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

one might quote from Negro poet who spoke of
the colored troops going to France ETHIOPIA
paying her debt to the nation which gave the world
Dumas!"
The attitude of the South toward the Negro SOL
der is complicated, difficult to understand, often
selfcontradictory. In the beginning there were un-
doubtedly many who felt that this was white
mans war; and who viewed with apprehension
the existence during the war and the return after
it of a large body of Negroes who had fought on
equal terms and who had learned their power to
fight. Exactly what feared it would be diff
cult to say; probably not armed uprising of the
race, but only general tendency for the Negro to
"feel his OATS"
And of course any race may "feel it's oats" too
much. The wearing of uniform makes
some people lose their heads And in any
will try to deny the Southern contention
that there "good nggers and bad niggers."
Bad Negroes make bad soldiers. There were un-
happy outbreaks of violence and lawlessness in
some of the Southern camps and perhaps more
such than will be known were avoided by
tact, diplomacy and persuasion from Washington
And besides the naturally lawless there is the
tendency of very considerable part of the colored
race to make the war and the uniform an occasion
for firm stand for equal rights. It possibly
much discussed statement was aimed, when he
urged his troops not to force the issue of race
equality. There had been no definite and final
public pronouncement by the War Department on
this subject but it may be here stated with author
ity that the Secretary. of War has taken firm
stand, which is perfectly understood by those
leaders of the colored whom it chiefly
His attitude is, concisely, that the purpose
of the United States army is to win the war, not
to settle race questions If race questions could
be settled doubtless would be more pleased
than he but such settlements must be incidental
to the greater one of defeating Germany.
On the whole it may be said that the appre-
tensions before the advent of the Negro soldier
have not been justified by the results. Governor
Manning of South Carolina for example, made
trip to Washington to protest against the placing
of Negro soldiers in the training camps of his
state. 1t possible lately to read in of the
leading newspapers of Columbia editorial high
ly praisng the colored recruits for their behavior
and saying in effect that it had been pleasure,
if not even source of pride to have them quar-
tered there. 1t was said that the necessity of
white privates sauting colored officers was an
intolerable almost insuperable difficulty There
people who talked if it might almost be
better to give up the rather than to try to
enforce any such discipline. But we hear almost
nothing of all that now. The simple common
of the American army declined to exagger-
ate lend undue significance to a mere disci-
plinary form.
Some of the things which have happened at the
environments indeed show almost fantastic dis
regard of the feeling which it was said would
be so dangerously rife. There colored Y M.
G. A. huts at the camps and in some of the camps
they constantly resorted to by white, and even
Southern white soldiers. And at one Southern
camp an order had to be issued forbidding white
soldiers to use the colored hut, there was not
sufficient accommodation for both races. And it
almost came to point where the segregated white
soldiers protested for their equal rights! The
Buffalo Auditorium" erected at Camp Upton by
the 267th Infantry at their expense or with
money raised by them and presented to the camp
is the theatre of constant entertainments, and
when the "Darktown Follies' or other classics of
the colored theatre presented the white audi
ence is as big if not bigger than the colored and