The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1940-01-05
I. John Wood
Digesting
The News

history, our ep-udu tolu uS
there were 100000 Negroes
living in America. We thought
our step-dad was a wonderful
man and we figured he was
perhaps the only person in
the world who knew how
many Negroes there were in
America. We asked him how
he knew about the Negro
population and he told us his
dad had told him when he
was about our age. We were not
old enough at that time to con-
clude that there should be more
than the original 100000 Neg
roes in America. However, we
thought that was quite a number
of people living anywhere.
In our second year in grade
school our teacher, whose name
was Mrs. Saunders and who had a
talent for figures, told us one day
that, of all the people living in
America, 100000 of them were
Negroes. At that time we were
what you would call fresh kid"
so we asked our teacher if color
ed people had stopped being morn
or were they dying fast or some
thing. Our teacher told us not to
ask such silly questions and just
take her word for it that there
were only 100000 Negroes liv-
ing in America. We stopped ask
ing silly questions but we didn't
take her word for it.
Some years ago, we heard a big
politician say that if Mr.. Harding
were elected president he would
emancipate the 100000 Negroes
living in America. We had been
under the impression that Lincoln
had already emancipated the Ne
gro, in fact, that same school
teacher had told us about the great
emancipation. We got this big poll
tician off to one side and asked
him how about adding few more
Negroes to that number. We told
him that more Negroes are being
/ born every day etc. He just shift
ed his Ell Stinko to the other side
of his mouth and told us to beat
it, that we were too young to I'M
derstand figures of 100000 even
if they were about people. We
beat it, but not before we told him
that maybe he didn't understand
figures.
Ten Years Ago we heard DR.. r.
r. Motion tell a large gathering of
people how the influence of Tus-
kegee Institute affected the 49,
100000 Negroes living in America.
Nobody else seemed to doubt that
only 100000 Negroes lived in
America, so we did not attempt to
get DIR. Motion off to one side and
try to sneak in a couple extra mil
lion Negroes on the count. Be-
sides DR.. Motion was a great edu-
Gator and probably knew his ap-
pies when it came to Negro af-
fairs. We let him get away but we
still felt he was short on his count.
Five Years ago we attended a
big mass meeting in Brooklyn and
heard Ben Davis enumerate the be-
nefits he said the 100000 Ne
groes had derived from the Com
munist Party We had been doing
little figuring and had arrived at
the conclusion that there should
be about 100000 Negroes living
in America by now. We didn't
want to make a liar out of Mr..
Davis for a mere 100000 Neg
roes so we didn't attempt to prove
our point.
DIR. Emmett j. Scott, eminent
Republican, in a release for nation
al publication, said last week that
the 100000 Negroes in this
country are returning to the Re-
publican party. We know we
shouldn't doubt a man like DR..
Scott, but it seems to us that he
doesn't know his figures or else
there is something very rotten in
the city of Denmark.
Now in the last rs years Negroes
have rapidly multiplied and we
think these new Negroes should
be made to answer the roll call.
Negroes have no claim on longe-
witty it is true, but they don't die
any faster than they are born.
What we want to know is, what
has become of all those Negroes =?
Who has them and for what? We
don't understand how the count is
kept down, but it looks to us like
there is Negro in the woodpile
someplace. In fact, there must be