The sun., 1917-07-12
EAST ST. LOUIS.
A Negroes Protest Against the white
Mans Appalling Savagery.


To THE EDITOR OF THE SUN-Str: The
negroes OF this country are filled with
righteous indignation over the recent
tragedy in East st. Louis. in which
white men, women and children par
ticipated in the hope OF putting the fear
of the "unconquered and unconquerable
Caucasian" into the hearts OF the black
people This sudden reproduction Of the
Kishinef massacre in Russia, in a sup
posedly free and democratic American
city, can do no other than give pause
to the Europeans who have come TO
believe that American professions Of
can performances do not. as the French
say. swear at each other.
Barbarism and savagery have no
color or race lines An American
savage is no whit better or worse than
German or Hottentot savage. The pot
cannot call the kettle black when both
are of the same color. We negroes are
beginning to doubt the correctness of
the white mans claim to superiority.
Our concepts OF superiority do not jibe
with those OF that class of white men
who believe, and by their acts try to
convince us. that brute force, injustice
and might constitute superiority.
Now, Lincoln once said. 1--WE cannot
escape history" The lawless white peo-
pie OF America. North and South. can
not escape the ultimate consequences of
crimes committed in the name of the
American people. What goes up must
come down. White men all over this
country may as well understand now as
at any other time that we negroes cannot
be eliminated from the equation by the
shotgun. the pyre. the rope, by drastic
and arbitrary legislation, by repressive
and oppressive measures Of any kind or
character. We are here not as immi-
grants or the descendants Of immigrants,
but as the special invited guests of
white men who more than one hundred
and fifty years ago called on our fore
bears in our fatherland and forced them
to move to this country. When they
landed here they enslaved them and
forced them to perform the hard man.
ual labor. tilling the fields, clearing the
forests and fighting the Indians in the
Colonial wars of this country. It wasn't
philanthropy nor altruism that brought
us here. but pure greed. selhshness and
avarice. The labor Of these blacks from
Africa and of their descendants in Amer
lea made the South to blossom as the
rose. and Henry w. Grady many years
ago in a speech before the Middlesex
Club at Boston proudly boasted that the
labor of the negroes OF Georgia In q
given year had produced a billion dol
lars worth OF staples.
These are some of the things we have
been doing for the white man in slavery
and In freedom. Northern cotton bro
kers by the hundreds during slavery
made their millions speculating in cot
ton produced by slave labor. and when
they became conscience stricken they
Joined the anti-slavery society and
grudgingly gave a few thousands to
carry on its work.
Since the close OF the war of the Re-
bellion the white men of the North have
given many thousands for negro educa-
! ton, while white men of the South who
| owe to him most of the great fortunes
amassed by them during and since eman.
cipation have given the negro a black
eye and the cold shoulder They have
| got theirs, and now they tell the North
that the negro Is ''vicious, ignorant and
criminal in his tendencies. They had
full charge OF our bodies and lives fol
over a century. but they erected nc
schools to educate black children. and
| Southern Legislatures to-day are moi
making large. appropriations for Negro
education. They ought to, for the Negro
has been the best friend the Southern