The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-08-03
NEGRO COLONIES.
Western Negro Press Assocla-
ton Has Plan of Its Own.
Would Start Communities In
Western Kansas.
LAND is NOT USED.
Gould Be Made Productive With
Little Effort.
COlOred Race Would Also Have
More Advantages.

Negro colonies will make unproduc-
tive quarter sections in western Kan
aaW and eastern Colorado blossom rh-
der careful tiIling Until they VIII rival
the far famed fertility of the banks 81
the Nile. This is IT least what the
Western Negro Press association mas
set out to accomplish. The association
meets in its annual session at Topeka,
August 18th and 18th. Prominent
among those who will be in attendance
are Booker T. Washington, J. H. Dun
can, Colorado Springs, president OF the
association, and w. H. Irvine Of Mus
kogee, /. r, secretary.
The details of the big plan which the
negro editors and owners of newspa-
pers are fathering have not yet been
developed. One of the principal ques-
lions which will present itself to the at
tending delegates is the creation or ne
gro farming communities in western
Kansas and the other districts OF the
states immediate to western Kansas.
A committee will be appointed the
first day of the session of the Negro
Press association and this committee
will formulate the plans to be followed
in inducing settlement by worthy
class of negroes of unsettled farming
districts
Thousands of acres of lands exist in
western Kansas, eastern Colorado and
Wyoming as well as some of the val
leys in the mountain states on whlcn
there are no tenants and which under
persistent culture and proper tlllage
could develop into valuable farms. TO
preempt numerous bodies or these
lands and to purchase still others to be
occupied by negroes from the cities ana
towns is the work which the press as
ISOLATION has set out to do
The columns of their own papers VIII
be used in preaching of the advantages
of the life of the farmer over the pre-
carious existence of the day Iaborer IN
the city. BY advocating emigration ne
gro editors believe that enough interest
will be awakened to induce a strong
tide out of the cities in the east. south
and west to colony lands. The compn-
Gated life of the city draws down the
negro in it's whirlpool, a helpless Strug-
gler against class and caste and losses
him aside as a bit of the Wreckage.
There are exceptions but the usual lie
led by the colOred man IN the city
does not spell independence nor in
spring progress. He occupies the I'M
desirable residence portions OF the cities
in tenements, tumbled down and unim-
proved The Western Negro Press as
ISOLATION wants to drive this fact home
so hard that the laboring class Will de-
sert the cities and take to truck garden
ing and regular farming.
The negro has made decided sue
cess of truck gardening in districts ad-
joining cities and many Of them are be-
coming we'll to do. Some of the largest
truck gardeners about Topeka are ne
groes.
There is nothing. in this life in the
city for a colored man." said one prom
inent man of the race. There Is moth
ing in it, 1 tell you. We want to get
them away and out raising something
on their own lands. The city is no
place for most of the colored people
raises objection TO buying
things from a colored farmer and lot
of them are doing we'll"
Cooperation on the part of represent
tatives to congress from the western
states is also hoped for in securing the
of the colonies on desirable
lands. With official state recognition
as we'll as from the government at
the Western Negro Press
association believes it can satisfactorily
solve a great many of the vexing race
problems which are daily becoming
harder of solution.