Nebraska Newspapers

    n^ri The Monitor -t=~i
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, FEBRUARY 9, 1918 Vol. III. No. 32 (Whole No. 135)
To Better Farming
Skill of Negroes
Blackshear Urges More Extension
Work for llis Race.
EFFICIENCY SPELLS PROFIT
—
Declares Agriculture Offers Best
Means of Making Negroes Valuable
Citizens and That They Can Be
Helped.
BY E. L. BLACKSHEAR,
Special Agent of the Negro Division
of Texas Extension Work.
As special agent in the Negro divi
sion of the extension work the writer
is increasingly impressed with the pos
sibilities of this work as a means to
tho permanent improvement of his
race of people along a substantial
basis.
From their first contact through the
slave trade with English colonization
in Virginia, the experience of the Ne
gro people has been an agricultural
experience, and today more than three
fourths of them live on the farm,
whether as hired day or monthly la
borers or as farm owners.
One-fifth of the tenant farmers of
Texas are Negroes.
The material, economic basis of the
strength of the ante-bellum South lay
in the effectiveness of Negro labor,
and those here and there who assume
that the black people are incapable of
agricultural and industrial improve
ment have the record of slavery ar
rayed against them. The African
slaves in their native wilds had no
knowledge of any of the useful arts of
the early American colonist, and if
they had been incapable of improve
ment the economic Southern system,
based on slave labor, would have been
. impossible of development.
f But as a fact, the African slaves
early learned the method of soil tillage
then in vogue and later owners began
to use slaves of exceptional ability as
farm numsgcis in a limited'yec useful
sense of the term.
African slave women, fre h from
the dirt and filth of the equatorial
jungle hut life, lived to see the women
of their second and third generation
become adept cooks and household
workers, skilled seamstresses and
nurses, both child nurses and sick
nurses and good gardeners.
Masters of Household Arts Reflect
Credit.
The Southern slave woman became
famous in literature as a genuine ar
tist in the culinary transformation of
foodstuffs in the kitchens of Southern
mansions and, Midas-like, what she
touched as a cook turned to the fine
gold of palatableness.
, But the burdens and distractions of
freedom have made this gift somewhat
a lost art and today the American Col
ored population is the most poorly
nourished in America. Their children
suffer most from innutrition and the
death rate of the Negroes exceeds that
of any other class of Americans. The
methods of the extension work, how
ever, are capable of giving much need
ed information and training to present
day Colored families about cooking
and the other useful arts of tho house
hold on which human comfort and
strengtl, life itself and working effi
ciency' depend, as well as about home
gardening, dairying and canning of
fruits and vegetables. The large num
ber of Colored girls and women who
enter domestic service for a livelihood
would thus have a better working
foundation, while others would find
such information of priceless value in
their own households.
The range of the practical industrial
capacities of American black people
seem to bo strangely under-estimated
or minimized in this day by some in
dividuals. The slave owner in slavery
understood this matter better, and in
tho South of slavery days, slaves or
freo blacks of the South did all kinds
of mechanical labor, such as carpentry,
blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, brick
laying, painting and plastering. This
is recalled because more and more the
mechanical element is entering into
modern farm operation, and because
the mechanical aptitude of Colored
/people is well illustrated daily in
Texas and tho South.
Negroes Operate Gin Plants.
Gin plants have long been operated
by Negroes, some, indeed, owning and
operating their own plants in Texas
and elsewhere.
The advent of the gas engine and
tho growing use of motor mechanisms
for operating farm machinery of in
creasing complexity as well as for
transportation uses emphasizes the
fact that soon every laborer will need
to know something of machines and
their repair and operation. Hence the
natural intuitive capacity of many
black men to master the practical
operation of machinery adds to their
potential value in farm labor in view
of the fact that modern agriculture is
involving more and more the use of
machinery. American agriculture is
rapidly losing its simple pioneer form.
It is becoming a complex affair and it
is inevitable that Negroes engaged in
fanning in whatever capacity will
have to become adjusted to the
changes in modem agriculture or else
be eliminated from the business, to the
detriment of American agriculture as
a whole.
Efficiency of Negroes Means Profit
For All.
Many thousands of acres in Texas
and the South are used as tenant farms
worked by Negro tenants. The mil
lions invested in these lands, together
with their improvements, depend foi
returns on the efficiency of Negro
farm laborers. Any appreciable im
provements of the efficiency of tenant
Negro farmers would be of value to
them and to the white investor. The
question of such improvement rests, of
course, on the willingness of landlords
to allow Negro extension workers to
attempt such improvements among
their tenants.
If on a single large tenant farm the
way was open to test the value to the
tenant and the owner of extension
work methods valuable information
would be gained.
If such improvements were brought
about enabling Negro tenant fanners
as well as Negro farm owners to ac
complish more and realize themselves
something of material benefit from in
(Continued on Fourth Page.)
TEXAS BOASTS TIN CAN KING
William R. Price Making a Princely
Fortune Out of Old Tin Cans ami
Broken Bale Wire.
(Special to The Monitor by Staff Cor
respondent.)
San Antonio, Tex., Feb. 3.—Texas
boasts of a tin can king. When you
say tin can it doesn’t sound as if it
amounted to much; but it is tin cans,
and old ones at that, that this man
buys and sells. He is W. R. Price, a
resident of El Paso, Tex., but bom in
Lockhart 37 years ago. If you were to
look him up in a city directory you
would find him recorded as a buyer
and broker specializing in wire and
iron. I met him in San Antonio in a
downtown office building. A friend of
mino said, “Here is an interesting
character, William Price. Meet him.”
I questioned him and found that he
had just shipped 180 carloads of old
tin cans and broken bale wire, whicn
he had gathered in the vicinity of San
Antonio, especially around the army
posts and cantonments. He has a
standing contract for this amount of
cars each month with the Copper
Queen Consolidated Mining company
of Arizona, who use these articles for
gathering the copper from the waters
of the streams in their mines.
Mr. Price is a hustler and finds the
business very remunerative, and says
he hasn’t much fear of competition be
cause ho controls the contract.
A good stroke of business. Let some
more of our race men follow suit.
P R O M I N E N T REAL
ESTATE MAN DEAD
Cleveland, Ohio.—David C. Fisher,
formerly of Cleveland, a pioneer of
Lorain, the leading real estate man of
that city, is dead. Mr. Fisher has been
one of the most successful business
men of Lorain for many years. He
was a director of one of the leading
white banks and owned the “Black
River” subdivision. F’or many years
he was treasurer of the County Repub
lican committee and wielded a power
ful influence in a county that had less
than 500 Colored voters. He occupied
a beautiful home in the wealthy resi
dential district and was a staunch race
man. His real estate holdings are
some of the best in hte great steel
town.
AWARDED MEDAL AND $500
BY CARNEGIE COMMISSION
Dayton, Ohio.—The Carnegie com
mission has notified Christopher L.
Williams (Colored) of this city that he
has been awarded a bronze medal and
$500 for heroism displayed in the stop
ping of a runaway horse attached to a
buggy, saving the life of a little girl
thereby at the peril of his own life.
Williams states the $500 will be used
in the purchase of a home for his aged
mother.
Sears Sentences Smith
to Life Imprisonment
Judge Overrules Motion for New Trial; Prisoner
Protests Innocence; Receives Sentence Calmly;
Thanks Public for Kindness; Will Appeal.
As forecasted in last week’s Moni
tor, Judge W. G. Sears refused to
grant a new trial in the case of
Charles Smith, who was adjudged
guilty by the jury on his second trial
for the murder of Mrs. Claude L.
Nethaway north of Florence Sunday
afternoon, August 26, 1917.
The motion for a new trial, which
was to have been argued Saturday
morning, went over until Monday.
Judge Sears contended that the ac
cused had had a fair trial and that the
jury had. found a verdict in accordance
with the evidence.
Smith, self-composed, was then
brought up for sentence. In response
to Judge Sears’ question: “Have you
anything to say, any reason to give
why sentence should not be now pro
nounced upon you?” Smith replied in
a firm strong voice: “Only this, your
honor, that you are sentencing an in
nocent man. I have absolutely told
the truth. If that should be your sen
tence I can go to the electric chair i
with a smile, because I am innocent
and have told the truth. I never
harmed anybody.”
Judge Sears then sentenced him to
life imprisonment in the penitentiary
at Lincoln.
Smith asked that he be sent to Lin -
coin just as soon as possible where he
might begin serving his sentence, get
exercise, sunshine and fresh air. The
sheriff took him to Lincoln early Mon
day afternoon.
When Smith learned that he was to
leave Monday afternoon he asked
Sherman Clayton, the jailer, to phone
for the Rev. John Albert Williams
and Morris Andreason, the adult pro
bation officer, who had been interested
in him. These two gentlemen went to
the jail at 11:30, and in company with
his two attorneys, A. L. Timlin anil
Amos P. Scruggs, had an interview of
nearly an hour’s duration with Smith.
Smith, who seemed in a most cheerful
frame of mind, said:
“Gentlemen, I sent for you and l
am glad you have come, as l wanted
to see you before I went away. First,
I want to thank you and through you
the people of Omaha, for your kind
ness to me and the assistance given
me while I have been here charged
with this awful crime. I thank you
lawyers for what you have done for
me. I want you all to believe that 1
am innocent. Confronted by life im
prisonment, 1 swear before Almighty
God that I did not kill that woman,
and I believe that God'will yet bring
Mrs. Nethaway’s murderer to justice
and the public will know that I am in
nocent and have told the truth.”
He impressed his hearers as telling
the truth.
One man said on leaving: “Either
he’s telling the truth, or he’s insane,
and believes he saw what he de
scribes.”
The Nethaway murder mystery, for
which Smith has been sentenced, has
excited great interest. On Sunday af
ternoon, August 26, 1917, Mrs. Neth
away, who, according to her husband’s
story, was to meet him near Briggs
Ciossing, over a mile from their home
over the railroad right of way at 3
o’clock, when he intended to take her
in his Overland car for an auto ride,
failed to meet him. The day was so
hot that Nethaway parked his car in
the shade, and yet it was not too hot
to have his wife walk a mile or more
up a hot railroad right of way to meet
him. She failed to meet him. Becom
ing alarmed, he began a search for
her and finally found her body, with
her hands tied and her throat cut.
Charles Smith, a Colored tramp, was
arrested at Blair and charged with the
crime. He admitted his presence in
the vicinity, but denied having com
mitted the crime. No blood was found
on Smith’s clothing or person.
Some suspicious circumstances con
nected with the murder of Mrs. Neth
away upon which the public has freely
commented, were the facts of Neth
away’s nervousness and alarm when
his wife failed to meet him at the ap
pointed hour; his telling the crew of a
locomotive and Herdman the operator
that he believed a murder had been
committed in the cut before his wife's
body had been found; and his failure
to communicate with or go to the
house of Mrs. Nethaway’s sister, Ada,
Mrs. Lebar, after he had been told by
Mrs. Badgerow that perhaps Nellie
had gone on to her sister, Ada’s, be
cause Ada was sick.
At the coroner’s inquest Mrs. Ed
wards, a neighbor, testified that he
heard Nethaway curse his wife and
often heard them quarreling. Neth
away said that Edwards heard him
“cursing the gate," not his wife. And
when he thought they were quarreling
they were merely discussing politics.
Of course, none of this evidence was
brought out at the trial of Smith.
The first trial resulted in a hung
jury, nine voting for acquittal and
three for conviction. The evidence
showed that Mrs. Nethaway had not
been outraged or robbed; therefore
there must have been some other mo
tive.
At the second trial it was believed
that Smith’s acquittal was certain un
til he went on the stand in his own de
fense and told the story of seeing
men carry the body to the spot. The
fact that he had maintained silence
up to that time evidently discredited
his testimony with the jury.
But as Attorney Timlin said: “There
is a mystery about this case that the
conviction of Charles Smith will not
clear up.”
Will the mystery be cleared up?
The Monitor believes it will—some
day, and perhaps soon.
Smith's attorneys intend to take the
case up to the Supreme Court.
In the Shadow of the Alamo
Monitor Representative Visits His
Birthplace, a City of Historic In
terest and Military Activity.
San Antonio, Tex., Jan. 23.
To the Readers of The Monitor:
In the shadow of the Alamo, where
the blood of Bowie, Crockett and Bon
ham was shed for the independence of
Texas! All visitors to San Antonio
visit the Alamo. I, of course, did the
same.
An Historic Place.
Nothing remains of this old church
and one time fortification but the
chapel, built over 300 years ago by the
Spanish monkaain the Moorish style of
architecture. The inside of the church
forms a natural cross. It was here the
Indians were taught to follow Christ
and later the 176 defenders at this
point were put to death by Santa Ana
and his army. The plaza of the same
name is overlooked by this fumous
building and has more of the military
aspect at present, for it is filled at all
times with soldiers.
Has Military Air.
San Antonio, being the headquarters
of the South, on the north side has two
large regular army posts, Port Sam
Houston, Nos. 1 and 2; the chief of the
quartermaster’s department; also the
cantonment, Camp Travis, which con
tains 42,000 men. Of these 5,000 are
members of the race and are distrib
uted into the depots, engineers’ corps,
the 507th and 509th and the 517th.
Local Provisions.
The men are housed in large two
story wooden buildings, with accom
modations for 200 or more; the upper
half given over entirely to sleeping
quarters, the downstairs divided one
half into sleeping quarters and the
other used for dining or mess hall.
There are two canteens to supply the
articles not provided by the govern
ment and a splendid Y. M. C. A., under
the direction of Secretary W. B.
Kagleson, with a corps of five able as
sistants, who took much pleasure in
showing me over the grounds and
buildings. There are nine other “Ys”
in the cantonment. The one for the
race men—No. 1, as it is called—is the
largest of the group. The auditorium,
with a seating capacity of 1,200, where
lectures are given and pictures are
shown, is always crowded to its fullest
capacity. The social room, 60x20 feet,
is provided with desks and tables for
writing and reading. The office and
music room are also large, roomy and
comfortable. As proof of the men’s
appreciation for this institution, it
holds the record of 3,100 attendants in
one day.
Camp Great School.
I left the camp much impressed with
this great school of military instruc
tion, where the young men of our race
are at last being properly educated. A
canvass of the camp showed only 10
per cent illiteracy among the race men
drafted. A good record.
The Aviation Camps.
My next visit was to the aviation
camps, three in number—Kelly’s field,
Nos. 1 and 2, and Brooke’s field, where
the fliers were too numerous to count.
Camp Stanley will be visited on my
return to San Antonio in a few da>s.
This is the officers’ training camp.
The City of San Antonio.
The city of San Antonio, which I will
now attempt to describe, is the me
tropolis of the state, having a popula
tion of 150,000 or more, the race lay
ing claim to 30,000. San Antonio be
ing a cosmopolitan city, and the per
cent of prejudice being comparatively
small, the race has made little ad
vancement in business, yet there are a
few places worth mentioning.
Business Enterprises.
The Palace pharmacy, under the di
rection of Mr. Rudolph Modester and
his assistant, Dr. Lemmons, retains
the old Southern style of open-handed
hospitality and the visitor feels that
he is welcome without being told.
E. W< Madison, an old time Austin
boy, conducts a haberdashery and
gentlemen’s furnishing store, and his
show windows would be the envy of
Broadway.
The Charles Ballinger’s interests—I
say interests because they are so nu
merous—two buffets, two billiard halls
and cafes, are well equipped and' up
to-date and also superbly managed,
especially the cafes, under the direc
tion of Mr. John Franklin, where
everybody eats, duo to the excellence
of the cuisine and service.
No Longer a Frontier Town.
San Antonio has ceased to be a fron
tier town, with narrow streets and still
narrower sidewalks, hemmed in by
low-squatted Spanish type adobe build
ings; but instead has in its business
section wide, paved streets, lined by
modern buildings, business offices and
hotels, along the banks of the beauti
ful little river which winds its way
through the center of the city. The
traveler when he stops at one of the
concrete arched bridges and gazes at
the walls lining the stream on each
side, and the grassy slopes extending
down to the water’s edge, thinks of
Paris and the far-away Seine, ami
then ceases to wonder that they call
this the land of sunshine and pleasure,
for everybody and everything seems
to wear a smile. Even the water of
this pretty little stream seems to smile
back at you as you gaze into its
depths.
Of course you must not expect me
to say anything but something good of
this old town, for you know it is the
place of my birth.
Some Excitement.
I left here Wednesday morning,
eastbound for Houston again on the
S. A. & A. P.; stopped at Floresville,
Kennedy, Runge, Yorktown, Cuero and
Yoakum. Nothing exciting happened
until I arrived at Yoakum, where, in
the middle of the night, the opera
house, where I didn’t speak, was burn
ed to the ground along with several
other places of business. Some one
suggested that maybe it was a bonfire
in honor of the representative of that
great newspaper, The Monitor, during
my visit there; but the business I re
ceived didn’t measure up to the sug
gestion. At Yoakum are situated the
shops of the S. A. & A. P., which em
ploys about 300 men of the race. There
are also a few men in business, but the
amount of money which the race earns
is spent to the greatest extent among
the white merchants, a sad condition.
I left this point Saturday evening to
spend Sunday in Houston, from which
place I leave Monday on the H. & T. C.
for points north and west.
Until next week I am corresponding
ly yours, FRED C. WILLIAMS,
Traveling Representative of The
Monitor.
Southerner Sounds
Note of Warning
America Cannot Make the World Safe
for Democracy if Our Foundation is
Rotten with Injustice to Black Men.
New' Orleans, La., Feb. 1.—“Better
Education for Negroes is the South’s
Great Opportunity.” Such W'as the
theme of the Rev. Robert Patton, D.D.,
speaking to the mass meeting on Fri
day night in Trinity Episcopal church.
“Speaking as a Southerner and the
son of one of the largest slave holders
of his day, and speaking, too, as one
who years ago believed, in his ignor
ance, that education could not do good
for the Negro, I now declare unto you
that it is no longer a question of
whether the Negro will be educated—
the war will educate him; don’t forget
that—the question is, whether the
Negro will get the right kind of educa
I tion. Education is the training that
enables one to value, to appraise
■ things; and bad training, bad example,
is at the root of all evil developments
of the race,” said Dr. Patton.
“The South is no longer just the
South,” the speaker declared. “It is
not what our conception of the South
forty years ago was; not what it vras
ten years ago; nor yet five, nor yet
what it was on August 1, 1914. Our
relationship with the world has
changed. We are no longer a group of
states; we are an integral, throbbing
part of humanity.
“Democracy is the code by which one
man is enabled to live in relationship
with other men as he should live.
America seized its opportunity nearly
a century and a half ago when it re
fused to pay a quarter of a cent tax on
a pound of tea, not because it was a
burden that anybody would feel, but
because it would have established a
subservient principle. And so today
America is fit to give the world free
dom because it has thought so long in
terms of freedom.
“But we cannot make the world safe
for democracy until we make democ
racy safe for the world, and Ameri
cans cannot do this if democracy is
rotten at the foundation in America
and the black man is at the foundation.
“This war has shown us for the first
time that the black man is our brother
and our partner, without whom we
could not hope for victory. Already
there are some 113,000 Negroes in our
cantonments and camps; and if the
black men of the cottonfields all went
out on strike tomorrow and stopped
the supply of the staple needed for all
clothing and ammunition, the eagles of
Germany would be triumphant.”
Dr. Patton went on to tell how, in
what had at one time been the worst
section of Virginia, Christian educa
tion and humanizing influences had
emptied the jails, formerly crammed
with Negroes. Wherever these influ
ences have come, said Dr, Patton, the
same result has invariably followed
and he mentioned a number of in
stances.
“The South must give Negroes the
real freedom, the freedom of educa
tion, which is an infinitely greater
thing than the mere emancipation of
the ’60s, which in many cases plunged
the unhappy people into blacker
slavery than ever, the slavery of op
pression. The South is at the great
crossroads; it must now answer wheth
er it will live in complete relation with
the rest of humanity.”
EX-PRESIDENT T A F T
SPEAKS AT CAMP MEADE
| Camp Meade, Maryland.—Colored
soldiers of the Ninety-second Division
assembled at the Y. M. C. A. audito
rium, January 29, to greet William H.
Taft, ex-president and now head of
j Red Cross work with title of major
! general. The men were in a jolly mood
I and greeted Mr. Taft with songs and
| cheered his patriotic utterances to the
echo.
COMMISSIONED AS CHAPLAIN
Newport News, Va., Jan. 16.—Lieu
; tenant Arrington S. Helm has been
| made chaplain of the 372th Infantry,
stationed here. He was educated in
J the public schools of Washington and
Howard university, graduating from
both the collegiate and divinity schools
of the latter institution.
CHICAGO ESTIMATES 50,000
NEW CITIZENS FROM SOUTH
Chicago, Jan. 29.—It is conservative
ly estimated that the Colored popula
tion of this city has been increased 50,
000 by the recent exodus from the
Southland.