G=rj The Monitor rs=n
A National Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the Interests of Colored Americans
THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
$1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy OMAHA, NEBRASKA, JULY 14, 1917 Vol. III. No. 2 (Whole iNo. 106)
Visits Des Moines
Training Camp
“Bob" Robinson Writes Interesting
Letter For Monitor Readers
on Recent Trip.
MEETS MANY FORMER OMAHANS
Men Are Contented; Studying and
Working Hard to Win Commis
sions. Are Making Good.
Rev. John Albert Williams, Editor
The Monitor:
I am writing to inform you that
Messrs. Broomfield, Bird and I have
just returned from the provisional
training camp at Fort Des Moines,
la., where we motored last Friday.
The object of our trip was to see the
boys there in training.
We arrived at the fort about 10
o’clock Saturday and were informed
that the boys were at the target
range, some four miles away. We
went to the range and found them
busy getting it in order for practice.
A more jolly and good-natured bunch
of men it would be difficult to select.
The boys as a whole seemed to be
well contented and striving hard for
one goal—a commission in the United
States army. You can find men at
Des Moines who can measure arms
with the best and most learned men
of every known profession. The en
listed men and candidates from civil
life all have one aim.
Visitors to Des Moines will find the
men busy from morning till night
studying and drilling.
The citizens of Des Moines, both
white and colored, speak of the boys
in training in the highest terms.
Saturday- we had dinner at the
range and ate supper with Company
No. 5. The boys are getting whole
some food. The dinner menu con
sisted of cabbage and weinies, bread,
jam and coffee. Supper: Calves liver,
brown gravy, rice, French peas,
[mines, bread, coffee and tea, hot or
iced.
After dinner we visited the army
and navy branch of the Y. M. C. A.
and listened to - members of Com
panies 3 and 4 in recitations and
monologue. A paper by one of the
candidates was full of wit. Prizes
were awarded the successful competi
tors in the Fourth of July games by
Messrs. W. H. J. Beckett, physical di
rector of Howard university, and Mr.
DeFranz, former secretary of the
Paceo Y. M. C. A. branch, Kansas
City, Mo. Dr. G. W. Cabaniss of
Washington, D. C., who is known as
“the father of the camp,’’ is connected
with the Y. M. C. A. work and is
deeply interested in the men and
their work.
The men wear the regulation uni
form-tan shoes, company hat, with
red, white and blue cord; canvas or
leather puttees, and when downtown
they wear their swaggers (short
cane), which is becoming quite pop
ular with the ladies in the capital
city.
Hie DOyB are uemg given «.
course of study to determine their fit
ness to command men. They speak
in the highest terms of Colonel Bal
lou, senior instructor in .command,
and those under him.
The “non-coms" and privates se
lected from the Twenty-fourth and
Twenty-fifth infantry and the Tenth
tavalry am men chosen by their com
pany commanders, and are well
versed in military tactics and capable
of demanding the respect of men. Kor
some rear.on the Ninth cavalry de
tachment is late in arriving.
The Nebraska boys seem to be
making good. So many of the men
at the camp have lived in Omaha that
one would think that we have a larger
representation than five. The men
were complaining of their arms being
sore from their vaccination with
typhus serum. Some of the boys have
been dismissed on account of being
too light—physically, of course—or
heavy, or for poor eyesight; but so
far none has been dismissed for any
breach of discipline.
We again went to the fort Sunday
afternoon, in time for retreat, and,
after saying “Hello” and "Goodbye”
to many of the boys, we left the camp
for the city at 8 p. rn„ where we spent
the night. Leaving Des Moines at 10
o'clock Monday morning we arrived
in Omaha at 4 p. rn. We came over
the White Pole route and found it a
real speedway.
I hope that I may be able to visit
the fort again before the boys will
have finished their three months’
tourse of training and gone to some
cantonment camp.
Visitors are cordially received. The
cadets are interested in meeting visi
/
tors and will give you any informa
; tion you may seek. Ladies are seen
: on the company streets and n the Y.
M. C. A. tent. The boys are always
I anxious to see friends from home.
Yours respectfully,
W. H. ROBINSON,
Late Corporal Co. L, 25th Infantry,
U. S. A.
BROOMFIELD BUBBLES
WITH ENTHUSIASM
J. H. Broomfield, who has just re
turned from a visit to the officers’ re
serve training camp at Fort Des
Moines, is bubbling over with enthu
siasm and race pride as a result of
his visit.
Mr. Broomfield said to The Moni
: tor:
“That camp ia the greatest thing
that could happen for our people. It
made me feel proud of our race. Just
think of it, over 1,200 men, the very
pick and flower of Negro manhood—
every man a gentleman and a
scholar! You couldn't find a finer
looking body of men anywhere. And,
say, you never saw’ men work so hard
in all your bora days. Every man
| seems animated wth the firm deter
I inination to w’in and deserve a com
mission.
“I heard quite a number of down
town white business men express
themselves as looking upon the men
in that camp as the very cream of the
manhood of the Colored race. They
paid them all kinds of compliments,
and they deserve it, for they are gen
tlemen of the highest type.
“Colonel Ballou, who commands the
camp is a fine officer and the men
just love him to death.
“Every one of the Omaha boys is
doing fine. I had a good laugh at
I ‘little’ Dr. Peebles. That wiry little
chap is working himself to death, but
ssys he never felt better in his life.
And that is true of the other four
Omaha men. They were digging
trenches. Just imagine that Omaha
bunch digging trenches!
“1 told Ed Turner to see that every
man in camp read The Monitor. I’m
going to take another trip over there
and I’d like you to go along, for it
will be an inspiration to you.
“No one should feel sore because
those boys don’t write their friends.
They don’t have time. They are busy
from 5 a. m. until 9:45 p. m., when
the lights go out.”
| BURG ESS-NASH CO. EMPLOY
COLORED ELEVATOR MEN
The Burgess-Nash company have
given employment to four young Col
ored men as elevator conductors.
They are: Charles C. Dudley, who is
in charge; Cecil Riggs, Clarence Gor
don and Ted Owens. They are all
fine, gentlemanly young fellows and
ful'y capable of giving good satisfac
tion. If given only half a chance W’e
ere confident they will make good.
We are glad to know that enterpris
ing firm has opened thiR industrial
opportunity.
YOUNG MAN GETS GOOD
POSITION IN CUBA
Washington, D. C.—Harold, son of
Daniel Murray, of this city, who grad
uated from the engineering course,
Sibley College, Cornell University, in
June, 1916, and with his bride, located
in Havana, Cuba, has entered the serv
ice of the Havana Marine Company
ut $175 per month. Armed with a
certificate of qualifications from the
dean of Sibley, Murray left for Cuba
Oct. 31, 1916, and began work on ar
[rival in the service of furnishing gas
and electricity to Havana.
ELKS TO MEET IN CLEVELAND
—
j • Cleveland, O.—The Grand Lodge,
Improved, Benevolent, Protective Or
der of Elks of the World, and the
Grand Temple, Daughter Elks, will
hold their eighteenth annual conven
tion here August 26 to 30. Great pre
parations are being made by the local
lodges.
RED CROSS TAGGERS
AT NEW ROCHELLE
New Rochelle, N. Y.—M. Pattillo
Harper was chaperon for six Colored
girls she called out Saturday, Red
Cross “Tag Day.” This is the first
time in the history of the city that
Colored girls were invited to sell tags
and it was done through the efforts
of Mrs, Harper, who is a member of
the American Red Cross Society. The
gorls made an excellent showing and
their costumes and manners were
highly complimented by the leading
ladies. They made good, reporting
$20.07.
Eyewitness Tells of Fiendish
Deeds of East St. Louis Massacre
White Savages Exult in Crimes of Cruelty, Brutality and
Bloodshed Which Put to Shame the
Armenian Atrocities.
By Carlos F. Hurd.
For an hour and a half I saw the
massacre of helpless Negroes at
Broadway and Fourth street, in down
town East St. Louis where a black
skin was a death warrant.
1 have read of St. Bartholomew’s
night. I have heard stories of the
latter-day crimes of the Turks in Ar
menia, and I have learned to loathe
the German army for its barbarity in
Belgium. But I do not believe that
Moslem fanaticism or Prussian fright
fulness could perpetrate murders of
more deliberate brutality than those
which I saw committed, in daylight
by citizens cf the State of Abraham
Lincoln.
I saw man after man, with hands
raised, pleading for his life, surround
ed by groups of men—men who had
never seen him before and knew noth
ing about him except that he was
black—and saw them administer the
historic sentence of intolerance, death
by stoning.
I saw one of these men, almost dead
from a savage shower of stones,
hanged with a clothesline, and when
it broke, hanged with a rope which
held. Within a few paces of the pole
from which he was suspended, four
other Negroes lay dead or dying, an
other having been removed, dead, a
short time before.
I saw the pockets of two of these
Negroes searched, without the finding
of any weapon.
I saw one of these men, covered
with blood and half conscious, raise
himself on his elbow and look feebly
about, when a young man, standing
directly behind him, lifted a flat stone
in both hands and hurled it upon his
neck. The young man was much bet
ter dressed than most of the others.
He walked away unmolested.
I saw Negro women, begging for
mercy and pleading that they had
harmed no one, set upon by white wo
men of the baser sort, who laughed
and answered the coarse sallies of men
as they beat the Negresses’ faces and
breasts with fists, stones and sticks.
I saw one of these furies fling her
self at a militiaman who was trying
to protect a Negress, and wrestle with
him for his bayonetted gun, while
other women attacked the refugee.
Conducted on Sporting Basis.
What I saw, in the niney minutes
between 6:30 p. m. and the lurid com
ing of darkness, was but one local
scene of the drama of death. I am
satisfied that in spirit and method,
it typified the whole. And I cannot
somehow speak of what I saw as mob
violence. It was not my idea of a
mob.
A ■ i ■ minainnnln « m/ili fnllntt'B
one man or a few men blindly; a mob
sometimes takes chances. The East St.
Louis affair, as I saw it, was a man
hunt, conducted on a sporting basis,
though with anything but the fair
play which is the principle of sport.
The East St. Louis men took no
chances, except the chance from stray
shots, which every spectator of their
acts took. They went in small groups,
there was little leadership, and there
was a horribly cool deliberateness and
a spirit of fun about it.
I cannot allow even the doubtful ex
cuse of drink. No man whom I saw
showed the effect of liquor.
It was no crowd of hot-headed
youths. Young men were in the great
er number, but they were the middle
aged, no less active in the task of
! destroying the Irfe of every discover
able black man.
Shirl Sleeve Gathering.
It was a Hhirt-sleeve gathering, and
the men were mostly workingmen, ex
cept for some who had the aspect of
mere loafers. I have mentioned the
peculiarly brutal crime committed by
the only man there who had the ap
pearance of being a business or pro
fessional man of any standing.
I would be more pessimistic about
my fellow-Americans than I am today,
if I could not say that there were
other workingmen who protested
against the senseless slaughter. I
would be ashamed of myself if I could
not say that I forgot my place as a
professional observer and joined in
such protests. But I do not think any
verbal objection had the slightest ef
I feet. Only a volley of lead would have
stopped those murderers.
“Get a nigger!” was the slogan, and
it was varied by the recurrent cry,
“Get another!” It was like nothing
s.i much as the holiday crowd, with
thumbs turned down, in the Roman
Coliseum, except that here the shout
ers were their own gladiators and
their own wild beasts.
Slayers Waiting for Them.
When I got off a State street car
on Broadway at 6:30, a fire apparatus
was on its way to the blaze in the
rear of Fourth street, south from
Broadway. A moment’s survey showed
v/hy this fire had been set, and what
it was meant to accomplish.
The sheds in the rear of Negroes’
houses, which were ti.cmselves in the
rear of the main buildings on Fourth
street, had been ignited to drive out
the Negro occupants of the houses.
And the slayers were waiting for
them to come out.
It was stay in and be roasted or
come out and be slaughtered. A mo
ment before I arrived one Negro had
taken the desperate chance of coming
out, and the rattle of revolver shots,
which I heard as 1 approached the
corner, was followed by the cry,
“They’ve got him!”
And they had. He lay on the pave
ment, a bullet wound in his head and
hie skull bare in two places. At every
movement of pain which showed that
life remained there came a terrific
kick in the jaw or the nose, or a
crashing stone from some of the men
who stood over him.
At the comer, a few steps away,
were a sergeant and several guards
men. The sergeant approached the
ring of men around the prostrate Ne
gro.
Done tor, Says Policeman.
“This man is done for,” he said.
“You’d better get him away from
here.” No one made a move to lift
the blood-cove red form, and the ser
geant. walked away, remarking, when
I questioned him about an ambulance,
that the ambulances had quit coming.
However, an undertaker’s ambulance
did come fifteen minutes later, and
took away the lifeless Negro, who had
in the meantime been further kicked
and stoned.
By that time the fire in the rear
of the Negro houses had grown hotter,
and men were standing in all the nar
row spaces through which the Ne
groes might come to the street. There
v. as talk of a Negro in one of the
houses who had a Winchester and the
opinion was expressed that he had no
ammunition left, but no one went too
near, and the fire was depended on
to drive him out. The firemen were
at work on Broadway, some distance
east, but the flames immediately in
the rear of the Negro houses burned
without hindrance.
Struck Blow on Jaw.
A half block to the south, there was
a hue and cry at a railroad crossing,
and a fusillade of shots was heard.
More militiamen than I had seen else
where, up to that time, were standing
on a platform and near a string of
freight cars, and trying to keep back
men who had started to pursue Ne
groes along the tracks.
As I turned back toward Broadway,
there was a shout at the alley, and a
Negro ran out, apparently hoping to
find protection. He paid no attention
to missiles thrown from behind, none
of which had hurt him much, but he
was stopped in the middle of the street
by a smashing blow to the jaw, struck
by a man he had not seen.
“Don’t do that,” he appealed. “I
haven’t hurt nobody.” The an ,wer
v.as a blow from one side, a piece of
curbstone from the other side, and a
push which sent him on the brick
pavement. He did not rise again, and
the battering and kicking of his skull
continued until he lay still, his blood
flowing half way across the street.
Bullets Saved for Long Range.
Before he had been booted to the op
posite curb, another Negro appeared,
and the same deeds were repeated.
I did not see any revolver shots fired
at these men. Bullets and ammuni
tion were saved for use at long range.
It was the last Negro I have men
(Conllnued on Fourth Page.)
UNIVERSITY OF PENN
SYLVANIA GRADUATES
Philadelphia, Pa.—At the one hun
died and sixty-first commencement of
the University of Pennsylvania held
on Tuesday, June 12, there were six
teen race graduates in Bachelor of
Arts, Bachelor of Science, Doctor of
Medicine, Doctor of Dental Surgery,
Master of Arts Veterinary Surgeon.
SUFFRAGE LEAGUE MEETS
Boston, Mass.—The New England
Suffrage League re-elected Editor
Monroe Trotter, president. There
were two executive sessions with 100
delegates present. Delegates will at
tend the Liberty meeting at Washing
ton, D. C., this fall.
MORSE WINS AGAIN
New York, June 29.—Roy Morse
won the 100-yard special race at the
monthly club games of the Alpha
Physical club Sunday at Macomb’s
Dam park. The former national cham
pion won by a yard in 10 and 1-5 sec
onds. The 880-yard special race went
to Walter Prowe of the Alphas, with
S. Cummings of the same club third.
A white lad ran second. Peter White
finished second to Morse and Andy
Pennon third.
WINS BRONZE MEDAL IN
SHORT HAND CONTEST
Newark, N. J.—Joshua Smith a
graduate of the Plainfield High
School, was awarded a bronze medal
in the annual New Jersey State short
hand contest, held here June 9. He
was the only representative of the
race present.
BELOVED GRADUATE
AT RADCLIFF
Among the graduates of Radcliff
College, in Cambridge, was Miss
Frances Grant, a young Colored girl,
a communicant of the Church of the
Advent, Boston. She received her
A. B. magna cum laude, the Phi
Beta Kappa key, and last season was
awarded the largest money scholar
ship of the college.—The Living
Church.
HANK BUYS BRICK BUILDING
Washington, D. C.—The Industrial
Savings Bank has purchased a two
story brick building at the northwest
corner of Eleventh and U streets.
Ground and building, when completed,
will represent an outlay of $30,000.
CAPTAIN’S COMMISSION
FOR POLICE OFFICER
Philadelphia, Pa.—Alonzo Myers, a
policeman of the Moyamensing avenue
and Dickinson street station, has been
notified by the War Department
that he has been commissioned a
captain for the Negro officers’
training camp at Dcs Moines, la.
Myers has a fine record for bravery
both in the Army and police force. He
served in Cuba during the Spanish
American war and also in the Phil
ippines during the insurrection. Con
gress awarded him a McKinley medal
for bravery.
GET VERDICT AGAINST THEATRE
Miss Dorothy Hampton and Miss
Katherine Mars of Brooklyn, recover- ;
ed settlements last week in the trial of
their cases brought against Keeney’s
Theatre, Brooklyn, through their at
torney, Robert P. Lattimore, of 26
Cortlandt street, because the manage
ment refused to allow them to occupy
orchestra seats after tickets had been
purchased. The cases came up before
Justice Strahl in the 6th District Mu
nicipal Court, Brooklyn.—New York
Age.
COLORED GIRLS IN
GLASS FACTORY
Colored girls have supplanted white
boys in the glass works in Springs
City, Pa., receiving as high as $2 a
day.
HANDED PASSPORTS
Amsterdam, Holland, June 29.—The
Haitien charge de’affairs at Berlin
has been handed his passports, accord
ing to a dispatch from Berlin. The
Haitien diplomat had previously hand
ed to Foreign Secretary Zimmerman
a note protesting against unrestricted
submarine warfare and demanding
compensation for losses to Haitien
commerce and taking of Haitien
lives.
Aftermath of the
East St. Louis Riot
George Wells Parker, of Monitor Staff
Tells What He saw and Heard
at Scene of Carnage.
INTERVIEWED EYE WITNESSES
Victims of Violence Stunned and Be
wildered. Kind-Hearted People
Seek to Make Atonement.
I read of the terrible East St. Louis
riot Tuesday morning and Wednes
day I took the first train for St. Louis.
When I reached there I engaged a
room at the Newport Hotel, made a
hasty toilet and repaired to the Mu
nicipal Lodging House where the ref
ugees w’ere pouring in. Never before
did I see such a scene and may I never
again. There were men and women
and children there by the thousands
and every ten minutes the St. Louis
patrols rolled up crowded with more,
j The whole thing was most pathetic.
From the faces of those thousands the
happy smile so characteristic of our
race was gone. Instead was a grim
sad look, betokening trouble, sorrow
and distraction. Men were hunting
for their wives, wives for their hus
bands, parents for their children, and
most touching of all little children
peering into the faces of everyone
that they might recognize father or
mother. It was hell brought to earth,
hell brought to a country that has
plunged into war with the slogan of
liberty upon its lips. The hospitals
w’ere filled w'ith the seriously wounded,
| but those less seriously hurt w'ere
; wandering about distraught, their
heads and arms and limbs bandaged
and stained with blood.
1 heard a hundred versions about
how the trouble started, but there
was a unanimous agreement that more
than a hundred Colored were killed
and almost half as many whites. I
heard stories of how children were
shot and thrown back into the flames;
how women were killed as they tried
to run from their flaming homes;
how unarmed men were shot or hit on
the head and their brains scattered
about the streets. I heard, too, that
the mob was made up of foreigners
and that the business whites of the
town pleaded with the police and mil
itia to stop the bloodshed and were
laughed at for their trouble. I talked
with men who peered through their
windows and saw men lynched as the
guardians of the law stood by. One
white woman told me a Colored man
was shot at her door step and wka
she called a doctor, the latter replied,
“Let the nigger die.” The M. and O.
trains stopped every few feet to take
on distracted women with babies in
their arms, going where they did not
know. I talked with one old lady who
told me that she and her husband
started back to help their children out
of the flames and she finally goit to
St. Louis—alone. It was hell. They
were never given a chance. The po
lice knew that the mob was timed to
start and the preliminary was for
them to unarm the Colored before the
savages were turned loose upon them.
The cur who is mayor, knew all and
even now declares that he will not
guarantee protection if the Colored re
turn. But they won’t return. The
mill and factory bosses are all in St.
Louis begging the men to return, but
the men only look at them blankly and
turn away. Some few have gone
south, but the majority are so dazed
that they don’t know what to do.
Some are waiting for their wages,
some to know if their relatives are
living some wondering if their homes
are completely burned, and some just
waiting because their energy is gone
and their brains a blank.
St. Louis is doing a wonderful work.
The city has been opened to all the
refugees -nd the white and black are
toiling side by side in rendering aid
and comfort. The St. Louis Bar As
sociation has taken the names of all
who have suffered loss and will re
cover for the unfortunate free of
charge. The Red Cross is housing and
feeding them and bringing them all
across the river. The street cars re
fuse to let them pay fares to ride.
These breaths of charity are the only
things to make one feel that he is
not in a demon land.
This is no place for comment. It
is impossible to comprehend the mean
ing of it all. Even those of the south,
used as they are to injustice, are ap
palled at what they have read and
cannot believe it to be true. Neither
tan the rest of us. It takes time to
realize that it was all really so.
The Monitor is growing. Help us
grow.
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