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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 1920)
I. —_ i The Monitor lj^_i A NATIONAL WEEKLY NEWSPAPER DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF COLORED AMERICANS. THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor $2.00 a Year. c a Copy OMAHA. NEBRASKA. FEBRUARY 19. 1920 Vol. V. No. 33 (Whole No. 242) General Leonard Wood Given Ovation -.-- *Cl ..... . ... ■ . . ■ —» .■■■■ ■ ■ . ■ ---■ Girls Safer in Wilds of Africa Than in Omaha Statement Made by Former Omaha Young Woman, u Missionary Home on Furlough, In Thrilling Address In Presbyterian Church. Startles Congregation. HAS NO FEAR OF NATIVE BLACKS Miss Jennette Miller Pays High Trib ute to Character of Native African— Lost for Days With Guides, Received Nothing hut Kindness and Respect. PKOPLK who picture to themselves women who devote themselves as missionaries to Africa and China and other sections of the world as sallow faced, sour-visaged spinsters with cork-screw curls, receive a severe Jolt when they meet or hear Miss Jean nette Miller, a missionary of the American board .who for eight years lias worked in Africa, and is anxiously looking forward to return to her work shortly as soon as her furlough is over. With a round, pleasant face and expressive eyes which light up with merriment, and looking precisely like the average well-bred, cultured pur ijioseful American woman, Miss Miller soon dispels any foolish preconceived picture of what the average foreign missionary looks like. Miss Miller was here last week and spoke to several audiences, among them St. John’s A. M. K. church. But perhaps it was at the rather exclusive First Congregational church where she made her audience gasp when she declared that the •‘black man’s crime was taught him by the white man” and followed this up by the other rather surprising statement that "an unpro tected girl is safer in the wilds of Af rica than she is right here in Omaha." Among other statements of similar character made by Miss Miller in the course of her address was, “The mor als of the black men, except at festi vals in connection with funerals and weddings, is faultless until the wicked Portugese began to teach them their white men's way.” Miss Miller’s mission station is lo cated in an adobe hut in a clearing in the woods at Ocileso, in Angola, the Portugese penal colony. She formerly attended Central High School, Omaha, and was here visiting friends and classmates. When in Africa at her mission Htatlon she is four days' jour ney from any other while person ex cept a few Portugese. "Fear of tho black man never en ters my mind, it’s the Portuguese 1 fear, if anybody. I never go past their doors.’’ Miss Miller was lost in the maze of wilderness trails for several days with a few African guides and wandered into a cannibal village. ‘‘We were treated with the utmost courtesy, food and huts in which to sleep were given us, and we were di rected back to our trail.” The black man is honest, kind, faith ful and courteous. “He doesn't need us to teach him ethics, only the love of Christ and different standards of liv ing. He is more polite even than the Japanese, who are said to be the po litest people in the world,” she main tains. The United States government should draft missionaries to go over and teach the black man in Africa, Miss Miller believes. "It Is the only solution to the Ne gro problem In America," she said, "(liven the right kind of teaching, no one can excel the black man. Indus trially ,too. they are a great prospect, but with the sort of white man’s civi lization they are learning today from the Europeans, who use them only for their own personal gain, the black man will be a menace to the white race.” Club life exists even in the African villages—that is, the men gather at noon In a central clubhouse or imt for luncheon and all women are excluded. "They never eat luncheon with their wikes” Tigers and leopards wander around the outside of Miss Miller’s hut at night and a few years ago a mission ary In that locality was killed by a hippopotamus. Miss Miller has Installed sewing machines and other modern contriv ances to teach the native women to sew. Life is so crude and supplies so difficult to obtain that she is forced to refine her own Balt, make her own I , nioca and starch and cure and pre «* .'e her own meats. "The Africans had scant informa tion about the war. The only mention I heard of It was when the chief of the village expressed sorrow that so many girls would be left without husbands, if so many men were killed,” she said. “He offered them husbands if they would come to his village, and offered to parcel out pieces of land to them. His offer was kindly given and with no possible thought that the white women would not consider it accept able." said Miss Miller. Miss Miller’s jvarents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Miller, moved front Omaha to Detroit about two years ago While in Omaha she was visiting Mr. and Mrs. fcmory Johnson. Mrs. W. H. Shearer, Miss Mary Austin, princijval in one of our schools. Protests Against Robbing Race Tuakegee Conference Voices Opposi tion to Discrimination on Railroads for Charging First Class Hates for Steenth Class Accommodations. PLANTERS MUST CEASE EXPLOITING TENANTS (By Associated Negro Press) rTNUSKEGEE Institute, Ala., Feb. 17. I —Reaffirming its opposition to the discrimination practiced by rail roads and other common carriers and holding as indefensible the practice of charging Negroes first class fare and providing them with third and fourth class accommodations, the declara tions of tlie twenty-ninth annual Ne gro conference at Tuskegee were adopted following addresses by prom inent white men as well as Negro workers for the session. Lynching is deplored and its prac tice held as a "cure for nothing." "If NegroeB commit crimes, they should be punished by the courts, not by lynching,” the declaration sets forth. Insistence on better and fairer meth ods for adjusting many of the ordi nary differences between the races is voiced and the white and colored leaders in every community are urged to co-operate and help make the South the finest example in the world of people of different races living to gether in mutual respect and help fulness.” Members of the race are urged to profit by the lessons of industry and tlirift so effectively taught during the war and farmers are especially urged to grow sufficient food for their fam ilies. for their community and to raise more and better poultry, hogs and cuttle. increased values of farm products and wages which men are now enjoying should result, the con ference holds, In better homes, schools and churches. The conference suggests to plant ers that they offer more favorable renting conditions to their Negro ten ants; that they make regular stated settlements and provide them with more comforts and all people are called upon to supply houses for Ne groes with more sanitary surround ings. INCORPORATE ANOTHER SCHOOL (By Associated Negro Press) Upper Marlboro, Md., Feb. 17.—For the Industrial and educational better ment of tlie colored boyH and girls of Southern Maryland, the Croom Settle ment school of Prince George's coun ty, has been incorporated. The incor porators are the Misses Susie and Katherine Wllles of Croom and Ra chel A. Henry. IVILBE It FORCE ORCHESTRA TOURS COUNTRY (By Associated Negro Press) Wllberforce, Ohio, Feb. 17.—The Wllborforce Orchestra, under the di rection of Prof. Stewart, has been making a tour in the interest of the school. The tour included Baltimore, Philadelphia and a number of other eastern cities. INVESTS HEAVILY IN BARBER COLLEGE (By Associated Negro Press) Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 17.—A. P. Martin has put in operation a $20,000 barber college for the instruction of students in the barber trade. THE HON. FRANK O. LOWDEN Governor of Illinois, who is a prominent candidate for the Repub lican nomination for president—One of Speakers at Lincoln League THE COMMENDABLE RECORD OF THE NEGRO leading Pacific Coast Newspaper Publishes Instructive Article on Progress of Colored American Which is a Revelation to Thousands of Readers—Declares “People of United States Cannot Consistently .Ask Freedom and Equality for Czecho slovaks or Any Other Oppressed Peoples Until They Give It to the 10,000,000 Negroes in America.” EMINENT PHYSICIANS, INVENTORS, MUSICIANS, POETS AND AMERICA’S FOREMOST LITERARY CRITICS MEMBERS OF RACE (Special to The Monitoi\) CAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Feb. 16.—A recent issue of The Call »’ and Post, one of the leading newspapers of the Pacific Coast, recently published an instructive article on "The Record of the Negro,” as disclosed by facts in the Negro Year Book for 1918n 1919. The article has created great interest among the thousands of readers of this great newspaper here and throughout Califor nia. While your correspondent is a little curious to know upon what authority the writer speaks of “the days when Negroes ate human hearts’ and joins issues with him upon this statement, the article is so praiseworthy as a whole that a slip of this character is readily forgiven. It is gratifying to have such facts as The Call and Post here publishes given to its wide circle of readers, So many derogatory stories have been given wide publicity con cerning our race in this country that it is gratifying to see lead ing publications give such facts as these which really indicate, in some degree at least, the progress our group is making: The Negro Year Hook for 1918-1913 has just been printed. It is an an nual publication, showing the Negro at his beBt. In In he tells the good I hinge, he does and does not dwell upon the crimes committed by indi viduals of his race. But you cannot blame the Negro for that. White year books are also the recital of good deeds, not evil ones. And if a race can fill 523 closely printed pages with a year’s statistics on progress, it de serves praise, not criticism. Anyone who wishes to go to Africa can learn what the Negro was. By reading the Negro Year Book he can, more profitably, learn what he is to day. In 1790 there were 757,208 Ne groes in the United Hates—19 per cent of the population. In 1910 the number had increased to 9.827,763— 10 per cent of the country—despite poor education, hard labor, lack of medical attention and l.vnchings. The reason the percentage is not larger is the falling off in Immigration in 1808. In that year congress forbade compulsory immigration in slave traders’ ships. Negroes can do anything the white people will allow them to do. They began humbly, working in the fields, and one colonial judge ruled it a crime to teach moral standards to a Negro. But a few slaveholders, good men but poor slave owners, taught some of their slaves and used them as chemists, bookkeepers and medical attendants. Now there are 36 large Negro insurance companies in the country, 72 bankH and 653 educational institutions. In 1830 only three Ne groes had ever been to college; to day 6,910 hold university degrees, and 282 have been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, a fraternity of the brightest. Negro medictn^ m Amca was a primitive affair of toni-toms, bitter herbs and voodooism. American Ne gro medicine is different. In 1910 there were 478 dentists, 2.433 trained nurses, 3,777 doctors and 118 hospitals and nurses’ training schools operated by and for Negroes. Dr. Daniel E. Williams, a Negro, was the first sur geon to perform a successful opera tion on the human heart—which is a iong step from the days when Negroes ate human hearts. The year book tells pleasant things about the Negro in science. The Zuni Indians of Arizona still repeat a le gend about the black Mexicans who came to their country a long time ago. It can be traced to a Negro natnqi Estevancio, who discovered Arizonst in 1538. Another Negro named Mat thew Henson went to the North Pole with Peary. No other Americans have ever been there. A Negro astronomer in 1754 constructed the first clock ever made in America. Katherine Wickes. a Negro woman, invented Saratoga chips—a great aid to picnics. Some people say a Negro gave the idea of the cotton gin to Eli Win ney, but received no credit for it. Another Negri, John Matzeliger, invented the first machine that performed auto matically all the operations involved tn attaching soles to shoes. He revo lutionized the making of shoes, but his 'nventlon has nothing to do with their high cost today. As far back as 1834 a Negro patented a corn harvester. Ice cream is supposed to have been in vented by Augustus Jackson, a Phila delphia Negro. Player pianos would not disturb our meals if it were not for J. H. Dickinson of New Jersey, who owns a dozen patents on the (Continued on Page Eight.) i NOTED ELOCUTIONIST SUFFERS FROM INJURIES Mins Ilallie Q. Drown Compelled to Cease Active Duties. (By Associated Negro Press) Wilberforce, Ohio, Feb. 17.—Follow I ing injuries sustained in a street car ! accident last summer in Portland, j Ore., Miss Hallie Q. Brown, noted elo cutionist and orator, has ceased acj tive duties with the Wilberforce uni versity and is confined to her room at Homewood Cottage. While Miss Brown's condition is not thought to be dangerous, yet her general nerv ousness gives her considerable unrest and prevents her from carrying on much of the routine of the past. More Bomb Outrages Occur Im Windy City Another Attempt Made to Wreck Pala tini Home of Jesse Bintrn, Wealth; Itcultor and Banker—Other Prop er!; Owned by Colored Americans Damaged. RESIDENTS REFUSE TO BECOME PANIC STRICKEN (By Associated Negro Press) ('CHICAGO, Feb. 17.—To the people * outside of Chicago, it may be re garded as a joke to state that another attempt, making the fourth, has been made to bomb the home of Jesse Binga and the perpetrators have not yet been caught. While delegates to the Lincoln League were assembling in Chicago, just to show the visitors how the thing is done, the beautiful $50,000 home of the Appomattox club on Grand boulevard was bombed and the damages are $1,000. “ Following this, as the visitors were leaving the city two more bombs ex ploded. The first one was set in a hallway on the lower floor of a two story flat building at 1849 Hamlin avenue. It did $1,000 worth of dam age. The next damaged the front of a gray stone house at 4406 Grand boulevard, owned by Mrs. Mary C. Clark which tvas bombed a little more than a month ago. Where this thing will end no one at this time can foretell, but the deter mined effort being put forth by the Protective Circle of Chicago, expects that drastic action will be taken by the local authorities to put a stop to the trouble. What will probably be one of the greatest mass meetings of protest ever held in Chicago will take place Feb ruary 29, at the Eighth Regiment arm ory, under the auspices of the Pro tective Circle. PROMINENT YOUNG BUSINESS MAN DIES (By Associated Negro Press) Cleveland, O., Feb. 17.—Daniel D. Fowler, one of the most promising young business men of the race and founder of the Dixilene company and graduate of Case School of Applied Science, and former national president of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, died here after a brief illness from double pneumonia. Mr. Fowler’s sis ter died just a week before with the same disease. SPECIAL LENTEN SERVICES. The Monitor Is requested to call the ttention of its readers to special .jenten services which may interest some. Bishop Shayler will deliver a series of addresses to women on “Per sonal Religion’’ every Friday morning during Lent at All Saints’ church, j Twenty-sixth and Dewey avenues at j 10:30. The services last Just one hour. The usual twenty minutes noonday services will be held at Trin ity Cathedral, Eighteenth and Capitol avenue, every week day during Lent from 12:10 to 12:30. UNIQUE ROBBERY. Bethel Baptist church was broken into and robbed Monday evening. The safe was carried off and found later in the northern part of the city. It had been broken into and its con tents scattered, there being only books in it. """ »y How dear to my heart Is the yearly subscriber; The yearly subscriber, Who pays in advance. Lincoln League Holds a Great Covention An Epochal and Outstanding Political Gathering of Representatives from All Sections Respond to Call and Take Significant Action. GENERAL LEONARD WOOD GIVEN GREAT OVATION Soldier Statesman Frankly Declares Himself on Issues of Day. Stands Uncompromisingly for Law and Ord er. Hays and Lowden Also Speak. League Announces Its Platform. (By Associated Negro Press.) CHICAGO. Feb. 17—The first annual convention of the Lincoln League of America, held at South Park Method ist Episcopal church, this city, Febru ary 11 and 12. stands as the most re markable political gathering of repre sentatives of our group ever held in he United States. More than 400 dele gates, and several hundred visitors, from thirty-three states of the union, journeyed to Chicago to deliberate and take action on the questions of the day. The significance of the occasion was heightened, not only by the fact that the delegates and visitors repre sented without question the experi ence, culture, wealth and economic-po litical strength of the group, but by the appearance on the program of Cour national characters, two of whom are candidates for president of the United States. They were, in order of appearance at the convention: Will H. Hays, chairman of the Republican National Committee; Governor Frank 0. Lowden of Illinois, Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago and Major General Leonard Wood of the Central department, United States army. The convention was called to order by Perry W. Howard of Jackson, Miss., the attorney for the league, and one of the most constructive political lead- . ers of the country. Colonel Roscoe Conkling Simmons, president of the Lincoln League of America, was in troduced by Alderman Louis B. An derson of Chicago, and the big jneet ing swung into action, prayer being offered by Rev. J. W. Robbins of Tennessee, It had been the purpose of the league to have former Governor P. B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana, as one of the honored guests of the convention, but Governor Pinchback's health would not permit. There were, how ever, many present who had come up through that period, and they were in troduced to the convention, among them were Major John R. Lynch, for mer congressmann from Mississippi, and for a number of years in the United States army as paymaster, and for a long time under command of General Leonard Wood; J. C. Napier of Nashville. Tenn., former register of the treasury; W. H. Stewart of Louisville, Ky„ editor of the Ameri can Baptist; Scott Bond of Arkansas, farmer and t&tipalist; I. F. Norris of Seattle, Wash., former member of the legislature of Tennessee. These men, although yet active in the af fairs of the race, expressed their great pride in seeing the younger men pre pared to take up the active work of political and economic progress and bade them God speed. Ralph W. Ty ler of Ohio, former auditor of the navy, spoke as a newspaper repre senranve. Southern Representation. The first subject to be discussed in the convention was “Should Southern Representation Be Cut Down?" While It was agreed that the final disposi tion of this Important subject should be left to the resolutions committee, the discussion was filled with dra matic moments when views from the various sections were expressed. The sentiment was overwhelming, how ever, for cutting down representation at the earliest possible time, in ac cordance with the actual vote, as has been done by the National Republican Committee for delegates to the Na tional Republican Convention. The discussion of "Jim Crow” cars was opened by Charles A. Cottrill, former collector of internal revenue, Honolulu, H. I., a resident of Ohio. He was followed by James A. Cobb, former assistant district attorney, Washington, D. C. Lynching was discussed at length at the closing evening session by James Weldon Johnson of New York, (Continued on Page 8.)