The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-18
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
By Frederic J. Haskin. Director
Washington. D. C.


by the United States government, has
recently become a center of patriotic
effort Three hundred of its students
want to enter the army, and they
have started a movement to OBJ
tain training as officers. Secretary of
War Baker has promised that if they
can organize a large enough unit, he
will provide a training camp for them
Accordingly, the Howard students
nave sent emissarieS to Atlanta uni
Vers1ty, Fisk university in Nashville,
Taladega university in Alabama, Lin
coin university in Pennsylvania, and
WlIberforce university in Ohio, to OBJ
tain recruits from these other colored
colleges for the proposed training
camp.
failure to organize a negro camp at
PlattSburg. The movement for such
camp was initiated by the president
OF the national association for the
advancement of colored peoples, who
IS Mr.. Joel Elias Spingarn, a Jew.
Mr.. Spingarn, having ascertained
from General Wood that such a camp
might be organized, wrote to a num-
Der of prominent negroes, pointing
out that they should lay aside their
prejudice against segregation for pa
trlouc reasons. This plea, however,
tailed. Dspite the undoubted rever-
ence in which Mr. Spingarn is held by
coiored people, they vigorously pro-
6SIdDllSn1llGnI
a separate camp for them. Never
theless, there were a great many
thoughtful negroes who believed that
the object vas to get military train
ing as best it could be gotten, and the
Howard university movement is an
outgrowth of their determination to
mt their young men for military serv-
ice.
This patriotic movement at Howard
VIII doubtless receive a great impulse
Nu-1r
ment of the university will be held.
and over thousand of its alumni viii.
gather in Washington. This alumni
gathering will include some of the best
negro brains in the United States; it
will be an epitome of half a century
of negro progress.
Just one form of that progress is
shown in the fact that twenty-five
years ago, when the present president
of the alumni association, Mr.. Shelby
j. Davidson of Washington, was at
tending the university, nearly all of
the students worked their way thru.
Now majority of them have their
expenses paid by their parents, for
there is a considerable body of wealth
IN the country owned by negroes, and
among the alumni of Howard univer
sity there are not few substantial
business men worth between $500
to 100000. w. S. Hagan, for eX-
south for 100000 recently and went
to Philadelphia, which has become Il
gathering place for well to do ne
groes. w. H. c. Brown, real estate
dealer and lawyer of Washington, is
also a negro of considerable property.
The man who is generally considered
the wealthiest of the Howard alumni
is A. c. Darlington, who lives in Colon,
Panama Canal zone, and is large
planter and trader
II
number of men who have won real
distinction in the professions, in poll
tics and in literature. George III.
White of Philadelphia, who was the
last negro to serve IN congress Is one
of these. DR.. Marcus c. Wheatlands
Of Newport, r. l., is graduate of the
Howard university medical depart
ment. He is an expert in the use OF
the X-ray and has made consider
able fortune out of his practice- Near
ly all of his patients are white.
The assistant corporation council
of Philadelphia, John c. Asbury;
Harry W Furniss, formerly United
States minister to Brazil, George FraZ-
Ter Miller, a theological writer; Kelly
Miller, professor of mathematics In
Howard university and graduate o.
Johns Hopkins are among tha other
distinguish ed alumni of Howard
There have been four thousand grad
yates during the fifty years of the
.
eddy show a high average OF achieve
ment an l service to their race.
There Will be many more graduates
in the next fifty years. for the uni
yersity now has between sixteen and
sew enteen hundred students. One
third of these are women, and as
teachers the female graduates are in
valuable, many of them becoming
principals of colored schools.
The Howard Alumni gathering will
be the occasion of general review
of negro progress, and the facts
brought forth would cause wide
/ spread surprise but fo1 the fact thai
they are pretty sure to lack any
widespread publicity.
| One interesting thing which prom
inent negroes admit is that the ne
gro pro.sre sses not only in spite OF
discrimin: tions and prniudices against
him, bu- to no little extent because
of them. This is pretty clearly shown
| by a comparison between negro bus
mess in Richmond and in Washing
| ton. In Richmond the negro is seq
| regated if street cars, stores, and al
most all other public places. In
Washington he has much greater
! freedom. The result is that in Rich
mond negroes have opened their own
stores and banks, built their own Of
flee build ,ngs, and have a much larg-
er part Ia the city's business. John
| Mitchell, jr., who has founded a bank
there foc his people, is the only ne
gro who is a member of the Amer
lean Bankers association.
The success of the Richmond ne
groes in esta blishing themselves in
/ business is not an argument in favor
| of the principle of segregation, but it
is interesting to note that in that city
the colored people have found in it an
| incentive to race solidarity and COM
mercial independence
Howard university probably offers
as great a variety of training as any
college of its size in the country Its
| officials realize that the negroes need
! doctors lawyers and preachers OF
their own race, and for that reason
schools in all of these professions are
| maintained. They also realize that
the colored people must live largely
dTfSf ria1