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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (March 4, 1916)
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 $1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy. Omaha, Nebraska, March 4, 1916 Volume I. Number 36 Major Charles Young Gets Spingarn Medal Governor of Massachusetts Makes Pre sentation at Mass Meeting in Tremont Temple. AN EFFICIENT ARMY OFFICER Marked Ability Shown In Organizing and Training Constabulary of Liberia. Boston, March 3.—At a great mass meeting held Tuesday night, Feb. 22, under the auspices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Tremont Temple, Hon. Samuel W. McCall, Govenor of Massachusetts, awarded the second Spingarn medal to Major Charles Young, of the United States Army, for his work in organizing and train ing the constabulary of Liberia. This gold medal, valued at one hundred dollars, is the gift of Dr. J. E. Sping am, of New York, chairman of the Association, anil formerly professor of comparative literature in Colum bia University, and is awarded an nually to the man or woman of Afri can descent and American citizenship who shall have made the highest achievement during the preceding year in any field of elevated or honor able human endeavor. The committee which decided the award consisted of two Northern white men, ex-President William Howhrd Taft and Oswald Garrison Villard, of the New York Evening Post; a Southern white man, Dr. James H. Dillard of Virginia, director 1 of the Slater and Jeanes Funds; and two colored men, President John Hope of Morehouse College, Atlanta, and Bishop John Hurst of Baltimore. Mr. Moorfield Storey, formerly president of the American Bar Association, pre sided. Major Young was bom in Kentucky in 1868, and was educated in the pub lic schools of Ohio. He was appoint ed to West Point Military Academy from Ohio in 1885, and since graduat ing in 1889 has served in the Seventh, Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and the Twenty-fifth infantry of the United States Army. He was major of an Ohio battalion during the Spanish War. Afterwards he was detailed as Superintendent of the Sequoia and Grant National Parks in California, where his “interest and ability were commended in formal resolutions by the Visalia Board of Trade, which de clared that “by his energy and en thusiasm and business qualities dis played, the money set aside for im provements of the parks was most visely and economically expended.” In 1904 he was sent to Haiti, and thence twice to the Philippines, where in the absence of the Colonel he was in command of the regiment on sev eral occasions. He was promoted to the rank of Major in 1912, and was then sent as military attache to Li beria. There he undertook the work <i 'out inued on iieventh pn^e i Nebraska Civil Rights Bill Chapter Thirteen of the Revised Statutes of Nebraska, Civil Rights. Enacted in 1893. Sec. 1. Civil rights of persons. All persons within this state shall be entitled to a full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants, public con veyances, barber shops, theatres and other places of amusement; sub ject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and ap plicable alike to every person. Sec. 2. Penalty for Violation of Preceding Section. Any person who shall violate the foregoing section by denying to any person, ex cept for reasons of law applicable to all persons, the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges enumerated in the foregoing section, or by aiding or inciting such denials, shall for each offense be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined in any sum not. less than twenty-five dollars, nor more than one hundred dollars, and pay the costs of the prosecution. “The original act was held valid as to citizens; barber shops can not discriminate against persons on account of color. Messenger vs. State, 25 Nebr. page 677. 41 N. W. 638.” “A restaurant keeper who refuses to serve a colored person with refreshments in a certain part of his restaurant, for no other reason than that he is colored, is civilly liable, though he offers to serve him by setting a table in a more private part of the house. Ferguson vs. Gies, 82 Mich. 358; 16 N. W. 718.” Something to Make You Think CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTENDOM By the Rev. Geo. Gilbert Walker, M. A. Topeka, Kansas. The world, that is, Christendom, knows enough to save itself in ten years. The greatest need of men today is the doing of what they know. The trouble is that men fail at the point where they most need to stand firm. It seems to me that they fail because they do not put into positive action the Gospel which the Christian Church has taught for nearly two thousand years. We receive the Gospel of the Master; we learn it; we systematize it; we de fine it; and then we relegate it to some cloud country far above our heads. It makes a beautiful theory; and we are content. The Gospel of the Master WILL save the world. We must so use it. The Gospel of the Master is broad enough and adequate to save mankind. The world will not be saved apart from the Gospel of our Lord. What means all this preaching of Brotherhood—the Brotherhood of Man? We hear much of it in the churches. We read much of it in books and period icals. It is defined. It has been threshed out again and again. It is rightly conceived to be one of the major principles of the Christian Religion, and yet it is not one of the actual working motives of the vast majority of Christian people. If we think men are equal before God; if we believe that the soul of one man is as valuable as is the soul of any other man; if we think the grace of God, and His blessing, and gifts actuate the hearts and personalities of all alike, why do we not behave as though we believe it? Is it that we are hypocritical? Is it that we are whitened sepulchres? Is it that we are false, craven? Do we imagine that the Creator of the Universe is a class God, or a race God, or a narrow-minded, prejudiced God? Does it not seem a little like mockery, a little like empty mummery—this topsy-turvy practice of Christianity? The exploitation of the poor, the ignorant, the weak; the wide and ever widening race prejudice; the greed for money and power at the expense of those who are unfortunate and down; the unsavory political situation—and these are not varieties or exceptions. They are, or seem to be, organic mal adies of the world which calls itself Christian. What means all this talk of reform? Mind you—men and women, re formers if you please, have been discussing justice, social adjustment, civic righteousness; have been preaching the hardship and duress of the laboring people, have been denouncing the greed of monopolists and exploitors;; and (Continued on tlilrd page) 0ROW ®rra 0ROWING * Omaha 0 United States May Get Danish West Indies The Recent Strike of Colored Danes Has Reopened Question of Sale of Islands. FOUR MILLION PRICE OFFERED. The Archipelago Includes Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John and Lie East of Porto Rico. Copenhagen, March 3.—The recent strike of Colored people in the Danish West Indies has reopened the old question of the sale of the islands to the United States. If the question of the sale comes up again in Parliament, the general belief here is that it will receive a favorable majority in both houses, provided the United States of fers a greater sum than the $4,000,000 offered in 1901. M. Hageman, the wealthiest planter in the Danish West Indies, has just published here a pamphlet on the sit uation from the point of view of the most influential Danish residents of the colony. M. Hageman favors the sale. In the pamphlet he recognizes the efforts made by the Danes to im prove conditions in the island, but views their future under Danish rule pessimistically. He particularly points out that the population is de creasing alarmingly. Infant mortality he says, is very high, having recently reached sixty-three and a half per cent. The sanitary conditions in the islands are very bad, according to Mr. Hageman. The pamphlet says the economic conditions for the time being are fairly good as the sugar crop is ex cellent. This, however, is not consid ered by Mr. Hageman as sufficient and he expects a return to bad con ditions as soon as the price of sugar has fallen. Some years ago a bill was presented to Congress asking an appropriation of $4,000,000 to buy the Danish West Indies, which were considered of both ocmmercial and strategic value, espe cially with the completion of the Pan ama canal. The project fell through. In 1909, Denmark offered to sell the islands to the United States but before the transaction could be put through the offer was withdrawn. The Danish Archipelago includes the islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. The islands lie to the east of Porto Rico. NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR ATTENDS COLORED FUNERAL Raleigh, N. C. Mar. 3.—Governor Locke Craig and Secretary of State Bryan Grimes headed a body of state officials which attended the funeral here last Monday, Feb. 28, of Austin Dunston, a colored porter. Dunston had been employed in the executive offices in the capitol for more than forty years. It was said to be the first Colored funeral ever attended in North Carolina by the governor and the executive staff.