Valdez daily prospector., 1915-03-26
FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1915.
WILL LIBERIA SURVIVE?

is owned and governed by negroes is threatened with extermination by the fierce war now raging in the old world Liberia, the negro republic, may van ish when the changes are made in the map of the world at the close of the present titanic conflict.
 Negro leaders in the United States have been apprised of the hard straits in which Liberia finds itself and have started movement to try to induce the congress of the United States to procure for the Liberians an. other territory where they may con- tinue their experiment of self-govern- ment, in case the country they now have meets the fate of extinction.
 The first appeal to congress along this line is from the negroes of Ev- ansville, Ind, which is considered sig nificant in view of the fact that Geo. w. Buckner, the United States min- ister to Liberia, is an Evansville negro. The trials through which the Liberians are passing in this world crisis are set forth in the following resolutions forwarded to congress by the Afro-American League of Evans vile, the communication coming from George Wesley Tanner, it's secretary:
 Whereas, in 1916 and up to 1S47
 
 through the American Colonization society and other sources, has induc- ed thousands of American colored people to establish colony in Afri ca hoping that all the colored people in this country would voluntarily leave the United States;
 Whereas, American negroes have organized republic in Liberia, Afri- ca, where, because sof the hot and the dry climate, the resulting diseas- es, the fierce tribes of natives sur rounding the country, the ferocious animals and the venemous serpents infesting the land, thousands of our people have gone prematurely to the Great Beyond;
 Whereas, Liberia lies between the British and the French possessions, which are continuously encroaching upon our territory;
 Whereas, Liberia has but one ma val vessel, which has but four guns, and army enough only to prevent the savage natives in time of world wide peace from ravaging the coun- try;
 Whereas, Africa is divided up hn of rope, including little Belgium, whose European territory is in the hands of Germany and whose inhabitants seem to be on the verge of eXtermination and with whom Afro-Americans and the whole world sympathize. Belgium owns S00,000 square miles of territory in the heart of Africa, yet no one complains when Belgium is fed by the American congress and her peo- pie invited to share with us the land of the free and the home of all the oppressed people of the earth;
 Whereas, this most horrid world wide war is raging in Europe, Asia Africa, Australia, Oceana, on the eatrh, under the earth, in the air and upon and under the mighty ocean, devastating not only the things up- on which men hope to live, but is also causing the blood of men, wom en and children to flow in greater torrents than has been done before since the creation of the world
 Whereas, the merchant vessels have ceased to appear upon the coast of Liberia, where our own people in the dark continent are struggling for existence and where this war Is causing untold numbers to perish;
 Whereas, Afro-Americans are finan- cially unable to aid their brothers in European immigration the opportun- ities of the American negroes are gone, for the most part, to the more favored immigrants. They are shut out of manufacturing establishments and cut off from every place desired by those who in some localities are willing for negroes to live, to eke out a mere existence, if they can do so without employment; k
 Therefore, Resolved, that we, the Afro-American League, assembled, most respectfully petition the Amer ican congress and the president of the United States to do whatever is possible for them to do toward ward ing off the dreadful calamities through which the Liberian republic is now passing;
 Resolved, that we request that the European and American capitalists be prohibited, if possible, from plung. ing Liberia into the yawning abyss they have apparently created for her; ..., .-..:..... F. -... .f-.. ,.
 Resolved, that in case their country is lost to them, that their mother country, the United States, secure for the Liberians. another, a better ter. ritory than they now occupy.