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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (March 10, 1917)
The Monitor A National Wee1 .vspaper Devoted to the Interests of the Colored p?'?° .ericans of Nebraska and the West THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor $1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy Omaha, Nebraska, March 10, 1917 Vol. II. No. 36 (Whole No. 89) Monitor Proposes to Be Labor Medium Undertaking the Much-Needed Task of Bringing the Jobless Man to the Manless Job. TO DIRECT NEGRO MIGRATION Labor Needs and Conditions Reported and When You See It in The Monitor It’s So. After a three months’ investigation of national labor demands and south ern labor conditions, The Monitor finds that the greatest need of our lace today is a paper that will bring the jobless man to the manless job. For almost a year the Colored jour nals have been writing columns of matter upon the great southern exodus, and none has appeared to at tempt to take advantage of the situ ation and become the medium through which our Colored brothers may learn where to go when they leave the south. Hundreds of letters are pouring into The Monitor office and all bear the same tenor. Our people are anxious to leave, but they don’t know where to go. This is a big coun try and these people need directing. Chicago today is overcrowded with Colored people from the south who have been lured away by false hopes and found no work awaiting them upon their arrival. The north needs thousands of Colored Jaborers, but they can’t all find work in Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City and New York. The fact of the matter is that the trend is all toward the larger cities, thus causing a conges tion that surfeits the demand. The indications are that this spring The Monitor will be able to place thousands of Colored men at good paying labor, and this paper intends to devote its energies in this direc tion. Already we have listed firms who want from 100 to 200 men each as soon as winter breaks. These firms do not pay transportation at present, but their wage scale is such as to encourage Colored people of the south to find some way to reach the destina tion. The Monitor believes that it will only be a matter of time when many of these firms will be willing to advance fare, but they must first be convinced that those to whom they advance fare are dependable. Experi ences of strike conditions, when firms have paid thousands of dollars to im port laborers who have remained only a week or ten days, has made them cautious in this respect, and none can blame them. The Monitor plan is vastly differ ent. To each applicant a blank is sent, and when this blank is returned, The Monitor can judge fairly well v'hether the applicant is likely to prove an asset or a liability to an employer. It cannot afford to send a firm men who do not prove up, and will not. This month more than 100 men will be placed with the Cudahy Packing Company of Sioux The Governor and the Mob (By Thomas Randolph, in The Independent, February 26.) [Thomas Randolph is not the real name of the author, a correspondent of a leading Kentucky paper, for there is still so much mob ugliness in Mur ray that he found it wise to use a pseudonym in collecting evidence for this article. “I think I talked with half the population of Murray,” he says, “and I received exactly the same story everywhere.” The story is a graphic contrast between the courage of one man and the cowardice of many.—The Editor.] “Give us the nigger or we’ll hang the judge,” was the cry of the mob which thronged the street in front of the New Murray Hotel, at Murray, Kentucky, on the morning of Janu ary 10. The mob had just broken up a sitting of the Circuit Court of the Third Judicial District, Common wealth of Kentucky, because the pre siding judge had spirited Lube Mar tin, an ignorant, penniless and friend less Negro, out of the country over night to protect him from their fury. Judge Charles H. Bush had gone to his room in the hotel and the mob had followed him. “Bring back the nigger,” they in sisted—for, in the choice_ lexicon of the “po’ white trash,” there is no such word as Negro. The mob not only filled the street in front of the hos telry, but crowded into the office and patroled the hall upstairs, its spokes men incessantly repeating the blood cry, “We’ll hang the nigger or we’ll hang the judge.” But they didn’t hang the judge. That was because Judge Charles H. Bush, after being besieged in his hotel room for two hours, gave the order to “bring back the nigger.” And they didn’t hang the Negro. That was because Governor A. O. Stanley sent the mob word that he would give them the opportunity “to hang the Governor of the Common wealth first and then wreak their vengeance on the Negro later,” and mad<? good the promise. Lube Martin had committed three offenses which, in the opinion of some of the good citizens of Calloway County, Kentucky, in the heart of the famed “Blaek Patch” where the Night Riders were wont to make life a ter ror, could be adequately atoned for only when Lube was swung on a rope from a tree in the courthouse yard and when his body had been made the receptacle for a few hundred bullets, more or less. When Guthrie Diuguid, the town policeman of Murray, had conceived the idea that Lube had been hired to kill him, and had sent Lube word that he would kill him on sight, Lube had made it a point to “dodge” the policeman, and that was his first offense. When Diuguid, who then was an ex-policeman, had met him cn the public highway and taken four or five shots at him, Lube, seeing escape by means of further “dodging” impracticable, had killed him, and that was his second offense. And now, on January 9, Lube had committed the third offense, which so infuriated the mob that they were determined to hang the judge if the judge did not deliver Lube into their hands. That offense consisted in Lube’s sworn statement that he was unwilling to go to trial while the only witnesses who could swear his life had been threatened and that they saw him shoot in self-defense were out of the state, and his consequent petition for a postponement in the date of the trial. The shooting had occurred in No vember, and Martin was at once hur ried to Hopkinsville for safe keep ing. (Continued on Page 6) City, Iowa, and they will be all picked men. The Monitor has seen to this, and every one of the hundred has paid his own fare. Another packing com pany wants 200 men about May first, while a steel company has asked for about 150 men at the same time. The Monitor means to win the confidence of the Colored man of the south who wants to leave, and the northern firm that wishes him to come, and to do this it must play fair and give out only facts. Hereafter The Monitor means to be the leading medium for the southern Colored man to learn the truth about northern conditions. Every report will be investigated and its truth or falsity will be published in The Mon itor. Colored men wishing to leave the south may write us, enclose stamp, forward his application, and depend upon it that he will be prompt ly notified where and when Colored laborers are wanted. Northern in dustries wanting Colored help may feel safe in entrusting their wants to The Monitor, and the labor will be j supplied if possible. Another factor which the southern Colored man must not overlook is that wives and daughters may find an abundance of domestic work at wages from $1.50 to $2.00 per day. We re ceived today a letter from a Colored woman of the south who is working for a family, and states that she receives $10 a month. There are no ten-dollar-a-month jobs in the north. Men without families may find plenty of railroad work through The Monitor. The wages are rather low, from 17 to 19 cents an hour, but the advantages of this class of labor is, that it is away from large cities, and will give a better opportunity for saving. Most railroads will supply transportation, but men of families are not desired. The Monitor asks the co-operation of all race journals that are truly interested in the progress of the race. Such opportunities as confront the Colored people today have never ap peared before, and it is up to the race to make the most of them. Whether we will or not remains to be seen. Colored Men to Be Used On New Work Italians and Greeks In Large Num bers Have Returned Home to Take Part in the War. LABOR BROUGHT FROM SOUTH Construction Company Has Secured Services of Three Thousand From Georgia and Alabama. Colored men from the south are going to play an important part in Union Pacific railroad construction through Wyoming the coming sum mer. In the past only white labor has been employed on track and con struction work. Recently it has been impossible to secure white men to do the work. Americans don’t want to do this kind of work and there are not enough Japanese and Chinese available. Greeks and Italians who have been depended upon during the last two or three years have returned to Europe and joined the armies of the allies and it has been found neces sary to import the Colored men. The Wyoming work on the Union Facific this season will consist of wid ening the Sherman hill tunnel a dis tance of 1,700 yards in order to make room for the second track on the main line. In addition to this there will be the driving of the tunnel through a low mountain range west of Lar amie. The new work along the Union Pacific is to be done by the Utah Construction company, recently given the contract, and work will start with the coming of spring. Already the construction company has secured the services of 3,000 Georgia and Ala bama Colored men, and they will be gin to arrive within the next sixty days. Later in the season it is ex pected that as many more will be brought in from the south. The men will live in camps along the line. CHURCH OF ST. PHILIP THE DEACON The Altar Guild met at the resi dence of Mrs. J. C. Donley Tuesday night. They have just presented the vicar with a beautiful white silk stole and are now working on other vest ments. The Woman’s Auxiliary met at the residence of Mrs. H. J. Crawford Thursday afternoon. In addition to the missionary work done by this or ganization, a sick committee has been appointed to visit the sick of the parish. ENTERTAIN FOR WASHINGTON GUESTS Complimentary to Mrs. B. F. Davis and daughter of Washington, D. C., Mrs. Philip Letcher’s guests, Mrs. Luther J. Dillard gave an auto party, Feb. 25; Mrs. M. E. Overall gave a luncheon at her residence, Feb. 26; and Mrs. Augustus Hicks gave a luncheon March 1st.