Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1919-04-05
MISGUIDED FRIENDS

are so insistent that we get what is right
fully due us that they unconsciously accept
favors that ultimately prove disastrous to
the very ends for which they are striving.
We can accept these plumbers in good faith
when they are made by members of the
other race, because we realize that the viw
point is everything, and as much as one
conscientiously delves into subject or at
tempts to put themselves in the other fell
lows place, it is absolutely impossible to do
So
In a general way sympathetic member
of the white race has an idea of our hard
ships and suffering because of our color.
They know that we are unjustly discrim-
mated against, they know that we are denied
rights and privileges, even the most learned
and wealthy among us, that are accorded
the most lowly and ignorant of any other
racial group. They know that they can take
our life in the most barbarous way in GER
tain sections of the country without fear of
paying the penalty for their crime. They
know that they made the law and administer
it according to their judgment; if that be
warped and narrow we are the sufferers,
and since the bred Scott decision some are
attempting to make us believe we have no
rights the white man is bound to respect
w udC COulu Do more W
cementing of the different races and fac
lions in this country than separation on &C.
count of race or color? What sort of
country would this be if every component
element was to live distinct and apart from
the other-the Germans, Irish, French, Eng
lish, italian, and so on? But isn't that
just as logical as to attempt this sort of
thing with our people? What would have
happened during our recent war, when the
United States needed every man under the
Stars and Stripes able to shoulder a gun, to
protect her interests? Suppose these ma
tons named had received at the hands of
their government the same treatment we
did? Would they have proven themselves to
be 100 per cent American as we did?
Some of our friends within and without
our ranks are attempting to have large
plants such as the Ford Automobile Com
pany open up ''Jim Crow departments, so
that we can man the whole plant from labor
er to chief boss. In the city of Chicago a
misguided politician is seeking to have the
telephone company set aside the Douglas
exchange exclusively for our girls, while
others have been to the board of education
with a petition to have separate schools in
order to give more work for our young wo-
men teachers.
Taking the most charitable view OF things,
it must be admitted that such friends are
far more detrimental to the welfare of our
race than the vitriolic utterances and the
detestable actions of score Of Vardamans,
Tillmans, Hoke Smiths and men of their ilk,
because the world knows these men are our
avowed enemies, they acknowledge their en-
nifty openly, thereby lessening the sting,
while this other heavy fire comes from our
misguided friends within our own ranks,
and the average white person, quick at snap
Judgment and wise enough at the same time
to see that their own ends are furthered,
lend their aid to any movement that has
for it's object the separation of the races
We are attempting at every turn to break
down the bars, to erase the line that kept
this country in the past from being what it
claims, a democracy, and the fight will con-
tinue as long as one obstacle is placed in
the way Of our progress. The Negro Of
yesterday, let it be known, is not the Negro
of today, thanks to the extra stiffening the