< The Monitor "*
A NATIONAL WEEKLY NEWSPAPER DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF COLORED AMERICANS
THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editor
$2.00 a Year—5c a Copy o OMAHA, NEBRASKA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1924 Whole Number 490 Vol. X—No. 22
' OPPORTUNITIES
FOR EMPLOYMENT
SHOULD BE GREATER
The Russell Sage Foundation Issues
Illuminating Report Concerning
Employment Problems
In Nation
RECOMMENDS UNITED ACTION
Recognizes Limitations Which Handi
cap Colored Workmen and
Cause Economic
Loss
New York City, Nov. 28.—A re
port which points the way to greater
employment opportunities for col
ored people, which throws light on
their difficulties in securing jobs, and
which suggests possible means of
lessening these difficulties has just
been issued by the Russell Sage
Foundation under the title, “Public
Employment Offices—Their Purpose,
Structure and Methods.” While the
study on which this report is based
was not confined to the employment
problems of any one race, there is
much of interest to students of race
relations in the findings and recom
mendations of the Foundation with
respect to employment problems af
fecting the country generally, and an
entire chapter in the report is given
over to the problems of colored work
ers.
The report recommends the estab
lishment cf a nation-wide system of
free public employment offices, to be
operated jointly by the federal, state
and local governments, with the state
government as the chief unit of ad
ministration. In the section discuss
ing the management of local employ
ment rffices, the point is made that
placement work for colored people
car. be done best by members of their
own race.
The Foundation’s investigators
studied employment conditions in the
north and in the south, in large cities
and in agricultural sections through
out the country. They find that race
prejudice is limiting very much the
occupations open to colored people;
until comparatively recently almost
the only lines of work to which they
were admitted have been farm and
plantation labor, personal service and
common labor. This range of employ
ment should and can be greatly in
creased through intelligent and per
sistent educational work among em
ployers as to the suitability of colored
workers for certain other kinds of
work, together with discriminating
placement.
“If a colored man with good train
ing and ability is held down to a com
Imon laborer’s job because of preju
dice, he, industry and the community
all suffer an economic loss,” says the
report.
The report declares that southern
stole-., in an effort to restrict the em
igration of colored labor to the north,
are tl rough legislation and license
I fees making it increasingly difficult
and in some states impossible, for pri
vate agencies to send workers out of
the state. There are numerous in
stances, also, says the report, "of the
efforts of citizens to prevent the re
cruiting of colored people for work in
other localities or states, some of
these even going bo far as threats of
violence to the recruiting agent.”
This opposition can be removed thru
intelligent operation of public em
ployment bureaus, whose object is ad
justment, not mere shifting of men,
and whose tendency is to place work
ers as near home as possible.
Referring to migratory labor in
general, without special reference to
the colored race, the report says:
“The transfer from one section of the
country to another of workers in in
creasing numbers Is an uprooting of
home and community relationships
that must be looked upon with con
cern. In the past we in the United
States have talked very loosely about
shipping men from one part of the
country to another, as though the de
sirability of shipment from an indus
trial and social point of view were un
questioned.”
That race prejudice has handi
capped the colored worker by limit
ing his choice of occupation is recogn
ized by the Foundation’s investiga
tors. "The first step in reducing this
race prejudice,’’ says the report, "is
a knowledge of the facts regarding
the requirements of particular jobs
and the ability of individual workers.
When the specific qualifications of a
worker are known—what he can do
ard how well he cpn do it—it is pos
sible for r.n employment office to rec
ommend him for a particular job.
What is needed is intelligent and per
sistent educational work among em
ployers as to the suitability of colored
workers for certain kinds of work—
many more kinds than have hereto
fore been acknowledged—and their
capacity for discharging new respon
sibilities not only to the advantage of
employer and workman but also to
the advantage of the community as
a vhole and of our developing indus
trial life."
Copies of the report, a volume of
some 600 pages, may be secured at
the headquarters of the Russell Sage
Foundation, 130 East 22d street, New
York City.
ATTENTION, EX-SERVICE MEN!
The Roosevelt Post No. 30, Ameri
can Legion, will hold their annual
election of officers at the Colored
Commercial Club, 1514% North Twen
ty-fourth street, Friday, November 28,
at 8:30 p. m
Every ex-service man should feel It
a sense of duty to Join the American
legion. The Post under the leader
ship of Dr. W. W. Peebles haB accom
plished a great deal this year by giv
ing relief and locating Jobs for ex
service men. Judging by the large at
tendance at their meetings and the in
terest expressed by ex-service men,
1925 should be a banner year.
Come—cast your vote! Lunch will
be served.
W. W. Peebles, Commander.
J. F. Faucett, Acting Adjutant
....LiLIONAIRE'S WIFE SAID
TO BE COLORED
New York, Nov. 28.—New York
City, especially that part of the popu
lation which is pleased to calf itself
"society” is much agitated because a
well known member of that “society”
has just married a young woman al
leged to have “colored blood" in her
veins.
Leonard Kip Rhinelander, scion of
one of New York’s oldest families, is
the husband, and the bride was Alice
Beatrice Jones, the beautiful daughter
of a taxicab driver. The girl’s sister
married a Negro butler and her
father is a native of the West Indies.
The young man in the case, of the
ninth, generation in a straight line
going back to the old Dutch settlers
of New York, when it was New Am
sterdam, is rich. It is his family that
the other day sold a little piece of
New York’s water front for more
than a million. His father, Philip
Rhinelander, prominent socially, is
said to have known fir a long time of
his son’s attachment for Miss Jones
and to have endeavored in numerous
ways to discourage the affair.
Three times, the young man’s
friends say, he was sent out to the
coast, in the hope that with propln
nuinty destroyed the romance would
disintegrate.
The latest newspaper report is that
Rhinelander has begun action to have
the marriage annuled upon the ground
that he was deceived as to his bride’s
racial identity.
SATED FROM LYNCHING
(By the Associated Negro Press.)
Memphis, Tenn., Nov. 28.—Only the
timely and unusual arrival of police
officers saved from lynching Ree Ran
kin, a truck driver, after he had run
down three white persons in an un
avoidable collision. The crowd was
threatening to visit summary punish
ment upon him when the police ar
rived. A; a hearing at the police sta
tion he was released, it being shown
that he had been forced to hit the
people to avoid another car being hit.
WHITE KILLED l«Y OWN GUN
WHILE MinRDERING NEGRO
(Preston News Service)
Florence, Ala., Nov. 28.—Not sat
isfied with having attacked and shot
to death Jerre Williams, an aged Ne
gro, Early Hale, a young white man,
is said to have used the butt end of
his shotgun to club the lifeless body
of Williams and while in the act of
clubbing the lifeless form, Hale’s gun
discharged and instantly killed Hale.
Hale, who is said to have been
drinking for several days past, and
for no reason, shot and killed the aged
Negro who was gathering corn at the
time of the attack. It is alleged that
Hale yelled at the man who started to
run. Hale took out after him and
fired one barrel of shot into the old
man’s body, the man dying instantly.
Then Hale ran up to the body and be
gan clubbing him over the head with
the butt end of a double-barreled shot
gun. The other barrel was accidently
fired when Hale hit the old man over
the head and he was also instantly
killed. Hale was unmarried and lived
with his parents near the scene of the
heinous crime.
NEGRO HATER RETIRES
Aiken, S. C., Nov. 28.—By the Asso
ciated Negro Press.)—Negroes of this
city fere not welcoming with any brass
band the return of the Representative
James P. Byrnes, who after fourteen
years’ service in the United States
congress, has retired and come home
to practice law. During his period of
service, Byrnes was one of the South’s
most consistent Negro haters in the
national legislative body. It was he
during the World war who started the
agitation against Negro newspapers
and magazines and who, last year,
came near preventing Howard univer
sity from getting its appropriations.
j Congress Convenes J
WE MUST MAKE LITERATURE TO MAKE IMPRESSIOI
Announcement has been made that
young Countee P. Cullen of New
York, who is still a student in a New
York school, has had accepted and
published poems in four of the lead
ing magazines for November. This is
a remarkable showing, and would be
for a veteran author. The magazines
that have accepted his poems for No
vember issues are The American Mer
cury, which publishes his prize-wfh
ning poem; Harper’s Magazine, The
Century and The Bookman.
It will be remembered that young
Mr. Cullen has won two prizes in con
tests for the best poetry of late, and
he has now won an entrance into the
highest and most exclusive maga
zines. It is a great gain for him and
for the race.
It is good to remember, as Daniel
Wpibster once told a young aspirant
for honors at the American bar, that
there is always room on the top. And
Dr. Washington, who was a philos
opher of common sense, once said that
if you have something others want
they will not be bothered by the color
of you but by the price of what you
have, and that they would seek you
By T. Thomas Fortune, in The
Negro World.
has no color. If it is defective in sub
rather than you seek them. It ap
pears to be that way in literature.
Young Mr. Cullen has just gone in
and offered his poetic wares, and,
having been accepted, the best pub
lications of the nation invite him to
contribute to their pages, and pay
him handsomely for so doing.
As in the case of Roland Hayes,
the premier lyric songster of the race,
and of Harry Burleigh, the premier
composer of the race, Mr. Cullen has
not conquered the outworks by sud
den onslaught; he has had to plod up
wards, as all have to who succeed.
The thing is to have the knack of
plodding. So many refuse to accept
the drudgery of preparing themselves
for the work they want to do and are
offended when their work is not ac
cepted, with all of its imperfections.
The editor is not worried about your
race, color or previous condition;
what he considers is the work you
submit to him for consideration. It
ject and treatment he rejects it. It
is your fault and not his.
We must make our own way in lit
erature. If we leave it to others to
write about us and what we think
and say and do, they will color it from
their racial viewpoint, and it will not
always flatter us, nor tell the unvar
nished truth about us. To get that
we must write the story ourselves.
When I write about white people I
always do it from the Negro view
point. I can't help it. The white
man judges me by his viewpoint and
I judge him hy mine. I prefer my
judgment to his. So would you. If
he writes his viewpoint of me and I
do not write mine of him, he has the
advantage of me in the high court of
public opinion, which, in the last an
alysis, rules the roost.
We are fortunate at this time in
having a small group of men and wo
men who are writing from the race
viewpoint what the race hopes and
aspires to who have the ear of the
publishers and of the public, and we
owe them much, for they interpret us
for those who do not know us and our
hopes and aspirations.
NEGROES AID IN “CHEST” DRIVE
(By the Associated Negro Press.)
Richmond, Va., Nov. 28.—At one of
the greatest mass meetings ever held
here, the city auditorium, which seats
about five thousand people, was
crowded to the doors with a mixed
gathering recently when this city
launched a $400,000 drive for a com
munity chest fund to be devlded
among its thirty-six charities. Among
this number five are colored institu
tions.
“One Cause”, "One Inspiration”,
“One Appeal", “One Enthusiasm”,
“OnePeople" were the subjects chosen
by the various speakers, among them;
A Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, a
Methodist minister and two Baptist
ministers, one colored and one white.
Dr. W. T. Johnson, pastor of the First
African Baptist church brought down
the house with the stirring address
on “One People”.
NEGRO ACTORS CONDUCT
ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS
New York, N. Y., Nov. 28.—(By the
Associated Negro Press.)—The color
ed actors' union has determined to
conduct a big advertising campaign
for members and is negotiating for
space in the papers that are important
to the colored performers. The union
officials have decided to use large
spaces in the Billboard, the Chicago
Defender, the Indianapolis Freeman,
and the Baltimore Afro-American
Christmas numbers in which the com
plete list of their members will be
published.
This will be the first time that any
professional Negro organization has
ever gone so extensively into the press
to demonstrate its strength. The pa
pers selected are those that maintain
large theatrical departments and that
have become generally known as hav
ing some degree of authority in the
profession. All are colored publica
tions except, the Billboard, the largest
amusement publication in the world,
which is favored for its broad edi
torial policy toward the race. It is
the only generally known and dis
tributed publication in the world
whose staff includes a Negro In its
staff of editors. James A. Jackson
heads a department of the Billboard.
FINANCIAL HELP
FOR DEVELOPING
RACE ENTERPRISES
Large Million Dollar National Fi
nance Corporation Is Formally
Launched in South
ern City
MAJOR MOTON IS PRESIDENT
Organization Provides Needed Work
ing Capital for Individuals,
Corporations and
• Firms
(By Associated Negro Press)
Durham, N. C. Nov. 28.—Dedicat
ing their efforts to the motto, "Ser
vice to the Race, rather than the mak
ing of money”, and declaring that,
"The future of the Race depends up
on our ability to develop business,
solve our economic problems and take
our places in the commercial world
along with other peoples,” more than
fifty leading business men from var
ious sections of the country, met here
recently to consider plans to stabilize,
strengthen and protect Negro busi
ness.
The occasion was the formal
launching of the new million dollar
National Negro Finance Corporation.
The group of earnest, capable men
of affairs representing in themselves
and their institutions resources run
ning into millions, who sat in con
ference all day studying the plan and
program proposed, expressed the un
animous opinion that a step had been
taken which means a new era in the
commercial life of the Negro and
therefore by natural sequence in his
social and civic life as well. It was
freely admitted that the corporation
was destined to be very profitable,
but the idea of service is ever to be
held uppermost.
The organization of the National
Negro Finance Corporation was an
nounced at the Chicago session of the
National Negro Business League last
August. Dr. Robert R. Moton, who
originally proposed the idea, is its
president. Mr. C. C. Spaulding, pres
ident of the North Carolina Mutual,
is chairman of the Executive Board,
while W. Gomez of the Bankers’ Fire
Insurance Company of Durham, who
is now recognized as one of the or
ganizing geniuses of the Hace and
under whose direction the plan was
finally whipped into workable form,
is Secretary-Manager.
The purpose of the finance corpor
ation is “Service and Conservation”.
Its program is to provide working
capital for individuals, firms, corpora
tions, to seek and point out new op
portunities for profitable efforts; to
create and develop a market for list
ing, exchanging, buying and selling
Negro securities; to organize our in
dividual and corporate interests so
that they will function in such a way
as to bring about a new birth of con
fidence and assured economic inde
pendence; to create and propagate a
nation wide spirit of (fco-operation,
coordination and consolidation; to
give the largest possible opportunities
for participation in directing, man
aging and controlling corporate in
vestments, as well as sharing fully in
their profits; and to foster and ad
vance by every legitimate means con
sistent with good business, the finan
cial and commercial development of
Negroes.
PREDICTS CONFLICT OF RACES
(By the Associated Negro Press.)
New York, N. Y., Nov. 28.—Sir Hen
ry Lunn, editor of the Review of the
Churches and leader in the church
unity movement, described the pos
sibility of a war between the white
race of Europe and the colored races
of Asia and Africa in an address at
the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
He urged Christian unity as a prevent
ive of a conflict that would make the
recent world war small by com
parison.
“In a possible great war that may
come between Europe on the one hand
and Asia and Africa on the other, we
might have hundreds of millions of
combatants.” He further stated, that
the great war had been the final blow
in an attenmpt to impose upon others
the domination of one culture and one
race. It has left us fonfronted with
the grave situation1 that white races
and their war on each other have rais
ed a sense of power in the onlooker.
“COLOR LINE” GIRL FINDS
REFUGE IN QUAKER CITY
Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 28.—(By the
Associated Negro Press.)—After hav
ing been refused admission, because
of her race, in a Y. W. C. A. school in
New York, Lydia Gardine, twenty, of
East Orange, N. J., was admitted at
Temple University, this city.
“I hold no resentment against the
school,” she said. ‘‘I am taking a
course in physical education and when
I am through, I hope to teach what I
have learned to other girls of my race,
preferably in a colored Y. W. C. A.”
The girl’s father is dead. Her
mother has been a cook in the home
of a wealthy East Orange woman. The
girl wrote to the Central School of
Hygiene and Physical Education, of
the New York Y. W. C. A., and was
encouraged to apply for admission, un
til she revealed that she was an
"American Negro”. The director re
plied that “We are by the terms of
our agreement with the Central
branch, not allowed to admit colored
girls to the school.’’ It will take her
three years to finish.
IN CONFIDENCE
Anita—"Bess, I’ve never told you;
but do you know that my grand
mother was a squalid, squatter In
dian squaw?"
Bess—“No, indeed, I didn’t; but
since you have spoken of it, I had
noticed your raven black hair and
high cheek bones, but I never thought
of your having Indian blood in your
veins. You are one of the prettiest
girls in school and too vivacious for
an’ Injun’”.
Anita—“Yes, I have and I am
rather proud of it, altho I don’t talk
about it. But talking about pretty
girls, none of us has a thing on you.
Your rich olive complexion, your pret
ty curling hair and your beautiful
eyes, would make us girls all envious,
if we could be envious of you. Some
of your ancestors must have been
Spanish or Italian.”
Bess—“Neither, so far as I know.
But let me tell you my secret, which
you could never guess: My great,
great grandmother was the daughter
of an African chief of the Vey tribe
who was stolen from Africa and
taken to the British West Indies
about the middle of th© seventeenth
century, and—
Anita—“Oh, Bess, don’t tell me
that, for that makes you a nig—Ne
gro, I mean, and if the girls knew
that you know what would happen.”
Bess—“Why should I be any more
ashamed of my African ancestors,
several generations removed, than
you are of your Indian ancestors?”
Anita—“You shouldn’t be, if peo
ple had any sense, but somehow I
don’t know why, people do make a
difference. To be ‘of Indian extrac
tion’ is one thing, and of ‘Negro des
cent’ quite another. But since I’m
‘red’ and your are ‘black’, although
we both are really ‘white’, let us still
be friends and chums and keep our
secret to ourselves. You call me
Princess Poco, short for Pochohantas;
and I’ll call you Princess Tuta, lineal
descentant of old King Tut.
“RACE PURITY” LOSES CASE
By the Associated Negro Press.
Richmond, Va., Nov. 28.—Judge Hy.
W. Holt at Staunton in this state, has
ruled against the new purity of blood
law in the first case to come up since
the measure passed. Legal provisions
have been made to determine Just who
are the white and who are the colored
people in the state. This is to be
shown by blood tests and records.
Robert Painter, white, made appli
cation to marry Atha Sorrels. The
registrar of vital statutes looked up
the records and discovered that the
grandmother of Miss Sorrels was born
in 1856 and was registered as a col
lored person, free born. For that rea
son Miss Sorrels’ marriage to Painter
was held illegal.
Judge Holt held that this evidence
was insufficient to prove that the wo
man was colored, and, although he be
lieves in the state’s new law, issued
the license.
“OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
AND SUCKLINGS’
(Send us short original guyings by
children for this department.)
"They Won’t Be There’
Two little girls were reading a
news item about drawing “the color
line” in' the Treasury department at
Washington, D. C., where it was pro
posed to have the names of the col
ored employees and white, who had
lost their lives in the late World Wfer,
placed on separate tablets.
One little miss shook her head and
said sagely, “I wonder what’ll hap
pen when some of these white people
get to heaven and find they can’t
draw no color line there, and you
know they can’t.”
“That’s easy to answer”, replied
her pert little chum. “They won’t
be there. Them kind o’ people won’t
never get near heaven.”
CARVER CREDITS
HIS DISCOVERY TO
ALMIGHTY GOB
Famous and Pious Scientist Develops
Hundreds of Products From
Sweet Potatoes and
Peanuts
ACKNOWLEDGES DIVINE AID
Large Audience Amazed With Fas
cinating Wonders Wrought
By Tuskegee
Chemist
New York, Nov. 28.—Dr. George
W. Carver, head of Tuskegee’s scien
tific research and experiment station,
spoke before an audience of over 500
persons Tuesday in the Marble Col
legiate church for the anniversary of
the Woman’s Board of Domestic Mis
sions of the Reformed Church in
America, and explained how he ac
complished his famous discoveries
from experiments in creative chemis
try with pecans, peanuts, sweet po
tatoes and red brick clay, which won
him a fellowship in the Royal So
ciety of Great Britian and the 1921
Spingarn medal.
Things Revealed
The noted scientist declared that he
was inspired and guided by divine
revelation in all of his research work.
His working knowledge of chemistry
he spoke of as a mere collection of
facts which furnished him the re
sources for carrying out God’s bid
dings. “The things I am to do and
the way I am to do them, are re
vealed to me,” he stated. “I seldom
refer to books in performing any of
my experiments. Everything is clear
to me the minute I undertake any
thing new,” he further affirmed.
Led By Strange Impulses
Dr. Carver attributed the beginning
of his miraculous exploits with ordi
nary old American spuds, humble pea
nuts, pecans and common clay to a
story which he heard a holy man tell
of the death of a heathen girl from
under-nourishment which devoloped
into a miserable lung trouble. He
was struck with a strange notion that
somehow or other such unfortunate
cases could be prevented by the plen
tiful peanuts, which had many excel
lent medical properties and rich food
values. Thus, led by a strong im
pulse, he began his remarkable re
search which resulted in the discov
ery of a cure for the obnoxious dis
ease, and his further work with the
above mentioned products which re
sulted in his obtainance of 679 com
mercial products—85 from the pecan,
118 from the sweet potato, 176 from
the peanut and 300 from clay.
Audience Lost In Wonder
Five hundred wonder-struck listen
ers remained almost breathless while
the colored scientist related the un
dreamed of line of things he had made
from plain and unimportant plants
and even the soil under his feet. He
spoke of the magic-like possibilities
of the yam that affords better bread,
than any grain, vinegar, molasses,
coffee, instant coffee, tapioca and
breakfast food, starch and face pow
der, ink and shoe polish, paints and
dyes.
Will Exhibit In Gotham
The audience showed signs of great
sorrow when the speaker was forced
to come to an abrupt conclusion at
the end of his allotted twenty min
utes. However, he gave them great
satisfaction when he stated that he
would be in New York next January
with his entire exhibit for the South
ern Industrial Exhibition.
FARM CHILDREN MAKE
GOOD IN HIGH SCHOOLS
(By the Associated Negro Press.)
Washington, D. C., Nov. 28.—Ac
cording to a survey made by the bu
reau of education of the department
of the interior farm children make
better progress through high school
than other children. In making tests
20,000 children from every state in
the union were used. The report
states that this is true because of the
unusually good progress of farm girls.
The facts show that a higher percent
age of farm girls than of other girls
' are enrolled and that the percentage
of elimination from high school is
lower.
SUBSCRIBERS AND
ADVERTISERS,
! ATTENTION, PLEASE!
t -
Edward J. Green, an ambi
- tious young man who is working
1 His way through Creighton Uni
’ versity, is collecting and solicit
I ing subscriptions and advertls
. ing for The Monitor. Patrons of
s The Monitor will be helping a
1 worthy young man by paying
1 their subscriptions promptly and
, giving their advertising to Mr.
t Green, who is working on eoro
t mission. Please pay him prompt
ly when he calls.
