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.