The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-03-21
Tiff LQudS Poetry
of Laurence Dunbar

deep-rooted prejudice which is truly
the white mans burden, inherited
from his man-hunting, man-killing and
| man-enslaving ancestors. This pref
udice is our inherited burden. 1t
chills the hearts best blood. 1t makes
us brutes and beasts.
We talk of freedom; of emancipa-
ton. No one is free who is bondage
to prejudice, be he black or white
| There is no freedom where men
tremble in the shadow of a fear There
is no liberty where one lives in the
bonds of his race-hating heart. There
is no emancipation until man acknowl-
edges with heart and brain, and at
tests by daily act and thought, that
this world. with all in it, is one and
all OF kin.
| There has come down to us the no.
Bile speech of one who lived long be-
fore the splendid dreams of our liter
ature-the words of Buddha, Never,
never should man be satisfied until
every living creature in all the wide
universe is emancipated"
Prejudice Rampant.
Look for moment at the hateful
and unspeakable prejudices coming
down to us from ages of bigotry and
hatred and persecution under banner,
clan and creed, race and religion; the
slaughtering of Jews; the burning of
infidels; the destruction of "barbar-
Inns" and "heathens;" think of the
surviving relic. that you can't expect
anything above the sensual from a
negro! Think Of this and consider
Paul Dunbar, black. poor, obscure,
! standing among us with poets soul
II \
! that he should be recognized by other
poetic souls as kindred soul
And yet it is not so wonderful after
ALL for the angel of genius is no re-
specter of persons, time, circum-
stance or place. 1t came to the Greek
slave Epictetus and made him the
great philosopher of his day 1t
! touched the brain Of the slave Aesop,
and his fables will be read as long as
truth is loved in homely phrase. 1t
visited the humble Scottish cottage
and gave to the world the immortal
Burns. And more and greater than
ALL it lowered over that little bunch
Of humanity in Kentucky and fash
toned the great heart, the honest
brain and the noble soul of Abraham
! Lincoln
The man who thinks he could write
poetry as easily as he could push a
/ Wheelbarrow; the man Z. who judges
poetry as he judges horses: the man
! who is so prejudiced and jaundiced
and warped and lopsided, and mean.
/ that he can't look over his high board
! fence and see any good in anybody
but himself and what he calls his ~
this man has never accepted Dunbar
he never will--he never cantor
/ can't II h,,oh hal ipto II;
/ and we don't care whether he does
or not. for natures great school will
keep just the same
/ The poetry and intelligence of Dun
bar completely refute the opinion of
Thomas Jefferson on the negro's men,
! tai capacity and capability. | would
! not take one star from the crown of
! this great liberator. He was a rare
mind, both destructive and construct
i've. To this loved Spectator and
| free-thinker We owe an immense debt
of gratitude. We stand privileged to
speak our own honest thought because
of such fearless souls as jefferson and
his colleagues. The principles which
he hurled upon the world shattered
empires and enraged despots, but the
principles were wider and deeper than
he d canned. He said, "All men are
WI IL ~ NC - &C anu CIudl uC SCCu
was sown. That declaration finally
freed the negro slaves against whom
he had such desperate prejudice.
Bellies Criticism.
jefferson said that the negro race
had not one trace of poetry, painting
or music: that no negro had ever yet
imagined anything beyond catchy
air" that the Indian could carve and
speak in elegant language, but in the
negro's work there was not one CLEAN
OF superior intelligence, aptitude or
taste. Love. he said, which inspires
the melodies of poets, kindles only
the senses of the negro: never his
mind or heart. or soul, and that in all
the tide of time it has never wrung
from the black man one word which
other lovers love to repeat. Mere
misery he said, has been an in
SEPARATION to the race. The blacks are
wretched enough, but they never at
tuned their woes in poetry" Jeffer-
son was wrong. The negro has dem
onstrated that he is not devoid of art,
eloquence. literary instincts. poetry
or music. Like some other races, they
were never given chance in thou
sand years to show that they haGany
elementary trait beyond patience, for
Dunbar was pure, unadulterated
negro, and | am glad of it, and so was
he, and so will his race rejoice in the
future. Frederick Douglass, as you
know, had the blood of his master in
him; so has Booker T. Washington :;
but Paul Lawrence Dunbar stood as a
clean type, an unsoiled hope for his
race. You cant say of him when you
read the wonderful things he wrote.
"Oh, he just inherited that from the
whites. whose blood flows in his
veins"
Emerson once said of a preacher
that you couldn't tell from his ser
| mons that he had mother, wife, child
or kin, or that he had ever loved
hoped, felt, worshiped or had a single
human experience. But you can tell
it in Dunbar. He had suffered, he had
aspired. he had loved. He goes to the