and deny him the ballot?” As to Lvnchings. In regard lynchings he said: “Until lynching is recognized as a crime, not only against the victim but against the state, a treason which shakes the very foundation of free government, this country of ours muse rank as among the uncivilized nations of the world. We cannot imagine an English or a French mob burning out a man’s eyes with hot irons, as a Negro man’s were burned out at Dyersburg, and if we picture to our selves our own horror, if we heard that a woman was burned to death in Tra falgar Square, and the authorities made no attempt to prevent it, nor to punish the offenders, we can guess how we stand before the bar of a civil ized public opinion. “When no public opinion forces the officers of the law to act, when grand juries refuse to indict, juries to convict and witnesses to testify, the entire community is held guilty of the crime as properly as Germany is condemned for the barbarous atrocities commit ted by her soldiers.” Following the graphic recital by George B. V'ashon of the East St. Louis affair, Rev. George Frazier Mil ler said: “If anybody does an injustice to our people whether it be the president of the United States or somebody else, we must not be afraid to speak; we must fight. We have been the victims of a false philosophy that we should think less about our rights and more about our duties. For several years I have been a student of moral law', and I can see no difference between right and duty. “We need to look duty squarely in the face and throw consequences to the winds. It matters not what the state of the country is, whether at war or otherwise; when wrongs are com mitted against our men, our children and our women, we must continue ear nestly to keep up our fight against it."’ Just out of the hospital, after a se vere illness, Major Joel E. Spingarn was given a warm welcome by the delegates. Strong resolutions dealing with ra cial conditions were presented by a committee composed of Rev. E. A. Daniel of this city, L. M. Hershaw of Washington, W. T. Andrews, W. A. Hawkins and John H. Murphy, all of Baltimore. WEST VIRGIN! \ SCHOOL DOING ITS B I T Institute, W. Va.—The West Vir ginia Collegiate Institute of this town. Prof. Byrd Prillerman, president, has pledged 8787 to the Students' Friend ship war fund and the teachers, stu dents and employes have subscribed $2,000 for Liberty bonds as a part of their share in helping America win the war. FOOD EXHIBIT FEATURE TUSKEGEE CONFERENCE Tuskegee, Ala.—“Meeting the Needs of the War Situation” will be the topic for discussion at the annual Tuskegee Negro Conference, which convenes at Tuskegee Institute Wednesday ant Thursday, January 16 and 17. In th" first day’s session emphasis will be given to the problems of food and farming, which have become especial ly important and urgent since this country has entered the war. CELEBRATE ANNIVERSARY OF EM A NCIPATION PROCLAMATION Los Angeles, Cal.—The fifty-fifth anniversary of the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation was fit tingly observed here Tuesday evening, January 1, at the Methodist church. There were musical numbers and ad dresses. Captain F. W. Butler told of “Military Training and What It Means.” Rev. B. C. Robeson was the orator of the “day” and spoke very interest ingly on"Answering the Call of Ham.” The meeting was under the auspices of the All-American League. ONLY WHITE MEN WANTED Washington, D. C.—“Only white men will be taken,” was the specific announcement made by Provost Mar shal General Crowder of the United States war department in his call for 1,000 bricklayers to go to France. Over in France, however, they do not draw the color line, either in trades or pro fessions, and over in France the French war department makes no dis crimination because of color for serv ice or promotion in the army. THE PATH (By Paul Laurence Dunbar.) There are no beaten paths to Glory’s height, There are no rules to compass greatness known; Each for himself must cleave a path alone, And press his own way forward in the fight. Smooth is the way to ease and calm delight. And soft the road Sloth chooseth for her own; But he who craves the flower of life full-blown Must struggle forward in all his armor diyht! What though the burden bear him sorely down And crush to dust the mountain of his pride. Oh, then, with strong heart let him still abide; For rugged is the roadway to renown. Nor may he hope to gain the envied crown. Till he hath thrust the looming rocks aside. PROF. KELLY MILLER’S NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE TO COLORED AMERICANS T'' REETINGS of the Season: The world is engulfed in the red ruin of war. The present ; titanic conflict is not due to the inherent deviltry of one nation or the innate goodness of another. The accumulative ethical energies i of society for generations have been dammed up by the barrier of hatred and greed. The stored up power is now breaking through the barrier with cataclysmic outburst. The social fabric is being i shaken to its very foundation. As outcome of the war the read justment of the social structure will be more radical than that ef fected by the French Revolution. The transforming effect upon the status of the Negro will be scarcely less momentous than the Emancipation Proclamation. The democratization of the world, coined as a fitting phrase, will be translated into actuality. The Declaration of Independence, penned by a slaveholder, sounded the death knell of slavery, al though three-quarters of a century elapsed between promise and fulfillment. The democratization of the w'orld is but a restatement of this doctrine in terms of present-day attitude of the world. Political autocracy and race autocracy will be buried in the same grave. Hereafter no nation, however strong, will be permitted to ! override a weaker neighbor by sheer dominance of power, and no race will be permitted to imjx>se a ruthless regime upon the weaker ' breeds of men through sheer assumption of superiority. Hereafter . England w'ill treat the East Indians; Turkey, the Armenians; Rus sia, the Jews, and America, the Negroes, with a fuller considera tion than heretofore. The peoples of all lands who are heavy laden and overborne will be the chief beneficiaries of this war. The Negro problem is involved in the problem of humanity. The whole is greater than any of its pails. The Negro will share in the general momentum imported to social welfare. Already he has been admitted to industrial opportunity in the North, with manifest reaction upon the harsh regime in the South. National prohibition, which is borne forward on the wave of the world war, will immensely improve his moral status. Eighty thousand N.egro soldiers have been enlisted, and seven hundred Negroes have been commissioned as officers in the army of the United States. A Negro has been made assistant cabinet officer, whose function is to adjust harmoniously the races’ rela tion to the pending struggle. The improved attitude of the white race toward the Negro is apparent in two affirmative decisions rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States with unanimous concurrence. The Negro will emerge from this war with a double portion of privilege and opportunity. Every Negro should be loyal and patriotic, although there are injustices and discriminations which try our souls. If we overcome these trials and tribulations will work out a more exceeding weight of advantage. But if we allow them to overcome us, woeful will be our lot, indeed. To stand sulkily by in plaintive aloofness be cause of just grievances would be of the same kind of folly as to refuse to help extinguish a conflagration which threatens the de struction of one’s native city because he has a complaint against the fire department. Let us help put out the conflagration which threatens the world and then make the world our lasting debtor. We must stand shoulder to shoulder with our white fellow citizens to fight for the freedom of the world, outside of our own national circle, and then we must hold them to moral consistency of main taining a just and equitable regime inside of that circle. Democ racy, like charity, should begin at home, or at least it should pre vail there. Let us fight to the finish to the effect that no nation shall hereafter dare attempt to make an international treaty a scrap of paper. It must therefore follow', then, as a corollary, that no nation will henceforth allow' its own constitution, which -is an intra-national treaty, to be made a scrap of paper. The tide of democracy is sweeping through the world like a mighty river. The race problem and other social ills are but as marshes, bacluvaters, stagnant pools, estuaries, which have been shut off from free circulation with the main current. But the freshet of freedom is now overflowing its bed and purifying all the stagnant waters in its onward sw'eep to the ocean of human liberty and brotherhood. Fortunate, indeed, are we to be borne forward upon Its beneficient bosom at such a time as this. KELLY MILLER. Howard University, Washington, D. C. WANTS COLORED POLK TO RETURN SOUTH Richmond, Va.—Giles 13. Jackson, a well known gentleman of this city, has recently returned form a tour of north ern cities, and is urging the Colored people to return to the South, alleging that on account of the higher prices for cotton and other products they can make more money. RELIGIOUS LEADERS MEET NEXT MONTH Louisville, Ky.—The bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal, the Afri can Methodist Episcopal Zion and the Colored Methodist Episcopal churches will meet here on February 15 to con sider questions of common interest. These religious leaders represent r.iil - lions of Colored people who are ad herents of their churches. ) i Bert Williams Satisfied with Race Prejudice Only Found Among People Who Are Not Sure of Their Own Social Position, Says Great Come dian. NATIVE OF THE WEST INDIES Bert Williams is one of America’s greatest and highest salaried come dians. His annual income runs up into five or six figures. In the American I Magazine for January he writes inter estingly of himself and his career. Here are some of the things he says: “People sometimes ask me if I would not give anything to be white. I an swer, in the words of the song, ‘Most emphatically no.’ How do I know what I might be if I were a white man. I might be a sandhog, burrowing away and losing my health for $8 a day. I might be a street car conductor at $12 or $15 a week. There is many a white man less fortunate and less well equip ped than I am. In truth, I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a Color ed man. But I have often found it in convenient—in America. Bom In West Indies. “My father was a Dane. He left Copenhagen some years ago and be came Danish consul in Nassau. There he married my mother, who was half Spanish and half African. Her moth er was brought over from Africa and destined for the Spanish Main, but, thanks to an English frigate, that in tercepted the vessel she was bought in, she never reached her destination. She went the British West Indies in stead, where she married a Spanish cooper. “Williams, of course, is obviously not a Danish name. Nobody in Amer ica knows my real name and if I can prevent it nobody ever will. That was the only promise I made to my father. I left the West Indies when I was a youngster and came with my parents by way of Panama to San Pedro, Cal., now Los Angeles Harbor. How He Got Stage Idea. “I had not the slightest idea of go ing on the stage at first, nor any very definite ambition except to get an edu cation. I went through high school in Southern California and was going to Leland Stanford university. A bunch of us, three white boys and myself, thought it would be nice and easy to make spending money by touring through small towns on the coast in a 1 ’bus and giving entertainments. That I ’bus tour was the beginning of several ■ disastrous years. We got back to San Francisco without a stitch of clothing, literally without a stitch, as the few rags I wore to spare the hostility of the police had to be burned for reason that everybody will understand who i lias road of the experiences of soldiers j in the trenches. It was then that I ! first ran up against the humiliations and persecution that have to be faced i by' every person of Colored blood, no [ matter what his brains, education or the integrity of his conduct. How many times have hotelkeepers said to me, ‘I know you, Williams, and I like you and I would like nothing better than to have you stay here, but you see we have Southern gentlemen in the house and they would object.’ “Frankly, I can’t understand what it is all about. I breathe like other peo ple, eat like them—if you put me at a dinner table you can be reasonably sure that I won’t use the ice cream fork for my salad; I think like other people. I guess the whole trouble must be that I don’t look like them. They say it is a matter of race prejudice. But if it were prejudice a baby would have it, and you will never find it in a baby. It has to be inculcated in peo ple. For one thing, I have noticed that I this ‘race prejudice’ is not to be found in people who are sure enough of their position to be able to defy it. For ex ample, the kindest and most courteous, most democratic man I ever met was the King of England, the late King Edward VII. I shall never forget how frightened I was before the first time I sang for him. I kept thinking of his position, his dignity, his titles—King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, and half a page more of !■■«■■ ■ . ..'■'» «"«"—« ■ ■ «■« « «■•»■■» them, and my knees knocked together and the sweat stood out on my fore head. And I found—the easiest, most responsive, most appreciative audience any artist could wish. I was lucky in that he liked my stories, and he used to send for me to come to the palace once or twice a week to tell some story over that he had taken a liking to and found he couldn’t tell correctly. “He was not the only man in Eng land in whom I found courtesy and kindness. For example, whenever I go over, my manager comes to Liverpool to meet the boat and insists on taking me to his home at Maidenhead to stay for a few days before I go to London to begin work. Can you imagine an American manager doing that? Yes, I can—and I can imagine the German emperor of his own accord giving up Belgium! “To get back to my crazy ’bus tours. I floundered around in that way for several years. I was all for parodies in those days. I would get hold of popular song books and write parodies on anything. They m >' have been pretty sad. At any rate, they never got me anything but experience. Than, one day at Moore’s Wonderland in De troit, just for a lark, I blacked my face and tried the song, ‘Oh, I don’t know, you’re not so warm.’ Nobody was more surprised than I when it went like a house on fire. Then I began to find myself. By that time I had met George Walker, and we used to travel around the country together. I took to studying the dialect of the Amer ican Negro, which to me was just as much a foreign dialect as that of the Italian.” COLORED BANK MADE GOVERNMENT DEPOSITORY Portsmouth, Va.—The Mutual Sav ings Bank, Inc., of this city has been designated by the government as a special depository for public money. This is quite an honor and shows that the Colored citizens of Portsmouth are loyal to their business men. GRAND JURY RELEASES EDITOR Baltimore, Md.—Rothwell Deane, editor of the Roanoke (Va.) Advocate, a weekly newspaper, who was arrest Ed several weeks ago by government authorities for delivering alleged trea sonable utterances against the United States in a speech at Hagerstown, has been released from custody. COLONEL YOUNG RECEIVES GIFT Wilberforce, O.—Colonel and Mrs. Charles Young received an elegant silver service set, a Christmas gift, from members of the Tenth United States cavalry, stationed in Arizona, of which regiment he was formerly commander. SCOTT WILL HE BANQUETED Baltimore, Md.—Emmett J. Scott, assistant to the secretary of war, will be the guest at a banquet given in his honor here January 14. A number of prominent citizens from Washington will attend. GOVERNMENT WILL NOT CONFISCATE FOOD Washington, D. C.—The thought, “Food will win the war,” is giving our enemies much concern. There are ru mors and rumors being circulated among women that our government in tends to take a part of all of their canned fruits and vegetables for the use of our soldiers. These rumors are untrue and start from enemy agents, who try to make the American people dissatisfied with their own govern ment. Those persons, here among us, who try to influence people against their government by fault-finding and spreading the tales told them by our enemies are just as dangerous to our country as the Germans are. The fol lowing statement has been issued on this subject by Herbert Hoover,United States food administrator: “We have reports from various parts of the country of crooks, thieves and confidence operators who are going from house to house purporting to be authorized by the food administration and other departments of the govern ment to collect or commandeer food stuffs for the government or the army. “I wish to say emphatically that no department of the government has or will ever make such demands on house holders, and that all such people are petty frauds and should be held for the police. The government agencies are investigating various cases and in formation is sought of all such per sons by this department.”