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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 1919)
—1 The monitor A Weekly Newspaper devoted to the civic, social and religious interests of the Colored People of Nebraska and the Nation, with the desire to con tribute something to the general good and upbuilding of the comr unity and of the race. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. Entered as Second-Class Mail Matter July 2. 1915, at the Fostoffh • 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. Bert Patrick. Business Manages. Fred C. Williams, Traveling Representative. SUBSCRIPTION RATES, $2.00 A YEAR; $1.00 6 MONTHS; 60c 3 MONTHS Advertising Rates, 60 cents an inch per issue. Address, The Monitor, 1119 North Twenty-first Street. Omaha, Neb. Telephone Webster 4243. V__J THE COMPENSATIONS OF WEAKNESS IT is a bit out of the true philosophy of the eternal that there is no con dition in life but has its compensa tions. Recently our race press has bemoaned the weakness of the race throughout the world and, with a united voice, cried out to the powers to remember it at the peace table. No doubt but that they will be re membered, but even for the dark races there is a humor in the situation in Europe today and they should thank themselves that their very weakness means their safety. The slogan of permanent peace has gone forth all over the world, but do not even the gods laugh at the sound ? Russia and Germany are both in the throes of eternal troubles which bode ill for peace; Poland is fighting a Red army on one hand and a Ger man army on the other and claiming more territory that it is intended she shall have; Serbia asserts that she is ready to slap Italy’s face if she does not get part of Ttaly Irredentia and certain Adriatic ports; Spain is on the verge of revolution becaush of the pro-German and pro-Ally factions,- the Irish have downed the national party and are making ready to declare Ire land an independent republic, and England is hesitating in demobilizing her army until she knows just what the Emerald Isle proposes to do; Aus tria is split into a dozen rival and fighting units and France wants new boundaries which excite interest and opposition. Even the United States has upset England by her secretary of the navy proposing a naval pro gram that will make England take second place. Europe is at this moment a hotbed of all that is antithetic of peace and even the most farseeing cannot glimpse the coming of any condition that will quiet the troubled waters and bring harmony to the many na tions and races. And through it all Asia and Africa are tolerably quies cent. It may be that age and wis dom and experience bid them wait and hint that at some future day Eu ropean strife will destroy European power and those who are strong will become weak through the excess of greed and those who are weak will be come strong through the very weak ness which they now deplore. THE NEW GOVERNOR’S MESSAGE CONSTRUCTIVE! That is the one word that comes into the wind of every Nebraska citizen who reads Governor McKelvie's message to the state legislature. We recall no recent message that has in it such virility and practicability as this. What is more, the governor does not propose new expenditures without showing how sensible consolidation in other lines will help meet, and in many in stances, balance them. We realize, too, that our governor is thoroughly a business man and in no sense a dreamer of impossible and improbable dreams. We congratulate him upon his message and assure him that he has every Nebraskan behind him in his effort to realize the consumma tion of his proposals. Let the legis lature get busy. LAUGHTER AND SONG HAVE you noticed that whenever men tell tales of the world war and mention the black troops, they always speak of how our boys were laughing and singing. In the camps and on their hikes, when reviewed by the great generals and in the thunders of guns and rain of shells, they never forgot how to laugh and always re membered how to sing. It is spoken of as a characteristic of our race and surely Nature never endowed us with a greater gift or more blessed priv ilege. It was Bolingbroke who said, “I have noticed that in comedies the best actor plays the droll. Thus it is ih life—wise men spend their time in mirth, 'tis only fools who are se rious.” And who shall deny the l the greatest fighters in the war were those black boys who laughed and sang? Who will wonder why it was that commanders and colonels who knew, were eager to lead black men to battle? No psychologist has told us of the relation between mirth and bravery, but the more one thinks of it the more he is convinced that laugh ter and cowardice never go together. It is a characteristic of our race we should be proud of and glory in. It spells of an inheritance that is as old as time and one that could only come from a long, long experience with life and its futile vanities. At Sparta there were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different divinities and the altar to laughter has survived them all. In this, perhaps, may come a glimmer of a truth that the race which has learned best how to laugh and sing is destined to survive all others and to continue to laugh and sing when sorrow and hate and greed have rung down the curtain for those who des pised them. OUR NEW CONTRIBUTING EDITORS THE MONITOR has been especially fortunate in securing for its read ers two men of national, indeed of world-wide prominence, who will be come contributing editors. The first is Hon. John E. Bruce, the famous “Bruce Grit” of'Negro journalism, author of The Negro Soldier and president of the Negro Society for Historical Research; the second, Prof. John W. Cromwell, author of The His tory of the American Negro and sec retary of the Negro academy. Both of these men are scholars of repute, lovers of the race and more familiar with the history and achievements of the Negro than perhaps any other two men of our times. The Monitor feels that its readers want and deserve the best to be had in the way of news, articles and racial literature, and it is with the greatest of pleasure that we make this an nouncement. All may now look for ward to these editorials and articles as distinct contributions to racial in formation and racial uplift. | Obvious Observations 1 Flags were at half mast, the world has paused for a moment in its mad whirl and the children of earth bow their heads in sorrow. Teddy is dead. Pleasant weather has come back again, but we have no welcome for the flu. The bolsheviki are making things warm in Germany. It looks as though the people are determined to rule ! sure enough in some places. When some one asked Von Bems- j dorf why der kaiser hauled himself to Holland, Vony saght. “Where in hell else could he go?” And it was some answer and some question both f together. One million boys home in the next i six weeks! Clear the decks and get ' ready for some STUNTS! Have you contributed your bit to the Armenian fund? If you haven’t, spare a penny or two because they need it. What have you done about those New Year resolutions? Flung 'em in the fire, I ’pose?” You just ought to see the Hamitic League of the World’s certificate of membership! Some class; Cecil, some class! How long before the governor will do something about the high cost of eating ? If you aren’t a skater these days, it’s hard to stand up on Omaha’s sidewalks, so our friends say. Ditto. Gov. Bilbo of Mississippi talked right out in church when he told the N. A. A. C. P. to take a trip to the hot place, didn’t he? Thanking you kindly for your mu nificent silence, we will now light up this cigarette butt and be happy. SKITS OF SOLOMON The Message Governor m-kelvie, better known as Slippery Sam, the new state boss, has startled us sovereign citizens from the bogs of dull dark disinterest. The other day he appeared before the new and nifty legislature and with a mouthful of solid and sub stantial chatter, bridled its attention, harnessed its interest and lassoed its assistance. The governor told the boys in unmistakable terms that he means business and that they better get busy. He didn’t bankrupt the rhetoric and friend Addison for lan guage fodder, but told ’em in plain American that there was plenty of worth while stuff for ’em to do and if they were there for business, to show him. He suggested readjustment, gave radicalism a purple patch under the oculars, boosted centralization on the top shelf, handed nepotism an uppercut, shook hands with prohibi tion, put his arm around equal suf frage and kissed her full on her cher ry red lips, slipper! a dose of disloyalty to the educational institutions, urged a bit of national training, threw out a collection of agricultural programs that will tickle the palates of the farmers and make old H. C. L. shiver in his boots, proposed an urgent in vitation to new manufacturers, hauled out the urgency of good roads for farmers and auto speed fiends, said there should be a tax on buzz wagons, showed the penitentiary where prison ers could quit being gentlemen of leis ure and earn their beans and buns, bespoke a new capitol to replace the ancient edifice of prehistoric times, said state parks should go into the advertising business, and laid a laurel wreath on the graves of our boys. It sure was some message Sam handed out and if the legislative bunch brings down some real realities, governor needn’t worry about somebody else warming his seat two years from now. All we can say now is, "Go to it, Sam; we’re widcha with both big feet dingin’ to terry firmy. SELF-SEEING Is it not possible that the certain condescension in foreigners toward America which irritated Lowell into writing one of his cleverest essays is now being repaid in kind by Ameri ca rather more fully than the cir cumstances demand? It is true that high ideals inspired our entrance into the war; it is also true that we ex pected to gain nothing for ourselves. But is this quite the singular virtue some would have us believe? After all, we had grievances to re dress, though none so serious as Eu rope had suffered. It was perhaps a very human desire to avenge our dead, rathen than an enthusiasm for the fourteen points, that nerved our men at Chateau Thierry and St. Mi hiel. And if now the pose of the bloodless altruist becomes too irritat ing may our critics not be moved to say, first, that we took nothing for ourselves because there was nothing we want, and, second, that we our selves have done in the New World what we ask not to do in the Old? America has been a fairly aggressive nation as such things go. Even the present administration has been ar ranging matters to suit itself in Hayti and San Domingo, without taking the slightest trouble to consult the for tunate wards of its beneficence. A just peace is to be desired above all things. But is there not an unpleas ant moral egotism in the assumption that we are the principal arbiter of what is just?—New York Tribune. OLD DESIRES The January Crisis says: “The New j Year,” sang the Persian poet, “awak- ! ens Old Desires.’ Certainly at no time during the year does the realization of unfilled hopes weigh so heavily. ! Today when the whole world waits j while the delegates at the Peace Ta ble formulate the new rights of man, we are conscious that for us discrim- ' ination still lowers. All Europe re joices in its new gifts—the British i proletariat is promised a liberal labor 1 program; the Czecho-Slovaks are tast ing the joys of nationalism; France is rid of the Prussian menace; Belgi um is bidden to bind up her wounds. But our men, who have helped might ily to awaken and preserve the spirit which makes these things possible, are returning to what? To a country whose plea for a de mocracy includes white men only; to a South which says openly that the Negro need not because of services in this war expect greater privileges, that he msut be qept "in his place,” and that the South intends to define that place. Political equality, econom ic opportunity, civil rights, justice be fore the law, all these, our “old de sires,” are as far away as ever, unless we take a desperate, unflinching stand. One thing is in our favorand that is the awakening of the social con science. Hartley Withers says, "Hith erto it has always been assumed, ex cept by a few voices crying in the wilderness, that by the force of inex orable economic laws, every nation must have its human dregs, living in a state of half-clad, half-fed misery and making a mockery of the civiliza tion which allows their existence.” The world knows better now. However de sirable, however expedient, men may deem such a state, society is conscious that no scheme of life can be right or complete which dooms those who toil hardest, to get the meanest share of the good things of life and to have no chance of living in the fullest sense. But this social conscience can avail nothing without our own deliberate and concerted effort. In this year of general reconstruction we black Amer icans must fight, must push forward, with steadier heart and nerve than ever before, until we are well over the top. We mstu do combat on our own Western Front. And in order to win, we have got to put aside bicker ing and factionalism, trivial jealousies and disputes. See what the Southern States, by pooling their race prejudice, have been able to accomplish since that other Reconstruction. On, then, Black Americans, and remember the pass-word—Organization and Co-op eration. RETROSPECTION O- F late I Jiave been reading much of the league of nations, the free dom of the seas and the proposals of self-determination. On one par ticular day I read an excerpt from an English paper that said, “self-deter mination was not intended to apply south of the Suez.” I glanced at the calendar and when I saw it marked as the sixth one of the New Year, I rcmemliered that just a year ago that day I had spent a pleasant afternoon in the company of a little old lady “way down south.” She was old from the weight of years and from the weight of cares which she and her people had suffered. She had taught school in the south. She told me a how a few years ago a strange man came to the south, speaking to her people. He was a short thick-set, highly intelligent looking black man and he talked in the most excellent English, with a foreign accent. He talked to them of a faraway country that belonged to them, a country that was beautiful and bountiful, and where jim-crowism, disfranchisement and segregation were never known. He asked his poor persecuted hearers to go with him and many of them, together with this lit tle woman, sold all their worldly goods and followed him. They journeyed to New York, pro cured a ship, provisioned it and made ready to sail. But the government in terefered, halted the expedition and held them for many months. Finally they were released. The ship set sail, arrived at a southern port and took aboard many strong followers, who had not become disheartened through the months of waiting. Again they set sail and this time for the port of their dreams. Some weeks later they touched a port at the far side of the Atlantic and again the strong arm of a strong nation reached out and held them. More months passed and eventually, without a word of explanation, they were released with only two weeks of provisions in the hold of their ship and their destination yet a long way off. But the winds were kind and the sea smooth and at last they landed on the rough and rugged coast of Africa, the native home of Chief Sam Sam, their leader and dreamer, who hoped that his followers would be come the nucleus bf a new empire in the great black continent. But the dream was doomed. Inexperience, hunger and hardships destroyed the morale of his people, and they lost hope. At the very end of their jour ney, when strong hearts and valiant spirit might have helped their vision come true, they quailed and sent a call across the sea to their own gov- i emment to take them back. The United States sent a ship and took them all on board, all but the little black leader who had dreamed the ! big dream and was now called a fool and a knave. As I think of it now, I wonder whether Chief Sam Sam was a fool or a martyr? I wonder if he might not have been really sincere and that his call to his race was the voice of a loving heart that longed to make them free. I wonder if, long before this world war, the idea of “self-deter mination” had come to him and that it meant to him a chance for his suf fering race. I believe it did. FRED C. WILLIAMS. MUSICAL EVENT AT LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL Kansas City, Mo.—Kansas Cityans were given a rare musical treat when seven white musical artists of the Studio building gave a most preten tious program in a monthly free con cert at the Lincoln high school. A number of high class songs and mu x~x~x~x'**x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~>*: sical selections were given. The ar tists found a large and appreciative audience. A feature of the program was the playing of Miss Eaton, violin ist, who played three Negro charac teristics, composed by W. Clark Smith, local composer. This splendid program was due to the untiring ef forts of Prof. J. R. E. Lee, who has done much to make the free and monthly musicals successful. For moving, expressing and hauling call Douglas 7952. I’enn and Sibley. —Adv. For Rent—Unfurnished room for light housekeeping. Hutten Flats, 1107 North 19th street. Webster 2177. Mrs. T. L. Hawthorne. j $100.00 | | for the Right (iiiess! $ % X What is the meaning of this beautiful insignia and X why has it been adopted by the Hamitic League of the } World? g . ;j; June 1, 1919, we will pay $100.00 to man, woman or j; ^ -j- child, who sends in the correct story. You will find a X hint in the League’s GREAT WORK: X j The Children j of the Sun _ j The book that is waking up America and establish- 2 ing the Negro as the greatest race of all human history. ? Send 25 cents (no stamps) for a copy of this won- X derful study in historical research and become a mem ber of the greatest educational organization ever found- $ ed for the uplift of the African races throughout the X world. Then study the insignia and send in your story. j’ THE HAMITIC LEAGUE OF THE WORLD £ 9.33 North 27th Street. Omaha, Neb. X 44 ’ 44 YY YY Y‘ ’ Y.»! t 44 44 * j[| The Monitor I 1 Office n li 304 Crounse Block ' 'Y •*• 4 < >o ,£ X «'z X? iii: Sixteenth Street II I 4 | OPPOSITE POSTOFFICE 4 II if H x? ? VWVVVVVVWVVWWWWVWVV •!• . I? 11 .. II We have moved our office Down Town TV T I Right Into Heart of Business District || «_ if