The Monitor
A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the Interests of the Eight Thousand Colored People
in Omaha and Vicinity, and to the Good of the Community
The Rev. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
$1.00 a Year. 5c a Copy. Omaha, Nebraska, September 25, 1915 Volume I. Number 13
Disfranchisement and
Non-Representation
Civil Disabilities and Injustices Im
posed Upon Colored Americans
in Certain Sections.
PROTECTION FOR NEGRO WOMEN
John E. Milholland Boldly Speaks of
Conditions as He Observes Them.
Hope in Education of Races.
Continuing the interesting article by
Mr. Milholland which was originally
published in the San Francisco Bulle
tin, at the point at which it was
broken off in last week’s issue of The
Monitor, he charges his race with in
gratitude for democracy which he
maintains is the "priceless gift of the
Ethiopian.” He notes as evidence of
this ingratitude disfranchisement,
non-representation and the need of
protection for Negro womanhood.
This is what Mr. Milholland says on
these points:
* Disfranchisement of Negro.
“Today the Negro of the South is,
to all intents and purposes, disfran
chised. In the vast region south of
the Potomac, wherein reside the over
whelming majority of the ten million
colored citizens of the United States,
Negro suffrage is a negligible quan
tity. It is practically abolished. Why?
Because the Negroes are poor and
Ignorant? Certainly not. The census
of 1900, w'hich is the only one I have
to hand, shows out of four million col
ored voters, fifty per cent fully liter
ate. Of the 181,000 registered voters
in the state of Alabama, more than
73.000 could read and write. More
than 11,000 of those colored citizens
owned or own their little farms.
Nearly 3,000 more were part owners.
More than 56,000 were cash tenants,
and nearly 24,000 were share tenants.
There were fully 1,000 colored male
teachers in the public and private
schools of the state. There were col
ored merchants, bankers, lawyers, edi
tors, physicians and ministers to the
number of not less than 5,000 in all.
Yet, of all this vast army less than
3.000 of the 181,000 voters—that is
less than two per cent—have been
allowed to vote since the alleged adop
tion of the new state constitution,
which from the standpoint of equity,
if not of law, is not worth the paper
upon which it is written. Why, Dr.
Booker Washington himself has ad
mitted that to vote at all he Is at
times compelled to vote the Demo
cratic ticket. In Tallapoosa county,
with a colored population of more
than 2,000 only one Negro was allowed
to vote in the entire county. Even
Negro principals of colored schools
were denied registration.
The Negro Has No Representation.
"Just think of it—eleven millions of
American citizens denied representa
tion in the cabinet, in the courts or
(Continued on third page)
Do You “MUF?”
CHARLES O. LOBECK, Congressman.
ISAAC FISHER WRITES
A SUCCESSFUL PLAY
Birmingham, Ala., Sept. 24.—Mr.
Isaac Fisher, many times prize win
ner in national essay contests, keeps
adding to his laurels. Recently, the
Birmingham News of Alabama said:
“Isaac Fisher, editor of the Tuske
gee Negro Farmer, who has gained
nationwide fame as a writer on eco
nomic and business questions for
which he has won many prizes, has
written a love drama entitled, ‘When
True Love Wins.’ So good is the
story that the Southern Motion Pic
ture Company, a local iirm, has put it
into a play, using a number of prom
inent people in the cast.”
This play was shown for the first
time in the Champion Theater in Bir
mingham on September 13 and 14.
The manager of the motion picture
company has already asked Mr. Fish
er to write other plays. In addition
to this, Mr. Fisher won $10 in the re
cent Rice Leaders of the W'orld con
test for ideas, his name heading the
list for Alabama.
WANTS THE NOMINATION
Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 24.—John
Norris, a prominent club man, has
filed the necessary papers and will
make the fight In *he primary f^r the
nomination as councilman from the
Thirtieth ward.
SEARCHING FOR HEIRS
OF RICH NEGRO WOMAN
St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 24.—J. O. Far
ris, 7 North Jefferson street, a Negro
secret service investigator, has been
retained to find the whereabouts of
the legal heirs of Elizabeth Mary
Simpson, formerly of New Orleans,
La., who died in Paris, France, March,
1901, at the age of 73.
Mrs. Simpson was familiarly known
as “Aunt Liza Simpson,” and was a
chambermaid on a Mississippi river
steamboat in the latter part of the
seventies and early eighties, under
the late Captain Peter Layman. She
had three sisters and two brothers,
and it is supposed that there must
survive some nieces or nephews.
She left an estate which is said to
be worth $80,000. She was never mar
ried and died without making a will.
A reward has been offered for infor
mation as to the location of any of
her relatives.
FEDERATED CHARITIES CON
TINUE GOOD WORK
Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 24.—The
Federated Charities of Memphis,
Tenn., have just published their an
nual report. During the past year
they have reached and helped over
5,000 persons. H. C. Shepard is pres
ident and V. W. Broughton, secretary.
•
Scathingly Rebukes.
Southern Lawlessness
The Milwaukee Free Press Publishes
Strong Editorial Against Ram
pant Spirit of Blood Lust.
ARRAIGNS SOUTH AT THE BAR
Hopeful Sinn When White Press of
the Country Unmasks Hypocricy
and Ctates Unpleasant Facts.
(Milwaukee (Wis.) Free Press.)
The spirit and method of the Ku
Klux Klan has once more triumphed
in Georgia.
Once more southern "gentility” and
“chivalry” have revealed their true
character in murder, secession and an
archy.
For the same bestial spirit that
sought to disrupt this union, the same
spirit that lashed and ravished the
helpless slave, the same southern
spirit that even today is celebrating
the blood-lust of the Ku Klux Klan as
a virtue, is living in the persecution
and murder of Leo Frank.
Americans have gazed askance at
the bloody immorality of Serbia. But
Serbia is a paradise of civilization
compared with the state of Georgia.
Southern readers have written that
we must not confuse the Georgian
rabble with the “better classes.” But
where have the “better classes” been
during all the nightmare of Frank’s
persecution? If the “better classes”
permit the rabble to run Georgia’s
courts, its newspapers, and now its
penal institutions, they are worse
than the rabble—a cheap, spineless
and degenerate social group.'
If there exist in Georgia any appre
ciable number of men and women
who have passionately resented the
prostitution of the most sacred ma
chinery of government, the most pre
cious dictates of humanity, the holi
est considerations of justice, they
have damned themselves far worse
than the mob, because they have tol
erated and through toleration con
doned.
And this is not the worst. The
worst is that the spirit of Georgia is
typical of the spirit that prevails
throughout a large portion of the old
South. Every southern state that
tolerates lynch law, whose people
revel in the writhings of tortured
blacks, is capable of Georgia’s mon
strous outrage. Every community
that burns Negroes at the stake or
hangs them for unproven or petty
crimes would act as Georgia did in
the case of Frank.
How can the nation—the civilized,
responsible and self-governing part of
it—longer tolerate this anarchy, this
blood-lust on the part of a section that
once defied humanity and government
till it had to be broken with swords
and bullets?
The North, with the familiar senti
mentality of the conqueror, has been
(Continued on second page)