The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-12
WORKERS HONOR
DOUGLAS, NEGRO
REv0LUTIONIST
Rebel
Fighter


Continued from Page ORe)
,nce proves that those are most
lbused who can be abused with the
.;reatest impunity. Men are whipped
,oftenest who are whipped easiest"
Frederick Douglas became one of
he foremost Abolitionists of his day
and all of his life fought for the
Liberation of the Negro masses.
With his uncompromising stand on
any question involving the advance
ment of his race Douglas stands
head and shoulders above the pres
ent-day, hand-picked, middle-class
Negro misleaders, tools of the white
capitalists, who FOLLOW the leader
ship of Booker T. Washington.
These present-day misleaders, in
order to deceive the Negro masses,
hold up Lincoln instead of Douglas
as the fighter for the emancipation
of the Negro race. To fight against
this the Negro workers should cele-
brate Douglass birthday instead of
Lincoln's. These Negro traitors
conveniently forget the revolution
airy role of Douglass, and as a
means to mislead the Negro work
ers, they utilize the fact that he
supported the Republican Party
which was progressive party" in
1860, but which today is the princi-
pal instrument of the oppression of
the Negro masses by the white rul-
ing class of this country.
Frederick Douglass hated all
forms of hypocrisy and fiercely ex-
posed the hypocritical role of the
church in condoning slavery. In
conversation with Henry Ward
Beecher, a famous religious bunk
shooter of that period, he stated:
81 am done with your church, your
christianity and its hypocrisy. They
have given your country over to
slave catchers and your church sane
tions it as a devine institution"
Douglass was never afraid under
any circumstances to speak his opin-
ion of the white bourgeois leaders.
In giving an estimate of Lincoln
upon the occasion of the unwilling
of the Freemen's Monument to Lin
coin on April IA, 1876, he said:
"He (Lincoln) pre-eminently the
white mans president, entirely de-
voted to the welfare of the white
man. He was ready and willing at
any time during the first years of
his administration to deny, postpone
and sacrifice the rights of humanity
in the colored people and promote
the welfare of the white people of
this country. =. To protect, defend
and perpetuate slavery in the states
where it existed. Abraham Lincoln
was not less ready than any other
president to draw the sword of the
nation. He was ready to execute all
the supposed constitutional guaran-
tees of the United States Constitu-
ton in favor of the slave system
anywhere inside the slave states.
He was willing to pursue, recapture
and send back the fugitive slave to
his master, and to suppress slave
rising for liberty, though his guilty
masters were already in arms
against the government"
Douglass apparently believed Lin
coin devoted to the interests of the
white race as a whole. Whereas,
the fact is that While entirely de-
voted to the interests of the Norh-
ern capitalists and Southern slave
holders, Lincoln did not give a tink-
er's damn about the interests of the
white industrial workers of the
North or the poor white population
Of the South.
Lincoln was the president of the
white industrialists and slave hold
ers, until the conflicting interests of
the former finally forced him re-
luctantly to abandon the slave hold
ers.
One Of the first tasks facing the
new Negro industrial proletariat,
which is today increasingly taking
over the leadership of the masses
from the treacherous intellectuals
and stock promoters, is the fight
against these illusions and against
the Lincoln myth and for the re-
viving of the revolutionary tradi-
tions of the race and the honoring
of it's revolutionary heroes.