The Monitor
A National Weekly Ne* ^ er Devoted to the Interests of the Colored
Amf ^\v° .» of Nebraska and the West
EV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
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$1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy ,/maha, Nebraska, Feb. 10, 1917 Vol. II. No. 33 (Whole No. 85)
Fundamental Civil
Rights to Be Guarded
• ’
The Shifting of Population From
North to South Presents New
Problems.
CONGRESS NEEDS WATCHING
Roy Nash Summarizes Important
Task to be Assumed by the Na
tional Association.
The new year presents the oppor
tunity of a generation for advanc
ing the status of colored people. Here
tofore the only place where the Negro
was sure of a living w as in the South,
which not only pays twelve or fifteen
dollars for a month in the cotton
patch, but throws in lynchings, in
sults and disfranchisement for good
measure. Now, however, as a result
of the stoppage of immigration, over
half a million laborers have already
come North, finding employment
chiefly in the steel mills and on the
railroad gangs. In the spring of 1917
will come a greatly accelerated ex
odus.
To see that this migration is not too
much hampered by the police and
town councils of southern cities; to
drive home the growing conviction in
the South that the time has come
when they must make it a place where
Negro labor wants to stay and work;
and to be vigilent lest the prejudices,
which will inevitably follow the Negro
in his migration, rob him of the fun
damental civil rights which he now
enjoys in the North—this is the great
task before the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
people in 1917.
The New Opportunity.
This is the new opportunity; the old
perils persist. With the South in the
saddle at Washington, the present
Congress must be watched and fought
if the Negroes in the District of
Columbia are not to be segregated and
jimerowed, and the constitutional
rights of the colored man still further
diminished. Senator Vardaman’s joint
resolution calling on the attorney
general to submit to the Supreme
Court all information bearing on the
validity of the fourteenth and fifteen
th amendments is but one of a dozen
moves aimed at the Negro’s civil
status which this association will un
doubtedly have to fight. And upon
the outcome of the Louisville seg
regation case, which will be reargued
before the full bench of the Supreme
Court by our national president, Moor
field Storey, depends the status of the
entire colored population in a dozen
V great cities. If we lose, the Negroes
in Baltimore, St. Louis, Ixmisville, all
through the South, and within a few
years probably in New York, must ac
cept the status of the Jews in the
darkest ghettoes of Russia.
A More United Front.
The last son of William Lloyd Gar
rison died last week; the present gen
eration knows not the name of his
(Contlnuel on Page 8)
HEY, YOU FELLOWS, CUT IT OUT!
—Chapin in St. Louis Republic.
Slaves Once Sold In Nebraska
Newman Grove Reporter
That slavery was actually practiced
in the state of Nebraska in its early
days will probably be news to most
Nebraskans, but is nevertheless a
fact. H. Halderson, a local attorney,
in the course of his studies a couple
of years ago, found what he thought
indications that slaves had been
bought and sold in the state at one
time. History gave no mention of it
whatever. But as a thorough stu
dent he began an investigation, more
to satisfy his curiosity than anything
else. He wrote to various places
where he thought information on the
subject might be forthcoming, such as
the State Historical society, etc., but
nothing definite could be given. They,
however, encouraged him to continue
the investigations and finally he
traced a case of this kind to Neb
raska City. The clerk of the district
court of that city after going over the
records, first claimed he could find
no indications of anything of the kind,
but later wrote:
“Since my reply to your recent let
ter, I find the return of the sheriff in
the ‘Slave Sale Under Execution:’
“ ‘Sheriff’s Return—This writ came
to hand Nov. 16, 1860, and was served
by levying on the following described
property, towit: One Negro man
named, Hercules; one Negro woman,
named Martha, Slaves, and belonging
to Charles F. Holly , said levy being
made on the 17th day of November,
1860. I caused a notice to be pblished
in the Nebraska City News according
to law (See Execution) that I would
offer the above described property for
sale at public Auction in front of the
Court House in Nebraska City in said
County on the 6th day of December,
A. D., 1860, between the hours of 10
o’clock a. m. and 3 o’clock p. m., of
said day and at the time and place
specified in said notice. I first of
fered Hercules and there being no bid
ders for him, I then offered the said
Hercules and Martha together and
sold the same to William B. Hail for
the sum of Three Hundred Dollars,
he being the highest bidder and that
being the highest sum bid for the
said property the same was sold to
him. WILLIAM P. BIRCHFIELD.
“ ’Sheriff.'
“The case is entitled: 'William B.
Hail vs. Charles F. Holly,’ and this
return is found in Execution Docket
‘A,’ page 149.
COLORED SOLDIER WINS
IRON CROSS
The Golden West, a Hungarian mag
azine, makes a note of the fact that
Leon Welchin, a Colored soldier fight
ing in the Austrian army, has been
decorated with the Iron Cross for
bravery under fire. Welchin led a
charge against the enemy and, altho
wounded, pushed on until his aim was
accomplished. He is a West Indian
who has lived in Austria for many
years.
The Justice of
God in Hi&ory
By the Very Rev. William R. Inge,
D.D.
Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London,
England.
“Behold the Lord stood upon a wall
made by a plumb-line with a plumb
line in his hand,
“And the Lord said unto me: ‘Amos,
what seest thou?’ and 1 said, ‘A plumb
line.’
“Then said the Lord: ‘Behold, I will
set a plumb-line in the midst of My
people, Israel; I will not again pass
by them any more.’ ”
Amos, a keeper of sheep and a
dresser of vineyards, in the country
about Tekoa, was the first of the lit
erary prophets and one of the pro
foundest moral revealers of any age.
He was not afraid of the face of
clay. He dared to say before any
man, or any group of men, what he
actually thought. He understood the
movements going on around him as
clearly as he understood the hbaits of
his sheep.
“He read each wound, each weakness
clear,
He struck his finger on the place;
And said: Thou ailest here, and
here.”
But the great thing, after all, which
he announces in his plumb-line fig
use is the fact of an unescapable, in
exorable, pervasive law of moral grav
itation in the universe. There is no
caprice about moral results. You
cannot hoodwink the forces which ful
fil events.
“By no clever trickery,” wrote one
of our sound present-day teachers,
“can profligacy or low living come
into possession of the beatitudes.”
There hangs the plumb-line, dropped
as from the hand of God and by it
every deed is tested. There is no fa
voritism, no wheedling, no capricious
exception. If the life is unplumb, if
the deeds and policies of it swing
away from a line of rectitude, noth
ing can save the structure from col
lapse—nothing but a rebuilding of it
in conformity with the moral laws of
gravitation.
The man himself, as William James
says, may not “count" his wrong deed,
“and a kind heaven may not count it;
but it is being counted none the less.
Down among his nerve-cells and fibres
the molecules are counting it, reg
istering it and storing it up to be
used against him when the next temp
tation comes.”
Apparent “success” and a seeming
"efficiency” that brings coveted “re
sults” are poor substitutes for a
rightly-fashioned life. “The world
with its crasser judgments may ap
prove the men who seem to hit the
desired goals,” concludes Professor
Rufus Jones, “but the triumph is
dearly bought if it has been won by
the sacrifice of the growth of the
soul itself.”