The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-01-24

For the first time since 1905, a col
ored boy is among the senior officers
at Harvard. Alexander Louis Jackson
of Englewood, N. j., was chosen class
orator at the 1914 election a few days
ago, and will write and deliver the
grafton, which is one Of the principal
parts of the exercises in Sanders thea
ter on the morning of class day.
Jackson has been a member Of h
varsity track teams for two seasons.
He is one of the best hurdlers now in
the eastern colleges, particularly good
over the high hurdles, but fast in both
events; and has won many points for
the Crimson teams in various meets.
He has not been particularly prom
inent in other ways during his college
course. He has won good grades.
though he is not in the honor class.
At Andover he won several prizes ip
public speaking, but at Harvard he has
been 80 much occupied with other
affairs that he has not tried for the
prizes in speaking, though he has
taken some of the courses offered. He
is preparing for a teaching position in
oOhA0 Ou6 " the uC6IO SClOOAo " an
south.
1t is not the first time that a negro
has been honored by election to such
office at Harvard. The last time was
with the class of 1905, when William
Clarence Matthews, a clever baseball
player, was chosen a member of the
class day committee.
In the years before that, the election
Of negro orators was quite frequent
with the college classes. william H.
Lewis, who has since E. d as assist
n attorney general Of the United
States, was a commencement speaker
on his graduation from the law school
in 1895. He was not a graduate OF
Harvard college, but had his college
education at Amherst, where he was
graduated in 1892.
There are in the southern states
9,O00,0 900 negroes, writes Booker T..
Washington. There are 100000 negro
children of school age. Fffty-three per
cent, or more than half, never go to
school. Many of these negro children,
particularly in the country district, are
in school only from three to -four
months in the yea l am trying to get
the white people to see that, both from
a economic point of view and as a
matter of justice and fair play, these
conditions must be changed. / am try
ing to get the white people to see that
sending ignorant negroes to jails and
penitentiaries, putting them in the
chain gang, hanging and lynching them
does not c~ivilize, but on the contrary.
though it ~brutalizes the negro, it at the
same time blunts and dulls the con-
science of the white man.
l want the white people to see that
1t Is unfair to expect a black man who
goes to school only three months in
the year to produce as much on the
farm as a white man who has been in
school eight or nine months in the
year; that it is unjust to let the negro
remain ignorant, with nothing between
him and the temptation to fill his body
with whisky and cocaine, and then ex-
peet him, in his ignorance, to be able
to know the law and be able to exer-
else that degree of self-control which
shall enable him to keep it.
l am trying to get the white people
to realize that since no color line is
drawn in the punishment for crime, no
color line should be drawn in the
preparation of life, in the kind of edu-
cation, in other words. that makes for
useful, clean living.