Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1918-12-07

the German colonies in Africa might easily have
disposed of the whole matter, but there no
American propaganda at work.
1t is almost certain that Berlin, with it's almost
unfailing misleading of conditions in English
speaking countries had counted the "black ter
ror." A well-known woman in New York, whose
twostarred service flag floats the most mag
niicent part of Fifth Avenue, states categoricaly
that an evening some years before the war, on the
deck of yacht at Kiel when she was talking with
the Kaiser he turned to her with certain air al
most of gay mschievousness and said:
81 expect in many ways know much about
America, Mrs. -, you do. In ways I
expect I know more. I know things that may
happen which you Americans never suspect
She protested deprecatingly and the night and
the Imperial mood being propitious to confidence,
he continued.
"You don't know, of course, that if America
were at WARMTH me, for example, all the Negroes
would rise and join the enemy
The Germans knew of the days of slavery, they
knew too of the feeling most Negroes have that
the process of emancipation is only half
pleted. Berlin could foresee that after the
war had begun Negroes could scarcely help saying
that nation warning to make the world safe for
democracy ought to make itself democratic at
before Americas entrance into the war many Ne
groes of the upper and more thinking classes took
the Presidential proclamation of neutrality liter
ally and tried to obey it, keeping themselves to
certain extent aloof from the Great War in feeling
To that degree they were pro-German. But the
Kaiser and Berlin knew very little of Negro psy-
choogy. They did not know that temperamentally
it is extremely difficult for the black man to
cherish rancor. He busters bit, he talks, but
he really does not do much because he does not
like to hate his neghbor. One of the most elo-
quent of Negro orators claimed lately for his peo
pie, in noble passage, that the race is almost the
only one which has learned the lesson of not bear
ing malice Indeed if it were not so how, after
slavery had disappeared, could the two so
have settled down into what after all
pretty fair friendly relation? The carefully built
up structure of Negro disaffection indeed crumbles
like a house of cards if you touch it. And the
Negroes attitude to the German propaganda
perhaps be disposed of in story which Negro
audiences greet with uproarious amusement and
patriotic delight. The Hun propaganda is repre-
scented buttonhong a black boy and telling him
that the colored drafted going to get
special positions assigned to them.
eyes, you'll be right forward in the first trenches.
And when there is an attack to be made the white
men rae going to put the colored all in front
of them"
us they?" the black boy replied, grinning. "Well
that's all right; that's time the white folks
amt going to be running the coored folks!"
Funny, certainly, but, if you think it over,
deeply pathetic.
When the war came at last the Negro race rose
to the occasion with really touching simplicity.
No observer could fail to see that the Negroes
thrilled deeply to the thought that the American
flag was their flag and that it not only their
duty, but their privilege to defend it. Whatever
we may feel them, the colored people feel them
selves not African but American Have they not
indeed drunk of wells and eaten of our bread
for three centuries? The German propagandsts
told them the flag not theirs. But it is the
only flag they have ever had, and under it, in spite
of adverse conditions they have attained to de-
gree of civilization and prosperity and happiness
which their fellows have reached under other.
We must remember too that American citizenship,