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

sting. too. But not one American Negro
soldier ever listed to that siren song!
Now pause right here and put yourself in
their places. Only barely fifty years re-
moved from the blight of slavery at home
freed in name. but in fact always the victims
of venomo,ls race hatred at home; enrolled
as American soldiers to fight for freedom
overseas. with their white brethren in arms
from the same land constantly jeering and
disparaging and insulting them; forced to
rcbut and repel German propaganda so true
that it burned like fire: compelled to main
tain their courage and their morale and
their bravery against foes within and
against cnticing propaganda withOut-We
say that these American cOlOred troops
wrote high their names on the scroll of
fame! We say that from Crispus Attucks,
the first victim of freedom in the Revou-
tionary War, to the last dllsky hero who laid
down his life in battle charge in France, all
down the line of American history the
American Negroes have proven with their
hearts blood their courage, their valor,
their patriotism and their love for a land
which has i'll requited their devotion.
Now observe further Look right down
into the black record-blacler than the
dusliest skin. Truth harms none but the
guilty. In the thirty years last past up
-citizens of this land-have been brutally
mutilated, tortured, butchered, unsexed,
burned and lynched. Only recently
Negro woman was disemboweled and her
unborn babe torn from her quivering flesh
Almost within sight of the White IIous. at
Alexandria. Virginia, Negro was most
brutality ynched At Springfield, Illinois,
where rest the ashes of Abraham Lincoln
and almost within sight Of his tomb
Negro was burned. Last year at East St.
Louis, Illinois, over forty Negroes were bar
barous v slaughtered. And, in addition, in
the past year thirty-one Negro men and one
Negro woman were barbarcally lynched
Negroes have been burned at the stake even
in John Brown s old State of Kansas. And
mark this In just two places in this world
has the smoke from living human torches
assembled heavenwards- Rome under
Nero and in the United States of America
under the Star Spangled Banner!
Look further. The United States-with
the and OF the American Negro. too-pro-
tested with all it's might, with all it's bill
hons, with millions of it's men, on sea, on
lana and IN the air, against the awful
atrocities mutiations. defilements. butcher
les and outrages perpetrated overseas.
America s strong arms-upheld by Amer
throttled to it's death barbaric atrocities
abroad
Aren't burnings at the stake. mutilations.
fortunes. rmseXment. hangings, disembowel-
ments, crucifixions and human fortunes Just
as atroclous in America as they are over
seas Why visit barbarities with fire and
sword overseas and tolerate them in our own
land: America ideaizes. enshrines and
WorshlpS justice Justice to all abroad and
at home. Is her arm long enough to span
an ocean but too short to throttle her own
satvrs of bestality?
Most American Negroes are poor: but
who stole their toll for generations and still
pays them but pttance? Many American
NEGROES are ignorant; but who kept them
so for generations and still doles out educa
t1on with niggardly hands? Many Amer
lean Negroes are lustful; but are they the
only ones. and if so. whence come all the
millions of mulattoso
There are ten million American NEGROES
IN this mad-their ancestors brought here
klQnaDDod to miniStnr tO Amo,oo,, ;l1ox.u.