The Enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 192?-1930, 1927-08-05
The Colored Brothers


Continued From Page IL
serious effort to work out its posi-
bilities. 1t remain naive and crude.
like hoe cake.
The Negro poets, by the same tok-
en-. have done very little to justify
the excessive hospitality with which
they have been received. Put all
their work together and It is not
worth much more than any one OF
a dozen of the epitaphs in "The
Spoon River Anthology" A Negro
poet, James Weldon Johnson, has
lately published a book Of Negro
sermons in a sort of free verse, and
one Of them, Go Down, Death!" is
a genuinely eloquent and moving
poem. But no other Negro has ever
written anything even half so good.
There are plenty of poets in the
race, and many of them show a con-
siderable facility. but the best OF
them, when all is said and done,
remain second rate.
In prose there is the same tale to
tell. No Negro novelist has ever
written a novel even remotely CON-
parable to such things as "Babbitt"
and "Jurgen". No Negro writing
short stories rises above the level
of the white hacks. There is here
no prejudice to overcome, and. so
far as know, there never has been.
have been intimately familiar with
the American magazines for twenty
years and also know something
about book publishing. / know of
no magazine of decent standing that
bars Negro writer's and l know of
no publisher who refuses to publish
them. On the contrary. they are
welcomed eagerly everywhere. But
they produce little that is worth
printing.
Even the Negro publicists make a
sorry showing considering their op-
portunities. 1t is seldom, indeed,
that one of them turns out an ar
ticle or a book of any genuine value.
Even on the subject of their races
wrongs, they do not write as well,
taking one with another, as the
white scriveners who tackle the
same subject. All the really first
rate books written by American Ne
groes since the civil war could be
ranged on shelf a foot long. Here
is field in which race prejudice
counts for nothing. Yet the colored
brother has done little in il save
cultivate weeds. Is II because, until
recently, he has lacked the necessary
educational equipment? Bosh! First
rate books are not the product oil
education, else school superinten-
dents would write them. There arc
hundreds of thousands of Negroes
in the United States with far more
education than Dresser ever had, OF
Sherwood Anderson, or Carl Sand
burg.
Thus Il is apparent that the Negro
still has heavy grade ahead o.
him and will gain little from goini
over his latest hurdle, save a chanc,
to show what is really in him. / an
not altogether sure that his pro
spects in the fine arts are as goo,
as his more optimistic partisans seen
to think. He has shown that h
can do respectable work, but he ha
certainly not shown that he can d
genuinely distinguished work. i
the field of music. especially, an
full of doubts. The Negro, like tn
Bayarian, has a natural love 70
music, but like the Bavarian agai
he may be able to make only must
that is third rate.
II may be that he has venture
into the arts too soon-that the
can flourish only In a house NOR
solid and stable than the one he
just moving into. II may be tina
his greatest successes during tn
next generation or two will be mad,
not in the arts, but in business
There he seems to be making yer
rapid progress, and 1t is no long.
Fictitious and transitory. Booker \
Washington, whose memory is nc
venerated by the Negro intellectual
was probably riser than they thinl
He saw that the Negroes would hav
to have a sound economic underpiI
ming II they were ever to rise I
cultural equality with the whites
The fine arts are frequently er
riched by poor men. but they neve
flourish In poor society.
Now the Negroes begin TO pile u
wealth, and their business baron