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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1917)
j err., i The Monitor iveeti 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, OCTOBER 13, 1917 Vol. III. No. 15 <W c No. 119) Will Be Trained In the South Drafted Colored Men Will be Sent to Cantonments in Every Section of the Country. MOBILIZATION HAS STARTED Eight Thousand Negroes from North and South Carolina and Florida to be Trained at Camp Jackson. Washington, D. C.—The first of the drafted Negroes will be mobil ized during October, and Secretary Baker has announced that a complete unit of Negroes will train at each of the sixteen cantonments, instead of training them only at cantonments to which a considerable number report. The size of the unit will depend up on the number of Negroes there is from the divisional area which sup plies each cantonment, but where there is a large surplus men will be sent to posts with smaller numbers for sonsolidation with the training units there. According to orders issued by the Provost Marshall, General Crowder’s mobilization of Negroes enrolled un der the selective draft has been or dered at various camps in the South, for them to receive the proper train ing. This indicates that the War De partment has at last decided upon the policy of training the conscripted men of the race at the camps adjacent to the localities in which they were drafted. Thousands to be at Southern Camps. Under the orders just issued 8,000 men of the race from North and South Carolina and Florida are being mobilized at Camp Jackson, near Col umbia, S. C. This will include 26 per cent of the entire quota of South Car olina, composed entirely of Negroes. The order the Colored troops at all cantonments call for the same per centage, making the totals from the three States as follows: South Car olina total draft, 10,081; 26 per cent, 2,618. North Carolina, total draft, 15,974; 26 per cent, 1,45.3. Florida total draft, 6,325; 26 per cent, 1,645. In Virginia provision has been made for the housing of Colored recruits at Camp Lee, near Petersburg. Buildings for the housing of these soldiers have been completed and all is reported in readiness for their reception. In compliance with a recently is sued order the Colored troops at all cantonments will be trained separate ly. This, however, does not in any wise mean that they will be trained less thoroughly. This precaution is taken as a matter of safety and to guard against any possible breach of the discipline and good feeling that is desired to maintain in the army, which is an unnecessary precaution. OPEN ORGANIZATION TO COLORED MEMBERS National Labor Organ Takes Ad vanced Position in Advocacy of Industrial Recognition of Race. Chicago, III.—“Let us open all unions to the Negro,” says the Chi cago Labor News, in commenting on }\ report of the East St. Louis race riots i/ which discriminations of unions ag’inst the Negro was crit icized. The labor paper admits that “many of the unions have discrimin ated shamefully against the Negro.” It adds "and we condemn them hear tily for so doing.” The News continues, “It is ridicu lous to say that the I. W. W. is the only labor organization that welcomes the Negro. In the United Mine Workers alone, at the present time, there are more Negroes that the I. W. W. has had all told in its ranks since it was founded. And this takes no account of the thousands of Ne groes in scores of other trade unions. The Asphalt Pavers Union of Chi cago, one of the best in the city, is composed entirely of Negroes. So is local No. 228 of the musicians. And of the Chicago Flat Janitors Union, which ranks high among the most powerful and militant organiza tions in this city, fully 26 per cent of the 7,000 members are Colored. Various other similar examples could be cited.” A STEVEDORE DIES IN FRANCE Washington, D. C.—In a cablegram from Major General Pershing intel ligence of the death of Benjamin Hay ward, a stevedore, which occurred September 24 of heart disease, was made known October 1st. AK-SAR-BEN PARADES ARE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENTS If there was a Nebraskan or Iowan who attended the great parades of Ak-Sar-Ben last week and was not thrilled with love of his country and the privileges of democracy, then he was a poor citizen, indeed. For never has there been such a vizulation of Liberty and Democ racy as that ofefred by the electrical parade and the Liberty parade, the former the evening and the latter the aftemon events of the big days. Eighteen wonderful creation of electrical achievement told the story in the evening. As many more, sup plemented by thousands of boys in Khaki, told the afternoon story to hundreds of thousands. CHARLES STEWART NOW A FOOD ADMINISTRATOR Washington, D. C.—Charles Stew art, the noted correspondent and ora tor, has been placed in charge of pub licity work among the Colored peo ple in connection with the conserva tion of food movement. New York Regiment Resents Insults Col. Hayward's Men Tear Down Ob noxious Sign Posted by Southern ers in Army Building. Camp Dix, Wrightstown, N. J.— Only a back down on the part of those who gave offense saved Camp Dix from riot and bloodshed Wed nesday night, October 3. The trou ble was brought about by a group of Southerners in the Twenty-sixth En gineers. These Southerners posted a sign reading, “No niggers allowed in this i building.” It was promptly torn down by one of the guards of the 15th Infantry. Another sign took its place, reading, “For w’hite soldiers ! only.” The last sign remained throughout | the day, but at midnight 200 men of the 15th shouldered arms and with martial tread and song stormed the building and tore down the sign. The Southerners being cowed, sent runners to the white officers of the 15th, ask ing them to call off their men. The white officers of the 15th used their good offices to restore peace, but told | them some of their men needed a j beating up. The men of the 15th N. Y. have been on guard duty at Camp Dix since August 16th, and have maintained peace and order in a dignified and soldierly manner. They have walked the streets of Camden and philadel • phia day and night, and their deport ment has been first class and the citi zens have commented upon their gen tlemanly bearing. The Southerners came to camp three weeks ago, and I have been trying to stir up trouble ever since arrival. It is expected that the men of the ! 26th will be severely reprimanded, as I the Colored soldiers were compelled to pass through the building where the sign was placed in discharge of duty and the insult was deliberate and in tentional. SUICIDED BECAUSE AD JUDGED TO BE COLORED Soldier at Chillicothe Cantonment Thought He Was “White” Till Surgeons Examined Him. - ■ Washington, Sept. 29, 1917.—Al fred Lord, twenty-seven, physically [ fit and ready for service in the new national army, committed suicide ' when the army surgeons at the Chil j licothe, 0., cantonment told him I there was Negro blood in his viens and he could not serve in a regiment with white men. Lord had always thought himself white and had asso ciated with white men all his life. Lord left his home at Mineral City, O., last Monday in fine spirits and eager for service with 105 of his fel low townsmen, but when the army physicians examined him they said he must go with a Colored regiment. WHITE GIRLS STRIKE IN GOVERNMENT OFFICE Washington, D. C.—Because Col ored women were put to work beside them at a power press in the bureau of engraving and printing yesterday, : the white girls went on a strike, ac cording to information brought out i last night at a meeting of employees [ of the bureau in the Typographical Temple. Give Us a Colored Commander for Colored Troops PRESIDENT WILSON, COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE ARMY, TWELVE MILLION COLORED AMERICANS RE SPECTFULLY PETITION YOU, SIR, TO GIVE OUR RACE A GENERAL IN THE PERSON OF CHARLES YOUNG, DAVIS, GREEN OR ANY OTHER COMPETENT MAN NOW SERVING IN THE ARMY, AND TO GIVE HIM COMMAND OF COLORED TROCjPS; AND WE PLEDGE YOU OUR HONOR THAT OUR COUNTRY WILL THRILL WITH PRIDE AT THE VALOR OF THE TROOPS UNDER HIS COMMAND. GIVE US A COLORED COMMANDER FOR COLORED TROOPS. OUR LOYALTY AND SERVICE MERIT THIS REC OGNITION. The Negro Soldiers’ Valorous Part In America’s Wars They Have Been Eager Volunteers and Brave Fighters from the Revolution Until Today; Only Two Isolated Blots Were the Outbreaks at Brownsville and Houston. (Continued from Last Week.) Whether the service of the black man as a soldier to the wars for American independence was prompted by a selfish desire to gain his indi vidual freedom from slavery, or whether it was due to a broader sense of patriotism is a matter for students of sociology to determine. In per fect candor it might be stated that many of the Negroes in the Southern colonies repudiated the soil of their birth and went with Lord Cornwallis in his Southern campaign (1779) when he offered freedom to the Negroes who would join the British forces. It was esl sled that he gained 30,000 Colored troops by this offer. Thomas Jefferson lost thirty of his own slaves to Lord Cornwallis on account of this temptation, but, he said, it was all right if Cornwallis was sincere. In the civil war things were quite different. It was natural to suppose that, since the ultimate result of the war between the States involved, one way or another, the freedom of the Colored population of the country, Ne groes would flock to the Union side, leaving the plantations of the South and deserting their masters. But this did not happen. While many Negroes fought on the Union side, many also fought in the trenches with their mas- 1 ters, and many more remained at home to till the soil of their masters and protect the homes of the whites they loved so well. Such a condition has no parallel in history. While some of the Negroes were leaving the South to join the forces of the North, quite as many were asking their mas ters to send them to the trenches of the Confederate Army. Breastworks around most of the Southern cities were built by loyal slaves with an ut ter disregard of their freedom as an issue of the war. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States issued a proclama tion that all Negroes who deserted their masters and joined the Union Army, if captured by the Confederates should be treated, as felons and shot; but no one was ever executed under | Jiese orders. In truth, the military j leaders of the Northern army were, themselves, very cautious about taking too many Negroes into the Union lines until their capacity and courage as soldiers had been tested. Not until July 16, 1862, did Congress pass an act authorizing the President to accept Negroes as soldiers "for any war service for which they may bn found capable." On Jan. 20, 1863, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania introduced a bill in the House of Representatives providing for the enlistment of 15, 000 Negroes with the same pay as white soldiers. This brought on a bitter debate in Congress. The House passed the bill by a vote of 83 to 54, but the Senate turned it down. President Lincoln ^as strongly in favor of employing > igro soldiers, as may be seen from '.ne following ut terance made by him in a letter to Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennes see on March 26, 1863: “The bare sight of 60,000 armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the re bellion at once, and who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it, please do not dis miss the thought." (From “Great De bates in American History,” edited by Marion Mills Miller, Litt. D.—Current Literature Publishing Company.) In a report made to the Secretary • of War (Edwin M. Stanton) on June 23, 1862, General David Hunter gave testimony of the Negro’s efficiency as | a soldier. So according to the best military authorities, the Negro made good as a soldier. Can there be any wonder that he has been making good in Un cle Sam’s battles since the civil war —since he was emancipated and came into the enjoyment of individual free dom, which was before then denied him ? W hen alarmists, under the cloak of rac.io-sociology have done their worst; when scientists have been silenced and doctrinaires have been subdued; re freshing, indeed, will it be for future generations of Americans to read with calmness what the impartial, unpreju diced historian will have to say about the part the Negro soldiers of the United States army played in the war with Spain. Things that are too raw to state publicly now—facts that, perchance, bring embarrassment now—may be accepted with grace a few decades from now. The official report of Gen eral Kent, for instance, now a part of the records of the army at Wash ington, telling how he led the Twen ty-fourth Infantry, (a Negro regi ment,) over “prostrate forms” of pan ic-stricken white soldiers in the Cuban campaign—such official documents some day may be taken less sensi tively by Americans than they now are, or recently have been. One of these days such documents may be ac cepted earnestly, seriously as a means of arriving accurately at the Negro’s comparative merits as a soldier. In the regular army, there is an other regiment of Colored infantry— the Twenty-fifth—and two of cavalry —the Ninth and Tenth. All of these did good service in the war with Spain. After the declaration of war the Twenty-fifth was the first regiment to encamp. It was with the first ex pedition to Cuba, and was the second regiment to land on Cuban soil, and had the "honor,” as one of them put it, of digging the entrenchments near est to the enemy’s lines. It gives one a pretty fair mental picture of the Twenty-fifth to know that in physique the men were large and so sound of body that only one man from its ranks died in the Cuban campaign from cli matic disease, and only two from dis eases of any kind. The Twenty-fifth, according to Col onel Daggett’s report, occupied the right of a short, reconstructed line in the battle of San Juan Hill with the Fourth Infantry on its left. To the right of the Twenty-fifth were about fifty Cubans, who took little or no part in the fighting. The Twenty-fifth’s firing line consisted of two companies —H and G. Company D was ordered to deploy as flankers on the right. The firing line battalion was under the command of Captain W. S. Scott, and advanced in line with the Fourth I lfantry, all being under fire until they reached a point about 500 yards from the fort. Here the line found cover, halted and delivered effective fire. But at this point the Fourth Infantry was blocked by natural ob stacles, according to official reports, and could make no further advance. Nevertheless, it continued to scatter destructive bullets on the enemy. Col onel Daggett ordered an advance, which was quickly made by the Negro soldiers of the Twenty-fifth, but in doing so it broke away from the Fourth, which was halted on its left. This separated the Twenty-fifth from the brigade and exposed its left to a severe oblique, or nearly cross fire, from the village and blockhouses, which were on the left and a little in front of El Carney. Company C was then ordered to reinforce the left of the line, and Lieutenant Kinson’s com pany was called from the reserve to replace Company C in the line of sup port, thus making five companies in action. The battalion in this forma tion proceeded to within fifty yards of the fort, and fifteen or twenty minutes before any other troops came up the enemy put out the white flag. Under protection of the rifles of the Negro regiment, a delegation from the Twelfth Infantry went forward and took the emblem of surrender from the Spaniards; but, not to be outdone in the celebration of so joyous an oc casion, and hungry for the trophies of the fray, two Negroes from the Twen ty-fifth rushed upon the scene and began tearing the Spanish standard to pieces for souvenirs. (To be Continued) Conference On Food Conservation Interesting Addresses Made by Na tional, State and Local Repre sentatives of Food Commission. A meeting in the interests of food conservation was held in the Guild rooms of St. Philip’s church Tues day night, in connection with the reg ular monthly meeting of the Negro Civic and Industrial League. The pastors of the local churches and the heads of various fraternal bodies were invited to the conference. H. A. Chiles attended as the representa tive of the K. P.’s; J. C. Belcher as the representative of the Oddfellows, and Messrs. Nate Hunter and W. L. Seals as representatives of the Ma sonic fraternity. Several ladies were invited, but the sole representative of the fair sex were Mrs. R. K. Law rie, the well-known cateress and Mrs. John Albert Williams. Amos P. Scruggs, president of the League called the meeting to order and announced that inasmuch as rep resentatives of the national, state and city food conservation commissions were present for a conference with representatives of our people, the reg ular monthly meeting of the League would yield place to the conference. By common consent he acted as chair man of the meeting. Mr. E. G. Foote, a prominent busi ness man who had been summoned from Shang Hai, China, by President Wilson to assist Mr. Hoover, was in troduced and in a very simple, lucid way explained the necessity for the saving of food. He told how that by the substition of beans, potatoes and corn meal for wheat flour the United States would be able to send abroad for the sustentation of our army and allies the food which they must have. Wheat, meat and dairy products must be shipped abroad. The consumption of less of these foods at home will enable the government to make these shipments. Mr. J. C. McKelvie, who is the state representative, told in a force ful way how Nebraska is being organ ized to help in this national move ment. Every man, woman and child I can do something in this work. Mr. Harry Palmer, whose work is | the organizer of the food saving cam paign in Douglas county, explained how it was proposed to reach every individual in Douglas county, and in this work the cooperation of school children, school teachers, churches, i lodges and every organization is ' needed. The first work is that of ed ucating the people to the need of ! food conservation. This will be fol ; lowed with the pledge-signing cam paign, in which the people will be : asked to sign a card pledging them selves to keep one wheatless day and one meatless day each week. Those present at the meeting pledgeg their cooperation. NEW HEAD FOR HAMPTON Newport News.—The Rev. Dr. An son Phelps Stokes, secretary of Yale University, has been chosen as prin cipal of Hampton Normal and Indus trial Institute to succeed the late Dr. Hollis B. Frissell. “DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY” Washington.—Kelly Miller’s pam phlet entitled the “Disgrace of De mocracy” on motion of Senator Wes ley Jones of Washington, was printed in the Congressional Record of Sep tember 15th. Tuskegee Secretary Made War Advisor Emmet J. Scott Has Been Appointed One of Three Civilian Advisors to the Secretary of War. A MAN OF MARKED ABILITY The Administration Makes Wise Movement in Giving Recognition to Well-Qualified Race Man. Washington, D. C.—Emmett J. Scott, secretary of Tuskegee Institute, has been appointed civilian advisor to the Secretary of War and will take up residence in Washington, D. C. He will be in daily communication with the other two members of the commit tee, Felix Frankfurter of the Harvard University Law School, and Walter Lippman, editor of the New Republic. This committee will be in direct con sultation with Secretary Baker. For the last twenty years Mr. Scott has been in the public eye. Before be coming private secretary to Booker T. Washington he attracted attention as a newspaper man, first on the Hous ton Post, Houston, Tex., and later as editor of the Texas Freeman. He also served as private secretary to the famous Texas politician, Wright Cuney. In the early days of Tuskegee Mr. Scott became private secretary to Booker T. Washington and for eigh teen years served with great credit in a confidential capacity to the cele brated Negro leader, proving a most valuable and trusted assistant. It was Mr. Scott who framed the plat form and handled the machinery of the National Negro Business League, who managed all the many trips that Booker T. Washington made through the Southern and Atlantic States, and who in all detail work of Tuskegee Institute as well as in the public work upheld the hands of his chief. He has a wide acquaintance and is the author of several pamphlets and books, among which are “Is Liberia Worth Saving?” “Tuskegee and Its People,” and “Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization.” RACE SOLDIERS FORGOTTEN Dayton, O.—The surprising fact was made known to the public Octo ber 4 that Company C, Ninth Bat talion, Colored troops, encamped near the Soldiers’ Home since June, has not received a cent of money or shred of clothing from the government since the company, 200 strong, went into camp. In some manner the govern ment overlooked the battalion, which is composed entirely of Dayton boys. A large number of the men are without shoes and the majority with out underwear. Thus equipped they are compelled to drill six to eight hours a day and often march a total distance of 18 miles. Citizens have become interested and will appeal to the government. ADVOCATE GOOD GOVERNMENT Philadelphia, Pa.—One hundred prominent race men formed an or ganization known as the Committee of One Hundred, of which Hon. Chris J. Perry is chairman, and donated $1 each toward meeting on Thursday night at the Academy of Music for good government in this city. COTTON PICKERS IN DEMAND; PLANTERS OFFER HIGH WAGE Shreveport, La.-—A record breaking price of $1.50 per hundred pounds, nearly three times the usual price in past seasons, is being paid by some planters in north Louisiana, partic ularly in the Monroe section, for cot ton picking. HOWARD UNIVERSITY OPENS Washington, D. C.—Fi « hundred and fifty-nine students have regis tered in the academic departments at Howard University. The Fresh man and Sophomore classes are as full as usual but the draft, training camp and higher wages have caused many Juniors and Seniors to be ab sent. The registration is about one hundred and fifty below that of last year. FREIGHT HANDLERS STRIKE IN NEW ORLEANS New Orleans, La.—Approximately 500 union Colored freight handlers quit work here Sept. 24, making a total of about 2,600 dock workers on strike at this port.