colored woman the courtesies accorded the white woman leads to some
unfortunate results. One of the courtesies refused is the title of
“Mrs.” or “Miss.” Thus a Kentucky newspaper, in its recent educational
news, notes “the resignation of Mrs. Mattie Spring Barr as a substitute
teacher and the unanimous election of Miss Ella Williams,” while a few
paragraphs below it says that “Principal Russell of the Russell Negro
School asked that Lizzie Brooks be promoted to the position of regular
teacher and that Annie B. Jones be made a substitute.” Here we have two
groups of women doing similar important work for the community, yet the
group with Negro blood is denied the formality of address that every
other section of the country gives to the teacher in a public school.
* * * * *
How much the South loses by this policy is shown by a Northerner’s
experience in the office of one of the philanthropic societies. Two
probation officers, volunteers, were going out to their work. The
secretary of the society addressed the first, a white woman, as Mrs.
Brown: the second, a little middle-aged black woman, he called Mary.
When they had left the Northerner questioned the difference in address.
“I couldn’t call a nigger Mrs. or Miss.,” the secretary expostulated.
“It would be impossible.” “But here in your own city,” the Northerner
answered, “I happen to know a number of educated colored girls, some of
them college graduates, who have a desire for social service. Under you
they might learn the best methods of charitable work, but they would not
care to be called ‘Annie’ or ‘Jane’ by a young white man. Can you afford
to lose such helpers as these?”
He had but one answer. “It would never do for me to say Mrs. or Miss to
a nigger. It would be impossible.”
* * * * *
Throughout the country there are a number of colored postal clerks.
These men, with others in the service, belong to the Mutual Benefit
Association. At a recent meeting in Chicago the delegates to this Mutual
Benefit Association voted in the future to admit only clerks of the
Caucasian race. According to one of the colored clerks, the meeting that
passed this vote was “packed,” colored members receiving no notice to
elect delegates to it.
* * * * *
The black servant is more acceptable to some people than the educated
colored man. As an instance of this is Mr. U. of Washington, a highly
cultivated Negro of some means. As owner of a cottage and a few acres of
land in a small Virginia town, he good-naturedly allowed an old black
woman to live rent-free upon his place. On her death he went down to
claim the property, but found the woman’s daughter had put in a counter
claim. The case went to court, and in his plea before the jury the
woman’s lawyer said: “Are you going to take property away from this
black mammy’s daughter to give it to a smart nigger from Washington?”
And despite Mr. U.’s former yearly payment of taxes, despite the deed
which he himself held, he lost his suit.
* * * * *
In Wilcox County Ala., there are 10,758 Negro children and 2,000 white
children of school age, making a total population of 12,758. The per
capita allowance for each child in the State this year is $2.56.
According to the recent apportionment of the school fund on this basis,
Wilcox County receives $32,660.48. Of this amount the 10,758 Negro
children have been allowed one-fifth, or $6,532.09, about 60 cents each,
while the 2,000 white children receive the remaining four-fifths, or
$26,128.39, about $13 each. Further investigation shows that only 1,000
of the 10,758 Negro children are in school, leaving 6,758 with
absolutely no provision for obtaining even a common school education.
TALKS ABOUT WOMEN
NUMBER TWO By Mrs. JOHN E. MILHOLLAND
A most interesting and instructive morning was given at the Berkeley
Lyceum on Wednesday, December 7, under the auspices of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The weather was
bitterly cold, and although the great fall of snow during the night had
made getting about a not only troublesome but dangerous experience, the
little theatre was well filled with many well-known women in sympathy
with the cause and interested in all sorts of activities for progress.
The chairman, Mr. John Haynes Holmes, introduced Madame Hackley, who
gave the musical part of the program, and did it well with her customary
finish and appreciation.
Madam Hackley was trained in Paris, and gave several French selections
with great skill.
Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, the speaker, was most enthusiastically
received, and made, as usual, a most effective and touching speech, to
which her audience listened with not only interest but surprise, as many
present had never dreamed of the struggles of these women in their
efforts for educational advancement.
Without doubt Mrs. Terrell is one of the best orators we have to-day.
She has much dignity, with a very easy and fluent mode of speaking. She
is direct, and when, as on this occasion, she is talking for the women
of her race, her enthusiasm and sincerity carry conviction to her
listeners. When she had finished Mrs. Terrell was warmly congratulated,
and the enthusiastic daughter of the great orator, Robert Ingersoll,
Mrs. Walston R. Brown, declared that “Mrs. Terrell must tell her story
again to a larger and fuller audience.” In her remarks Mrs. Terrell told
of the obstacles which confront colored women and girls in their efforts
to better their conditions. Often having to battle against this great
evil of race prejudice which yet lingers in our land and which so often
stands in the way of progress for these women, not only, said Mrs.
Terrell, must she struggle with the handicap of color, but only too
often she gets no sympathy from the white woman, who should be at least
willing to give a helping hand to these colored friends who, like
herself, are more or less looking forward to perfect freedom and all
which that means for womanhood. The speaker thought that right here was
a big field for the American woman’s activities, and hoped for the
co-operation of her white friends.
Mrs. Stanton Blatch, who was in the audience, made a short but forceful
speech for the cause of women, and thought “the vote” would help along
quicker than anything else all reforms of this or any other nature. The
secretary of the Trades Woman’s League also spoke, and declared that she
would do her part toward opening the doors of her association to all
women, whether white or colored.
After a most delightful rendering of several Negro melodies, Mrs.
Hackley told how she so much hoped to establish a school of music for
her people. No one hearing her direct, simple and earnest story doubted
for a moment her ultimate success in this worthy effort, and she most
certainly will have the co-operation of every musical member of her
audience.
The chairman made a few remarks with his usual dignity and precision,
and the first musical morning was voted a real success. Those having
boxes were Mrs. Villard, Mrs. E. W. Harkness, Mrs. Paul M. Warburg, Mrs.
O. H. P. Belmont, Mrs. Robert Ingersoll, whose daughter, Miss Maud,
acted as one of the ushers; Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, Mrs. Frederick
Nathan, Mrs. Frances R. Keyser, Mrs. Charles W. Anderson, together with
many other well-known women, white and colored.
The arrangements were in charge of Miss Frances Blascoer, executive
secretary of the Association.
[Illustration: Books]
The annual report of British East Africa for the year 1908–09, which was
issued a few months ago, states that the period was not marked by any
salient events, but the Protectorate had made steady progress in spite
of weather conditions somewhat unfavorable to agriculture. There had
been little or no friction with native tribes. Labor difficulties still
exist, but show a tendency to diminish. European overseers of the native
railway laborers have proved far more satisfactory than the Indians
formerly employed.
The report says of slavery:
“The ordinance for the abolition of the legal status of slavery has
worked well and without friction during the year. Altogether 3,593 cases
have been settled by the District Courts, and compensation to the amount
of £7,053 has been awarded.”
WHAT TO READ
PERIODICALS.
Plea for the Conservation of Another Great National Resource. F. P.
Chisholm. Education, November.
Dip of the Tar Brush. M. A. H. New England Magazine, October.
Special Plea of a Southerner. E. Harlan. New England Magazine,
October.
Prince Henry of Portugal and the African Crusade of the Fifteenth
Century. C. R. Beasley. American Historical Review, October.
Excavation of Cyrene. F. W. Kelsey. Nation, October 27.
Diary of Gideon Welles. Atlanta, December.
Cuban Experiences. Frederick Funston. Scribner’s, December.
A Hero’s Conscience. G. Bradford, Jr. Atlanta, December.
BOOKS.
Wilson, Lady S. D. A.—South African Memories. Longmans.
Shotwell, W. G.—Life of Charles Sumner. Crowell. 733 pp.
Steffens. Alexander H., Recollections of. Doubleday, Page & Co. 572
pp.
Newton, J. H.—Lincoln and Herndon. Torch Press. 367 pp.
Sylvester, H. M.—Indian Wars of New England. Clark. 3 vols.
Haring, C. H.—The Buccaneers of the West Indies in the 17th Century.
Dutton. 298 pp.
Hagood, Johnson.—Memoirs of the War of Secession. State Co. 498 pp.
Deutsch, G.—History of the Jews. Bloch. 122 pp.
Shoemaker. M. M.—Islam Lands. Putnams. 251 pp.
Withers, P.—Egypt of Yesterday and To-day. Stokes. 293 pp.
Addams, Jane.—Twenty Years at Hull House. Macmillan, 462 pp.
Documentary History of American Industrial Society. Vol, IX: Labor
Movement. Clark. 378 pp.
THE LADY OF THE SLAVE STATES.
Mrs. George Haven Putnam, in a very charming essay in the Contemporary
Review for December, discusses “The Lady of the Slave States.” She deals
gently enough with her subject; she says that the slave-owner’s wife
like everybody else with slavery was blighted by its curse, but she
demolished very effectually the myth of the gracious fascinating woman
of culture who ruled family and estate by the charm of her personality.
The ante-bellum Southern lady never had much to say for herself and was
in short not “the Gothic saint in her niche” that tradition pictures,
but a kindly little creature surrounded by “Orientalism” and little
better off, so far as opportunities for development went, than any lady
of the harem.
Mrs. Putnam quotes Miss Martineau, who traveled extensively through the
slave States, to show how the system limited the white women and made
them “the greatest slaves on the plantation.” Patience was the supreme
virtue of the ante-bellum lady—they made the best of a bad state of
affairs. Logic she had little or none, and her up-bringing tended to
make her a delightful girl but a middle-aged woman of only moderate
attractions. And while she was often very kind to her slaves her
sensibilities seemed in some measure blunted by perpetual sight of
suffering and injustice.
When the war ended the ex-mistresses of slaves showed how good was the
material that had been buried under the “Orientalism” of the plantation.
RACE PREJUDICE IN THE ORIENT.
Race Prejudice: An address by Melville E. Stone to the Quill Club, New
York City.
The best review of this remarkable little pamphlet will be a few
extracts from its pages:
What is to be the outcome? What does all this mean for the future of the
world? Let us view the problem from the political, the commercial and
the moral aspects. How long will the 6,000 soldiers we have in the
Philippines be able to keep our flag afloat among 8,000,000 of natives?
How long will the 75,000 English soldiers in India be able to maintain
British sovereignty over 300,000,000 of Asians? Believe me, these are
not idle questions. They are up to us for an answer, whether we will or
no, and upon our ability to make answer will depend the future of what
we are pleased to call our Western civilization. I would not be an
alarmist, and yet I would have you feel that Macauley’s suggestion of
the New Zealander on a broken arch of London Bridge, sketching the ruins
of St. Paul, has come to be more than an extravagant figure of speech.
And I am convinced that there is real danger awaiting us unless we mend
our ways. It is not the Asian who needs educating; it is the European. I
am not worrying half so much about the heathen in his blindness as I am
about the Christian in his blindness. Asia is awake and preparing for
the coming struggle. And we are doing very much to force the issue and
to prepare her for the contest. For a century we have been sending at
enormous cost our missionaries to all parts of the hemisphere to
civilize. There may be doubt as to the amount of proselyting we have
been able to accomplish; there can be no possible doubt of the work we
have done to strengthen the Asian people politically and commercially.
We shall never meet the problems growing out of our relation with the
Far East unless we absolutely and once for all put away race prejudice.
I believe the European snob in Asia is distinctly the enemy of the
civilized West. And his coadjutor in this country is a fitting criminal
yoke-fellow. Let me give you some illustrations of what I mean—cases
which came under my personal observation. From Bombay to Yokohama there
is not a social club at any port or treaty point where a native,
whatever his culture or refinement, will be admitted. At the Bengal Club
at Calcutta last year a member in perfectly good standing innocently
invited an Eurasian gentleman—that is, one who is half native and half
European—to dine with him. It became known that the invitation had been
extended, and a storm of opposition broke among the members. The matter
was finally adjusted by setting aside the ladies’ department of the
club, and there the offending member and his unfortunate guest dined
alone. The next day the member was called before the board of governors
and notified that another like breach of the rules would result in his
expulsion. The beating of native servants and workmen in India is a
daily and hourly occurrence. It formerly was so at Hong Kong and
Shanghai, but Mr. Sprague, the representative of the Standard Oil
Company at Shanghai, told me that since the Russo-Japanese war the
natives would not stand it, and that all beating of them by Europeans in
that city had ceased.
The son of a maharaja goes to England, is educated at Oxford or
Cambridge, is lionized in the West End of London—mayhap he is honored
with an invitation to Windsor. When he goes back home he may enter no
white man’s club; if he be fortunate enough to be invited to a white
man’s function, no white woman will dance or associate with him; and if
by any luck he should marry a European, he, his wife and his children
become outcasts. Although native troops, like the Sikhs, have shown
undying loyalty to the British flag and on frequent occasions have
exhibited courage in the highest degree, no one of them ever has or ever
can achieve the Victoria Cross.
Socially they are all saying to us: “Stop cheating us, stop swindling
us, stop your treating us as your inferiors who are to be beaten and
robbed.” Japan is crying out, “Treat us fairly and we will go more than
half-way. Leave to us the question whether Japanese laborers shall go to
America to annoy you, and we will stop them. But do not say that you
will admit the lazaroni of Hungary and Italy and Russia, simply because
they are white, and shut us out because we are yellow.”
The Sinhalese, natives of Ceylon, while I was in Colombo, addressed a
remarkable communication to the Governor-General. They said a hundred
years ago there was established in the United States a new theory of
government—that there should be no taxation without representation.
“Now,” they said, “we ask a share in the government of the island. We
pay taxes. You may fix a property qualification and say that no one
having less than a thousand pounds sterling shall share in the
government. We shall not object. You may also fix an educational
qualification. You may say that no one but a college graduate shall take
part in the government. We will not object. In short, you may fix any
qualification except a racial qualification. That would not be fair.”
“And what answer have you to make?” I asked Mr. Crosby Rolles, editor of
The Times of Ceylon. “To meet their request,” he replied, “would mean to
turn over the government of Ceylon to them at once, because there are
6,000 of them and only 5,000 English men, women and children. We must
stop educating them.”
What do you think of that for a remedy? Personally. I do not think it
will work, any more than I think any rule of arbitrary repression can
endure. I cannot bring myself to sympathize altogether with the views
expressed by Mr. Roosevelt in his recent Guildhall speech. I take refuge
in what seems to me the larger experience and riper judgment of Lord
Curzon of Kedleston, who in July, 1904, was also given the freedom of
the City of London in Guildhall, and on that occasion used these words:
“Depend upon it, you will never rule the East except through the heart,
and the moment imagination has gone out of your Asiatic policy your
empire will dwindle and decay.
“In smug complacency you may close your doors which look toward Asia,
while you open wide those which look toward Europe; you may refuse the
Oriental admission to your schools, while you accord the privilege to
any child of a European; you may pile import duties mountain high, and
raise our standards of living to any pitch of extravagance; you may
build warships without limit, and you may continue to treat the Asian as
legitimate prey. But I am confident that it will not avail.
“As a soldier, whether at Omdurman, in the Sudan, or on 203–Metre Hill,
at Port Arthur, the man of color has shown himself a right good fighting
man; in commerce he has, by his industry, perseverance, ingenuity and
frugality, given us pause; and before the eternal throne his temporal
and his spiritual welfare are worth as much as yours and mine.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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