A National Weekly to the Interests of Colored American* ' \ ^
REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor *
-—-—---\ -
$1.50 a Year. 5c a Copy_OMAHA, NEBRASKA, DECEMBER 8, 1917_ Vol. III. No. 23 Ac No. 126)
Fair Treatment
For Soldiers
Secretary Baker Writes Open letter
to Scott to Correct Certain False
Impressions.
THE SERVICE BATTALIONS
Thousands of White Draftees Have
Been Assigned to This Important
Arm of the Service.
(Special to The Monitor.)
Washington, D. C., Dec. 7.—Some
eighty-three thousand, six hundred
(83,600) Negroes have been drafted
for service in the National Army to be
sent overseas.
Secretary of War Newton D. Baker,
in working out his plans for the train
ing of these men, has met with many
difficulties. First of all, he has had
to contend with those friends of the
Negro who have felt that it was Sec
retary Baker’s special duty at this
time to attempt to solve or settle the
so-called race question in America.
Second, Negro leaders from all parts
of the country have importuned the
* War Department in various and sun
dry directions, while the peculiar
southern situation, where the masses
of the Negroes live, has had to be
taken into account.
Because of these difficulties, the
Secretary of War called to his aid, on
October 1st, 1917, as Special Assist
ant in the War Department, a rep
resentative of the Negro Race, Em
mett J. Scott, who, for eighteen years,
was Secretary to the late Booker T.
Washington, and also Secretary of
the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute, in Alabama. Mr. Scott has
t. wide acquaintance among members
of his own race, and with leading
members of the white race in the
South, as well as with other leaders
of thought and public opinion in the
North. He has sought to relieve the
Secretary of War, as much as possi
ble, of the burdensome details grow
ing out of controversies, involving ra
cial relationships, caused or occasioned
by the presence of white and Colored
draftees together in many of the
cantonments.
Lately, there has been a certain
amount of misgiving and unrest
among the Colored people of the coun
try who have been led to feel, by rea
son of reports of alleged mistreat
ment of Colored men in cantonments,
that there is a disposition on the part
of the War Department to deal un
fairly with Colored draftees in Na
tional Army cantonments and in Na
tional Guard camps. For the purpose
of allaying these suspicions and cor
recting certain false impressions
which have been made and circulated,
the Secretary of War has addressed an
open letter to his Colored Aide, stat
ing his attitude and the policy of the
War Department with reference to
these Colored soldiers. The letter,
dated November 30th, 1917, follows:
WAR DEPARTMENT
Washington, November 30, 1917.
Memorandum For Mr. Emmet J. Scott,
Special Assistant,
War Department.
Referring to various telegiams and
letters of protest received at the De
partment, to which you have called
my attention, concerning certain al
leged discriminations against Colored
draftees, I wish to say that a full in
vestigation of the matters complained
of has been ordered.
As you know, it has been my policy
to discourage discrimination against
any person by reason of their race.
This policy has been adopted not
merely as an act of justice to all
races that go to make up the Amer
ican people, but also to safeguard the
very institutions which we are now at
the greatest sacrifice, engaged in de
fending, and which any racial disor
ders must endanger.
At the same tQe, there is no inten
tion on the part of the War Depart
ment to undertake at this time to set
tle the so-called Race Question. In
this hour of national emergency and
need, white and Colored men alike are
being called to defend Our Country’s
honor. In the very nature of the case,
some must fight in the trenches, while
others must serve in other capacities
behind the firing line.
I very much regret what seems to
be a certain amount of overworked
hysteria on the part of some of the
complainants who seem to think that
only Colored draftees are being as
signed to duty in Service Battalions,
whereas thousands of white draftees
already have been, and many of them
necessarily will be, assigned to duty
in such Service Battalions.
Some of the complaints or charges
of discrimination seem all the more
unwarranted, in view of the fact that
there is far less hazard to the life of
the soldier connected with the Service
Battalion than is true in the case of
the soldier who faces shot and shell
on the firing line. Furthermore, the
attitude of the War Department to
ward Colored soldiers is clearly shown
by the following facts: More than
626 of the 12B0 Colored men who com
pleted the course at the Reserve Of
ficers’ Training Camp, at Fort Des
Moines, Iowa, have been commissioned
as officers in the United States Army;
nearly 100 Colored physicians and sur
geons have received commissions as
officers in the Medical Reserve Corps,
and a full fighting force of 30,000
Colored soldiers, including representa
tives in practically every branch of
military service, will constitute the
02nd Division, to be detailed for duty
in France under General Pershing.
The relations between the Colored
and white men, in the camps contain
ing both, have been worked out on a
very satisfactory basis, and little or
no trouble seems likely to arise. All
of my reports indicate that the Col
ored men are accepting this as an op
portunity to serve and not an occasion
for creating discord or trouble, anil
white men and officers are passing
over the question of race difference
in a helpful spirit. What we need in
this emergency is the help of right
thinking people in the cities and
towns around the camps, and we are
getting that co-operation so gener
ally that our course seems free from
embarrassment, if German propagan
dists, who want to make discord by
stirring up sensitive feelings, are
simply not allowed to do their work.
As a matter of fact, the Colored
people and the white people in this
country have lived together now for
a good many years and have estab
lished relationships in the several
parts of the country which are more
or less well recognized and acquiesced
in. Gradually the Colored people are
acquiring education in the industrial
arts, and are rendering themselves
more and more useful in our civiliza
tion, and more and more entitled to
our respect. On the other harfd, the
white people are coming more gen
erally to realize the value of the good
citizens among the Colored people
through their industrial importance
and their eager desire to learn and
qualify themselves for usefulness in
the country, and this has brought
about a growth of good feeling
marred, it is true, here and there, by
such incidents as that at Houston
and that at East St. Louis, which
grew out of sad misunderstandings,
and were perhaps contributed to, in
at least one of these instances, by the
malicious activities of people who
would rejoice to see any embarrass
•ment come to us as a sign of weak
ness against our enemy. Therefore
unrest among the Colored people and
suspicion of the Government on their
part are, by all means, to be discour
aged at a time like this.
We are bending all our energies to
the building up of an army to defeat
the enemy of democracy and freedom,
and the army we are building con
tains both white and Colored men.
We are expecting that they will all do
their duty, and when they have done it
they will be alike entitled to the grat
itude of their Country.
(Signed) NEWTON D. BAKER,
Secretary of War.
SOUTHERN TROOPS TO FORM
MACHINE GUN SQUAD
Camp Upton, N. Y.—Another incre
ment of troops arrived, consisting of
fOO Colored recruits, sent here from
the South, to be assigned to the ma
chine gun batallion of the 184th Col
ored Brigade, which has its head
quarters at Camp Upton.
CUDAHY PACKING COMPANY
EMPLOYS COLORED WOMEN
The Cudahy Packing Company is
trying the experiment of employing
Colored women in departments of
their extensive plant where formerly
men, or white women have been ex
clusively employed. A large number
of women were put to work this week.
MRS. MARY CHURCH
TERRELL TEACHES FRENCH
Washington, D. C.—Mrs. Mary
Church Terrell, wife of Judge Rob
ert H. Terrell, is teaching French at
Howard University. Howard lost
seven of its teaching force recently,
due to the war, among them being
the French teacher and Mrs. Terrell
was prevailed upon to take the French
classes.
A Wee Voice from Dixie
Mrs. J. H. Hutten Gives Monitor Readers an Inter
esting Account of Impressions on
Southern Trip.
Rome, Ga., Dec. 6.—Nature has
given a hue of gold to its fields, its
forests and its gardens at the closing
of its autumnal year. One catches a
glimpse of such beauty and likens it
unto f'e shifting scenes of a kaleido
scope when passing through the South
at this time.
Dame Nature makes us wonder if in
making such beauteous transformation
in plant life, what must have prompt
ed her to transform the human color
ing and comingle it to such an extent
as in the man of color?
“There are voices in Dixie too faint to
hear,
There are flowers that bloom un
seen;
Far away in a land filled with preju
dice air
Dwell many with happy day
dreams.”
The Journey Starts.
I left my home in Omaha on October
17 to visit some points South and
East. Dr. L. E. Britt took my com
panion, his colleague and me to the
station there in his car. At 5:30 the
train arrived that started this journey
to Sumter, S. C. .which was made in
three days.
The mode of travel was the same
until we reached the Queen City—Cin
cinnati. There the Negro is forced to
acknowledge the color of his skin. A
coach named and attached is provided
for his special use. Name compound
ed, perhaps, from “Jim,” Uncle Sam’s
soldier-boy, and Crow, from his lovely
bird of flight—“Jim Crow.” It travels,
however, and nearest the strongest
power that conveys.
Interesting Scenes.
Each state through which we passed
presented sights new and interesting.
The most unusual for me were those
at Hot Springs, N. C., where a view of
the interned German soldiers was ob
tained, and that at Columbia, S. C.,
where the boys of color and his white
comrade at Camp Jackson shouldered
arms under training with an army
road as the only dividing line.
Many cities showed signs of ad
vancement, made noticeable through
the homes of the Negroes, his farm
lands, his business enterprises and,
above all, the hearty co-operation of
his white neighbor.
Historic Sumter Reached.
Sumter reached, I spent three weeks
there among my relatives and friends,
after which a few days in the old
school at Orangeburg, S. C. There at
Claflin were a few' landmarks remain
ing from the devastation made by fire
prior to my visit. An associate teacher
here and there to recall auld lang syne
and the many days of an attempted
imparting to the young shoots within
those walls.
Homes of Culture.
Sumter and Orangeburg are alike in
their possession of citizens of color
owning property of value, and with
culture and refinement visible in their
homes; a business air of many and a
little of that Northern grit manifest
ed. “What will this war mean to us?”
seemed the silent thought engraven
upon each face.
The fleeting Time warned that to
Georgia there must be haste made, for
Thanskiving is near. November 19 I
left for Rome, Ga., and reached this
city the following morning at 8:30,
and thence to the home of Mr. and
Mrs. J. C. Hutten.
This home of beauty, with its sur
roundings, show'ed early savings and
the commingling of an aesthetic taste
common to both its inmates there.
The city is drained by the Coosa
river and its three branches, making
its scenery grand. On an elevation
overlooking the city is Myrtle Hill
cemetery, where the remains of Mrs.
Wilson, the President’s former wife,
rest.
Making Progress.
The Negro here is progressing, yet
their business enterprises are of slow
growth.
The societies among the women have
combined pleasure and work in such a
way one does not exist without the
other. Embroidery, intricate, plain
and neat, is a result.
Schools are good, with an average
salary of $45 to each.
I shall say some more about Rome
on the return trip which must bring
out the South as a field for future de
velopment and the cause of the exodus
and the remedy.
Red Cross Christmas
Membership Drive
The Red Cross wants 15,000,000
members in the United States.
A national campaign or drive to
secure these members will be made
during the period from December 17
to 25, inclusive.
Douglas county’s quota is 40,000.
We must get this many members dur
ing the period above mentioned.
The cost of membership is $1.00.
With Red Cross monthly magazine for
one year, the fee is $2.00.
The membership issued during this
drive will be termed p Christmas
membership and will be good for
1918.
Heretofore Red Cross membership
drives have been carried on at differ
ent times in the year in different sec
tions of the country. Practically all
of the members in Douglas county
joined for one year, since May or June,
1917. In view of the fact that the
Rea Cross has decided to hereafter
make membership campaigns only at
Christmas time each year, these mem
bers will be asked to allow the un
expired portion of their membership
to lapse and buy a Christmas mem
bership good for 1918. Hence, every
man, woman and child in Douglas
county is a prospect for a new mem
bership.
A special Christmas button will be
given each new member joining for
1918.
A service flag, with a large red
cross in the center, will be given with
each membership, so that it may be
hung in the window at home or in the
member’s place of business. Small
crosses will eb furnished for addition
al members in the same family or
same business, so that they may be
pasted on the flag, and in that way
the total number of members in the
family or firm indicated. It is ex
pected that this flag will be conspic
uously displayed in the windows of
each home or place of business and on
Christmas eve, a candle or electric
light placed behind it so as to illu
minate it to the outside world.
The head of each house is asked to
buy a $2.00 membership for himself
so that the magazine may be received
! in each home during 1918, and he will
be asked to buy a $1.00 membership
for each member of his household.
This campaign is not being carried
on so much for the money as it is for
the moral support that will come from
a membership of 15,000,000 in the
United States. It is not only the dol
lar that the Red Cross wants, but it
is the moral and other support that
it will get from these new members.
MADAM S. J. WALKER COM
PLETES $250,000 MANSION AT
IRVINGTON, NEW YORK
Madam Sarah J. Walker, accredited
the world’s wealthiest Negress, and
formerly a resident of Denver, Col
orado, has just completed a home on
the banks of the Hudson, at Irvington,
costing her $250,000, exclusive of fur
niture and fixtures. She is now mov
ing from her New York City home
which cost $50,000, having given same
to her daughter as a present, to her
mansion. This palace completed after
eight months of work by a large gang
of men, contains many wonders that
vie with the residences of many of
the nation’s financiers, and is the fin
est building of its kind in the neigh
borhood. The beautiful edifice is a
three-story structure and basement
with roof of red tile in the Italian
Renaissance style of architecture, be
ing 113 feet long and sixty feet wide
and standing in the center of a four
and one-half acre plot. It is fire
proof and has thirty-four rooms.
In the basement are gymnasiums,
baths, kitchen and pantry, servants’
dining room, power room for an or
gan and storage vaults for valuables.
The main entrance on the north
side leads to a marble room, whence
a marble stairway leads to the floor
above. On the first floor are the li
brary and conservatory. A living
room twenty-one by thirty-two feet,
furnished in Italian style, a Louis XV
dining room with a hand-painted ceil
ing.
Adjoining two drawing rooms is an
$8,000 organ which may be played au
tomatically or by hand. The second
floor contains bedrooms, bathrooms,
showers, dressing rooms, sleeping
porches and rest rooms. On the third
floor are servants’ quarters to accom
modate eight servants. Plans for fur
nishing the house add many thousands
of dollars to the quarter of a million
expended in building this mansion.
From humble circumstances and
poor surroundings, with a mental
depth that time has proven what this
wonderful woman possesses, another
lesson is given to the world that Na
ture’s claim to the climbing of Ambi
tion’s ladder knows no racial discrim
ination: and THE COLORADO
STATESMAN, out of the fullness
of its admiration for such a member
of our race offers its congratulations
over such an achievement, and its
best wishes for long life and happi
ness with greater business success for
Madam Walker.—The Colorado
Statesman.
STRAUSS ENTERTAINED
COLORED SOLDIERS
New York.—Nathan Strauss, who is
campaigning to raise $1,000,000 in this
country for welfare work among the
Jews in national service, entertained
fifty Colored soldiers from Camp Up
ton at his home here on Thanksgiving.
Some days ago Mr. Strauss re
ceived an invitation from the Rocky
Mountain Club to be host at one of
forty tables for ten soldiers each for
Thanksgiving dinner at the club. He
went to the club and handed the fol
lowing letter to Herbert Wall, the
secretary:
“Already before receipt of your
communication I had made up my
mind to entertain some of ‘our boys’
in my home at Thanksgiving. And, as
I suspect, that the Colored soldiers
and sailors may not be so well remem
bered for this occasion, I choose them
as my preferred guests.
“The bravery and patriotism they
displayed whenever our democracy
was imperilled entitles them to the
highest degree of respect and admira
tion.
“Will you assign to me not more
than fifty, nor less than forty, for this,
our national Thanksgiving Day, to be
at my residence, No. 27 West Seven
ty-second street, at 1 o’clock.”
When seen at his home recently,
Mr. Strauss said:
“I felt the Colored men are fight
ing just the same as the white men.
It occurred to me they might be over
looked. I always am on the side of
the under dog, and I am going to have
these boys as my guests and will be
glad to entertain them.”
DELAWARE AND NEW YIRK
TROOPS TO FORM ARTILLERY
Camp Dix, Wrightstown, N. J.—Col
ored troops from New York and Del
j aware, who are now assembled here
will be formed into the 349th Artil
lery and those from New Jersey will
be formed into the 350th. The boys
are being well cared for.
NIAGARA FALLS SENDS
FIVE DRAFTEES TO DIX
Niagara Falls, N. Y.—The Colored
population here is comparatively
small, but there is no lack of patriot
ism. Five young Colored men, James
Marsh, Allen Curtis, Wilson Gibson,
Eugene Ellis and Ray Montgomery,
have gone as the first contingent from
here to Camp Dix. On the night be
fore their departure a reception was
tendered them by their friends in
Brown’s hall artistically decorated for
the occasion. The committee in charge
of the function included Mr. and Mrs.
Charles A. Brown, Mrs. Arthur A.
Johnson, Miss S. M. Brown, and Mrs.
James Notes. Patriotic addresses,
music and a banquet were important
features. The boys left in the best
of spirits, taking as their motto the
words of Sergeant Carney, hero of
Fort Wagner, “Boys, the old flag
never touched the gorund.”
(Mrs. Charles A. Brown, chairihan
of the committee, is a sister of Mrs.
R. T. Walker, of Omaha.) •
Mr. Bryant Peebles, an ex-slave, sev
enty-seven years old, living in Bar
low Bend, Ala., owns four thousand
acres of land which he recently re
fused to sell for $100,000, even though
he is illiterate. He has eighty head of
horses and mules, one hundred head
of cattle, and a gin and grist mill.—
The Crisis.
Promotion of
Negro Thrift
Report by Chairman of Committee on
the Work Shows Large Aggre
gate of Holdings of Colored
Race in United States.
Atlantic City, N. J.—“The time is
rapidly approaching, if not actually
at hand, when the Negro, ever friend
ly and never militant toward his
friends, always faithful and never
traitorous toward the Government, be
it Democratic or Republican, will be
valued at his true worth, not only by
the South, but by the North, not only
by the East, but by the West," asserts
John Mitchell, Jr., chairman of the
special thrift committee for work
among Colored people in his report
to the savings bank section of the
bankers’ convention. According to the
United States census reports for 1910,
there were 9,827,763 Negroes in this
country, of whom 1,912,431 reside in
the northern and western states, the
others in the South.
“Granting that the exodus north
ward and westward assumed huge pro
portions,” the report says, “it is safe
to say that the difference will not ex
ceed 100,000. The bulk of the popula
tion will remain where it is. Far
seeing southerners are already diplo
matically making changes industrially
and commercially in the southland,
both as to wages and living conditions,
in order to check this immigration.
“They have been calling into consul
tation some of the ablest Colored
leaders in that section of the country
with the view of finding a remedy to
cause cessation of the unrest. The
value of the property of the Colored
people in this country has been esti
mated to be $700,000,000. Add to it the
deposits in the banks of the country
and it will be found to be much more
than that. The value of the farm
products, such as com, wheat, oats,
rye, rice, hay, potatoes, sweet pota
toes, cotton, cottonseed, etc., will +ofaJ ^
$600,000,000 per annum.
“If the present acreage owned by
the Colored people were divided up,
it would give each man, woman and
child two and one-half acres. It
seems then that the wisdom of ex
tending the blessing of this thrift
movement directly to the Colored peo
ple is apparent.
“Meetings have been held and an in
terest awakened, to the end that mil
lions of dollars are being saved
through the savings department of
banking institutions, and through the^ ‘ .
medium of savings clubs. Southern'
white people have for many years en
couraged the saving habit among the
Colored people in their respective
localities. They have sold them home
steads on long-time payments and ex
tended the time for settlement, when
the pressure of home expenses be
came too great. They have also en
couraged the education of the Colored
children in progressive communities,
realizing that no one thing, not even
the family tie, steadies a Colored man
so much as the saving habit. The
wealth of the Colored people is in the
southland. Howr to make him a more
thrifty citizen—how to reach the de
mands of the thousands of thriftless
‘ne’er do wells’ is the great problem.”
WILBERFORCE IS THE
RECIPIENT OF LARGE GIFT
Wilberforce, 0.—It is announced
that Wilberforce University has come
into possession of $30,000 from the
Avery -estate of Pittsburgh, for en
dowment purposes. This generous
benefaction came through the efforts
of Dr. Scarborough, president of the
university, who expects to make the
endowment fund $100,000 before stop
ping.
PAYING FOR LIBERTY BONDS
On November 16, which was the
date on which the first installment on
Liberty Loan Bonds was due, approxi
mately $2,400,000,000 was paid in,
although less than a third of that
amount was due.
In other words, nearly two-thirds of
the aggregate subscriptions to the
Second Liberty Loan have been paid
in full, the purchasers not availing
themselves of the right to wait until
December 15 and January 15 to make
their payments.
GROWTH OF FEDERAL
RESERVE SYSTEM
Between the dates, November 1st
and November 16th, 1917, State banks
and trust companies, whose aggregate
total resources are $846,796,400, were
admitted to the Federal Reserve Sys
l tern.