Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1918-04-20
NEGROES AND THE WAR"
(By John d. Barry

err II. Washington, wrote to Julius ROsen
valid Of Chicago, one Of the Tuskegee trust
ees, suggesting that the Negro soldiers have
a counselor in Washington, both to give
them guidance and to look after their inter-
ests. ROsenwald at once approved and en-
tered into communication on the subject
with Washington's successor at Tuskegee
Major Robert R. Motion, who wrote to both
President Wilson and Secretary of War
Baker. The result was that Scott was de-
tached from Tuskegee for a while and sent
to Washington, where he now has an office
in the War Department. He has made him
self so useful that he will probably stay
there till the war IS over.
In the first draft out of one hundred
thousand men, eighty thousand were colored
Out Of every hundred colOred men certified
for service thirty-siX were accepted. Twenty
five were accepted out of every hundred
whites. Perhaps the boards were less re,
gardful of Negroes. On the other hand, the
Negroes may have been physically more fit
General Crowder says that fewer Negroes
applied for exemption than whites
In Atlanta virtually all the Negroes were
accepted and virtually all the whites were
exempted The board was removed.
In the District of Columbia, though at
this time, the colored people were about one
siderably more than one-third the number
of soldiers.
There were many problems associated
with the Negroes in the war. Most Of the
more intelligent Negroes favored separation.
But they were concerned about discrimina-
ton. 1t was natural that they should feel
both suspicious and sensitive. For example,
when they found themselves in large num-
bers ASST gned to battaliOns for manual la
Dor there was some grumbling among them,
though they knew that many of the white
soldiers had also been assigned to such Ia
Dor. One manual laborer in the ranks wrote
from France: "Our men want to fight and
die in the trenches just as other men want
to fight and die in the trenches.' Accord
ing to the first estimate of the War Depart
ment three hundred and fifty thousand men
were to be put into the service battalions
and fifty thousand of them were to be
chosen from among the colored soldiers.
Where the colored were, roughly speaking,
about one in twelve as compared with the
whites of the first draft, they would con-
tribute one in seven to the manual labor
ers. Nearly all the stevedores selected were
colored for the reason that many of them
were experienced stvedores from such ports
as Galveston, Pensacola, New Orleans, Sa-
vannah and Charleston.
Scott is pretty busy man. His work
oblges him to use several other colored men
in his office as assistants. Whenever a col
ored soldier wants advice or wants to file a
complaint. it is to Scott he turns. And
more tactful counselor than this Intelligent,
accomplished Negro could hardly be i'm
agined On looking at his smooth, unlined,
smiling face, you would never suspect that
he was forty-fve years old. He has seen his
people do good deal Of travelling in the
past quarter century and he has travelled
with them He makes point of keeping in
touch with the feeling and thought Of the
colored race throughout the country.
great many of the two hundred newspapers
and magazines that now represent them pass
under his eye. For the Negroes are becom-
ing articulate. Political, economic, educa-
tional and social opportunities, in spite of
limitations are counting in ways that would
gladden. Abraham Lincoln if he were alive
today.
Here is one kind of comment published
in The Advocate of Cleveland, that reaches