Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1919-06-21
THE BLACKS IN BATTLE

some rev years ago we mao Ine nOnOf VI
introducing Senator Ben Tillman Of South
Carolina, in one of his lectures on the race
question: We were Mayor of a Western
North Dakota City at the time, and during
the afternoon we gathered a small party OF
prominent citizens to join us while we took
the Southern Senator for a ride about the
country. That evening Tillman prefaced his
lecture with few complimentary remarks
about our ''splendid little city with it's
Wondrously progressive citizens' and then
he spoke of our broad, level prairies and
wound up with the ejaculation: "Great
God! What a country to chase niggers in!'
And that warmed our southern blood and
we applauded long and loud.
jim Jam Jems has never been defender
of the black man. On the contrary we have
pooh-poohed the doctrine of equality be-
tween blacks and whites and have unmerci-
fully Aayed the black rape-fend of the
South. But we have never overlooked the
fact that there are good Negroes as well as
bad niggers: we have always maintained
that the greatest problem in America is the
race problem and the world war has done
much to augment the situation while the
public's attention has been directed else
where With spirit Of fairness we have
compiled this article and we commend it to
justice demands a fair hearing for the
colored soldier who carried the Stars and
Stripes into No Mans Land.
Absorb some dusky facts The following
appeared in daily paper published in
Montgomery. Alabama, Z. S. A.: "'Ihe city
Of Montgomery was visited last night by a
Klu KluX Klan that bore all the ear marks
Of the ancient honorable order that placed
white supremacy back in the saddle after
reign of terror for several years by Negroes
and scalawags' Other demonstrations Of
this Kan-resurrected after a burial Of
forty years-have occurred at Birmingham,
Mobile. Troy and other smaller towns in
sole Alabam.'' Also the old ghost is re-
ported as riding abroad by night in Texas,
Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia,
Florida and South Carolina.
The general idea is that colored soldiers
and coored officers returning from the
World War must be terrorized into servility
and snbserviency. The Mayor Of small
Georgia town thus addressed a company of
Negro draftees about to entrain for Camp
Gordon: "YOu boys are going out to fight
for your country and for democracy and
that is very fine thing, but there is one
idea some Of you have been expressing and
I want you to get it out of your minds
Don't think that after the war you are
going to change things I want to tell you
here today that this isn't so and you want
to remember that our white boys are going
over to France and learning how to fight
and that we here at home are preparing for
you when you come back Don't get any
new-fangled ideas about democracy" In
spring language to be addressed to body
Of American fighters about to battle for
freedom overseas, wasn't it?
We are now going to hand you some facts
about the blacks in battle for this u S. A.
Consider them: A Negro, Crispus Attucks,
in Boston, was the first human sacrifice on
the altar of freedom in the Revolutionary
War Many Of his dusky brethren fought
under George Washington until America s
flag EMBODIED a free land-in which the
Negro was enslaved
In the war Of 1872 with Andrew Jackson