The Monitor
A National Weekly Newspap#1" x*3\l0'6S-.u to the Interests of the Colored
Americar ^raska and the West
THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
$1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy Omaha, Nebraska, April 7, 1917 Vol. II. No. 40 (Whole No. 92)
“A Record to Defend
But No Treason to
Atone or Explain
Speech of Roscoe C. Simmons Re
cently Delivered at Louisville.
Kentucky.
“Let me speak for one-ninth of the
entire population of my country. Re
jected, scorned, forgotten, smitten by
the hand of power upon both cheeks
of patience, still they authorize me to
declare before the thrones and author
ities that the enemy who stands
against their country stands against
them. They dictate the announce
ment .that no sword drawn against
their flag is too sharp for their cour
age, or too strong to stay their de
fiant hand. In the valley, degraded
but not discouraged, contemned but
not conquered, their only cry is ‘Our
country first, free and foremost!’
Insult to Patriotism
“What will the Negro do? That
question is heard in mart and forum
and read in the day’s print. It is
both an insult to patriotism that runs
from Lexington to Carrizal and the
gentle alarm of remorse upon the door
of American conscience. But we
would still the troubled nerve of our
nation and steel the nerve of our
leader and commander. We do not
take our grievances to the lines of any
enemy.
“Treason does not appear in our
h'story. In a moving list of wars no
Negro has ever proved traitor to the
flag of his love and heart. While in
chains he fought to loose the chains
that held his country and unfetter the
intellect of the Western World.
“I know the suffering of the Negro,
for I suffer with him. I know his
yoke, for it is about my neck. I know
his burden, for I bear it with him.
But I would remind him, and all, that
we move by faith, and must remember
that hidden, altogether from our view,
are the plans that directed us here by
way of the middle passage, and then
under the shining sun of freedom, to
the music of battle, broke the chains
that gave to bondage.
“If the bugle calls and the flag is
unfurled, what will the Negro do?
Let me tell you what he will do. He
will come from shop and field, north
and south; he will put on the uniform
of the only country he ever knew. -He
will write his name on the roster, and
without a tremor take over the gun
of a soldier, and breathe upon it the
deadliest aim any soldier ever claimed.
He will forget the sorrows heavy up
*• on his heart, and only remember that
he belongs to a warlike race, whose
patriotic blood watered the earliest
fruits of American liberty, and
tracked Lincoln’s conquest from Port
Hudson to Petersburg. Ho will ask
for no honor save the honor of facing
the stoutest foe on the field.
Ready to Do and Die
“With no Plattsburgh; poverty
stricken; denied training at West
Point; rebuked for his ambition to
RIGHT REV. H. BLANTON PARKS, D.D.
Bishop of the 5th Episcopal District of the A. M. E. Church, will lecture
at St. John’s A. M. E. Church Tuesday evening, April 10th, at 8:30 shary.
master the science of war; dared to
present himself in Commonwealths
where is is most populous, as an
armed guard of State and nation, yet
when the bugle sounds and the flag
blushes and his country calls, beneath
the breeze of promise, the Negro will
kiss his loved ones farewell, and
marchaway to do and die, to vindicate
Carney, brack but brave, who an
nounced at Fort Wagner that ‘the old
flag never touched the ground.’
“I speak no word of anger against
Germany. The people of that wonder
land are the marvel of time. They
alone remained unconquered by Cae
sar. They are the only people of the
world who never have been conquered.
As settlers in America they were the
first abolitionists, and first to oppose
African slavery, and sanction by their
conduct the brotherhood of man. I
do not speak against Germany. I
speak simply as an American, talking
about my duty to my country, and
moving simply as a citizen. Nothing
else concerns me. Nothing else con
cerns you. Nothing else concerns any
American, white or black.
Some Things Money Won’t Buy
“The Congress of the United States
recently made two purchases. For
$25,000,000 Congress purchased the
Danish West Indies. With American
citizenship, as expressed in the ballot,
the freeman’s weapon, Congress pur
chased the loyalty of Porto Rico. But
in Government, as in life, some things
money cannot buy.
"Congress deserts my plea for edu
cation and shuts both eyes while the
rights of franchise is taken from me,
state by state. I am a child, not of a
distant isle reared by nature to re
lieve the tempestuous sea, but of the
heart of my country.
“Here I was bom, here I was bred.
I speak the language of my country.
I live beneath the folds of the flag
that set me free. The only law I ever
knew is the Constitution, the sublim
est document in human affairs. With
out money and without price, with
nothing save love of home and faith
in God, who still moves in mysterious
ways His wonders to perform, the
American Negro ofers himself, the
life of death and the death of life, to
his country in war, if war should
come, as in peace, through two hun
dred years.
"When the guns awoke Lexington
we were there, ‘far in front.’ We fol
lowed Washington and stacked arms
only when Comwalis came to grief.
We followed Perry through the dan
gers of northern waters to stand with
him against the foe. We followed Tay
lor through Texas to the bad lands of
(Continued on Page 7)
The African Origin of
Grecian Civil
ization
Speech of George Wells Parker, De
livered1 Before the Omaha Philo
sophical Society, April 1, 1917.
I imagine, ladies and gentlemen,
that when you first read the subject
of the address to be delivered before
this society today, you were a bit sur
prised, and, I trust, a bit interested.
To claim an African origin for the
Grecian civilization is hardly in keep
ing with the historical traditions in
herited from our school days. It sa
vors of a sort of heresy and passes
far beyond the limits of popular opin
ion. There is a peculiar unanimity
among all historians to state without
reservation that the greatest civiliza
tion the world has ever known was
pre-eminently Aryan, but historians
are not always to be relied upon. They
write for their own race and times and
are careful to give as little credit as
possible to races and events which fall
within the pale of their prejudices. I
question, however, if these is to be
gained any ultimate good by subvert
ing truth and popularizing error. In
deed, I believe that if today our his
torians, authors, press and pulpit
would give the public the truth as far
as it is possible to attain to, tomorrow
would find us filled with a new vigor
and a fresh determination to conquer
the wrongs and inconsistencies of hu
man life.
The old idea of the Grecian civiliza
tion was that it sprung, like Minerva,
full armed from the brow of Zeus. It
seemed to have no tangible beginning.
The fabled kings and heroes of the
Homeric Age, with their palaces and
strongholds, were said to have been
humanized sun-myths; their deeds but
songs woven by wandering minstrels
to win their meed of bread. Yet there
has always been a suspicion among
scholars that this view was wrong.
The more we study the moral aspects
of humanity the more we become con
vinced that the flower and fruit of
civilization are evolved according to
laws as immutable as those laws gov
erning the manifestations of physical
life. Historians have written that
Greece was invaded by Aryans about
1400 B. C., and that henceforth arose
the wonderful civilization; but the
student knows that such was an im
possibility and that some vital factor
has been left out of the equation.
When the Aryans invaded Greece they
were savages from Neolithic Europe
and could not possibly have possessed
the high artistic capacities and rich
culture necessary for the unfolding of
Aegean civilization. “Of thorns men
do not gather figs, nor of a bramble
bush gather they grapes.”
Speaking of the two foremost Gre
cian states, Herodotus writes as fol
lows: “These are the Lacedaemonians
and Athenians, the former of Dorio,
the latter of Ionic blood. And, indeed,
(Continued on sixth page.)