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, November 6, 1915 Volume I. Number 19
Will Omaha Permit
Dixon’s Photo Play?
“The Birth of a Nation” Condemned
By Many People Is Interdicted
In Several Cities.
REASONS BARRED FROM OHIO
Proclaims Doctrines Which Cost War
Justifies Klu Klux Atrocities
Maligns Negro Race.
“The Birth of a Nation,” a powerful
photo play, based upon Dixon’s per
nicious prejudice-breeding book, The
Clansman, has been engaged for “an
indefinite run” at the Brandeis thea
ter, this city. The engagement, un
less it is prevented, is to begin Sun
day, November 14. The press agent
states that “this picture has created 1
a furore wherever it has been
staged,” which is undoubtedly true.
It has t>een the cause of riots in Bos
ton and Philadelphia. The mayor of
Atlantic City, N. J., ordered its pre
sentation stopped there because of
the bad feeling it was engendering;
many other cities, east and west,
have placed it under the ban.
Thoughtful men and women like
Moorfield Storey, ex-president of the
American Bar association; Oswald G.
Villard, editor of The New York Eve
ning Post; Dr. Washington Gladden,
Rabbi Kornfield, Jane Addams and
Oiiiers, not alarmists or fanatics,
have condemned it as false to history
and dangerous to public safety, and
the board of censors of Ohio, after a
week’s deliberation, during which
strong influences were brought to
bear upon them to license its produc
tion in the state, barred it from the
state of Ohio.
We opposed "The Birth of a
Nation” being booked as a mu
nicipal attraction for our auditor
ium and the city authorities sustained
us lr. our objections. We are opposed
to its production at the Brandeis
theatre. There are doubtless legal
methods by which its production may
be prevented. In our judgment,
there is a better way, and that is a
calm, dispassionate appeal, which we
now make, to the sense of justice and
^ fair play upon the part of the men
and women of Omaha, whom we be
lieve can 'be relied upon to oppose
anything that is distasteful to anv
large group of our citizens.
When the State Board of Censors,
October 18, refused a permit to "The
Birth of a Nation” to show in the
state of Ohio the chairman of the
board gave out the following remark
able and conclusive statement of the
board’s reasons for barring the show
from Ohio, and the board’s decision
is final:
"It will not be disputed that it has
a great dramatic value and is stu
pendous from the standpoint of
camera achievements. On the other
hand, by no stretch of the imagina
tion can we get away from the fact
that it reflects unfavorably upon the
We Appeal to Our Omaha Friends
to Prevent This Play
“The whole tendency of the motion picture drama, ‘The Birth of a
Nation,’ is to arouse loathing and contempt of whites against blacks.”
From editorial in Kansas City Times, October 26, 1915.
“Not only does it rekindle the feeling of sectional hatred, but it
strongly tends to arouse prejudice and hatred among the coming
generation against a race that is living in our midst.”
From official report of Ohio State Board of Censors, October 8,
1915, in barring play from Ohio.
HARRY BUFORD POLICE CHAUFFEUR
Omaha boy who is making good on the police department.
colored race. The entire latter half I
is devoted to scenes and subtitles
protraying colored men engaged in
all sorts of vicious conduct toward
the whites of the south during the
Civil war and the reconstruction j
period following. There are many
mob scenes where Negroes are in the
most repelling way attacking white
citizens, and scenes where Negro men
are forcing their attentions upon
white women and are engaged in all
sorts of ridiculous and knavish con
duct, not only as individuals, but as
a race... True, they were in many in
stances led by what the film terms
‘scalawag carpetbaggers,’ but this
only further reflects upon the gov
ernment of that, period. While the
picture is based upon some historical
facts, many phases are exaggerated
in such a way that the child, unfa- j
miliar with the real facts of history,
would, upon viewing the film, im
mediately conclude that the result
of the Civil war was the greatest
crime in the annals of history, rath
er than the prevention of human be
ings driven by the lash and sold upon
the auction block. The entire film
would seem to proclaim the very doc
trine which it cost a half million lives
and bililons of dollars to eradicate.
“Not only does it rekindle the feel
ing of sectional hatred, but it strong
ly tends to arouse hatred and preju
dice among the coming generation
against a race that is living in our
midst, 120,000 of whom are in Ohio.
I consider it wholly unwise, unjust,
dangerous and harmful to officially
approve a film that reflects upon
them and incites hatred toward them,
retarding them in their progress, as
this film does.
Can’t Be Purged.
“The play also represents the Ku
Klux Klan in such a manner that
their conduct is applauded. It tends
to justify that organization in cap
turing Negroes and, as masked vigi
lence committees, trying them at
night, convicting them of supposed
outrages, executing them and placing
their bodies at the doors of state of
ficials who sympathized with their
cause. Without discussing the justi
fication of their methods of that day,
the spirit that urged their activities
at that time is the same that prompts
such appalling conduct in recent
(Continued on fourth page)
“Birth of a Nation”
Condemned By Press
The Kansas City Times, Leading
Daily Newspaper, Deprecates
Its Presentation in Missouri.
A GRAND SCENIC SPECTACLE
Has Tendency to Arouse Loathing
and Contempt of Whites
Against Blacks.
When leading newspapers of the
country, not given to hysteria, but
sane and sober-minded moulders of
public opinion, sound a note of warn
ing against the dangerous tendencies
of a heavily-capitalized and popular
photoplay film, there must be some
thing wrong with that film.
The Kansas City Times, one of the
leading daily papers in the state of
Missouri in its issue of October 2Gth,
published an editorial on “The Birth
of a Nation.” It was this widely-read
and influential paper’s estimate of
Thomas Dixon’s motion picture play
adapted from his novel called the
“Clansman.” The Times regrets that
Kansas City is compelled to suffer
from the evil effects inevitable from
the production of the picture in that
city. Here is the editorial comment
of this great metropolitan daily:
“It is a wonderful spectacle, this
‘Birth of a Nation,’ that is showing
in motion pictures in Kansas City this
week; a scenic marvel. And yet what
is to be thought of an author who
would deliberately bring all the re
sources of his art to bear on a spec
tacle founded on race hatred? Who
would seek popularity by inflaming
the worst passions of the human
heart?
“The South went through some
wretched and terrible experiences in
the reconstruction period. Mr. Dixon
has picked out and invented some
dramatic and revolting episodes and
made them typical. In doing this he
has succeeded in picturing the Negro
as wholly degraded and bestial, with
unlimited possibilities of evil,
“Although he expressly disavows
any application to the conditions of
today, the whole tendency of the book
and the motion picture drama is to
arouse loathing and contempt of
whites against blacks. The applause
which the pictures evokes shows the
intensity of the feeling.
“At best the dramatized version of
‘The Clansman’ is bound to aggra
vate a problem that is bad enough
with no additional complications. So
far as Kansas City is concerned, it
would help if the play could be still
further censored, and if applause
could be done away with altogether
as is in the case of war films.”
Attend Protest
Meeting Sunday