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

held in New York soon to, discuss
Africa. The leaders in this move
ment were prominent in hooting at
Garvey because of his african con-
ferences," but now they are busy
ing themselves in studying the prob
lem themselves. What they are do
ing will have no definite survival
value il there is the design to reclaim
the dark continent for black people.
A conference bringing people from
Liberia, Haiti, South Africa and the
Gold Coast merely to establish So
Biological "datah" is indeed silly.
Maybe Marcus Garvey chuckles
from behind his prison bars and
wonders what they are planning to
do. Carney did have a program, but
this Pan-African business can have
no program unless it is to indulge in
standardization.
IL IL 10 the duty of columnist to
stir up hornets nest every once in
while, H. l.. Mencken, editor of
The American Mercury Magazine,
who writes in The Sunday World
under the heading Hiring a Hail."
will go down in history as one of the
worlds greatest columnists. Menck-
en- attacked the Negro preacher last
Sunday in pretty strong language
and for the next few weeks he may
expect to receive numerous one-way
tickets to perdition.
Now, MIR. Mencken is, after all said
and done, a human being. Like thou.
sands of other human beings who
make their bread and butter by writ
ing he may not know what he is talk
ing about, or he may know only a
part of the truth of what he is talk
ing about. We credit him with sin
certify. We can not credit him with
having spoken the whole truth in the
article complained of for the simple
reason that we do not believe that
he knows the whole truth.
Few white or coiored men know
the whole truth Of the racial situa-
ton in America. Fewer yet would
be found willing to voice it even if
they did know it.
The Negro has not been accepted
socially, whether educated or not,
and if MIR. Mencken doesn't know,
1t is not too late for him to find out
for himself. What is more, the ma
jority of Negroes are not concerned
with social equality in the way that
Mr.. Mencken thinks they are con-
cerned with it. Few Negroes care
anything about it at all. Just be-
cause a few Negroes have been found
who are willing to 60 to any length
to associate themselves socially with
white people and be patronized by
them is no reason to conclude that
all Negroes will be found willing
to do the same thing.
Give the Negro an equal opportu-
nifty inside and outside the law; give
him the equal educational and other
facilities for which he is taxed as a
citizen; let him pick his own assoc
GATES, his own leaders, and stop pc.
nalizing him because of his race and
color. and he will work out his owr
salvation.
IS =
"A patent lawyer recently placed q
small advertisement in a newspaper
advertising service in securing pat
ents, trademarks and copyrights anC
when he received a flood of letters
from the black people of ire coun
try seeking advice on tnvse subjects
he was dumbfounded.
~ never thought that colored PEG
pie were interested in those kind o.
things" said he. We are interested
in a whole lot of things that thu
white man does not give us credi
for; in fact, the psychology of tn,
American black man is almost en-
tirely unknown to the white brother
Whenever white people, particular,
Southerners, exclaim that they know
and understand us it is time for u
to laugh in our sleeves. Like tn
Arabs in the Garden of Allah tina
Robert Kitchens wrote about, mo
body but God and l knows what !
in my heart"
A shrewd minister remarked to hi
congregation some time ago that h
studied the black people more thai
he did his Bible because he under
stood the fundamentals of the Bibl,
and that it never changed, but tina
these black Americans were never un
derstood and that they changed ev
cry day. These changes are not sur
prising; they are evolutionary, an
they will come upon us more rapid
" than the other races because w
are living in civilization in whicl
they are the finished products. w
are catching up. We are not under
stood because we are isolated, segrs
gated and leperized. We have bee