THE CRISIS
A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES
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Volume One JANUARY, 1911 Number Three
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Edited by W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS, with the co-operation of Oswald
Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller,
W. S. Braithwaite and M. D. Maclean.
╔══════════════════════════════════╦══════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║ ║
║CONTENTS ║ [Illustration: Man] ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Along the Color Line 5║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Opinion 9║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║A Winter Pilgrimage 15║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Editorial 16║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Cartoon 18║ „ ║
║ By JOHN HENRY ADAMS ║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Editorial 20║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Social Control 22║ „ ║
║ By JANE ADDAMS ║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║The Teacher: Poem 23║ „ ║
║ By LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL ║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Employment of Colored Women in ║ „ ║
║ Chicago 24║ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║The Burden 26║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║Talks About Women 27║ „ ║
║ By Mrs. J. E. MILHOLLAND ║ „ ║
║ ║ „ ║
║What to Read 28║ „ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════╩══════════════════════════════════╝
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TERMS REASONABLE
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the ADVANCEMENT of COLORED PEOPLE
OBJECT.—The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
is an organization composed of men and women of all races and classes
who believe that the present widespread increase of prejudice against
colored races and particularly the denial of rights and opportunities to
ten million Americans of Negro descent is not only unjust and a menace
to our free institutions, but also is a direct hindrance to World Peace
and the realization of Human Brotherhood.
METHODS.—The encouragement of education and efforts for social uplift;
the dissemination of literature; the holding of mass meetings; the
maintenance of a lecture bureau; the encouragement of vigilance
committees; the investigation of complaints; the maintenance of a Bureau
of Information; the publication of The Crisis; the collection of facts
and publication of the truth.
ORGANIZATION.—All interested persons are urged to join our
organization—associate membership costs $1, and contributing and
sustaining members pay from $2 to $25 a year.
FUNDS.—We need $10,000 a year for running expenses of this work and
particularly urge the necessity of gifts to help on our objects.
OFFICERS.—The officers of the organization are:
National President—Mr. Moorfield Storey, Boston, Mass.
Chairman of the Executive Committee—Mr. Wm. English Walling, New York.
Treasurer—Mr. John E. Milholland, New York.
Disbursing Treasurer—Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, New York.
Director of Publicity and Research—Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, New York.
Executive Secretary—Miss Frances Blascoer, New York.
COMMITTEE.—Our work is carried on under the auspices of the following
General Committee, in addition to the officers named:
[1]Miss Gertrude Barnum, New York.
[1]Rev. W. H. Brooks, New York.
Prof. John Dewey, New York.
Miss Maud R. Ingersoll, New York.
Mrs. Florence Kelley, New York.
[1]Mr. Paul Kennaday, New York.
[1]Mrs. F. R. Keyser, New York.
Dr. Chas. Leng, New York.
Mr. Jacob W. Mack, New York.
[1]Mrs. M. D. MacLean, New York.
Rev. Horace G. Miller, New York.
Mrs. Max Morgenthau, Jr., New York.
Mr. James F. Morton, Jr., New York.
Mr. Henry Moskowitz, New York.
Miss Leonora O’Reilly, New York.
[1]Rev. A. Clayton Powell, New York.
[1]Mr. Charles Edward Russell, New York.
Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, New York.
Prof. E. R. A. Seligman, New York.
[1]Rev. Joseph Silverman, New York.
Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, New York.
Mrs. Henry Villard, New York.
Miss Lillian D. Wald, New York.
[1]Bishop Alexander Walters, New York.
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, New York.
Rev. Jas. E. Haynes, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y.
[1]Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Miss M. R. Lyons, Brooklyn, N. Y.
[1]Miss M. W. Ovington, Brooklyn, N. Y.
[1]Dr. O. M. Waller, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Mrs. M. H. Talbert, Buffalo, N. Y.
Hon. Thos. M. Osborne, Auburn, N. Y.
[1]Mr. W. L. Bulkley, Ridgewood, N. J.
Mr. George W. Crawford, New Haven, Conn.
Miss Maria Baldwin, Boston, Mass.
Mr. Francis J. Garrison, Boston, Mass.
Mr. Archibald H. Grimke, Boston, Mass.
[1]Mr. Albert E. Pillsbury, Boston, Mass.
Mr. Wm. Munroe Trotter, Boston, Mass.
Dr. Horace Bumstead, Brookline, Mass.
Miss Elizabeth C. Carter, New Bedford, Mass.
Prest. Chas. T. Thwing, Cleveland, O.
Mr. Chas. W. Chesnutt, Cleveland, O.
Prest H. C. King, Oberlin, O.
Prest. W. S. Scarborough, Wilberforce, O.
[1]Miss Jane Addams, Chicago, Ill.
[1]Mrs. Ida B. Wells Barnett, Chicago, Ill.
[1]Dr. C. E. Bentley, Chicago, Ill.
Miss Sopbronisba Breckenridge, Chicago, Ill.
Mr. Clarence Darrow, Chicago, Ill.
[1]Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley, Chicago, Ill.
[1]Dr. N. F. Mossell, Philadelphia, Pa.
[1]Dr. Wm. A. Sinclair, Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss Susan Wharton, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. R. R. Wright, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. W. Justin Carter, Harrisburg, Pa.
Rev. Harvey Johnson, D.D., Baltimore, Md.
Hon. Wm. S. Bennett, Washington, D. C.
Mr. L. M. Hershaw, Washington, D. C.
Prof. Kelly Miller, Washington, D. C.
Prof. L. B. Moore, Washington, D. C.
Justice W. P. Stafford, Washington, D. C.
[1]Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, Washington, D. C.
[1]Rev. J. Milton Waldron, Washington, D. C.
Prest. John Hope, Atlanta, Ga.
Mr. Leslie P. Hill, Manassas, Va.
Footnote 1:
Executive Committee.
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Along the Color Line
POLITICAL.
Objections to the proposed appointment of William R. Lewis, a Negro
attorney of Boston, as an assistant attorney-general are being presented
to Attorney-General Wickersham. President Taft’s intention to appoint
Lewis was learned semi-officially at the White House several weeks ago.
Booker T. Washington has called upon Mr. Wickersham to urge his approval
of the appointment, and Speaker Cannon has opposed it.
* * * * *
President Taft said in his message: “I renew my recommendation that the
claims of the depositors in the Freedman’s Bank be recognized and paid
by the passage of the pending bill on that subject. I also renew my
recommendation that steps be taken looking to the holding of a Negro
exposition in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the issuing by
Mr. Lincoln of the Emancipation Proclamation.”
* * * * *
There is only one feature of the apportionment matter which is apt to
precipitate trouble, and that is the proposal to reduce the
representation of the Southern States which have deprived a part of
their population of the right of suffrage. Louisiana, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina and other Commonwealths below the Mason and
Dixon line have imposed restrictions upon the Negroes which make it
impossible for them to vote at any election.—Denver Times.
THE COURTS.
In Richmond, Va., Judge Goff, in the United States Circuit Court of
Appeals, decided that no deed conveying real estate could legally
preclude the subsequent conveyance of any part of that real estate to
persons of African descent. He held that any provision or clause
providing that real estate shall not be acquired by Negroes is invalid
and void, and that no such provision can be put into a deed. The case
was argued for the Negroes by George J. Hooper and William L. Royall. A.
O. Boschen argued for the other side. The decision of Judge Goff will be
appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. It is attracting
wide attention and much comment among members of the local bar. The case
was that of the People’s Pleasure Park vs. Worsham.
* * * * *
Having been defeated in the Supreme Court of New York, and that defeat
having been affirmed by the Appellate Division, the colored Order of
Elks has filed an appeal to the Court of Appeals and has filed a bond of
the National Surety Company to cover the payment of any costs that may
be awarded against it. The colored order was enjoined from using the
name or the emblem of the white Order of Elks.
* * * * *
The verdict of $1,000 awarded George W. Griffin, a Pullman car porter,
against Daniel L. Brady, brother of “Diamond Jim” Brady, was affirmed by
the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. Griffin was arrested by
Brady on a charge of theft, and after proving his innocence sued his
accuser.
* * * * *
Joseph Atwater, an Oklahoma Negro, filed in the Supreme Court of the
United States at Washington his appeal from the decision of the Oklahoma
courts which had refused to enjoin election officials in Oklahoma City
from denying him the right to vote on Nov. 8th. The petition for
injunction was based on the claim that the “grandfather clause” placed
in the Oklahoma constitution by amendment was invalid, because it would
deny the right to vote to a large number of Negroes in the State
entirely on account of color or previous condition of servitude.
SOCIAL UPLIFT.
In New Orleans during the past year several drug stores have been
opened, a Business League organized, the Pythian Temple finished, five
churches erected and 400 teachers have attended summer normal schools.
* * * * *
Dr. Cyrus Townsend Brady, by a startling paper read before the
Ministers’ Alliance at a meeting at the Y. M. C. A., awakened the
ministers into a realization of the Negro problem, and for the first
time in the history of Kansas City a movement was organized by the
ministers to investigate and endeavor to better the condition of the
blacks.
* * * * *
The highest average that has been made on the punching machine in the
Census Office was attained by Miss Eva B. Price, a colored girl, during
the last two weeks in October. The work on these machines is done on the
piece basis, and during this period Miss Price earned $88. The highest
up to this time that had been paid any clerk on this work during any two
weeks was $85. There are about 500 clerks working on the punching
machines, and it is considered very high for a clerk to punch as many as
3,000 cards in one day. Miss Price’s highest mark for one day was 4,200
cards. She accomplished this unusual average during the regular
seven-hour day, and has never worked on extra time.
* * * * *
In Philadelphia prominent churchmen of several denominations
participated in a conference on the American Negro question, held in the
Central Young Men’s Christian Association, 1421 Arch Street. Bishop
Mackay-Smith presided, and the speakers included such leaders in
denominational affairs as the Rev. Dr. Frank P. Parkin, district
superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Rev. Dr. A. J.
Rowland, secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society; the Rev.
Dr. Edwin Heyl Delk, of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church; the Rev. Edwin F.
Randolph, of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church; B. F. Lee, Jr., of the
Armstrong Association, and James S. Stemons.
With the exception of the Bishop, these ministers and laymen are
associated in the Association for Equalizing Industrial Opportunities,
the purpose of which is to secure fair play for the Negro wage earner in
the industrial world.
* * * * *
In Cincinnati the last of the $2,000 needed to start an institution for
colored women similar to the Y. W. C. A. has been received by Miss Elma
C. Leach, of the Elizabeth Gamble Deaconess Association, and the work
will be prosecuted at once. The home will be opened on West Sixth
Street, near Mound. Temporary quarters will there be provided for
colored girls coming into the city for work and for girls who are found
to be living in undesirable environments. A nursery will be established
and theoretical nursing taught. Lectures will also be given.
* * * * *
In a report the State Inspector of Asylums of Kentucky says that the
buildings in which the Negro patients at the Eastern Kentucky Asylum are
confined are a disgrace to the State. One is a cottage with basement and
one story above. This building, he states, is in a very dangerous
condition, likely to collapse at any time. It is simply held up with
props put under it from time to time, and should a heavy wind strike it,
it probably would collapse. In this building there are forty-two colored
female patients. In the other colored ward building, which has a
basement and two stories, the conditions are equally as bad. Both male
and female patients are confined in this building, but are kept separate
and distinct. The female capacity is thirty-two—there are forty-one
patients; the male capacity is seventy—there are eighty-eight patients.
So crowded is the building that a great number are compelled to sleep in
the basement, which is very dark and damp and in rainy weather water
collects therein. The inspector states that neither the Board of Control
nor the officers of this institution are to blame, for they are doing
everything in their power to avert a disaster.
COLORED COLLEGES.
Howard University at Washington, D. C., has this year 1,350 students.
The college students number 347, of whom 167 are freshmen. Requirements
have been raised both for admission to the college and medical school.
The faculties include 110 professors, instructors and officers. The
endowment amounts to $281,000. The medical school has received $55,000
in cash for tuition fees during the last two years. A new Carnegie
library and hall of applied science have recently been added to the
plant, and also a steam-heating plant.
* * * * *
Lincoln University, Chester County, Pa., has 136 students in the college
and 50 in the theological seminary; all of these are taught by twelve
professors and three instructors. The grounds and buildings are worth
$250,000, and the endowment is a little over $600,000. Lately an
electric plant has been added, and a new pipe organ.
* * * * *
Virginia Union University has 35 students in the college and 30 in the
theological department, 120 in the academy and 40 in the grades. There
are sixteen instructors. A special attempt is being made to get a new
dormitory.
* * * * *
Wilberforce University has issued a statement which says:
“Though our existence was threatened in the past by poverty, war and
fire, yet we have passed from a school with 52 acres of land, one
building, a few small cottages, a primary department of instruction, two
teachers and a handful of students, to three large united schools in
operation to-day, aside from the military department. These are the
college, the theological, and the normal and industrial schools,
instructing in the following courses of study: Classical, scientific,
academic, theological, music, English preparatory, military, art,
business, sewing, carpentry, printing, cooking, shoemaking,
blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, brickmaking and bricklaying, plumbing,
tailoring, and applied mechanics and millinery. It has 350 acres of the
best land in Ohio. It has now ten brick buildings, including four large
halls, a $60,000 trades building, and a library costing $18,000, the
gift of Mr. Andrew Carnegie. The value of the entire plant, with
equipment, is quite $350,000. There are 32 teachers and an average of
400 students, and we could have over one thousand if we had
accommodations for them.”
* * * * *
Mr. W. A. Joiner, formerly of Howard University, is superintendent of
the State Department at Wilberforce.
* * * * *
Atlanta University has 400 students enrolled. Fifty of these are in the
college course, with 30 teachers and officers. There are 653 normal and
college graduates. The plant consists of seven brick buildings,
including a library worth about $300,000; the endowment is $75,000, and
a special effort is being made to raise $60,000 this year.
* * * * *
Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C., has over 500 students enrolled, and
applicants have been turned away. There are preparatory, normal and
college departments, and classes in theology, medicine and law.
Attention is also given to music and industries. The Leonard medical
building has been enlarged and a hospital is being built; shower baths
have been put into the gymnasium and other buildings enlarged. President
Meserve is just completing his seventeenth year of service.
* * * * *
The Georgia State Industrial College is near Savannah, Ga. It has 86
acres and 468 students. The school curriculum includes literary and
industrial work. Each student has to take a trade along with his other
studies. The school depends entirely upon income from the Landscript and
Morrill funds. Among its outside activities are farmers’ conferences and
an annual State fair.
EDUCATION.
In South Carolina Governor-elect Cole L. Bleaze is opposed to the
division of the educational fund of the State of South Carolina between
schools for the Negroes and the white children. It became known lately
that the future Governor is convinced that it would be good for the
State if the educational fund is divided so that taxes paid by whites
for educational purposes go for the education of white children, and
that those paid by blacks be used for the education of Negroes.
“I am firmly convinced, after the most careful thought and study,” said
Colonel Bleaze to-day, “that the Almighty created the Negro to be a
hewer of wood and drawer of water. I also believe that the greatest
mistake the white race has ever made was in attempting to educate the
free Negro.”
* * * * *
The first report of the Louisiana Department of Education for the year
ending July 1, 1910, shows that the total amount spent for the
maintenance of the public schools by the State was $4,936,300.64. Of
this amount colored teachers received in salaries $202,251.13, while
white teachers received $2,404,062.54. There are 5,001 white teachers
employed and 1,285 colored teachers. White male teachers received an
average monthly salary of $75.29, and white female teachers received an
average monthly salary of $50.80. The average monthly salary of colored
male teachers was only $34.25, and of colored female teachers $28.67.
The average length of session of colored elementary schools is 4.6
months. The average lengths of session of white elementary and high
schools is 8.23 months. There are 9,771 whites enrolled in the high
schools. No figures are given for colored students enrolled in high
schools. There are 54,637 colored children attending elementary schools,
and 128,022 white children; 75.9 per cent. of white educable children
are enrolled, and only 45.3 per cent. of the colored children. The
average monthly cost of each child based on average attendance, white
$2.90, colored $1.21.
* * * * *
The colored people of Plateau have the credit of being the leading Negro
settlement in Mobile County, Alabama, in respect to raising money to
help educate their children. The patrons of the school have raised over
$180 for their school this year, $144 of this money being raised
Thanksgiving Day. They are buying a beautiful site for a high school at
a cost of $900. Over $600 of this money has been raised, and they are
struggling to finish it this present school term.
* * * * *
That a systematic and organized crusade on idleness among members of the
colored race is to be continued was indicated at the meeting of the
Texas Negro Law and Order League at Houston, Texas. In a forceful
address calling the attention of the members of the league to many vital
questions affecting the welfare of the race President John M. Atkins
stated that the time was ripe for sending literature over the country
urging all Negro parents to look to the moral training of their boys.
* * * * *
For the purpose of urging every colored resident of New Orleans to
contribute $1 per annum to be used in educating Negro children, a poll
tax association among the colored people has been formed. A meeting was
held Wednesday night and a citywide campaign with this object in view
was planned. Circulars will be printed, stating the reasons for the
movement, and the leaders of every Negro organization in the city will
be asked to prevail upon his respective membership to see that they pay
their poll tax.
* * * * *
Strong addresses were delivered before the Mississippi Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church by Professor D. C. Potts, president of the
Mississippi Industrial College, and Dr. F. M. Williams of the North
Mississippi Conference. Professor Potts gave a detailed report of the
work done at the institution and declared that the enrollment at this
time of the year far exceeds that of any previous year. He stated that
the property was conservatively valued at $150,000 and congratulated the
Negroes of Mississippi upon giving so much for the education of their
own children.
THE CHURCH.
There are now five Negro priests in the Catholic Church in the United
States; three are in the Order of St. Joseph, one is a member of the
Holy Ghost order, and the fifth is attached to Archbishop Ireland’s
diocese in St. Paul, Minn.
* * * * *
On Sunday afternoon, October 30, the societies of the Holy Name of the
Roman Catholic Church made a big demonstration in Washington, D. C. One
feature of it was the parade, with several thousand in line, including
delegations from Baltimore and other nearby places. There were many
colored men in line, but there was no semblance of “jim crowing.” Each
marched with his own parish members of whatever color. There was a full
share of colored mounted marshals and two of the six bands were colored,
but the colored bands were not leading colored contingents.
This was in striking contrast to the action of the local committee of
the World’s Sunday School Congress here last May, which barred the few
colored delegates from the parade altogether, while in other places they
were segregated as far as possible.
* * * * *
Two thousand Negro Baptists have been meeting in Little Rock, Ark.
* * * * *
The M. E. Conference at Nacogdoches, Texas, opened by singing “And are
we yet alive!”
ECONOMIC.
During the last few days Negroes, generally known as “freedmen” from the
Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, have paid over $50,000 to the
commissioner to the five tribes of Indians at Muskogee for land. The
“freedmen” were allowed to select enough land to bring their allotments
up to forty acres, paying for it the appraised value of the land. This
appraisement was made by the government several years ago, and is about
one-fourth of the actual cash value of the land now. The Negroes were
given this preferential right to buy by a special act of Congress and
their right expired December 1, which caused the rush.
* * * * *
A colored church in Atlanta has opened a labor exchange.
* * * * *
A number of Omaha colored men have incorporated the International
Railroad Safety Pipe Coupling Company. It will manufacture the Harris
coupling for cars. This aims at enabling coupling of steam air brake and
emergency pipes without compelling a man to go under the cars and risk
being crushed. The appliance is made to go under the Janney coupler. A.
H. Harris of Denver is the inventor, and an Omaha foundry is making the
castings for railways to try out.
* * * * *
Attorney-General Foy of the Province of Ontario, Canada, has included
the name of Delos R. Davis in a new list of king’s counsels for that
province. Mr. Davis is a colored barrister before the Amherstburg bar of
long standing, and will do honor to his new title of “K. C.”
* * * * *
It required 55,000 enumerators to take the census; of these 1,605 were
Negroes, and 1,295 of these Negroes were in the Southern States.
Secretary Nagel said, a few days ago, that he had not heard a single
complaint against them. Ten years ago there were no Negroes at all
taking census in South Carolina, but this year 131 colored were
employed.
ART.
The playing of Miss Helen Hagan at the concert of the Second Company,
Governor’s Foot Guard Band, has been the subject of much enthusiastic
comment during the past week. Many of the best musicians of New Haven
were present, and their opinions constitute for Miss Hagan a “judgment
of her peers.” Miss Hagan is a “prize student” of the Yale department of
music and has been heard several times in concert work accompanied by
the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Her playing has always brought down
the house. On the occasion of the Foot Guard concert she appeared twice
upon the program in solos by Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Schumann and
MacDowell, and responded to vehement demands for encores with
compositions by Grieg and Mosznowski.
Although Miss Hagan is not yet twenty years of age and was graduated
from the New Haven High School only last June, she has gone a long way
up on the road toward being a successful concert artist.—New Haven
Register.
* * * * *
William E. Scott has returned to Indianapolis from Paris, where he went
nearly two years ago to continue his art work. He was born and reared in
Indianapolis. He began his art studies under Otto Stark, while a student
at the Manual Training High School. After graduating he became assistant
teacher of art in the high school, which position he held a year and a
half. He entered the Chicago Art Institute in 1904, won some cash
scholarships and became proficient as a mural artist. During his last
year’s attendance at the institute he did the mural decorations for five
of the public school buildings of Chicago. For a short time after
graduating from the institute he was engaged in special work in
illustration, after which he went to Paris and studied under P. Marcel
Beareneau and later under H. O. Tanner. He exhibited three paintings
last August in a Paris salon, and traveled over England, Holland and
Belgium before returning here.
Both of the persons mentioned above are colored.
OPINION
THE APPEAL TO EUROPE.
On October 26 a statement and appeal was sent to Europe signed by
thirty-two Negro Americans. The appeal was not sent out by the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, nor did the
association stand sponsor for it. It was sent solely on the authority of
the men who signed it. These men include two editors, one dentist, seven
lawyers, two ministers, two bishops, three physicians, one teacher, two
presidents of educational institutions, one member of a Legislature and
others.
This appeal, after stating that its signers do not agree with Mr.
Washington’s picture of conditions here, states the following
grievances:
“Our people were emancipated in a whirl of passion, and then left naked
to the mercies of their enraged and impoverished ex-masters. As our sole
means of defense we were given the ballot, and we used it so as to
secure the real fruits of the war. Without it we would have returned to
slavery; with it we struggled toward freedom. No sooner, however, had we
rid ourselves of nearly two-thirds of our illiteracy and accumulated
$600,000,000 worth of property in a generation, than this ballot, which
had become increasingly necessary to the defense of our civil and
property rights, was taken from us by force and fraud.
“To-day in eight States where the bulk of the Negroes live, black men of
property and university training can be, and usually are, by law denied
the ballot, while the most ignorant white man votes. This attempt to put
the personal and property rights of the best of the blacks at the
absolute political mercy of the worst of the whites is spreading each
day.
“Along with this has gone a systematic attempt to curtail the education
of the black race. Under a widely advertised system of ‘universal’
education, not one black boy in three to-day has in the United States a
chance to learn to read and write. The proportion of school funds due to
black children are often spent on whites, and the burden on private
charity to support education, which is a public duty, has become almost
intolerable.
“In every walk of life we meet discrimination, based solely on race and
color, but continually and persistently misrepresented to the world as
the natural difference due to condition.
“We are, for instance, usually forced to live in the worst quarters, and
our consequent death rate is noted as a race trait, and reason for
further discrimination. When we seek to buy property in better quarters
we are sometimes in danger of mob violence or, as now in Baltimore, of
actual legislation to prevent.
“We are forced to take lower wages for equal work, and our standard of
living is then criticised. Fully half the labor unions refuse us
admittance, and then claim that as ‘scabs’ we lower the price of labor.
“A persistent caste proscription seeks to force us and confine us to
menial occupations where the conditions of work are worst.
“Our women in the South are without protection in law and custom, and
are then derided as lewd. A widespread system of deliberate public
insult is customary, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to
secure decent accommodation in hotels, railway trains, restaurants and
theatres, and even in the Christian church we are in most cases given to
understand that we are unwelcome unless segregated.
“Worse than all this is the wilful miscarriage of justice in the courts.
Not only have 2,500 black men been lynched publicly by mobs in the last
twenty-five years, without semblance or pretense of trial, but regularly
every day throughout the South the machinery of the courts is used, not
to prevent crime and correct the wayward among the Negroes, but to wreak
public dislike and vengeance and to raise public funds. This dealing in
crime as a means of public revenue is a system well-nigh universal in
the South, and while its glaring brutality through private lease has
been checked, the underlying principle is still unchanged.
“Everywhere in the United States the old democratic doctrine of
recognizing fitness wherever it occurs is losing ground before a
reactionary policy of denying preferment in political or industrial life
to competent men if they have a trace of Negro blood, and of using the
weapons of public insult and humiliation to keep such men down. It is
to-day a universal demand in the South that on all occasions social
courtesies shall be denied any person of known Negro descent, even to
the extent of refusing to apply the titles of ‘Mr.,’ ‘Mrs.’ or ‘Miss.’
“Against this dominant tendency, strong and brave Americans, white and
black, are fighting, but they need, and need sadly, the moral support of
England and of Europe in this crusade for the recognition of manhood,
despite adventitious differences of race, and it is like a blow in the
face to have one who himself suffers daily insult and humiliation in
America give the impression that all is well. It is one thing to be
optimistic, self-forgetful and forgiving, but it is quite a different
thing, consciously or unconsciously, to misrepresent the truth.”
This appeal has provoked widespread comment all over the world. The
Vienna (Austria) Die Zeit, in publishing the document, says:
“During the sojourn in Vienna of Booker T. Washington, the distinguished
apostle of the Negro, there appeared in Die Zeit a report from his pen
in which he defended the white race of North America against the charge
of systematic race prejudice and pictured the condition of the Negro
race as on the whole very favorable. This report created great
excitement in America and a deep disagreement among the intelligent
leaders of the American Negroes. Booker T. Washington was warmly
attacked in many American papers by both white and black speakers, and
finally the American Negro leaders drew up an outspoken protest against
Washington’s declarations.”
The Kölnische Volk Zeitung, Germany, speaks of an article which was
“widely printed in Austria and Germany,” in which Mr. Washington
“expressed himself in very optimistic words concerning his race in
America and the undoubted solution of the problem,” and then reprints a
part of the appeal.
In the United States the comment has taken wide range. From the South
comes some bitterness when, for instance, the Raleigh News and Courier
says:
“It is hard to tell which is the worst enemy of the Negro race—the
brute who invites lynching by the basest of crimes, or the
social-equality-hunting fellow like Du Bois, who slanders his country.
Fortunately for the peaceable and industrious Negroes in the South,
the world does not judge them either by Du Bois or the animal, and
helps them and is in sympathy with their efforts to better their
condition.”
The Richmond Leader adds:
“Efforts on the part of the Negro to give practical expression to the
dream of equality may, indeed, cause temporary trouble and discomfort to
the whites, but ultimately and necessarily they could not fail to
provoke stern repression, and, if necessary, cruel punishment to the
blacks. Fortunately, the great bulk of the Negro population in the South
realizes this, and, having—at least for the time—accepted it as
inevitable, they adjust themselves to the subordinate place to which
their race consigns them, and in which the very existence of the
superior race makes it absolutely necessary to keep them. There is
little friction, therefore, between them and the white people among whom
they live.”
The Chattanooga Times regards the document as “treasonable
incendiarism,” and many papers denounce it as a demand for “social
equality.” The New Orleans Times-Democrat says:
“To the average American the most striking feature is this ‘appeal,’
aside from its attack upon Booker Washington, is its confession,
virtually in so many words, that the theory of racial social equality is
losing ground ‘everywhere in the United States.’ Thoughtful students of
the American race problem long ago noted the steady spread of race
instinct, or prejudice, into sections other than the South; but it was
hardly to be expected that the blatant Negro agitators would confess
that their strident demands for race equality have not only completely
failed, but have helped to turn the scale against them. Such progress as
the Negro has made is recorded not by aid of these aspirants for social
equality, but in spite of them.”
The Jersey City Journal says Negroes can vote in the North, they are
educated in the North, they are only partially restricted in residence,
they usually get equal pay for equal work, and the “objection to having
colored people in residence sections is natural.”
The Chicago Tribune “can understand and sympathize” with the signers of
the protest, but points out that the positions occupied by the signers
themselves show the progress of the Negro.
The New York World says:
“Undeniably, the black population of the United States has just
grievances. So also has the white population in the United States. Race
prejudice is here as it is in Europe, and blacks are not the only
sufferers. There is brutal tyranny in industry, but the blacks are not
the only victims. There are social limitations that are cruel and
inexcusable, but the blacks are not the only ones against whom the gates
are shut.
“This is a world in which true men give and take. It is a world in which
all must make allowances. It is a world in which, after all, men are
judged not so much by race or nationality or possessions as by personal
merit. Otherwise, how could a Booker Washington, born a Virginia slave,
have ‘stood before kings’ and associated for the greater part of his
life with the earth’s greatest and best?
“We do not condemn the American men of color who have made this protest.
We simply remonstrate with them. They are asking more than a white man’s
chance, and in the circumstances that is inadmissible.”
The Boston Globe, however, thinks that “these and other complaints are
backed by educated Negroes, who demand that the old world shall know
their wrongs. They deny that Dr. Washington is giving the right
impression of the situation in this country. It would seem to the
average person that admittedly there is much truth in the catalog of
wrongs the association recites.”
The Brooklyn Times, too, acknowledges that “the lot of the colored
American is a hard one at best, but there is nothing to be gained by
complaining over conditions and prejudices that cannot be altered or
eradicated in the lifetime of a single generation. There are obstacles
in the path of the Afro-American, even the most intelligent and
aspiring, of which the meanest white man can hardly form an adequate
conception; the only thing the Negro can do is to make the best of hard
conditions and do his utmost by his individual achievements to make the
handicap of his color forgotten.
“It is not surprising, however, that to many ambitious colored citizens
patience sometimes ceases to seem a virtue.”
It adds that the appeal “is a mild statement of existing conditions. The
lot of the colored American is indeed a hard one. But it is improving.
The area of sweet reasonableness is being gradually extended. Old
prejudices, and especially racial prejudices, die hard, as the history
of the dispersed Hebrew nation tells on every page of the annals of
2,000 years. But prejudice is not eternal, and every colored American
who does the utmost of his duty in the place he fills does his part in
bringing about the day when ungenerous and unjust discrimination will
disappear, and when
Man to man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be, for a’ that.”
Finally, the Buffalo Express says emphatically:
“The memorial recites the long and familiar list of Negro wrongs—the
political disfranchisement, the denial of education in some States, the
discriminations in public places, the forcing into menial occupations,
the hostility of trades unions, the attempts to confine Negroes to
certain quarters of towns, the insults to Negro women, etc. It need not
be gone over here. Readers of the Express are familiar with the shameful
record. The fact that this is an appeal to the people of Europe against
the people of the United States will arouse fresh antagonism to the
Negro in some quarters, but, on the whole, it will do good. For shame’s
sake, if not for that of justice, it may arouse us to do our duty. The
opinion of the civilized world must have some effect on the most
calloused American official conscience. And it is our governing class,
our men and women of light and leading, that need to be aroused on this
question.”
THE GHETTO.
The Baltimore attempt to segregate colored people has called forth
widespread comment. A letter in the New York Sun thus portrays
conditions:
“The Negro invasion in Baltimore is principally in a north and
northwesterly direction, comprising the most beautiful, most exclusive
and most valuable residential sections. About the year 1885 steadily but
insidiously the Negro began to invade white residential sections. In
Pennsylvania Avenue, beginning at Franklin Street in the downtown
district and running north about twenty-six blocks to the intersection
of North Avenue and Druid Hill Avenue, beginning at Paca Street in the
downtown district and running north about twenty blocks to the
intersection of North Avenue, as well as all blocks lying between
Pennsylvania and Druid Hill Avenues and containing substantially built
three-story houses, are now in the exclusive possession of the Negroes.
They are now beginning to invade McCulloh Street, Madison Avenue, Eutaw
Place and Linden Avenue, which run parallel with Pennsylvania and Druid
Hill Avenues.”
Some papers see in this indubitable evidence of the rise of colored
people.
As the Fitchburg (Mass.) Sentinel puts it:
“This is one of the most hopeful situations regarding the Negro which
has been painted. It is enough to send shivers down the backs of the
people who believe that ‘Cursed by Canaan’ is to hold good for all time.
But it is an immense reassurance to those who are looking for the uplift
of the black race. It seems, from this picture, that they must be
getting rich rapidly. They are obtaining possession of fine residential
property. They want to live in fine houses, the same as white folks with
money. Doubtless, too, the same as white folks, they want to have the
good things which money will buy.
“Judged by any test other than color, they seem to be very desirable
citizens.”
Other papers, like the Bridgeport Telegram, scent danger:
“If they are deprived of the right to build homes where they please
which is accorded to the most degraded white man who lands upon these
shores provided people will sell land to him, and robbed of the right to
become skilled workmen, their situation will be a much graver one than
that from which the Civil War delivered them.”
Dr. Henry Moskowitz, in the New York Evening Post, points to the Russian
analogy and the Boston Globe also insists on the failure of the Ghetto
idea:
“Segregation has never been a very successful solution of the race
problem, as may be seen in the experience of European cities with
ghettos and in Russia’s attempt to keep Jews confined within certain
pales. The Baltimore city council, however, by a piece of special
pleading in its report, tries to justify the ordinance by saying that
its ‘underlying purpose is the maintenance of peace and good order and
the avoidance of friction and irritation between the two races.’ The
ordinance ‘aims to prevent the whites from becoming a disturbing element
to the blacks and likewise to prevent the Negroes from becoming a
disturbing element to the whites.’ Ahem!”
The New York Journal calls the experiment dangerous:
“It is true that the establishment of homes of colored people in
neighborhoods hitherto unfrequented by them causes antagonism and may
produce trouble and disturb real estate values. But it is also true that
it is dangerous, unjust and unworthy of this century to revive the
obsolete ghetto system, denying to certain human beings the right to
live where they please and where they can.
“We suppose that a white man who owns a house has a legal right to sell
it to a Negro if he pleases. And we suppose that the highest court in
the country will sustain the right of a colored man to live in his own
home, subject to the tax laws and regulations of his neighborhood.
“Probably the plan to compel a hundred thousand colored people in
Baltimore to live all together in one neighborhood could not legally be
enforced.”
On the legal side of the matter Charles J. Bonaparte, formerly United
States Attorney-General, says to a Baltimore Sun reporter:
“I have always understood, however, that it was a lawful use of private
property to sell or rent one’s house for a proper purpose to an orderly
person of whatever race or color, without regard to the wishes or the
complexion of those who live next door, and, if this be true, then the
well-known Radecke case, in Forty-ninth Maryland, to say nothing of
other authorities, would seem to show clearly that if our always wise
Mayor and City Council should undertake to interfere in such a matter,
they could, and would, be politely advised to mind their own business.”
The Brooklyn Eagle, the Nyack (N. Y.) Star and the Dover (N. H.)
Democrat call attention to the Lee Sing case (43 Federal Reports, 359),
which voided an ordinance restricting the residence of a Chinaman.
The New York Sun says on the “property values” issue:
“The Baltimore ordinance cannot be supported on the ground that it is
intended to protect one race against the indignities invariably
experienced whenever it is compelled to force its presence upon another
race in the pursuit of education, business and pleasure or in the
exercise of political rights. Its frank purpose is to protect the
property interests of the stronger race. In the opinion of the City
Council of Baltimore real estate values in certain avenues have
depreciated 30 to 50 per cent. owing to the presence of Negro residents,
but if the sapient council were to study the recent census showing of
Baltimore it would no doubt find that other causes have been at work in
bringing about the depreciation. In any event, the proposed ordinance
involves a principle which the courts are not likely to accept.”
The Manchester (N. H.) Union says:
“It would seem as if the Negroes themselves would tire of making
purchases which immediately sink in value from a third to one-half, and
it is somewhat peculiar that in Philadelphia and Washington there has
been no tendency to anything of the kind, either as to encroachment upon
the territory of the whites or a depreciation of the property occupied
by the Negroes.”
The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph sees a chance for the Negro to make money
through such segregation and to be proud of their Ghettos, but the
Southwestern Christian Advocate, a colored paper, says:
“It is almost certain that wherever there is a Negro quarter there will
be little or no city improvement. Notwithstanding Negroes pay the same
rate of taxes, the streets on which they live are seldom paved, poorly
lighted, and any public improvements that might be made are always last
in coming to them. Thousands of Negroes make an effort not to buy within
the white district but so near that district that they may be able to
get some of the city improvements. There is also a measure of protection
as well as a measure of convenience when Negroes live on the better
streets.
“The Negro has a just protest against the sort of treatment he is forced
to endure notwithstanding he is a taxpayer. It may be alleged that he is
not a heavy taxpayer, and this we grant, but there are sections of
cities sparsely settled which are improved at the behest of speculators
while Negro residents are compelled to live in discomfiture and
inconvenience because of the lack of improvement.”
Dr. Hughes of Baltimore, speaking for colored citizens, said:
“It means the stopping of self-respecting, law-abiding colored citizens
in their efforts to secure homes and plant themselves in communities as
taxpayers.
“Rental values will advance since there will be no outlet for an already
congested population: they must stay where they are, and in order to do
so pay any price which an unscrupulous money grabber may demand. With
the high cost of foodstuffs and the low scale of wages for unskilled
labor the passage of the West ordinance points to the creation of a
pauper element in our city rather than a thrifty, law-abiding colored
citizenship, and the pauper element of any city or community makes the
more prosperous pay in one way or another for their support.