Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1922-08-18

denly become reconcilcd when a just
and noble cause is to be champioMev,
! call upon you for help: l have faith
in your big-heartedness.
My book Is not polemc. It comes
by chance, when it's hour strikes. The
Negro question is Of the present. Who
made it that? Why, the Americans,
| Why, the press campaigns on the 9TH
er side Of the Rhine. Why. Romulus
Coucon by Paul RcbouX, lie visage &c
Ia Brousse by Pierre Bonardi, and
rIsOlement by that poor fellow Com.
bette. And wasn't it you, Eve. you
curious little one, who, at the begin
ming Of the year while you were still
a daily, carried on an investigation to
find out whether white woman
might properly marry a Negro?
He describes his future intentions
in the following language:
My brothers in spirit writer's Of
France. that is only too true. And that
is why it behnovcs you to come FOR
ward and declare that from now on,
under no preteXt, will you have your
compatriots who are established In
Africa cast discredit upon tho nation
OF which you are the upholders.
Let your voices be heard! 1t is right
and necessary that you come to the
aid on those who tell things as they
are and not as we should like them to
be. And, later, when the colonial SUI
uras shall have been cleansed, l will
describe some Uf these types. 1 have
Sly of al InI Tn.y hIrt lyn lnI.,,
while in my notebooks. 1 will tel,
you how, in certain parts, unfortunate
Negroes have been obliged to sell their
women for as high as scventy-five
francs and as low as twenty francs. |
will tell yOu... But l shall speak
then in my own name. not in the name
OF another. 1t will be my ideas that l
shall set forth, not somebody eIsc's
ideas. And I know beforehand that
the Europeans at whom l shall take
aim arc so cowardly that not one T.,
them will dare-I know it positively
not one of them will dare to give me
the lie in so much as the faintest wills
per.
If we knew Of what vilcness the
great colonial life is composed, OF
what daily vileness, we should talk OF
it less, we should not talk OF it Mt all.
1T degrades man bit by bit. Even
among the officials the man who cult
Yates his mind is ararity. The colon
ials haven't got the strength to stand
up against the influences Of their sur
roundings. They take to drink. Be-
tore the war there were any number,
or Europeans who could make away
with fifteen quarts Of Penrod* in q
month. Since the war, alack-a-day. I
nave met one man who beat all records
eighty bottles of whiskey in q
month that was what ne could con.
sumo drinking steadily.
Ihese and other ignoble excuses re
duce those who indulge in them to tho
last degree Of flaccidity. A condition
so ab1ect must be matter of prime
, concern to those who are charged with
representing France, the men who "a.
sumo responsibility for the evils from
"hlch certain parts Of the Negro coun
try are at present suffering. But. If
tney are to be promoted to higher posi.
tons, they must have no tales to tell,
and so, prey to ambition, they have
renowned pride, they have hesitated
temporized, concealed the truth WOW
en- tissue OF lies. They have not want
ed to see, they have not wanted ia
near. They are too cowardly to speak
out. And so, intellectual anemia ioin.
ing hands with moral debility, th,.y