The Monitor
A National Weekly Newsp*' *oted to the Interests of the Colored
America ^ Nebraska and the West
THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
$1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy Omaha, Nebraska, March 24, 1917 Vol. II. No. 38 (Whole No. 90)
The Lincoln Annual,
Conference to Meet
Clerical and Lay Deputations From
Five States Will Attend Fifteenth
Annual Session.
BISHOP STCNTZ WILL PRESIDE
Many Influential Religious Leaders
Members of Conference. Sessions
at Grove M. E. Church.
The fifteenth annual session of the
Lincoln Annual Conference oi the
Methodist Episcopal Church will be
formally and officially opened at the
Grove Methodist Episcopal Church,
Twenty-second and Seward streets, at
10 o’clock next Wednesday morning
by the Rt. Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, D.D.,
vho will preside at all sessions.
The membership of this conference
includes the Colored work in five
states, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska,
Colorado and Wyoming. Clerical and
lay deputies to the number of one
hundred are expected to be in attend
ance. This will bring to the city some
of the ablest religious leaders and edu
cators in the country.
The Rev. G. G. Logan, pastor of
Grove Methodist Episcopal Church,
and his congregation have been plan
ning for several weeks to entertain
the conference.
While the conference does not for
mally open until Wednesday morning,
as a matter of fact it practically opens
at 11 o’clock Sunday morning, March
25 with a sermon by the Rev. Dr. J. C.
Sherrill, of New Orleans, Secretary
of the Foreign Missionary Society,
and one of the most eloquent men in
the denomination. At 3 o’clock in the
afternoon, the Rev. Dr. Titus Lowe,
pastor of the First Methodist Church
of this city, will be the speaker; and
at 8 p. m. the Rev. Dr. R. E. Jones,
of New Orleans, editor of The South
western Christian Advocate, will
preach.
Monday there is to be a sunrise
prayer meeting at 6 a. m., and at 8
o’clock at night the Rev. Dr. Sherrill,
who was a missionary in Africa for
many years, will speak on a subject
for which he is well qualified, “Twelve
Years in the Heart of Africa.”
Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock the
examination of candidates for the
ministry will be held. This will be fol
lowed at noon by an informal recep
tion to ministers and visiting dele
gates. At 8 p. m. the Rev. Dr. E. D.
Hull, pastor of Hanscom Park Meth
odist Church, will deliver a lecture on
“The Boy,” for which there will be an
admission fee of fifteen cents for the
' benefit of the Church.
Wednesday’s program begins with
the examination of candidates for the
ministry at 10 o’clock, followed by
evangelistic services and sermon at 3
p. m. In the evening at 8 o’clock will
be one of the most interesting ses
sions of the conference, being devoted
to the work of the Freedrnen’s Aid
Society and the Board of Religious
(Continued on Page 6)
THE RT. REV. HOMER C. STUNTZ, D.D.
Who Presides at Anuual Conference at Grove Methodist Church March 28
to April 1.
Justice In South Carolina
(By James Weldon Johnson in New York Age)
The following despatch clipped from
the Columbia State is self-explana
tory:
Special to The State.
Abbeville, Feb. 27.—-Court of gen
eral sessions convened here Monday
with Judge Puerifoy presiding. The
grand jury failed to find a true bill
against the eight men charged with
lynching the Negro, Anthony Craw
ford, last October. Also the 18 men
charged writh riot on the streets of
Abbeville. The men were dismissed.
C. B. Thomas, charged with murder,
,vas found not guilty. Mr. Thomas
shot and killed R. C. Fields, a white
tenant on his farm. The shooting oc
curred about two years ago. Thomas
claimed in self-defense.”
The readers of The Age are, no
doubt, familiar with the Crawford
case. Anthony Crawford was a pros
perous Colored farmer near Abbeville,
S.C., a man who had accumulated
ome $25,000 worth of property. He
v/ent into town one day to sell some
•otton or cotton seed and got into a
dispute with the merchant over the
price. Hard words were passed and
the roughneck element hearing that
Crawford had “insulted a white man”
started out to punish him for his of
fense. Crawford retreated into a cot
ton gin, picked up a club, and de
!ared he would let the first man that
ame through the door have it; and
he did. The mob then seized the Col
ored man, beat him almost to death,
. tamped his features into a jelly, put
rope around his neck and dragged
him through the streets, and finally
strung him up and filled his body
.vith two or three hundred bullets.
These mad men then decided to go out
to Crawford’s place and clean up his
whole family, but later compromised
on serving notice upon them to leave
the state within fifteen days. The
whole occurrence took place in broad
daylight and in a small community
where everybody knows everybody
else.
If the sheer brutality and blood
thirst of a lynching mob was ever
shown it was shown in the case of An
thony Crawford. Here was a man,
not an ignorant, depraved “nigger”
charged with a terrible crime, but a
ell-to-do farmer, a creditable citizen
of the county and state, whose only
crime was that of having the inde
pendence and self-respect which nat
urally belonged to a man such as he
was. And a man like this was lynched
for passing the lie to a white man!
When this crime was committed,
*the better white element of Abbeville
and the Governor of South Carolina
declared that the guilty persons would
be sought out and punished. The
above dispatch shows what that dec
laration amounted to. The guilty men
were not only not convicted', they were
rot even indicted. And they were not
only not indicted for murder, they
ere not indicted even for rioting on
he streets.
Members of the race sometimes suf
fer from a delusion. A Colored man in
a Southern community, by being so
ber, honest, industrious and intelli
(Contlnued on Page 7)
Sidelights On
Alexander Dumas
Interesting Facts Concerning Negro
Novelist Furnished Monitor
Representative.
MR. GEORGE WELLS PARKER
Writes of Instructive Interview With
Rudolph L. Desdunes, an Author
of Note Now Omaha Resident.
Next greatest to the gift of being
a scholar is the gift of being able to
appreciate one. It was the delightful
pleasure of one of The Monitor staff
to call upon Hon. R. L. Desdunes, of
New Orleans, who has recently come
.0 Omaha to make his home among
us. The evening was Sunday a week
ago, always an ideal time for chat
and converse upon the higher things
of life. Mr. Desdunes already had
one visitor in the person of an ac
complished young woman of our race,
Miss Ruth Seay, and to her he was
talking of Alexander Dumas, the
great French novelist. No topic, per
haps, could have inspired more inter
est. I apologized for taking out paper
and pencil, not only that I wished to
preserve the interview for my own
use, but because I wanted to let The
Monitor readers know of them too.
Anything that helps us to better love
our race, to inspire us with greater
pride and more fervent hope, must
always be worth while.
“The reason why Dumas will always
be a miracle to Frenchmen,” said Mr.
Desdunes, “is because he was bom
without the means of procuring an ed
ucation. He was truly an example of
pure genius. His mother was a widow
and both of them were hated by Na
poleon. The reason for this hatred
I have never been able to learn. His
father, the elder Dumas, had become
brigadier-general under Napoleon,
and was greatly honored. Why actual
dislike became the heritage of widow
and son after the death of the gen
eral has always remained a secret.”
“Early in life Dumas felt the call of
the muses. He had the ambition and,
I might say, the temerity, to ask for
a place among the French Immortals
while yet a young man and was re
fused. Years later the Immortals
asked Dumas to become one of them
and his reply was characteristic of
him. ‘When I needed the Academy,
the Academy did not need me: now
the Academy needs me and I do not
need the Academy.’ Dumas belonged
to the great family of De Pellitierre
through his father, and his reason for
changing his name to Dumas is note
worthy. He wished to become a sol
dier of the revolutionary party and
when he consulted his noble parent,
he was told that if he joined with the
revolutionists he could not bear the
name of De Pellitierre. ‘Then I will
take the name of my mother,’ replied
the son. Thus the name of Dumas,
which belonged to the black skinned
mother of France’s greatest novel
(Continued on Page 7)