The monitor n^n A National Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the Interests of Colored Americans ^ THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WIIXIAMS, Editor $1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy _OMAHA, NEBRASKA, AUGUST 4, 1917_ Vol. 111. No. 5 % role No. 109) “Law of Nature” Scores Success Hundreds View the Third Release of The Lincoln Motion Picture Com pany at the Alhambra. AUDIENCES WELL PLEASED The Alhambra Theatre, the house of courtesy, which is justly popular with movie patrons, was filled at every performance last Saturday when the special attraction was “The Law of Nature,” starring Noble M. Johnson and Albertine Pickens, and presented hy a full cast of Negro actors. This m the thin! film to be released by the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (In corporated) of Los Angeles, Cal., an ambitious and progressive race enter prise featuring race plays, and this W'as the first presentation in Omaha. The audiences, for there were several, and the number who witnessed it, ran up into the hundreds, were delighted. The Monitor congratulates the Lin coln Company on the progress it has made. It does this most sincerely, because it alway pleases a critic more to ap prove a thing than to disapprove. This is especially so when the object of criticism is struggling to attain the perfection of real art. What was said in this paper about “The Trooper of Troop K,” the second release of the Lincoln Company, was not pleasing to those interested in the film because it was held that unmer ited praise should have been given on the grounds that it was a race enter prise struggling to win a place in a new and difficult field. The Monitor could have done so, but to have done so would not have been justice to either the readers or the film. Just criticism is that which best furnishes energy for labor and improvement. Between the second release and the third, “The Law of Nature," there is no comparison. One was crude in all but action; the latter is crude in noth ing. The one merely attempted to preserve a striking historical event, while the other wrests from human life itself a story worth telling. It is the old triangle plot woven again of the material furnished in the Gar den of Eden when Adam and Eve and the Serpent made their debut upon the human stage. It is interesting be cause rare men and women take part and because it spells out a lesson that touches our race as closely as it touches any other, the law of retribu tion. The picture would be more com plete did it show that the man had to pay for his fun as the woman did for her folly. “The Law of Nature” is a most ex cellent picture, the western scenery being truly magnificent, and one that every race man and woman should see because it is inspiring, and makes one f really proud that our people can ap pear on the screen in real drama. The acting is natural and because natural, fine. “The Law of Nature” is the best yet and shows not only the progress made, but the possibilities before our people in the silent drama, in which field the Lincoln company is pioneer and Noble M. Johnson the chief lumi nary in lighting the way. MADAM ANITA PATTI BROWN CAPTIVATES AUDIENCE _ M '.sic lovers of Omaha enjoyed a rare treat Tuesday evening when Anita Patti Brown, the famous Chi cago singer, made her initial appear ance before a local audience at the Grove M. E. Church. Her charming I stage presence, fascinating person ality and rich, cultivated voice capti- | vated her audience from the start, j Her first number, which was the fa mous Jewel song from “Faust,” by I Gounod, proclaimed her as an artist, i Her second number was the mad i scene from “Lucia di Lammermoor,” ! and this was most sympathetically interpreted. Her third number con sisted of a quintette of songs, which showed great variety. They were: “O liete suol della Turcna,” by Meyer berg; "Deep River,” by Burleigh; “Four Leaf Clover,” by Brownell; “Hush-a-Bye,” by Bond, and “Wake Up,” by Phillips. Mrs. Florentine F. Pinkston was fortunately secured as the accompanist and her skill at the piano won the unstinted praise and admiration of all. Miss Mattie Childs played most acceptably a brilliant piano solo; Mrs. Silas Johnson ren dered as a piano solo Mozart's diffi cult “Fantasia in I) minor,” and Mrs. Maude Brown pleased the audience with her rendition of “How Lucy Blackslid,” by Dunbar, and a witty encore. Miss Mary A. Logan, man ager of the delightful affair, in a neat, brief speech told of the church's aim to bring cultivated members of the race before Omaha audiences. Should Anita Patti Brown ever ! visit Omaha again she can confident ly count upon a crowded house. Dl NBAR'S GRAVE NOW MARKED BY PLATE Dayton, Ohio.—The birthday of the lute Paul Laurence Dunbar, June 27, was marked by the announcement of the reorganization of the commission which has in hand the establishment of a series of scholarships to bear his name. Vacancies have been filled and the following officers elected: Brand Whitlock, president; Dr. W. S. Scar borough, v>ce president; the Rev. Da vis W. Oa k, 31 West Cedar street, Boston, Mass., corresponding secre tary; vVil'iam R. Craven, vice presi dent; Dayton Savings and Trust Com pany. treasurer. The commission brought a central lot in a Dayton cemetery and trans ferred Dunbar’s remains to it, mark ing the grave with a natural boulder and bronze plate. The first scholar ship has been assigned to Wilberforee, in Dunbar’s native state. Paul Lau rence Dunbar Murphy, the poet’s nephew, whom he intended to educate, is to be the first incumbent. ..11111111111111111111II1111111111111111111111lit III 11111111II11111111f11111111111111111111111111 i£ 1 Circulation Boosting | 1 Bargain \ E The Monitor is $1.50 a year—and worth it. § = To introduce it to NEW SUBSCRIBERS we will send = § it to the FIRST 200 new subscriptions reaching us = | after this date, but before August 31st, for $1.00 a E £ year. This applies only to NEW subscriptions (not | | renewals) and only to the first 200. I Names of lucky ones will be published in order E i received. | | Send In Your Dollar Now | — .... .. » Special Limited Subscription Order Blank — The Monitor, 1119 North Twenty-first Street, Omaha, Neb.: E E Please find enclosed One Dollar for One Year’s Subscription, — E under terms of your special limited offer. It is understood that I am E r a new subscriber and must be among the first 200 names sent in to § E receive it for a year at this price. E S Send to. E E Street Address. E E Town. State. E 5 Date. ~ niHmmiiiiiiimiiiimiiiimiiiiiiimmmimiiiiiiimmmiiiMiimiimiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiii: The Attitude of the American Negro-1917 Williams Pickens, Dean of Morgan College, Contrib utes Thought-Compelling Article to South western Christian Recorder. There is no question as to the Ne gro’s patriotism or loyalty. But the mistake is being made by a misrepre sentation of the mind of the Negro which is back of this patriotism. The last year or two of the great war has discovered an unprecedented thing— unprecedented except by the spirit of the Negro himself during the Civil War; namely, that America’s least privileged and most persecuted class proves to be in a critical time its most dependable citizenship. For sev eral seasons now every white man in America has been watching every other white man—but nobody has felt the need of watching the American Negro. To be sure, a false alarm was recently started in the S-. ith about German plotting among Ne groes, but those of us who know the South knew at once what that alarm meant. It signified, not a fear of Negro disloyalty, but a real and gen uine fear of the Negro’s growing in dustrial and economic opportunities which the great war has brought him. This alarm, which is the most treach erous thrust that has been made at the Negro in recent years failed—it failed against the solid fact of the Negro’s loyalty, past and present. The South, which has fooled the world about the Negro in almost every other particular, which has made the North believe that he is a characteristic rapist, that he is unprofitable labor, that he is unreliable as a machine op erator and that he is an undesirable in almost every other capacity—this historic traducer of its helpless Ne groes, after being backed even by high official “confirmation,” failed ut terly to stir the blood of the nation with the scare-crow Negro disloyalty. Such is the universal and unconscious ly acquired confidence in the Negro as an American! Needs No Watching. But singularly enough, the peoples who have been highly favored above the Negro are the classes who are now deemed worthy of suspicion— those who have been permitted to buy a house on any corner, who have been permitted to live in any part of oui cities, who have been admitted to work in any business or industry, who have not been disfranchised but who have been jubilantly naturalized as fresh recruits, for the ghost or fetish called “white civilization,” the people who have not been “Jim-Crowed” or hanged without trial or burned at the state (behold ye gods!), these are the peoples whom the nation watches when the nation’s security is threat ened. But the Negro, whose ancestry, by the way, was American long before that of the great majority of our white people and whose record of loyal service has been uniform and unvary ing, is the only class upon whom all of these abuses have been heaped— and yet, by the reluctant confession of his worst enemies, he is the class ot all classes not needing to be watched. The Anomaly. The anomaly: Although the Ne gro’s dependableness is the best at tested fact in America today, he is the one man not enthusiastically wel comed in our preparations for war. We wish to get along without him if we possibly can. To be sure we have left the door ajar so that the Colored brother can be called, as usual, when sorely needed. Meanwhile some of us are between the devil and the deep blue sea; we must either send the Ne gro to the glory of the trenches of France, or we must permit him the gain of becoming further intrenched in our home industries—and we feel that either trench will have a mighty ele vating influence on the American Ne gro’s status. Whi t could be more ef fective than the Negro in Europe, freeing big-souled France, glorifying America and establishing democracy in the world ? On the other hand, what could be of more solid gain to the Negro raee in the United States than to be permitted by the incident of war and the iron law of necessity to work in the great industries of America and pcove that he can do satisfactorily the very things which his enemies have for fifty years shouted and maintained that he could never be relied upon to do? For the Negro it is a case of “heads, I win! tails, you lose!” What the Negro’s real enemy really fears is not the | race’s fondly catalogued vices, but its virtue. Not Unthinking Docility. We repeat that although there is no question as to the Negro’s loyalty ( in the preesnt crisis, those are in wide error who are taking his loyalty for blind impulse or unthinking docility, like the loyalty of the dog or the horse. The masses of the race are thinking as they never thought before and they are loyal only for the same reason that any other group of men in the world is loyal to anything; be- ! cause they think that their best group interests are bound up in the thing to | which they are loyal. As to whether ' the Negro would be loyal if he were , absolutely convinced to the contrary : must be answered in hypothesis by the ; same answer which would be given for any other group of normal beings | on earth. He is certainly not loyal to disfranchisement, “Jim-Crowism” and lynch law, but he follows the star of America in spite of those evils and i with the deliberate intention and fond hope of overthrowing them. In such a situation the Negro must, of course, continually face dilemnas; he has had to be a strike-breaker to get a job, he has had to go to a separate and in- | ferior school system to escape igno rance, and he has had to dissect the { body of Christ in order to enter the J church and the kingdom of heaven; j in the same spirit he would accept a separate military training camp, that some of his college-trained men might get commissions in the army and serve their country more effectively than as mere “cannon fodder.” It is not strange that in the last named dilemna the majority of his leaders and friends endorsed the camp idea; but it is significant that, while some of his leaders and friends conscien tiously opposed it, all of his worst enemies consistently opposed it. Those who favored it do not favor discrim ination, but they seized that horn of the dilemna which lends a future ad vantage—to gain a height from which they could deal segregation a heavier blow’. His enemies also saw’ this and opposed it unanimously. Aims One; Methods Differ. This explains the frequent appear- i ance of a lack of union among Amer- j ican Negroes. It is plain to an in sider; they are perfectly united in aim and ambition, and they differ only in method and policy. The difference is due to their peculiar situation; no other group of people in the round world is brought oftener face to face W’ith a dilemma, where the choice is, not between an evil and a good, but betw’een two evils. A choice between evils is a more disintegrating ques tion than any choice between unmixed evil and a definite good. “Which is the lesser evil ?” This puzzling dilem ma is at the bottom of many of the apparent differences among Negro leaders, whose hearts and souls are perfectly united in ambition and aim and object. The only solution of this difficulty is conference, frequent and widely representing conference—a periodic congress of the American Ne gro. As a matter of group interests, the conclusions of these conferences should be loyally supported and in dividual opinion submerged. This is the meaning of efficiency. The best prepared agency to take this lead is the National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People. What He Will Do. What will the Negro do in the pres ent war? As a people he will not make profuse professions of loyalty, but he woll stand wholeheartedly by the American Union, as he has always stood by it—if it were attacked by a foreign foe or if it were assailed by rebellion. He will not forget his wrongs, but he will also not over value them against his faith in the future; he will fight for America in order to fight better and more con 1 sistentl_y for his share in America. Of course some of his leaders, who have a personal and, perhaps, an oth erwise legitimate interest in pleasing the public, may sometimes speak as if the Negro is possessed of uncondi tional and unthinking loyalty; but, after all, the clean truth is the only safe and permanent basis of peace and understanding and co-operation be tween races. If the Negro is willing to fight and die, you may be sure that it is not with the intention of strength enink the arm of oppression. The American Negro is a normal human being like other men; the Irish will fight our battles and seek thereby to enlist our influence in behalf of chas tised Ireland; the Russian people died in the snowy trenches under the stand ard of autocracy, but hailed with de light the opportunity to hoist above it the standard of democracy. Furthermore, this is the American Negro’s home; all that he has, all that he hopes, is here. And if his house gets afire, he will help to extinguish the flames even if they were started by thieves. In the present situation he is faced not only by a dilemma but by an embarrassment. His saner and safer leadership cannot be pro fuse and loud in professions of loyalty and support, because there is a con sciousness of the fact that he will be summoned to arms only by necessity, and even then reluctantly. Self-re spect makes his loyalty dumb but does not destroy it. He hates war, too, on its own horrible account, and de plores the present blood sacrifice in Europe, although he knows that it has given him a better chance to work and earn his bread in the United States than he would otherwise have gotten in a hundred years. And in the present struggle he will prove to be the finest asset of our nation, whether at work or at war. What the Sphinx Would Say. If this sphinx of an American Ne gro spoke and dared to speak, this is what he would say: Let our country get into sincere harmony with the great spirit of democracy which she professes to defend; let her avoid the mistakes of some of her allies and begin by self-purgation, and not find the expulsion of evil geniuses neces sary amid the trenches and the flames of war. Let the Congress of the United States set the example for all the States by not only ceasing to agi tate for “Jim-Crowism” and segrega tion, but also by the repeal of all laws whose intent or effect is to restrict the freedom of and to discriminate against any class or group of Ameri can citizens. Let the laws be enforced alike for all who obey them and alike against any who violates them. Let the President and Congress of the United States enforce the Constitution by supervising interracial relation; which is, after all, not a State or lo cal matter like the transfer of proper ty and the enforcement of contracts between individuals, but is one of the larger national matters, like interest, commerce and the mails. Let fear subside and reason rule. And if any timid soul fears that such a state of civilization and equality may tend to force upon anydoby amalgamation or any other such non-desideratum, let the Congress make for that soul’s sakp a law to this effect: That every per son in these United States is forbid den to marry any other person without that other person’s consent; for the only just ground for marriage is the consent of the married—and no one is fit to marry another one without that other one’s consent. A Nobler America Will Emerge. Out of the struggle America should come forth nobler and freer, else the discipline of Providence is vain. She should gain as much as Ireland or France or Russia. We wish not that our country should fight the battles of democracy and yet fail to purge her own life and to raise the estate of her loyal citizens. The Negro is r man, a real normal man, and is con trolled by the motives which control men. He will not fail to sense an ad vantage, and will act upon it. And if the forward march of democracy is to include him, America can count forever on the loyalty of his legious. If he is given a man’s chance in this country and is offered a soldier’s chance in this war, we will meet again in 1918, or 1919, or both, to present to a black hero, returning from some quarter of the world, the Spingam medal for having advanced the stand ard and defended the honor of the Star-Spangled Banner. STUDENTS TO HELP IN RELIEF WORK Washington, D. C.—The students of Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, re siding in Washington and vicinity, are to lend a helping hand in the relief work made necessary by the war. Eloquent L*jnt Protect Parade Fifteen Thousand Negroes March Through Streets of New York to Sound of Muffled Drums. A MUTE APPEAL FOR JUSTICE New York, July 30.—As a protest against the lynching of Negroes and the burning of their homes in East St. Louis, Waco, Tex., and Memphis, Tenn., 15,000 Negroes, walking to the beat of muffled drums, paraded in Fifth avenue from Fifty-seventh street to Madison square yesterday afternoon. It was a silent protest, the men, women and children in the procession having been instructed to march without talking. Their mes sages were conveyed on banners. Some of them read: "So Treat Us That We May Love Our Country; Give Us a Chance to Live; Thou Shalt Not Kill; Repelled by the Unions, We Are Called Scabs; Race Prejudice Is the Offspring of Ignorance and the Mother of Lynch ing; The Great Contradiction—Love of God and Hatred of Man; We Are Maligned as Lazy and Murdered When We Work; Pray for the Lady Macbeth of East St. Louis.” Heading the parade were Sergeant Thomas Byrnes and an escort of mounted policemen of Traffic Squad C. Captain W. H. Jackson was mar shall and with him were the Rev. Dr. Hutchins Bishop, the Rev. F. Cullen, J. W. Johnson, the Rev. Dr. Charles D. Martin, F. Mottley, J. S. Nail and Rev. E. S. Daniel, the executive com mitte of the parade organization. A delegation of Negro Boy Scouts formed part of the children’s section. They carried banners. Following them was an emergency ambulance corps with trained Negro nurses in at tendance. Many of the men marchers were in the khaki uniform of the United States army and walking among them were a few gray-haired soldiers of civil war days. In this section were banners calling attention to some of the race’s accomplishments. “The first blood for American inde pendence was shed by a Negro” one banner read. “We are first in France —ask Pershing" was another. And “Ten thousand of us fought in the Spanish-American war.” The silent protest parade made a profound impression upon New York. CHEERFULNESS, KINDNESS AND COURTESY Little as one may think so, gloomi ness and grouchiness are terrible handicaps. We owe it to ourselves and others to cultivate cheerfulness, kindness and courtesy. There's grouchiness enough in the world with out your being a grouch. Cut it out. Substitute cheerfulness, which will of necessity beget kindness, and that in its turn must breed courtesy. EIGHTH REGIMENT CALLED TO FEDERAL SERVICE Chicago, 111.—The Eighth regiment, Illinois infantry, Col. Franklin A. Denison, has mobilized with the other Illinois national guard troops on July 25 by orders of President Wilson. This regiment is the only one of its kind in the United States with mem bers of the race from colonel to pri vate. GOOD SAMARITANS DEDICATE BUILDING Athens, Ga.—The Improved Order of Good Samaritans dedicated their new building a few days ago, which cost $35,000, all of which is paid. The building dedicated is a brick structure with two large stores on the first floor, and twelve suites of offices on the second floor, with a spacious au ditorium on the third floor. BUY HOMES Have you carried out that often thought of intention to begin buying a home? Don’t keep putting it off. Start buying now. It is cheaper than paying rent and will compel you to save. A warranty deed to a little home has a bunch of rent receipts beaten to a frazzle. Buy homes! RECEIVED COMMISSION Dr. U. F. Bass, Colored, of this city, has received his commission as first Lieutenant in the Officers Medical Reserve Corps. Dr. Bass expects to be assigned to a division at an early date.—Fredericksburg Star.