The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1917-03-10

One spot in Africa that the greed of
Europe has not touched Is Liberia.
Cheated and bulldozed to within a
fraction of an inch of it's very life, this
little republic may yet give a favor
able answer to the question: Can the
Negro stand alone?
Liberia owes its independence to
the fact that It is the only protege
Of the United States in Africa, says
the Kansas City Times. Just as
Americans seldom think Of their coun-
try as an Asiatic power by reason of
its hold on the Philippines, or as a
Caribbean power by its control of
Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, Santo Do
mingo, the Danish West Indies, Porto
Rico, and various naval bases, so are
they not cognizant that the United
States is sharing responsibility in At
RIGA with the European nations.
Freed American slaves constituted
Liberia an Independent republic in
1917. The first settlement on the ever
lasting green shores of West Africa
had been made % years before, in the
administration of President Monroe,
after whom the capital, Monrovia, is
named. By the treaty Of 1862 the
United States undertook to preserve
the constitutional form of government
and its Independent existence.
Control Only Coast.
According to Herbert Adams Glib
bons, in his recent book, THE New
Map of Africa" (the Century COM
pany), there are about twelve thou
sand Negroes of American descent in
Liberia, and about fifty thousand of
the population of almost two million
can be said to be civilized. The wild
tribes who sold their lands to the
American Colonization society retired
into the hinterland, leaving a strip of
% miles wide along the coast to the
settlers, who numbered, besides the
original freed slaves. other Africans
rescued from slave traders by United
States warships and freedmen emf
grating after the Civil war. The ma
ton is about half the size Of Kansas.
Affection for everything that bears
the American name characterizes the
colonists. The language is English.
and in spirit and customs they have
been guided by American tradition
The flag is the Stars and Stripes, modi-
fed, the homes of the weather. citi
zens are modelled after the Southern
mansions, where their ancestor,
served.
The people Of Monrovia and of Her
per, the capital of the Maryland set
tlement, act and dress very Ike tn,
better class of Negroes in Louisvill
or Atlanta. While they are neatly bu
iashily dressed, their %neighbors, tn.
aborigines, merely put on an eXtrj
cloth when they come to town. Their
is less b~oisterousness, profanity an
indecency than in America, and on
traveller said that he saw no on
drunk in a month. The Sundays ar,
of the New England variety, and Their,
are no saloons or cabarets.
Teach Trades to Children.
Everything is reminiscent Of
home" one returned traveller writes
THE flags on the houses, the name
of the streets. Every college is found
ed by American ~benevolence. I wan
dered through the cemetery, and OF
every tombstone l read Born in Vii
ginia,' "A Native of South Carolina,
and so on.
after a painstaking effort to get O
! the bottom of things l am convince
&. that the government is to be con
t mended for having kept its head abov
l water in spite of poverty, and that tn
future Is secure if the Liberians coul
only have the assurance that the il