The Colorado statesman., 1921-04-30
WHAT THE NEGRO
HAS DONE
(From the San Francisco Call and
Post, John Francis Neylan,
Publisher.)
READER of this newspaper

4 READER of this newspaper
~ writes to ask: Just what trib-
Il n ute has the Negro paid to soci-
ETY. for his freedom? How much has
it to do with the balancing of the
scoles of the freedom of all mankind?
Has he paid his tithes as other races
have paid theirs? Has he advanced
by his own brain and will power, or by
mimicry? Where are his arts? His sci
ences? His music? His drama? His
inventions? How much has the Negro
had to do in perpetuating the rights of
other men? Born and bred in the land
of the free, has he since freedom ad-
vanced as far or as rapidly as, for eX-
ample, the Cubans? The Filipinos?
The MeXicans? In all the
world, where nothing is new under the
sun, what has he produced, what sin
gle achievement has lie added to the
sum total of human achievements,
since having obtained that freedom?"
Here are questions from Southern
er, who believes as deeply and as sin
cerely as a man can believe that there
is no answer TO his questions except
the admission that the Negro has given
nothing to the world in which he lives.
He is not asking for information; he
is giving it by means of questions. But
almost any fairly informed Negro could
give him few bits of valuable infor-
nation. He could tell him these
things:
If the World war was fought TO bal
ance the scales in favor of freedom for
mankind the Negro did his share. In
the United States alone there We're
$40 277 in the various services; and 1t
is worth noticing that the percentage
of Negroes accepted was BIZ, COM
pared with 26S for the white men. In
the Revolutionary war there We're T1o
Negro soldiers; in the War of 1872
more than 1000 and. naturally enough,
1TS,9T5 in the Civil war. But these are
the enterprises of war-whatever their
purpose-and they imply little of quail
ifications for the occupations of peace.
Turn to other facts, not forgetting,
however, that Negroes bought Liberty
loan bonds worth s200,Ooo,Ooo.
One hundred years ago there ware
only three Negro college graduates. To
day there are 1000, and thirty-five of
these have been elected to Phi Beta
Kappa, the scholarship honor society.
At that time there We're no Negro
schools Today there are between SIN
and seven hundred. In music there is
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who ranks
high among composers in poetry, Paul
Laurence Dunbar-a fine spirited gem
ius; on the stage, Ira Aldbridge, VINO
has been called the greatest Othello
that ever acted the part. And the act
or, Gilpin, who is now appearing III
New York in Emperor Jones'" is con-
sidered by the members of his profes-
sion to be one of the greatest actors in
America. There are seventy-two Negro
banks in this country, thirty-siN Negro
insurance companies, 21S,9l2 Negroes
who own farms, and more than 10000
who are business men.
The correspondent asks what are the
Negroes inventions. Perhaps he does
not know that by 1910 more than 1000
patents had been granted to Negroes
ranging from corn harvester in 1881
to a gas mask in 1917. A Negro aided
Eli Whitney in inventlng the cotton
gin, and a Negro invented the first ma
chine for attaching soles to shoes. A
Negro holds many of the important