The Omaha guide., 1938-07-23
"God Of our weary years
God Of our silent tears

Our colleague IS dead. Among
us his body will no more be seem
But omong us he erected his own
imperishable memorials; storces,
poetry, music But as long as
those of Us who knew him live,
our best memory of him will be
his friendship or his personality.
This memory will sanctify every
other meorial Of him.
When we heard of his tragic
death, what vas the expressed OF
suppressed exc amation of our
tongues or of our thoughts? "Why
him? There art many useless
creatures with legs and arms
whom Fate could have takepts
That reflection or ~utterance vas
natural, and is forgivable. But
uappns STU luq4 MouN ON op Moq
death has not better riveted our
attention upon him,-and may not
cause us the more eagerly to APP
propriate everything that he has
left US? Would a longer life and
a slower death, of old age, have
given u a saner estimate of him.
Those who called him "Jim.p had
anticipated reminiscent talks ifs
the twilight of life. We humans
always think, or feel, as Il we are
going to live forever, or almost
forever. That is a protection
which nature gives US against
tn burden Of the inevitabillty OF
Death.
We do not know, but timely
death is not altogether an evil. Tf
Abraham Lincoln had lived three
decades logner. would the 10th
century have come to regard him
as the topmost mar Of the mo-
dern world? The struggles, the
fights the chickering's and the re-
cessiions from his best ideals
would not only have panied his
years, but would have suIlied or
, clouded for a long time his true
greatness.
If Marius had died after turn
ing back the barbarians from
Italy he returned to Rome, if he
had been struck down as he NOV
ed trimph in his chariot, he would
have died a greater Roman that
Caesar. But the subsequent yicis-
STUDIES of his life wor down his
moral and social statute among
men.
If Napoleon had died at Water
loo, it would certainly have not
lessened the glory of Napoleon
II the poor man who threatened
King Edward the VIII of Eng
land now Duke of Windsor had
actually assassinated the King
that poor mar would have been
more severely punished, but he
would have saved the idea of the
most promising emperor of the
worlds greatest empire.
Who knows whether to weep
when Fate strikes? James We'll
don Johnson would not choose
"mourners'' for his funeral. He
would think of ex-comrades and
grateful people going forward
with the work in which he so
h~onorably shared for SO long u
time.
Natural as they are. there is
no logic tears; no plan or par
pose i ngrief. Men learned to
sorrow because they knw not what
esle to do. We now know some
thing better to do than to sorrow
merely when we lose n great fell
low worker. There's still the work
to be done.
The virtues of men usually live
after them. Their foibles have
shorter life. Jim" was dignified
but not uncongenial OF cold. He
was warm-hearted and normally
in "the life of the party" To the
present secretary of tn NAACP,
who succeeded him, he was al
ways a big brother. He boasted
that he had discovered the young
man in an office of a Georgia iu-
surance company. and had engip-
eered the bringing of his sue
cessor into the National Associa-
ton for the Advancement of Col
ored People.
When @Jim" went to the Fisk
True to our God
True to our Native land"
university faculty, he did not
leave the association; he became
a member of it's national board
and one of its vice-presidents-
and he kept the respect and at
feet of his colleagues until the