The Colorado statesman., 1919-09-06


kluX have begun to ride again. On n
single morning, recently, they burned
in Putnam County, Georgia, five Negro
churches, two schools and Il lodge hall.
Colored soldiers have returned from
the war unnoticed, while the streets
have been beflagged and whole cities
turned upside down to greet their
white brothers-in-arms.
At u recent convention of the Ma
tional Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People. held in Cleye-
land, Ohio, speaker after speaker arose
to tell of prosecutions and barbarism,
of denial of justice in the courts, of
contract systems and terms of employ
ment for Negroes, amounting virtually
to slavery White and black, bishop
and commoner, army officer and minis
ter of the gospel have contributed to
the depressing mass of Testimony, un-
til the impression was conveyed that,
as Bishop John Hurst said: NEGRO
slavery was abolished over fifty years
ago and yet to-day there is worse than
Negro slavery in the South"
At the same conference, a former
officer of the United States Army,
Major j. E. Spingarn, assailed the
treatment of Negroes in the army to
which they We're called to die in behalf
of democracy and freedom. He had
found that having gone abroad to fight
foe that was accused of having
burned and robbed and dishonored,"
he had left behind him "a foe that
commits even more despicable out
RACES"
when you read of NaldoSta, Ga,
said Major Spingarn. where II woman
about to become Il mother was ripped
open: when you read of Dyersburg,
Tennessee, where n man stood and had
burning gimlets gouge out his eyes and
his body; when you say that IL duty
calls you to-day to right wrongs, by
God, they call you twice as strongly
here"
The moral that this officer drew
was as follows There are three ways
for Negroes in this country to meet
the intolerable conditions which are
| forced on millions of their race. The
first is gun in hand. But that is al
ways ii bad argument. Then there is
the ballot. But the ballot is denied
Negroes in those parts of the country
where they most need it. The third
answer fo terrorism, despotism and
subjection is the economic strike, the
weapon that all the oppressed workers
have learned to use, and to use well
| on occasion"
"If you want to accomplish free
DOM" said Major Spingarn, you Will
| never succeed until first you have mar
| shaled all the 100000 black men so
that they can WELD the ballot, and all
| the 10000 600 workmen of the South so
| they will strike and stop working the
| minute the word is given. Then the
Southern autocracy will listen when
there is not single black man who is
| doing II stroke of work.
DIR. w. Il. II. Du Bois writes in the
| Crisis that the Negroes are coming
back fighting for their rights and that
| they will continue to battle for them.
| He and others eXult that there are
now 100000 black Americans trained
to arms. The new Kuklux, they say,
will not find the Negroes cowed as
were the freedmen of 1S65-1O; they
| will find men ready to die for their
liberties '"rhis is the counsel of mad
ness" says the Nation; sit leads no.
where but to boodshed without re-
suit Yet the editorial in which the
Nation makes this comment is entitled
"The Negro at Bay" The same edi-
torial intimates that Bolshevism al
ready has its Negro spokesman, and
prophesies that extremists. anarch-
lists preachers of sabotage and viol-
ence of every type will find many re-
cruits if the Negroes just grievances
are not Immediately put in process OF
| removal"
little more of such presentation
of the race situation, exclaims William
Marion Reedy in the st. Louis Mirror
may precipitate what everyone would
avert but that, he goes on to say, Is