Negro throughout the land is, What method can we employ to bring the
race problem more practically before the country, and how should we go
at it? There must evidently, in all instances, be some way or means of
placing all questions before the public in such a manner that all
parties may plainly see both sides. As to the race problem, it has
never been brought before the public so as to command any serious
thought. We shall, of course, have to lay our foundation before we can
proceed, as everything must have something to support it. We will say
right here that the press is the foundation or starting place in all
such cases. A general view of the Negro press will convince one that
the race problem has not been handled as it should have been, but it
is not too late to make the much needed amends, and now is the time to
brace up and come to the front. The newspaper at this time and age of
modern predisposition is looked upon as a mighty weapon, but the weak
point in Negro journalism is the predominance of petty matters over
the more momentous questions that obtain at this time. The race
problem has never been appealed to the proper source, and we have
never employed the proper methods to touch the pulse of the right
class of people. The pulpit has never declared itself on this
question, or else the Negro would have been much farther advanced than
he is. My idea, or rather the thought that comes to me now, is that
the Christian Church should be sounded on the subject of race
equality, and there should be some movement instituted among the
Negroes of the most populous cities and towns asking the ministers of
the white Churches to set aside a special Sabbath to give their views
thereon. We are of the opinion that the best step to take would be to
organize a club in each city, which shall be invested with the power
to appoint a committee to wait on the various ministers. We shall find
out then from their pulpits whether the white man considers the
colored brother as good as he is. To get the views of the ministers
throughout the country on the same day would have a tendency to bring
the question squarely and fairly before the nation. These questions
may seem a canard to many, but this is the proper step to take and the
proper appeal. If we cannot reach the people in this way, why, there
are other courses to pursue. We should not despair. If we fail in
accomplishing our ends in one manner, we must try other plans, and
finally we may be able to touch the right chord. (Dennis S. Thompson,
Kansas City, Mo.)
[Illustration: PROF. DENNIS S. THOMPSON, KANSAS CITY, MO.
General newspaper correspondent for many of the leading race
journals.]
* * * * *
The Negro problem, like Banquo's ghost, will not down. Like the poor,
it is always with us. True, some there are who declare that there is
no problem at all, only such as exists in the imagination; but he who
will take the trouble to investigate will find that there is plenty of
the problem lying around loose, and it will not require a Diogenes to
find it. The most live phases of the problem are those which relate to
the Negro's moral standard, educational progress, and his physical
condition. Some of the views in this connection are grossly
exaggerated, but in the main they represent observations which cannot
be dismissed too lightly. It is now a matter too plain for conjecture
that the Negro must look to his physical interests, that he must make
certain alterations along moral and intellectual lines if he would
preserve himself. Scientists have gone so far as to hazard the
prediction that ultimate extinction is the forecast for the race. The
race itself is apt to receive this declaration with derision, but it
must not count its position too sure. We have yet to see an
intelligent refutation of the statements which the scientists are
making in this regard. The Negro press promptly sat down upon Prof.
Hoffman when he touched upon its moral standard, but it was rather by
ridicule than argument. Only the properly qualified should speak on a
question of this character. By that we mean those reasonably informed
and who have given the proper time to an impartial investigation of
the subject. Howls of protest and indignation cannot take the place of
scientific reasoning, and before the press of the country takes Mr.
Hoffman and his kind to task it should be prepared to know whereof it
speaks. But, aside from this, popular interest is very much aroused as
to the present educational needs of the Negro. Prof. Washington, the
great apostle of industrial education, thinks it the Negro's greatest
want just now. President Mitchell, of Leland University, thinks the
higher education of the race the proper thing. The "Advance" is
inclined to the former view. The Negro may not be top-heavy; his
higher education has hardly gone far enough for that in a general
sense, but he has given altogether too much time to the intellectual
side of his development. He should become skilled in manual arts; he
should learn something that he has left unlearned: how to labor
correctly and profitably. His intellectual offspring each succeeding
year realize more and more difficulty in finding places, so that the
so-called higher avenues are becoming crowded to an uncomfortable
extent. The colored man will find it not a whit to his disgrace to be
a tiller of the soil; when he is an educated tiller he will find that
he can produce better crops, make more money, and rear his children
usefully. If he keeps up his present lick, he will find that he has
all teachers and no scholars, all preachers and no congregations, all
doctors and no patients, all lawyers and no clients. Several vital
questions should now receive the race's closest attention--viz., (1)
the investigation of its moral condition; (2) a system of education
adapted to its needs; (3) the improvement of its physical status.
(Alamo City Advance, San Antonio, Tex.)
* * * * *
A few years since we thought the Negro problem incapable of solution.
We looked at it from various standpoints. Many suggestions as to an
estimation in solving this intricate problem have been offered by many
of our leaders. Booker T. Washington emphasizes the importance of
industrial education as a means to an end of race antagonism,
bitterness, and friction. It is a mistaken idea that Prof.
Washington's critics have when they affirm that Mr. Washington
believes in industrial education to the exclusion of a college or
university education. He believes in both; but he especially
emphasizes industrial education as a means to an end, and not as
ultimatum in solving the race problem. It would pay Mr. Washington's
opposers to come here and visit his school. We guarantee that he will
receive and treat them kindly. We have no doubt that they will go away
from here convinced that Mr. Washington is right. We just wish that
you could see what our eyes now behold as we sit in the principal's
magnificent residence. There is here an activity not suspected by the
outside world. Draw upon your imaginations a moment and see if you can
bring to your perceptions the scene: Eight hundred and fifty students
at work, like busy bees in a hive, training in twenty-six different
industries, and everybody at work; not an idle moment allowed. Here
the shrill whistle of the sawmill and brickyard, bringing them in from
the farm of six hundred and fifty acres, nearly all of which is under
cultivation. How can any sane person say that this kind of education
does not benefit the race? We will warrant that very few, if any, of
Mr. Washington's students will ever be found in jail, the workhouse,
the penitentiary, or on the chain gang. All this industry and activity
is controlled by Mr. Washington and his eighty-one assistants, which
makes him and his school an aggressive and conquering force in this
the black belt of the Southland. It is impossible to estimate the good
that this school is doing, and it is equally as difficult to attempt a
description thereof. We do not envy the man who deems himself
sufficiently enlightened to be able to frown down Booker T. Washington
and his great work. We simply turn our heads and smile a great big
smile and say in muffled tones: "The fool hath said in his heart that
there is no hope for the Negro race in this country." There is hope.
Get up and be doing; get religion, education, a trade, and a
profession; buy property; "put money in thy purse," and you will be
recognized as a full-fledged citizen of this country. Let us say what
we believe to be a fact: The disciplined thought that the Negro is
receiving at this school will give a freshness, a manliness, a
hopefulness, and a faith which will deliver him from the tyranny of
his surroundings, widen his views of his own capabilities, make him
conscious of belonging to a race that has rich things in store for the
world, and glorify his heart with a thousand strange and fruitful
sympathies and with endless heroic aspirations. It is something so
unique in the history of Christian civilization that wherever the
existence of such an institution as that of Tuskegee is heard of there
will be curiosity as to its character, its work, and its prospects. An
institution suited to the exigencies of this race cannot come into
existence all at once. It must be the result of years of experience,
of trial, and of experiment. In order that you may form a correct idea
as to the magnitude of this school, let us cull the following
statement from a speech of Mr. Washington, who, among other things,
said: "We have eight hundred and fifty students at Tuskegee from
twenty-two states, eighty-one instructors, and a colony of one
thousand people, together with literary training. We train in
twenty-six different industries. Of the thirty-seven buildings, all
except three were erected by the students. They have sawed the lumber,
made the brick, done the masonry, carpentering, plastering, painting,
and tin spouting. The property is now valued at $280,000, and is the
work of students in the past fifteen years." All sound-thinking and
unprejudiced-minded persons will agree that this institution is a very
able instrument to assist in carrying forward the work so necessary to
be done for the race. (J. Francis Robinson, Cambridge, Mass.)
MOTHER'S TREASURES.
BY MRS. F. E. W. HARPER.
Two little children sit by my side,
I call them Lily and Daffodil;
I gaze on them with a mother's pride,
One is Edna and the other is Will.
Both have eyes of starry light
And laughing lips over teeth of pearl.
I would not change for a diadem
My noble boy and darling girl.
To-night my heart o'erflows with joy;
I hold them as a sacred trust.
I fain would hide them in my heart,
Safe from tarnish of moth and rust.
What should I ask for my dear boy?
The richest gift of wealth or fame?
What for my girl? A loving heart
And a fair and spotless name?
What for my boy? That he should stand
A pillar of strength to the state.
What for my girl? That she should be
The friend of the poor and desolate.
I do not ask that they shall never tread
With weary feet the paths of pain;
I ask that in the darkest hour
They may faithful and true remain.
I only ask their lives may be
Pure as gems in the gates of pearl,
Lives to brighten and bless the world--
This I ask for my boy and girl.
I ask to clasp their hands again
'Mid the holy hosts of heaven;
Enraptured, say: "I am here, O God!
And the children thou hast given."
[Illustration: GEN. ANTONIO MACEO.
The great Cuban Negro warrior.]
GEN. ANTONIO MACEO.
The Great Cuban Negro Warrior.
Gen. Maceo was a born warrior. He came of a race of warriors. Of ten
brothers, he was the last survivor who had escaped the bullets of the
Spaniards in the ten-years' war, begun in 1868, and the present war.
They were all soldiers and patriots, following in the footsteps of
their father, and they all died fighting for Cuba.
The distinguishing characteristics of Antonio Maceo were intense love
of Cuba, courage that knew no fear, and a natural genius for war. He
was of Spanish and African blood, and his enemies often accused him of
waging a race war, but this he always denied, and his friends believed
him. He fought only for Cuban independence.
Gen. Maceo was the terror of the Spaniards. They feared him as they
feared no other Cuban. They put a price of twenty-five thousand
dollars on his head, dead or alive. The Spaniards could not capture or
defeat him in open warfare, and the work of destroying him fell to the
part of an infamous traitor in his camp: his physician, who betrayed
him into the hands of the enemy.
Maceo was great in his life, and in the manner of his death he has
raised up friends for his beloved Cuba all over the world.
His parents were both "pardos"--that is, light-colored mulattoes--and
they were quite well off. Marcos owned and operated a cattle ranch and
a pony express between the town and near-by estates. He was worth
about forty thousand dollars. Antonio was well trained in
contra-Spanish ideas. His father had been quietly interested in the
small revolutionary disturbances that took place up to 1868, and
Ascenio, his godfather, a prominent lawyer of Santiago City, was one
of the most active promoters of the ten-years' struggle that began in
1868.
After a boyhood spent in the best schools of Santiago de Cuba,
Antonio's seventeenth year found him engaged in business for his
father. The preparations for the war were then secretly going on, and
young Maceo, being thought to possess a discretion beyond his years,
was initiated into the movement. He labored hard for the cause then,
and when the time came for action he promptly took the field, at
eighteen years of age, with a few men whom he had organized and armed.
Maceo was really idolized by his men. For one thing, his magnificent
personal appearance and the halo of many glorious exploits had great
effect; but the real reason for his popularity was the care he took of
his men. No soldier was too poorly or too thinly clad to come right in
and talk to the General at any time. Maceo talked familiarly with his
stalwart men, listened patiently to all complaints, great and small,
and settled them in a quick, decisive manner. Particularly was he an
object of affection to his men because he was always the first rider
in a _machete_ charge. He was always the closest to the enemy in a
mountain fight, and was never to be found in a pitched battle anywhere
else but in the first trench when there was any firing going on.
Dispatches were received in this country on Saturday, January 16,
1897, confirming the report of the death of Gen. Antonio Maceo, the
valiant Cuban leader, who, with the rest of his staff, was reported to
have been brutally murdered through Spanish treachery. Having been
invited by the Spaniards to a conference, with a view of bringing the
terrific struggle for Cuban liberty to an end, he started for the
place of meeting. When nearly there he found himself surrounded by
Spanish forces, and received the command to surrender. Instantly
realizing that he had been drawn into a trap, he and his followers
made a terrible struggle for their freedom, but were outnumbered. As
they were fighting, Maceo received his death wound, and shed his
life's blood in the defense of his country, which he loved too well to
desert by surrender. Thus died brave Antonio Maceo, one of the
greatest generals of African extraction that ever lived.
Jose Antonio Maceo was born in the eastern province of Santiago, near
the city of Santiago de Cuba, in 1850, being the oldest of eleven
brothers. When yet a young man he fought for "Cuba Libre" in the late
ten years' war, seeking to throw off the yoke of Spanish tyranny. His
service in that war, as well as in the present struggle, showed him to
be a born fighter, and earned for him the titles of Second General in
Chief of the Forces of Liberty and General in Chief of the Army of
Invasion. He had full charge of the civil and military jurisdictions
of the western and most important portion of the island of Cuba, the
place where the present struggle will either be won or lost to the
brave Cubans.
As long as Maceo lived there was no prospect of the blacks and whites
of Cuba participating in a race war. He loved his country too well to
allow it, and could have easily prevented such a clash, as he had the
implicit confidence and respect of the Negroes. He was very reticent
in speaking of his wounds, of which he bore twenty-three. With one
exception, these wounds were received in the ten years' war.
In the death of Gen. Maceo Cuba loses a man who was without fear, a
man of rare intellect, an honest man, and a genuine patriot, whose
death will doubtless be avenged by his faithful followers. By Maceo's
death Cuba loses one of the most valiant defenders she ever had. After
his participation in the ten years' war and his exile to Jamaica, at
its unsuccessful termination, his subsequent career has been told in
the following interesting sketch:
"Early in 1879 a brown-skinned, weather-beaten man arrived in New York
on one of the Jamaica steamers. For a month or more he lived alone,
without other companionship than that of books. It was Maceo, and the
fire of liberty, still smoldering in his breast, was only seeking a
favorable opportunity to burst into flame. In a few months he made his
way to West Point, where he obtained employment as a hostler. Nobody
in the academy dreamed for a moment that the broad-shouldered,
dark-browed man who handled the horses so easily had ever smelled the
smoke of battle or heard the song of rifle bullets. Day after day on
the parade grounds the taciturn man watched the evolutions of the
cadets, listened to the commands of the officers, studied the
discipline of the place, pored over volumes of military tactics that
he had managed to borrow, and added to his natural genius the
knowledge of other great generals. Then the dark-skinned hostler, who
was regarded as book mad, gave up his position and returned to New
York. From New York he went to Costa Rica, taking a hundred or more
weighty volumes with him. Some wealthy Cubans had settled in Costa
Rica during the war, and they now offered Maceo a tract of land on
which to colonize his brave followers. Here for ten years the exiled
Cuban worked and studied and dreamed and instructed his
fellow-veterans in the modern theories of war. At times he would
lecture them; at other times he would give them practical lessons in
drilling and in cavalry evolutions. With each day, each week, month,
and year his dream of the freedom of Cuba was brighter than before.
Never for a moment did he seem to forget the points of his purpose.
"In 1888, ten years after the close of the war, he began to scheme for
another uprising in Cuba. He took the former officers into his
confidence, and the little band of revolutionists spent almost a year
in making plans for the overthrow of Spain. Finally Maceo sailed for
Jamaica, and from Jamaica to Santiago de Cuba, disguised as a laborer.
Not for a moment, however, during the entire ten years that had
elapsed since the war had the Spanish Government lost sight of Maceo.
The Spaniards knew him too well. Consequently when he disappeared from
Costa Rica there was a hue and cry. 'Maceo has gone,' was telegraphed
to Madrid; 'Look out for Maceo,' was the word sent to Havana. Search
was made throughout the island. Finally the government got word of him
around Santiago. Under torture, a Cuban confessed that he had seen
Maceo in El Christo, disguised as a muleteer. In the meantime Maceo
had become aware that his whereabouts had been discovered. His schemes
were consequently frustrated. A fisherman who had fought under him
during the long war sailed with Maceo for Kingston one dark night in
his fishing boat. For many weeks thereafter the Spaniards searched in
vain for the Cuban leader.
"Maceo returned to Costa Rica disappointed, but not discouraged. He
saw plainly that the revolutionary ball must be set rolling by other
hands than his. He entered into correspondence with prominent Cuban
sympathizers in American cities, and with Gen. Gomez in San Domingo.
This was kept up until local juntas were formed in almost every
prominent city in the United States. Then Maceo and his little band of
patriots in Costa Rica had nothing to do but possess their souls in
patience and wait for events. The years between 1890 and 1895 were
passed in hard work and in studying the possibilities of Cuba from a
military standpoint. One day in February, 1895, word came that the
Cubans had risen. Blood had been shed, and Julio Sanguilly had been
arrested and imprisoned. At last, after many years, here was an
opportunity to strike once more for Cuba. Freedom, the dream of a
lifetime, would come later on. On the following day an emissary of the
Spanish Government asked Maceo if he intended to join the movement.
'Join it?' he replied, 'I shall join nothing.' He did not think it
necessary to say that he had joined it years ago. This is why the
papers of the next morning all over the world published a statement
that Maceo was not identified with the revolutionary movement in Cuba.
"A week later Maceo, his brother Jose, Flor Crombet, Cabreco, and
sixteen other veterans sailed from Costa Rica for San Domingo. From
this point, a week or so later, they slipped away for Cuba. They
landed on the morning of March 30 at a point near Baracoa, where many
times in years gone by Maceo had seen the flash of _machete_ and
bayonet. True to the traditions of the place, hardly had he touched
his foot on Cuban soil before Spanish rifles were cracking and bullets
were singing all about him. The force of Spaniards numbered about
fifty. Maceo had with him only nineteen men in addition to his brother
Jose, Crombet, and Cabreco. There was a running fight along the road
in the direction of an old log house, where the Cubans finally took
refuge. In this skirmish Crombet was killed. In the log house,
surrounded by Spaniards, the Cubans fought for days. In the meantime
word had been sent out that Antonio Maceo had been captured
immediately upon landing on the island, and that Flor Crombet had been
killed. This was Maceo's first death during the present war. On the
night of the third day Maceo called the men together and told them
that their only hope was in making a rush for the woods. The door had
hardly been opened before the Spaniards discovered the movement. Then
ensued a fierce running fight, in which several of the Cubans were
killed, and Maceo received a bullet through his hat. Separating from
the rest of his companions, Maceo wandered through the pathless forest
for two weeks alone, living on plantains, guavas, and other fruits.
One day he stumbled upon the band of insurgents led by Rabi. He was
taken to the hut occupied by the leader.
"'Who are you?' he was asked.
"'One who will fight to the death for Cuba Libre,' was the reply.
"'Your name?'
"'Antonio Maceo.'
"At first Rabi was incredulous. When he finally recognized in the
haggard and hungry man the dashing leader of the ten years' war the
joy of the insurgent was boundless. In a few days all his old-time
vigor returned. He was more of a leader than ever. His ten years of
exile had only served to make him more cautious and calculating. He
knew that he was a better soldier than when he was banished. In a
fortnight he made his way to Guantanamo, to the spot where he had
disbanded his men years before. The big tree was still standing,
taller and grayer with age, rotted in spots, but quite as sturdy as
ever. Under this tree he had sheathed his sword. Under its branches he
once more drew it from its scabbard against the Spanish oppressor. In
a few weeks he had recruited almost a thousand men. Starting out with
this nucleus of a future army, he swept everything before him."
MARRIED LIFE--ITS JOYS AND SORROWS.
BY BISHOP ARNETT.