Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1920-04-17

much by the arguments that DR.. Du Bots
assemblies. or the poems and parallels he ere
ates. as by the story he gives of his own re-
latiOns with people, his own temptations and
struggles, his own appreciation Of beauty
through the landscape yelled in pain. Be
cause he is an artist, because he tells this
story Of his own people so simply and so
charmingly, he establishes that kinship which
is the essence Of everything human. DR.. Du
Bots as a bus boy at the "broad and blatant
hotel at Lake Minnetonka this is pic
ture he draws with wry humor, and it is
unforgettabe. Equally unforgettable is his
warm, glowing, happy account of Negro wo-
men. eve have still our poverty and degra-
dation, and lewdness and our cruel toll; but
we have, too, vast group Of women of
Negro blood who for strength of character,
ceanness of soul, and unselfisf devotion of
purpose, is today easily the peer of any
group of women in the civilized world'' I
should think Negro women would read with
yelling hearts this chapter, The Damnation
Of Women. 1t is perfectly unsentimental.
1t is simply high recognition by man
who is proud to be a Negro of traits that
are especially rich in Negro nature
The whole political tendency of such con-
fidence and pride in Negro stock is to con-
centrate the Negro on an African policy
Africa for the Africans 1t may reasonably
be urged against DR.. Du Bots that he links
Asia and Africa much too simply 1t is
true that black and brown and yellow men
are oppressed 1t is also true that Negro
and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese and Jap
anese form two-thirds Of the population of
the world. But is it good sociology or good
etFnology to say there is a Dark World
ranged against the White World on these
lines. The case Of the Negro is the case Of
Africa, not Africa and Asia. But the case
Of Africa is solid.
You cannot read Of Belgium in the Con-
go, with it's toll of 100000 Negro lives
without feeling that there is another side
to poor little Belgium. You cannot read of
organized labor or Of socialism (''interna-
tional' in name only) in relation to the
Negro, without feeling the touring print
tiveness Of labor and the dirty narrowness
Of socialists. You cannot read of the British
Emplre-sanctioning such explorations that
''British justice' seems a miserable sham
lin black Africa today only one-seven-
teenth OF the land and ninth of the people
III Liberia and Abyssina are approximately
independent, although menaced and policed
by European capitalism - But can black
Africa rule itself, the white man asks
Whether he can or not, the driving Of the
blacks into swamps and marsh, the grabbing
Of the best native land by illegal" act is
wicked. And it is wicked to falsify native
character, the British administrators have
done everywhere they have gone, from the
West Coast of Africa all through Asia and
Polynesia, to the despair Of scientists and
democrats and decent men everywhere. DR..
Du Bots himself is a victim of that weari-
some tradition
But to read Darkwater is to forget that
tradition, to be enamel pated from it's SNUG
ness and to breathe liberal air The ordi-
nary Anglo-SaXon assumptions fall away as
one reads Darkwater. What after all, if
God be Negro, and the Southern white
man and the South African legislator and
the Brooklyn housewife and the American
Federation Of Labor and General Crowder's
draft boards and the railroad presidents
md fIn fIon4, h