The Monitor
A Weekly Newspaper devoted to the civic, social and religious interests
of the Colored People of Nebraska and the West, with the desire to con
tribute something to the general good and upbuilding of the community and
of the race.
Published Every Saturday.
Entered a3 Second-Class Mail Matter July 2, 1916, at the Post Office 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 and Business Manager.
Joseph LaCour, Jr., Lincoln Representative, 821 S. St., Lincoln.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES, $1.50 PER YEAR
Advertising Rates, 50 cents an Inch per Issue.
Address, The Monitor, 1119 North Twenty-first street, Omaha.
Telephone Webster 4243.
WILL ENCOURAGE NO
EVASION OF THE LAW
The Monitor received this week
copy for an advertisement from an
out of town firm which we believe
would only encourage violation of the
spirit if not the letter of the prohibit
ory amendment which carried at the
last election and becomes operative
May 1st.
The editor of The Monitor from
school days has borne the reputation
of being “a good sport,” in the sense
of being a hard but fair fighter in any
sport or cause in which he was inter
ested, and a good loser. We hope we
can never be charged with being an
Achilles sulking in the tent. We
fought prohibition as hard as we knew
how. We lost. We shall however do
nothing to encourage any evasion of
the law. Our position is made plain
in the following letter which was our
reply to the firm seeking advertising
space in our columns.
January 9, 1916.
Dear Sir:
The advertisement which you sub
mit to us for insertion in our columns
is not acceptable.
The Monitor opposed prohibition;
but since the measure has passed, we
believe the law should be enforced and
that newspapers should not accept ad
vertisements that will in any way en
courage infractions or evasions of the
law. For this reason we have decided
to accept no advertisements of this
character.
Thanking you, however, for con
sidering us as an advertising medium
and regretting that we cannot sell you
advertising space for your business,
believe us to be,
Respectfully yours,
John Albert Williams, Editor.
A VISION
Half awake and half asleep I sat
in my chair one evening, musing upon
the way of mine in the world. Be
fore my curtaining eyes came the
glow of what seemed to be a crimson
wreath of light, but as it cleared I
saw that it was our rosary of sorrows
and that each bead was red with the
blood of my people. Two tears stole
dowm by cheeks and my breast seem
ed choked with sobbings. I would have
hidden my eyes for pain as the red
drops fell, but looking down I saw a
golden chalice that caught them in its
glistening bowl. And when again I
looked up to the rosary, the blood
drops ceased to fall and the soft lustre
of pearl was crowding away the crim
son. My eyes opened wide and as I
stretched forth my hand to hold the
glimmering thing, the chalice ascend
ed to my lips and a tender voice whis
pered, “Drink!" I drank and that
which had been blood was wine and
through my dull and dismal body
surged all passions that come of ambi
tion and battle and conquest and love.
My hands swept together to clutch
the cup that I might drink more of the
potent potion, but it was gone. Quick
ly my eyes looked up and the rosary
had left a fading afterglow.
“What can it mean?” I cried, hold
ing forth my hands to the empty dark.
“It means that He who made you
knows,” came the soft words from
a distant but lingering voice. “The
chalice is Time and the mystic al
chemy that turned bitter into sweet
was Hope. That you and your dusky
race lives is not to be in vain. Work!
Wait! Win!”
DON’T GO TO THE SUN
We have received numerous com
plaints concerning the treatment of
our people at The Sun theatre and this
week a representative of The Monitor
called upon the management and took
up the matter. There seems to be a
disposition not to want Colored pat
ronage and we request our people not
to go. We hope, at some future time,
to be in a position to handle the mat
ter more effectively than now, but for
the present we can only advise them to
remain away. Nearly all other movie
houses, together with Boyd, Brandeis
and The Orpheum, make us welcome
and their entertainment is always of
superior quality.
SONG OF SOLOMON
Eats
1. Eats, O my son, is the answer
ing fodder that cometh to corral the
lusty cry of an empty stomach.
2. This call cometh thrice daily,
but the wise guys with the whiskers
sayeth it is all to do with the halter
of habit.
3. Wot not that I dispute with
them, 0 my son, yet if fodder be
eth but a fancy habit why not ham
string the habit and save the fodder?
4. —Now that we liveth in the hey
dey of H. C. L., many are the people
who adviseth us how to keep down
the gastric rah rah with a dime per
diem.
5. I tried it, O my son, for a run
ning month and thereafter I lay in the
psychopathic ward gaining walking
strength for a creeping six.
6. The dime per diem stunt was
not for me, nor for the other fellow.
It was for the columns of the paily
pink.
7. I dream me of a time when a
dime would dole a dinner for a dozen,
but now, O my son, it will not pur
chase thee the perfume from a bean
ery.
8. A loaf of bread costeth thee a
dollar and a beefsteak is worthy of a
golden platter on the banquet board
of a Creosus.
9. The soldier fare of beans and
bacon and tack give thee visions of a
feast and a dish of prunes is a fond
memory.
10. Yet still the stomach calleth
for eats, O my son, but a dime’s worth
of fodder is an inslut, and dollar’s only
a tickle. What thou needest to feed
thy face plentifully is the government
treasury.
John Ruskin Cigar, 5 cents. Biggest
and Best.
OBVIOUS OBSERVATIONS
The weather has been so delightful
for the last few days that ye editors
are positive that they have an acute
attack of spring fever. Pass the sas
safras, please.
And so the war goes on! Well, we
could not stop it as hard as we tried
to, but maybe when the last Ally
shoots and is shot by the last German
they will clasp their hands in the
death struggle and call it THE
GREAT MISTAKE.
There is so much in the magazines
and newspapers these days about us
Colored folk that we really believe
the old U. S. A. has found out that
we are a piece of the inhabitants.
“What Shall We Do to Be Saved
Trom the Negro?” w'as recently sung
at the American Labor Federation
with so much gusto that police on the
beat thought there was a riot.
Old Whispers, better known as Car
ranzy, the Mexican, has bought a
carload of second hand European guns
from the Japs and is bringing them to
Mexico. Now for some second hand
shells and Villa will have a holy picnic
watching the Federals shoot up them
selves.
The Turkish Ambassador who
wasn’t afraid to hand the U. S. a hot
one for the way it treated the Colored
people, is now one of the greatest
men of Turkey. And to think that if
he hadn’t told the truth he would still
be lollygagging around the White
House swallowing grape juice through
a straw.
Thanking you most kindly for your
somnolent attention, we will now re
quest the end man to punish the bass
drum.
Don’t fail to attend the large Ken
sington Mrs. R. K. Lawrie will give
January 24, from 1:30 to 6:30 p. m.,
at her home, 114 North 43d Ave., for
the benefit of the Old Folks’ Home.
—Adv.
Sixty Years Ago
Kountze Brothers organized a bank in Omaha. Six years later, un
der a charter issued by the Government, it became the
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First National Bank
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of Omaha
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Along with the city, the state and the great west, the bank has
grown. Compared with the splendid building which the bank now
occupies, the original bank building of Kountze Bros., at 12th and
Farnam, was insignificant; but the founders had a breath of vision
and integrity of purpose, which means more than the little frame
building, (1857) or the brick banking house, (1866) or the granite
home, (1888) or the .present imposing structure.
FINANCIAL GROWTH
It is not alone in buildings that the First National has shown
progress and growth. Year by year the deposits have grown; and
as the business demanded, the capital has been increased, a million
dollars being added from earnings.
SAVINGS DEPARTMENT
Th growth of this department has crowded the facilities of the old
building and in the new one there will be found increased accom
modations together with the righ simplicity and refinement that
make the exterior of the structure so striking
SAFE DEPOSIT VAULTS
Patrons of the bank will appreciate the increased facilities offered
in the vault rooms of the new building. The old boxes and com
partments have been moved from the old building and as rapidly as
possible new boxes will be assigned to box holders. Protected by
every known safety device, light, well ventilated, convenient of
access, yet strictly private, they offer the acme of safety for va|u- .
ables of every character.
AN INVITATION
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Is extended to you to visit the bank. When you have friends here
f^om out of town, bring them in. Occupying as it does, such a
prominent position, being so complete in every detail, the people are
interested in seeing the interior and to visit the bank. You will be
very welcome.
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