j THE MONITOR
A Weekly Newspaper devoted to the civic, social and religious interests
of the Colored People of Nebraska and the West, with the desire to con
tribute something to the general good and upbuilding of the community and
of the race.
Published Every Saturday.
Entered aa Second-Class Mall Matter July 1. 1916. at the Poat Office at
Omaha. Neb., under the act of March 3, 1*79.
Ti3e REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor and Publisher.
Lucille Skaggs Edwards and William Garnett Haynes, Associate Editors.
George Wells Parker. Contributing Editor. Bert Patrick, Business
Manager. Fred C. Williams, Traveling Representative
SUBSCRIPTION RATES, *2.00 A YEAR; $1.00 6 MONTHS; 60c 3 MONTHS
Advertising Rates, 60 cents an Inch par Issus.
Address, Ths Monitor. 1119 North Twsnty-flrst strost, Omaha.
Telephone Webator 4243.
COMMUTES SENTENCE
E are gratified at the action of
President Wilson in commuting
the death sentence of 10 soldiers im
plicated in the rioting at Houston last
August to life imprisonment. The
death penalty in the case of six others
has been affirmed, because the con
demned men had been found guilty of
having wilfully and deliberately mur
dered civilians. With this decision no
fault can or will be found.
The drastic punishment meted out
to the thirteen soldiers who were
hanged at Houston provoked tremen
dous resentment, which was absolute
ly justified because of the almost in
decent haste with which it was done
and which savored more of vengeance
and reprisal than of justice. More
over there was the justifiable feeling
that in the case of some of those men,
concerning whose guilt there was a
question of doubt, had an opportunity
for a review of the evidence been
given, the penalty would have been
lighter. That was our contention. We
did not condone the guilt of the ac
cused or minimize the gravity of their
crime. We contended that opportunity
for an appeal should have been given
and mitigating circumstances might
be found.
The fact that President Wilson,
whom we do not believe would wink at
injustice, found this to be true in the
case of ten of the sixteen resting un
der the same condemnation whose
cases he reviewed would seem to add
we'ght to the justness of our former
contention.
It is gratifying to us to have our
position vindicated. The Monitor’s ;
outspoken condemnation of that hasty
act strained the friendship of some of
our dearest friends, whose friendship
we highly prized, and led them to
question our loyalty. They could not
understand our psychology, nor we
theirs. The president’s commutation
of ten out of sixteen condemned men
shows our position sound, and this is
a source of much gratification.
If upon the review of the evidence
President Wilson had affirmed the
verdict of all the sixteen, regrettable
as it would be, there would have been
cheerful acouiescence in his finding
because there would have been the
conviction that the accused had been
accorded their constitutional rights.
That is all any loyal American should
ask.
L’EfOOI
The Colored people of the United
States take more than a passing pleas
ure in the defeat of Vardaman and
Blease and when one considers
what the race has suffered at their
hands, their pleasure is to be ex
pected. But always remember that
the greatest enemy of the race is not
always the blatant talker. It is the
silent menace of prejudice that is the
most hurtful, the most crushing, the
most despicable. We can extend a
warm welcome to an open enemy; but
the enemy we fear worst is the enemy
that stabs in the back. Ins’dious are
the methods of secret prejudice and
they are more rife today than at any
time in the history of our nation.
Even in this war for liberty, pre
judice is forever rampant and it hurts.
It hurts for the Colored draftee to
learn that he cannot enlist in the
regular army, in the navy, in aviation,
in wireless work and in numberless
other branches of the service. It is
not pleasant for him to read that the
government wants men of all occupa
tions and that it wants “white men."
In Canada a Colored man may enlist
for any branch of service he desires,
but in this great country he is lim
ited in military life as he has always
been, limited in civil life. It isn’t
right and all the powers of givern
ment can never make it right. These
are some of the insidious methods of
prejudice that outrank a thousand
Vardamans and a thousand Bleases.
If the government means to be sin
cere to its Colored citiens who are
wil'me- .a-d have always been willing
to do their part and more, then let
there be no discrimincit’on in any
branch of the service. A Colored mdn
make as good a marine as a white
man; a Colored aviator can fly and
fight in air as well as a white man;
a Colored sailor can man a gun as
well as a white sailor. Let’s have fair
play all around.
BETTER HOUSING CONDITIONS
Hundreds of our people have come
from the south. Many of them are
living in houses which are a disgrace
to this community. The authorities
ought not to permit human beings to
occupy some of the unsightly and
unsanitary shacks from which prof
iteering landlords are receiving high
rentals.
When cold weather comes on these
tenants will be exposed to great suf
fering which will bring on sickness.
A concerted effort should be made
to secure better housing conditions.
It can be done and should be done.
GOVERNMENT AND LIBERTY
If all individual initiative be trans
ferrer! to the realm of government,
we have no opportunity for that in
dividual life which has been the glory
of our modern world. If we transfer
all the fundamental elements of a
well-ordered government over to the
realm of liberty, we have national
dissolution and political death. The
American patriot, keeping his heart
open and his rnind free from preju
dice, seeking friendships everywhere
in this world and enmities nowhere,
keeping his eye fixed on this line be
tween government and liberty, will
ask himself how% as one of the keep
f rs of the democratic conscience, can
he act in a given crisis, in the pres
ence of a given problem, before a
given issue—how can he act, my
friends, so as to protect the aim and
the ideals of the American Republic?
Nicholas Murray Butler.
The Building of a Race
IN the construction of a race, like
in the construction of a country,
nation or business, there must be
some fundamental essentials edheretf
to as a standard. A race, like the
individual, must have a standard to
build its character around if it would
endure and enjov the blessings of
civilization. In the creation of the
human family, the Creator intended :
that every individual, race and nat on 1
shou'd fill a helpful and useful place j
in the world’s economy. He leftr no '
nlaco for slackers, drones and de- i
struct!onifits. A race may succeed as
individuals in acquiring wealth, in-,
telligence and morals; but if there
is not a unity of purpose, a commuii1
ity of act:on and understanding and
a uniting of the forces that win, the
race will never be felt in these es- j
sential elements of the country as a
potent factor. The Negro people pos
sess the same qualifications, aspira
tions, ambitions and useful elements
common to all other races, but these
essentials are not so grouped and
united as to be felt in the community
and national life as factors to be
reckoned with.
We believe that the two funda
mentals indispensably necessary in
the building of a race are the pulpit
and the press—the pulpit first, to set
the standard of morality, to construct
a morale among the people for a unity
of movement and a concert of action.
The pulpit necessarily has a stronger
hold on the people than any other fac
tor or institution building character
or creating sentiment. Therefore, the
pulpit is the greatest power for good
or for evil. Its influence is far reach
ing, its matters not whether it is in
telligent or ignorant; and unless the
pulpit addresses itself not only to the
religous side of our life but to the
economic, industrial and frugal as
well, the race is in construction and
will never reach that place along side
of the Caucasian.
Our failure will not be at all
chargeable to inherent inferiority, but
to a lack of unity of the forces that
have won for the white man in the
world’s civilization. The Lord never
intended that the preacher should use
all of his time in sentimental re
ligion, but for the reason that He
says in Holy Writ that “Six days
thou shalt labor and do all thy work,
but the seventh day thou shalt rest.”
This rest presupposes service to God.
The pulpit must address itself to
building up the political, econom:c
and social character of the race. It
must unite in one giant effort to bring
"race, grit and greenbacks into the
Negro’s life. It must address itself
more to living on earth, more to the
■olving of the problems of every day
’ife than to going to heaven and wear
ing long wh:te robes and silver slip
pers on golden streets. All those
hings sentimentally may lielp but
'or practical purposes it will not help
in the construction of a useful and
helpful race.
The clergy can do more to educate
the Negro to thrift and morality than
any other factor. It can do more to
teach him that no man is a real man
who does not register and vote, who
does not try to have a home and
who does not. recognize his civic re
lations to his county, state and coun
try; that the accumulat'on of wealth,
character and responsibility on earth
is a necessary fundamental to saving
grace.
The press ought to be united and
in co-operation with the pulpit to
bring about these essentials. It should
teach, first, respectability, race pride,
race appreciation and race conscious
ness. It should teach that no man
fills the purposes for which he was
created who does not own a home for
his family and claim some country
as a home, filling equally the respon
sibility of carry the burdens of his
country.
Rights, whether they are conferred
or inherent, do not come to man be
cause they are his, but because he
earns them—because he pays for them
with useful and helpful service to
God, country and neighbor. A united
pulpit and press could remove seven
ty-five per cent of all the discrimina
tion and proscriptions against the
Negro in America, in the army, navy
and elsewhere, if the efforts of the
pulpit and press could raise them
selves above selfishness, greed and
camouflage.
The forces of essentials which will
bring the Negro along side of the
white man in the enjoyment of his po
litical, industrial and economic rights
are not without the iace but within
it. The efforts of the white man
to block the Negro, to discourage and
keep him in poverty and obscurity
will prove futile if the Negro will
corral the forces within the race. We
have virtue, morality, religion, ambi
tion, aspiration and every capability
! of usefulness that the white man has;
and if we will unite these virtues
under a standard of racial conscious
ness that we are determined to build
i a race, there is no force without that
can -succeed in counteractmg ou7
united effort. There is nothing that
succeeds like a little success, and if
we would convince the enemies of our
permanent progress that we are goinj*
l to succeed without them, they would
help us to succeed.
We want nothing from the legis
latures or congress except equal
rights, equal opportunities and equal
protection before the law in the en
joyment of life, liberty and happiness
in common with other people. Politics
cannot confer the enjoyment of any
political rights now denied us inde
pendent of our own self-help. We
want equality under the laws, reefig
niging the fundamentals that in order
to enjoy life, property and happiness
and to kill off discrimination, we must
be a political factor in every commun
ity in which we live. Do not expect the
war to do any more for us than you
expected the republican party to do.
You have depended upon the repub
lican party to hand to you all of your
rights until you have lost nearly every
political right and a great abridge-:
ment of your civil rights. Pay no at
tention to the camouflage of the rab
ble press and the cheap preacher who
tell you of the glorious millennium
that shall come after the war. When
the war is over, d's franchise ment will
st!ll be on the books, jim crow cars
will be operated, segregation will be
in vogue and every other sin against
Christian civilization, unless we qual
ify to meet the requirements of the
laws, whether they are fair or un
fair.
We can build a great and useful
race if we will depend upon ourselves;
if we can get the pulpit and press
together; if we can unite them in the
assembling of the forces within the
race to fight a race's battle—not an
i individual’s battle, but a race’s strug
gle. The white man has not reached
the pinnacle in the world’s civilization
! without great struggle, and we need
not expect it. Let the pulpit and the
press unite in making the world fit to
| live in and there will be no question
! about our reaching heaven.—The At
lanta Independent.
PICKANIN’ CHILE
For The Monitor.
1 Little black jewel,
Daughter of night,
Dark-eyed laughter,
Dusky-hued sprite!
Heir of song-makers.
Dialect bard,
Banjo-child poet,
Smiling so hard;
Pickanin’ chile!
i Cottonfield fairy,
Wooly-haired gnome,
Sweet singing blackbird,
African poem!
i Sun-footed dancer,
Strewer of birth,
Coal-glossy mocker,
Baby of earth;
Pickanin' chile!
—M. Eugene Konecky.
| Obvious Observations ~j
We never thunked that a parcel of
Germans could get scared and run so
fast.
One thing that college men should
be thankful for and that is the sub
ject of economics has been shot all
to pieces. Any man who would have
the nerve to write a treatise on eco
nomics nowadays surely belongs in a
buggery.
These chilly mornings ure just high
signs that winter is throwing out to
let us know that he will be all on the
job pretty soon.
Hurrah for pancake and waffle
time! That’s one edge we’ve got
on the butcher.
Next July the next national name
will be Sahara.
General Foch isn’t half started yet.
Wait until he swings Pershing’s Yanks
into battle! Believe muh, the bodies |
will do some tall hustling.
The only sore spot w’ve got is that
we can’t get enough sugar to make
a few jugs of good red wane.
Dean Ringer is a wise goop when
he says that he is going to load Mr.
Eberstein with every ounce of police
responsibility. Dean didn’t know what
he grabbed when he grabbed and now
he begins to realize that he grabbed a
hot potato.
So many magazines are quoting The
Monitor that we are thinking of bor
rowing a tape line and measuring our
bust development.
Thanking you earnestly for your
kind attention, we will now tackle
our pot of beans and bones.
SKITS OF SOI.OMON
The Shipyards.
The shipyards, according to Senor
Dan Webster, are places where men
build ships. Just as the present ahora,
howevah, the shipyards are places
where thousands of men are hiking
to avoid toting a gun. Where anyone
ever nabbed the idea that ship work
avoided gun toting is a mystery, be
cause Unk Sam can’t find any such
order for his army book. Just last,
week Mr. Charles Schwab tore out for i
the capital city and asked Gineral
Crowder why in the heck he was tak
ing all his skilled ship makers and
sticking them in the tramp tramp
squad. Mr. Charlie tried to show the
Gineral a deep point where there
wouldn’t be nary a ship if he didn't j
have men to put the shipt^ together.
Gineral Crowder agreed that the point
was well balanced, but neither Charlie
nor the Gineral have said a word about
unskilled workers. The trouble with i
unskilled workers is that there an
so many of them that they get in each
other’s way. They aren’t a whole >
lots of good to anybody and no one
knows it better than the Gineral. So
if you are just a lumber toter or an
iron hauler, don’t figure that by tear
ing out to Old Virginy you can keep
out of hopping trenches. If Unk Sam
wants you, Unk Sam is going to get
you and that’s all there is to it. A
whole parcels of dudes who thought
that they were wiser than Old Stripes
and Whiskers, are finding out that
they slip a cog in their cogitations.
There’s- no ducking the draft if you
belong to it. As to the shipyards,
Unk knows that no where else under
the blue canopy of St. Peter would
he find a nicer bunch of slackers, all
ready to pull out and shoot over to
wards Berlin. So, son, if you figure
that the shipyards are going to keep
you off the firing line, get hep and
stay around where your riends live
so that if Unk does say, "Lend a
hand,” you'll have somebody to tell
you Adios.
FRANCE AND BELGIUM
GET AMERICAN SUGAR
Ninety-five per cent, of nil refined
sugar sent from The United States t<
the Allied nntlons went to France and
Belgium during the first five mouths
of this year.
France got T2 per cent., or nearly
S3.000.000 pounds, and Belgium receiv
ed nearly 11,000.000 pounds, or 23 per
cent.
In each country this sugar was doled
oul by a strict rationing organization.
Tbe entire amount to the Allies In
these five months 23.701 tons, almost
half of which was shipped In May—Is
only about one-half of 1 per cent, of
our tptal annual consumption.
FORMAL OPENING OF
WALKER MANSION
Notable Members of Both Race*
Guests at Social Function at Man
sion Built by Progressive Woman.
Who by Her Own Splendid Ability
Has Risen From Poverty and Ig
norance to Wealth and Culture.
EMMETT SCOTT HONOR GUEST
1RVINGTON-ON-THE-HUDSON, N.
Y., Sept. 6.—The formal opening
of Villa Leware, the new home of
Madam C. J. Walker at this place
Sunday, August 25, was the most no
table social function in the history of
the Colored race. Many notables were
present, including white men and
women who are active in the work
for the advancement of Colored peo
ple.
Mr. und Mrs. Emmett J. Scott were
the guests of honor. All New York,
seemingly, was present, also distin
guished individuals from various
states including J. P. Napier, of Ten
nessee, and Prof. Scarborough, of
Ohio.
The great room, the salon, of the
home was the scene long to be re
membered where a program was ren
dered, including such notables as
Rosamond Johnson, Joseph Douglass
and Mrs. Martha B. Anderson of Chi
cago, Thos. E. Taylor, the well known
Y. M. C. A, worker closed by leading
“America.” Emmett J. Scott was the
principal speaker. He was preceded
by the distinguished hostess, Madam
C. J. Walker. Both were felicitious
in their well chosen expressions, earn
ing the liberal applause that was
given them. Other speakers followed.
-——
...\
CALVATION ARMY DRIVE
O starts September 9th for funds
tor help our toys at the front. Of
course you’ll 1 elp.
ANOTHER TIMELY TOPIC for all
men between 18 and 45 who have
not previously registered.
Register Promptly
SEPTEMBER
Thomas Kilpatrick & Co.
t ■)
UNCLE SAM’S PARTNER
r
(CourtMjr •( Life and Cbarlca Dana Olbaaa.)
Planting home gardens, producing more food, and saving food are all war-time efforts of
this government in which the women of America have co-operated loyally. We are all in the
home army; the home army here must help the fighting forces and home armies over there;
120 million Allies must eat.