The Monitor
A National Weekly >T^\V°% --Devoted to the Interests of the Colored
A •oo'o ^"of Nebraska and the West
REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
$1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy Omaha, Nebraska, April 21, 1917 Vol. II. No. 42 (Whole No. 94)
German Agitators
Among Negroes
.Alleged Activity of Kaiser's Agents
Given Credence by Metropolitan
Newspapers.
THE SAN DIEGO SCHEME
Preposterous I’lan Reported Hatched
Between German Agents, Negroes
and Mexicans.
Last week an Associated Press
dispatch announced that German
agents were active in the south and
that southerners were considering the
reformation of the old Ku Klux Klan
for self protection. Most Colored
readers suspected that it was a sin
ister plan to cover up the intimida
tion of Negro migrators, but since
that time it seems fairly well estab
lished that there is some ground for
the story. Mr. Cunlifee-Owens veri
fies the report in an article in the
New York Sun, and it is further cor
roborated by the New York Times.
The New York Tribune published
a dispatch Wednesday from Greens
boro, N. C., saying that German
agents have been working in New
York among Colored people, and pub
lishes interviews with several well
known Colored people there. Thurs
day’s article reads:
“In a dispatch from Greensboro,
N. C., yesterday, a staff correspond
ent of The Tribune gave the first
information that had been published
about the activities of German agents
among the Negroes of the South.
He told, among other things, of what
the Negroes who knew of it call the
“Plan of San Diego,” a preposterous
scheme hatched at San Diego be
tween German agents on one side and
“professional” Negroes and Mexican
revolutionists on the other.
“It seemed almost weird for be
lief. Hut corroboration has been ob
tained in this city from George W.
Harris, editor of the New York News.
Mr. Harris admitted yesterday that
news of the San Diego plot had come
to him through subterranean chan
nels. The Negro leaders concerned in
it, he said, were not of the better
class, but were malcontents and agi
tators who had succumbed easily to
the wiles of Mexican and Japanese
agents.
The meeting was held in San Di
ego about two years ago. Mr. Harris
said. Detailed plans were drawn up
for the seizure of Texas and the
erection there of a republic, in case
the revolt against the United States
proved successful.
Mr. Harris was willing to discuss
the situation frankly. “Agitators,”
he said, “have for some time been
traveling through the South stirring
up the Negroes agoinst the white
people. There is little doubt that a
good many of them are in the pay
of the Germans. Serious trouble has
been narrowly averted at various
places in North Carolina, South Car
oliina and Georgia. There is also
g< neral discontent and unrest among
the Negroes in the Southwest, par
ticularly in Oklahoma and Texas.”
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Colored Americans, Noblesse Oblige
We republish here our editorial
leader of last week, because we be
lieve it drives home truths which
should be well considered:
We hold it to be the bounden patri
otic duty of the Negro press to let
the American people and government
know that colored Americans are by
no means satisfied with the proscrip
tion and civic and industrial disabil
ities under which they rest. We are
tremendously dissatisfied witli segre
gation, disfranchisement, lynching and
Jim Crowism, tolerated abuses, whicli
are a disgrace to this enlightened re
public.
If we were satisfied to suffer these
injustices without protest, we would
be recreant to every instinct of our
Cod-given manhood. We protest against
injustice upon the same principle that
this country, OUR COUNTRY, is now
acting in declaring war against Ger
many in defense of our just national
rights and honor, which, it is believed
by many, have been trampled upon
and disregarded to that degree that
war remains the sole expedient.
We protest as a race because in the
denial of our rights ‘‘the rights of hu
manity are at stake;" for so long as
the rights of the humblest individual
in a republic may be ruthlessly and
wantonly violated, the sacred rigiits
of humanity are not safeguarded. So
the protest of the Colored American
against glaring injustices of which
he is the victim involves principles
which lie deeper than the proscrip
tion of a well-defined racial group in
our polygenous nation. And we must
not cease our protest, and do not in
tend to cease our protests, until our
full rights are guaranteed us as
American citizens—“physically free
from peonage; mentally free from ig
norance; politically free from dis
franchisement; socially free from in
sult;’’ industrially free from narrow
occupational opportunities.
AND WE, OURSELVES, MUST
PROVE OURSELVES WORTHY OF
THE RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CIT
IZENS FOR WHICH WE MUST EAR
NESTLY CONTEND AND VALIANT
LY DEFEND.
Our opportunity for proving our
selves worthy of American citizenship
is again before us. A crisis confronts
our nation. A crisis confronts the
world. Crisis means not only a de
cisive point or moment. It means
more than that. It means judgment,
a separating, discernment, readjust
ment. All of these ideas are involved
in the present world conflict into
which as a nation we have now en
tered. In the womb of war democ
racy and brotherhood are travailing.
The United States, which is OUR
COUNTRY, is at war. Our duty, as
American citizens, is plain. That
duty is to volunteer our services for
the country’s protection and defense.
While other groups of Americans
seem to be hesitating to enlist, let us
freely, willingly and cheerfully offer
our services. The volunteering of
thousands of our race—now that there
is a willingness to accept us—will be
a spectacle that will compel the ad
miration and respect of the most prej
udiced. It will have a moral force
(Continued on Page 7)
South Opposes
Negro Soldiers
Opposed to Universal Military Train
ing Bill Because it Would Mean
Training Colored Soldiers.
FAVOR THEIR EXCLUSION
Bourbons Urge President to Exclude
Colored Men From the Universal
Service Plan.
Washington, April 12.—Despite the
fact that Uncle Sam will need the
services of the Colored men, as well
as white, should the universal train
ing bill pass and the war in Europe
be prolonged, certain Southern Con
gressmen say they will bitterly op
pose any bill that includes the Negro.
These men come from States which
have disfranchised and otherwise pro
scribed against the Negro, and who
fear that their heel of oppression
would be removed once Colored men
were taught the use of arms.
Some of these men have already
gone to President Wilson and Secre
tary of War Baker and urged that
Negro troops be not included in any
universal service plan.
Representative /Kahn, of Califor
nia, ranking Republican member of
the House Military Committee, will
fight for the inclusion of Negro
troops in the military training plan,
and Southern Representatives are
prepared to fight.
“The Universal Service bill, which I
have prepared, includes Negroes,”
said Mr. Kahn. “I have provided
that they be trained in separate units,
but they would be called to arms ex
actly the same as would white citi
zens. There is no reason why they
should not be called to service. ’ No
body questions that they make good
i^ldiers. Negro troops of the reg
ular army have never faced an enemy
without giving a good account of
themselves. They served with partic
ular bravery at San Juan Hill and
Parral.”
The view of the Southern mem
bers, as expressed by Representative
Whiley, of South Carolina, is as fol
lows:
“We of the South cannot stand for
inclusion of Negroes in the universal
service plan. It would bring down
upon the districts where Negroes far
exceed the whites in number a danger
far greater than any foreign foe.
“The universal service plan so far
prepared proposes that, following one
year active training, the men would
return to their homes, carrying guns
and equipped with them, to remain
members of the service, subject to a
call to arms. This would accomplish
the very thing which the South has
always fought against, the placing of
arms in the hands of a large number
of Negroes and the training of them
to work together in organized units.”
Southern members of Congress have
always opposed the training of any
considerable number of Negro soldiers
and it is due to their opposition that
the recruiting of Negro troops is now
(Continued on sixth page.)