THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

ORGANIZED 1910—INCORPORATED 1913

127 EAST 23rd STREET

NEW YORK CITY

THE National Urban League is an organization which seeks to improve the relations between the races in America.

Its special field of operation embraces cities where Negroes reside in large numbers.

The Executive Boards of the national and of the forty local organizations are made up of white and colored people who have caught the vision of social work and believe in justice and fair play in the dealings of men with each other.

The expenses of the National headquarters in 1921 were $29,398; in 1922 they were over $40,000. In 1923 the budget is $65,000. In 1910, $2,500 was spent in the whole Urban League movement. In 1919, $140,000 was expended by the movement. In 1920 the amount was $185,000. In 1921 it was $220,000. In 1922 it exceeded $250,000.

We invite the general public to membership, which is secured through contributions.

L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD, Chairman

A. S. FRISSELL, Treasurer

EUGENE KINCKLE JONES, Executive Secretary

Virginia Union University

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

Courses offered in College, High School and Theology. Teacher's Training, Law, Pre-Medical. Moderate Expenses, Healthful Location, Strong Faculty.

For full information, address

W. J. CLARK, President

Atlanta University

Is beautifully located in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. The courses of study include High School, Normal School and College.

Special emphasis is laid upon the training of teachers.

Students come from all parts of the South. Graduates have a fine record for successful work.

For further information, address

The President, Atlanta University

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Howard University

WASHINGTON, D. C.

Founded by
GENERAL O. O. HOWARD

J. STANLEY DURKEE, A.M., Ph.D., D.D.,
President

EMMETT J. SCOTT, A.M., LL.D.,
Secretary-Treasurer

## Collegiate and Professional Schools

All departments of this great institution are on a strictly collegiate basis. The University offers courses in the Schools of Architecture; Liberal Arts; Commerce and Finance; Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering; Education; Languages; Library Science; Law; Medicine; Dentistry; Pharmacy; Music; Art; Household Economics; Public Health and Hygiene; the Sciences; Theology.

Students may enter for collegiate work at the beginning of any quarter

## REGISTRATION

Autumn Quarter ............ Sept. 28, 29, '23
Winter Quarter ............ Jan. 2, 1924
Spring Quarter ............ March 15, 1924

For Catalogue and Information Write

F. D. WILKINSON, Registrar

Howard University Washington, D. C.

L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD
Chairman

EUGENE KINCKLE JONES
Executive Secretary

CHARLES S. JOHNSON, Editor

OPPORTUNITY
A JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE

Published Monthly by
The Department of Research and Investigations
NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE
127 EAST 23rd STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y.
Telephone Gramercy 3978

WILLIAM H. BALDWIN
Secretary

A. S. FRISSELL
Treasurer

ERIC D. WALROND
Business Manager

Index---1924

ARTICLES

<table><tbody><tr><td>Abbot, Grace, Methods by Which Children's Health May be Improved, by</td><td>Jan., 10</td></tr><tr><td>Africa, Apropos of, by Alain Locke</td><td>Feb., 37</td></tr><tr><td>Africa, The Smile of, by Ernest Psichari, Tr. Edna Worthley Underwood</td><td>June, 212</td></tr><tr><td>Allison, Andrew J., Youth Get Together, by</td><td>Apr., 108</td></tr><tr><td>Allison, Madeline G., Harleston! Who Is E. A. Harleston, by</td><td>Jan., 21</td></tr><tr><td>Stories in Sculpture, by</td><td>Mar., 81</td></tr><tr><td>Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Delegates to the Convention of the</td><td>Feb., 48-49</td></tr><tr><td>"And Along Came Ben," by Ethel May Ray</td><td>May, 23</td></tr><tr><td>Art, A Note on African, by Alain Locke</td><td>May, 134</td></tr><tr><td>Art at the Barnes Foundation, African by Paul Guillaume</td><td>May, 140</td></tr><tr><td>Art, Representations of Emancipation in American, by Freeman H. M. Murray</td><td>April, 115</td></tr><tr><td>As Others See Us, by Alain Locke</td><td>April, 109</td></tr><tr><td>Baldwin, George J., Migration: A Southern View, by</td><td>June, 183</td></tr><tr><td>Barnes, Albert, The Temple, by</td><td>May, 138</td></tr><tr><td>Beatty, Blanche A., "The Negro Child in the Rural Community," by</td><td>Oct., 301</td></tr><tr><td>Bickford, Mabel E. and Walter R. Chivers, Over-Age Negro Children, by</td><td>May, 149</td></tr><tr><td>Blue, Thomas F., A Successful Library Experiment, by</td><td>Aug., 244</td></tr><tr><td>Bond, Horace, What the Army "Intelligence" Tests Measured</td><td>July, 197</td></tr><tr><td>Brown, Anna S. L., Down Mobile Way</td><td>May, 151</td></tr><tr><td>Business Institution, A Sound Negro</td><td>Aug., 247</td></tr><tr><td>Business, Some Aspects of Negro, by E. Franklin Frazier</td><td>Oct., 293</td></tr><tr><td>Business Men's Party, Notes on a trip</td><td>With the June, 186</td></tr><tr><td>Business Men's Party, Notes on a trip</td><td>With the July, 221</td></tr><tr><td>Cary, John R., Helping Negro Workers to Purchase Homes</td><td>Jan., 23</td></tr><tr><td>Child in the Rural Community, The Negro, by Blanche A. Beatty</td><td>Oct., 301</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><tbody><tr><td>Children, Over-Age Negro, by Walter R. Chivers and Mabel E. Bickford</td><td>May, 149</td></tr><tr><td>Children's Health May be Improved, Methods by Which, by Grace Abbott</td><td>Jan., 10</td></tr><tr><td>Chivers, Walter R. and Mabel E. Bickford, Over-Age Negro Children, by</td><td>May, 149</td></tr><tr><td>Christianity, The Negro and, by Arthur A. Schomburg</td><td>Dec., 362</td></tr><tr><td>Cincinnati, Lights and Shadows in, by Bleeker Marquette</td><td>Sept., 267</td></tr><tr><td>Citizenship, The Historical Basis of Negro, by Charles H. Wesley</td><td>Dec., 356</td></tr><tr><td>Clark, John T., The Negro and Steel, by</td><td>Oct., 299</td></tr><tr><td>College-Bred Negro, The Program of the Young, by Norman L. McGhee</td><td>June, 172</td></tr><tr><td>Community, The Negro and the, by William Pickens</td><td>Aug., 229</td></tr><tr><td>Contest, OPPORTUNITY'S Prize Literary</td><td>Sept., 277</td></tr><tr><td>Contest, OPPORTUNITY'S $500 Prize</td><td>Nov., 324</td></tr><tr><td>Cotton, E. P., The Mind of Primitive Man in West Africa, by</td><td>Nov., 343</td></tr><tr><td>Dentistry, The Negro in the Field of, by Stephen L. Lewis, D.D.S.</td><td>July, 207</td></tr><tr><td>Dialect in American Literature, Negro, by Daisy Miller</td><td>Nov., 327</td></tr><tr><td>Domingo, W. A., Restricted West Indian Immigration and the American Negro, by</td><td>Oct., 298</td></tr><tr><td>Dramatic Horoscope, Max Rheinhardt Reads the Negro's, by Alain Locke</td><td>May, 145</td></tr><tr><td>Dublin, Louis I. The Effect of Health Education on Negro Mortality</td><td>Aug., 232</td></tr><tr><td>Education, A Note on Negro, by E. Franklin Frazier</td><td>Mar., 75</td></tr><tr><td>France, Anatole, by Rene Maran</td><td>Dec., 370</td></tr><tr><td>Frazier, E. Franklin, A Note on Negro Education, Mar., 75; Negro Health (Discussion), Aug., 239; Some Aspects of Negro Business, Oct., 293; by</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>French Colonial Africa, The Problems of Negroes in, by Prince Kojo Tovalou Houenou</td><td>July, 203</td></tr><tr><td>French Colonial Policy (An Open Letter) to Rene Maran</td><td>Sept., 261</td></tr></tbody></table>

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

1924

INDEX FOR 1924

OPPORTUNITY

3

Recreational Work, Methods in Conducting, by Martha
Travilla Speakman Mar., 78

Replica, by Eunice Roberta Hunton Sept., 276

Richardson, Wills, The Negro and the Stage Oct., 310

Robeson, Paul, Reflections on O'Neill's Plays, by
Dec., 368

Roman, C. V., M.D., The Negro Psychology and His
Health, Aug., 237; Statistics, Stature and Health,
Feb., 48

Rural Community, The Negro Child in the, by Blanche
A. Beatty Oct., 301

Sampson, J. Milton, The Negro and Anglo-Saxon Lit-
erature June, 168

Sayre, Helen B., Negro Women in Industry Aug., 242

Schomburg, Author A., The Negro and Christianity
Dec., 362

Sculpture, Stories in, by Madeline Allison Mar., 81

Scott, Emmett J., Migration: A Northern View
June, 184

Scout Movement and the Colored Boy, The, by R. M.
Wheat Mar., 79

Simpson, Gordon H., A Note on Negro Industrial
Problems, by June, 182

Speakman, Martha Travilla, Methods in Conducting
Recreational Work Mar., 78

Stage, The Negro and the, by Willis Richardson
Oct., 310

Statistics, Stature and Health, by C. V. Roman, M.D.
Feb., 48

Steel, The Negro in, by John T. Clark Oct., 299

Stirling, Anne Biddle, On "Knowing" the Negro
Sept., 275

Street, Elwood, How Minimum Standards of Life May
be Attained Jan., 11

Temple, The, by Albert C. Barnes May, 138

Thomas, Jesse O., A Social Program to Help the Mi-
grant, Mar., 71; The Tampa Urban League,
Apr., 105

Towse, Anna B., Health Education in the Canal Zone
June, 174

Urban Leage, Report of the Accomplishments of the
National, 1923, by Eugene Kinckle Jones Mar., 69

Urban League, The Tampa, by Jesse O. Thomas
Apr., 105

Urban League's Industrial Program, The National
Apr., 123

Underwood, Edna Worthley, Alexis Sergiewitch Push-
kin, by, Feb., 53; The Negro of Peter the Great,
by Alexis Sergiewitch Pushkin, Tr. by, Feb., 54;
Mar., 84; Apr., 118; The Smile of Africa, by
Ernest Psichari, Tr., by, July, 212.

Van Doren, Carl, The Younger Generation of Negro
Writers May, 144

Verse, Black, by Frank S. Horne Nov., 330

Von Ruckteschell, Walter, by Louise Herrick Wall
May, 147

Voters and the Presidential Campaign, Negro Nov., 336

Wall, Louise Herrick, Walter Von Ruckteschell, by
May, 147

Wallerstein, Bertha, The Negro and the Jew Sept., 263

Walton, Rebecca Hull, Negro Health (Discussion)
Aug., 239

Wesley, Chas. H., The Historical Basis of Negro Cit-
izenship Dec., 356

Wheat, R. M., The Scout Movement and the Colored
Boy, by Mar., 79

Women in South Carolina Industries, Negro May, 136

Wood, L. Hollingsworth, Some Happy Results of Race
Contacts, June, 185; The Spiritual Significance of
Inter-racial Justice Dec., 360

Work, Monroe N., Taking Stock of the Race Problem, by
Feb., 41

Workers in Buffalo, Negro, by C. L. Peake Aug., 240

Workers Purchase Homes, Helping Negro, by John
Cary Jan., 23

Workers, The First Hundred Negro, by W. P. Young
Jan., 15

Writers, The Debut of the Younger School of Negro
May 143

Writers, The Younger Generation of Negro, by Carl
Van Doren May, 144

Young, W. P., The First Hundred Negro Workers, by
Jan. 15

Youths Get Together, by Andrew J. Allison Apr., 108

REVIEWS

"All God's Chillun Got Wings," by Eugene O'Neill,
Elmer A. Carter Apr., 112

"All God's Chillun Got Wings," (Review of play) by
Eric Walrond July, 220

Baldwin, William H., "The Negro Faces America," by
Herbert J. Seligman Sept., 279

"Black Laughter," by Llewellyn Powys, Montgomery
Gregory Oct., 306

Brawley, Benjamin, "The Gift of Black Folk," by
W. E. B. DuBois Dec., 377

"Bursting Bonds," by William Pickens, Joseph Gould
Feb., 59

Carter, Elmer A., "All God's Chillun Got Wings," by
Eugene O'Neill April, 112

Chocolate Dandies, The, Eric Walrond Nov., 345

Come Seven, by Octavus Roy Cohen, Edwin Drum-
mond Sheen Oct., 39

Daniel, Carrie Ora, "Mister Fish Kelly," by Robert
McBlair Sept., 278

"Darker Phases of the South," by Frank Tannenbaum,
Eunice Roberta Hunton Sept., 278

Didier, Roger, Dixie to Broadway (Musical Comedy)
Nov., 345

Ethiopian Art Theatre, Three Plays by, Eric Walrond
Nov., 346

"Fire in the Flint, The," by Walter F. White, Chas.
S. Johnson Nov., 344

Frazier, E. Franklin, "Authentic History of the Ku
Klux Klan," by S. L. Davis Sept., 278

"Gertrude of Denmark," by Lillie Buffum Chace Wy-
man, Angelina Grimke Dec., 378

"Gift of Black Folk, The," by W. E. B. DuBois, Ben-
jamin Brawley Dec., 377

"Gone Native," by "Asterisk," Eric Walrond
Oct., 309

Gould, Joseph, "Bursting Bonds," by William Pickens,
Feb., 59; "History of the Yorubas," by Rev.
Samuel Johnson, July, 220; "Men and Culture,"
by Clarke Wissler, Jan., 25; Negro School
Attendance in Delaware," by Richard Watson and
Herman Cooper, Mar., 90

Gregory, Montgomery, "Black Laughter," by Llewellyn
Powys, Oct., 306; "There is Confusion," by Jessie
Fauset, June, 181.

Grimke, Angelina, "Gertrude of Denmark," by Lillie
Buffum Chace Wyman Dec., 378

"History of the Yorubas," by Rev. Samuel Johnson,
Joseph Gould July, 220

"Hobo," by Nels Anderson, J. Milton Sampson Jan., 25

"Holiday," by Waldo Frank, Eunice Roberta Hunton
Feb., 59

Hunton, Eunice Roberta, "Darker Phases of the
South," by Frank Tannenbaum, Sept., 278; "Holi-
day," by Waldo Frank, Feb., 59; "The Long
Walk of Samba Diouf" by Jerome and Jean
Tharaud, July, 219; "Veiled Aristocrats" by
Gertrude Sanborn April, 110

"In the Land of Cotton," by Dorothy Scarborough,
Eulalia Osby Proctor April, 110

Johnson, Charles S., "The Fire in the Flint," by Walter
F. White Nov., 344

"Ku Klux Klan, Authentic History of the," by S. L.
Davis, E. Franklin Frazier Sept., 278

"Laugh A Day Will Keep the Doctor Away," by
Irvin S. Cobb, Edwin Drummond-Sheen Oct., 309

"Long Walk of Samba Diouf, The," by Jerome and
Jean Tharaud, Eunice Roberta Hunton July, 219

CHARLES S. JOHNSON, Editor

OPPORTUNITY

A JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE

Published by

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

Telephone Gramercy: 3978

WILLIAM H. BALDWIN
Secretary

A. S. FRISSELL
Treasurer

PAUL G. PRAYER, Bus. Mgr.

VOL. 2

JANUARY, 1924

No. 13

Contents

COVER. The "Bible Student".

By Edwin Augustus Charleston

FRONTISPIECE. "Portia."

By C. M. Battey

EDITORIALS

PAGE
3

1924

ONE YEAR

MARY TALBERT

BLIND SPOTS

BLACK, WHITE, AND YELLOW

HOMES FOR NEGRO WORKERS

I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH LIFE

A Poem. By Countee P. Cullen 5

ARTICLES

THE BLACK WATCH ON THE RHINE

By Alain Locke. Illustrated 6

METHODS BY WHICH CHILDREN'S
HEALTH MAY BE IMPROVED

By Grace Abbott 10

HOW MINIMUM STANDARDS OF
LIFE MAY BE ATTAINED

By Elwood Street 11

THE FIRST HUNDRED NEGRO
WORKERS

By W. P. Young 15

VIGNETTES OF THE DUSK

By Eric D. Walrond 19

LITTLE GREY DREAMS. A Poem

By Angelina W. Grimke 20

"HARLESTON! WHO IS E. A.
HARLESTON?"

Illustrated.
By Madeline G. Allison 21

PLAY AND NEGRO PROGRESS 22

"AND ALONG CAME BEN"

By Ethel May Ray 23

HELPING NEGRO WORKERS TO
PURCHASE HOMES

By John R. Cary 23

OUR BOOKSHELF 25

INTERRACIAL FORUM 26

POT POURRI 27

BULLETIN BOARD 31

"OPPORTUNITY" desires the following contributions: drawings, paintings and photographs for covers; fiction, poetry, local news of interest with photographs; and authentic articles. These contributions should be accompanied by return postage.

Single Copies, FIFTEEN CENTS—Yearly Subscription, ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF

Copyright 1923

Entered as second-class matter October 30, 1923, at the Post Office at New York, New York, under the act of March 3, 1879.

EX FOR 1924

<table><tr><td>Jan. 1</td></tr><tr><td>Oct., 1924</td></tr><tr><td>April, 1925</td></tr><tr><td>July, 1926</td></tr><tr><td>Aug., 1926</td></tr><tr><td>May, 1927</td></tr><tr><td>June, 1927</td></tr><tr><td>April, 1928</td></tr><tr><td>Mar., 1928</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 1928</td></tr><tr><td>Aug., 1929</td></tr><tr><td>June, 1929</td></tr><tr><td>Jan. 1</td></tr><tr><td>Sept., 1929</td></tr><tr><td>Mar., 1930</td></tr><tr><td>June, 1930</td></tr><tr><td>Apr., 1930</td></tr><tr><td>Aug., 1930</td></tr><tr><td>Feb., 1931</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 1931</td></tr><tr><td>Sept., 1931</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>May, 145</td></tr><tr><td>May, 142</td></tr><tr><td>Waterfowl, by</td></tr><tr><td>Mar., 83</td></tr><tr><td>May, 142</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 235</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 279</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 340</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 320</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 270</td></tr><tr><td>wn Girl, by</td></tr><tr><td>h Life,</td></tr><tr><td>Sept., 275</td></tr><tr><td>e frontispiece</td></tr><tr><td>April, 99</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 249</td></tr><tr><td>by Mar., 83</td></tr><tr><td>Weep, July</td></tr><tr><td>Jan., 19</td></tr><tr><td>; The White</td></tr><tr><td>Mar., 68</td></tr><tr><td>July, 196</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 398</td></tr><tr><td>May, 142</td></tr><tr><td>Jan., 20</td></tr><tr><td>ow Mar., 83</td></tr><tr><td>May, 142</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 398</td></tr><tr><td>ntee Cullen</td></tr><tr><td>Jan., 3</td></tr><tr><td>bar</td></tr><tr><td>e frontispiece</td></tr><tr><td>Sept., 275</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 239</td></tr><tr><td>ryant's Liss</td></tr><tr><td>Mar., 83</td></tr><tr><td>Mar., 68</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 235</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>June, 177</td></tr><tr><td>ton Dec., 1921</td></tr><tr><td>Now, 1923</td></tr><tr><td>imself, by</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 1923</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 1923</td></tr><tr><td>Nov., 1923</td></tr><tr><td>pond Jan., 1923</td></tr><tr><td>177; Vg</td></tr><tr><td>a Huntea</td></tr><tr><td>Dec., 1923</td></tr></table>

A
Op56
2

OPPORTUNITY

VOL. 2

JANUARY, 1924

No. 13

EDITORIALS

1924

A NEW YEAR in the grim processional of time begins to unlock its mysteries, and we who stand on the crest of the specious present can only shape our resolutions and our hopes by the measure of the past's fulfilment. Within this narrow twelve months' stride there have been many significant happenings. Among these the first really serious attempt to curb the K. K. K. and the passage of the first Anti-Klan laws, the new conscience on peonage (prompted by the murder of a white boy), the migration of four hundred thousand more southern Negroes to the North, the increase of thirty per cent in skilled industrial occupations, the open and successful fight on racial discrimination at Harvard, the announcement of an increase of five years in the life span of Negroes, the discovery of new voices of the Negroe's life and aspirations. In contemplation of these we can face the New Year with a fresh spirit of hope, for we move steadily, if slowly, toward our goal.

One Year

*Opportunity* is now one year old. Each of its twelve issues has been an obligation to the intelligent and socially minded public, conscientiously discharged. It has met some measure of recognition, but not enough. We want for this year at least ten thousand new subscribers. The long list of valuable contributors introduced to our readers, the careful marshalling of scientific discussion of problems relating to the Negro and to race relations, the literature and discussion of literature, refreshing poetry, critical book reviews, and attractive illustrations and the wide range of information presented, warrant, we believe, our seeking more than passive appreciation.

We need more subscribers, and each of our readers
can give added security to this venture by sending
in the subscription of at least two of his friends.
Let this be our start for the New Year.

Mary Talbert

We open the New Year with one grand figure
gone—that of an aggressively righteous woman,
Mary B. Talbert, a woman leader but not merely
a leader of women. When that heart, which we
with poetic freedom can believe was the pit of her
soul as well as her body, stopped from overwork,
movements for the spiritual emancipation of Negroes
felt it. The Anti-Lynching Crusade, the great pro-

gram of organizing the conscience and spirit of
Negro women; young, old, white, colored—all felt
it and lament. Of this life we shall have more
to say.

Blind Spots

It is difficult to believe the evidence of one's own
eyes, or to be convinced even by correct reason-
ing from undisputed evidence, when these facts
contradict the judgment, rightly or wrongly
founded, of most of the rest of the world. This
situation has made martyrs of men who were more
concerned with truth than with public opinion. It
has made equivocators, apologists, and perjurers of
those who dared not admit a fact which, tho sound,
indisputable and reasonable, failed to conform in
outline to the wishes of the crowd. And what is
most serious, some of the grossest offenders in this
field are our learned professors, scholars, writers
of text books—crystalizers of sentiment for man-
kind.

A Harvard professor sees with his own eyes and
passes thru his classroom Negro students who rank
with and sometimes above his supernally endowed
Nordics. He turns his back, closes his eyes, and
with most amazing innocence announces and ex-
plains with graphs and charts that the brains of
Negro children cease to function after the age of
fourteen. A Columbia professor with full blooded
Africans, southern and northern Negroes, blacks and
mulattoes handling successfully anything the uni-
versity has to offer, takes one hasty glance at the
figures of the Army Intelligence Tests and informs
the world that the innate capacity of northern
Negroes is equal to that of an eleven year old
white child and that of the southern Negro to an
eight year old white child. Neither his position nor
his reputation as an acute observer and psychologist
is affected in the least by this wild remark. A
Princeton professor writes a text-book which exalts
the Nordic race and debases the Negro, irredeem-
ably, on the strength of his selection and arrange-
ment of a set of figures. He has nothing to fear.
Text-books that break with tradition have a hard
time surviving.

With such respected authorities talking with com-
plete assurance about what the mental tests reveal,
it seems almost a violation of sacred ritual to have
attention called to another combination of the same
figures, equally sound, but startlingly different in
significance. In the November *Pearson's* magazine,
for example, Herbert B. Alexander groups the

4

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

scores of the United States Army Alpha and Beta tests for northern Negroes and southern whites and finds that the northern Negroes, on the average, received ratings superior to those of the southern whites. None of the scholarly volumes dared consider such a comparison. It would have confounded a theory of essential racial difference which many regard too sacred to question. Even the editors of the Army data became suddenly reticent over the crude figures which yield this comparison. They refused, for an excuse which seems trivial, to carry thru the ratings on intelligence between the states with the same thoroness which characterized other sections of the report. This was left to the scientists and advanced students who, presumably, have "honor" enough to handle them judiciously and safely. And they have kept the faith.

But consult the figures. From Illinois there were entered in the Alpha and Beta tests 1,350 Negroes with the result that 55.6 per cent received the grade of "C" or higher. If the averages for white entries for Southern States are calculated, the results show that the white entries in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, register a lower average than the average of the Illinois Negroes. Or take the average score for the Negroes of Ohio. Their record in the Alpha and Beta tests combined is superior to that of the whites in any single state in the South.

This is neither guess work, nor protest, nor defense. It is merely a use of figures which does not jibe with the racial orthodoxy about the irretrievable mental inferiority of the Negro. And what is more, it can be verified by anyone who cares to consult the figures of Chapter XV, Intelligence by States, in the Report of the American Academy of Sciences on Psychological Examining in the United States Army and the figures on the Colored Draft, tables 247 and 268 of the same report.

The explanation is simple and reasonable. The Negroes in the North on the average have better schools and a more exacting environment than the whites on the average in the South. The mysteriously salutary influence of the blood of a certain stock, in spite of hallowed beliefs to the contrary, by the same test stripped of sentiment, fails to measure up. Either the Nordic classification must be changed or the theory concerning this group must eventually go to the scrap heap. For the Southern States with the greatest per cent of pure Nordic stock and an almost negligible per cent of objectionable European immigrants show an average intelligence by the Army tests about equal to the average northern Negro. North Carolina with 99 per cent pure Nordic stock actually ranks lower than the mass of Negroes in most of the Northern States, and Mississippi, Arkansas and Kentucky show a rating inferior even to North Carolina.

There is no inclination to push this comparison from one extreme to another, but there is a definite assertion in these figures that many of our authorities, academicians as well as others, suddenly and

in incalculable ways lose their usual acuteness in reasoning and observation and their respect for truth, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes otherwise, when certain facts clash too violently with suppositions and agreeable beliefs.

## Black, White and Yellow

There is a fascinating "laboratory case" for the student of public opinion in the gradual metamorphosis of sentiment on the question of a pugilistic contest between the Negro, Harry Wills, and the present champion prize-fighter, Jack Dempsey. Putting aside, for the moment, the ethics of prize fighting, there are reflected in the present contention of millions of fight fans, who represent perhaps as near the average public as we can find, several significant and hopeful elements: It is evident that beneath the racial sentiments upon which prejudice rests there is a sense of fair play even among the rabble; that an appeal to this sense thru the same instruments of publicity used to stir up adverse sentiment can be entirely successful; that white America is becoming ashamed of honors gained thru a limited competition; that white champions who avoid meeting formidable contenders thru fear cannot safely hide long behind the hobgoblin of race feeling or race riots; that an athlete whose record is clean will be given an opportunity to display his strength and skill whatever his color.

Three years ago Mr. Dempsey's color line and little innuendoes about race trouble were received with serious assent. Mixed bouts were prohibited in many states. But mixed bouts soon began to be held in other states with no bad effects. As a matter of fact, they appeared to be more interesting to the crowd. Wills now receives an ovation wherever he goes. He has even been the guest of the American Legion. Still Mr. Dempsey fears race riots.

The comment of the New York *Sun and Globe* for November 3 is as positive as it is representative of this revolution of attitudes. "The boxing authorities", says this paper, "must know that in this case at least the race question has ceased to influence ring followers. In fact, if Wills and Dempsey ever get into the ring there will be a very large portion of the crowd rooting for the black man to win just as they rooted for the foreigners, Carpentier and Firpo . . . ." Dempsey will owe it to boxing to fight Wills even if he could not get training expenses. The fans have contributed enough to keep him in luxury for the rest of his life, and he received all that money for meeting set-ups. He can well afford to fight once for nothing more than the satisfaction of proving that he is a real fighter and a real world champion—not merely champion of the white race."

## Homes for Negro Workers

Nearly a million new Negroes have been added to the population of the North during the past seven years. These have crowded into cities, clustering around the hard pressed industries whose shortage drew them and whose temporary needs they re-

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lieved. North as well as South has its Negro
residence areas, abandoned homes of the city's
early residents. A few get out when they
have saved enough from the trifling wages of their
restricted occupations and buy. Only the security
of ownership can resist the hostility provoked by
their presence among neighbors whose skin lacks pig-
ment. But the great bulk remains in the area where
numbers increase and no more houses are built;
where rents expand as space contracts; where the
Negroes themselves become their own and worst
competitors.

The backwardness in doing something about this
has centered about capital. Several practical sug-

unintentional, which have sapped both their money
and their faith; it insures a reasonable security on
money invested, and a normal return for the use of
the money.

It would seem further that large employers of
Negro labor and even others might well consider
the material benefits of an investment of this nature.
Certainly it would prove more profitable than the
huge expenditures quite freely made at the rate of
several dollars a head plus transportation and food
for a rather questionable class of labor from the
choked markets of the South. Calculating the cost
of breaking in new workers, excess supervision for
homeless transients, a retinue of labor scouts and

I Have a Rendezvous with Life

COUNTEE P. CULLEN

I have a rendezvous with Life
In days I hope will come
Ere youth has sped and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb;
I have a rendezvous with Life
When Spring's first heralds hum.
It may be I shall greet her soon,
Shall riot at her behest;
It may be I shall seek in vain
The peace of her downy breast;
Yet I would keep this rendezvous,
And deem all hardships sweet,
If at the end of the long, white way,
There Life and I shall meet.
Sure some will cry it better far
To crown their days in sleep,
Than face the wind, the road, and rain,
To heed the falling deep;
Though wet, nor blow, nor space I fear,
Yet fear I deeply, too,
Lest Death shall greet and claim me ere
I keep Life's rendezvous.

gestions have been made here, one of the most prom-
ising of which is in the nature of an experiment out-
lined at the Conference of the National Urban
League in Kansas City by Mr. John R. Cary, a
Baltimore business man, philanthropist and mem-
ber of the Baltimore Inter-racial Committee.

The Homemakers' Association, which is a func-
tioning joint organization interested in securing
homes for Negroes, is given in detail by Mr. Cary
elsewhere in this issue. It has the merit of offer-
ing an opportunity to Negroes to become owners
and settle down, with all that this means to indus-
try and to the community; it provides a safe-guard
against the innumerable exploitations, deliberate and

other items incidental to an instable labor supply,
the difference in outlay would be negligible. Nor
need this be confined to the employers who period-
ically and often with justice are condemned for in-
creasing the problems of northern cities. The
Metropolitan Insurance Company has begun such
a housing experiment for workers. This is a sug-
gestion that would bear investigation by the suc-
cessful Negro insurance companies and indeed by
the Metropolitan itself with its 1,800,000 Negro
policyholders. If we may take the word of the
American Management Association in its report on
a recent survey, "It seems that the Negro is in in-
dustry to stay and planning accordingly seems ad-
visable."

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mission than from German propaganda—which did, however, assume serious proportions—she retired the Senegalese garrison from Coblentz, but they were replaced by two seasoned fighting units, the 26th Tunisian and the 7th Algerian, who now occupy the barracks and bridge-head of Ehrenbeitstein. I saw these troops on and off duty, and in spite of unsavory rumors which they inherited and the general demoralization of Coblentz from the prolonged barracking of troops of all nationalities, American included—I was surprised at the bearing and deportment of these soldiers. They are easily the best-groomed soldiers I have seen, with the exception of the English and the Potsdam guard-regiments. Their sergeants are picked men—mostly colored, from all of the French colonies—some of the most intelligent from Guadeloupe and Martinique. Their street deportment was better than that of the French and the Belgian soldiers; their indoor behaviour, certainly no worse—but that of the ordinary soldier everywhere in the typical barracks-towns. I stood one night for nearly three hours—from ten until nearly one, at the farther end of the boat-bridge, and watched them come in—very often sandwiched in with the blue “devil-dogs” of the all-French battalion—and they were almost without exception, merry, smart, and sober—as a sample test it by no means bore out the rumors that have centered particularly about the colored troops at Coblentz. Let me say right here—that only the tyro expects ideal conditions in a typical garrison town. I have lived in Coblentz when German soldiers were there and the German flag flew over Ehrenbeitstein: the comparison was favorable. Moreover, much worse moral conditions—startlingly worse, prevail in Cologne, where no colonial troops have ever been. There one might say is a true “no man’s land” as respects morals.

On this point of morals, which is not after all the main point—I found that where there had not been demoralization from inveterate garrisoning of troops, conditions were extraordinarily good. For instance, Konigstein. On Saturday and on Sunday

evening, I met many obviously respectable women walking unescorted as far as two kilometers from the town, through the wooded lanes, as late as ten o'clock—which is late in a small village town—obviously safe in mind and body. The next day, in company with a retired Dutch colonial official, I visited the magistrate, and he answered our inquiries about the behaviour of this detachment by saying that he had more trouble with the hundred or so Frenchmen (mostly of superior ranks) than with the nine hundred or so who were African. So it comes down to the fundamental equation in this as in all other such situations—the attitude and bearing of the women themselves. There is only one reservation to be made on this question, and that is the terrific, unfair pressure of poverty and unemployment, for which not the individual soldier but the machine behind the soldier is alone responsible. If one would believe the German pamphlets and posters, France is maintaining and abetting an army of black rapists in the heart of a civilized, self-respecting people: as a matter of fact, French discipline, ignorance of the German tongue, native clannishness, and a very considerable primitive naivete, together with the most important factor of the relatively low French pay, maintain among these French soldiers a better morale than is obtainable from the British or was obtainable, according to reliable reports, from the American soldiers. To be most frank—and therefore just, one might say that the morality of the various contingents on the whole was directly proportionate to the wage scale of the various allied armies, and that of localities directly in proportion as the towns were old or new garrison posts—for every old established garrison-town has its inveterate venial class of both sexes.

But to leave this question—for the rumors have been already repeatedly disavowed, officially and unofficially, by the French administrators, by the more liberal Germans who admit that the presence of Negro troops has made convenient propaganda, and

French and French Colonial Athletes of the Army of Occupation

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JANUARY, 1924

French Colonials

most important of all by the class most affected—the women themselves, everyone ought to read the declaration of Madame Chevinne on this question—we come to a still more important social aspect of the situation. These men were in almost every instance seasoned soldiers of fighting calibre and capacity—there were in surprisingly small degree seasoned Frenchmen—many speak only a few phrases of French. What extraordinary force was it, then, that had moulded them into a more intimate comradeship of arms than has ever existed among a foreign mercenary force heretofore? They are not French retainers—they are French soldiers, as willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for France as any Frenchman that breathes. But mere social miracle as it may seem to the Anglo-Saxon eye, they are not merely French soldiers, they are French citizens, comrades not only in arms but in all the basic human relationships. The whole mass is thoroughly leavened with the salt of French fraternity and democracy. Something was said at the beginning of this article about the intention to stick to facts—the group photographs printed here-with tell the story beyond controversy, argument, or even explanation. Taken in the associations of work, play, and social recreation, they show the democracy of the army as something not artificially imposed that breaks down as soon as the traces are down and the harness is off. From the comradeship of arms and a common cause, these men have learned how to be naturally and humanly brothers in all the fundamental relations of life. I wish especially to call attention to the fact that •it is not merely race that is ignored, but the equally or still more powerful biases of religion, caste and sectionalism have yielded as effectually to this French solvent as has that supposedly stubborn compound, color-prejudice. Not only do black and white, straight national and colonial fraternize successfully, but black Christians with black Mohammédans,

full-blood with half-caste and hybrid, men from Africa with men of the Indies, races that in Africa speak different tongues and have traditional feuds; and more significant still, men of very diverse grades of culture. We may be pardoned one single statement that before the confirmation of such facts seemed even to the writer a theory pure enough to be millenial, dear enough to be an utopian illusion. It was this:—prejudice must go at a sweep and not bit by bit; it is futile to try to eliminate one kind of prejudice and meanwhile keep and even cherish another. The instinctive social logicality of the French mind has made a clean sweep of the whole field, and in spite of its handicaps of militarism and colonial imperialism, France has here worked out a practical technique of human relationships which may very possibly earn for her world-mastery as over against her apparently more experienced and better equipped competitors.

Some one has said—the greatest secrets are the open ones. When I questioned officers and men about this unique spirit of the French army, they were frankly puzzled and at a loss to explain. The nearest approach to an answer was a very significant smile and shoulder-shrug or a blandly naive or half-cynical—"Why shouldn't it be so?" But I could not concede that there was something so inherent in the psychology of the French as to make this miraculously possible without some very concrete policy and discipline. And then accidentally I happened upon three significant scenes.

The first was a very early morning at Konigstein—almost before the morning-mist was off a meadow nearby the barracks. A group of Algerian soldiers was being put through squad drill and extended order. The unit as a whole is a seasoned, war-decorated battalion, but these were evidently fresh recruits. I asked permission to watch. Astonished by the silence of the scene, I soon puzzled out that the men understood gestures better than they understood French. And then while my eyes blinked as much from astonishment as from the morning sun, I saw white-gloved St. Cyr lieutenants down on all fours with private soldiers, demonstrating ground-crouches, ground-shifts and the like, more democratic in demeanor than the native sergeants. A tug on the sleeve here, a pat on the back there, a human quality that would have outlawed an officer in other armies, and I learned the first ground proposition—other armies are machines, the French is human.

Again in Wiesbaden—after tea, we were startled by a noise that must come from a regiment of bagpipes: there was not the slightest doubt about it—the only question was—How did those Scotchmen get here? But they were not Scotchmen. Drawn

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up in the Rathaus square, before the
palace of the French commandant, was
the full regimental band of a Tunisian
unit: a three-choired band, that for over
an hour played continuously. The brass
section excellently rendered classical
music, a bugle corps alternated with
French army music, and then in turn
came in a native reed section with
tambours whose Tunisian airs had set us
thinking of Scotchmen. Among colored
audiences of America I have seen many
varieties of color and feature, but I have
never seen a group of its size with more
varieties of the human countenance or
figure. They played expertly—one might
say, with virtuosity. An all-French de-
tachment stood at present arms through
the greater portion of the concert. The
German crowd forgot its hate for the
moment in the fascination of the music.
The whole affair was a supreme instance
of tact and cultural reciprocity. And,

moreover, it was evident to everyone that France
calls to the fore in times of peace whatever she is
pleased to call to the front in times of stress and
need. This was the second practical demonstration.

The third was equally a matter of coincidence, in
spite of the fact that I had especially gone to the
Caseme Hoche in Mayence to visit the colonials. I
had just been told by an officer that the colonial
units are very diversified in uniform, special tactics,
and even as regards matters of cuisine—which latter
are by no means small matters with Mohammedans,
and that the men are transferred until they adapt
or adjust themselves with comparative contentment.
But even then I was not prepared for the extreme
flexibility of life under what is conceded to be the
most inflexible type of organization known to man.
This barracks was a medley of types, costumes and
manners—more like a bazaar than a garrison: here
natives in French uniforms, there French in adapted
native uniforms—and pervading all a good fellow-
ship that was amazing. And if in an army barracks
one could get the unmistakable impression of free-
dom of life and respect for alien customs—and at
times this impression was strong enough for one to
imagine himself already across on the other side of
the Mediterranean—then it was quite to be under-
stood how different the French colonial attitude is
from all others. Instead of imposing her civiliza-
tion and culture, France super-imposes them.

I have heard it repeatedly said—often as if it
implied something desirable, that the colored French-
man was merely a Frenchman who happens to be
colored. One may very well get that impression
from a small class of the Parisian-trained gentry.
But here, among the average and ordinary, there
was observable something quite different and, in my
judgment, something finer and more desirable.
French in many respects, above all in ways of ex-
pression and feeling, these men were nevertheless

quite thoroughly and self-respectingly native to the
core, without the least sign or symptom of deracial-
ization. Indeed, freed from the pressure of preju-
dice and the repressions of social stigma, the sense
of race among these men was very marked, though
also very natural. And, further, the naturalness
was not one of ignorance or unsophistication, as
will be apparent from a casual but very significant
conversation. In the first place, I was instantly
recognized and warmly welcomed as colored—that
is to say, as a man with African blood in his veins:
which was indeed a relief after having been for
months localized even by most intelligent Europeans
as from almost every corner of the earth but the
right one. One correction I did have to make—in
spite of my bad French, I had to disclaim in turn
African birth and French citizenship. And then I
was in for apologetics—these men knew about the
color question in America. I was asked questions
which were either very naive or very profound:
certainly I am ashamed to confess they were not
answerable. Several asked: "Why do you stand for
it?" One suggested: "Why don't you become
Frenchmen?" To a very lame, almost jesuitical
reply, a sergeant brilliantly retorted: "Whoever is
willing to die for France is no foreigner." It was
a very enlightening inquisition, but I shall always
have a peculiar thrill of reminiscence of this scene
when at the end of the *Te Deum* the choir chants:
"Let me never be confounded." There were
several more "bon mots," all scores on the other
side, I freely admit—one particularly choice one
came from the same keen-eyed rhetorical sergeant:
"France treats us right because we fight for her—
and we—we fight for her, because she treats us
right. Voila!" And to give "voila" its idiomatic
due: "There you have it!"

A Group of Color Guards

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# Methods by Which Children's Health May Be Improved

By GRACE ABBOTT

THE subject of Child Health is one which can-
not be satisfactorily covered in a single dis-
cussion and in the time allotted to me I want
to emphasize those aspects of the subject that the
Children's Bureau has found to be of fundamental
importance.

You are familiar with the very large percentage
of defects found in the course of the examinations
made in connection with the draft during the War.
These figures only bear out the findings of all ex-
aminations of a cross section of the population that
have been made for other age periods. That is, we
find substantially the same high percentage of de-
fects among children between 14 and 16 years of
age who apply for work permits; among younger
children in school, and among children of pre-
school age. This drives us back to the earliest
period of life for the prevention of the defects that
are such a handicap in later life.

I make no apology, therefore, for devoting most
of my time to the subject of the health of the pre-
school child, in spite of the importance of health
teaching during the school years. In infancy the
first test of the intelligence of the care that is given
children is the very low one of whether we succeed
not in keeping the babies really well, but whether
we are able to keep them alive at all.

In 1921, the infant mortality rate, that is the
death under 1 year of age per 1,000 live births, for
Negroes in the birth registration area of the United
States was 108 as compared with 72 for whites.
For that year, then, the Negro rate was 50 per cent
higher than the white rate and the white rate in
the United States was 58 per cent higher than the
rate in New Zealand where the most comprehensive
preventive program has been carried out.

In a series of studies of infant mortality made
by the Children's Bureau, we have found that
poverty is the baby's greatest enemy. The baby
deaths—both white and colored—occur in largest
numbers in families in which the father's wage is
the lowest, in families in which the mother goes out
to work during the period before the baby comes
and while the baby is still of nursing age; the death
rate is higher among children born in rear houses
or houses on alleys than among those born in houses
on streets. It would be easy to say these facts
account for the high Negro rate; it would, how-
ever, be unfair to the children. For experience
shows that these handicaps of poverty can in a meas-
ure be overcome if there is made available for the
mother information as to (1) what constitutes good
care for herself before and during childbirth, and
(2) what constitutes good care for the baby.

Poverty may be accompanied by ignorance, but
there is little reason for believing that maternal
ignorance is much greater among the poor than
among the well-to-do. The well-to-do mother can
purchase the intelligence of the skilled doctor and

nurse. Wherever communities have undertaken
through well-baby clinics or child health centers to
make available for all mothers information as to
proper care of children, the death rate has promptly
been reduced. And long before the present in-
equalities in wages and in housing conditions under
which the Negro suffers are done away with, we
can and should reduce the infant mortality and
morbidity rates. Much progress has already been
made since the rate for Negroes has been reduced
in a six-year period from 181 to 108 deaths per
1,000 live births, as the following table shows:

| Year | Total | Infant Mortality Rate White | Infant Mortality Rate Colored |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1915 | 100 | 99 | 181 |
| 1916 | 101 | 99 | 185 |
| 1917 | 94 | 91 | 151 |
| 1918 | 101 | 97 | 161 |
| 1919 | 87 | 83 | 131 |
| 1920 | 86 | 82 | 132 |
| 1921 | 76 | 72 | 108 |

The National Urban League is especially concerned with the urban child. In 1921, the urban infant mortality rate for whites was 75, for colored 128; in rural areas the infant mortality rate for the whites was 70, for the colored 100. In the last five years the urban rate for all children has been reduced more rapidly than the rural rate because the organization of educational work among urban mothers was so much easier with the same expenditure of time and money than among rural mothers. But the Negro baby in the country enjoys an advantage over the Negro baby in the city, as the following table shows:

| Year | United States Birth Registration Area Total | White | Colored |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1915 | 103 | 94 | 181 |
| 1916 | 104 | 97 | 177 |
| 1917 | 100 | 88 | 185 |
| 1918 | 108 | 94 | 197 |
| 1919 | 89 | 84 | 148 |
| 1920 | 91 | 81 | 429 |
| 1921 | 78 | 74 | 128 |
| 1922 | 103 | 102 | 182 |
| 1923 | 104 | 96 | 203 |
| 1924 | 100 | 84 | 134 |
| 1925 | 108 | 105 | 143 |
| 1926 | 89 | 86 | 123 |
| 1927 | 91 | 81 | 111 |
| 1928 | 78 | 75 | 100 |

In a study made of the infant deaths in Baltimore
during 1915, the Children's Bureau found the death
rate among babies with native white mothers was
95 as compared with 158 among the babies of
colored mothers. In eight cities in which studies
were made by the Children's Bureau of more than
22,000 babies, the rate was practically the same—
154 for colored as compared with 108 for white
babies, and 94 for babies with native white mothers.
The Negro rate was not the most serious death
rate in Baltimore—the rate was 4 points higher
among the babies with Polish mothers.

Since 1915 the rate in Baltimore has been higher
and lower for both colored and white babies than
in that year; in 1921, the last year for which final
figures are available, it was 80 for white babies and

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123 for colored babies. The causes of the death rate among the Negroes in Baltimore and in the other cities are as follows:

<table><thead><tr><th>Cause of Death</th><th>Baltimore</th><th>Eight Cities (including Baltimore)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Gastric and intestinal diseases</td><td>30.7</td><td>28.1</td></tr><tr><td>Respiratory diseases</td><td>49.0</td><td>44.6</td></tr><tr><td>Early infancy</td><td>49.8</td><td>52.6</td></tr><tr><td>Epidemic diseases</td><td>16.9</td><td>17.2</td></tr><tr><td>All other causes</td><td>12.3</td><td>12.4</td></tr></tbody></table>

In Baltimore, deaths due to gastric and intestinal diseases, which is an indication of the intelligence or lack of intelligence in feeding, especially as to whether the babies were or were not breast fed, the Negroes had almost as low a rate as the native whites; in the second and third, the rate was higher than for any other race or nationality group.

I am very glad to be able to report that the United States Maternity and Infancy Act, which makes possible Federal and State cooperation in the reduction of infant and maternal mortality, has been accepted by 40 States—all except Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Louisiana, Illinois, and Kansas, and that in several of the States accepting, considerable sums are being expended in work among Negro mothers. In all the States, the funds made available under this act are being spent for educational work, especially in the rural areas.

I shall have time to speak of only one other factor in child health in regard to which educational work among mothers is greatly needed. It is generally estimated that about 75 per cent of the children in the United States have rickets during the first two years of life and that among Negro children the rate is much higher than among white children. By this I do not mean that 75 per cent of all the children of the country have extreme cases of rickets which are recognized by the seriously bowed legs and big heads that all of you have seen in the poorer districts of our cities. But it is estimated that 75 per cent of the children have had rickets seriously enough to have affected the bone

structure permanently causing flat foot, chest deformities, and other defects and making the child, throughout its life, less able to resist disease than it would be if it had not had rickets.

We now know that rickets is caused by inadequate diet and lack of sunlight and if we can work out some way in which we can be sure the babies get the necessary vitamins in their diet and can persuade mothers to let the sun have a chance to do its preventive work, rickets can be eradicated.

During the past year the Children's Bureau has made a study of rickets in Washington, D. C., which included both white and colored children. The material secured in the course of this investigation is now being tabulated. The Bureau is now following this by an intensive study of a district in New Haven, Connecticut, in which the children are about one-third colored. Here we hope to have a demonstration of how to prevent rickets. This demonstration must be made over at least a two-year period, but with it completed we shall hope to have your help in the educational work with mothers in other parts of the United States.

I am personally very hopeful that we shall see great improvement in the health of Negro children in the immediate future. The colored rate in the United States Birth Registration Area has been only a few points higher than the rate for Kansas City (100 in 1922) for both white and colored. It is not suggesting the impossible, indeed not even the impractical, when I say that we ought to reduce the urban death rate among Negro babies by one-half during the next ten years. Reports come to the Children's Bureau of opposition on the part of some doctors to a preventive child health program, but the Negro doctors are eager to help; the Negro midwife is reported to be easier to deal with than the white midwife, and the Negro mothers to be more easily persuaded to adopt good methods of child care than white mothers of the same educational and economic levels.

Address before the National Urban League Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, October 18, 1923.

## How Minimum Standards of Life May Be Attained

By ELWOOD STREET

IT is my purpose to show: (1) that the idea of a minimum standard of living is fundamental in human nature, (2) that a minimum standard of living may be attained by certain perfectly definite social devices, (3) that securing these devices and attaining these standards is a matter of moving men's minds and emotions individually and by groups, (4) that men's minds can be moved by facts properly presented, (5) that, therefore, a minimum standard of living for all people may be attained through an educational campaign unprecedented in its scope, it is true, but entirely possible, and, (6) that the attainment of the minimum standard of living simmers down to getting people to live out

in new terms, but in an age old spirit, the fundamental ideal of loving their neighbors as themselves.

The belief that a minimum well being may be attained is as old as recorded history, and even older for it goes back to legendary times. The ancient Greeks had their "Epimetheus minded" people who looked back longingly to the Golden Age when all men were good and happy and when, therefore, a minimum standard of living had been attained for all. They hoped that somehow the Golden Age might be lived out again in the lives of people in some joyous future time. The Greeks of old also had their "Prometheus-minded" people, the "forward-looking" who were forever attempt-

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JANUARY, 1924

ing to snatch from the heavens the divine fire for
kindling into happiness the lives of people in an
ideal future. The highest expression of this spirit
was Plato's Republic with its ideal state of affairs
in which all men lived lives of rational delight; the
Shakespearian age had More with his "Utopia".
Thence on down to the present time there has ap-
peared a succession of dreams as to the ways in
which poverty and disease, ignorance, vice and
crime might be dispelled and every human being
might have at least a minimum of personal welfare.
Times indeed have changed, but the spirit of man
has not. Still do we talk of the old ideal of human
happiness and well being, even if in new terms.
Instead of dreaming of Utopia, we demand with a
vigor a minimum standard of living, which shall
insure to each human being a reasonable oppor-
tunity for making the most of himself and for at-
taining whatever degree of happiness there is in
store for those from whose lives the accustomed
hazards are removed. Surely so ancient an ideal
as this is one which must be rooted in human
thought and life and one which must be some day
in some way attainable.

And that it may be attainable, one may have no
reasonable doubt. There is, of course, this differ-
ence in these modern days, from ancient days, that
we no longer expect humanity to be transformed by
some marvelous and miraculous metamorphosis
which at one blow will make an end to all the old,
unhappy order of things. We moderns know out
of what beginnings our humanity has come; how it
has struggled up from the ooze of inconceivable
ages past. We know how recent in the history of
humanity is that thing we call civilization; how
near to the surface in all of us are the traces of
savagery, even in the most enlightened of us; how
many of humanity are still savage and unen-
lightened. We recognize that we must work with
human nature as it is, but also with human nature
as it may be.

"As it may be"—that is the key-note of our dis-
cussion, for no one knows what humanity may be.
It never has had a real chance to make the best
of itself. It flowered for a brief moment in Athens
and then withered. The great miracle of humanity
which most persuades one of the presence of God
is its infinite capacity for growth under favorable
conditions. It is the purpose, I take it, of those
who advocate a minimum standard of living, that
humanity may have the right soil in which to grow
and to flower, and it is in this infinite capacity for
growth by human nature that the hope for this
minimum standard of living lies.

Minimum standards of living will never be the
same for two successive days; for as the conquest
of man over matter continues, as products are more
diversified and production becomes more effective,
as man becomes more intelligent, the standards of
what it is reasonable and possible for man to at-
tain in the way of comfort and happiness will
steadily rise also. Our struggle for the attain-
ment of a minimum standard of living will,

therefore, always remain a pursuit and never be-
come an attainment. Old standards will be at-
tained and passed, of course; the newer standards
will never be quite reached. This eternal pursuit
is both the glory and the despair of the struggle,
and yet in it lies the hope for civilization.

I have shown you, I am sure, the fundamental
human character of the belief in the possibilities of
attaining a minimum standard of living. The
second of the points I propose to demonstrate is
that a minimum standard of living may be attained
through a number of perfectly definite devices, some
social and some economic. Among these devices,
may be found:

1. The elimination of the feeble-minded so that
our social and economic lives may no longer be held
back by the incompetence and futility of those who
cannot meet the demands of modern existence. You
are all, of course, thoroughly aware of the various
means now available for the proper care of the
feeble-minded and for preventing their reproduc-
tion.

2. The study and proper treatment of those per-
sons who, while not feeble-minded, still are suffer-
ing from what our modern psychiatrists call "be-
havior problems". Their right adjustment to life
through careful treatment, the technique of which
we are just learning, will make possible for many
people the attainment of a minimum standard of
life.

3. The careful adjustment of schooling to later
life, including the continual raising of the school
age so that all children may be prepared for going
into an occupation by which they will earn their
livelihood; vocational training; vocational guid-
ance; and continuation schools for the instruction
of those who go out to work and need or desire
further training.

4. The elimination of those preventable hazards
of life which may be found in the movements for
safety and for better health. An indefinite amount
of time may be added to the days of men's produc-
tiveness for each year and to their years of life
by the prevention of disease and accidents.

5. The careful smoothing out of as much of sea-
sonal unemployment as possible, and the dove-tail-
ing together of various seasonal employments, to-
gether with a national system of labor exchanges,
so that the amount of unemployment may be re-
duced to as small terms as possible.

6. The creation of old age pensions, unemploy-
ment insurance, sickness insurance and accident in-
surance for meeting the needs of those whose dif-
ficulties are not prevented by the devices already
mentioned.

7. Public control of hours, conditions, and min-
imum wages of labor.

8. The growth of industrial democracy whereby
the workers as well as the owners may have a voice
in the conduct of production.

9. The development of systems of co-operative
consumption, production and distribution so that

JANUARY, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

the cost of all the necessities of life may be reduced to the lowest possible terms.

If all of these social and economic devices are adopted, there can be small doubt that we shall be well on the way to the attainment of minimum standards of life from the point of view of economic and social well being.

The task is too difficult and can never be done, you say? It is an impractical dream for human nature is always the same and is hopeless? Human nature is indeed always the same, but that human nature which now seems divided against itself, selfish, indifferent and ignorant, can, if we only control it rightly, almost entirely be altered in its expression. That humanity should so well provide for humanity will be no greater marvel than the conquest over the earth, the water, the air, the atom, and the molecule, which modern science is showing us. What we need to attain the minimum standard of living through the perfection of these devices just mentioned is not a conquest over men's minds, but a re-directing of them in channels so sweet and so reasonable that one wonders it has not been done long before. It is indeed a difficult task, a task worth commanding all of our enthusiasm, all of our energy, all of our skill and all our industry, and the result is worth-while. It is veritably "a salvaging of civilization", as H. G. Wells so strikingly puts it. So having made our first two points, that the idea of a minimum standard is inherent in human nature and is attainable, if with difficulty, by perfectly definite and practical devices, we pass on to our third point, just suggested—that we are to produce these social and economic devices for attaining a minimum standard of living. We must deal with human nature, and deal with it in a new way. We must replace fear and superstition, ignorance and indifference, with a new attitude toward life. We must create ideals not of spending and of personal success, but of beauty, of justice, of kindliness and fair play. We must produce a co-operative spirit. We must make people see that in a new sense we are members one of another; that their only interest is the common interest; that it is good business as well as good ethics to have intelligent and effective workers and decent fellow citizens. We must cause a redirection and a reinterpretation of the old idea, "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself."

If, however, we are to redirect men's minds so that they will be willing to make possible the conditions and establish the devices which alone can create a minimum standard of living, we must have in mind the new psychology—of groups rather than individuals. We are seeing more and more in our modern world that we can no longer act as separate units. The world is too big and too complicated and communication too widespread for the individual to continue as the sole and fundamental unit of society. The town meeting days of existence are gone forever. Location is no longer vital, and the radio and the airship make distance of no importance. We must think in terms of groups, of which one

readily thinks of many striking examples, such as the Ku Klux, the Farmer Bloc in Congress, the Mississippi Valley Bloc, and those other interests represented by labor unions, the religious denominations, the fraternal orders, and so on through the infinite number of relationships in which each one of us finds himself involved. We who would re-model civilization must work no longer with the individual as an individual, but the individual as a member of a group, and of a smaller group as a member of a larger group. We must know why these various groups have come into existence; what they purpose to do; what they think; how they work; how to get at and direct their group consciousness. It is a far cry from the lone, savage man in the jungle, or in the primitive tribe, to our present alignment of groups where race, nation, and League of Nations are engaged in rivalries bounded not by the mountains which hem in the neighborly little Grecian valleys of long ago but by the Southern Cross and the Aurora Borealis alone. This new group consciousness means, of course, that we must get at people from many angles. No person nowadays is just one thing. He may be a Methodist, Rotarian, shoe manufacturer, white, Republican, American. Each of these affiliations represents a different point of view. One hardly knows himself what he is nowadays. It is the task of those who are to bring about the new order of life with minimum standards of existence for all to know what man is; to analyze his group relationship and so to affect the mind of man that each of these relationships will stand for the highest, finest, and most worthwhile attitude toward life.

Thus has been made the third of our points, and now comes the fourth—that if we are to work on men's minds, individually and as members of groups, we must create the most powerful and perhaps the most difficult thing in the world—a knowledge of facts. All of the mistakes of civilization, I believe if analyzed, would resolve themselves to the fundamental truth that people have gone on the basis of theory and not of knowledge. Our new order of things in which everyone, we hope, will have a minimum standard of living must be based upon facts. This is a worthy creed for a scientific age in which we are just beginning to learn the nature of life and its attendant circumstances.

Before we can really make much headway toward a minimum standard of living, we must have facts on all of the features of life as completely as we have facts in some localities now on sickness and death. Social statistics must be collected to match our present vital statistics. Local, state, national and international social statistics bureaus must be created to give us continual indexes of the state of social well being, just as we now have reports on the birth rates or the cost of living. We must know whether or not a minimum standard of living exists and what dropping there is, if any, below that standard. Furthermore, we must have facts to show us why that deviation exists and if

14

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

the standard is not being maintained, what measures must be taken to attain it. Only upon such a fact basis can we proceed.

Thus our fourth point, of fact finding, passes directly into the fifth—that these facts in themselves will be of little value for the attainment of a minimum standard of living unless they are interpreted and made comprehensible to the minds of men in their individual and group relationships. We must have a mechanism for putting these social statistics into the current use and knowledge of the people. They must be expressed simply, vividly, and yet imaginatively. They must be made available for the use of churches and of schools. If for one generation only we could give to all of our children, through public, private and religious schools, a true picture of the facts of life, we should, I believe, have no trouble in the following generation in attaining an average level of well being far higher than we could now dream possible. We must make these standards available to all of the newspapers. Perhaps we must publish a special journal, under the control of government, which shall continually present these facts for public use. We must make full use of the motion-pictures and of the radio. We must have effective speakers before all possible groups. Here again comes in the psychology of the group. We must know all of the groups and all of the institutions with which we are working and adapt our interpretation of these facts to these varied groups and institutions. By such a continuous and thoughtful presentation of facts, in the proper garb, it will be entirely possible to bring about such a state of public understanding and living that the attainment of a minimum standard of living will be inevitable.

This fact finding and interpretative program of ours cannot be city-wide, state-wide or nation-wide, but it must be world-wide, for we are seeing more and more that our well being is inextricably interwined with the well being of all of the nations and races of the world. Even if we do put up our bars against immigration so that only the higher and more intelligent citizens of other nations can be added to our citizenship, that will mean that other countries will be increasingly irresponsible and increasingly menacing to our own civilization. Only a world-wide program for the attainment of well being will suffice to meet the modern problem of life. Naturally, therefore, only a world-wide program of education will suffice. Only if all people know each other, understand each other's point of view, and get to see each other as fundamentally brothers, that world-wide war can be averted, and war will make our whole humanitarian program of no avail. Civilization and war under modern conditions cannot live upon the same planet. One or the other must go, and surely all of our beliefs in the God-like nature of man must perish if we make the lesser choice.

We have agreed so far, I am sure, that a minimum standard of living is an idea fundamental in human nature and is an always advancing stand-

ard; that progress toward its attainment may be made by right relations of people to their training, their work, and their community; that these relations depend upon a knowledge of facts; and that this knowledge of facts depends upon the education of men's minds by individuals and groups on a world-wide basis.

You may have wondered in this discussion why I have not talked more about the race problem, but I think you must see very clearly indeed that this is only one of the many points of controversy on which we need enlightened and liberal intelligence. It is of no great avail to work for intelligent relationships between white and colored people if there is friction on every other point of existence. It is only by a universal program which makes better Negroes, better white men, better Catholics, better Protestants, better Jews, and better citizens, that we can handle any problem, whether it be the problem of race relations, of capital and labor, of religious or of national differences.

You may ask what the Urban League may do in this program for the attainment of a minimum standard of living. It can do a very great part by bringing about a better understanding between the races and thus help the Negro to become a more effective and useful citizen, more capable of playing his part in the establishment of a minimum standard of living and of taking advantage of the opportunities which life will afford on a minimum standard basis.

How, then, we may ask in closing, may a minimum standard of living be attained? We shall never completely attain it for, as I have said, we shall always keep pursuing it. But it is a pursuit along a perfectly definite course, with perfectly definite vehicles, and a course which will be marked as with milestones by the standards of the past which will be attained only to find new standards ahead of us. The goal is no less than the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. It will be approached by following out the principle which is fundamental to all groups, whether Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Moslem, Buddhist, or Confucian; white, yellow, black or brown; employer or employee; French or German, American or Japanese. All these apparent differences have beneath them the fundamental humanity which makes us citizens of the world. The basic organization and group to which we all belong is the brotherhood of man. The real means for attaining a minimum standard of living is the utilization of all modern science and knowledge, in a universal fact finding and interpretive campaign with a new light which will illuminate the fundamental and eternal rule, "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself"; an old rule, forever ancient, forever modern, always expressed in changing terms as civilization changes, and yet always true, for it is the ineffective basis of civilization and of human life.

*Address before the National Urban League Conference in Kansas City, Mo., October 16, 1923.*

["JANUARY, 1924", "OPPORTUNITY", "15", "# The First Hundred Negro Workers", "The Frank Story of the Experience of a Negro Welfare Worker", "By W. P. YOUNG", "Southern Negro labor, particularly from that in-
stable surplus most easily available to the labor\nscout, has presented many new problems in northern\nindustry. There is strong evidence that many of\nthese difficulties have grown out of a too casual\nhandling of this new labor supply, and an unfor-\ntunate lack of a sympathetic understanding of the\nworkers. But at the same time the untrained work-\ning and social habits of this transplanted farrago\nof farmers, idlers, unemployed artisans, adven-\nturers, and soundly valuable laborers, have not in-\nfrequently presented a sorry side to employers when\nthey have been left to shift for themselves, in a\nstrange and sometimes hostile environment. In\ninstances they have become a prey to the worst\nelements of their own numbers, and of the debased\nclasses of northern communities who alone wel-\ncome them solely that they be exploited. Mr.\nYoung in this article tells a straight-forward story\nof these difficulties and some of the results of in-\ntelligent and sympathetic oversight for a brief\nperiod. His experience is useful because it is typical\nand suggestive of the enormous waste in human\nenergies where no thot is given to these factors.", "THE EDITOR.", "IN the Fall of 1916 about 100 Negroes, the first importation of southern labor to the Lockhart Iron and Steel Company of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, was landed. For the immediate accommodation of these new arrivals two crude tenement houses were hastily constructed. One of these was a stable made over into living quarters. These two houses were intended to accommodate 16 families with two rooms to each apartment. For the immediate accommodation of the single men, a portion of a large storeroom was converted into a bunkhouse. One large room it was, scarcely secure against the elements, poorly equipped with wooden cots, poorly lighted, poorly ventilated, with poor facilities for bathing, and a heating system that consisted of three large coal stoves.", "A dining-room was opened under company\nsupervision but managed by the \"labor scout\" who\nbrought in this first group of workers. The com-\npany's purpose in operating the dining-room was to\nsee that the men were fed satisfactorily and at a\nreasonable cost. But poor selection of a manager\ndefeated the very end that they hoped to accom-\nplish.", "Twenty-four families were crowded into these\n16 two-room apartments. Over 75 men were\ncrowded into a bunk-house which, so far as space\nwas concerned, would accommodate about 45 or\n50 comfortably. Some of these first bunk-house\ndwellers were married men who came alone to view\nthe land and later send for their families if all\nwent well.", "These conditions prevailed until 1917, when an-
other group of men was brought in. With the in-\ncoming, two more tenement dwellings were built\nand in these 16 additional apartments 20 more\nfamilies were crowded. The bunk-houses were\nenlarged a trifle, and 50 more men were herded in-\nto these already over-crowded quarters. Aside\nfrom these poor living conditions, there were other\nadditional inadequacies: No one manifested a\nwhole-hearted interest in helping these people com-\nbat the prejudice that they found (for it must be\nremembered that there was but a mere handful of\ncolored people in McKees Rocks before this time\nand a sudden influx of Negroes did excite prej-\nudice); there was no one to help them get ac-\nquainted and adjusted in their new and strange\nsurroundings; there were no recreational facilities\nprovided of any kind; there were few persons to\nencourage them if they made good but myriad\ntongues to condemn them if they failed. They were\njust a crowd of men and women of various types\nbrought in and turned loose. Little wonder that\nthe Lockhart Iron and Steel Company, as prac-\ntically every other concern at that time, was con-\nfronted with trying experiences. Disorders, serious\ndisorders, excessive labor turn-over, loafing,\ngambling, and other troublesome difficulties were\nbut the natural consequences.", "And it was in the midst of these trying condi-\ntions in 1918 that welfare work at McKees Rocks\nhad its beginning. The first Saturday that I was\non the job happened to be a pay day. I had been\ntold that this was the day when the big things\n\"came off\" and I was more or less prepared for\nanything. The trouble usually had its beginning\nfrom the gambling that was defiantly carried on\nin the bunk-house. During this first week I was\nbeing regarded very suspiciously for there was a\nbelief that I was a spy either in the company's\nemploy or in the service of the government. There\nhad not been sufficient time to win the confidence\nof the people and have them really understand just\nwhat I was there to do. So on this Saturday I\nhappened in the bunk-house late in the afternoon\nwhen the games were at their height. I found\nthree games in progress. I learned that the games\nwere operated by the bunk-house janitor on a sort\nof graduating scale, the game in the front being\nthe one where the big stakes were played for, while\nthe third game was for those who, while insisting\nupon gambling, would play for only small stakes.\nAround each game there was a crowd, for as long\nas there was money to be won and lost these games\nnever suffered from lack of attendance. The\nblankets from some of the nearby cots were\nstretched out on the floor and these served as im-\npromptu gambling tables. I passed the \"lookout"]

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OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

man” unnoticed but when I was observed later, I detected a look of annoyance and contempt on the faces of those interested in the game either as spectators or participants. I said nothing but walked straight thru the building and out the back door. I knew that any attempt to break up the game would have been a risky thing to undertake.

It was not long afterward that one of our men found me in another part of the plant. He informed me that I had better get an ambulance for a fellow who had been stabbed three times and cut about the hands and face, the result of a fight that had just taken place. I hurried into the bunk-house and found that the injured man was in a very serious condition, while still other fights were in the making. I got the man to the hospital, where he finally recovered, and somehow I managed to prevent further casualties for that day. But every pay day it was the same until finally one man was shot to death. This tragedy was the real beginning of the end of gambling in the quarters. In getting rid of this menace the welfare worker was the motive force, but the job was actually put over by three of the so-called "bad men" of our bunk-house who had been converted.

In five years our plant has grown into a progressive little community. We now have seven tenement dwellings of 48 apartments instead of four. The houses have three room apartments, instead of two, and they are constructed after more modern building plans. The rental for our two-room houses is $8.00 per month and for three-room houses, $13.00. Water, light, fuel and all repairs are furnished without additional charge.

The total population of our community is about 400. The matter of an increased population will perhaps be all the more impressive when I tell you that in 1918 there were less than 30 children on our plant. Today, by actual count, there are 101, some 40 of whom were born in the houses made available by the Company. This, to me, is one of the most striking changes that has happened, for such facts in themselves are indicative of contentment and stability. And I believe that the usual experience is that wherever we find in any group or community self-respecting men and women rear-ing children, there we may expect to find also a larger moral tone. Those of our children who are old enough attend the public schools, and I am told by the school officials that they measure up with other students.

One of the factors that stands as a barrier to better housing is the careless and ignorant abuse and destruction of property. This obstacle I have tried to overcome by private and public discussion stressing the points of sanitation, hygiene, pride in home appearance and home life. Some of our women are now directing a campaign, really a contest, in which the aim of the welfare worker is being carried out—namely, the development of a greater care for property and a greater pride in the appearance and condition of homes. The contest is to run over a period of three months and a prize will

be awarded that home which the judges consider most deserving.

We know by daily experience the hardships and ills of congestion and overcrowding. There are at present 55 families in our 48 houses. As recently as last month a group of our women, working under the direction of the Home Economics Director of the Pittsburgh Urban League, co-operated with me in again calling the attention of the plant officials to our problems of congestion. A mass meeting was held and families that were experiencing the ills of over-crowding were given a chance to register their complaints and pleas for more room. Anyone of you who might have been present at this meeting could not but have been moved by the simple, sincere pleas that came direct from the hearts of these people. The actions of this meeting were recorded and laid before the company officials. Since then we have had the promise that this matter would have consideration at once. We have faith to believe that soon we are to see this very unsatisfactory condition of over-crowding minimized if not entirely relieved.

## The Bunk House

After five years we still have a bunk-house. I confess that I wish the day of bunk-house living had vanished into the limbo of the past. But we cling to our bunk-house as one of the necessary evils that conditions have not justified our doing away with. From time to time the demand is for more labor that must be imported from the South. And with the present shortage of homes and congested living in and about Pittsburgh, without ready accommodations for these new-comers, there is no other convenient place for a temporary home until such time as other and better quarters can be located. We are all agreed that the man long content with bunk-house fare will only, in rare instances, prove the most desirable type of work-man. Discontentment with bunk-house life, born of an honest desire to better oneself, is a good sign and a fairly positive indication of a man who is likely to possess all the qualities of a worth while employee.

But right now, and perhaps for some little time to come, the bunk-house must remain; however, it is far from being the place that the welfare worker found in 1918 when he arrived. These changes can best be described by a citation of some of the major improvements that have been made.

1. Our bunk-house has been made about twice its former size so that it now accommodates 125 men rather comfortably.

2. Sanitary single iron beds, equipped with double mattresses, have replaced the vermin-ridden wooden cots and single mattresses.

3. A modern steam heating system has replaced the very unsatisfactory and dangerous heating by coal stoves.

4. A washroom, equipped with porcelain basins and shower baths and conveniently located in the bunk-house, has replaced a previous make-shift arrangement for washing and bathing.

JANUARY, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

17

5. A large, light and airy men's room, with all modern equipment, has replaced an offensive out-house.

6. Steel lockers, one for each man, have replaced crude wooden boxes that were furnished the men for their personal belongings. The steel lockers have not only insured greater safety for the men's personal effects but I believe they have much to do with stimulating a greater pride in personal appearance among the men.

7. A janitor has been placed in charge of the bunk-house. He is held responsible for its upkeep as to cleanliness and sanitation and for obedience to the rules of the house.

8. The rules of the bunk-house are few but sufficient to maintain decency and order.

9. The men are provided with a weekly change of bed clothing and blankets according to their individual needs for comfort.

10. Once each year the entire interior of the building is repainted and renovated.

11. The charges are $1.00 per week.

And now let us see what these improvements have meant, not only in point of profit and happiness to the men, but in actual dollar and cent profit to the company.

We have finally made of our bunk-house a place where men can get proper rest after a long day's grind in the mill. They can keep clean and be refreshed by having adequate bathing facilities at their disposal. They are made comfortable so far as heat and ventilation are concerned. They have security for their personal belongings. In short, the men are made to feel as much at home as is possible under the circumstances, and they are at least temporarily contented. And since it is the contented man who is usually the steady, reliable worker, this means an increased production that most certainly can be measured in dollars and cents.

During 1918 and 1919, before our bunk-house was made a suitable place to live in, the monthly turn-over averaged 25% per month. In the past 18 months the highest turn-over recorded is 8%. No factor has had so great a bearing on this condition as providing the men with a comfortable place in which to live.

We have our dining-room still, but it is no longer operated by the company—it has passed into private hands. Our men are boarded at a rate of $6.25 per week, and the board, as to quality and quantity of food, is good. One of our older employees, with his wife and an assistant, operates this proposition on his own responsibility; the company guarantees the collection of board bills through the paymaster's office. Living quarters of three rooms have been annexed to the dining-room for the accommodation of those who run the business. The men living in our bunk-house are encouraged to board at the dining-room except in cases where they can find welcome among relatives and friends in private homes.

Two other additions that seem worthy of special mention are a community laundry and a

community store. Our laundry, which is equipped with stationary tubs and mechanical devices for boiling, drying and ironing, has proved a serviceable feature for our women, since it removes the necessity for having to do washing in the homes. In such small apartments washing during the day is a positive danger to every member of the family, especially in homes in which some members of the family may be compelled to sleep in the room where washing and drying is necessary, as on bad days. Our store is owned and operated by one of our young men. Here all the smaller household necessities may be purchased. The young man who owns this store is one of those who came with the first group in 1916.

## Recreation

In any industrial community of newcomers such as we find here, the progress of the group will be enhanced in proportion as means and facilities are provided, along with other things of course, for taking men's minds from the gloomy aspects of life. Our schools and cities are giving supervised recreational training to our children. They are being taught to play under normal and educative influences and the economic gain is seen in a reduced death rate, reduced costs for doctors, police, courts, and prisons. But what of play and facilities for enjoyment for the man who makes his hard daily turn in the mill and the woman who makes her hard daily turn in the home? Adults, and it makes no difference what the color of their skin, or the kind of work they do, all need, and in very fact want, the seasonal sports such as baseball, basketball, football. While only a comparatively few participate in these more violent forms of recreational sports, a vast army of workers are afforded a splendid means of entertainment. But to some people these sports do not appeal, as individuals recreate themselves in different ways, and for them as well some provisions should be made.

At Lockhart in 1918 there was only a make-shift of a baseball team. There was no room or house in which activities were centered. It was because of this lack of recreational facilities that much of the idle loafing and indifference among a certain group of the men was due. After their day's work these men seeking some way to spend their leisure time in that form of amusement that they enjoyed most, and finding the pool-rooms, moving-picture theatres and clubs in the borough closed to them, went to Pittsburgh, a distance of several miles, in quest of fun. Often they overstaid their time, with the result that when they reached home it was very late. Insufficient rest was the result and when morning came one was often physically unfit to be up early and on the job, so that day he just laid off.

Early in 1920 a recreational center, adjoining the bunk-house, was opened. Our center offers pool, checkers, cards, games, reading tables and matter, and music. Tournaments are held in all the games. Dances are given at frequent intervals; and the use of the center for birthday parties,

18

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

socials, club meetings and such festivities is en-
couraged.

The center has also been effective in maintaining
the tranquility of family life. Often I have known
our men of family to leave home in quest of amuse-
ment. Sometimes they, too, fell victims to the estab-
lished vices in public places. I recall three instances
in which this was the beginning of a very turbulent
state of affairs. Our center in supplying the de-
mand for recreation, and being situated next door
to home, has been the means of minimizing the
danger of friction in family life. The wife is
usually satisfied at home because she knows where
her husband is, and there is no inconvenience in
reaching him if necessary.

But you may say that all these activities are for
the men with but little consideration for the
women. But we do not forget our women. Thru
workers of the Pittsburgh Urban League, the
women and girls have been organized into sewing
clubs and social circles. A club of our women
recently held one of the finest social functions that
has ever taken place on our plant. They enter-
tained similar groups of women from other indus-
trial communities at a luncheon and the affair
might well have been the proud boast of any of
our finer city's societies.

Much use has been made of the moving-picture
and stereopticon machines. At one time one of
our employees owned a moving-picture machine
and regular weekly shows were given for our
workers at a very moderate charge.

In our community there is a chapel that will seat comfortably about 200 people, and a regularly organized Baptist church with a salaried minister. One regret is that some of the ministers have been of a pronouncedly low intellectual level. The spiritual needs of the people must be cared for and the church is the proper agent; but at the same time, it is just as necessary for them to learn how to live and enjoy life and get the most out of life every day that they live. As a church, the chapel has served little better than a shouting station, a place where men and women get ready to die. Our chapel, however, is also used as an assembly hall where lectures, public meetings and concerts are held. The welfare worker inaugurated the plan of celebrating all legal holidays, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Independence Day and Labor Day, with appropriate programs. These are the only holidays which our plant observes. On these occasions prominent authorities are invited to speak and the meetings have a very desirable educational value. Many of the clergy, professional, and business men of our city have been among the speakers.

In the borough of McKees Rocks our efforts in
the interest of Negroes have not been without
some encouraging results.

In 1918 I found that one of the banks in the
town had made it generally known that Negro
patrons were not particularly wanted, for the
reason that their money did not remain deposited

over a long enough period of time. Time will not
permit me to tell the story of how a change of
attitude on the part of this institution was brought
about, but suffice it to say that there are any num-
ber of our folks who are steady patrons of this
bank and several of our older men have accounts
that run well into four figures. Sometime ago
when discussing the matter of thrift among our
group with the cashier of this bank, I asked him if
he now felt that time had justified the change of
attitude on the part of the bank, and he frankly
admitted that it had.

And while speaking of thrift, I believe it is
generally true that a far larger percentage of the
migrant Negroes are saving now than at any period
since their entrance into northern industry. Most
of them are laying aside a little for the proverbial
"rainy day". I have in mind four men who have
purchased homes during the past two years and four
others who are waiting to buy as soon as something
suitable is offered for sale. I also know that they
are prepared to make substantial initial payments
on closing the deal. My records show that 71%
of our family men have accounts with some one of
the savings institutions in the borough, an increase
of 16% over figures for 1919. About 20% of our
bunk-house men are depositors, an increase of 10%.

Since 1920 there has been splendid co-operation
on the part of the borough and the police depart-
ment. This co-operation is absolutely essential to
any worker. Before 1920, too often there were
times when men were preyed upon by the police
and further victimized in the courts. Working
with the police department, the welfare agent can
do much in helping to preserve law and order and
to aid the men in getting full justice should they
fall into the hands of the law.

The men and women on our plant are also en-
couraged to exercise their citizenship rights on elec-
tion days. They are instructed in the issues and
acquainted with the candidates and urged to take
a part in the affairs of our local government by
voting.

It should be noted, too, that our men are treated
impartially in the hospital that serves the com-
munity. One day while visiting an injured em-
ployee, a member of the hospital staff remarked
that while she did not know what changes had been
wrought at Lockhart, she was certain that some-
thing worth while had taken place for that could
be told by the decrease in the number of patients
who had come to grief following some cutting or
shooting affray.

My observations have been that the white worker
has about accepted the Negro as a permanent incre-
ment in northern industry, and much of the hos-
tility against him has died out. In our plant this
state of affairs has not come about of itself. Co-
operating in every possible way with heads of de-
partments, foremen, and straw bosses, the welfare
worker has sought, first, to give them a clearer
understanding of the Negro; and whenever there
was friction or misunderstanding, to adjust any and

JANUARY, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

19

all differences with fairness to all concerned.

Always I tried to have the foremen see that there was no concerted effort on the part of Negroes to displace white men or crowd them out of their places in the plant; that they had no thought of dominating industry but had come here at the invitation of industry to fill vacancies that could not be filled otherwise, to better their condition, economically and educationally, and to work with them as fellow American citizens in accelerating the wheels of industrial progress. At the same

time, I have tried to show my men that they should not hold a "ready-to-fly-off-the-handle" attitude; that the task set before them is to prove their worth in this new field of opportunity. The result of such efforts has been the cultivation of better relationships between foremen and Negroes, and this attitude has been gradually assimilated by the workers in the mill. In my opinion it is this better and more friendly attitude of the workers on our plant that has been carried into the borough and accounts for the changed attitude in the whole community.

## Vignettes of the Dusk

By ERIC D. WALROND

It is lunch time. I am in the heart of America's financial seraglio. It is a lovely day. Spring. Oceans of richly clad people sweep by me. In my pockets I jingle coins of gold! Gold! I am tired of eating at Max's Busy Bee. The fellows who dine there are so—so—rough sometimes. Still it is the most democratic eating place I know. There is no class prejudice; no discrimination; newsboys, bootblacks, factory slaves, all eat at Max's.

Today I am "flush" and I think I ought to blow myself to a decent meal. My courage is bolstered up. Rich, I am extravagant today. I rub elbows with bankers and millionaires and comely office girls. Of seraphs and madrigals I dream—nut that I am. I look up at the sparkling gems of architecture and marvel at the beauty that is America. America!

I almost ran past it. There it is, the place with the swinging doors and the chocolate puffs in the show case. Myriads of Babbitts and elfin girls pour into it. Tremblingly I enter. It reminds me of a mediaeval palace. Mirrors, flowers, paintings, candelabra; waiters in gowns as white as alabaster; and at the table a row, two deep, of eager, bright faced youths and maidens.

I stand back in bewilderment. How efficient these waiters are! Don't they ever make mistakes? Don't they ever give wrong change? Don't they ever serve a frappe for a temptation, a soda for a sundae? Don't they ever—

The waiter's inquiring eyes are on mine. He has got round to me. I whisper my order to him.

"Oyster salad—and vanilla temptation."

I put both hands in my coat pockets and think of the beauty and romance to be found in this place. Up my sleeve I laugh at your intellectual immigrants who howl about the barrenness of America. To me it offers exhaustless possibilities. It opens up entirely new and unexpurgated editions to life. Yes, I say to myself, I must come back again. It is weirdly enchanting. The cuisine is so good. And the people here are such refined eaters! So unlike Max's, where everything is bolted down at a gulp!

Oh, why does he put himself to all that trouble? Couldn't he just hand it to me over there instead of having to come all the way round the counter

to make sure that it gets into my hands? Couldn't he have saved himself all that trouble?

He is at my side. Stern and white-lipped he hands me a nice brown paper bag with dusky flowers on it. He holds it off with the tips of his fingers as if its contents were leprous.

"Careful", he warns farsightly, "else you'll spill the temptation." I do not argue. Sepulchrally I pay the check and waltz out. It is the equivalent of being shoed out. And, listen folks, he was careful *not* to say, "No, we don't serve no colored here."

## II.

In 1918 he came to America. That means he is still a foreigner. He is not a citizen—yet! But he is going to be. It is going to be the Big Adventure of his life. But wait—

Sometimes he stops and thinks. He is a Negro. He is a foreign Negro. Every day he reads of lynchings in the South. He is besieged on all sides by vicious soul pricks. No, they'd say to him, you mustn't go South; you won't like it down there. In some places, like Texas, you can't stand up under the same roof with a white man unless you take off your hat. You would rebel against it. You, with your white man's point of view (don't you know, the white nurse woman who attends his wife once told him, as she cocked her red head on one side and shut one of her ugly cross eyes, "I think English Negroes are more like white people in their point of view, don't you think so? They're so fine—and not so race conscious.") You, they say to him, you with your white man's ways and outlook will not stand for it. They'd string you up on a tree! They'd. . .

"But I must go", he screams back at them. "I must! I can't be an American unless I am able to go South! I've got to go."

He thinks of his friend Williams. Williams is a Jamaican. But he is thoroly, spiritually, euphausically American. Some dusky folks, mistaking him for a native, so perfect is his philological assimilation—I am referring to those Afro-Americans who speak of West Indians as "monkey chasers"—come to him and say, "You know, Bill, dem monkey wimmin is de dummest—"

But Williams, who owns a lovely home in

20

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

Jersey, and has a pretty wife, a jewel of one of the best colored families of Baltimore, is not a citizen. And he doesn't intend to be one. He has been here twenty years. "America is all right", he'd say, "but I ain't taking no chances!"

### III.

I am a listening post. I am anchored in the middle of life's gurgling stream. It is a stream that is anthropologically exotic. Up in the Negro belt.

I am at a chop house on Lenox Avenue. It is a rendezvous for Negro Bohemians. I am amazed at the conglomerateness of it. Quadroons, octoroons, gypsies, yellows, high and low browns, light and dark blacks, of all shades and colors of shades.

"Well, what do you think of this young Negro generation? Think they'll amount to anything?"

"Oh, they'll fizzle out like all the rest. Wind up as porters . . . elevator men . . . janitors . . ."

Silence.

### IV.

I am thinking, thinking, thinking. Of white supremacy; of the Nordic Renaissance . . .

And again I don the armor of the listening post.

Right of me is a Negro, a very black Negro clarionetist, who, as I take my seat, rises to go out. At the table from which he rose two other men sit. One is a mulatto; the other is fair, very fair, almost white. He of the golden hair and thin lips leans back in his chair and looks at the young man about to go out.

"Say", he whispered, "kin—kin ah come along?"

The other played with it. Slowly he took the tooth pick out of his mouth and wagged his head decisively.

"Nope", he said, "I can't take you along, old top. Where I'm going the folks don't like no yalla men."

### V.

Out on the street. I whine at the whirl of dust and dirt the wind blasts up on me. I am slowly going down the avenue. In front of me is a jet black trollop. Her hair is bobbed. I snort at the bumps—barber's itch—I am forced to see on the back of her scraped neck. Ugh! Glass bottle!

I stop at Archie's. I always stop at Archie's on the way down. Out on the steaming boulevard he is, as usual. Myriads of men—please don't tell me they all work at night—talk to him about horses, horses, horses. Coming up the avenue is a woman, an anthropological metamorphosis. . . .

"May God strike me dead if I ain't telling you the truth", Archie is trying to convince a skeptic of something. "Eight years, I tell you. After me for eight long years. But I didn't bother. And talk about pretty, she was a dream. Her father was one of the richest colored men in Virginia. And she had a lovely bungalow on the South Side. Oberlin graduate too. But I didn't marry her. And I didn't have anything against her. . . . She was so fine and thoughtful. . . . Come any time at the house. I'll show you the little cuff links . . . things like that. . . . I didn't have anything against her. . . . Not a thing. Only thing she was too white. Her hair was a bit too much like old gold. . . . She was too white. . . ."

Coming up the avenue is the anthropological metamorphosis.

"Sure she ain't white, Archie?"

"Ah don't know . . ."

"Seems lek she . . ."

Goes the mystery by. Then . . .

"Naw", Archie spits, "she ain't white. Can't you see her neck?"

## Little Grey Dreams

Angelina W. Grimke

Little grey dreams,
I sit at the ocean's edge,
At the grey ocean's edge,
With you in my lap.
I launch you, one by one,
And one by one,
Little grey dreams,
Under the grey, grey clouds,
Out on the grey, grey sea,
You go sailing away,
From my empty lap,
Little grey dreams.
Sailing! sailing!
Into the black,
At the horizon's edge.

JANUARY, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

21

"Harleston! Who Is E. A. Harleston?"

A VISITOR at the 135th Street Library Exhibit of Paintings by Negro Artists paused to study the new and almost illegible autograph on a group of paintings. These pieces were clearly among the outstanding numbers of the exhibit, hanging quietly and vaguely labelled, striking and altogether delightful in their faithfulness to life, and executed with confident, accurate stroke.

"Harleston! Who is E. A. Harleston? A man of his genius should most certainly be widely known."

But like his autograph, Mr. Harleston had first to be found and drawn out—for he seems to care considerably more about his art than his popularity. The paintings on exhibition were all Negro subjects. Art studies from life have been confined almost entirely to the types familiar to artists. They have not been seriously troubled with the complications which grow out of the attempt to portray accurately and with proper effect and balance the elusive color of the Negro. Perhaps this difficulty may have contributed to some extent to the frequency of caricatures of Negro subjects. It is true that most attempts to achieve this blend are faulty. And it is to this difficulty that Mr. Harleston has directed his efforts and it is from this source that much of his inspiration derives. The photographs of the paintings which accompany this sketch, unfortunately, fail to do justice even to those features of a painting which can be caught by the camera, and some of his pieces are not here included. The painting of his "Bible Student" is

"The Soldier"

reproduced on our cover. He looks as though any moment he might look up from the book, turn to you, and talk.

There was the painting of a battlefield and several colored soldiers—looking at the soldier in the foreground who is about to fall and hear no more the loud canons, nor feel the warm blood flow through his veins—there was only one thing that kept back a natural tear—the over-powering, peaceful resignation that Mr. Harleston had put into his countenance; and there was a landscape—my favorite—with trees that seemed to speak, and flowers that smiled, and a bridge with the sun rays mirrored on it, over a quiescent lagoon—a little paradise. A certain realness comes to the canvas and the paints that this artist uses.

Nor has Mr. Harleston reached his cherished goal without the usual discouragement, but patience, determination, and hard work are among his qualities. After studying in the public school and Avery Normal Institute in Charleston, S. C.—his birthplace—he entered Atlanta University and was graduated in 1904. In 1905 he was admitted to Harvard University, but as the work he elected to take in the Fine Arts Department was only of a theoretical and historical nature, in 1906 he entered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where for eight years he studied under modern masters—Paxton, Hale, Benson, and Tarbell. In 1922 he opened the Harleston Studio in Charleston, where portraits in oil, charcoal, pastel, and French crayon are made according to the highest artistic standards. It is a custom in Charleston for

"A Type"

22

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

each Mayor to have a large oil painting made of himself for exhibition purposes. Though Mr. Charleston is at hand—an absolutely capable artist—not once, as yet, has he been given the chance to display his genius.

In March of this year Mr. Charleston will reach his forty-second birthday. His mother, whose encouragement was his inspiration, has passed on; his father, who is 68 years of age, has given up his seamanship and conducts an undertaking business, assisted by his son, in Charleston. Four other children are engaged in various business pursuits.

For the past eleven years Mr. Charleston has devoted his talents to a study of colored people. To

paint them not in caricature, but with the classic technique and an exact portrayal of features and color, through shadow effects and a blending of colors; to make compositions in industry, religion, and social contact is the ambition of his life. And in his endeavors, Mr. Charleston has the valued assistance of an accomplished wife.

Unlike some artistic folk, Mr. Charleston is a well-groomed person; a clear, olive color covers his very regular, small features; his hair is gray, but there's youth in his soul, in his movements, and a charm in his soft and eloquent speech.

Madeline G. Allison.

## Play and Negro Progress

NEGROES in 47 cities are now enjoying programs of community recreation, announces the Playground and Recreation Association of America, which maintains the Bureau of Colored Work of Community Service. Professor Ernest T. Attwell, an outstanding Negro thinker, directs the field work of this Bureau. He has made community play his profession so that he can help his race to obtain much needed play facilities and play leadership.

Wholesome and abundant play, think many authorities on social conditions and race relations, can make one of the strongest contributions to Negro progress. America's more than ten million colored citizens, whether they live in the South or the North, the city or the country, have found few opportunities for the right kind of recreation open to them. In many sections normal social life for Negroes is entirely lacking. But both colored groups and their towns and cities have lately been turning their attention to this problem. The present 47 effective programs of community recreation for Negroes are offering a shining example.

Community Service recreation programs for Negroes are supported by contributions from the colored people, often helped by white friends, and by the city government. In Norfolk, Virginia, the city appropriates $5,000 each year toward the colored Community Service work. Organized community play activities among Negroes include playgrounds for children, boys' and girls' clubs, music, dramatics, athletics for folks of all ages and social evenings. In many cases the activities center around a community house, such as the one in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which has been attended by more than 1,000 colored people a month. Douglass Community House in Kalamazoo, Michigan, is the center of social life for the Negroes of the city and its influence also extends out into the country.

Not only have these community programs fostered health and fun and neighborliness among Negroes, but through their artistic side they have enriched the life of cities as a whole. The "Festival of Negro Music" presented by the colored Community Service of New Haven, Conn., made musical history in that city. No other people

can sing the Negro spirituals with the same sympathy and spontaneity as colored people and the performances of the spirituals, as well as of music by modern Negro composers by colored community choruses in a number of cities, has helped to preserve this typically Negro music and to familiarize all with its beauty. A recent pageant of Negro progress in Rockford, Illinois, brought out a large crowd of both white and colored people and received enthusiastic praise from leading white citizens.

In cities which support Departments of Recreation, special recreation for Negroes has often been arranged. During 1922, 70 cities maintained playgrounds exclusively for the use of colored children. Indianapolis has set aside for the recreation of her colored people a tract known as Douglass Park, equipped with playgrounds, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, horseshoe pitching courts, and a huge concrete swimming-pool built at a cost of $70,000. Colored play leaders are in charge. The way in which the colored people of Indianapolis have been flocking to enjoy this park proves how much in need of just such recreation they have been.

Though public recreation facilities are needed by all, they are especially needed by Negroes, who as a rule can get no recreation except the expensive and often degrading commercialized kind. Splendid laws recently passed by the states of Iowa and Illinois should be of interest to all Negroes living in these states who desire playgrounds, parks and other public facilities for wholesome recreation. These laws oblige a city or town to submit the playground and recreation proposition to its voters if a petition to this effect has been signed by a small proportion of the voters—10% in Illinois and 15% in Iowa.

Regular play together under supervision is the surest way for colored children and young people to get training for health, team work and good citizenship which will work toward the progress of the race. The social, artistic and civic activities that are part of community recreation programs for colored people of all ages are giving them happiness and self-expression and making them more mindful of the welfare of the group.

JANUARY, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

“And Along Came Ben”

By ETHEL MAY RAY

He made a pathetic picture when he shambled into our office one morning, not overly clean, dressed in a nondescript cap, shirt and pair of trousers, with another old cap pushed half way down into a back pocket. His lip was badly swollen and the right eye nearly closed.

During the interview he fingered the cap which he had been wearing. In his slow manner of speech we learned he had “beaten” his way from a small town in Louisiana where he had been living with his mother’s parents; that he could neither read nor write; that he believed himself 18 years old—in reality he is about 15. He was looking for work—“I can do mos’ anything.”

Upon inquiry as to the cause of the injured eye and lip, it came out that there had been a fight with some boys about a cap he had found—he pointed to the cap in his back pocket. After treating the injuries and feeding him, odd jobs about the Center were done in return.

He proved very willing, apt, truthful, and unusually fond of headgear. Every few days another cap or hat would appear that he had found, picked up or bought from a man for “two-bits.” Extreme care was taken of these new possessions—they were brushed and dusted carefully in spare moments. He was given some old clothing which he took fairly good care of—and he talked of the time when he would get a whole suit of clothing—a coat too. He had been to school a few days, it seems, but had forgotten how to write his name. One day, after setting a copy before him to practice on, he brought in a slip of paper with the word “FOX” printed and said: “That’s what my grandpa calls my uncle.” He had remembered this word and knew what it meant. He was willing to learn to write and kept at it quite steadily, only falling asleep once while so occupied. He was familiar with money and seemed to have no difficulty in counting change.

After he had been with us about a week, one day without any warning he “burst forth” into song—one of those plaintive croons or blues of southern plantations—we decided it was from sheer happi-

ness, however, and not loneliness—he never appeared sad and said he didn't want to return home.

He had a peculiar way of moving quickly now and then. I can't understand yet whether it was his first experience on the second floor of a building or what made him do this particular thing—nevertheless, often he would come into a room, cross quickly to a window, push it up as far as it would go, and lean way out—so far out that only half of his body remained in the room. The first time he did this, the incident was breath-taking—I expected to see the rest of him disappear also. Perhaps it was the novelty of looking down on the busy street of passing people, racing automobiles and noisy, clanging street cars.

After a month's stay with us, we found a home with a couple who had no children and who wished to give him a home, clothing and an opportunity for school in exchange for assistance with the man's janitor work in an apartment. They got in touch with us through a notice in the local paper that a “Big Brother” was needed.

He drops in to see us frequently and is happy. He is always dressed very, very neatly—has two or three suits now—wears a collar and tie all of the time—keeps his shoes shined nicely, and along with the outward transformation it seems he has lost most of his original shamble. I mustn't omit the fact that the once kinky hair is now straight, glossy and slick. He is enthusiastic about night school and informs us that he is “learning nearly everything.”

In the meantime we notified his relatives of his whereabouts and his grandfather requested his return, but it didn't seem quite fair to send him back to a life of darkness just when he had the door of opportunity opened to him, and when he is eagerly making the most of his chance to learn.

During the Christmas season, the time of year when all wanderers wish for home and relatives—he went to Louisiana, but not to stay.

Ben is only one of the many young fellows whom the Community Service Urban League of Kansas City, Missouri, has helped during the year.

Helping Negro Workers To Purchase Homes

The housing situation in Baltimore does not present such acute problems as exist in some other large cities because the migration from the South has not been very large and the proportion of dwelling houses in relation to inhabitants has been very high for many years, and still remains so in spite of some reduction in the supply of new homes. This means, as regards the Negroes, that the sections in which they live need to be enlarged, that the homes which are being vacated by whites who are moving to the suburbs shall be made avail-

able for Negroes through assistance in purchases, and that their present homes shall be improved in quality and rentals so reduced that congestion may be lessened.

To meet these needs a Commission from the Inter-racial Conference formed a corporation with power to buy, sell, lease, manage and build, adopting a title that would be familiar to residents of Baltimore where building associations have long flourished, The Homemakers' Building and Loan Association. To conform to the law and avoid tax-

24

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

ation it is strictly mutual, and stock is sold on the usual installment plan or is fully paid in $100 shares. The well-to-do whites who have been willing to invest to help in the start have taken full paid stock and most of the Negroes are paying at the rate of twenty cents a week, although the weekly payments are not compulsory and the stock can be paid for as the holder is able. Dividends have been paid at the rate of 6% from the start, the expenses being very light owing to the clerical work being contributed.

Half of the directors are white and half are Negroes, the theory of the plan being based upon co-operation of the races, and three of the whites have had unusual real estate experience. Combining as it does the provision of a safe form of accumulation as well as investment of funds and assistance in securing homes, the Association can be of great help to the group in whose interest it was formed, showing them at the same time how to use their money to help their race.

No building has been done yet, and only the strongest and least needy have been reached; but the foundation is being laid for extension into wider fields, the wisdom of going slowly and becoming familiar with the problems being recognized by the management. One house has been turned into apartments with modern facilities, and ten houses have been sold to stockholders, at a total investment of about $35,000.

The significant feature of the work of the Association is in the method by which it sells the properties to purchasers, for it does not require them to purchase and then mortgage to the Association as is the usual custom. It buys the property itself and puts the purchaser in the house with a contract of sale which provides for weekly payments on the basis of rent. The following extract from the printed circulars will give the details:

When a stockholder has enough money in the Association to pay the expense of legal transfer of a property to the Association, six months' expenses, (ground rent, taxes, etc.) four weeks' payment of dues and interest and a fee for the management of the property until paid for, the Association will endeavor to find and buy a home suitable to his needs and allow him to occupy it upon the following terms:

A Contract of Sale will be given him in which the Association binds itself to deed the property to him when he has paid for it through regular weekly payments, each of which shall be made up of the following items: one week's proportion of the yearly expenses, such as taxes, ground rent, repairs, etc.; twenty cents dues for each one hundred dollars of the cost of the property, and twelve cents for each one hundred dollars, as interest, this being subject to reduction as each one hundred dollars is paid on the principal. Under this arrangement payment would be made in full in ten years, but the purchaser has the right to pay as much more as he may be able; and the principal payments are increased as the interest decreases, thus lessening the time.

An illustration, suppose a house is to be bought for $2,800, subject to $60 ground rent, with taxes of $80. The amount necessary to have on deposit would be $250, and the weekly payment would be $12.96. In less than ten years the house would be paid for in full.

The advantages of the plan will be recognized at once. In the event of the purchaser being unable to carry through his contract, the Association has in hand a constantly increasing sum to cover expenses until there is a re-sale; the expense and unpleasantness of foreclosure of a mortgage is avoided, and the risk of loss is reduced to a minimum. On the side of the purchaser the earnings which would have gone into rent are steadily buying a home, the cost of carrying it being also reduced to actual figures free from profit. When a good flow of funds from such purchasers is assured it is the purpose of the directors to work out plans for dealing with a group of smaller earning power to whom houses must be rented, certainly for a time until the reduction of rentals enables them to have a margin for savings.

John R. Cary.

## An Extraordinary Literary Document

Beginning with the February issue, OPPORTUNITY will publish serially the remarkable story of *THE NEGRO OF PETER THE GREAT* by *Alexis Sergiewitch Pushkin*, translated for the first time from the original Russian by *Edna Worthley Underwood* and contributed by her to its columns.

Mrs. Underwood is a writer and linguist, a member of the Authors' League of America, the author of *The Penitent*, (reviewed in "Opportunity"), *The Garden of Desire*, *The Whirlwind*, * Songs from the Plains*, and translator of *Evenings in Little Russia*, *The Songs of Hafiz*, *Moons of Nippon* (old poets of old Japan), *Short Stories from the Balkans* and *Famous Stories from Foreign Countries*.

THE NEGRO OF PETER THE GREAT was written by Pushkin at the command of Nicholas the First of Russia. The subject was Нанibal, his grandfather, called by Pushkin, Ibrahim. The Imperial archives and private family documents of the royalty were used for his researches. This story, told in the brilliant style of Pushkin, "the real creator of the true national poetry of Russia", was never entirely completed. Before it was finished, Pushkin died.

With this document there will be published three poems by Pushkin, translated by Mrs. Underwood —*A Memorial, The Captive and Gypsies*, and a story of the poet's life.

JANUARY, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

OUR BOOK SHELF

“The Hobo”

By NELS ANDERSON

(University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois)

In order to study "The Hobo", we must first find out what sort of being he is. This assertion of the apparently obvious is not so silly after all, for there is a hierarchy in what we are pleased to call "trampdom". Do you, for example, know the difference between a Hobo, a Tramp, a Homeguard, and a Bum? To most of us these are all interchangeable terms, but to the student of the hobo, the latter is very worthy of sympathy, if not of respect.

According to St. John Tucker (page 87)

"A hobo is a migratory worker. A tramp is a migratory non-worker. A bum is a stationary non-worker. Upon the labor of the migratory worker all the basic industries depend. He goes forth from the crowded slavemarkets to hew the forests, build and repair the railroads, tunnel mountains and build ravines. His is the labor that harvests the wheat in the fall and cuts the ice in the winter. All of these are hobos."

A study of "The Hobo", then, becomes a study of the migratory worker—a very different concept from the prevailing one. Various causes, not all economic, may contribute to the creation of the hobo. A defect in personality, wanderlust, or a life crisis may be as effective causes as unemployment or racial or national discrimination on the job. Whether some or all of these have brought him into being, the hobo is more than a mere bum, beggar, or petty thief. True, he may descend to these lower scales, and rarely he may rise above his present rank. At all events he is a worker and generally one "unable to find or unable to hold a permanent job." Restless under the monotony of general labor, yearning for a change of scene, he travels from place to place, returning to the "main stem" to seek another out-of-town job, continually repeating the process or dropping out of the worker class into the tramp or bum division.

Obviously, therefore, the employment agency or the labor exchange in a big railroad center like Chicago is an important item in his life—and in any consideration of means to solve the problem he embodies.

Simply because Chicago is a mecca, not only of the hobo but of the other classes of homeless men as well, the Chicago Council of Social Agencies undertook an investigation of which the present volume is the result. The findings, though primarily of reference to Chicago, indicate very clearly and conclusively in the language of the book (page 269)

"(a) that any fundamental solution of the problem is national and not local, and (b) that the problem of the homeless migratory worker is but an aspect of the larger problems of industry, such as unemployment, seasonal work, and labor turnover."

Accordingly a national program is suggested as a basic need, and also a program to supplement it locally in Chicago. It is probably not too much to hope that this program will prove helpful to other communities while the country as a whole is attempting to solve the problem of unemployment.

J. MILTON SAMPSON,
Chicago, Ill.

“Man and Culture”

By CLARKE WISSLER

(Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York)

Dr. Clarke Wissler is Orator-in-Chief of the Department of Anthropology in the American Museum of Natural History. The collection comprises articles of human manufacture of all periods of time from all parts of the world. These objects, which are curios to us, were parts of the routine of daily life to the original owners. It is perhaps natural that with such material around him, Dr. Wissler should be lead to reflect upon the diversity found among men, and to see a connecting thread. Dr. Wissler is the first man to try and write a book on culture as a whole, and he does not attempt to define it too narrowly. He believes that from the dawn of history the factor of curiosity has been strong in man, and that this has lead to invention. He feels that man has adapted himself to life by the trial and error method. There is no tragedy deeper than that of the genius who lives before his time.

Each group or tribe thinks itself superior to others. The human environment into which we are born seems to us natural and to furnish the best way of meeting life. Dr. Wissler makes us feel the essential similarity of different civilizations. He is able to take his reader away from the present and to make him look at Euro-American culture from the outside. We realize that our way of life seems best to us because we have rationalized our prejudices, but that it would seem absurd to men of another training.

Dr. Wissler is very wary about his use of facts, and he avoids dognastic assertions and the acceptance of improved hypotheses. He is at his best when he uses the cultures of the American Indian as an illustration of his remarks, for he is most familiar with this brand of ethnological research. The origins of culture are too remote for any positive statements, but Dr. Wissler traces the way in which culture is diffused. He does not take a very pronounced stand on the principle debate of ethnologists today as to whether all culture originated in one place, or whether there were several independent inventions; but he summarizes the arguments of both sides. He holds that, "There is a strong case for the universality of diffusion, in fact, a trait of culture is about as contagious as the measles."

Dr. Wissler's general conclusion is best put when he says, "What we see as we look about the earth are a number of culture nuclei, more or less in touch with each other. What we see is strikingly analogous to volcanic activity, these different centers appearing as so many craters, cones of varying diameter, all belching forth the molten lava of culture, their respective lava fields meeting and overlapping, but as in true volcanoes the lavas differ one from the other and from time to time, and each crater contributes something new to the growing terrain. Again craters become extinct, and new craters break forth in between. But the important point is that in all of them once burned the fire of originality. No view of culture recognizing but a single crater from which all is supposed to flow, can stand before the situation as now revealed."

JOSEPH GOULD,
New York City.

In our February issue the following books will be reviewed: "Holiday" by Waldo Frank, "Bursting Bonds" by William Pickens, and "Marching On", by Ray Strachey. The reviewers are Eunice Roberta Huntington, Joseph Gould, and Lilian A. Lottier.

OPPORTUNITY

JANUARY, 1924

## INTERRACIAL FORUM

Compiled by MADELINE G. ALLISON

THE BOSTON, MASS., HERALD: "Instead of fomenting the controversy over race qualities, it might be well to concentrate on the work needed to discover, develop and utilize capacity wherever found."

IN THE LOWELL, MASS., COURIER-CITIZEN: "The phobias that are running strong against color in this American democracy are not always discriminating. Anybody whose skin is not lily white is liable to be maltreated."

THE SPOKANE, WASHINGTON, SPOKESMAN-REVIEW: "Migration northward apparently has had no ill effects on the colored person. When the life span of a people lengthens by as much as five years over a decade, it is indicative of far reaching changes in conditions of life."

JOHN HOPE IN AN ADDRESS IN KANSAS CITY, Mo: "I am a part of all that I have seen and heard and done, and had done to me."

IN THE NEW YORK GLOBE: "Until the ten or eleven million Negroes of the United States attain their due share of training, there will continue to be lost a vast potential force for efficiency and good citizenship."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: "All Americans are in the same boat, and they will never reach their destination safely unless they insist upon fair play all around and a considerate and tolerant treatment of their fellows."

ANNE BIDDLE STIRLING IN THE PHILADELPHIA, PA., EVENING PUBLIC LEDGER: "The education of the white children of the North, especially as to the real facts of the inter-racial situation in this country, is one of the most important things now before the American public, and one which is going to have a great bearing on this subject within the next twenty-five years."

FROM THE NEW HAVEN, CONN., TIMES LEADER: "No fair mind will condemn the colored people for arraying themselves against those who are unwilling that they should have a fair chance to advance in all the occupations and educational opportunities of life."

FROM THE BUFFALO, N. Y., COURIER: "The press, the schools and the pulpits of the nation can do no better service than to exhibit the Ku Klux Klan, as long as it feeds on racial and religious hates, as the worst present menace to America's social, political and religious life."

THE SALEM, MASS., NEWS: "The story of the progress of the colored race up from slavery is a fascinating one, and will eventually be considered one of the achievements of American life."

THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN THE NEW YORK GLOBE: "The word Americanism has been soiled by being used by some groups for the purpose of furthering their brutally intolerant designs. Such a group is the Ku Klux Klan who have banded together against certain creeds and races. Americanism never goes masked and he who tells you it does lies."

FROM THE ROCHESTER, N. Y., DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE: "Any blanket prejudice against any race, sect, clan, family or group or class of citizens with a common bond of blood, belief, or anything else, does frightful injustice to the superior high-minded, useful, and admirable individuals which such groups produce."

THE CHARLOTTE, N. C., OBSERVER: "The returned Negro to the Cotton Belt is likely to find better housing conditions and better wages. For this he is sure to give better work. So, in the end, the experiences of the year are destined to turn out to the advantage not only of the Negro, but of the farmers as well."

FROM THE CHICAGO DEFENDER: "The Klan of course will die. The end of it virtually is in sight; the roots are decaying, but we doubt that the end will come as a result of the Atlanta tragedy. As soon as this country retrieves its momentarily mislaid sense of humor, it will laugh the Klan to death."

GORDON H. SIMPSON IN THE ST. LOUIS ARGUS: "All problems relating to the welfare of any racial group can best be settled by co-operatives of other groups concerned. It is no longer a question of co-operation for the Negro but, rather, co-operation with the Negro."

DR. JOHN HOPE, SPEAKING IN PITTSBURGH, PA: "We must bring it to pass that the American people will cease to think of Negroes in one way and other people in another way. We must bring it to pass that the American people will think of Negroes as they think of other races of men—entitled to the same rights of life, liberty, and the same opportunities."

ROBERT W. WINSTON IN CURRENT HISTORY: "With hat in hand, the southern Negro is more than safe, he is happy—if he is that kind of Negro."

JANUARY, 1924

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POT POURRI

In Georgia

The Atlanta Constitution is one of the ablest, best known and most fair-minded newspapers in the South. It has been favorably disposed towards the Negroes and their enterprises and toward the guarantee of their rights, civil and personal. Just now it has called attention to the successful and worthy enterprises conducted in that city by its 75,000 Negroes. In the words of the Constitution: "They own and operate a $500,000 bank and trust company; the largest Negro insurance company in America; great building and contracting corporations; large office buildings; scores of industries with payrolls reaching into the millions a year; and several colleges and universities."

The Constitution places special stress on the just published history of three interlinked Atlanta Negro institutions "that perhaps have no equal in the world for the wide scope of their business and influence—the Standard Life Insurance Company, the Citizens' Trust Company, and the Service Company." As subsidiaries to these institutions there are various corporations pertaining to realty, construction and the farm; also an organization devoted to charity. The Atlanta editor goes on to say: "This history itself, almost incomparable in its artistry, is the product of a Negro publishing house" and this "great co-ordinated force is in the interest of Negro development along constructive, not destructive, lines."

He justly asks why this type of story about the Negro should not be told to the world. "Negro lynchings in Georgia always get first page displays," he states, "and in general magazine stories portray the black as thriftless and drifting, an ignorant semi-slave, bound by religious superstition." The tendency of the times is to emphasize his weaknesses and, to exploit his short-comings. But there is another side to the shield and the Constitution properly and pertinently takes the occasion offered by the publication of this record of achievement to lay emphasis on the other side and to ask the country at large to give it due consideration.

We are assured that "statistics will show that as an actor in the economic progress of Georgia the Negro's rate is increasing year by year instead of diminishing, as the world is made to believe by the stories that emphasize the bad and hide the good."

Fall River, Mass., NEWS.

Be On Your Toes Every Minute

The thoughts of a Negro athlete, jotted down on a piece of paper just before he participated in "the real college game of my life", are worthy of wide circulation. John Trice was his name, and he was a member of the Iowa State College football team. He was injured in the game with Minnesota on October 6, and died two days later.

Part of his creed reads: "The honor of my race, family and self is at stake. Every one is expecting me to do big things. I will. My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about the field tomorrow . . . . Be on your toes every minute if you expect to make good." That last line hits the spot. It is a policy that is practiced by successful men of all races. We have to be on our toes every minute in this age if we expect to make good. Trice died trying to make good. That is a good way to die.

Nashville, Tenn., TENNESSEAN.

The Exodus

A survey of the Negro migration from Southern States shows that 100,000 members of that race have gone during the present year. It shows that only 10,000 left annually for a few years beginning in 1916, and that it has increased yearly since then. In all 400,000 have gone.

Emigration has become so pronounced in Alabama that industrial leaders of Birmingham augmented an advertising campaign to check it. In one of the advertisements in the Birmingham News they declare, "The exodus has been a grave economic problem for the last few years." The plea is in the form of a parable, in which they say:

> Once there was a valuable servant. His master prospered through his work. The servant was not swift always and rarely was he skilled in any line, but he did things that other men refused to do. He plowed in the fields, he gathered the harvest, he dug from the ground coal and iron and then in heat that blazed, he worked the iron into steel. He cut trees in the woods and sawed them into lumber.

And the best of it all, he ate the things that the man he worked for would not eat; he wore the clothes of the man he worked for when the clothes were old. And he did his work for little money. He was content to live in a house that merely kept out the wind and rain. So simple were his wants that the man he worked for forgot he had any.

The man let his house leak, he let others break in and disturb or take away the servant's simple possessions. The servant asked that he be protected; but the man paid no heed.

Then one day the man called for his servant, and he received no answer. The servant had gone away to a far country.

The man's fields went rank with weeds, his coal and iron stayed in the ground, his lumber grew in the original trees; and the man and all his friends found that getting even the simplest things was a great task—such simple things as he once gave his servant—all because the servant had gone away and there was none to take his place.

Back of all this exodus is the restriction of immigration. When the United States, after a century of open arms to the ambitious of Europe, closed its doors except to a limited few, the steel

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mills and other factories of the North needed help such as they had received when the ports were open to foreign labor.

Several hundred thousand people, when the war broke out, were called to the colors by their country, and they swarmed back to Europe. This took away many of the workers and accentuated the situation when the war was over and factories resumed their peace-time operations.

The first to realize that the Negro would fill the program that formerly had been filled by foreign labor was the employment agents, who began a campaign for factory recruits from the cotton fields and southern factories. Wages were alluring, prospects seemed bright, and the exodus grew and grew. Some weeks it falls off, and then it picks up again.

There is no doubt that the South has been temporarily injured by the emigration. The Negro perhaps gets better wages, but have the factories and the North benefitted by the influx? Everything moves peacefully as long as employment runs at full tilt, but what will be the situation when the jobs are scarce and the high wage paid the Negro is reduced?

There also are economists in the South who believe all is not bleak because of the shift. They believe it means the South will diversify its crops; that cotton, in which the Negro was regarded as an essential, will maintain a high price; and that time will show that cheap Negro labor has not caused a stagnation in the Southern States, and has not deprived them of the position to which their resources and opportunities entitle them.

There are many who believe that, like the prodigal of old, he will return home. But the problem worrying the South is what home is going to do in the meanwhile? That is the problem the South is trying to solve.

St. Louis, Mo., STAR.

## Toledo

The Inter-racial Conference, just held, received and considered the valuable report of the expert survey director who has been engaged the last four months in studying the city's Negro population.

In 1914 there were probably not more than 500 Negroes in the city; due to the shortage of labor after the war, we now have fully 10,000 members of this race. From 1910 to 1920 the increase in the Negro population was 200 per cent as compared to 44 per cent for the entire population. More than other northern communities, Toledo's Negro population represents those who have come to stay. Instead of being segregated, the colored people of Toledo are to be found in eight sections of the city.

Four thousand persons are employed in 179 different productive occupations; formerly all the members of the race were in personal service occupations. Eleven per cent are skilled laborers, 17 per cent are semi-skilled, and 72 per cent unskilled. Ten years ago 98 per cent of the Negro population was unskilled. Working conditions and treatment

in Toledo are the same for the Negroes as for white workers in similar occupations. The average wage per week is $29.84, which is $9 more than these same people received in the South. The employers of more than 60 per cent of the Negroes engaged in factories reported that their Negro labor was as efficient as the white labor which preceded it.

Thirty-five per cent of Toledo's Negroes have bank accounts with an average of $185. Eighty per cent of Toledo's Negroes are insured with an average policy of a little more than $900.

Toledo, Ohio, TIMES.

## From a Social Reform Worker

There is something pathetic in the following extract from a communication received by the *Times* from a colored woman who has been doing "social reform" work among her people: "I heard a gentleman, very high in the esteem of the Chattanooga public, say the other day that 'The Negro would be a much better citizen if he would only keep cleaner than he does and raise his children to be more orderly and kempt in their personal appearance.' I simply want to know how the colored people—the day laboring masses among them—can keep clean when they have not the most primitive means of doing it? And I would like to know how we can teach orderliness and kemptness to our children when the vast majority of the houses we are forced to live in would completely belie the effort we might make to so teach them?"

While cleanliness and orderliness are, perhaps, not essential to the man who wields the pick or the shovel, they are essential qualities to good citizenship and a sense of individual responsibility. The man would be a much more efficient laborer; he would have more heart to do his day's work and be more efficient in what he does, if he could feel while at his labors that, when he is through, he might go to a comfortable and attractive home and find there the accessories for cleanliness and restfulness. And his impulse to work faithfully would be further stimulated if he could feel that his children had opportunities of growing up in environments something more inspiring than are provided for pigs and beasts of burden.

This despairing cry from this faithful colored worker may well be made a part of the literature of the propaganda for better housing facilities in this city.

Chattanooga, Tenn., TIMES.

## Charles Banks

In 1873, in the little hamlet of Clarksdale, Miss., then scarcely more than a plantation store headquarters, a Negro boy was born to a couple who were servants in the Clark family. His name was Charles Banks. He went to Negro public schools in Mississippi and in Arkansas, and became really well educated. Later on, having been thrifty and saved his money, he bought some plantation property at Mound Bayou and announced his in-

JANUARY, 1924

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tention of creating a Negro community. Other Negroes moved there, and Banks aided them in acquiring small farms of the wonderfully rich delta soil. He organized a bank, and became its president. He bought more land himself. He had a cotton gin there, and aided in the building of good schools. His planting interests became extensive, and he was interested in a mercantile establishment. In Mississippi, Charles Banks became a sort of Booker Washington—the real leader and exemplar for his race.

Mound Bayou was exclusively a Negro community; it had its own municipal officers, contables, deputy sheriffs—and it was as orderly a town as there is in the State of Mississippi. There were no drones or loafers. Everybody was busy and prospering, owning their homes, owning businesses, educating their children. It was Banks' firm belief that the South offered to the Negro the greatest opportunities; and that with good will toward the whites, who, he maintained, were the best friends of the race, the Negro would get along well, if he would work and cherish no grievances.

Charles Banks died the other day—and his funeral at Mound Bayou was attended by some of the plantation princes of the Delta. Oscar Johnston, president of the First National Bank and head of the Coahoama County Chamber of Commerce—one of the greatest planters and financiers in Mississippi—delivered an address in which he paid glowing tribute to the dead man. Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Cutrer, large plantation owners, were there. Mrs. Cutrer was a Miss Clark; it was upon her father's plantation that Charles Banks was born. Mr. Cutrer is a banker, lawyer, planter, and typical of the best there is in Mississippi. He spoke of the fine qualities of Banks and the friendly relations he had always maintained with the best white people. More than 2,000 people attended the funeral, among them hundreds of whites, who sincerely respected and mourned Charles Banks.

The life and example of Charles Banks, of Mississippi, might be studied with profit. What he has accomplished, others can accomplish. White people aided him in his plans. White financiers helped him get his bank on its feet and finance many a small farm owner. White planters were generous with help and with advice, and they relied upon Charles Banks as an unwavering friend. He in turn never faltered in his good feeling and reliance upon the best element of the whites—and Mound Bayou is today a monument to Banks.

Birmingham, Ala., NEWS.

## On Southern Farms

Interesting, timely and useful suggestions for coping with the problem presented by the migration to the North and East of the Negroes from the farms of the South are contained in an interview dealing with his subject, given out Saturday by Chairman John A. Rogers of the State Highway Commission. Mr. Rogers, who owns extensive

farm lands in Alabama and is an experienced and practical planter, stated his views regarding the migration of the southern Negro northward and the reasons underlying this movement, as follows:

> "The migration to the North of the Negroes of the South has put many people to theorizing about this question. They will talk to you about social conditions, lack of sympathy, education, lack of protection in the courts, and so on. The real cause that takes the Negro North is the same that brought our ancestors to this country and brings foreigners here. The Negro can earn more money in the North than he can in the South.

> "If the South had the great industrial centers of the North which give employment for wages at high rates, the Negro in the North and the white man in the North would flock to the South to get these wages. You often hear of discussions by bankers and philanthropists seeking to provide a remedy for the migration of the Negro and looking toward keeping him in the South. This question is an individual one rather than a cooperative one. To illustrate what I mean:

> "On yesterday I had a conversation with a gentleman who owns a plantation in Sumter County but lives elsewhere. He said he had been to Sumter to collect rents for 1923. His tenants are all Negroes. I asked him had he collected the rents. He said nearly all, but not quite; that one of two tenants had not made enough of a crop to pay the rent, but he hoped to get the balance due eventually. In other words, this alien landlord had taken everything his tenants made for the rent and when they had not enough to pay him the rest, he expected them to get it for him by outside work of some kind.

> "This kind of thing is going on all over the state. Failures in crops, especially under boll-weevil conditions, are bound to come from time to time. If, when these failures come, the landlord shows absolute indifference to the welfare of his tenants, by what process of reasoning does he expect them to stay on his farm? Men, women and children have to live, whether they be Negroes or white folks, and when they are in almost a helpless condition on account of ignorance and poverty, as many of the Negroes are, what are such people to do for something to eat and to wear when their crops fail? There can be but one answer to this question and that is to seek employment at something else besides farming.

> "An ounce of actual knowledge earned from experience is worth a ton of theory. This statement is an axiom. It is true of every condition that may come up in life. It is true of the relation between the Negro and the white man, landlord and tenant, farmer and share cropper.

> "I live in Sumter County, in the northern part of which the lands are worked almost exclusively by Negroes. I know of two men in this part of Sumter County, neither of whom live on their farms and neither of whom have ever lost any tenants. One of these men is E. P. Allison, of

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Bellamy, who owns many thousands of acres of farm lands in Alabama. The other is my brother, E. M. A. Rogers, of Eutaw, who owns large acreages in Sumter County. It is my belief that if their method of handling tenants should be copied generally in the South, the migration of the Negro to the North could be reduced to a minimum.

"In Alabama, as in most of the Southern States, the white people have moved from their farms to the villages, towns and cities. They rent their lands to tenants, and then leave the tenant to shovel for himself. The tenant, having to live, gives chattel mortgages to merchants. A short crop year comes. The landlord demands his pound of flesh regardless of what may happen to the tenant. The merchant is under no obligation to take care of the landlord's tenants. He is out his money for supplies to make the crop. His only recourse to collect a little of what is owing him is to foreclose on the livestock of the tenant.

"When the mortgage is foreclosed the tenant is left without the means of going on. This condition, more than anything else, is the cause of so many Negroes leaving the South."

Montgomery, Ala., ADVERTISER.

## John Hall

A Negro messenger in the Federal Court Building at New Orleans died, leaving an estate estimated at $100,000. This is unusual for a colored man no matter what his occupation. It is unusual for any man performing so lowly a service.

Negroes are not given to saving. It seems to be a weakness of the race to spend what they earn. But here is a colored man engaged in a most modest service at a very moderate pay who has accumulated a neat fortune. That fortune represents faithful service and years of devotion.

This colored man years ago was appointed messenger in the Federal court-room. He was one of that old type of colored man who was naturally polite and obedient. He did not oversize himself. He took pride in his work and had a high regard for any confidence imposed in him. And this was the secret at the foundation of his fortune. A Federal judge, who had been on the bench a number of years, appreciated the services of this colored man who had been such a faithful servant and when he died he left the colored messenger a legacy of $25,000.

Instead of leaving his job of menial service as most men, white or black, would have done upon receipt of such a handsome gift, the old colored messenger stuck to the job he knew and invested his money in real estate. The rise in values of real estate and his savings made the large fortune that John Hall left at his death. He began his job as messenger while a boy not more than a dozen years old. He stuck to it for forty years and his reward was ample. For there was more than a money recognition of his faithful services. The court re-

cessed when he died and the officials attended his funeral in a body.

Color is no bar to fortune. There have been a number of colored men and women who have distinguished themselves by their faithful service. But it was in the line of useful endeavor that distinction came to them all. All fair-minded people are glad to see the colored people make the most of their opportunities and enjoy the fruits of faithful service. But in the service and reward of this particular colored man there is a lesson that many a white boy might well copy.

Orlando, Fla., STAR.

## K.K.K. Philosophy

No one can read the speech made in Dallas by Dr. W. H. Evans, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, without being struck by the utter futility of Klan philosophy as a basis for a political program.

Dr. Evans' contention is that we have three unblendable groups—the Negroes, the Jews, and the Roman Catholics. None of them, he says, can ever be good Americans of the hundred-per-cent brand. The Negro comes of an inferior race that can never equal the white; the Jew is—well, the substance of the imperial wizard's grievance seems to be that he is a Jew; and the Catholic, he says, owes temporal allegiances to a foreign potentate. Genuine Americanism, in the Klan view, must be white, Gentile and Protestant.

It isn't worth while to refute this nonsense. We merely ask if it is true, which it is not, what does the K.K.K. propose to do about it? Dr. Evans implied that he would close the doors to immigrants who were Negroes, Jews or Catholics, which could be done, but what of those who are already here? He does hint at a solution of the Negro problem through the gradual dying out of the race, but that is no solution at all; and certainly the Jews and Catholics are not going to hasten the day of a perfect hundred-per-cent state (as conceived by the Klan) by committing hari-kari.

The fact is that even if we admit that the problem is what the Klan says it is, Dr. Evans has no solution of it to offer. The "World Almanac" gives the Catholic population of the United States as eighteen million; add the ten million Negroes and the Jews, and you have accounted for a third of the people. Dr. Evans says that they are not and never can be good Americans. Very well, what are the good Americans like Dr. Evans and the rest of the nightshirt brigade going to do about it? The only answer the Klan has ever returned is summed up in one word—persecution. Toward these thirty million "unblendables" the hundred-per-centers are to be as nasty as they can. It is a fine recipe for a-happy country, is it not?

New Bedford, Mass., STANDARD.

JANUARY, 1924

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BULLETIN BOARD

President Coolidge

Included in his message to Congress, President Coolidge has made public the following sentiments:

"Numbered among our population are some 12,000,000 colored people. Under our constitution their rights are just as sacred as those of any other citizen. It is both a public and a private duty to protect those rights. The congress ought to exercise all its powers of prevention and punishment against the hideous crime of lynching, of which the Negroes are by no means the sole sufferers, but for which they furnish a majority of the victims.

"Already a considerable sum is appropriated to give the Negroes vocational training in agriculture. About half a million dollars is recommended for medical courses at Howard university to help contribute to the education of 500 colored doctors needed each year. On account of the migration of large numbers into industrial centers, it has been proposed that a commission be created, composed of members from both races, to formulate a better policy for mutual understanding and confidence. Such an effort is to be commended. Everyone would rejoice in the accomplishment of the results which it seeks. But it is well recognized that these difficulties are to a large extent local problems which must be worked out by the mutual forbearance and human kindness of each community. Such a method gives much more promise of a real remedy than outside interference."

* * *

Art

There are several ways by which practical encouragement can be offered to Negro artists, whether professional or amateur. One of these is the holding of an exhibition which gives the public an opportunity to see this somewhat undeveloped side of the Negro and also affords an opportunity for the artist to place his work on sale for prizes. With this end in view the Literary Round Table of Albany, New York, has undertaken to hold an exhibition of paintings, illustrations and sculpture, by Negro artists during the week of February 4th 1924.

The Albany Art Colony, an organization of the most successful artists in the capital district, has sponsored the exhibit and will assist in the preliminary arrangements. A publicity campaign will be conducted through the medium of the press and other agencies. The success or failure of this exhibit will depend largely upon the co-operation from those invited to send their work. Communications may be addressed to The Literary Round Table, 10 Jeannette Street, Albany, N. Y.

In a contest held by the Poetry Society of America, Countee P. Cullen won the second prize. There were 700 competitors from 63 colleges. Among the judges were Carl Sandburg, Alice Corbin, and Mr. Bynier. Mr. Cullen is a student at New York University. During his training at De Witt Clinton High School, Mr. Cullen was awarded the first prize in a contest held by the Federation of Women's Clubs. His offering was "I Have A Rendezvous With Life", which is reproduced in this issue. In the recent contest the title of his poem, 200 lines, was "The Ballad of the Brown Girl".

* * *

Personal

In the death of Phil H. Brown the Negro race loses a member who was the Director of Negro Economics in the U. S. Department of Labor. He was appointed to this office in 1921. Thirty years ago he worked in the Government Printing Office. Drifting into publishing on a small scale, he moved to Kentucky where he became the editor of a group of newspapers circulating among the colored people. For many years he served

as delegate from Kentucky to the Republican National Convention.

In the November issue of "Opportunity" the letter from Dr. Stephen J. Lewis which was signed "Head of Dental Section, National Medical Association" should have read Dental Editor, *Journal of the National Medical Association*.

* * *

Tuskegee Veterans' Hospital

The three colored nurses—Evelyn D. Robinson, Della Woode and Zelda H. Peck—who were summarily suspended from duty at the Veterans' Hospital by Colonel Stanley have been re-instated. On July 23, 1923, they were charged with the statements that hospital sheets were given for robes to Klansmen participating in a demonstration on the hospital grounds, and that the paraders were fed in the hospital commissary. Dr. J. R. A. Crossland has been added to the staff to serve in conjunction with the Commanding Officer. This appointment is regarded as a move on the part of Director Hines to ultimately appoint Dr. Crossland, who is colored, as head of the hospital.

* * *

Education

An epidemiological study of respiratory diseases is being made among the students of Howard University by Dr. A. B. Jackson, in co-operation with the U. S. Public Health Service. Inasmuch as these students come from every part of the country, an opportunity is afforded to study the various types of susceptibility manifested by those from climates differing from that of Washington. A questionnaire dealing with the past and present history of each regarding his having had any of the respiratory diseases, influenza, asthma, com-

President Coolidge at the Statue of the Late Booker T. Washington

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JANUARY, 1924

The Varsity Team of Howard University

mon colds, pneumonia, tuberculosis, tonsilitis, etc., has been filled by every student at the university. Every two weeks a check is made to determine the development of any such affections during the interim. Many questions are to be answered by this survey—What sections of the country show the greatest prevalency to the respiratory diseases? How do climate and habits of living affect the issue? What part do out-door life and exercise play? What are the predisposing conditions which seem to favor or check such diseases, and to what extent are they preventable?

The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History has issued the annual report of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, director of the organization and editor of *The Journal of Negro History*. The Association was organized in Chicago, September 9, 1915, and incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia, October 3, 1915; the first number of *The Journal of Negro History* was issued January 1, 1916. The purposes of the organization are: to collect sociological and historical data; to publish books on Negro life and history; to promote the study of the Negro thru clubs and schools; and to bring about harmony between the races by interpreting the one to the other. Thru recent appropriations of the Carnegie Corporation and the Laura

Spellman Rockefeller Memorial, a definite program of investigations can now be systematically carried out. In addition to three fellowships of $500 each—to students assigned to the fields of anthropometric and psychological measurements of Negroes, African anthropology and archaeology, and history as it has been influenced by the Negro—the Association is offering a prize of $200 for the best collection of tales, riddles, proverbs, sayings and songs which have been heard at home by Negro students of accredited schools. The address of the Association is 1538 Ninth Street, N.W., Washington, D. C.

## Athletics

Our picture shows the Howard-Lincoln football teams. In their annual contest, held this year at the National League Park in Philadelphia, the game ended in a 6-6 tie. The outstanding stars were Byrd for Lincoln and Captain Doneghy for Howard, both of whose consistent ground gaining and good generalship was noticeable. On the lines, Long, Dokes, Smith and Priestley starred for Howard, and Lancaster, Coston, Morgan and Crudup for Lincoln. The score was: Howard, 6-0-0-0; Lincoln, 0-6-0-0.

Lincoln University's Varsity Football Team

FISK UNIVERSITY

ADMISSION AT BEGINNING OF EACH TERM OR
QUARTER IN OCTOBER, DECEMBER, MARCH OR JUNE

*High Grade Opportunities for Serious Students*

## SUMMER QUARTER

June 6—August 15

The Summer Quarter is divided into two terms, June 6—July 11, and July 11—August 15, in order to meet the requirements of ambitious teachers. Furthermore, in order to lessen the period of strain of summer study and to leave some vacation for everybody, classes will recite for six days a week for ten weeks and give the same credit as is usual for five recitations a week for twelve weeks. This is the practice of one of the great universities.

## CONCENTRATED STUDY

Students are offered three credit hours of work per day, covering three, or two, or one subject.

Students can give their full term to one subject such as Physics, Chemistry, Latin, French, and so secure in ten weeks the work ordinarily given in one subject for an entire year.

## SUMMER QUARTER

OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHERS

Ambitious teachers desiring credit toward degrees have wide opportunities here.

Training in fundamentals in English, in mathematics and other High School subjects.

* Methods of Teaching

* High School Administration

* Supervision and. Critic Work

* Music

* Manual Arts

## THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE

whether college graduates or not
will be interested
in our

* Home Reading Circle

* The Fisk Chautauqua Course
leading to a diploma.

For Information Address

THE PRESIDENT, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee

## SHAW UNIVERSITY

RALEIGH, N. C.
OPENED SEPTEMBER 18, 1923,
AS AN "A" COLLEGE

The first Institution for Colored Youth in North Carolina to receive "A" rating by the State Department of Education.

Other Departments are Academy (beginning second year), Business, Theological, Missionary and Social Service.

Degrees given: A.B., B.S., and Th.B.

Terms reasonable. Send for new catalogue.

Address:

SHAW UNIVERSITY, Raleigh, N. C.

## ROBERT M. TAYLOR

*New England Employment*
*Office*

REAL ESTATE AND
INSURANCE

72 HUMBOLT AVENUE
Roxbury, Mass.

*If Coming to Boston, Write Us*

## PAINE COLLEGE

AUGUSTA, GA.

STANDARD COLLEGE COURSES
APPROVED TWO-YEAR NORMAL
ACCREDITED SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
UP TO DATE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

"To develop leaders you must have the best possible material for literary training and that is what we are striving for at Paine College!" said one of the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This church contributes largely to the support of Paine College.

A Good School at Reasonable Rates

RAY S. TOMLIN, President

The Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute
at Daytona, Florida

*Under the auspices of the*
**BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NEGROES of the**
**METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH**

"A School of Personality"

Co-educational—A Balanced Curriculum. Academic training through Junior College, Model Training School for Teachers.

SPECIAL INDUSTRIAL TRAINING
Featuring for Boys: Bricklaying, Carpentry, Tailoring, Agriculture, Laundering,

Featuring for Girls: Sewing, Cooking, Weaving, Home-Gardening, Poultry-raising, Laundering.

McLEOD HOSPITAL AND TRAINING SCHOOL
FOR NURSES (Registered)

Physical Education and Athletics Emphasized
For further information write

MARY McLEOD BETHUNE. - - President

These Books Should Be Read and Owned

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO<br>Chicago Commission on Race Relations</td>
      <td>$4.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE BOOK OF AMERICAN NEGRO POETRY<br>James Weldon Johnson</td>
      <td>1.75</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>HARLEM SHADOWS<br>Claude McKay</td>
      <td>1.35</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO</td>
      <td>2.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>YOUR NEGRO NEIGHBOR</td>
      <td>.75</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO<br>Benj. Brawley</td>
      <td>4.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE MODERN KU KLUX KLAN<br>H. P. Fry</td>
      <td>2.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE VOICE OF THE NEGRO<br>Robt. T. Kerlin</td>
      <td>2.50</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>NIGGER-A NOVEL<br>Clement Wood</td>
      <td>2.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE NEGRO PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES<br>Frederick Detweiler</td>
      <td>3.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>DEMOCRACY AND RACE FRICTION<br>J. M. Mecklin</td>
      <td>2.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE NEGRO FACES AMERICA<br>Herbert J. Seligmann</td>
      <td>1.75</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE MIND IN THE MAKING<br>James Harvey Robinson</td>
      <td>2.50</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>HISTORY OF THE NEGRO CHURCH<br>Carter G. Woodson</td>
      <td>2.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>DARKWATER<br>W. E. B. DuBois</td>
      <td>2.00</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>IN THE VANGUARD OF A RACE<br>L. H. Hammond</td>
      <td>.75</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>THE TREND OF THE RACES<br>George E. Haynes</td>
      <td>.75</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>BURSTING BONDS<br>William Pickens</td>
      <td>1.50</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Orders may be placed with us for any of the books listed above

With a year's subscription to "OPPORTUNITY" ($1.50) you may procure any one of four valuable and interesting books at an amazing saving:

1. NEGRO YEAR BOOK
*Edited by Monroe N. Work*

A standard reference volume on matters relating to the Negro; a compendium of dependable and useful information. Price 50c. With "Opportunity" $1.60.

2. WHEN BLACK MEETS WHITE
*By Louis T. Hill*

A masterful plea for inter-racial cooperation. Price $1.50. With "Opportunity" $2.25.

3. THE NEGRO IN OUR HISTORY
*By Carter G. Woodson*

A valuable historical treatise; concise, dependable, illustrated—a book for the library of every American citizen. Price $2.00. With "Opportunity" $2.75.

4. NEGRO FOLK RHYMES
*By Thomas W. Talley*

A delightful and stimulating collection of Negro folk-poetry. Price $2.25. With "Opportunity" $3.00.

Please add 10 cents for postage on books.

Address: "OPPORTUNITY"

127 EAST 23rd STREET, NEW YORK CITY

PRINTED BY WINSON PRESS, NEW YORK CITY

THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

127 EAST 23rd STREET

NEW YORK CITY

The expenses of the National headquarters in 1921 were $29,398; in 1922 they were over $40,000; in 1923 they were over $45,000. The 1924 budget is $47,835. In 1910, $2,500 was spent in the whole Ullan League movement. In 1919, $140,000 was expended by the movement. In 1920 the amount was $185,000. In 1921 it was $220,000. In 1922 it exceeded $250,000. In 1923 it was over $275,000.

A. S. FRISSELL, Treasurer

Virginia Union University

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

For full information, address

W. J. CLARK, President

Atlanta University

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Howard University

WASHINGTON, D. C.

REGISTRATION

F. D. WILKINSON, Registrar

Howard University

Washington, D. C.

CHARLES S. JOHNSON, Editor

OPPORTUNITY

A JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE

Published by
The Department of Research and Investigations

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

Telephone Gramercy: 3978

WILLIAM H. BALDWIN
Secretary

A. S. FRISSELL
Treasurer

PAUL G. PRAYER, Bus. Mgr.

VOL. 2

FEBRUARY, 1924

No. 14

Contents

COVER. "Meditation"

By C. M. Battey

EDITORIALS

FORECAST 34

A STATE INTER-RACIAL COMMISSION

WASHINGTON

THE UNIVERSALITY OF GENIUS

THE NEW CRIMINOLOGY

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

ARTICLES

APROPOS OF AFRICA. Illustrated

By Alain Locke

37

TAKING STOCK OF THE RACE
PROBLEM

A STATISTICAL REVIEW AND
INTERPRETATION OF THE FACTS
AT THE END OF THE YEAR 1923

By Monroe N. Work

41

THE HOUSING OF NEGRO
IMMIGRANTS IN PENNSYLVANIA

By Bernard J. Newman

46

STATISTICS, STATURE, AND HEALTH

By C. V. Roman, M.D.

48

DELEGATES TO THE CONVENTION OF
THE ALPHA PHI ALPHA

FRATERNITY

48-9

PENNSYLVANIA HOLDS AN INTER-RACIAL CONFERENCE

51

ALEXIS SERGIEWITCH PUSHKIN.
Illustrated.

By Edna Worthley Underwood 53

THE NEGRO OF PETER, THE GREAT

Translated from the Original Russian

By Edna Worthley Underwood 54

OUR BOOK SHELF 59

INTER-RACIAL FORUM 60

POT POURRI 61

BULLETIN BOARD 63

336

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER, 1924

# Negro Voters and the Presidential Campaign

CALVIN COOLIDGE: "This is one country; there should be no favorites and no outcasts; no race or religious prejudices in government."

"We urge the Congress to enact at the earliest possible date a Federal anti-lynching law, so that the full influence of the Federal government may be wielded to exterminate this hideous crime. We believe that much of the misunderstanding which now exists can be eliminated by humane and sympathetic study of its causes. The President has recommended the creation of a Commission for the investigation of social and economic conditions and the promotion of mutual understanding and confidence."—Platform Adopted by Republican Convention in Cleveland.

JOHN W. DAVIS: "If elected, I shall consider ability and fitness only in making appointments."

Query addressed by EUGENE MCINTOSH: "Since the Democratic party in the past has not seemed to favor Presidential appointment to office of colored citizens, may I not ask you directly the question if being a colored citizen would be a bar to Presidential appointment by you if you are elected?"

MR. DAVIS: "My acceptance speech meant exactly what it said. In making appointments, I shall consider only the ability of the applicant and his fitness for the position which he wishes to occupy."

ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE: "Any one familiar with my record, especially in my own State, knows that I have always stood without reservation against any discrimination between races, classes, and creeds. I hold that every citizen is entitled to the full exercise of his Constitutional rights."

"I am unalterably apposed to the evident purposes of the secret organization known as the Ku Klux Klan as disclosed by its public actions. It cannot long survive . . . it has within its own body the seeds of its death."

THE three political parties in contest have sensed the strategic position of the Negroes and without exception they have engaged in a competitive bidding for Negro votes. "This vote", says the *Boston Telegram*, "will be a new factor in the coming Presidential election. It might conceivably turn out to be a decisive factor." Accordingly, for the first time in the history of Negro suffrage there has been possible in a Presidential campaign a deliberate weighing of issues. The result has been an unprecedented amount of shifting, of breaking of party lines and abandoning of traditional faiths, of blunt demands for specific and unequivocal statements from candidates of their positions on matters vital to the Negro race. The issues as stated,

contradicted, restated and amended, make an interesting chapter of political history,—they are the compound out of which the great silent multitude of Negroes will register a choice on November 4.

In the "stern sanity" of President Coolidge many Negroes find a "guarantee of protection against exploitation and discrimination." His letter to Charles F. Gardner of Fort Hamilton, New York, roundly rebuking him for suggesting that the President should exert his influence to prevent the nomination of Charles H. Roberts, a Negro dentist, as Republican candidate for Congress in the Twenty-first District, Manhattan, they hold, was directed also at them. "Our Constitution", he said in this letter, "guarantees

Mary McLei Bethune
A Session of the National Association of Color

NOVEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution. It is the source of your rights and my rights. I propose to regard it, and administer it, as the source of the rights of all the people, whatever their belief or race. A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy in a party primary as is any other citizen."

Moreover, President Coolidge is accredited with the renomination of Walter L. Cohen over vehement southern protests, with effecting an all-Negro personnel at the Tuskegee Veterans' Hospital, appointing a Negro Commission for the study of conditions in the Virgin Islands, and with the advocacy of a $500,000 appropriation for Howard University. The Republican leaders point to the President's attitude on the question of lynching, made explicit in his speech of acceptance: "I trust that any further continuation of this National shame may be prevented by law." The "G.O.P. Handbook" carries a most engaging chapter on "The Negro as an American Citizen."

Major John R. Lynch of Chicago, formerly a member of Congress and an active Republican, feels that "Coolidge is the best President this country has had since Lincoln and Roosevelt." Hallie Q. Brown, formerly President of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs; Robert L. Vann, Editor of the *Pittsburgh Courier*, one of the most influential of the Negro weekly newspapers; and William C. Matthews of Boston, an attorney and prominent political leader, have declared themselves for the Republican ticket and are working in the interest of it. Says the *Black Dispatch* of Oklahoma City: "The

Republican party was born in the principle of abolition and was baptized in human blood, and its doctrines are for the healing of the Nation."

So much for the Republican party's direct offering. The surprising feature of the campaign has been the violent defections of prominent Republicans to the Democratic and Progressive parties. This unsettlement has been the occasion of comment from numerous sober and influential Negro editors. The *New York Age*, regarded as stalwartly Republican in its politics, observed even before the campaign grew warm that: "Dissatisfaction is alive among Negro Republicans, and their allegiance to the party is waning. They have seen the party desert the principles upon which it was founded and adopt the worst practices of its opponent. The prejudices and discriminations introduced into Government departments have been often retained and perpetuated. No wonder black voters can see little difference in the election of either party."

The *Chicago Defender*, the largest of the Negro weekly newspapers, comments: "The Republican party has turned a deaf ear to all pleas for the enforcement of the Amendments to the Constitution dealing with franchises. It has brought about its own discomfiture if not its undoing."

On September 12, some twenty editors of Negro newspapers met in New York City and pledged themselves to support the Republican party if that party acceded to certain specific demands.

Kelly Miller in a syndicated political article, "Crossing the Political Divide", says: "The Negro has been supporting the 'Grand Old Party' for forty years and has been losing steadily in political power and civil privilege. As things are

Mary McLeod Bethune
National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (See page 350)

338

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER, 1924

now trending, his undivided support for the next four years would reduce him to an absolute nullity in the State", and he adds rhetorically, "Will a division of vote lead to a better fate?"

The bolting of William H. Lewis has been the cause of much concern: Once a Republican Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, he led a delegation of Negro citizens to Merion, Ohio, as late as 1920, pledging support to the Republican cause. Mr. Lewis thus explains his action: "Today", he says, "the Republican party is the Ku Klux Klan party. I see no way of putting down the Ku Klux Klan except through the instrumentality of the Democratic party."

It is urged in favor of John W. Davis, the Democratic candidate, that as Solicitor General of the United States he argued against inclusion of a "grandfather's clause" in the Constitution of Oklahoma. Mr. Davis then said: "The protection of the Constitution was extended to an entire race—to all races it is true, but it extended just as much to the humblest member of that race." The *Washington Tribune*, after studying the returns from the primaries, concludes that they show "an alliance between the Klan and the Republican party." It further accuses Charles G. Dawes, candidate for Vice-president, of "giving the Klan a pat on the shoulder" in his Maine address in which he "condoned" the Ku Klux Klan atrocities in Herrin, Illinois, and in Oklahoma. Facetiously this editor refers to "Kalvin Koolidge."

But the most scathing arraignment of the Republican party and summary of its alleged shortcomings with respect to the Negroes is given in the speech of Edward W. Henry of Philadelphia in resigning from the leadership of one of the Negro Republican organizations of that city. His reasons for bolting summarize the case for the new anti-Republicans and include the "defeat of the anti-lynching bill, the rape of Haiti, betrayal of Liberia, the continued segregation of colored employees of the Government in the departments at Washington, (the failure or refusal) to appoint colored Republicans to important positions in the Government service, refusal of Republican Senators to vote to confirm the appointment of colored men, the appointment of 'that apostle of lily whitism' C. Bascum Slemp of Virginia as the President's secretary, offensive campaigns conducted by 'lily white' Republicans in the South, and failure to enforce the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments while exerting all efforts to enforce the Eighteenth."

In further rebellion against the "party of Lincoln" several of the Negro editors censure the Republican administration for suppressing the speech of Secretary Wilbur of the Navy in which, it is alleged, the Secretary states: "There is only one issue in American politics and has been only one great issue since the first division between the Republican and Democratic parties,

and that is the issue of the Negro. . . The South has not forgotten the issues of the Civil War so far as they relate to the colored man and by a consistent system of political action they have defeated and annulled those provisions of the Federal Constitution written as the result of the War, which guaranteed to every man regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, full rights and citizenship."

In answer to the charges from those "gone Democrat", the "stand pat" Negro Republicans urge that the "solid South will control a Democratic President regardless of how he feels about giving the Negro citizens justice or equal opportunity"; that "anti-Klan" is not necessarily "pro-Negro"; and others soothingly assure the old party chiefs that there need be no cause for alarm in the dramatic defections of a few politicians, that these "alleged leaders" have little weight with the general run of Negro voters who "will keep to their dearest tradition and vote for the party that freed the slaves."

Ben Davis, Editor of the *Atlanta Independent*, accuses the Negro Democrats of being insincere. "Only the 'intellectuals'," he says, "the 'kid glove' fellows who have professions and do not follow them, have gone over to the Democratic party and every self-constituted leader who announces himself in favor of the Democratic party has his name on the Democratic payroll."

Some of the Democratic spokesmen point to the selection of Earl B. Dickerson of Chicago, Negro Democrat, to oppose Martin B. Madden, Republican, and Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House; but the *Florida Sentinel* asks: "Of what service can a Democratic Negro Assemblyman be; what measures could he induce his party in Congress to support?" Republicans in New York further answered the challenge of the Chicago Democrats by nominating Dr. Charles H. Roberts as Assemblyman from the Twenty-first District, Manhattan.

To the Progressives, headed by La Follette, there has been a noteworthy swing on the part of certain prominent Negroes not generally classified as politicians. Most active among these is Bishop Hurst of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at its Philadelphia Conference inclined toward the support of the Third Party. In the later discussion of the political situation in the October *Crisis*, James Weldon Johnson, the Executive Secretary, was less specific. He condemned the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the Republican and Democratic parties which in effect provides "that the Republican party will hold the Negro and do as little for him as possible, and that the Democrats will have none of him at all." He suggests that there are other parties besides the two major parties which make unnecessary the choosing of the "lesser of these two evils", that the enemy might indeed be weakened by "boring from within."

NOVEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

339

But in any event, he concludes, "The only way for the Negro to begin to gain political importance and power is by smashing this Gentlemen's Agreement."

The supporters of La Follette contend that he was the first Governor of Wisconsin to appoint a Negro to a responsible office in that State; that in 1906, together with the late Senator Foraker, he championed the unpopular cause of the soldiers of Companies B, C and D of the 25th Infantry who were dishonorably discharged by President Roosevelt contrary to law; that he championed the cause of the Negroes during the race riots in Chicago, East St. Louis, and Washington, a signed editorial in his magazine being one of the strongest articles written on the subject; that he voted in favor of appropriating $470,000 for Howard University; that he advocated reduced southern representation in Congress since the Negro is disfranchised in those States; that he was largely responsible for the confirmation of Walter Cohen; and that he was the first candidate who unequivocally denounced

the Ku Klux Klan.

The most potent argument urged against La Follette, however, is that he cannot help Negroes because he will not win. The Baltimore Afro-American thinks "La Follette as a radical and Third Party candidate would probably do more for Negroes, if elected, than any of the other two candidates." "Perhaps a radical", it goes on, "will have to sit in the White House before the war Amendments to the Constitution are enforced." But this paper admits that it is "not enthusiastic about any of the candidates."

The position of the Negroes, while strategic, is no less confusing than the general party muddle. The breaking of party lines has been no more marked, the silent ponderation of the mass of black voters no less bewildering to the forecasters. There is something ominous about it all. The outcome, one is inclined to believe, will rest more than ever upon personal reactions to party claims and upon individual estimates of candidates and their capacity for carrying out their solemn promises.

## Politics in Delaware

By ALICE DUNBAR NELSON

AN ANOMALOUS condition exists in the political situation in Delaware. The Republican Party in that State has been in power for twenty-five years and as the colored man has the balance of power and constitutes one-tenth of the voting population, it has been kept in power by his vote. Yet Delaware is the only State in the Union where the colored man may not practice law. In all that time, the colored people have not had one of their race serve on the jury. There are no colored policemen in Delaware. Some may be called but none are ever chosen. The courts practice a most humiliating segregation. It is definitely acknowledged that the Ku Klux Klan is controlled by and in turn controls the party in power.

Two years ago, the Negroes arose and turning against the Republican Party, defeated the candidate for re-election to Congress, Caleb S. Layton. He had voted against the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, a measure in which they, in common with all other Negroes in the country, were intensely interested. Dr. Layton boasted that he was proud of his record. He was left at home and his opponent, Judge William H. Boyce, who had a record for fair and impartial wielding of justice from his seat on the bench, was elected in his stead. At the same time, T. Coleman duPont, who had been appointed to the U. S. Senate through a manipulation facetiously known in Delaware as "the dirty deal," was also defeated.

T. Coleman duPont's record on the Dyer Bill was not good. While he did not have an opportunity to vote on it, he was one of the Senators who walked out when the question of bringing

it to a vote was being debated in the Senate. The absence of a quorum prevented the vote being taken. T. C. duPont helped to make the absence of a quorum possible.

This subversal of tradition two years ago resulted in not only a Democratic Senator, Thomas F. Bayard, and a Democratic Congressman, Judge William H. Boyce, being elected, but a Democratic majority in the State General Assembly. When appropriations to State institutions were being cut and slashed in the interests of economy, one institution escaped, the Industrial School for Colored Girls, which received an appropriation of $53,000, more money than was ever given to any colored institution at one time in the history of Delaware.

The elections of 1924 present an amazing situation. The Democratic candidate for Governor, Joseph Bancroft, comes from a line of ancestry which has been a friend of the colored people for more than a hundred years. The Bancrofts are old line Abolitionists. They have educated more colored boys in higher institutions of learning than any other family in Delaware. The Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, huge textile manufacturers, employs more colored men than any other corporation in Delaware. Mrs. Bancroft is the daughter of General O. O. Howard of Freedmen's Bureau and Howard University fame, herself a woman of large charities and earnest work among the colored people.

On the other hand, the Republican candidate for Congress against this same Judge Boyce, who was elected by the Negro two years ago, was a member of the Resolutions Committee in the Republi-

340

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER, 1924

can State Convention which killed a resolution presented to the body which read as follows: "The matter of segregation in the several courts of the State, the failure of colored men to be named as jurors in the several counties, and the de-barring of colored men from the practice of law in Delaware, is unjust to a large group of our citizens. The same is hereby condemned as being subversive of the best traditions of the Republican Party, and the party in state convention assembled pledges itself to take immediate steps to correct the conditions herein complained of."

This resolution, though presented by a white member of the Republican State Convention, was not even allowed to be read.

Another peculiar situation which the colored people hold against this same duPont, the candidate for Senator, in addition to his walking out on the Dyer Bill, is the fact that he voted against the seating of Henry Lincoln Johnson's colored delegation from Georgia in the Republican National Convention, and that he was indiscreet enough, when a committee of prominent colored men waited on him, to refer to some of our most outstanding colored national leaders as "darkies".

Pierre duPont, who has given more to the education of the Negro than any other single

individual in a specific State, is related to Coleman duPont, but is not to be confused with him. Pierre duPont has no political aspirations, and is reported to be a Democrat. There is frequent confusion in the minds of the Negroes of the rural sections as to the identity of these two men—the one a benefactor of the colored people, the other hardly a friend. And it is whispered that Coleman duPont is not averse to profiting by his cousin's contributions to the education of the Negro.

In the past several years three colored women and girls have been raped by white men. As the crime of rape is a capital one in Delaware, it is worthy of note that not one of the men charged with the heinous crime has been punished as the law provides. The charge is usually made a minor one, or a failure to indict remains. This has added to the political unrest of the colored people. Thus it can be truly said that the political situation in Delaware is an anomalous one, with party tradition on one side and the Abolitionists and Quakers heading the other. The colored people are facing this peculiar situation, and having decided that as the ballot is the most powerful political weapon that they have, it is in their power to use it effectively.

FAITH

By WILLIAM LESTER BROWN

THERE is a green hill far, yea, far away,
Whose verdured slopes, un-man-marred,
peaceful, rest

As tranquilly as lichens cling the crest,
Or full-ebbed echoes or soft minstrelsy

Ignore the enchore of the wind-blown rose;
Where thorn-torn feet, in blood-stained sandals
shod,

That trek in vain, to hobble back to God,
Fail, likewise, to disturb their calm repose;

For, unmolested by man's sophistry,
And home-brewed dogmas, by tradition spawned,

Most patiently they wait till light has dawned
Sufficiently upon humanity

To glimpse beyond the tangled underbrush
Of finite reckoning, this peak, sun-kist,

That over-tops majestically the mist
Down in the vale. Then speak they quiet hush

Upon the babble of the throng below,
Annointing every blinded eye to see

Its own soul, pinion-clad and free
To lift itself above the murky flow

Of human reasoning about the Afterwhile
By FAITH. And with complacent smile,

Uninterrupted by the doubts that did beguile,
Wing-waft its way, unfaltering, Time's mile.

NOVEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

341

Negro Health

By CHARLES H. GARVIN

ANY proper program of health must em-
body two inter-dependent functions, one edu-
cational and the other medical. The purpose of
the first of these is to transfer into conduct the
principles of healthful living, and the second is
to remove the obstacles in the way of healthful
living. It is quite evident to all of us that man's
battle against disease and unfavorable environ-
ment in general is and will indefinitely continue
to be active and unceasing to accomplish results.

Not only important is prevention of disease,
but early diagnosis and treatment that will bring
better health to future generations of our race.
The length of life is increasing wherever sanitary
science and preventive medicine are appearing.

We have often asked the question, Why was it
necessary to have a separate National Negro
Health Week and Negro Health days such as
this? The answer is found in the fact that
the Negro until very recently has not been a part
of the great movements for health betterment,
especially has this been so in the South. The
Negroes' high mortality is not inexplicable. Ac-
cording to Eugene Kinckle Jones of the National
Urban League, the Negro showed a decidedly
lower death rate during slavery than did the
whites. In the adjustment and struggle for ex-
istence with every economic, educational and health
movement shut in his face, the death rate has
mounted. The Negro has been the last to get
the benefit of better health movements and living
conditions. There has ever been a fight to pre-
vent him from getting out of his unsanitary en-
vironment. Just as soon as Negroes move into
a neighborhood, even in our liberal northern
cities, rents rise, promoting overcrowding, the
sanitary standards are lowered, garbage collec-
tions and street cleanings become fewer.

There is no sharp distinction between health
and disease and there can be no sharp line be-
tween disease and race. One fades by almost
imperceptible gradations into the other. Any
tendency to partition this field arbitrarily and to
make Negro health a separate issue is depriving
the whole question of the greatest scientific and
humanitarian value, because both races would
thereby lose the invaluable advantages gained by
handling the problem as one. The whole problem
requires continuous care and not merely spas-
modic attention, regardless of race.

The equipment of man to combat adverse in-
fluences that may confront him from time to
time is evidently made up of two factors,—
some inborn—so called “constitutional”—whereas
others are the product of environmental influences.
Boards of Health decry the Negro race for the
high morbidity and mortality rates and yet
these Boards fail in many instances to enforce
sanitary regulation when it concerns Negroes.

Leading observers on this subject, statistics of
the United States Draft Boards during the World
War and according to the statement of Dr.
Dublin, the Negro possesses "biologic fitness."
So, the fight must be one that will provide
better environmental influences, better living con-
ditions. In New York City where two persons out
of every 1,000 population died 50 years ago, in 1920
only one died. This has meant a total saving of
116,285 lives annually. This proves what im-
proved health regulations provided for all alike
can do.

Along with the other recent optimistic state-
ments regarding the progress of the Negro it is
indeed gratifying to hear such an optimistic note
regarding Negro health from Dr. Dublin, gleaned
from the vital statistics of the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company. They will awaken the world
to the real status of Negro health. I am glad
also that he has shown us that we must not see
the bright side only. We must not be too op-
timistic as to regard the battle won.

During the past few years it has been appalling
to see the increasing number of cases of tuber-
culosis that have come under my personal ob-
servation. The first conclusion would be that
tuberculosis is rapidly increasing among Negroes
in Cleveland. It is numerically, but so is the
population. Added to this, we are diagnosing
cases earlier and more persons are seeking doc-
tors earlier and we physicians are a little more
sincere about reporting these cases than we were
a few years ago, because we realize the great
benefits to the patient from being served by the
Tuberculosis Bureau. Dr. Carter of Piedmont
Sanitorium, Virginia, in the *American Review of
Tuberculosis*, shows that the results at that sani-
torium prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the
Negro, although he shows less resistance because of
lack of racial immunity against the disease than the
white man, will respond to the treatment for pul-
monary tuberculosis and if that treatment is begun
early he will continue well.

The crying shame of America is the fact that
in maternal mortality our country stands third
in the civilized world, being exceeded only by
Spain and Belgium, according to the Bureau of
Child Welfare. Our infant mortality is still high
and it is indeed encouraging to hear Dr. Dublin
say that Negro infant mortality is decreasing.
This decrease in infant mortality is going to be
steadily improved as more Negroes migrate to the
larger cities of the North and West where pre-
natal and obstetrical work is well organized and
is open to all regardless of race.

It is my opinion that not sufficient attention
has been given to Rickets, to which the Negro
child in the northern cities seems to be especially

342

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NOVEMBER, 1924

susceptible. I believe that this disease, with its deforming processes, weakens the race and makes the inroad of pulmonary tuberculosis more easy. In many cities the work of baby welfare organizations will cut down this disease among the children.

The so-called degenerative diseases, it seems, are on the increase among all races in the United States. As people gain in economic conditions, live easier, eat more, get more obese, we will see more "high blood pressure," more Brights Disease, and more diabetes, more heart disease, and perhaps more cancer, because these are certainly diseases of civilization. The Negro race is increasing his economic status, living easier, eating more and, of course, we are going to see more of these diseases. It is not a direct race question but a question of civilization and its "hustle and bustle" and "burning the candle at both ends."

The social diseases are far too rampant among Negroes, but I must be frank and confess that I could never quite believe that it is so very much more prevalent among them than among the whites. In the American Expeditionary Forces the Negro troops, it is said, showed a higher rate of venereal diseases than did the whites. Records also showed that the largest number of cases occurred among all troops stationed at the ports of embarkation; the majority of Negro troops were stationed at seaport towns. I know that in my regiment of combat troops our venereal record was as good as any in France.

Migration of the Negro to the North offers more than economic advancement and better education. It offers better health and living conditions and brings us to an awakening on the true status of Negro health. It also means that the morbidity and mortality rates, especially as regards tuberculosis and syphilis, are going to increase in migration areas. But why shouldn't the number of cases increase there? The population is increasing. The most important reason is that better hospitals and dispensaries are open to the Negroes, they are treated better, and welfare agencies have educated them to go to these places for treatment. The hospitals are better organized and more accurate morbidity and mortality statistics are kept and more cases reported to Boards of Health. Recall also that the Wasserman test for syphilis is a routine in most of these hospitals, state and city laboratories make these tests free for physicians, thus more cases are being discovered and diagnosed than heretofore.

The propaganda against the social diseases has

sent more men to hospitals than before. Previous to this work these cases were self-treated or fell into the hands of quacks and never reached the statistics. There are far too many cases of social diseases in America and in the Negro race and we must fight on to reduce it. I must not leave unmentioned a common observation that in many localities there is a prevalent idea among white medical men that all Negroes, especially if they cannot make another diagnosis, have syphilis. This idea is so well grounded that they will often treat as syphilis a case that shows repeated negative blood tests, absolutely lack all clinical symptoms and with an entirely negative history. This is far too common and certainly adds a few cases to already too large a number.

The Negro has been so occupied in the struggle for existence and the medical men in caring for the sick that until now the question of Negro health studied from a preventative standpoint has been left to others. The establishment of the School of Hygiene at Howard University School of Medicine, in Washington, marks the first big move to have the Negro physician and worker take a part in this work.

More and more Negroes are requesting information along health lines and there is a real demand for authoritative information concerning eugenics, rejuvenation, hygiene of sex, and even fads and nostrums. This can be readily seen if one only looks over the health columns of the Negro newspapers and magazines. It has always appeared to me that most of the movements to improve Negro health have not taken into consideration the Negro physician, nurse, and social worker. The Negro physician and nurse being accustomed to reckon with the personal idiosyncracies of Negroes and to treat the patient as well as the disease is, therefore, best fitted to handle such cases, because those of the white race in quite a number of cases look upon Negroes as mere subjects for observation.

In my opinion the health program depends upon the realization that the Negro race is not a mere isolated group and that isolated endeavors such as this lose their significance unless the principle of constant care is applied. Longevity and improved racial morbidity and mortality cannot, of course, be increased by mere meetings and discussions unless the knowledge and experience developed becomes public property not only of the race but the entire country.

The duty of thwarting the formation of an artificial and unscientific gap between health and disease rests squarely with all of us.

NOVEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

343

The Migration

*Extracts from the addresses of Eugene Kinckle Jones, Executive Secretary of the National Urban League, at the Ohio Welfare Conference in Columbus, October 15*

THE whole question as to whether the migration was wise or is destined to be of permanent benefit to the Negro is involved in the matter of the Negro's industrial and economic adjustment to the conditions he found in the North. ...

The large Negro turnover in plants operated by
persons inexperienced in the ways of the Negro
is due to their assumption that they can keep
the morale of their Negro workers high without
the incentive to improved efficiency in the form of
promotion for merit. ...

There is evidence that the present means of
training men for skilled work both in schools and
by means of apprenticeship is not adding a suffi-
cient number of skilled workers to the limited
number who are now emigrating from Europe to
meet the demand, so prejudice against Negro
skilled workers must give way to the require-
ments of industry. ...

Organizations that work in behalf of the com-
munity at large should not ignore the economic
needs of the Negro, for they are a part of so-
ciety, and directly in proportion as they improve
both in their industrial efficiency and in their
sense of responsibility to others, society as a whole
will profit. . . .

I am not one of those who claim that the
Negro's spirit of humility and patience is the im-
mediate balm to soften the antagonistic attitude
of labor and capital one towards the other, but
I do believe that these qualities will be helpful
in the rightful solution of the question. . . .

Should it be possible for hundreds of thousands
of these practically helpless, hardworking, loyal,
and cheerful black Americans to be moved about
as pawns, hated and despised by white workingmen,
on the one hand, and under-paid by employers of
labor, on the other? . . .

The old idea of the Negro being naturally
lazy, thriftless, and indolent is being recognized as
a myth. . . .

This larger distribution of the Negro popu-
lation over the United States is apparently hav-
ing a good effect on the great American experiment
in democracy,—it is giving the North an oppor-
tunity to disprove the assertions of southern critics
that the citizens of the North with the Negro
present in numbers would treat the Negro in ex-
actly the same way as the Southerner has seen
fit to treat him. . . .

However, there is every evidence that the Negro
is "making the grade" in the North. . . .

By E. P. COTTON

Former Commissioner of Lands and Director of Surveys, Nigeria,
British Colonial Government, Africa

LET us consider the higher branches of the
Yoruba race. I am of the opinion that their
brains are equal to ours, or, at any rate, equal
to mine. Let me mention one in particular—
Henry Carr, M.A., B.C.LL., etc. If you turn
to the key to Locke's trigonometry, you will find
that it was written by Henry Carr, of Lagos.
If he did not write it before he was twenty, he
must have done so very shortly after. I know him
very well indeed; it was a pleasure to hear him
discuss the intricacies of calculus. I had in my
department a dozen or so of young Yorubas,
nearly all of whom were educated in Lagos, by
native teachers. I established a sort of survey
school and taught them the elements of plane
and spherical trigonometry, also practical
astronomy, including the determination of latitude,
azimuth, and time. The majority of them soon
became remarkably proficient in these subjects
and in a year, I should say, were able to make

the necessary observations. When making observa-
tions for azimuth, it is desirable to observe the
star when the three functions—co-altitude, co-
latitude, and co-declination—form a spherical
triangle that is fairly symmetrical. Considerable
preliminary calculation is obviated if one can
visualize in the heavens those stars that will form
such a triangle at a suitable time. A few of the
young Yoruba surveyors became exceptionally
smart in selecting suitable stars and were of
great assistance in this class of work; also in
working the astronomical calculations they were
equally proficient. Their memory is so excellent
that after having "called out" a seven figure
logarithm, which was common to a series of
calculations, they seemed to have no difficulty in
remembering it, at any rate, for several hours—in-
deed, I believe for a much longer period. At
first, I doubted their memory and made them
look up the logarithms; but I soon found that
such precaution was unnecessary.

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NOVEMBER, 1924

Their ear is of a refinement that is quite beyond my conception. When naming rivers, etc., I used to get a reliable local native to pronounce the name. Three native clerks wrote it down. I think I am correct in stating that fully ninety per cent of these words agreed exactly in the spelling by the three native clerks.

On the other hand, let me illustrate by a single case the persistence of folk beliefs. A friend of mine while out shooting, surprised a native solicitor in the act of sacrificing a bull. This man was, I believe, a graduate of one of the English universities. He had to appear before the local court to show cause why he should not be struck off the roll. He informed my friend that although he was a Christian, he felt compelled when in great trouble to return to the religion of his fathers. This cult, like so many others, is chiefly that of the appeasement of evil spirits, and this native still had it in the back of his head.

The sociologists affirm that education, culture, and studious habits are an evolution of centuries. In all probability many of the fathers of the educated natives whom I have encountered and mentioned above were uneducated; possibly some of their grandfathers were even cannibals.

In the great majority of cases their environment and home training could not have "been much above that of an ordinary native village, and I am afraid that the European influence in many instances was not very elevating. What, then, was the urge that stimulated them to deviate so widely from the general attitude of their group? It is my opinion that these natives had an innate mental aptitude for assimilating knowledge and were fortunate in having men about them, young Europeans with ability and inclination to create an atmosphere of intellectual leadership, so that native intelligence could be directed into proper channels.

My observations and experiences do not permit me to accept the prevalent idea that human nature is constant, that it may take on a veneer, but never changes. No evolutionist could hold such a theory. I am of the opinion that human nature has changed, perhaps not permanently, but certainly measurably.

Apparently then, and this is the conclusion of my whole scattered discussion, native ability is pretty widely distributed and does not follow distinctly class or race lines.

—Extract from article appearing in *JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY* for Sept.—Oct.—1924.

## OUR BOOK SHELF

### The Fire in the Flint

By WALTER F. WHITE

Published by Alfred Knopf, New York. Price $2.50.

It was Joseph Conrad, the incomparable master of the story, who in an essay on Henry James was prompted to say: "Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing." For the most part, our sources of knowledge about life in the South have been limited to a petulant defense literature. Except for those romances embodying the soft, insubstantial after-glow of its Feudal past, there has been silence. The South's one dominant passion, the race problem (has inhibited both its life and its letters. Of the natural and unrelieved tragedy of the Negro in his new consciousness in the South, there has similarly been nothing until recently. We have here a facet of life bulging with the full score of human emotions with its comedy, certainly, but in its vital phases balked and convulsed into sombre tragedy. In their sensitive setting it has been not merely polite but a necessary measure of self-preservation to keep inviolate the sacred traditions by which they were bound down, and, until the last embers of the Civil War crumble into ashes, to let these millions remain as it is safe to paint them,—dark, insensible shadows, gliding silently and contentedly up and down endless aisles of cotton.

In Walter F. White's "The Fire in the Flint," this tradition is rudely broken. These dumb, ambulant shadows have been transformed into flesh and soul. Born and educated in Georgia, a Negro and a part of its life, it has been possible for him to fashion with complete understanding and from the simplest experiences a story of intense power. How else after all could we get those tremendous undercurrents of subtly tortured feeling, of life within the deep shadows of the "Black Belt," except as revealed by one who has lived through them? Even the magnificent effort of Clement Wood, despite its earnestness, failed to capture the essence so familiar to Negroes, so incomprehensible to others.

The story itself is a compound of incidents, any of which could probably be documented from the records filed away in Mr. White's desk in the offices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The thread of the plot might have been borrowed from the life of most any well-educated Negro in, let us say, three-fourths of the South's small towns, and probably in any of the small towns of Georgia, where the scene is laid. It concerns principally the vicissitudes of one refined Negro family. Kenneth Harper, a Harvard graduate and physician, comes home to Centerville to practice his profession. He is a tolerant, mannerly, clean-cut figure, and a skillful surgeon, ambitious to conquer the biting prejudices of his home town by ignoring them, and eventually to build a hospital for Negroes. His brother, Bob, a sensitive, impulsive youth, lacked his tolerance and hopefulness though he managed to keep his emotions in leash. His sister, Mamie, blended with her dark rich beauty the delicate loveliness of faint lavender. Jane Phillips, around whom his romance turned, was distinguished by her quick, incisive intelligence, a practical philosophy and restless idealism.

Among the leading white characters there are several who represent the author's attempt at fair depiction. There is Judge Stevenson, a blunt, discordantly fair-minded Southerner who spoke of *Nigras*, a sort of half-victory over the orthodox appellation *nigger*; who secretly helped Kenneth draw up plans for the Negro Farmers' Cooperative Society,—a scarred relic of the Civil War, with plenty of courage, but with little influence against the general sentiment of the town. And there is Mrs. Roy Ewing who, it seems, escaped some of the virulence of Anglo-Saxon prejudice by being born of old French stock in South Carolina. Faced with the loss of her daughter from a malady which the less competent white physician, Dr. Bennett, sorrowfully admitted he could not treat, she persuaded her husband to control his prejudice and permit a, "nigger doctor", the only surgeon within two hundred miles, to operate. Dr. Bennett, an old school family phy-

NOVEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

sician, innocent for the most part of the advance of his science, at first affectedly contemptuous of the upstart from "up No'th" eventually recognized his merit, a triumph quite compatible with his simple honesty. Roy Ewing, pliant to the force of the town's feeling for Negroes, fearful for his business, was in the end converted.

Through the muck of a small town's petty chicaneries and sexual adventure, gossip, Ku Klux parties, the story ran. Kenneth's fight for self-respect was a losing one. Faith in his philosophy bit by bit was worn down. Landlords robbed their Negro tenants and dared them to complain, the "best citizens" including the sheriff were members of the Ku Klux Klan. His organization of farmers to handle their crop was interpreted as dangerous agitation. Calamity trooped down on his family. Mamie was outraged by two of the town's popular young bloods. Bob's restrain broke. In his blinding rage he killed his sister's assailants as they boasted of their frolic to a hilarious group of their friends lounging about Ewing's store, and in turn Bob was killed by a mob. The citizenry aroused, determined to end Kenneth's obnoxious interference in affairs. The chance came as he left the bedside of his white patient in the Ewing home. On the ready assumption that his mission had been sex adventure, they whetted their passions and killed him.
C. S. J.

Few of the grosser evils of the South are omitted; there are two lynchings, the Ku Klux Klan, the consorting of white men with Negro women, tarrings and beatings, peonage, the inescapable orthodoxy about the Negro's place, "Jim Crow" cars, familiar arguments of the "dominant race", the sycophantic trouble maker known among Negroes as "a white folks' nigger". Nor are the salutary influences neglected. The northern missionaries, the southern inter-racial Commissions, the righteous but impotent few who would end the abuses, come in for mention.

"The Fire in the Flint," like Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or let us say Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," is a trail blazer, an epoch marker of sociologic interest, and is aided as a novel by its powerfully expository material, but it lacks the charm of style and subtlety which distinguish both of these. There are too many fiction stereotypes,—an inexpert heavy-handedness in description. Probably the absence of that quality which we feel is in the power of Mr. White to give is accounted for in part by the fact that, as he says, the story was written in two weeks, a prodigious accomplishment, rare even among the most skillful writers. The white mind could be made more intelligible. They are mad men, most of them. Certainly this conduct has some justification in their own minds even if irrational and unsound. It is without apology a tragedy, and as a tragedy, presumably, can register only the intensity of all of these forces in fatal compound. There is yet even more poignant tragedy in the lives of the droning millions who are ground down and broken and who are not permitted even the escape of death.

## THE THEATRE

"The Chocolate Dandies"

IN "The Chocolate Dandies" at the Colonial Theatre, Sissle and Blake have added nothing new to the line of Negro shows that have besieged Broadway since the production of "Shuffle Along". It is just like the aforementioned others, neither good nor bad. It lays its claim for consideration on the over-laden but obviously stale and empty altar of novelty. For a Negro show to make a bid for Broadway all that is required, it seems, is a bevy of dancing girls, a "Harmony Four", a riot of color, and a slender plot (which is unimportant), built usually around the swindling of some poor, old, illiterate "darky". While the "Harmony Four" and the eccentric dancing of Josephine Baker are unusually good, "The Chocolate Dandies" is dull and tiresome. Setting out (it is obvious) to cater to the jaded desires of the white comedy lovers, Sissle and Blake doubtless

forgot that there are colored people who would like to see their show. (Indeed, is not this a reason for the experiment?) And to us, it didn't seem like a colored show at all. Except for the presence of the "Charleston" and the "cut-out", as done by an alluringly black girl whose name is unrecognizable in the multitude of names on the program, there isn't a thing in it that cannot be duplicated by any group of white actors and actresses on the road.

The life of the Negro as is sketchily presented in a show like this is false. All those elements of vital spiritual and emotional content that distinguish it from that of other racial groups are taken out. A feeble, half-white misanthrope is substituted. Any one who is familiar with the vaudeville shows given at the "Lafayette" or "The Lincoln", in Harlem, knows that there is a reservoir of talent and of material up there lying waste that, if properly commandeered and utilized in a production like "The Chocolate Dandies", would create a distinct sensation.

Producers of Negro comedy shows don't seem to go to the fountain of Negro life for their material. They must get that habit, and the man who is big enough and artistically serious enough to do it is going to wake up one day and find himself a very rich and very famous man.
Eric D. Walrond.

"Dixie To Broadway"

"S HUFFLE ALONG" was so pent with stored-up surprises that when once it did burst to public gaze it awed and overwhelmed. Only in its later days could the critics recover to do it justice. At the present time, however, the reviewing gentry are not merely prepared, they lie in waiting for the Negro musical shows.

Oddly enough, "Dixie to Broadway" split the ranks of the critics. While some have vehemently railed against it, others have ardently declared it to be the greatest production in which Negroes ever took a part. There is some excuse for this rather puzzling division of opinion.

A proper appreciation or criticism of the revue, for that is what it is mostly, must concern itself with the merits of the players, individually and ensemble, and with the merit of what they are given to do. For one the Negro performers are responsible; for the other the white writers and producers. It is not unfair to say that criticism has occasionally been caustic of what these writers have provided and that praise has been generous for the performers. It seems reasonable to assume that one critic looks at the performers and calls the production great and that another looks at what they are given to do and berates the offering.

The players and most of the work they are given to do are exceptional. The diminutive, mercurial Miss Mills has more than her share of accomplishments,—a soft, mellow voice capable of trailing off into incredible fineness; her body the absence of rhythm. Shelton Brooks is perhaps the most keenly intelligent and one of the best Negro comedians living. Audiences no longer rave over Negro dancing. It is expected to be matchless.

The show is a semi-revue, semi-vaudeville attraction. The revue features have distinct merit and most of the vaudeville offerings are good. In all of the twenty-seven scenes only three or four are really poor. The worst sketch, "A Nice Husband", written by Sidney F. Lazarus and clumsily risque, is responsible for most of the sharp criticism directed at the show.

One cannot deny, of course, that any appearance of Negroes on the stage is some kind of propaganda. The impressions brought away, whatever the intention or theory, register in the attitude toward the Negro race. There is a conscious effort in some parts of the production to impress the white audience that the Negro performer is worth while,—that the group has its Eva Tanguays, George Cohans, Gallaghers and Sheans, and its Kikis. On the other hand, there is not only a repetition of the threadbare stereotypes of defunct minstrelsy but something which comes dangerously near

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to obscenity. The drop used throughout the show, gaudy and indecorous, pictures on one side a "comic strip" Negro stealing a chicken and on the other similar Negroes playing at dice. The over used razor crops up as the show goes on. But worse than this is the unnecessary bedroom scene and the profanity put into the mouth of some of the performers.

Negro performers when they write their own lines are generally known for their clean work. When Shelton Brooks was approached he declared he had to say what he was given to say.

If there were no necessity for the two foregoing paragraphs, "Dixie to Broadway" would doubtless be the greatest of so-called Negro shows. It ranks with the best of current revues with all white performers, but the best of Negro shows cannot afford these defecations which second and third rate white productions can sustain.
*Rogier Didier.*

## Three Plays by the Ethiopian Art Players

LAST NIGHT (October 15) the National Ethiopian Art Theatre, Inc., inaugurated its Winter program with a midnight presentation at the Lafayette Theatre of three one-act Negro plays. They are "Being Forty" by Eulalie Spence, "Cooped Up" by Eloise Bibb Thompson, and "Bills" by John M. Francis. Of the three, the best by far is Mrs. Thompson's enthralling study of Negro folk life along the levies of New Orleans. It isn't hyperbole to state that "Bills" and "Being Forty" existed for the most part as a sort of raison d'être for the Thompson play. And this, by all means, is not a reflection on the merit (such as there was) in either Miss Spence's or Mr. Francis' effort. It was simply a matter of sandwiching a first class piece of drama between two maudlin attempts at melodrama.

In "Being Forty" there were two players who did unusually well. They were Eugene Corbie and Lila Hawkins. Corbie is one of the younger lights of the black cognoscenti and an orator of parts. He, too, it appears, like a number of young, groping, enquiring college-bred men of his generation, seems to be mov-

ing towards an understanding of himself and of the thing he feels he is best likely by reason of experience and temperament to do. Last night he didn't take the cake, by any means (it was left to a lovely black woman to do that) but, though a bit exaggerated and jerky in parts, he did extremely well in the role of the eccentric, avenging brother. Miss Lila Hawkins brought to her performance the spark of a fresh and vivid personality. Under the aegis of the Ethiopian Art Theatre, a woman with her sense for the dramatic may go very far.

The laurels of the evening must go unstintingly to Ardelle Dabney, the able boarding housekeeper in Mrs. Thompson's swiftly moving and exotically colorful play. This by all odds is the best Negro folk play it has been our privilege to see. Limited, of necessity, to a vignette study of the life of the struggling peasants of that dusky region and the complications and domestic trials that usually go with it, it is nevertheless a perfect, well rounded picture. There is Cassie (Lillian Creamer), the emotionally unrestrained yellow wife of Scipio Johnson, honest, frugal, loving wrestler of the untethered Mississippi. There is Cassie, with nothing to do, and all the time in the world in which to do it. There is the tongue wagging, suggestive, worldly wise Cleo. There are roomers in the house. There is the "city-fied" cabaret-haunting, saxophone-teasing Julius. There is constantly drifting into Cassie's susceptible ears, via the voluble Cleo and the wily Julius, the seed, the germ of unrest, of doubtful indecision. And on that pivot the plot revolves.

Lillian Creamer, G. Alfred Woods (Scipio), and Joseph A. Steber (Julius), all play well, but Ardelle Dabney brings an authentic gift to bear on her interpretation. In her hands the dialogue at times leaps to the dignity of living, vibrant speech. If but for her performance alone, "Cooped Up" is entitled to a chance on Broadway, and we earnestly hope that it gets it.

Anne Wolter, the General Director of the National Ethiopian Art Theatre, Inc., ought to be congratulated on the excellent showing made by the Ethiopian players.

Eric D. Walrond.

## Announcement

The Urban League Conference will be held this year in Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday to Friday, December 2-5. The following subjects will be discussed by leading white and colored students of the problems of race relations and city life: PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION, COOPERATION BETWEEN SOCIAL AGENCIES, INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS, A STANDARD LOCAL INDUSTRIAL PROGRAM, A NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL PROGRAM, INTER-RACIAL COOPERATION, and PUBLICITY METHODS.

Social workers, church workers, industrial personnel workers, representatives of labor, employment managers, and all persons interested in Negro welfare and the removal of the causes of misunderstanding and friction between the races are cordially invited.

For further information address: Eugene Kinckle Jones, Executive Secretary, National Urban League, 127 East 23rd Street, New York City, or William R. Conners, Executive Secretary, Negro Welfare Society (Cleveland Urban League), 2337 East 55th Street, Cleveland, Ohio.

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347

## INTER-RACIAL FORUM

*Compiled by MADELINE G. ALLISON*

H. G. WELLS in the *Northwestern Bulletin Appeal*: "I am convinced myself that there is no more evil thing in this present world than race prejudice; none at all! I write deliberately —it is the worst single thing in life now. It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty, and abomination than any other sort of error in the world."

In the St. Louis *Argus*: "The Constitution of the United States knows no race, creed, or religion. All citizens are equal according to the Constitution. Therefore, those who would deny any class the same fundamental rights that they themselves enjoy are enemies to this form of government, and should be denounced by all lovers of justice and fair play."

The Kansas City, Mo., *Journal-Post*: "Despite outrageous denials of his rights as a citizen, rights which his blood has helped to win, the Negro has never wavered in his devotion to his country and his record as a soldier, even when the race was in slavery, not only challenges admiration but is beyond praise."

John Louis Hill in the New York *World*: "Interest in the study of the race problem by both white and colored people is essential to an understanding of it, and understanding is prerequisite to its solution."

The New York *Amsterdam News*: "The eleva-

tion of Rev. Dr. Charles H. Trusty to be moderator of the Pittsburgh Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church and the wail that has gone up because Dr. Trusty happens to be a Negro shows clearly the kind of Christianity that is prevalent in the world today."

Revel Henry Fooks in the Philadelphia, Pa., *Record*: "Manly, intelligent colored voters feel humiliated to have their choice of men to govern them known by color and race. No group, among the many that compose this nation, can justify a claim to anything which does not belong alike to all other groups; therefore, the political solidarity of any group is dangerous to itself and to the nation as well."

In the Indianapolis, Ind., *Ledger*: "Coordination of efforts and of intra-racial groups under the virtues bespoken by the United States Constitution is the first step to complete freedom. And when this step has been taken, we must make a 'life-size' plus mark and add every single element that has been made for the complete freedom of America's white classes and masses."

Dr. L. K. Williams in the Nashville, Tenn., *Banner*: "The introduction of the Negro into America was the beginning and creation of a situation that is today our most important problem. The Negro's presence here, his rightful destiny and status are the keenest tests of American civilization and the challenge of Christianity."

## POT POURRI

*A Southern City Honors a Noble Negro*

MANY people outside the South have the impression that there is strong and steady antagonism between the whites and the Negroes in that section. On the contrary, there is a vast deal of good feeling and the most kindly relationship between the larger part of both races.

An impressive illustration of this condition recently developed in Columbia, South Carolina, in connection with the death of an aged colored preacher, "Uncle Jaggers", as he was affectionately called by most of the people.

That servant of God had led a most unselfish and useful life, dying at the age of 93. Since he was 18 years old and a slave, Charles Jaggers had gone about doing good and helping the needy of his race, urging them to live according to the law and the gospels. He was one of the mainstays of the colored Old People's Home, and his white friends gave him the money to keep it going. Of his salary as a preacher he hardly ever kept enough for his own needs.

The consequence of such a life was an unusual honor. The Mayor of Columbia issued a proclamation about his death, and urged the people of Columbia to cease business for thirty minutes on a Thursday, as a mark of respect to the Negro minister. In that proclamation the Mayor said this, among other things:

"It would be particularly fitting that the white people in Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, should recognize publicly his virtues and demonstrate the respect in which he was held, that our people here and those elsewhere, both white and black, may know that a character such as his is appreciated, regardless of color or station in life."

Nothing handsomer could have been done as a public testimonial. Where has there been a similar tribute in a large city north of Mason and Dixon's Line? It is doubtful whether there has ever been such an instance, though undoubtedly there are many Negro leaders leading equally noble and useful lives in their new homes.

Kansas City, Mo., STAR.

348

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER, 1924

## Color

A NEGRO minister has been elected moderator of the Pittsburgh Presbytery, receiving one more vote than his white opponent.

The Rev. Dr. C. H. Trusty of Grace Memorial Church is the man to be thus honored at the hands of his white brethren. The Pittsburgh Presbytery is one of the largest in the country, being composed of 300 churches, and the responsibilities of the new moderator are correspondingly great; his honor correspondingly large.

There should be nothing of novelty in the fact that a Negro is elevated to a post of honor and responsibility over his white fellows. We believe that as the Negro emerges more and more the uniqueness of such elevation will not be great. Merit, not color, will tell the tale.

Indeed, it is already telling the tale. There are a good many colored physicians, for instance, who have demonstrated peculiar skill and capacity. Nobody thinks of them as in any way "inferior". Their services are in great demand among white people as well as among the people of their own race. So far as we know, no white person ever complained because the physician who had attended him had effected his cure.

We do not need to look far from Fall River to find a very successful physician. Dr. Marcus F. Wheatland, of our neighbor city, Newport, is not only known favorably in his own city but throughout the United States as well, for he was one of the first experts in the application of the X-ray to the practice of medicine, and is consulted, not only by the permanent residents of Newport, but by many of the famous folk who spend the summer at that place. The fact that he is a noted and a successful physician is the big fact. The color of his skin is about as important as the color of his eyes.

The time will come, after the Negro has overcome the prejudice against him—that is a black heritage we must ourselves do everything to wipe out, when we will judge a man by what he is and does.

May it come soon!

Fall River, Mass., NEWS.

## Money Well Invested

THE Rockefeller General Education Board's gift of $1,000,000 to the Hampton-Tuskegee endowment fund is said to be the largest single sum ever subscribed to the cause of Negro education. The movement has proved its ability to utilize great gifts for the exceeding advantage of the Negro race. Few persons realize the progress that has been made in educating the Negroes of the South during the last few years. The late Booker T. Washington was deservedly praised for his achievements as a pioneer in training members of his race, but since his death the system has been greatly extended.

According to Dr. Moton, principal of Tuskegee and a trustee of Hampton, the period since the close of the World War has marked the most decided advance of the Negro in this country, intellectually and industrially. There are now 500 normal schools and colleges in the United States for Negroes, with an enrollment of 100,000. These young men and women are being trained as teachers for their race. The public schools of the country now have 2,000,000 Negro pupils. The central thought of Booker Washington, the training of both hand and brain, has been faithfully kept in mind.

It is significant that the Southern States are making increasingly liberal appropriations for Negro schools. In 1913 North Carolina raised by taxes alone and spent for Negro education $250,000. Last year the state expended $4,000,000 for the purpose. The white people of the South are realizing that from the economic standpoint alone the money spent for educating the Negro yields substantial returns. But the movement has broader implications than this and undoubtedly is helping to bring about better relations between the races.

Pittsburgh, Pa., CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM.

## Negro Lore Wanted

IF Dr. Leon Banov's request for information concerning Negro superstitions about diseases and cures is met by a sufficiently general response, a body of tradition and lore can be gathered in Charleston that will be valuable not merely for the purpose for which the county health officer has sought it—to supply data for a national organization preparing a work on Negro welfare—but also as a record of a society that is fast dying out and of which authentic records will one day be no longer obtainable. The subject of Negro superstitions has been freely dealt with by southern writers and woven into much of the literature of the section, but too little has been done to garner and preserve accurate information which will become vastly more valuable as time passes.

At the moment such things may not seem very important to the average person; in fact, it is only after a type of society or civilization has passed away that there is any great interest in obtaining authentic records of it, and then it is too late. The Negro in the South, especially in the rural sections and most of all in such regions as the low country of South Carolina, still retains a great part of the old tradition, but it cannot be for long. Outside contacts are gradually but surely working changes. Now is the time to gather and preserve everything available about the old plantation Negro if future generations are to know much about this interesting American type. The Negro's superstitions are an especially interesting part of him and well worth recording and there is enough material left in and around Charleston to reward an effort to get at it.

Charleston, S. C., POST.

350

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER, 1924

Platoon at Drill

Colonel Arthur Little succeeded to the command in January, 1921, and the designation of the organization was changed to 369th Infantry, N. Y. N. G., in January, 1923. The organization has recently been Federalized and will dedicate its new Million Dollar Armory, on West 143rd Street, in the Autumn.

Dr. C. B. Wilmer of Atlanta, Ga., is the recipient of a loving-cup which bears the following inscription: "Presented by the colored people of Atlanta to Dr. C. B. Wilmer, as a pioneer in Inter-racial Good Will. He practices truth, and his neighbor is all mankind." Dr. Wilmer, who has been the rector of St. Luke Episcopal Church for twenty-four years, has accepted the deanship of the Theological Department at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. The meeting, which was instigated by Jesse O. Thomas of the Atlanta Urban League, was attended by many of the most prominent white and colored citizens and, as intended, the occasion had a two-fold purpose: First, It showed Dr. Wilmer that his sacrifice made in advocating justice for Negroes was compensated by Negroes' gratitude and appreciation; second, It gave backbone and stimulant to other white people to pursue the path of duty and justice. Among the speakers were Dr. John Hope, Dr. W. G. Alexander, Dr. E. P. Johnson, Dr. Russell Brown, Father E. L. Braithwaite, and James C. Arnold.

The Cosmopolitan Club of the University of California, in Los Angeles, has elected Leon Whitaker, a Negro student, to be its president. The club has seventy members, drawn from all nationalities, who are students in the university. It was organized two years ago by Daisy Law, a Chinese student; later Mr. Kawaii, a Japanese student, served as president. The purpose of the organization is to afford the students of all races an opportunity for self expression and to set forth the different views and habits of their respective races and countries. Mr. Whitaker is also an officer of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

The annual report of the colored branches of the Louisville, Ky., Free Public Library shows the largest

The "Snakes" Off Duty

circulation of books in the history of this division of the library,—121,794, an increase of 4,542 over last year. A colored librarian, Thomas F. Blue, is in charge of the work.

Reprints from the photograph of Roland Hayes, which was used on our cover for September, may be had of us for the price of ten cents each.

Masonic Temple in Birmingham

The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs has a membership of one hundred thousand, and to the presidency has been elected Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune. She succeeds Hallie Q. Brown, who served as president during the past four years. Mrs. Bethune is president of the Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute in Daytona, Fla., which was formerly the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute. In twenty years she has builded an institution that is valued at $500,000, with an enrollment of 367 students and forty-eight instructors and workers; there have been three hundred graduates, of whom eleven were trained nurses. John C. Wright says of the school: "It expresses in a concrete way the power of a black woman of limited opportunities to sense a great need and to marshal the spiritual and material resources of hundreds of men and women, black and white, rich and poor, Southerner and Northerner, Catholic and Protestant, Christian and Atheist, to contribute of their store to support her work." At the recent session of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs $12,000 was contributed toward a $50,000 Scholarship Fund, and $8,000 of this

NOVEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY.

351

Georgia Caldwell

was in actual cash. The women are endeavoring to make the home of Frederick Douglass in Anacostia, D. C., a national shrine of inspiration. They propose to build a caretaker's home on the estate so that the mansion may be raised to the highest standard of memorial influence. In her annual address, Miss Brown recommended that the home be made the national headquarters of the Association, with a regularly employed staff. This will unquestionably be done.

One cannot think of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, however, without recalling the name of the late Mrs. Mary B. Talbert, a former president. On June 22, 1922, in Newark, N. J., the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people awarded her the annual Spingard Medal, —"for service to the women of her race and for the restoration of the home of Frederick Douglass." (See pages 336-7.)

Social Welfare Administration is the name of a new bi-monthly magazine issued by the publishers of *Better Times*, the organ of New York charitable and social work. The new publication is intended for executives and directors of charitable organizations, welfare institutions, and other social agencies throughout the United States and Canada, and is exclusively devoted to their administration and management problems. It deals with such subjects as office management, record keeping, publicity, money raising, purchasing, printed matter, accounting, and committee organization. George J. Hecht is the editor of the publication. The magazine is the successor of the section of *Better Times* which was known as "Money Raising and Administrative Methods." The subscription price is $1 a year, or $2 with *Better Times*. A free sample copy will be sent on request to anyone interested. The publication office is at 100 Gold Street, New York City.

The New York Urban League has organized a Speakers' Educational Bureau. This bureau will not only seek opportunities to spread information such as will introduce the better side of the Negro race to white people, but will furnish speakers, upon request, to churches, Sunday Schools, young people's organizations, forums, and assemblies throughout New York, on various phases of the race question in America, Africa, and other countries. Special consideration will be given students in the city schools. Also, a series of talks will be

broadcasted, the first of which will be given by Dr. Peter M. Murray, President of the Harlem Health Conference. Those persons with the ability to speak, and a desire to assist in this program, are asked to send their names to the New York Urban League, 202 West 136th Street, New York City. The executive secretary is James H. Hubert. While the bureau will aim especially to reach white groups, it will

also supply speakers on various welfare topics to colored churches and other organizations, with a view to spreading information about health, industry, and other matters concerning the common welfare.

J. H. Kelley

Colonel Arthur Little

The distinction of being the youngest student ever to enroll at Kansas University is Georgia Caldwell's. She is only fourteen years of age. When eleven years old she entered Lincoln High School. In addition to being the youngest in a class of 122 graduates, she headed the honor roll, with an average of 93.6. Her prizes consisted of the Alumni Silver Loving Cup, given for highest scholarship; the honor pin given by the High School Faculty, for the same rank; the fourth year honor pin, given to the Senior making the highest average; the Parent-Teacher twenty-five dollar Scholarship, given to the highest honor student; the five dollar mathematics prize, given to the student taking all the mathematics given in the High School and making the highest average, and the Alpha Kappa Alpha one hundred dollar Scholarship, granted as a result of an examination given to the honor students of Lincoln High School, Kansas City, Mo., and Sumner High School, Kansas City, Kansas, to the student making the highest average. Outside of school, Miss Caldwell has also studied the violin. She is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. W. W. Caldwell of Kansas City, Mo.

A dispatch from the Preston News Service says: "Little do travelers know, as they journey on the Illinois Central Railroad, from the heart of the Mississippi Valley to Chicago, when the semaphores swing up and down and the red signals change to green and yellow, that a colored telegrapher has given their train the o.k. The officials have been wise to the situation for fifty years,—they know that Mr. Kelley is merely an efficient, tried and true telegrapher. They've forgotten that he is a Negro." This Mr. J. H. Kelly—though seventy-three years

352

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER, 1924

of age—handles thirty-one trains a day, at Car-
bondale, Ill., and took his first vacation this year.
He has been twice married, and is the father of
twelve children, eight of whom are living and
seven of these being daughters who are married.
His record of achievements is just another of those
romances:—the son of a barber who, by the way, lived
to be 101 years of age; but he revolted and studied
medicine under one of the physicians in his home town,
Alton, Ill.,—"sitting up at night, nearly all night, and
barbering the next day." He saved enough money to
enter college; but on account of his color, he could not
be admitted. A chance passing by a telegraph office,
and an innocent inquiry of an operator who was clean-
ing out batteries, started him in telegraphy. His salary
is $200 a month, and he is the owner of a $22,000 home
in Chicago.

The law creating the Negro Industrial Commission
was enacted by the Fifthieth General Assembly, in 1918.
The purpose of the organization is: "To discover, fer-
ret out, survey, and recommend remedies, educational,
moral, and industrial, for the betterment of the Negroes

of Missouri." The executive
secretary of this Commission is
Robert S. Cobb, who has his of-
fice in the State Capitol, in
Jefferson City. He was born
in Cape Girardeau, Mo., in
1888, and educated in the pub-
lic schools and Knoxville Col-
lege. For twelve years he was
a teacher in the graded and high
schools of Missouri, and dur-
ing the world war he served
as Business and Religious Sec-
retary of the Army Y. M. C. A.
He was appointed a member of
the Race Relations Committee

of the State Conference for Social Welfare which
convened during October in St. Louis. Mr. Cobb will
recommend the following remedial legislation to the
Fifty-third General Assembly, which will convene in
January, 1925:

An appropriation of at least $500,000 for the neces-
sary support and development of Lincoln University
during the next biennial period; provisions for the
education of all the children of the state, regardless
of color or local conditions. (Approximately two thou-
sand colored children are at this time entirely without
educational opportunities); a separate institution for
the colored boys now confined at the Missouri Reforma-
tory in Booneville, under very unsatisfactory conditions;
an adequate appropriation for the establishment of a
tuberculosis sanitarium for colored people; an appropri-
ation for a home for feeble-minded colored people; the
equalization of salaries paid to colored employees of

Robert S. Cobb

Who's Who?

William L. Brown

Ottie B. Graham

Arthur E. King

Ottie B. Graham was educated in the public schools
of Philadelphia, Howard University, and Columbia Uni-
versity. She has won literary prizes offered by Howard
University and The Crisis. She is devoting her time to
commercial art and literary work.

the state in the
public schools
and in general,
equal train-
ing, equal com-
petency, equal
remuneration;
a more nearly
equitable recog-
nition of the
colored citizens
of the state in
the matter of
appointments in
the various
forms of public
service, particu-
larly in the
large number of
interests in
which colored
people are di-
rectly engaged
or concerned;
or an adequate
housing code.

Francis C. Holbrook

Opportunity will carry at intervals drawings by Fran-
cis C. Holbrook as an added feature. The first of these
are of Negro poets, illustrating the article "Black Verse"
(page 330). Mr. Holbrook is both a draughtsman and
an illustrator. He served as Chairman of the Art Com-
mittee which held a successful exhibit in Albany, N. Y.,
and is a contributor of biographical sketches on colored
artists.

William Lester Brown is a nephew of John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame. He, too, stands for the liberation and uplift of colored people. He was born in Wisconsin, and is a graduate of Grinnell College.

Arthur E. King has been a special student in eco-
nomics at McGill University, Canada, and a con-
tributor to Industrial Canada, organ of the Canadian
Manufacturers' Association.

Daisy Miller has been a lecturer for the Board of
Education in New York, on "Negro Dialect in Litera-
ture," and for two years a WJZ radio artist on "Negro
Dialect Stories."

Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson is a resident of Wilming-
ton, Del., who is familiar with political issues in that
State. She is also a short story writer and author of
several historical essays.

Frank S. Horne has contributed articles on poetry to
several important magazines. Until recently he lived
in Chicago, and is a graduate of the College of the
City of New York.

Dr. Charles H. Garvin served overseas as an officer of the U. S. Medical Corps during the World War. He is practising in Cleveland, Ohio, where he also serves as a member of the city hospital staff.

## Pythian Bath House and Sanitarium

Knights of Pythias of N. A., S.A., E., A., A. and A.

(Operating Under Supervision of U. S. Government)

415 1/2 Malvern Avenue
Hot Springs Nat. Park
Arkansas

Hot Radio-Active Water Furnished by the Government
For All Baths.

Sanitarium has 10 Rooms, Diet and Operating Rooms

Hotel has 56 Rooms; Telephone, Hot and Cold Running
Water in Every Room.

Bath Rates:

21 Baths . . . $13.00 10 Baths . . . $6.50

21 Baths to Pythians and Calantheans, $8.50

## Students - Teachers
### ATTENTION !!

Everybody Interested in
the Intellectual Better-
ment of the Masses,

### ATTENTION !!

Why not become a sub-
scription agent for OPPOR-
TUNITY?

Make extra money while at
the same time performing a
racial service.

Liberal commissions paid.

We want agents through-
out the country.

For further particulars apply

### OPPORTUNITY

127 East 23rd Street
New York City

## SHAW UNIVERSITY

RALEIGH, N. C.

HAS NOW AN "A" COLLEGE RATED
BY THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Shaw University, which is co-educational, was founded in 1865 under the direction of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. It has always maintained the highest standards of scholarship and character. Thousands of young men and women graduates of the institution are filling responsible positions in almost every state in the union.

The departments are Academic (beginning second year), College, Business, Theological, and Missionary and Social Service.

Degrees given: B.A., B.S., and Th.B.

Terms reasonable. Send for catalogue.

Address

SHAW UNIVERSITY,

Raleigh, N. C.

## MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE

A Class "A" College

With Departments of Medicine, Dentistry &
Pharmacy, and a Nurse Training School

ALL DEPARTMENTS RECENTLY
REORGANIZED

Two years (Class One) College work required for admission to the study of Medicine. For admission into the Department of Dentistry, the applicant must have had one year of standard college training. Graduation from a four years High School or Normal School required for admission to the Departments of Pharmacy and Nurse Training. For catalog and application blank, address:

JOHN J. MULLOWNEY, M. D., President of
Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn.

## PAINE COLLEGE

AUGUSTA, GA.

STANDARD COLLEGE COURSES

APPROVED TWO-YEAR NORMAL

RAY S. TOMLIN, President.

## The Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute

(Formerly Daytona N. & I. Institute)

DAYTONA, FLORIDA

A School of Character and Personality
In the Heart of Sunnyland

Began its second year as a Co-educational Institution September 9, 1924, with the strongest faculty in its history. Offers to ambitious young men and women, prepared to take them, courses in

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

Splendid facilities for courses along Commercial lines, Music, Homecrafts, Dressmaking, Plain Sewing, Agriculture, Carpentry, and Tailoring.

A most complete hospital with an accredited Nurse Training Course.

Athletic Sports and Recreation of all kinds provided for and encouraged. One of the best Athletic Fields in the South.

For information and catalog, address

MARY McLEOD BETHUNE, President, or

JOHN C. WRIGHT, Vice-President.

When The Negro Moves North

Nearly half a million Southern Negroes are said to have migrated North during the past few years. Undoubtedly social and economic benefits will result. But does it mark the beginning of the extinction of the Negro race in America? Or will the race die out only by the diffusion of Negro blood among the whole population?

These interesting questions are debated by Blanton Fortson, Judge of the Superior Court of Georgia, and William Pickens, author and educator, in the November issue of

THE
FORUM

A Magazine of Discussion

Edited by HENRY GODDARD LEACH

In every issue of THE FORUM some equally vital question is discussed without fear or favor. THE FORUM keeps its readers in touch with the things intelligent people want to know about in articles that are brief, entertaining, and to the point.

Special Offer

For a limited time only the publishers will accept special introductory subscriptions of four months for $1.00. The regular price is 35¢ a copy, $4.00 a year. Send the coupon with $1.00 for the November, December, January, and February issues.

THE FORUM,
247 Park Avenue, New York.
Please enter my subscription for 4
months, beginning with the No-
vember number.

Name
Address
City
State

P-11-24

Opportunity's
Literary Prize Contest

Five Hundred Dollars in Awards

SEE PAGE 324

ATLANTA SCHOOL
Of
SOCIAL WORK
ATLANTA, GEORGIA

GIVES training in the technic of Social Case Work and prepares its students for professional work.

For Further Information Address the Director

E. FRANKLIN FRAZIER, A. M.
Morehouse College

ABRAHAM RUBINSTEIN
wishes to hear from those students
who at any time attended the
RHODES PREPARATORY
SCHOOL or the MANHAT-
TAN PREPARATORY
SCHOOL

Dear Friends:

During the past twenty-two years I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you who have attended either of the above schools, of which I was the founder and principal.

I wish to organize a school alumni, and I want to hear from every one of our former students.

I have severed all connection with the Rhodes School and I am now devoting myself entirely to the MANHATTAN PREPARATORY SCHOOL.

Please communicate with me at the
MANHATTAN PREPARATORY
SCHOOL, 115 East Houston Street,
New York City.

One of
Home Office
Buildings

527 N. 2nd St.
Richmond, Va.

## Southern Aid Society
of Virginia, Inc.

Provides a Superior Insurance policy to our group. Gives employment to 500 Race men and women. Furnishes modern office facilities to our professional and business groups.

Home Offices: 527-29 N. 2nd St.
Richmond, Va.

Operating in State of Virginia and
District of Columbia

## Virginia Union University
is now a Class A College

Excellent courses are offered in College as well as in Theology and in High School work.

The summer session is for college students only.

For full information address the President at
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

## Atlanta University

## Morehouse College

ATLANTA, GA.
College, Academy, Divinity
School

AN institution famous within recent years for its emphasis on all sides of manly development—the only institution in the far South devoted solely to the education of Negro young men.

Graduates given high ranking by greatest northern universities. Debating, Y.M.C.A., athletics, all live features.

For information address

JOHN HOPE, PRESIDENT

## KNOXVILLE COLLEGE

Knoxville, Tenn.

Earnest student body. Reasonable expense.

Wholesome intellectual and moral atmosphere.

Healthful location and surroundings.

Strong Departments of Science and Education.

Well trained and efficient faculty.

Recognized as standard college by State Board of Education.

Active in athletics, debate, Christian Association work, etc.

Students enter the first ten days of each term.

Fall term opens Wednesday, September 17, 1924.

Courses: college, academy, sub-academy, music, home economics, and nurse training.

For complete information address

The President, Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tenn.

## Howard University

WASHINGTON, D. C.

### Collegiate and Professional Schools

### REGISTRATION

Fall Quarter September 26 and 27, 1924

Winter Quarter January 3, 1925

Spring Quarter March 14, 1925

F. D. WILKINSON, Registrar

CHARLES S. JOHNSON, Editor

OPPORTUNITY

A JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE

Published Monthly by

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

Telephone Gramercy 3978.

WILLIAM H. BALDWIN
Secretary

A. S. FRISSELL
Treasurer

VOL. 2

DECEMBER, 1924

No. 24

Contents

COVER.

Designed by Vincent E. Saunders

EDITORIALS

SEGREGATION AND VOTES

A JUDGE AND A SENATOR

WORK FOR THE MIGRANTS

THE LAST WARNING

ARTICLES

THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF NEGRO
CITIZENSHIP

By Charles H. Wesley

356

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
INTER-RACIAL JUSTICE

By L. Hollingsworth Wood

360

THE NEGRO AND CHRISTIANITY

By Arthur A. Schomburg

362

KINSHIP. A Poem

By Esther Popel.

364

OUTSTANDING NEGRO NEWSPAPERS

By Eugene F. Gordon

365

REFLECTIONS ON O'NEILL'S PLAYS

(Illustrated)

By Paul Robeson

368

ANATOLE FRANCE

By Rene Maran

370

DRENCHED IN LIGHT. A Story

By Zora Neale Hurston

371

WHO GIVES HIMSELF

A Christmas Story

By Eunice R. Hunton

374

THE POPULATION PROBLEM AND
THE NEGRO

By Arthur E. King

374

BOOK REVIEWS

THE GIFT OF BLACK FOLK

By W. E. B. Dubois

Reviewed by Benjamin Brawley

377

GERTRUDE OF DENMARK

By Tillie Buffum Chase Wyman

Reviewed by Angelina Grimke

378

SOCIAL PROGRESS

(Illustrated)

379

Copyright 1923

OPPORTUNITY

Editorials

November 1924

Vol. 2 No. 24

Segregation
and Votes

NOT the least among the les-
sons burned in by the recent
elections is that racial segregation

imposed by bombs, hostile white Protestant senti-
ment, Protective Associations, "zoning" ordinances,
and incendiarism, exacts some times through its own
perfection most disconcerting reprisals.

Chicago's Negro population, almost trebled by
the migration from the South, has been closed in a
vise. Blocked in on the South by the business dis-
trict, on the East by Lake Michigan, on the West
by the stockyards, the white residents to the South
opposed their "invasion" with every instrument of
their cunning both within and without the law.
The riot of 1919 was a part of the protest, and be-
fore the riot, sixty bombs were thrown into Negro
homes by way of reminding them of their utter un-
desirability. The result of many and diverse forces
working together has been an intensified race con-
sciousness and incidentally a concentration of Negro
voters. In addition to electing a Municipal Judge
and a State Senator, they sent four Negroes to the
Assembly.

In Philadelphia, where segregation is carried even
into the school system, two Negroes, Samuel B.
Hart and William H. Fuller, were elected State
Representatives. In St. Louis, Walthal M. Moore
was returned to the Missouri Legislature. Last
August Robert Scott was elected local committee-
man, the first to be given such office in St. Louis.
In New York, a Democratic stronghold, still with
a large fearful white population in the wards of
Negro residence, Dr. Charles D. Roberts, Republi-
can, and unquestionably competent, was defeated
for Congress, while Henry D. Shields, Democrat,
was sent to Albany as a State Representative. West
Virginia and Ohio also had Negroes in the race.

A casual study of the census figures will show
how naturally one thing follows the other. In
1890 Chicago's Negro population was 14,271 of
whom 9,271 or 63.9 per cent, lived in three wards.
While only 6.3 per cent of the white population
lived with the Negroes in these three wards, this
6.3 per cent in actual figures amounted to 68,408
persons. But since the Negro population was vir-
tually barred from living anywhere else, as their

numbers increased they merely packed themselves in
these three wards. In 1920 thus there were 73,161
instead of 9,271 in the three wards, and more im-
portant still, 65,176 or 58 per cent of the entire
Negro population lived in two of the thirty-five
wards of the city. The proportion of whites in
the three wards to total whites in the city dropped
from 6.3 to 4.7 per cent.

In practically every Northern city this concentra-
tion has been in progress and always in the face of
deep protests against the discomforts and dangers
imposed,—the hazards to health and decency.

The law of balances operates sometimes with
most surprising compensations: Negro law makers
are multiplying out of a situation into which they
have been forced in defiance of law.

A Judge and
a Senator

AN election is intended to be,
in its final analysis, a refined
revolution, even though Dr. Albert

Edward Wiggam in scholarly petulance over the
ponderous inertia of the American mind, reduces
it to the dull spectacle of "democracy turning over
in bed." It is a revolution when two woman can
be elected to the Governorship of a state. It is
a revolution when in Illinois, for the first time
since the days of Reconstruction one Negro can
be elected to a responsible judgeship and another to
the State Senate.

It is worth noting the character of the men thus
honored. Mr. Albert George, who became a
Municipal Judge, is not a politician, but a success-
ful lawyer with a wide and brilliant record in his
profession. Warrantably this is an index to the
silent, sober sense of his constituency, in the main,
Negroes.

A judge least of all can afford to be a vote
seeker. The wave of confidence which swept Mr.
George into office was founded on a long record
of dogged civic interest, a stern sort of righteous-
ness which makes as unnecessary, as unfitting the
tempered justice of "pull" and favoritism. For
five years he has been Secretary of the Executive
Board of the Chicago Urban League, an officer of
the Provident Hospital, a Secretary of the endow-
ment fund of the Knights of Pythias and a Sunday-
school Superintendent. His practice has been con-
fined to no one Court or race. He has handled

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cases for white clients against Negroes and won against Negro lawyers defending whites.

A Negro candidate with an over-racial bias would no more quickly have been elected by Chicago Negro voters than an avowed apostle of the Ku Klux Klan. And in this respect we may concede to those voters a political sanity conspicuously at variance with their reputation.

No less significant in its paradox was the election of Adelbert H. Roberts to the State Senate. He certainly could not be accused of beckoning votes with grandiose appeals to the appetites of the commonality. For he is and has been an unequivocal prohibitionist. In the Legislature his advocacy of principles of justice, his fierce, moving eloquence, his keen sense of values, and restless activity made the next step a simple matter of logic. He could accomplish his ends because their social value was incontrovertible; because he could be stern without being brutal, insistent without being obnoxious, and fair without being prejudiced. A strange leader he is,—a solitary figure, aloofly meditative, moving through his task with a bearing which suggests almost the extreme of solemn grandeur—a gentleman in politics. Chicago Negroes sent him to the State Senate unopposed and he neither paid them for their votes nor bribed them with extravagant and unrealizable promises, nor lost one suspender button in soap box hysterics. He earned his honor on his service record.

## Work for the Migrants

TEN Northern cities with a combined population of 525,000 report through Urban

League organizations a migration from the South of about 30,000 for the eleven months of the year 1924. If these represented entirely new accesses from the South this would indicate that just about ten times as many migrants are coming as the North received before the war, but just about half as many as were coming during those hectic years when the movement was at its crest. It is evident, however, that these registrants in cities are not all newcomers from the South. The low state of those industries in which they find work has created a degree of unemployment much more severe than is apparent on the surface. In every city under study workers had been laid off in large numbers during the year. In Detroit all the important industrial concerns have cut their forces beside reducing a large part of those remaining to part time work. For the present no work is to be had and large numbers are leaving the city. In Pittsburgh only about 40 per cent of the Negro laborers are unaffected by the reduction in work and in working hours. But few of these are returning to the South in spite of the first chill warnings of Winter. Instead they wander from city to city like the very ghosts of dead prosperity, seeking an opening. The lull in business

preceding the election, however, has made possible a ready supply of labor for building, though irregular and uncertain, and, incidentally, the unsettlement has in some quarters brought housing relief. But despite the necessity for shelter once felt so painfully, the uncertainty of employment is an exorbitant price to pay for it.

## The Last Warning

### OPPORTUNITY'S
Literary Contest

closes December thirty-first.

As we go to press, one month and a half before the final date, 231 manuscripts have been entered. Stories, poems, plays, a sparkling colorful miscellany,—from the sophisticated centers of culture, from the rich veins of Negro life in the South, from tiny towns with unfamiliar postmarks, from the wide stretches of the West, from Panama and the Virgin Islands. About them all is a passionate earnestness; and out of this surprising concourse of themes and aspirations we have confidence will emerge a group of creative artists who have caught the furtive soul of their people.

Negro life is the one unexplored sector of American life. It has been for the most part, so long and so carefully protected by the incrustations of taboo and misrepresentation that it emerges now upon a world jaded and bored, with all the flaring revelations of a new country. *Harper's Magazine* for October allowed Konrad Bercovici to discover Harlem, which he did interestingly even if his contact with life there was as fleeting as "the kiss of two billiard balls." The *Forum Magazine's* winning story, selected out of 600 entries and published in November, was a Negro story. During the same month *Theatre Arts* published "*The No-Count Boy*," a bewitchingly romantic play with a theme woven around three Negro characters, and Countee Cullen's poems appeared simultaneously in four literary journals. Walter White's "*The Fire in the Flint*" has drawn the approbation of a wide circle of critics. Jessie Fauset's "*There Is Confusion*" is passing through its third printing and a translation. No less than fifteen books, exclusive of scientific publications, have appeared this year on Africa; more than fifty books have appeared this year dealing directly or indirectly with Negro life and problems.

There is a curiosity about this life as well as about the power of those who know it best to write about it.

The contest aims to bring these new voices into tune with the larger world of letters,—to help them discover themselves. It could have no other purpose. Once before we quoted Robert H. Davis, Editor of the Munsey publications, who expressed a hope which is general: that the Contest will reveal "some rare first note" worthy of development and of free incorporation into the stream of American letters. Upon this hope we rest until the judges decide.

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

# The Historical Basis of Negro Citizenship

By CHARLES H. WESLEY

ARE Negro-Americans citizens of the United States? This question has been asked repeatedly and it has been forced dramatically upon the American people at several periods in the history of the Republic. If these occasions were not so pregnant with possible disabilities for the race as a whole, the presentation of such a question might be softened into a smile. In truth, many thoughtful persons who were contemporaries with these occasions have been quite willing to dismiss the question as mere folly. Such would be the case if our present racial relations were not so acute. The racial situation has formed the background for much of the political and the judicial action as they have concerned the Negro group in America and the result has been to give to the occasions on which the questions of citizenship have been presented the possibility of serious consequences for Negro-Americans.

At the time of the Dred Scott decision in 1857, the question was raised in an attempt to settle the controversy over slavery. When the war for southern independence had ended disastrously for the South, and the freedmen were facing new futures, the question of citizenship again thrust itself to the front and found an answer in the Fourteenth Amendment. At subsequent periods, like Banquo's ghost, the question would not down. Again on October 5, 1924, the attention of the American people was called, not under such dramatic circumstances, but nevertheless seriously to the problem created by the presence of Negroes in America.

A suit was filed in the United States District Court at New Orleans, Louisiana, as a petition for an injunction restraining Walter L. Cohen, recently appointed Comptroller of Customs at the Port of New Orleans, from exercising the duties of his office. The petition was based upon six postulates:

(1) That Mr. Cohen was not a citizen of the United States, being a person of African blood and descent

(2) That the Fourteenth Amendment was not legally proposed and passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress

(3) That the Fourteenth Amendment was not constitutionally ratified by three-fourths of the states

(4) That there were eleven states which were unconstitutionally and illegally deprived of their suffrage in Congress at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment

(5) That six states of the United States were forced by coercion to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment

(6) That Congress, without authority, unlawfully

declared the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution as adopted.

This suit, following immediately the fight over the confirmation by the Senate of Mr. Cohen as Comptroller of the Port of New Orleans, and preceding the election for the Presidency by four weeks, has attracted considerable public attention. The Court is asked not only to pass upon the right of Mr. Cohen to office, but also upon the legality of the Amendment and indirectly upon the right of all Negroes who live in America to be considered citizens. This would seem, on the face of it, to be an absurdity to ask the Supreme Court, which was created by the Constitution, to pass upon the validity of a part of it. Such a procedure is without precedent and opens a new phase of attack upon the Constitution. The Court has been conceded the right to challenge laws of Congress, but never to test the validity of the document of which it is the guardian.

It would not be amiss, therefore, to consider, first, what basis there is for the claims of Negro-Americans to citizenship quite aside from a constitutional amendment and the traditional claim of past loyalty to America; and, second, whether the Fourteenth Amendment is illegal and unconstitutional. These problems may be settled by the Supreme Court or the Federal Courts before this discussion comes to the reader's attention—for it is written while the case is still pending—nevertheless, the effort will not be wasted in pointing out the real basis of Negro-American citizenship and especially in demonstrating the folly of future attacks upon this claim.

The fundamental principle of the English Common Law, for at least two centuries prior to the settlement of America, was birth within the allegiance of the king. Every child who was born of alien parents in England was a natural-born subject of the king, unless the child was the offspring of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent. This principle became fixed in English Law by the case of Postnati, under James I, in 1608. The colonists came to America with the stock of Common Law principles which were in operation in England, and nearly every state constitution shows this relation. The principle of citizenship by birth was among those principles which prevailed in the English colonies until the adoption of the Constitution.

When the Constitution was completed, there was no effort made to define the word "citizen." Recognition was given to the dual character of citizenship in that the phrases "citizens of different states" and "citizens of the United States" were used. But the relationship between the two was not stated. The whole question of citizen-

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ship in the United States has been very compli-
cated as a result of this lack of definition. Other
countries have been able to settle their problem
with greater ease. In America the presence of
alien races has added to the complexity. The
Indians were here when the white races came,
and they were rapidly made to occupy an anoma-
lous place under American laws. The annexation
of the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Hawaii brought
new questions.

Negroes were here in America nearly a cen-
tury prior to the first English colony at Jamestown
in 1607. It is suggested by Spanish historians
that Negroes had come to the western world prior
to the coming of Columbus. They were prob-
ably Mandingoes from Africa, who were blown
hither by trade winds. Negroes were with Vasque
de Ayllon when he attempted a settlement on the
Atlantic Coast, in 1526, and they assisted in build-
ing the first ships of record which were constructed
on this coast. They were the guides, the com-
panions, and the slaves of the explorers of South-
west America. From the most remote periods,
Negroes have been associated with America and
with those who call themselves Americans, and if
length of residence has anything to do with
claims as to citizenship, the Negroes of America
are Americans among Americans. When the Ar-
ticles of Confederation were signed in 1781,
Negroes were regarded as citizens in New Hamp-
shire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and
North Carolina. They were not only regarded
as citizens of these states but they exercised the
franchise, as did other electors. At the time of
the adoption of the Constitution, Negroes were
citizens and voters in at least five of the thirteen
states. The citizenship of Negroes in America
is older than some persons may realize. The his-
tory of representative government in England and
America tells us that Negro-Americans are citizens
of the United States by virtue of birth within the
allegiance of America, just as Irish-Americans,
German-Americans, Swedish-Americans, and simi-
lar groups, may claim citizenship. If Negro-
Americans' citizenship is threatened, then the citi-
zenship of all persons born in America of foreign
parentage is at stake.

The uncertainty concerning the relation between
citizenship in a state and citizenship in the United
States continued until the time of the Dred Scott
decision in 1857. In this case, the majority of
the members of the Supreme Court manifested
a partisan spirit and declared that a man of Afri-
can descent, whether slave or free, had not been
and was not intended to be a citizen of the United
States. The decision and the obiter dicta thus
implied that Negroes were incapable of becoming
citizens. It has been asserted on several occasions
that the decisions of the Supreme Court were
biased, and there is no case in which the personal
and political circumstances so well authenticate
its partisanship as the case of Dred Scott v. San-
ford. An outburst of indignation greeted the de-

cision, not so much because of the verdict itself,
as because of the dicta which accompanied it.
Decisions of the Supreme Court which run counter
to the opinion of the majority of the American
people have been always futile and they have
served only to lessen the influence of the Court.

With the passing years, it was evident that a
legal definition of citizenship was necessary. The
Dred Scott decision and the freedom of the slaves
gave opportunity for a statement of a citizenship
principle. The Fourteenth Amendment reaffirmed
the principle of the English Common Law, that
is, citizenship by birth within the allegiance. There
is no doubt in the mind of any serious student that
the purpose of the Amendment was to establish
the citizenship of the Negro, which was refuted in
the Dred Scott case. In order to define its posi-
tion, the Reconstruction Congress included the
Fourteenth Amendment as a defense against the
possible southern aggression which was imminent
in the so-called Black Codes.

The Fourteenth Amendment recognized the
dual character of citizenship and defined citizen-
ship in the statement that "All persons born or
naturalized in the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United
States and of the States wherein they reside." Thus
citizenship in the United States was made the
only test of citizenship. It was not dependent
upon State citizenship and no State could deny
citizenship to any individual. From this period
to the present time, citizenship was acquired in
two ways only, by birth and by naturalization.
Subsequent cases have further established the fact
that, irrespective of nationality, all persons born
within the territorial limits of the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are, ipso
facto, citizens of the United States. This prin-
ciple was declared in the Slaughter House cases
(1873), in the case of Strauder v. West Virginia
(1879), in Ex parte Virginia (1879), in Neal
v. Delaware (1880), in Elk v. Wilkins (1884),
in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), in United States
v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), and in Hodges v.
United States (1906).

In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, the Court interpreted
the Fourteenth Amendment with the words that
"These provisions are universal in their applica-
tion to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction
without regard to any differences of race, of color,
or of nationality, and the equal protection of the
laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws."
In the United States v. Wong Kim Ark, it was
declared that "No one doubts that the Amendment
as soon as it was promulgated applied to persons
of African descent born in the United States, what-
ever the birthplace of their parents might have
been." In Hodges v. United States, the phrase
"citizens of African descent" was used and in other
cases similar phrases were employed by the Court.

A statute of July 14, 1870, provided for the
naturalization of persons of African descent. Ac-
cording to this law, a declaration of the intention

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to secure naturalization papers could be made only by an alien who was "a white person or of African nativity or African descent." The wording of this passage implies the exclusion of Asiatics, and decisions have so indicated it. Very recent decisions of the Supreme Court growing out of the California statutes have excluded the Japanese from eligibility to American citizenship and the Court declared definitely in Takoa v. United States (1922), that citizenship in the United States was restricted to persons of European and African descent.

The validity of the Fourteenth Amendment is also challenged by the recent suit. The method of the adoption of the amendment is brought into question. The substance of the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment was reported to the House in a resolution on April 30, 1866. In the House on May 10, the resolution was passed by a vote of 128-37, 18 not voting. In the Senate, it was passed by a vote of 33-11. When the amendment went to the states, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky rejected it and California failed to vote either for or against the measure. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas rejected the measure. By the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867, the ratification of the amendment was made a condition to the restoration to the Union of the states formerly in rebellion. To make the situation more complex, New Jersey and Ohio rescinded their earlier ratifications. This brought up the question of whether a State could withdraw the ratification of a constitutional amendment. Finally on July 20, 1868, a proclamation by Seward, Secretary of State, announced that twenty-three States had ratified the amendment and that "the newly constituted and newly established bodies avowing themselves to be and acting as the legislatures of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas" ratified the measure. It was also announced by the proclamation that if the New Jersey and the Ohio ratifications were regarded "as remaining of full force and effect" the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Thereupon Congress declared the proclamation in force by a resolution of July 21 and on July 28 the final proclamation was issued.

Without question this procedure was unusual. But a part of the United States had undertaken to nullify the laws of the United States and had fostered a revolution by force of arms. Revoltion is always illegal, and in order to be suppressed, it must be met by methods which revolutionists understand. If the Fourteenth Amendment is illegal, because the States were compelled to ratify it as a condition to their entrance into the Union, then the Constitution itself and much of our governmental procedure may be called in question. From where did the sovereignty of the Continental Congress come? When the sovereignty of the king was broken by revolution, where then was sovereignty? What of the vast number of the

people in the United States who opposed the revolution and who fought against the ratification of the Constitution? Moreover, the document was worded in its beginning clause, by the first draft, "We, the people of the States of New Hampshire, etc.", but owing to the opposition which was present, the clause was changed to read, "We, the people of the United States, etc". Many delegates left the convention without signing the document. In the ratification conventions there were bitter fights and great dissatisfaction. The legislatures and conventions dare not allow the people to vote upon the measure, for its defeat by popular vote was generally conceded. Rhode Island and North Carolina refused to ratify until they were threatened with complete isolation in trade and commerce. The facts show that the constitution was forced upon the people by the organized Federalist party, headed at that time by Hamilton, Madison and Jay. Such an interpretation of this period will not satisfy the sentimentalist who loves to think of the self-sacrificing spirit and one-ness of action of the fathers of the country.

In the election of George Washington as President of the United States, the people voted for presidential electors in only five States, and in five other States the electors were chosen by the State Legislatures. New York refused to participate in the election. Why not a suit then to challenge the unconstitutionality of George Washington's election and the illegality of all bills signed by him? Similar instances will challenge the attention of the student of constitutional history all along the pathway of American development. Again, if the Fourteenth Amendment is illegal, then the Thirteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment may be challenged and ultimately the whole constitution may become a scrap of paper forced upon an unwilling people.

The sanction of Negro citizenship was not the only purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its adoption meant the end of State's Rights, the curtailment of State control over private rights, the limitation upon the State police power, the equal protection of the law and due process of law. A change in representation and the repudiation of the Confederate debt were included. If the Fourteenth Amendment is illegal, shall we revive this debt of the South and the old system of representation by which five Negroes were counted as three whites? Of the five sections of the Fourteenth Amendment, only the first and the fifth Sections could affect the Negro. Six hundred and four cases have come to the Supreme Court between 1868 and 1910. Only twenty-eight cases concerned the Negro. Three hundred and twelve cases concerned corporations and two hundred and sixty-four concerned individual rights. The largest number of cases, therefore, deal with organized business. Capital and the monied interests of America have been protected by the direct, positive decision of the Supreme Court. If the Fourteenth Amendment is illegal, what becomes

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359

of these cases involving wealth and property, and of those of the present day before the Court, for more than half of the cases which come before the Supreme Court arise out of either the Commerce Clause of the Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment?

Technicalities of law and errors in presentment have been used in order to prevent the direct protection of Negroes under the amendment. The Federal power has failed to enforce the sections affecting the Negro, while it has been zealous in its protection of organized wealth under the theory that corporations are citizens. In spite of the amendment, the States decree the continued separation of the races, and the Federal Government appears to be impotent to enforce its own Constitution. So far as maintaining the rights of Negro-Americans to citizenship is concerned, the Civil War amendments are dead letters. The Negroes of America have qualified for citizenship in all the ways in which other Americans have qualified, but the nation has permitted the states to nullify the enactments of the Federal Government. In the last fifty years there have been few cases of restraint exercised by the Federal power through the Supreme Court upon the action of the States. These cases have included the Grandfather clauses and the Segregation cases.

As the case now stands for Negro-Americans, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is only a paper guarantee of citizenship. It is at the present moment a dead letter of the law. In spite of the clause, the principle of race separation and of race inferiority in our citizenry are maintained. No State desiring to pass laws which establish racial differences need fear an infringement of the Constitution. The position of the Supreme Court in this matter has been stated fairly well by Justice Brown in Plassey v. Ferguson. Said he, "Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the differences of the present situation—if one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane." Nevertheless, the Court has been known to have reasoned from false premises in other cases and it has been known to reverse its position also, and under the Constitution it can be made either to reverse itself in the future or to admit that the Constitution is no protection to American citizens.

Fortunately or unfortunately—depending upon the point of view—the Fourteenth Amendment was a sort of Magna Charta delivered by other parties to the Negroes freed by the Civil War. In some respects this was contrary to the history of liberty.

The liberty-loving peoples of the world have always taken their liberty from those who would withhold it, either by force of arms in the military periods of history, or by the control of the purse in parliamentary periods of history or by the use of the ballot in democratic periods of history. It is the statement of a truism, that they who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. Negroes have labored and fought for the liberty of all Americans, and in the Civil War, to the extent of 178,000, they fought for their own liberty against those who would oppress them; and now the Americans with whom they fought stand silent, while the descendants of the Confederacy deny Negroes their rights as citizens and sow throughout the nation the seeds of a system of racial caste which must ultimately cause the destruction of the common fatherland of these same groups.

The present age calls for a new appreciation of liberty, if it would be retained. Since the World War, the race consciousness of the majority of the white world has been sharpening itself into a collective action to keep the colored races of the world in subordinate places. Discrimination, segregation, the nullification of citizenship rights, the denial of the suffrage are parts of the plan in America, and they are regarded as the normal features of the day. Our friends have done much for us—gratitude is due the defenders of the rights of all Americans irrespective of race, creed or nationality—but the time is here, when if Negro-Americans would assert their claim to citizenship and secure it, they must prepare to pay the cost, (1) by qualifying in the future as in the past through any sacrifice to render the citizenship service which is expected of all Americans, (2) by giving notice of the beginning of a movement from within the group of emancipation from hindering State laws through individual achievement in spite of them, (3) by solemn protest both before courts of law as well as courts of public opinion rather than by silent acquiescence and (4) by demanding through all the constitutional means at their command that the Constitution with all of its amendments shall be enforced. Self-respecting individuals who prize their citizenship can take no other course. That Negro-Americans are citizens of the United States there can be little doubt—any suit or temporary decision of the Federal Courts to the contrary notwithstanding—but while the present state of race relations exists in America and the apathetic attitude of the majority of the American people toward the political status of Negroes in America continues, the question of the duration of Negro-American citizenship rights must be answered very largely by Negro-Americans themselves.

The reviews of Dow's "Society and Its Problems" by Abram L. Harris, and Price's "Negro Elementary School Teacher in West Virginia," by H. Councill Trenholm, announced for the December issue, will appear in January.

360

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# The Spiritual Significance of Inter-Racial Justice

By L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD

FEW want Justice.
Most of us want mercy or favors or ven-
gence.

How exactly human is the story of the unjust
Judge.

"Because this woman troubleth me I will
avenge her." Lazy follower of "let things be as
they are" philosophy, how we despise him!

In a recent article in *The World Tomorrow*,
Professor Henry R. Mussey shows delightfully that
Washington is very like the rest of us folks back
home. To quote a few lines:

"We love to flatter ourselves that we are better men than our representatives. Particularly when they go wrong do we dissociate ourselves from them." "We idealize the government and with it we identify ourselves while we pillory our representatives who mar the picture."

"Whatever Washington is or is not, it is dis-
centringly representative."

"To study Washington thoughtfully is to con-
clude that in a strange, almost mystical, yet pro-
foundly real way Washington is ourselves."

He goes on to show that the opposition to the
investigations of corruption by politicians and busi-
ness men is a shrinking from uncovering the all too
frequent practices of every community, both in
business and politics in the United States.

"And if we do not recognize the task and share
in the doing of it, then we shall be the last to cast
a stone."

Monopoly, as in the Aluminum Company, of
which Mr. Davis accuses Mr. Mellen, has an
evil sound in our ears, and yet the soft pedal reaches
up to my noise machine when I find that school
out in Macedonia, in which I am a trustee, is able
to keep up its helpful activities by income from
this same company.

Unjust freight rates to the farmer, but your
bedridden aunt is kept in such comfort as is pos-
sible by the dividends from the railroad securities
your uncle left her.

Effective, even-handed Justice—like the man who
first saw a giraffe: "I stoutly maintain "There
ain't no such animal.'"

Like most concepts in the realm of the spirit,
justice is an attitude of mind attainable in degree
but apt to change with the inflow of further in-
formation and broadening horizon until we come
to regard it as an attribute of an infinite being,
and even then we assent to Shakespeare's great
words:

"And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice."

It is easy to say the guilty don't want justice,
and I like to quote to my white friends that chal-
lenging poem by Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.:

Brother, come!
And let us go unto our God,
And when we stand before Him,
I shall say:
"Lord, I do not hate,
I am hated.
I scourge no one,
I am scourged.
I covet no lands,
My lands are coveted.
I mock no peoples,
My people are mocked."
And, brother, what shall you say?

And my imagination and yours picture a pretty
mean time for the attorney for the white race.

Jesus had an embarrassing way of dealing with
people who clamored for justice, on the women
taken in adultery: "Let him that is without guilt
among you cast the first stone."

(Well! I should like Jesus for my attorney
and the exquisite, forgiving, sympathetic, under-
standing friends of mine with brown skins to be
the jury when Cotter and I have to plead).

Burns' great saying:

"There's so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it ill behooves any of us

To talk about the rest of us
good philosophy with which to regard the whole

is good philosophy with which to regard the whole
question of justice and injustice whether inter-
racial or intercollegiate, international or internal.

We see so much evidence that "Might Makes
Right," and right seemingly is taken for justice,
that we get pretty impatient at the slow grinding
of God's mill-wheels. And Injustice seems to
get away with so many things that seem good and
worth while, that with continued failure to
achieve justice we slip into a feeling of contempt
for it, as if, after all, it were so far removed as
to be impossible of attainment and perhaps not
worth trying for. The trial by battle, an old
form of test based on the theory that Sir Galahad
announced, "My strength is as the strength of
ten because my heart is pure," gives place to
Napoleon's sneer that "God is on the side of the
strongest battalions."

In the field of inter-racial injustice we have just
been developing some new evidence. Our recent
Congressional unfairness to Japan is having some
remarkable effects. We see it shaking the faith
of thousands of men and women in our national
fairness. It is a greater shock, I think, to the
loyalty of the Negroes of America to our Federal
Government than all the alleged German propa-
ganda of the World War. While Latin America
has got another chill from it. And all the colored
races of the earth are moved a step closer to that
horrid picture which Lothrop Stoddard conjures

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

361

up in his "Rising Tide of Color," of the embattled colored races stretching greedy hands for the things now held by white races.

I am told, on most excellent authority, that after the Howard University baseball team last spring had beaten the touring Japanese baseball team, and thereby established a basis of comparison with many other college and university teams in the United States with whom Howard does not get a chance to play, they were all set for a great demonstration, bon-fire ready, etc., when somebody suggested that they could not celebrate this victory without the presence of the Japanese team as they were their colored brethren. They could not go down to the "white" hotel where the Japanese team was staying, but they called up on the telephone, only to find that the team was scattered for the evening; and so, I am informed, the celebration at Howard was called off. If this story is true, in the detail in which it was given to me, it indicates a resentment on the part of the colored youth of America at the Congressional action toward Japan which is striking.

Returned travellers tell me that in India and Japan the inquiries were always as to the Negro problem in the United States which they considered as their problem.

The deadening effect upon one's own personality of failure to do justice is perhaps the most dangerous of all the many poisons distilled by such action, or the lack of it. Hypocrisy, dishonesty, deceit, all grow in the soil prepared by injustice. A constant effort to still the persistent, accusing voice of conscience leads to an unwillingness to see or hear the things which rouse that sacred fire, and men become blind and dead who were originally only dumb.

"It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" is a universal voice which did not stop when St. Paul saw the great light on the Road to Damascus. But have we not with less illumined souls drowned out the voice and devoted ourselves to breaking down the pricks rather than change the course?

To receive injustice, on the other hand, makes us worship at Justice's shrine. Yearn for it. Glorify it. And struggle for it. And if bitterness and despair at failure to attain do not poison the whole life, it could be and I think should be a stimulating experience.

That it does stimulate is unquestioned. But that it stimulates in turn to do justice to others is, I think, quite a question.

Is not the well known habit of Sophomores at college to pass on the rough treatment they have received to the young innocents fresh from home who make up the Freshman Class a pretty fair sample of our general method of behavior, or is it more dignified to point to the effects of Japanese Imperialism in Korea as a reflection of the Nordic western treatment of the subjects of the Mikado? And what about the treatment the Arabs complain of in Palestine from the newly imposed rule of the Jews under the British Mandate? Liberia does

not seem over-anxious to hold out open arms to Mr. Garvey.

The practice of inter-racial justice has not only a spiritual significance but is followed by an extraordinary train of virtues. Honesty, frankness, understanding, cooperation, friendship, brotherhood, world organization, free-trade, a warless world, some such Utopia as we were wont to call the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, wait upon the application of inter-racial justice.

The problems attending the rewriting of the Versailles Treaty, the real working of the machinery of the League of Nations, or of the World Court, await the building up of the spirit of good-will which alone can make the most carefully thought-out machinery of international relations actually work. These all depend upon our achieving not only inter-racial justice in act but in thought as well.

So long as the people of the United States are willing to think as they must in order to make possible the action of our marines in Haiti, or our naval government of those languishing islands which we bought from Denmark, or any of the big-stick attitudes with which we move about Central America, so long will insults to friendly nations like Japan be the result of our feeling of exuberant strength, and so long will we tolerate the oppression of minorities, racial or economic, within our borders.

Self-control is one of the prime requisites for a state of mind out of which even a semblance of justice can be expected to eminate. Some of the best students of public affairs tell me that unless we can build up the spirit of good-will to make world organization work, the next war cannot be put off more than ten years. They may be alarmists, although that is not their nature; but the facts challenge our attention. The world, not only our United States, is full of sore spots. One-tenth of our population has largely lost faith in the ninetenths and every dispassionate student must admit that their case for loss of faith is a powerful one. The war may not come in ten years, but it will come inevitably unless the conscience of the world, of our United States, of this City of Philadelphia, rouses the people to the Prophet Micah's great statement of God's requirements, that we "do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with Thy God."

Two men recently admitted to the federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia, met each other. Said one: "For how long are you in?" "Ten years," was the answer. "And you?" "From now on," was the reply. The significance, spiritual, material, and every other way, of inter-racial justice is that from now on without it the world is headed for chaos.

Justice requires not only self-control but imagination to put yourself in his place. It would seem that our national attitude toward Haiti is, "We know it is best for Haiti because some of them do voodoo dances." A strange parody on St. Paul's dream of the man who said, "Come over into Macedonia and help us."

To me the great spiritual fact about inter-racial

["362", "OPPORTUNITY", "DECEMBER, 1924", "justice is this, that you cannot even begin to have\njustice without love. The great enemy of justice\nis hate or its close relation, scorn. \"To thine own\nself be true\", unless in some way self is conceived\nas connected up with the great divine spirit with its\ninfinite love and understanding of others, which\nreally makes us all one, will not bring the answer,\n\"Thou canst not then be false to any man.\"", "Involved in doing to others by the \"Golden Rule\" method is not only a challenge to the crass injustice of the \"Jim Crow\" car, the bad housing, and the lack of recreational opportunities from which our colored citizens suffer, but to every question of economic, political, social, and religious exclusiveness, and by this I do not mean, privacy. \"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels\", yes, and collect pictures and give them to Philadelphia, \"and have not love, it profiteth me nothing\", and Philadelphia very little.", "The Negro and Christianity", "By ARTHUR A. SCHOMBURG", "The world, it seems, has always been full of\nconflict. Thus it was that with the appearance\nof the Carpenter's son (Matt. xiii.55), who was\nborn in a manger, Christianity came to unfurl\nitself and the great light has increased with un-\nusual vividness from day to day. In the words of\nthe Saviour \"I say unto you, love your enemies,\nbless them that curse you, do good to them that\nhate you and persecute you\" (Matt.xix.16.17).\nThis is the cardinal principle upon which Chris-\ntianity is founded and we recall clearly that\namongst His last injunctions to His Disciples were\n\"I command you that ye love one another\" (St.\nJohn 12-17).", "We know from the sacred writings that the\nearly Christians were first called Christians at\nAntioch and it is recorded that St. Paul took refuge\nin that city from the fury of the Jews. The seed\nwas sown and St. Paul was actively engaged like\na gardener to see that with the Master's dispensa-\ntion it had ripened at its maturity in the Divine\nlaw of Love. Time seemed to have scattered the\nseed of kindness all over the ground of merciless\nconflict, for in the formation of the various Chris-\ntian communities we recall when Phillip met\nthe Egyptian proselyte and heard him reading from\nthe Jewish Scriptures, he asked no more than a\nprofession of faith in Jesus Christ as the condi-\ntion of administering the baptism. (Acts III\n27-29). By degrees the spirit seemed to have taken\nwings ethereal and to have wafted itself across the\nsea, for it seems as if Christianity radiated through-\nout the broad limits of the Roman Empire, which\nin those early days embraced \"the Euphrates to the\nEast, the mountains and desert of Africa on the\nSouth, the Danube and the Rhine on the North,\nand the Atlantic on the West.\" \"The entire Eu-", "About the time I graduated from college a cousin\nof mine, who had been abroad, brought me a little\nercenware plaque upon which was written, in\nthose rough letters which the pottery men use, \"A\nman may travel through the world and sow it thick\nwith friendship.\"", "The beautiful figure on the postage stamp which they use in France is called *La Semaine* (The Sower). It is an exquisite conception if one could only get over a half-formed question as to whether it is friendship or dragon's teeth that she is sowing. But to the group of men and women who are interested in inter-racial justice and its spiritual significance, I would say that without a sense of the universal love of humanity, which makes all life religion and does not pinch our \"Sunday conscience\" into the narrow confines of our \"Sunday coat\", we shall hardly achieve any such basis for life as would make possible the living for which we long.", "phrates,” says one of the Roman subjects in the\nfirst century, “has not sufficed, nor the Danube,\nnor Lybia though stretching to unpeopled regions,\nnor Cadiz, for the Romans have stretched their\nviews beyond the limits of the world.¹ In fact,\nit seems as if in those days everybody had received\nthe Roman yoke, or, in the words of the poet,\nthe tidings came of Jesus Christ.”—*Wardsworth.*\n“And with Roman chains", "The Romans were at the zenith of their power; they had conquered everything within their grasp. Rome was the center of the world. The eyes of the world were focused on this spot. Then came the period of the \"Christians to the Lions.\" Amongst the first to meet their doom were five converts at Carthage,² two of whom were women; one of noble birth named Perpetua, the other a slave by name Felicitas. Because they had professed Christianity, they were condemned to the beasts. Of Perpetua history has recorded with fidelity that \"we are not worthy to narrate the fulfillment of this great glory, yet we could not carry out the charge of the Blessed Perpetua in obedience to the faith for which she suffered\" (Acts 9-10).³ About Felicitas, the slave girl, we have no doubt was of Negro descent, the historian says, \"Far gone with child at the time of her arrest, she had expressed no fear except that she", "1. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War Bk. II Ch. 16, 598-599. London 1733.\n2. *Spartianus Severus "Historia Augusta"* 17. Eusebius P. Ecclesiastical History vi 1.7.\n3. & 4. *Ruinart, Theodorici, "Acta Primorum sincera et selecta; his praemittitur generalis, in qua refellitur Dissertatio undecima, etc., de paucitate martyrum" ed.* 2a. *Amstertaedami 1713 pl. fol. pp. 90-119 Vol. I re-Perpetua and Felicitas.*"]

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

363

might not be delivered in season to suffer with her companions. Soon the pains of labor began and as she showed signs of great suffering, one of the jailors tauntingly asked "If thou art in such pains now what wilt thou do when thou art exposed to the beasts about which thou didst care so little when thou wouldst not sacrifice thyself." The Christian slave answered: "Now, I am the sufferer. But then, there will be another to suffer for me, because I also shall suffer for Him" (Acta 15).⁴

The day of death arrived for the Christians, who were sent to certain death in the amphitheatre. Perpetua and Felicitas have been disrobed and inclosed in nets. The beasts had devoured the previous three victims, but refused to destroy these two women. However, they were put to the sword. "Amongst all the names of martyrs," St. Augustine exclaims, "shine the names of Perpetua and Felicitas, the holy handmaids of the Lord" (Sermon 281 ed. Paris).

We mention this historical incident in the life of these first two women martyrs of the faith, because in Felicitas we have the Negro actively participating in the beginning of Christianity as a martyr to the great cause for which Christ came to earth.

It is impossible to believe that the native Africans were devoid of the semblance of religious belief when we lay our eyes upon the vestiges of the unsurpassed civilization left to us in a language which neither time nor perseverance seems to help us to decipher. As the veil is lifted from our eyes by imperceptible degrees we are confident that some day the truth will come to be known by all onlookers that Africa, the land of gold, has been the most precious land in all the habitable globe.

In the history of the Soudan we find that the region commonly called Nubia is peopled chiefly by tribes of men whose skin is dark colored or black. The earliest designation known to us of this country is that which is given to it in the inscription of the ancient Egyptians, who called it vaguely TA-NEHESU, i.e., Land of the Ne-hesu or Blacks. This land includes both the valley of the Congo, or western Soudan, and the valley of the Nile, or Eastern Soudan. According to W. Budge, the Soudan covers an area of a million and a quarter square miles. Scattered over this vast expanse of country numberless tribes have lived from time immemorial and among these there have always been representatives of all of the most important Negro peoples of East Africa. The most important feature of the Soudan is the river Nile, the highway by which civilization has made its way to the interior.

It is a well known fact that the Negroes were then, as now, pagans or heathen, that is to say, their magic, which was probably of a low kind, had not developed into religion, and there is no doubt that many of the features of the religion of the Egyptians whose writings are in hieroglyphics,

were derived from the Negro magic of Central Africa. (Egyptian Soudan)

The intensive modern social application to Christianity by the Caucasian has, however, left the Negro out of the picture. In the United States the Negro Church has flourished from its humble beginning with sustained courage and remarkable adaptability, going even out of continental America in its pilgrimage of mercy to diffuse the Master's Light, as can be seen by the various churches established in the West Indies, South America and Africa. In Africa we may note that the English government has taken diplomatic action to forbid or discourage the expansion of established Negro churches among the people of their own blood, especially if these disciples are of American Negro descent. We can mention the names of Francisco Xavier Luna y Victoria, the Negro who was admitted into the Roman Catholic hierarchy and became the first native Bishop and, founder of the University of Panama during the time when on the lips of everybody the poor Negro was nothing but an ape or a beast. Here in our own home we have the sacred names of Richard Allen and Absolom Jones, true apostles to their fellow man and to the benighted Negro, not only from Africa but when he came from the West Indies he found Philadelphia a place of refuge. This is beautifully attested by David Barclay who, when he emancipated his slaves of Unity Valley Pen, Jamaica, 1796, turned over to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society $27,500 for their welfare and the two Negroes whose names shine out with splendor are those I have mentioned, not omitting to say that during the yellow fever peril these two ecclesiastics feared nothing in saving black and white alike. We only read of such trials during the early days of the church when men did not seek for worldly honors. We cannot withhold a word of praise for John Marrant, one of the more obscure figures who preached the gospel to the Indians around New York, or the humble-in-worldly-goods John Michtell, who labored among the Wyandotte Indians, or in Arizona, the Negro Estevanico who carried Christianity to the Seven cities of Cibola.⁵

Writing in 1814 from Barbadoes, West Indies, Steele says that he did not know of any missionaries having been sent from England for the religious instruction of the slaves. "I have found Negroes he said: "both free and slave, who are Christians and many of great truth and probity. There are also many Negroes who, from the light

5. *Winship, George Parker* "Coronado Expedition 1540-1542" in *XIV Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology*,
*—Hernando Alarcon*. *Voyage to Cibola, Hawkins ed.*
*Wash., D. C.*, 1896.
p. 331.

*—Owiedo, G. F.* "*Historia General de las Indias*" *Vol. III*
p. 603 "*Estevanico, an Arabian black from Azamor in Morocco*."

*—Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."*

*—Eliot, Samuel, "History of Liberty." "The Early Christians."* *Boston, 1853.*

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of nature are honest and of moral principles and practices, who believe in a Supreme Being, in the survival of their spiritual parts and in the expectation of future rewards and punishments." The universality of these points of faith are demonstrated by their funeral rites, and their anniversary celebrations in memory of their departed friends. The reason why there were not more Negro Christians has been charged to the immorality of their masters, their iniquity and the inhumanity of the laws.

It is recorded that early in old King George's reign, and without, it seems, consulting with his majesty at an ordination of priests and deacons at the Chapel Royal at St. James' by the honorable and Reverend Doctor Kappel, Bishop of Exeter, a Negro was ordained, whose devout behavior attracted the notice of the whole congregation. Furthey sayeth not as to who he was, or what became of him; but probably finding that there was no preferment for gentlemen of his complexion, hands were a second time laid upon him, and he returned to the habits of his brethren, and resumed his chains in the West Indies. Be that as it may, the precedent of ordaining a Negro has been followed out elsewhere, to judge by the first sermon he delivered. I speak of the sermon of the Archbishop of Haiti, which in September, 1819, was preached to the black Emporer of Haiti and his black nobility, the church and state text of "All in Authority" was splendidly handled *** An Irish gentleman from Missouri states that he met on board the steamboat a black archbishop, and several of his inferior clergy. This most reverend father in God was endeavoring to prove that Adam, Noah and all the prophets and patriarchs down to Jesus Christ were blacks and that a portion of mankind, and the worst, are whites, of whom Cain is the progenitor. Most unique and excellent is this of the Blacks turning so neatly the tables upon the masses and shows as the American would say with Shakespeare, that the devil can quote scripture to his purpose. (Records of Patriotism and Love" p. 129.)

Dr. Blyden calls attention to the fact that the Abyssinian Church is the only real African church yet founded whose priests and people are all of the African race. It has survived many monarchies and it has held fast to this day its Christian faith, century after century, against the successive onslaughts of Heathenism and Mohammedanism. (Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, p. 190.) We can add with unfeigned courage that for many years the Abyssinians have not only sustained the respect of Christendom, but with its traditional reverence to its saints and patrons continues to this day to preach that its reigning house directly descended from the Lion of Judah. The Eunuch who brought the faith to them and through baptism of Queen Candace won the land to Christianity cannot be denied to those black people, notwithstanding the effusive writers who from time to time

tell us that they are other than people of African descent.

We mention these few cases at random to illustrate that among the English speaking people the rule was to keep in human bondage the Africans stolen from their country and scattered throughout the West Indies, Spanish Main, and the North American provinces. They were unusually bitter against the poor slaves, whose language few understood or wanted to understand. It was a question of getting them over to make the American contingent an El Dorado, the heavenly paradise for Europeans. The slave could only feel that he had been repaid with treachery, lashed to the field to make it yield ample returns for his master, a condition he did not understand and had no one to explain the reasons for his forcible captivity.

Writers on the Negro race in commenting upon religion have not been able to give the sources which may lead to a more adequate understanding of the religious concepts of the primitive Negroes in Africa or those who were brought during Colombian times to America. The presumption of most writers is that the African was an abject and savage creature unworthy the nourishing and stimulating effect of Christianity to lift him in the eyes of the white Christian to a more comfortable level of morality and happiness within their sight. Yet in the Congo the Portuguese nation carried the Roman Catholic church and it flourished with great pomp and dignity among the tribes, among its members many were ordained to the priesthood and the second bishop was a native Negro who had gone to Rome to be consecrated and died on his way home. Churches were erected to the eternal God in the uplands of Central Africa long before Livingston's birth. We cannot account for the reason why Catholicism, after such great expectations, should permit it to die and its temples rot and decay, unless the religion of Islam is more akin to the nature of the people.

In the development of America the Spaniards brought Christian Negroes who had received the softening and soothing effect of contact with one of the oldest nations. These people were landed as Hispaniola and no doubt among them some of the Negro clergy from the Congo who had gone to the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores had crossed the Atlantic to Santo Domingo to minister to their wants. But no doubt the Negro clergyman was too much discouraged to enter the virgin soil of America, because the slave owners were adverse to factors who might endanger the slave system and incite to rebellion under the guise of the Christian religion. Slavery was a powerful institution whose wheels were grinding smoothly for more than three hundred years. It debased and crushed humanity. Well protected it reigned supreme against the precepts of Christianity. To this day the institution stands, an ineradicable blot upon the banner of religion.

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*Outstanding Negro Newspapers*

By EUGENE F. GORDON

OF THE more than two hundred newspapers published in this country by or for Negroes perhaps one-sixteenth of that number are deserving of serious consideration as being representative of true newspaper types. This one-sixteenth may easily be divided into three groups: (1) those which, by observing the standards set for measuring the degrees of merit in newspapers, appreciate what is the ideal and are endeavoring to attain it; (2) those which, although appreciating what the ideal is, through indifference (or because of other reasons) maintain a consistently low level; (3) those which apparently neither know nor care for either standards or ideals, yet which, through some anomaly, succeed in preserving the outer aspects of newspapers.

Such a classification of necessity leaves more than two hundred papers (and newspapers so-called) to be labeled mediocre and, from a journalistic estimate, unimportant. (Regarded, however, from the angle of group service, even these may be considered as worth while ventures. They are certainly worth while to an element which needs every means of expression procurable, for they help to keep alive, as nothing else can, the desire for complete freedom. Thus all of these publications have their uses, obscure and questionable though some of the uses seem to be.)

For more than a year I have collected Negro newspapers from every section of the United States. Some of these journals I found to be mere leaflets brazenly designed for selfish purposes. Some are such newspapers as the publishers of the *New York Times* and the *Chicago Tribune* would be proud to own. Incidentally, I have concluded that were there any Negroes with proclivities and wealth similar to Mr. Munsey's, there would be considerably fewer Negro newspapers. For it is patent that there are too many mediocrities and too few distinguished; too many with no ambition, no desire, no hope, ever to be more than mediocrities.

In making this criticism and so arriving at my seemingly arbitrary conclusions, I have tried to be systematic. In order consistently to be so, I have created and used a set of standards which those who question my conclusions may themselves apply. I am sure, if they do this, that they will end up precisely where I did. If they wish to avoid such an end, let them avoid my system of appraisement.

Since every kind of work is some sort of expression, and since the most successful approach to the ideal is itself an art, the art of news-

paper-making cannot truly be said to lie wholly within the editorial departments. The reporter who pens a graphic account of an event or an occurrence, the editorial writer who turns the tide ot sentiment with an editorial, the feature writer who creates a following which will have none but his stories because he so truly sounds the depths of human feeling, the fiction writer who brings tears or laughter of sympathy to the enthralled reader—none of these is more the artist than is the skilled manipulator of the typesetting machine whose pride and achievement are “clean” copy, or than is the proof reader who detects obscure but disastrous errors, or than is the make-up man who turns out a beautiful, finished product. Since the mechanical department of a newspaper, therefore, is as much responsible as is the editorial department for the final judgment in any critical survey, this department too receives consideration here. Nevertheless, because the matter of make-up is one which interests members of the profession primarily, this will receive the lowest percentage in my critique.

For example, consider this ideal of form in the editorial: three paragraphs, which are apportioned thus: first paragraph, in introduction (or presentation of subject); second paragraph, argument or exposition (or explanation) of subject; third paragraph, conclusion (or “summing up”).

While accepting this example as a standard for form, let me hasten to explain that excellent, indeed, great, editorials have been written in other forms. Still, in any work of this sort, if even a semblance of justice is to be done, it is necessary that there be established certain fixed rules, such rules to be impartially applied to all. But lest a more important consideration be ignored—that of substance—I deem it necessary to say that substance will be given first place. And by substance is meant these essentials of matter: theme, whether lofty or lowly; manner of treatment; success or failure in attempting to convey the message to the reader.

Concretely, the standard editorial is this one: In three paragraphs, which paragraphs contain, firstly, presentation of the subject; secondly, explanation (or argument or exposition) of the subject; and, thirdly, conclusions. It is clearly understandable to a person of average intelligence; it deals with a theme affecting public welfare or interest; it successfully conveys its message.

Various newspapers have various methods of writing news stories. It is almost universally agreed, however, that the best stories bear this characteristic: the first paragraph should tell tersely the gist of the story. What follows the first paragraph is properly an elaboration in detail.

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My standard for measuring the degrees of merit in news stories will be to determine whether or not the "five w's" are adequately accounted for in the first paragraph:

Who...........was the person involved?

What...........happened?

When...........did it happen?

Where...........did it happen?

Why (or How)...........did it happen?

The news story which best presents answers to these questions in the first paragraph satisfactorily meets the test of form; the test of substance is so intimately associated with the test of form that the two can hardly be separated. Let us say, however, that these questions will be answered:

What was the story to be told?

How well did the reporter succeed in telling it?

What is the reaction on the reader of that story?

Was the writer's method original? Common-place? Commendable? Unpraiseworthy?

Aside from editorials, news and advertisements, all else is considered in this paper as "feature" matter. This type of material must be adjudged solely from the point of view of its reaction favorably or unfavorably on the newspaper reader; let us assume that the ideal newspaper feature, although interesting to the greatest number of readers, is seriously offensive to none. A feature which outrages the reader's sensibilities and his conception of the general fitness of things is a poor feature. The ideal feature is that one which has more friends than enemies, and which has made friends by appealing to a consciousness of experience or hope that enkindles the happiest emotions.

In my evaluation of the twelve best Negro newspapers published in the United States I have selected each journal for the characteristic which makes it outstanding, and which renders its superior in a particular respect to some other journal. For this purpose I have decided on the following table of measurements, with percentage values against each characteristic:

<table><tr><td>News</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>20%</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>20%</td></tr><tr><td>Make-up</td><td>10%</td></tr></table>

Total 100%

After an earnest and conscientious study of the subject I have concluded that the twelve newspapers named below are worthy of a critical survey, they being unquestionably the best, in some or in all respects, published in this country at present. This statement must not be taken to mean that others in my opinion are unworthy of consideration as newspapers; it does suggest, however, that the virtues present in these twelve are also present in a lesser degree in many of the others.

## THE MOST OUTSTANDING NEGRO NEWSPAPERS

1. The *Chicago Defender*

2. The *Afro-American* (Baltimore, Md.)

3. Norfolk (Va.) *Journal and Guide*

4. The *Pittsburgh Courier*

5. The *Chicago Whip*

6. The New York Amsterdam News

7. The *Philadelphia Tribune*

8. The *New York Age*

9. The *Negro World* (New York)

10. The *Tampa* (Fla.) *Bulletin*

11. The *Pittsburgh American*

12. The *Washington* (D. C.) *Eagle*

I shall treat each of the foregoing named journals in the order as listed with respect, first, to news; then, to editorials; next, to features; and, finally, with respect to make-up (or general appearance). In short, I shall apply my standard rule to each of the four characteristics, respectively, and rate each with a certain amount of percentage value. That newspaper which shall receive a total of the highest percentage is, according to my standard of measurement, the best newspaper published by or for Negroes in the United States.

In a recapitulation I shall classify each newspaper according to the four chief characteristics, namely, News, Editorials, Features, and Make-Up (or General Appearance).

## ANALYTICAL EVALUATION OF TWELVE OUTSTANDING NEWSPAPERS

<table><thead><tr><th>Newspaper</th><th>Percentage of Excellence Attained</th><th>Standard</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>1. CHICAGO DEFENDER</strong></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>48%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>16</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>18</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>9</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>91%</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>2. AFRO-AMERICAN</strong></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>45%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>13</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>16</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>9</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>83%</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th>Newspaper</th><th>Percentage of Excellence Attained</th><th>Standard</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>3. JOURNAL AND GUIDE</strong></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>43%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>19</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>5</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>9.5</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>76.5%</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>4. PITTSBURGH COURIER</strong></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>47%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>9</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>10</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>8</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>74%</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

DECEMBER, 1924

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367

<table><thead><tr><th>Newspaper</th><th>Percentage of Excellence Attained</th><th>Standard</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>5. CHICAGO WHIP</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>47%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>8</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>8</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>8</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>71%</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>6. AMSTERDAM NEWS</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>40%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>8</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>8</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>9</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>65%</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>7. PHILADELPHIA TRIBUNE</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>40%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>13</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>5</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>5</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>63%</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>8. NEW YORK AGE</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>20%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>18</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>10</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>5</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>53%</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

RATED ACCORDING TO NEWS VALUE

<table><tbody><tr><td>First: Chicago Defender</td><td>48%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Second:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Pittsburgh Courier</td><td>47%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Chicago Whip</td><td>47%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Third: Afro-American</td><td>45%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fourth: Journal and Guide</td><td>43%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fifth:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Amsterdam News</td><td>40%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Philadelphia Tribune</td><td>40%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Sixth: Pittsburgh American</td><td>30%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Seventh: Tampa Bulletin</td><td>21%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Eighth: New York Age</td><td>20%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Ninth: Negro World</td><td>15%</td><td>"</td></tr></tbody></table>

RATED ACCORDING TO EDITORIAL VALUE

<table><tbody><tr><td>First: Journal and Guide</td><td>19%</td><td>20%</td></tr><tr><td>Second:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Tampa Bulletin</td><td>18%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>New York Age</td><td>18%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Third: Chicago Defender</td><td>16%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fourth: Negro World</td><td>14%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fifth:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Afro-American</td><td>13%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Philadelphia Tribune</td><td>13%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Sixth: Pittsburgh Courier</td><td>9%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Seventh:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Chicago Whip</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Amsterdam News</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Eighth:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Pittsburgh American</td><td>7%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Washington Eagle</td><td>7%</td><td>"</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th>Newspaper</th><th>Percentage of Excellence Attained</th><th>Standard</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>9. NEGRO WORLD</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>15%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>14</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>10</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>8</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>47%</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>10. TAMPA BULLETIN</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>21%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>18</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>3</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>5</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>47%</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>11. PITTSBURGH AMERICAN</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>30%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>7</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>3</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>4</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>44%</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>12. WASHINGTON EAGLE</strong></td></tr><tr><td>News</td><td>12%</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Editorials</td><td>7</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>4</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Make-Up</td><td>7</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>30%</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

RATED ACCORDING TO EXCELLENCE OF FEATURES

<table><tbody><tr><td>First: Chicago Defender</td><td>18%</td><td>20%</td></tr><tr><td>Second: Afro-American</td><td>16%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Third:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Negro World</td><td>10%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>New York Age</td><td>10%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Pittsburgh Courier</td><td>10%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fourth:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Amsterdam News</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Chicago Whip</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fifth:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Journal and Guide</td><td>5%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Philadelphia Tribune</td><td>5%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Sixth: Washington Eagle</td><td>4%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Seventh:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Pittsburgh American</td><td>3%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Tampa Bulletin</td><td>3%</td><td>"</td></tr></tbody></table>

RATED ACCORDING TO EXCELLENCE OF MAKE-UP (GENERAL APPEARANCE)

<table><tbody><tr><td>First: Journal and Guide</td><td>9.5%</td><td>10%</td></tr><tr><td>Second:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Chicago Defender</td><td>9%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Afro-American</td><td>9%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Amsterdam News</td><td>9%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Third:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Pittsburgh Courier</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Chicago Whip</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Negro World</td><td>8%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fourth: Washington Eagle</td><td>7%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Fifth:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Philadelphia Tribune</td><td>5%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>New York Age</td><td>5%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Tampa Bulletin</td><td>5%</td><td>"</td></tr><tr><td>Sixth: Pittsburgh American</td><td>4%</td><td>"</td></tr></tbody></table>

368

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

# Reflections on O'Neill's Plays

By PAUL ROBESON

Paul Robeson

ALL this seems so very strange to me—writing about the theatre. If, three years ago, someone had told me that I would be telling of my reactions as an actor I would have laughed

indulgently. Even now the whole chain of events has a distinct dream-like quality. To have had the opportunity to appear in two of the finest plays of America's most distinguished playwright is a good fortune that to me seems hardly credible. Of course I am very, very happy. And with these things there has come a great love of the theatre, which I am sure will always hold me fast.

In retrospect all the excitement about "All God's Chillun" seems rather amusing, but at the time of the play's production, it caused many an anxious moment. All concerned were absolutely amazed at the ridiculous critical reaction. The play meant anything and everything from segregated schools to various phases of intermarriage.

To me the most important pre-production development, was an opportunity to play the "Emperor Jones," due to an enforced postponement. This is undoubtedly one of "*the* great plays"—a true classic of the drama, American or otherwise. I recall how marvelously it was played by Mr. Gilpin some years back. And the greatest praise I could have received was the expression of some that my performance was in some wise comparable to Mr. Gilpin's.

And what a great part is "Brutus Jones." His is the exultant tragedy of the disintegration of a human soul. How we suffer as we see him in the depths of the forest re-living all the sins of his past—experiencing all the woes and wrongs of his people—throwing off one by one the layers of civilization until he returns to the primitive soil from which he (racially) came. And yet we exult when we realize that here was a man who

Jungle Scene
from the
American
Production
of
"The Emperor
Jones"

(Courtesy of
Theatre Arts)

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

369

Palace Scene
from
the French
Production
L'Empereur
Jones

(Courtesy
Theater Arts)

in the midst of all his trouble fought to the end and finally died in the "eighth of style anyway."

In "All God's Chillun" we have the struggle of a man and woman, both fine struggling human beings, against forces they could not control,— indeed, scarcely comprehend—accentuated by the almost Christ-like spiritual force of the Negro husband,—a play of great strength and beautiful spirit, mocking all petty prejudice, emphasizing the humanness, and in Mr. O'Neill's words, "the oneness" of mankind.

I now come to perhaps the main point of my discussion. Any number of people have said to me: "I trust that now you will get a truly heroic and noble role, one portraying the finest type of Negro." I honestly believe that perhaps never will I portray a nobler type than "Jim Harris" or a more heroically tragic figure than "Brutus Jones, Emperor," not excepting "Othello."

The Negro is only a medium in the creation of a work of the greatest artistic merit. The fact that he is a Negro Pullman Porter is of little moment. How else account for the success of the play in Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Moscow and other places on the Continent. Those people never heard of a Negro porter. Jones's emotions are not primarily Negro, but human.

Objections to "All God's Chillun" are rather well known. Most of them have been so foolish that to attempt to answer them is to waste time. The best answer is that audiences that came to scoff went away in tears, moved by a sincere and terrifically tragic drama.

The reactions to these two plays among Negroes but point out one of the most serious drawbacks to the development of a true Negro dramatic literature. We are too self-conscious, too afraid of showing all phases of our life,—especially those phases which are of greatest dramatic value. The

great mass of our group discourage any member who has the courage to fight these petty prejudices.

I am still being damned all over the place for playing in "All God's Chillun." It annoys me very little when I realize that those who object most strenuously know mostly nothing of the play and who in any event know little of the theatre and have no right to judge a playwright of O'Neill's talents.

I have met and talked with Mr. O'Neill. If ever there was a broad, liberal-minded man, he is

Paul Robeson as "The Emperor Jones"
Drawn from life by Clement Wilenchik

370

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

one. He has had Negro friends and appreciated them for their true worth. He would be the last to cast any slur on the colored people.

Of course I have just begun. I do feel there is a great future on the serious dramatic stage. Direction and training will do much to guide any natural ability one may possess. At Provincetown I was privileged to be under the direction of Mr. James Light. I'm sure even he thought I

was rather hopeless at first. I know I did. But he was patient and painstaking, and any success I may have achieved I owe in great measure to Mr. Light. I sincerely hope I shall have the benefit of his splendid guidance in the future.

What lies ahead I do not know. I am sure that there will come Negro playwrights of great power and I trust I shall have some part in interpreting that most interesting and much needed addition to the drama of America.

## Anatole France

By RENE MARAN

Le Bon Maître N'est Plus

ANATOLE FRANCE died October twelfth at eleven-thirty. It was time, indeed, that he should make up his mind to disappear from the world which he had loved with such smiling indulgence, and which in return had generously thrown to him all its favors. In fact, for eight days certain critics and certain literary journals, who had taken pleasure in burying him while he was still alive, began to breathe freely.

The peculiar sadism of these unrestrained, crawling worms of the dead had been surpassed only by a person who was close to the great writer, and who, last Thursday, had the deplorable courage to present to one of the commissions of police of Paris, a demand for permission to affix seals to the property of the estate at Bechellerie. A sad period of time, indeed, when crows are less greedy than man.

Anatole France is dead, From today the world will begin to learn what his contemporaries think both of him and his work. One must look forward probably to the fact that a part of his writing has grown old because the scenes depicted have already been effaced from memory, and they, of course, must join him in the tomb.

There have been many prophetic couriers and signs to announce this judgment. Perhaps one of the most important is the indifference which young writers have shown to him since the war. In addition, there are the criticisms of Henri Massis, published in *La Revue Hebdomadaire*, and those of Jean Heritier, which appeared in *Essais de Critique Contemporaine*.

All, in spite of their vivacity, possess qualities of justice and penetration. But the political changes of front of the author of *Noces Corinthiennes*, his dilletante-ism, and even the plagiarism—with which he has been bitterly reproached—can have no effect upon his genius which is both profound and varied, as is life.

He started out, politically, on the extreme right, and when he died he had joined the extreme left. And later! Death alone being that which is without change, ideas which have no part in evolution are sterile ideas; they, too, are dead. To live they must adapt themselves to their time,

which is a thing of incessant change, and very frequently either precede or help make the future's coming.

The reproach that he has been a plagiarism from old Greek and Latin writers—and French writers too, has still less consistence. It is a fact that he has many times borrowed from works that are unknown. Quite recently J. J. Brousson exposed the good master's process in doing this. He lengthened this, suppressed that, paraphrased, if he happened to feel like it. But Rabelais, Ronsard, and all the Pleiad, Corneille, Racine, Lafontaine, and Voltaire, all showed him how. He walked in their footsteps and, like them, he made bright with the beautiful luminosity of the Latin mind whatever he borrowed right and left. He created. He has often been compared with Voltaire. No. He is less *sec* than the enemy of Piron. Voltaire killed with a series of little blows struck straight at the heart and then he ran away, without looking back, grinning over his cold sarcasms. Anatole France, on the contrary, kills his victim gently, with the aid of chosen perfumes, and he watches their perfumed death agony while he dreams. There is in him something of Petronius united with Seneca, the philosopher, whose life and ideas are not without a resemblance to his. In him, also, there is something of Renan.

It is probable that for some the books that make up his *Histoire Contemporaine* and *L'Ile des Pin-gouins*, are his masterpieces. I confess to my shame that they are the ones I prize least because old age has already put its finger upon them. But *Thais*, *Crainquebille*, *Les Dieux Ont Soif*, and especially that gem of his writing—*Le Lys Rouge*—I believe, will endure.

In this last book the delightful genius of Anatole France blossomed without effort. All his habitual qualities, all his grace, are harmoniously blended and accompany—a little sullenly perhaps—the progress of this sad story, which is so sweetly luminous, so humanly profound, and to speak like Verlaine Choulette, so much an occurrence of everyday.

This novel—*The Red Lily*—is in my opinion the masterpiece of Anatole France. Its power, without doubt, is because it is the most human and because, probably, it has been lived.

*Translated by Edna Worthley Underwood.
Les Continents.

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

371

Drenched in Light

By ZORA NEALE HURSTON

YOU Isie Watts! Git 'own offen dat gate
post an' rake up dis yahd!'

The little brown figure perched upon the gate
post looked yearningly up the gleaming shell road
that led to Orlando, and down the road that led
to Sanford and shrugged her thin shoulders. This
heaped kindling on Grandma Patts' already burn-
ing ire.

"Lawd a-mussy!" she screamed, enraged—"Heah
Joel, gimme dat wash stick. Ah'll show dat limb
of Satan she kain't shake huhseff at me. If she
ain't down by de time Ah gets dere, Ah'll break
huh down in de lines" (loins).

"Aw Gran'ma, Ah see Mist' George and Jim
Robinson comin' and Ah wanted to wave at 'em,"
the child said petulantly.

"You jes wave dat rake at dis heah yahd,
madame, else Ah'll take you down a button hole
lower. You'se too 'oomanish jumpin' up in every-
body's face dat pass."

This struck the child in a very sore spot for
nothing pleased her so much as to sit atop of the
gate post and hail the passing vehicles on their
way South to Orlando, or North to Sanford. That
white shell road was her great attraction. She
raced up and down the stretch of it that lay be-
fore her gate like a round eyed puppy hailing glee-
fully all travelers. Everybody in the country, white
and colored, knew little Isis Watts, the joyful.
The Robinson brothers, white cattlemen, were par-
ticularly fond of her and always extended a stir-
rup for her to climb up behind one of them for a
short ride, or let her try to crack the long bull
whips and yee whoo at the cows.

Grandma Potts went inside and Isis literally
waved the rake at the "chaws" of ribbon cane
that lay so bountifully about the yard in company
with the knots and peelings, with a thick sprinkling
of peanut hulls.

The herd of cattle in their envelope of gray dust
came alongside and Isis dashed out to the nearest
stirrup and was lifted up.

"Hello theah Snidlits, I was wonderin' wheah
you was," said Jim Robinson as she snuggled
down behind him in the saddle. They were almost
out of the danger zone when Grandma emerged.

"You Isie-s!" she bawled.

The child slid down on the opposite side from
the house and executed a flank movement through
the corn patch that brought her into the yard from
behind the privy.

"You lil' hasion you! Wheah you been?"

"Out in de back yahd" Isis lied and did a cart
wheel and a few fancy steps on her way to the
front again.

"If you doan git tuh dat yahd, Ah make a
mommuk of you!" Isis observed that Grandma
was cutting a fancy assortment of switches from

peach, guana and cherry trees.

She finished the yard by raking everything under
the edge of the porch and began a romp with the
dogs, those lean, floppy eared 'coon hounds that all
country folks keep. But Grandma vetoed this also.

"Isie, you set 'own on dat porch! Uh great big
'leben yeah ole gal racin' an' rompin' lak dat—
set 'own!"

Isis impatiently flung herself upon the steps.

"Git up offa dem steps, you aggavatin' limb,
'fore Ah git dem hick'ries tuh you, an' set yo' seff
on a cheah."

Isis petulently arose and sat down as violently
as possible in a chair, but slid down until she all
but sat upon her shoulder blades.

"Now look atcher," Grandma screamed, "Put
yo' knees together, an' git up offen yo' backbone!
Lawd, you know dis hellion is gwine make me
stomp huh insides out."

Isis sat bolt upright as if she wore a ramrod
down her back and began to whistle. Now there
are certain things that Grandma Potts felt no one
of this female persuasion should do—one was to
sit with the knees separated, "settin' brazen". she
called it; another was whistling, another playing
with boys, neither must a lady cross her legs.

Up she jumped from her seat to get the switches.

"So youse whistlin' in mah face, huh!" She
glared till her eyes were beady and Isis bolted for
safety. But the noon hour brought John Watts,
the widowed father, and this excused the child
from sitting for criticism.

Being the only girl in the family, of course
she must wash the dishes, which she did in inter-
vals between frolics with the dogs. She even gave
Jake, the puppy, a swim in the dishpan by holding
him suspended above the water that reeked of "pot
likker"—just high enough so that his feet would
be immersed. The deluded puppy swam and swam
without ever crossing the pan, much to his annoy-
ance. Hearing Grandma she hurriedly dropped
him on the floor, which he tracked up with feet
wet with dishwater.

Grandma took her patching and settled down in
the front room to sew. She did this every after-
noon, and invariably slept in the big red rocker
with her head lolled back over the back, the sewing
falling from her hand.

Isis had crawled under the center table with its
red plush cover with little round balls for fringe.
She was lying on her back imagining herself vari-
ous personages. She wore trailing robes, golden
slippers with blue bottoms. She rode white horses
with flaring pink nostrils to the horizon, for she
still believed that to be land's end. She was
picturing herself gazing over the edge of the world
into the abyss when the spool of cotton fell from
Grandma's lap and rolled away under the whatnot.

372

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

Isis drew back from her contemplation of the
nothingness at the horizon and glanced up at
the sleeping woman. Her head had fallen far back.
She breathed with a regular "snark" intake and
soft "poosah" exhaust. But Isis was a visual
minded child. She heard the snores only sub-
consciously but she saw straggling beard on
Grandma's chin, trembling a little with every
"snark" and "poosah". They were long gray hairs
curled here and there against the dark brown skin.
Isis was moved with pity for her mother's mother.

"Poah Gran-ma needs a shave," she murmured,
and set about it. Just then Joel, next older than
Isis, entered with a can of bait.

"Come on Isie, les' we all go fishin'. The perch
is bitin' fine in Blue Sink."

"Sh-sh—" cautioned his sister, "Ah got to shave
Gran'ma."

"Who say so?" Joel asked, surprised.

"Nobody doan hafta tell me. Look at her
chin. No ladies don't weah no whiskers if they
kin help it. But Gran'ma gittin' ole an' she
doan know how to shave like me."

The conference adjourned to the back porch
lest Grandma wake.

"Aw, Isie, you doan know nothin' 'bout shavin'
a-tall—but a man lak me—"

"Ah do so know."

"You don't not. Ah'm goin' shave her mahseff."

"Naw, you won't neither, Smarty. Ah saw her
first an' thought it all up first," Isis declared, and
ran to the calico covered box on the wall above the
wash basin and seized her father's razor. Joel
was quick and seized the mug and brush.

"Now!" Isis cried defiantly, "Ah got the razor."

"Goody, goody, goody, pussy cat, Ah got th'
brush an' you can't shave 'thout lather—see! Ah
know mo' than you," Joel retorted.

"Aw, who don't know dat?" Isis pretended to
scorn. But seeing her progress blocked for lack
of lather she compromised.

"Ah know! Les' we all shave her. You lather
an' Ah shave."

This was agreeable to Joel. He made mountains
of lather and anointed his own chin, and the chin
of Isis and the dogs, splashed the walls and at last
was persuaded to lather Grandma's chin. Not that
he was loath but he wanted his new plaything to
last as long as possible.

Isis stood on one side of the chair with the
razor clutched cleaver fashion. The niceties of
razor-handling had passed over her head. The
thing with her was to hold the razor—sufficient
in itself.

Joel splashed on the lather in great gobs and
Grandma awoke.

For one bewildered moment she stared at the
grinning boy with the brush and mug but sensing
another presence, she turned to behold the busi-
ness face of Isis and the razor-clutching
hand. Her jaw dropped and Grandma, forgetting
years and rheumatism, bolted from the chair and
fled the house, screaming.

"She's gone to tell papa, Isie. You didn't have
no business wid his razor and he's gonna lick yo
hide," Joel cried, running to replace mug and
brush.

"You too, chuckle-head, you, too," retorted Isis.
"You was playin' wid his brush and put it all over
the dogs—Ah seen you put it on Ned an' Beulah."
Isis shaved some slivers from the door jamb with
the razor and replaced it in the box. Joel took
his bait and pole and hurried to Blue Sink. Isis
crawled under the house to brood over the whipping
she knew would come. She had meant well.

But sounding brass and tinkling cymbal drew
her forth. The local lodge of the Grand United
Order of Odd Fellows led by a braying, thudding
band, was marching in full regalia down the road.
She had forgotten the barbecue and log-rolling to
be held today for the benefit of the new hall.

Music to Isis meant motion. In a minute razor
and whipping forgotten, she was doing a fair imi-
tation of the Spanish dancer she had seen in a
medicine show some time before. Isis' feet were
gifted—she could dance most anything she saw.

Up, up went her spirits, her brown little feet
doing all sorts of intricate things and her body in
rhythm, hand curving above her head. But the
music was growing faint. Grandma nowhere in
sight. She stole out of the gate, running and
dancing after the band.

Then she stopped. She couldn't dance at the
carnival. Her dress was torn and dirty. She
picked a long stemmed daisy and thrust it behind
her ear. But the dress, no better. Oh, an idea!
In the battered round topped trunk in the bed-
room!

She raced back to the house, then, happier,
raced down the white dusty road to the picnic
grove,gorgeously clad. People laughed good na-
turedly at her, the band played and Isis danced
because she couldn't help it. A crowd of children
gather admiringly about her as she wheeled lightly
about, hand on hip, flower between her teeth with
the red and white fringe of the table-cloth—
Grandma's new red tablecloth that she wore in
lieu of a Spanish shawl—trailing in the dust. It
was too ample for her meager form, but she wore
it like a gipsy. Her brown feet twinkled in and
out of the fringe. Some grown people joined the
children about her. The Grand Exalted Ruler
rose to speak; the band was hushed, but Isis
danced on, the crowd clapping their hands for her.
No one listed to the Exalted one, for little by
little the multitude had surrounded the brown
dancer.

An automobile drove up to the Crown and
halted. Two white men and a lady got out and
pushed into the crowd, suppressing mirth discreetly
behind gloved hands. Isis looked up and waved
them a magnificent hail and went on dancing
until—

Grandma had returned to the house and missed
Isis and straightway sought her at the festivities
expecting to find her in her soiled dress, shoeless,

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

373

gaping at the crowd, but what she saw drove her frantic. Here was her granddaughter dancing before a gaping crowd in her brand new red tablecloth, and reeking of lemon extract, for Isis had added the final touch to her costume. She *must* have perfume.

Isis saw Grandma and bolted. She heard her cry: "Mah Gawd, mah brand new table cloth Ah jus' bought f'um O'landah!" as she fled through the crowd and on into the woods.

## II

She followed the little creek until she came to the ford in a rutty wagon road that led to Apopka and laid down on the cool grass at the roadside. The April sun was quite hot.

Misery, misery and woe settled down upon her and the child wept. She knew another whipping was in store for her.

"Oh, Ah wish Ah could die, then Gran'ma an' papa would be sorry they beat me so much. Ah b'leeve Ah'll run away an' never go home no mo'. Ah'm goin' drown mahseff in th' creek!" Her woe grew attractive.

Isis got up and waded into the water. She routed out a tiny 'gator and a huge bull frog. She splashed and sang, enjoying herself immensely. The purr of a motor struck her ear and she saw a large, powerful car jolting along the rutty road toward her. It stopped at the water's edge.

"Well, I declare, it's our little gypsy," exclaimed the man at the wheel. "What are you doing here, now?"

"Ah'm killin' mahseff," Isis declared dramatically, "Cause Gran'ma beats me too much."

There was a hearty burst of laughter from the machine.

"You'll last sometime the way you are going about it. Is this the way to Maitland? We want to go to the Park Hotel."

Isis saw no longer any reason to die. She came up out of the water, holding up the dripping fringe of the tablecloth.

"Naw, indeedy. You go to Maitlan' by the shell road—it goes by mah house—an' turn off at Lake Sebelia to the clay road that takes you right to the do'.

"Well," went on the driver, smiling furtively, "Could you quit dying long enough to go with us?"

"Yessuh," she said thoughtfully, "Ah wanta go wid you."

The door of the car swung open. She was invited to a seat beside the driver. She had often dreamed of riding in one of these heavenly chariots but never thought she would, actually.

"Jump in then, Madame Tragedy, and show us. We lost ourselves after we left your barbecue."

During the drive Isis explained to the kind lady who smelt faintly of violets and to the indifferent men that she was really a princess. She told them about her trips to the horizon, about the trailing gowns, the gold shoes with blue bottoms—she insisted on the blue bottoms—the

white charger, the time when she was Hercules and had slain numerous dragons and sundry giants. At last the car approached her gate over which stood the umbrella China-berry tree. The car was abreast of the gate and had all but passed when Grandma spied her glorious tablecloth lying back against the upholstery of the Packard.

"You Isie-e!" she bawled, "You lil' wretch you! come heah *dis* instunt."

"That's me," the child confessed, mortified, to the lady on the rear seat.

"Oh, Sewell, stop the car. This is where the child lives. I hate to give her up though."

"Do you wanta keep me?" Isis brightened.

"Oh, I wish I could, you shining little morsel. Wait, I'll try to save you a whipping this time."

She dismounted with the gaudy lemon flavored culprit and advanced to the gate where Grandma stood glowering, switches in hand.

"You're gointuh ketchit f'um yo' haid to yo' heels m'lady. Jes' come in heah."

"Why, good afternoon," she accosted the furious grandparent. "You're not going to whip this poor little thing, are you?" the lady asked in conciliatory tones.

"Yes, Ma'am. She's de wustest lil' limb dat ever drawn bref. Jes' look at mah new table cloth, dat ain't never been washed. She done traipsed all over de woods, uh dancin' an' uh prancin' in it. She done took a razor to me t'day an' Lawd knows whut mo'."

Isis clung to the white hand fearfully.

"Ah wuzn't gointer hurt Gran'ma, miss—Ah wuz jus' gointer shave her whiskers fuh huh 'cause she's old an' can't."

The white hand closed tightly over the little brown one that was quite soiled. She could understand a voluntary act of love even though it miscarried.

"Now, Mrs. er—er—I didn't get the name— how much did your tablecloth cost?"

"One whole big silvah dollar down at O'landah —ain't had it a week yit."

"Now here's five dollars to get another one. The little thing loves laughter. I want her to go on to the hotel and dance in that tablecloth for me. I can stand a little light today—"

"Oh, yessum, yessum," Grandma cut in, "Everything's alright, sho' she kin go, yessum."

The lady went on: "I want brightness and this Isis is joy itself, why she's drenched in light!"

Isis for the first time in her life, felt herself appreciated and danced up and down in an ecstasy of joy for a minute.

"Now, behave yo'seff, Isie, ovah at de hotel wid de white folks," Grandma cautioned, pride in her voice, though she strove to hide it. "Lawd, ma'am, dat gal keeps me so frackshus, Ah doan know mah haid f'um mah feet. Ah orter comb huh haid, too, befo' she go wid you all."

"No, no, don't bother. I like her as she is. I don't think she'd like it either, being combed and scrubbed. Come on, Isis."

374

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

Feeling that Grandma had been somewhat squelched did not detract from Isis' spirit at all. She pranced over to the waiting motor and this time seated herself on the rear seat between the sweet, smiling lady and the rather aloof man in gray.

"Ah'm goin'er stay wid you all," she said with a great deal of warmth, and snuggled up to her benefactress. "Want me tuh sing a song fuh you?"

"There, Helen, you've been adopted," said the man with a short, harsh laugh.

"Oh, I hope so, Harry." She put her arm about the red draped figure at her side and drew it close until she felt the warm puffs of the child's breath against her side. She looked hungrily ahead of her and spoke into space rather than to anyone in the car. "I want a little of her sunshine to soak into my soul. I need it."

## Who Gives Himself

By EUNICE ROBERTA HUNTON

"Who gives himself with his gift, feeds three;
Himself, his hungry neighbor, and me."

IT WAS Christmas Eve by the calendar and the customs of men. But Christmas isn't Christmas when you're marooned in a boarding school in the far South in Louisiana. It's just one more day. Moreover, it simply could not be Christmas Eve. It was too hot; home was too far away; and as I crept into bed I half expected to hear a rising bell break in upon sweet dreams at the unholy hour of 6:30 the next morning. And then I began to remember that I couldn't even wait until six-thirty. I must rise with the dawn. Now, I have seen dawn in all its mysteries and promise breaking over shadowing mountains and limitless plains, over peaceful deep and turbulent streams; I have seen it creep upon the crowded skylines of the great cities of the world and gild the steeple of a village church. But to these dawns, dawn in the swamp lands of Louisiana is as Hades to Heaven—antithesis. For dawn in Louisiana is not a lovely thing, dew-pearled or even dew-drenched. It is sullen and soggy; gnarled and groggy. It comes grudgingly, relapsing now and again into dank shadows and leaving in its wake a long interval of gray chill before the arrival of the sun.

On Christmas morning, then, I was to fare forth in such a dawn, for the task of directing some students in the distribution of Christmas baskets to the poor of the neighboring countryside was mine. The anticipation of this evoked no particular pleasure and I fell asleep with visions of sugar cane stalks, muddy roads, draughty cabins and Christmas baskets chasing each other through my head...

Was I dreaming? No, I could hear it coming nearer, the sound of horns blending beautifully the strains of the century old paean, louder and

louder the music grew and then just outside my window, passing into yet another Christmas carol, it began to grow more soft as the school brass quartette went on into the village a scant half mile away. With yet three quarters of an hour before I was needed to be ready to be on my way I settled down for a short nap and was on that drowsy borderland between sleep and consciousness when once more music broke the stillness of the early morning. This time, it was mixed voices, so soft that one just barely heard them, but soon they came nearer. "Hark, the herald angels sing!" I was wide awake and slowly I caught the spirit. It was Christmas morning.

There were two trucks loaded with baskets to be distributed far and wide that morning and I was a bit dismayed on leaving the school as I surveyed the itinerary in my hands. But my heart was light; I had forgotten the dawn; for was it not Christmas morning? A part of the chorus that had caroled earlier in the morning was with us as leaving the trucks in the road we turned up the pathway to leave our first basket and the fifty-cent piece which the Sunday School had sent. They began to chant "Christmas time is here, Noel we gladly sing." At the sound the door of the cabin flew open and a gaunt black woman in a drab and faded gingham dress, clasping a new born babe to her breast, stared wonderingly. Then seeing that we came to her she cried, "Christmas gift" in a voice that trembled with excitement and emotion. She received our gifts regally but her thanks were broken and breathless. As she blessed the gift bearers, silent tears coursed down her cheeks.

One of our group, a girl just turned fifteen, begged to hold the infant for just one minute. The mother surrendered her child, and with trembling hands, broke a white rose from the one bush that grew near her door and, stripping it of thorns, placed it midst the holly that was on my coat. It was Christmas morning and the mother of a new born babe had given me a rose.

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

375

# The Population Problem and the Negro

By ARTHUR E. KING
II.

(Continued from November)

IT seems clear then that the white race is determined at all hazards to dominate the world by all means in their power; and East, after examining the whole world for suitable lands for the settlement of the white race, concludes that "Africa then presents the greatest remaining opportunity for white colonization. Its topography throughout very large portions of the interior—roughly nearly 3 million square miles—makes it much more favorable for white settlement than any other large, sparsely populated tract."²¹⁸

And our own government in assembling data for the Paris Peace Conference¹⁹ prepared an Economic Sketch Map of Middle Africa, drawn to show areas possible for white settlement. This map shows as favorable all of Africa from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden on the eastern coast to about 22 degrees south latitude, except the low lying coastlands from about 2 degrees north latitude to Beira, Portuguese East Africa. Included in this area are Abyssinia, Eritrea, Somaliland, all British and former German East Africa, portions of the Belgian Congo, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Nigeria, the Cameroons, and French Equatorial Africa, as well as all Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean between 10 and 22 degrees south latitude.²⁰ We also find Mr. Beer, in discussing what was German East Africa, saying: "In contrast with the rest of the territory, the population in these two states (Urundi and Ruanda, now under mandate to Belgium) is quite dense. In a certain sense this is unfortunate, as this district is well suited for white settlement, although under the circumstances, it is of course out of the question here."²¹

In similar fashion Sir Harry Johnston laments the loss of Basutoland: "This South African Switzerland, with very little native population in 1835, should have been reserved as a special home for Boer and Briton. Immigrant Bechuaha, fleeing before the attacking Zulu, should have been settled (and protected) elsewhere. When they had got a great hold over the Alpine country we proceeded to try and turn them out, were bested, outmanned, and desisted. Now they are a million Basuto, a vigorous new people, established in what should have been the White Man's South African Empire State."²²

Some attention is paid to the Negro problem by the American writers, particularly when discussing the United States; for this problem cannot be ignored when, in the opinion of an authority like East, we have been in an era of diminishing returns (in agriculture) in the United States since the opening of the century, and can

only support a maximum of 331 million people.²³ East produces the threadbare Army reports to prove that Negroes "do not belong," and sums up the situation by saying: "Consideration of all the facts, therefore, leads me to look more lightly on the Negro-white problem as it has hitherto been presented to us. The real problem is the problem of the mulatto and his descendants."²⁴

On the other hand, Reuter believes that "The intermixture of the races will, of course, continue. The only effective barrier to racial intermingling is geographic separation. The races are indefinitely fertile and sex attraction is not limited by barriers of race. The artificial barriers raised by legal enactment and social edict suffer violation when they run counter to the forces of individual attraction. And the farther amalgamation progresses, the more rapidly will the process tend to go on; the modification of the Negro's appearance by intermixture replaces the extreme strangeness by modified difference and fascinating variety of type highly stimulating to the exagamous tendency of men. Also the increasing cosmopolitan nature of the American population, resulting from the introduction of the European peasant folk, with a social and economic status not greatly superior to that of the Negro and without the social prejudice against the race, will further increase the hybridization. Racial isolation is not possible in the modern world and an indefinite intermixture of the races is inevitable. Whether or not the idea is a pleasing one it is, nevertheless, a fact that the American Negro group will presently disappear in the general population. The only factors under control by legislative means are the conditions under which this hybridization shall take place."²⁵

"The problem of the Negro in America today is largely the result of the existence of this traditional attitude which isolates and handicaps the racial group in its cultural advance and makes backward the whole social situation in which the group must live. The Negro must live in the atmosphere of contempt and dislike and make such advances as he may, economically, educationally, culturally, in spite of it. But the Negro is making advance and with every advance becomes less tolerant of injustice and abuse and more insistent that he be allowed the rights and opportunities of

18. *Op. cit.* p. 102

19. *African Question At the Paris Peace Conference*, G. L. Beer, New York: MacMillan & Co., 1923.

20. *Op. cit.* map facing p. 118

21. *Ibid.* p. 23

22. *Nation and Athenaeum*, Dec. 15, 1923, pp. 432-433.

23. *Op. cit.* pp. 158, 177

24. *Ibid.* p. 141

25. *Op. cit.* p. 278

376

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

other members of the society. And every advance
that he makes quickens the prejudice of those per-
sons who are convinced of his native inferiority
and determined to keep him socially inferior. The
problem is to maintain a friendly working relation
between the races during such time as may be re-
quired for the disappearance of the problem through
the disappearance of the Negro himself."²⁶

This amalgamation, this problem of the mulatto,
really worries East, who says: "Let us draw the
worst picture possible. There are today over
2,000,000 mulattoes who are marrying whites or
mullattoes by choice and Negroes on compulsion.
They generally supplant the blacks. Segregation
and recombination of the traits of the two races
occur. Numerous individuals appear in which
Negro blood cannot be detected. Their economic
status advances. The color line begins to break
in places. What is the result? Is it not a second
India?"²⁷

Then finally comes the argument of the worth
and position of the mulatto. Carr-Saunders says:
"Intermingling of different racial stocks has been
of frequent occurrence, as we have seen. If the
differences are large, vigor may be exhibited in
the first cross but will soon disappear; unfavorable
combinations of character, on the other hand, are
likely to arise, and the mulatto thus tends to be
a genetically undesirable type. Nevertheless, the
undesirable character of the mulatto is neither of
one race nor the other, and he knows it. He is
an outcast. There is no tradition which he natu-
rally absorbs. He neither grows up with the pride
of the white man nor the feelings of community
with his colored relatives, whose position with
regard to other races is generally accepted as some-
thing inevitable. In the world of tradition there

is no home for him. There are no channels which
enable his capacities, such as they are, to develop
in a favorable manner, and we have thus to give
greater weight to tradition than to an unfavorable
germinal constitution in producing the results which
we see."²⁸

As against this view is that of Reuter, who has
made a special study of the mulatto question. He
says: "It is, however, not necessary to resort to
the assumption of an inherent superiority of the
mixture over the black part of the ancestry to ac-

26. *Ibid.* p. 283

count for the social and mental status; the facts
are sufficiently explained in social and psychologi-
cal terms. The mulattoes have enjoyed a superior
opportunity for the acquisition of culture. As
slaves they were assumed to be superior and were
given superior opportunities; they were given
the lighter occupations, those requiring the exercise
of more intelligence; they were more in contact
with the superior class, as body and house servants,
and in various confidential and personal relations.
Their relation to the master or the master's family
frequently secured for them special consideration
and privilege and opportunity not accorded to other
members of the servile group. They enjoyed
more freedom as slaves and were frequently the
ones who were freed from servitude and its cul-
tural handicaps. Many of the present day mulat-
toes are descended from several generations of
freedmen and had a tradition of superiority while
the bulk of the race was yet in servitude. They
had somewhat more time to advance and have had,
and do have, somewhat more encouragement to
do so. Nearly the whole force of the social and
psychological situation has been exerted to produce
the superior status."²⁹

*(To be continued)*

The Urban League Conference at Cleveland

The questions to be discussed at the Cleveland Conference, December 2 to December 5, are: "Problems of the City Dweller;" "Problems of Administration," "Cooperation Between Social Agencies," "Cooperation for Racial Progress," "Industrial Problems," "The Local Progress of the Urban Leagues," "A National Industrial Program," "Inter-racial Cooperation," and "Publicity."

The speakers include Dr. O. A. Taylor, President of the Negro Welfare Association; Dr. F. Q. Blanchard, L. Hollingsworth Wood, Jane Adams, Mary McLeod Bethune, T. Arnold Hill of Chicago, John C. Dancy of Detroit, Jesse O. Thomas of Atlanta, Wm. J. Norton, President, National Conference of Social Work; James Weldon Johnson, Executive Secretary, N. A. A. C. P., John T. Clark of Pittsburgh, Eugene Kinckle Jones, Executive Secretary, National Urban League; Karl Phillips, Department of Labor; the Honorable James J. Davis, Secretary, U. S. Department of Labor; H. Adolphus Miller of Ohio State University, Wm. H. Baldwin and Charles S. Johnson.

For further information address Eugene Kinckle Jones, Executive Secretary, National Urban League, 127 East 23rd Street, New York City, or Wm. R. Connors, Executive Secretary, Negro Welfare Society (Cleveland Urban League), 2337 East 55th St., Cleveland, Ohio.

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

The Gift of Black Folk

By W. E. Burghardt DuBois. Published by the Stratford
Company, Boston, 1924.

MR. DUBOIS' new book deals with one of the most
important and far-reaching questions that a
thoughtful citizen of the United States can ponder—
that of the relation and contribution of a distinct racial
element to the body politic as a whole. A reader might
well wonder how it is that no enterprising publisher
has previously stood sponsor for a series along the line
represented by "The Gift of Black Folk". Some of our

Dr. W. E. B. DuBois
(From a drawing by Francis C. Holbrook)

mission study clubs and agencies have from time to time
been attracted to the idea, and have indeed acted upon
it; but in general the makers of books have passed it
by. The series now advanced by the Knights of Co-
lumbus in a large way meets the theory of the Ku
Klux Klan that the Anglo-Saxon element in the pop-
ulation is the only one on which the nation's strength
depends, and that other elements, such as the Celtic,
the Jewish, and the Negro, are sources of weakness.
Whatever the motive, the main conception of the "Racial
Contributions to the United States" is sound, and the
result is a contribution to American historical study.

Dr. Edward F. McSweeney contributes an introduction
which in itself is a thesis and which serves to present
not only the immediate work but the series as a whole.
He reviews the history of immigration, shows that in
the course of time there will be in the country practi-
cally no people of Mayflower descent, and brands recent
immigration laws as "haphazard, unscientific, based on
unworthy prejudice, and likely, ultimately, to be dis-
astrous in their economic consequences." One may or

may not agree with the conclusions, but he will un-
doubtedly find informing the review of facts, especially
those affecting the Irish people.

As for the main part of the book, one of the first
impressions that one bears away from it is that it must
have been composed very rapidly. Occasionally there
are typographical errors that can easily be corrected at
the next printing; but there are also other things that
show that the author has not had the time or has not
taken the time to give the book the finish that he un-
questionably knows how to give to any such production.
The quotation at the bottom of page 109 is hardly
clearly introduced; asking (page 123, line 9) is very
evidently intended for asked; in the quotation from
Pennington (page 257, line 23) American should be
America; and Mitchell at the bottom of page 303 is
for Williams. All these things, however, are secondary.
The book may have been written under pressure; but
it is still a book by Dr. DuBois and one of the most
interesting that the distinguished author ever wrote.

"The Gift of Black Folk" has nine full chapters on such subjects as Negro Explorers, Negro Labor, Black Soldiers, the Freedom of Womanhood, and the Gift of the Spirit. The chapter on the Explorers summarizes more fully than has ever been done before the part that the Negro played in early American exploration. That on Labor, with its review of the Negro as an economic factor and as an inventor, is alone worth the price of the book; and the treatment of such more familiar topics as the Negro Soldier and Negro Art and Literature also holds the reader. The most powerful section, however, and the longest, is the one entitled "The Reconstruction of Freedom". It is not accident that this is the middle chapter, for it is a genuine climax. Calling to his aid his study of the Freedman's Bureau of some years ago, and adding to this his experience in more public service in recent years, the author undertakes to show "how the black fugitive, soldier, and freedman after the Civil War helped to restore the Union, establish public schools, enfranchise the poor white, and initiate industrial democracy in America." "The North, being unable to free the slave, let him try to free himself. And he did, and this was his greatest gift to the nation." Dr. DuBois handles in independent fashion the whole matter of the Negro's citizenship in the United States, and is especially strong in his consideration of the rise of the new industrial mastership in the South in the generation after the Civil War.

At every turn the book touches upon some vital sub-
ject, and again and again one comes upon an arresting
page. One of the most frank discussions is that of
racial intermixture—not only the infiltration of Anglo-
Saxon blood into the Negro race, but also that of Negro
blood into the white race; and a page is given to the
ancestry of Alexander Hamilton. The influence of Haiti
on liberty in America, the suggestion for the employ-
ment of Negroes in the Confederate armies, the careers
of Negro men in Congress, recent achievement in music
and other forms of art, the spiritual contribution of the
race to America—all these things and many others are
brought back to mind, not always with the fullness of
detail that the author is unquestionably able to give
them, but certainly with the straightforward and popu-
lar treatment that the aim for the series demands.

Two things we note with special pleasure. No work
that the author has written can be said to surpass, or
even to equal, "The Souls of Black Folk" in literary
quality; yet in its optimistic temper, its constructive
spirit, and its Catholicity of interest, we know of
no book of his that can equal the present. Moreover,
at this time when in every field the race is forging to
the front, and when in many ways rivalry is keen, the
generosity and urbanity of the author—his readiness
to accord recognition wherever it is due—furnish a
model for all who may come after him. With the ex-
ample of this book before us, we should by all means
feel henceforth that the chief thing is not who does the
work, but that the work is done, and that the race and

378

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

the country shall have the benefit of every effort that
might help toward the enthronement of truth, a better
understanding, and a patriotism both exalted and
sincere.

Benjamin Brawley.

## Gertrude of Denmark

By Lillie Buffum Chace Wyman. Marshall Jones Co.,
Boston, Mass. Price postpaid, $2.10.

"GERTRUDE OF DENMARK", it is true, is not a
book dealing with any phase of the race prob-
lem; but it is written by a woman rich in the tradition
of fair play towards the Negro and of genuine friend-
ship for him. Her great-grandfather, William Buffum,
was one of the early abolitionists; her grandfather,
Arnold Buffum, was the first president of the first
society demanding immediate emancipation; her mother,
Elizabeth Buffum Chace, a most remarkable woman,
broke first with the Quakers, who, she considered, were
not living up to their original principles on the race
question and, second, with the Woman Suffrage move-
ment, because the leaders held the opinion that it would
be an affront to the white womanhood of the country
to pass the Fifteenth Amendment before women received
their political rights. There was also an aunt, a sister
of Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Rebecca Buffum Spring,
by name, who did a most unprecedented and big-hearted
thing. In the year 1859, with her nineteen year old
son, she went to West Virginia to see John Brown,
then awaiting death in his cell. She did not even
know him, but so great was her sympathy, she felt it her
duty to go to him. After, however, she found she
could do nothing to ameliorate conditions either for him
or the other prisoners, she returned home and received
his wife as an honored guest into her household. Her
friendship for these two remained steadfast until the
end. This may be somewhat beside the point, but the
author's husband, John C. Wyman, was a man, himself,
of unquestioned courage where Negroes were concerned.
Mrs. Wyman, in her "American Chivalry", cites the
following of him:

"Where can such a man go?" asked a doubter of
social prerogative when speaking of a colored gradu-
ate from Harvard.

"Into my house," answered John Wyman."

True, then, to her tradition and her surroundings,
Mrs. Wyman herself has kept, through a long lifetime,
an unfaltering belief in the Negro and has voiced often
and courageously her demand, for him, of an equality
of opportunity with the white man, politically, educa-
tionally, and socially. She is one of the very few,
fearless enough to push their reasoning to its logical
conclusion, for social equality with her means inter-
marriage.

But Mrs. Wyman, in addition to all this, is a woman
with the true literary gift. She has been a contributor
to numerous magazines, such as the *Atlantic Monthly*,
and is the author of "Poverty Grass", a volume of short
stories now unfortunately out of print; "Elizabeth
Buffum Chace and Her Environment", a tribute to her
mother; "Interludes", a book of poems; and "American
Chivalry", (from which I have just quoted) a series
of appreciative sketches of value from a historical as
well as a literary point of view. William Dean Howells,
the "Dean of American Letters", thought so well of
Mrs. Wyman's work that he mentions her particu-
larly as one of the remarkable American writers of the
short story. Whatever, therefore, Mrs. Wyman has to
say is well worth listening to.

For many years now, the author of "Gertrude of
Denmark" has been an invalid; but this, the latest
book of hers, proves that her brain has lost nothing of
its keenness and her pen nothing of its cunning. It
has to do with Denmark's tragic queen in the play
"Hamlet" and is a mixture of narrative, criticism and
interpretation. The point of view is entirely new and
the treatment of her subject absolutely original. The
style is easy, vigorous and, under her skilful fingers,

the characters live and breathe again. Whether you
agree with Mrs. Wyman or not, in her interpretation,
the book is provocative of thought and is a valuable ad-
dition to Shakespearian criticism. It seems to me that
this utterly different point of view could have occurred
only to a woman and a mother.

According to Mrs. Wyman, Gertrude came to her
and begged her to set forth the facts in her life in their
true light. Mrs. Wyman listened, became convinced of
the entire truthfulness and sincerity of the dead queen,
consented, therefore, and with the help of Gertrude,
retells, for us, the whole story. Blanks in the action,
before the play "Hamlet" begins and during its course,
are filled in logically and cleverly to prove the queen's
case and there is no doubt but that she makes a strong
one for Gertrude, the only fault being that often the
reader feels that the author is not unbiased in her judg-
ments and that in order to whiten Gertrude's character
she has, of necessity, to blacken or change the characters
of the others concerned. She is not the judge calmly
sifting and weighing evidence, but the able lawyer plead-
ing the case of her client.

Her interpretation of Ophelia is perhaps the only
one with which we are familiar. Gertrude is depicted
as a woman whose centralizing force is the maternal
instinct. She knew nothing, we are told, suspected
nothing of the murder of her first husband by her
second, was virtuous always, and her overhasty mar-
riage to Claudius, indecorous rather than sinful, was
for the purpose mainly of protecting the interests of her
son. Claudius, generally regarded as a monster of
iniquity, is drawn by her as evil, it is true, but also as
a human, suffering, tortured soul, never truly repentant
but sincere in his love for Gertrude and sincere in the
beginning in his wish to befriend Hamlet. Polonius,
interpreted usually as a meddling, worldly-wise old
man, is pictured as amiable and inoffensive. Guilden-
stern and Rosencrantz, thought of as spies and tools of
the king, are represented as truly friendly to Hamlet,
if loyal to their king, and as not for a moment suspect-
ing that they were conducting Hamlet to his death in
England. Osric the lightweight, the popinjay, is seen
as a true knight worshipping his queen respectfully,
at a distance. Horatio, the one true friend, whom the
over-suspicious Hamlet trusts implicitly even to the
unbosoming of his most private affairs, in Mrs. Wyman's
eyes, was capable once, at least, of possible sycophancy.
Laertes, she admires throughout. To her he is a noble
youth actuated by a desire to mete out justice only to
Hamlet. And the unhappy prince himself, how does
she see him? He is not the disillusioned idealist, harsh
and bitter-tongued as a result of his experiences, but
a doubter, suspicious often without a cause, misjudging
a good mother, and wantonly brutal to Ophelia because
he is innately cruel. There is not a suggestion here of
any of the mitigating features that are usually at-
tributed to this strange behavior of his towards a
lovely innocent girl whom most of us believe he loved.
In Mrs. Wyman's judgment, his doom came upon him
not because he was too weak an instrument to carry
out his father's commands, but because he deteriorated
morally, as all must, who are driven onwards by a
desire for vengeance only.

The author is not always consistent, it seems to me,
in the ethical values she attributes to certain actions.
For instance, she can pass over the baseness and
cowardice exhibited by Laertes in the duelling scene
between him and Hamlet with these words:

"Poisoning was then a very gentlemanly method by
which high-born folk might commit murder. To use
such material as poison, in the compassing of his
revenge, really raised young Laertes in social rank and
set him among the gentry of the earth."

But when Hamlet, believing Rosencrantz and Guilden-
stern were leading him knowingly to his death, changes
the king's commission so that they shall be killed in
his stead, she criticizes the deed in this manner:

"Hamlet had once resolved upon a scheme of ven-
geance which should send his uncle to his final reckon-

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

379

ing, no shriving time allowed. He had now pro-
gressed so far on the road towards extreme depravity
as to execute a similarly fiendish purpose in relation to
the comrades of his boyhood."

However, as I said before, Mrs. Wyman has made
out a most interesting and clever case for Gertrude;
and those who are not concerned as to whether she is
right or wrong will find the book as a story entirely
satisfying.

I cannot end this review without paying a tribute
to the author for passages of real literary worth to be
found throughout the book, passages showing restraint,
beauty, and genuine power. I shall quote two of these:

"That night she dreamed of kneeling in the courtyard of the castle and beseeching King Hamlet not to go on some projected journey.

"It will be cold and lonesome,' she cried. 'There is
snow in the valleys; there is ice on the little river un-
der the willows, and the baby is sick.'

"The dream king kissed . . . and vanished."

"Claudius remained a brief while longer squatting in
the alcove, his head nearly sunken on the floor in front
of his body.

"Finally he rose, stretching himself with a slow move-
ment, betokening muscular difficulty and even physical
pain. He stood erect a moment. He looked rather
dazed. His lips dropped helplessly apart.

"There was an expression of idiotic horror spread
over his face.

"He had failed to get Heaven on his side . . . and
he knew it."

Angeline W. Grimke.

SOCIAL PROGRESS

Dean Cook of Howard

On October 7th, his Faculty colleagues and the stu-
dent body of Howard University celebrated the golden
academic jubilee of Dean George Wm. Cook. As a
mere matter of record, it is a notable career,—fifty
years of efficient and unbroken service in all the possible
ranks of university service, from that of student worker,
tutor, professor to important administrative services as
Dean, Business Manager, Secretary, and on several
occasions during the administration of President New-
man as Acting President. But the fine significance in
the minds and hearts of all Howardites is not because
of the record length and continuity of service, but
because of the peculiar intimacy of connection and the
exceptional degree of devotion and loyalty to the insti-
tutional life of Howard University. A graduate of
three of its departments,—Academy, College and Law,
the organizer of what was first the Commercial Depart-
ment and now the College of Commerce and Finance, a
careful business steward for years covering several
critical periods in the financial history of the University,
a man responsible during a majority of the ten ad-
ministrations under which he has served for the neces-
sary carry-over of administrative detail and record, Mr.
Cook has thus become, with his work and effort in-
delibly stamped into the life of the institution, meritori-
ously a part of the history and organic tradition of
Howard University. The history of the school could
almost be written out of his personal memoirs and
recollections.

The ideal of public service was one of the natal
ideals of the founding of Howard University. Few sons
have been so letter loyal to the express ideals of their
alma mater. Mr. Cook's record of public service and
social work is noteworthy,—for twelve years active
member of the local Board of Charities, from the be-
ginning of the movement a prominent and staunch fac-
tor in the work of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, the man whose business
initiative and direction made possible the efficient army
service of Howard University in training the several
thousand vocational and collegiate recruits of the Stu-
dent Army Training Corps, President for years of the
Washington Colored Social Settlement, and the organ-
izer of the first municipal experiment in the cottage
system of housing dependent children in the organization
of the District of Columbia's Shelter for Colored Chil-
dren at Blue Plains. In the words of his next senior
colleague, Dean Kelly Miller: "This latter experiment
under his management proved abundantly successful, and

has now become the established pattern adopted by the
best approved municipal management." Mention should
be made also of the silent, helpful copartnership of
Mr. Cook in the extended public service of his wife,
Mrs. Coralie Franklin Cook, for years an active and
influential member of the Board of Education of Wash-
ington. Dean Cook is fond of quoting the seal motto
of Howard University—"For God and the Public
Good," his career gives weighty warrant and proud
justification. So that the honors that have recently
been accorded him are of the sort that Bacon styles
"the proper baggage of merit."

Alain Locke.

Dean George Wm. Cook

380

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

Maud Cuney Hare

Gilbert H. Jones

Paul R. Williams

Nannie Burroughs

Born in New York City on August 31, 1901, Miss Lydia Mason, recent winner of a Juilliard Musical Foundation Fellowship of $1000, has won for herself in the twenty-three years of her life a distinctive place in the ranks of young musicians of the race. Since her fourth year she has been a student of music. And even as early as her ninth and tenth birthdays, she was

trude Mars Martin of the Martin-Smith Music School). The requirements of the Juilliard Foundation offer were exceptionally rigid, requiring not only unusual technical facility, but also a broad and general knowledge of musical theory and history. The Juilliard Fellowship was contested for by many hundreds of applicants and it is worthy of note that of the one hundred who were successful only two were colored —Miss Mason and Miss Covington of Texas, the latter a graduate of Oberlin College. Lucien H. White.

Lydia Mason

Arthur L. Funn

looked upon by sophisticated New Yorkers as a musical prodigy.

For at that time she was being heard in public performances, both as a solo pianist and as a member of the Martin-Mason Trio (being associated with the two talented sons of the late David I. and Mrs. Ger-

Arthur L. Funn, 21, of 392 Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn, a student at Brooklyn Evening High School, won the first prize of $20.00 in the Biggest News of the Week Competition conducted by the New York World. This is the second prize captured by a member of the race in the World's News Contest, the other being Miss Thelma Berlack, a freshman under a Kappa Gamma Kappa scholarship at Hunter College.

Maud Cuney Hare, the pianist, of Boston, and William H. Richardson, baritone, gave a joint recital on October 24th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music under the auspices of the Institute of Arts and Sciences. Appearing under the direction of Ánita Davis Chase, who directs Romonoff, Mrs. Hare and Mr. Richardson enjoyed one of the heartiest receptions they've had in years. The Academy was literally jammed to capacity.

Following their success at the Academy of Music, Mrs. Hare and Mr. Richardson are scheduled to appear, in the very near future, at Syracuse University, Albany Historical and Art Association, Harvard Music Association, etc.

One hundred and fifty thousand children thronged the public schools in Los Angeles at the fall opening in September. Approximately 20,000 of these are Negroes, who are given every encouragement along with children of other racial groups to continue through the entire course and prepare to enter the higher schools of learning.

Public School, Los Angeles, California—Paul Williams, Architect—Cost, $84,000

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

381

To care for this vast enrollment it was necessary to
build sixteen new structures, the designing of which was
awarded only to architects of unquestioned ability.

Paul R. Williams, a young Negro architect and former pupil at the local schools has been appointed by the Board of Education as architect for one of the new schools, to cost $84,000.00. (The public schools in Los Angeles are mixed, and have twenty-two Negro teachers, including a principal; a young woman who was formerly a pupil in the schools.)

Mr. Williams has been a member of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission for three years and is the only Negro member of the American Institute of Architects. He is also a member of a committee of five recently appointed to represent the Southern California Chapter at the American Institute of Architects.

Three national and four western architectural competitions have been won by Williams against competitors of national repute from all sections of the United States. His most recent achievement was the submitting of a design for a civic centre for a western

city of 30,000 inhabitants which was accepted, and upon which he and his office force are now at work on the "working drawings." All of the municipal buildings of the center are to be erected in conformity with Mr. Williams' scheme. In one competition won by Williams, more than 100 designs were submitted by well known architects.

Harpers-Architecture, and several other scientific magazines have been publishing photographs of designs by Williams and he is receiving recognition as an architect of exceptional ability with several million dollar clients.

A recent visitor to his unique suite of offices on the roof of the New Los Angeles Stock Exchange building, found the young artist preparing plans for buildings valued at nearly a half million dollars, to be erected entirely under his supervision.

Mr. Williams, who is under forty years of age, attended the University of Southern California and the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, from which he won the coveted Beaux Arts medal. He is a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity and an inspiration to many young men and women of his own and other races.

Noah D. Thompson.

## Down Among the Pines

EIGHTEEN years ago, a young man by the name of J. E. Johnson, and his wife, both a product of Pike, Mississippi, and a young woman who had been blessed by the benediction of Booker T. Washington, whose spirit she had imbibed, went to a little place called Prentiss and founded what is now known as the Prentiss Normal and Industrial Institute, Incorporated.

J. E. Johnson

The eighteenth session of this Institution began September 29th last. These two young people were pioneers in the accepted sense of that term, going into that benighted, undeveloped, crude interior section of the state of Mississippi whose population's completion in terms of racial ratio designated as a part of the "Black Belt" of the state, began a work in total obscurity that has gradually found its way to the recognition of educators throughout the nation and public spirited citizens in all sections of the country. In recognition of the sacrificial labors of Mrs. Bertha LeBranch Johnson, the co-founder of the institution, a goodly lady of California, of wealth and culture, who after having read of the school's activity and of its struggles in its early stages has provided for Mrs. Johnson a fund with which to take an annual vacation. The interesting feature of this act and manifestation of peculiar concern is in the fact that this benefactor rather diplomatically, no less positively, impels Mrs. Johnson to take this annual vacation in this wise; she sends Mrs. Johnson the money and exacts from her an itemized statement as to the distance covered on her vacation, and of the points of interest visited.

Bertha LeBranch Johnson

382

OPPORTUNITY

DECEMBER, 1924

Professor Johnson is a graduate of Alicoorn College, a State institution of Mississippi. From this obscure position in the educational life of the State he has elevated himself to that to which he has been recently elected: president of the Teacher's Association for the state of Mississippi. Thus from obscurity he has pushed his way forward until he now stands in the Negro Educators of his state. He has worked out a front rank, so far as organic control is concerned, of the program for his state Association, recommendation number two on his program, providing for 4000 Negro Teachers of his state in attendance upon the annual meeting of the association at Vicksburg, Mississippi during the month of April, 1925. Every county in the state is to have a county Teacher's association, whose membership is to comprise every teacher in the county, whose annual fee for membership is $5.00. Through this method funds will be raised with which to carry out the program of the newly elected president. Professor Johnson made a program embracing seventeen recommendations of which he has already set in motion activities to in a large measure carry out. We hope the other states may follow this example of developing county units and affiliate them with the statewide organizations.

Hundreds of Negro boys and girls in this section of the state have gotten their first educational opportunity as well as their first real vision from Prentiss. This school is truly serving the county in which it is located from a spiritual, inspirational, as well as from an educational standpoint.

Professor Wm. H. Holtzclaw, Principal of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, remarked to the writer a few days ago, "Professor Johnson, to my mind, is doing the biggest piece of educational work that is being done in the state of Mississippi for our people when all things have been considered." Holtzclaw himself is the principal of the largest Educational Institute for our group in the state of Mississippi. He honestly speaks his own convictions.

We are still to hear more marvellous things coming out of Prentiss.

Jesse O. Thomas.

### The New President of Wilberforce

"Gilbert H. Jones, born at Ft. Mott, S. C., August 23, 1883. Entered Public Schools at Providence, R. I., at the age of ten; attended the Public School and Central High School, of Columbus, Ohio, graduating in the classical course at the head of the class of 163. Attended Ohio State University, College of Arts and Sciences, and Wilberforce University, College of Liberal Arts, graduating with the degrees of A.B. and B.S. Attended Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., graduating with the degree of Ph.B. and M.S. in mathematics. Studied in the University of Goettengen and Jena, Germany, graduating with Philosophy as a major and Biology as a minor. Was principal of the Lincoln High School, Carlisle, Pa., for four years, one year as professor at St. Augustine Collegiate Institute, Raleigh, N. C., and for several years professor at the Agricultural and Normal University, Langston, Okla., serving at times as coach and acting in the capacity of Vice President. Was elected Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wilberforce University, 1914 and Dean and Vice President in 1918. Was elected President of Wilberforce University in 1924."

He is author of the book entitled "Education in Theory and Practice," an inaugural dissertation in German, "Lotze un Bowne, Eine Ver gleichung ihrer philosophischen Arbeit." This dissertation was sought by Boston University for translation and use in class room.

After a more or less precarious existence for five years the North Harlem Community Forum is now under the direction of George S. Schurley, Chairman, Wilfred Domingo, A. J. Allison, William Pickens, Dr. Alonzo Smith, Elise Johnson McDougald, Ernestine Rose and Regina Anderson. It aims to present competent

speakers who will from time to time discuss various phases of contemporary life and progress.

Marie Hill

### Recital

C. Edwin Coates, a member of the faculty of the Martin-Smith Music School, and a graduate of the Institute of Musical Art, gave the opening concert of the season at the school on Sunday afternoon, October fifth.

The Program was divided into two parts—Part I containing Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, the well known "Moonlight Sonata" of Beethoven, and the Chopin Berceuse and G minor Ballads.

In Part II several of the composers of the modern school were represented. Mr. Coates was especially happy in his rendition of the Debussy numbers, as well as in three charming sketches by Frank Bridge, an English composer whose works are little heard in this country.

Nathaniel Detts' "Dance of Desire," with its interesting rhythms, and its themes reminiscent of the other numbers of the "Enchantment Suits" was particularly well received by the audience. The Music Box, by Lindow, and Liszt's Eighth Hungarian Rhapsody completed the Program.

Jeaneatte Latimer Norman.

### Philadelphia Conference on Inter-Racial Justice

The quality of the men and women taking part in the Third all-day Conference, held in Philadelphia October 24th, insured its brilliant success. The presiding officer of the morning session was Jacob Billlikopf, director of the Federation of Jewish Charities. Frederick J. Libby, executive secretary of the National Council for Prevention of War, spoke on "Inter-racial Justice in International Affairs."

Miss Caroline G. Norment, Hostess of Woolman School, Swarthmore, Pa., described the inter-racial experiment which is being tried out there, of living the brotherhood of man. Miss Norment is Virginia born and served for some time in Quaker reconstruction work in Europe after the war.

The afternoon session, presided over by Dr. Jesse H. Holmes, professor of the History of Religion and Philosophy at Swarthmore College, began with an address on the Economic Results of Segregation, by Dr. John Hope, president of Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga.

The presiding officer in the evening was Isadore Martin.

Of the fifty scholarships awarded by the American Child Health Association in the campaign it conducted in the spring of 1924, on "Better Health Teaching" 2 were awarded to colored women, Miss Jordan, teacher of Physical Education at Miner Normal, Washington, D. C., and Miss Marie Hill, Asst. Principal of the Yonge Street Public School, Atlanta, Ga.

DECEMBER, 1924

OPPORTUNITY

383

James Weldon Johnson, secretary of the N. A. A. C. P., made a clear statement of the triumphs of the Association in lobbying for the Dyar anti-lynching bill, and in its campaign of world-wide publicity.

The end of this perfect day came when Mr. Diton led the audience in community singing. Anxiety had been expressed lest a mere Northern group be unable to join in the uplift of Negro Spirituals. That doubt was laid when the audience of approximately 500 rose and with fervent spirit poured forth "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder," and "I Want to be a Christian in My Heart." It was a final note of deep spiritual fellowship.

Anne Biddle Stirling.

A rather inspiring meeting of the National Association of Wage Earners was held on November 11 at Shiloh Baptist Church, Washington, D. C. This organization, which is presided over by Miss Nannie H. Burroughs, the industrious head of the National Training School for Women and Girls, has as its purposes:

FIRST—To develop and encourage efficient workers.

SECOND—To assist women in finding the kind of work for which they seem best qualified.

THIRD—To elevate the migrant class of workers and incorporate them permanently in service of some kind.

FOURTH—To standardize living conditions.

FIFTH—To secure a wage that will enable women to live decently.

SIXTH—To assemble the multitude of grievances of employers and employes into a set of common demands and strive, mutually, to adjust them.

SEVENTH—To enlighten women as to the value of organization.

EIGHTH—To make and supply appropriate uniforms for working women. This shall be done through a profit-sharing enterprise operated by the Association.

NINTH—To influence just legislation affecting women wage earners.

On its Board as Vice-President is Mary McLeod Bethune of Daytona, Florida.

Among the speakers on November 11 was Mr. Eugene Kinckle Jones, Executive Secretary of the National Urban League, who spoke on "The Negro's Opportunity in Industry."

## St. Louis Urban League Presents a Play

"If I Were King," a romantic drama of Old France, by Justin Huntley McCarthy, was presented November 6th and 7th by an amateur company under the auspices of the Urban League, for the benefit of its building fund. Gordon H. Simpson, Executive Secretary, was general manager of the production. The cast consisted of fifty-five men and women and a ballet of ten girls. John M. Langston, Principal of John Marshall School, played Francois Villon, the hero. His heroine, Katherine de Vaucelles, was played by Mrs. Daniel W. Bowles. J. S. Thomas, instructor in French in Sumner High School, was Louis XI. Special mention is made of the splendid work of Harry R. McClain, probation officer of Juvenile Court, as stage director.

There was a fair attendance both evenings, the audience consisting almost entirely of Negroes.

In commenting on the play the local *Post-Dispatch* said: "Commendable for good work generally, the production was especially pleasing in its picturesque and stirring climaxes. A fine sense of mass action, color and the dramatic was displayed in a number of scenes. . . . The actors did one thing professionals do not always achieve—they pronounced French names with uniform correctness."

## New York Urban League Benefit

Sissle and Blake, the inimitable stars of several successful musical revues, the most recent of which is

"The Chocolate Dandies" now running in New York City, and the internationally famed syncopated orchestra of Paul Whiteman, on October 14th at the Manhattan Casino contributed their genius to a huge and magnificent festival sponsored by a Committee of One Hundred Women for the New York Urban League. Harlemites who had been content to hold this social organization merely as a name associated with remote charities and incomprehensible problems of administration, know considerably more about it. Over two thousand persons packed the large Casino, a rich medley of colors, laughter and music. The artists performed, the John C. Smith and Paul Whiteman Orchestras rivalled for the most perfect *batuttus* of rhythm.

Receipts from the benefit totalled $3773.00. This sum, minus about $700.00 expenses, says James H. Hubert, the Executive Secretary, is to be applied on the amount necessary to meet the conditions of the profered $10,000 contribution of the Rockefeller Foundation. The Committee of Women agreed to raise $4000.00 of the amount.

The New York Urban League announced at this gathering its offer of a prize for the citizen who, in 1924, does most to promote the common welfare of Harlem. Further particulars concerning the contest will be announced in OPPORTUNITY.

## Who's Who?

Charles H. Wesley is head of the History Department of Howard University. He is a B.A. of Fisk and an M.A. of Yale, Later he studied at the Guilde Internationale, Paris, and was an Austin Scholar at Harvard.

Arthur A. Schomburg, President of American Negro Academy, is author of "A Bibliographical Check List of Negro Poets" and several smaller studies. His collection of rare books and documents on the Negro is perhaps the most extensive and complete in the United States.

L. Hollingsworth Wood, President of the National Urban League and Chairman of the Executive Board; Chairman of the Executive Board, Fisk University, a lawyer, a Quaker and an active official in several other social and educational institutions.

Zora Neale Hurston is a graduate of Howard University. She has lived both in the South and the North, registered a wide experience and is one of the most promising of the younger group of Negro writers.

Angelina W. Grimke is a writer of poetry and fiction and a playwright.

Paul Robeson has carried with great distinction the principal role in "The Emperor Jones" and "All God's Chillun Got Wings," plays by Eugene O'Neill. He is a graduate of Rutgers College; graduate of Columbia University in Law (1923), and a member of Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity.

Rene Maran is an African Negro born in Senegal; educated in Paris; winner of the 1921 Goncourt Prize; author of "Batouala."

Benjamin Brawley, author of "A Social History of the Negro," "A Short History of the American Negro," "Your Negro Neighbor," and other volumes, is a Professor at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Eugene F. Gordon received academic training at Howard University Academy and College; commissioned second lieutenant in army; secured work with Boston Post in 1919, first as reporter, then editing copy; has had charge of Daily Post's short story contest since 1920. Special work at Boston University, specializing in journalism and English literature.

Esther Popel received her early training in Harrisburg, Pa., finished Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., and is now teacher of French and Spanish at Shaw Junior High School, Washington, D. C. Phi Beta Kappa.

YALE

["The Labor Spy", "SIDNEY HOWARD", "With the Collaboration of\nROBERT DUNN", "A PART of this work was published serially in The New Republic three years ago and was widely recognized as an important contribution to the study of the relations of capital and labor. Messrs. Howard and Dunn have continued their researches in this field and the present volume is the result of intensive study over a period of three years. It is a thorough and comprehensive survey of industrial espionage and carries a direct challenge to the vast system of bad will, provocative corruption and violence which heretofore has poisoned the co-operative efforts of capital and labor. This work is the only comprehensive and authoritative study that has been made in this field and as such should command the attention of everyone desirous of understanding the American labor movement.", "The Story of Teapot Dome", "M. E. RAVAGE", "Author of *An American in the Making, The Malady of Europe*.", "IN all the history of modern government there appears no act of official corruption equal to the scandal of Teapot Dome. In spite of all its airing, however, the sinister implications of the facts uncovered have never been sufficiently comprehended. Mr. Ravage has written the sordid story of this gigantic betrayal of the people's interests. He traces the history of the oil reserves, following the devious trail of bribery and corruption traveled by Messrs. Fall, Denby, Sinclair, Doheny, et al. The background and antecedents of these central figures in this colossal conspiracy is described in detail with a vividness and deftness of characterization that is penetrating and devastating. This is the only complete and connected account that has been written of the oil scandal. Mr. Ravage has picked up the loose ends of testimony before the Senate Committee and brought them together into a connected and truthful story of what actually happened, free from partisan bias and propaganda. We venture to predict that this work will long remain the authoritative story of the Teapot Dome Scandal and the part played in it by the leading characters.", "Social Discovery", "E. C. LINDEMAN", "With an introduction by\nHERBERT CROLY", "IN this original as well as profound contribution to the social sciences, Mr. Lindeman undertakes to perform for the social sciences a task analagous to that which Francis Bacon proposed to perform for the physical sciences in his Novum Organum. He attempts to clear away some of the mythology and astrology interferes with the ability of educated human beings to consider what the behavior of man in society really amounts to. He has indicated a method which will help to penetrate a land which has proved deceptive to many previous travellers. The result is not only a trustworthy but an exciting study of the behavior of man in society.", "Dollar Books", "N EARLY everybody is familiar with the paper bound books which are sold in Europe so cheaply that everyone buys. New books over there are first published in \"paper backs\" and rarely cost more than $1.00—generally much less. This accounts in a large measure for the fact that many more books are bought and read in France, Italy and Germany than in this country where the standard price is $2.00 or more. Considering that this country has a much greater literate population than any of the countries of Continental Europe, it is apparent that our high cost of books has a great deal to do with limiting their sales.", "The Republic Publishing Company is undertaking the experiment of determining whether good books in paper covers will go in this country. It is publishing new and worthwhile books to sell for $1.00 a volume. Typographically they are the equal in every respect to the books that ordinarily sell for $2.00 or more. The best paper, printing and craftsmanship is going into their manufacture. The paper covers have been carefully selected for their wearing quality and appearance. The books so far published are listed in the column to the left.", "Anyone of the titles described on this page may be had in combination with a six months' subscription to The New Republic for $3.00. Or for $4.50 we will send you the three books listed here with The New Republic for six months. If you are for the \"lower cost of books\" won't you contribute to the success of the experiment by accepting this offer and in addition receive the weekly issues of The New Republic for the next 26 weeks?", "The New\nREPUBLIC", "421 West 21\\

Bath Rates:

Students - Teachers

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OPPORTUNITY

## SHAW UNIVERSITY

RALEIGH, N. C.

Address

BENDHEIM'S DEPARTMENT STORE

2008 14th St., N. W., Washington, D. C.
Just above You St. Phone Worth 1126

Do your dealing here. We are always 10 to 25 per cent lower than downtown. We are out of the high rent district which enables us to do business on a smaller profit.

PEOPLE'S JEWELRY STORE

Watches, Diamonds and Jewelry
of all kinds

Cash or Credit

1359 You St., N. W., WASHINGTON, D. C.

## PAINE COLLEGE

AUGUSTA, GA.

RAY S. TOMLIN, President.

DAYTONA, FLORIDA

Began its second year as a Co-educational Institution September 9, 1924, with the strongest faculty in its history. Offers to ambitious young men and women, prepared to take them, courses in
**JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL**
**SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL**
**NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS**
**COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS**

IN THE NEW WORKROOMS OF

THE
SAINT LUKE
PRESS

where fine books are made

The first successful effort is being put forward to found any serious Press by an assembly of Negro printers. Here has been brought together the most distinguished group of printers to be had. Here are, in well-equipped workrooms, combined the craft-pride and skill necessary in producing literature in beautiful format. Here, too, craft-pride and skill effect the same beauty and finish in its Commercial Printing which mark its larger Edition Work.

BEING LOCATED IN
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
ST. JAMES AT BAKER ST.

Closes December 31

SEE PAGE 355

ATLANTA SCHOOL
Of
SOCIAL WORK

GIVES training in the technic of Social Case Work and prepares its students for professional social work.

E. FRANKLIN FRAZIER, A. M.

Atlanta School for Social Work

36 Chestnut Street Atlanta, Georgia

ABRAHAM RUBINSTEIN wishes to hear from those students who at any time attended the RHODES PREPARATORY SCHOOL or the MANHATTAN PREPARATORY SCHOOL

Dear Friends:

"Men are troubled more by their beliefs about things than by the things themselves."—(Old Stoic Proverb.)

OPPORTUNITY
Journal of Negro Life

(Published by the National Urban League)

makes a shibboleth of facts. It is not just a Negro magazine—it is a modern journal for all intelligent people, devoted to the interests of the Negro and of race relations. Diversified in its offering, it brings to each discussion presented the weight of competent authorities of all races and a Department of Research.

Eighty Libraries subscribed to it in its first year.

Fifty-three Colleges use it in class work.

There is nothing hysterical about it. In it Negro life is made intelligible through its own brilliant writers in fiction and poetry as well as in sober discussion.

USE THIS FORM

OPPORTUNITY,

Journal of Negro Life,
127 East 23rd Street,
New York City.

I enclose Send bill for $1.50 for one year's subscription to

Name

Address