Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1920-06-05

"
which compose these conventions, but be.
cause it is impossible for them to attain
the ends and objects at which they are aim
ing unless these fundamental rights of the
Negro are granted to him.
In another number the editor speaks fur.
them in the same vein:
We do not depend upon professions of
friendship or fowery promises, but only
intelligent self-interest The position of
white labor is already changing rapidly
in it's relation to Negro labor, not because
white labor likes Negro labor any better
but because it realizes that the only way
white labor can raise it's standing of liv-
ing is to raise the standard of living of it's
competitors. This sound position will be
taken by white labor as rapidly as it be.
comes more intelligent and class conscious
Our political philosophy is Socialism, not
State Socialism For more than two years.
now, it has functioned in Russia
The (Negro) Left Wing group holds that
the greatest power the Negro possesses is
his power to combine with the Socialist
present minority and assist it in becoming
the ma jOrty.
1t would appear then that the Messenger
group is convinced that the solution of the
Negro problem is to be found in the soil
darity of all workers. white and black
And yet it is very evident that, from time
to time lynchings and race-riots put a rude
strain upon the inter-racial creed of these
Socialist-Syndicalists Take, for example,
this quotation. also from the Messenger:
We are urging Negroes and
other oppressed groups confronted with
lynchng or mob violence to act upon the
recognized and accepted law Of self-defense.
The black man has no rights which
will be respected unless the black man en-
forces that respect 1t is his business to de-
eide that just as he went 5000 miles away
to fight for alleged democracy in Europe
and for others, he can lay down his life,
honorably and peacefully, for himself in
the United States. New Negroes
are determined to make their dying costly
investment for all concerned. This
new spirit is but reflex of the Great War.
And it is this spirit that, in time of
prcSsllre-in the time of such riots as those
of Washington and Chicag o-must unite
the Negro radicals with the supporters of
the third and most startling answer to the
race problem" African nationalism.' Per-
haps this expression will always remain
strange to American ears-and then again
it may become quite familiar within few
years. For, after all, rebelliOus hatred
OF the white race as a whole is the Negroes
easiest reaction to wrongs, most Of which
certainly seem to fall upon him rather as a
black man than as a workingman; this re-
beIlious spirit needs only a common racial
objective to give it unity, and that it seems
now in measure to have gotten The
"Negro-First" propaganda is largely the
work of the Universal Negro Improvement
Association and African Communities
League of the Word-an organization
which claims million adherents in the
United States. the West Indies, South
America and South Africa, and announces
as its final object the establishment Of
black empire in Africa. The following
quotation from the Negro World will give
an idea of the nature Of this remarkable
movement:
Nobs of white men all over the world will
continue to lynch and burn Negroes as long
as we remain divided among ourselves The
very moment all the Negroes of this and
other countries start to stand together, that
very time will see the white man standing in