La Habana, Marzo 5 de 1930

XXXXXXXXXX Corrales #95
XXXXXXXXXX

Tfno. P-0-2567

Señor Secretario de Estado.

Ciudad.

Honorable señor:-

En 18 de Febrero próximo pasado, la oficina de pasajeros de la Ward Line Steamship Co. en New York, se negó a vender billets para la Habana, al notable poeta y novelista negro Mr. Langston Hughes, alegan-
do que según carta de su Agente en esta Capital, Mr. Audley Thomas,
una orden reciente de nuestro Gobierno disponía que: O

"los ciudadanos americanos y los turistas de cualquier naciona-
"lidad son admisibles en Cuba, con excepción de los chinos, los
"negros y los rusos"....

Divulgada la noticia en los Estados Unidos, varios amigos
nuestros que, como Mr. Langston Hughes, son naturales de ese país, per-
tenecen a la raza de color y figuran en los círculos intelectuales y
sociales más distinguidos de su patria, nos han escrito fidíendonos
que obtengamos de nuestra Secretaría de Estado una declaración tan ter-
minante como sea posible, estableciendo la verdad legal respecto a res-
-tracciones en nuestra Ley de Inmigración por motivos de raza, color o
nacionalidad, de tal modo que pueda servirles de base para decidir so-
bre su proyecto viaje a Cuba como turistas, y de testimonio contra
cualquiera alegación que contradiga esa verdad.

En vista de la importancia que creemos tener para Cuba el
conocimiento exacto en el extranjero de su política de inmigración,
frente a propagandas que tienden a restarnos turistas de los más dese-
bles, esperamos, señor Secretario, que tendrá Ud. la bondad de dar
la citada declaración con carácter oficial como la solicitamos, a fin
de que podamos remitirla a los interesados para que hagan de ella el
uso que sea pertinente.

Al anticiparle las gracias, presentamos a Ud. nuestros res-
petos y nos suscribimos,

Muy atentamente,

Gustavo E. Urrutia.

Lino D'ou.

8

La Habana, May 1st. 1930.

GUSTAVO E. URRUTIA

#95, Corrales St.
Habana, Cuba.

Mr. Langston Hughes,

Box 94, Westfield, N.J.

YOUR LETTER MARCH 28/930.

My dear Langston:-

At last I come to write you to answer your letter of the 28th of
March. Once I placed a few lines within one number of La Marina. Afterwards
I sent you a very long letter containing the page where
the new negro poems of Guillén were published, and some days ago dropped
you a postal card acknowledging the receipt of the magnificent book of
Locke: The New Negro. I hope you will excuse me if I remind you that my
mother has been nearly dying all this time; perhaps you remember that
I told you she was very sick while you was down here in Havana. She
is recovering at present.

I received on due time the letter you mention from Mr. Walter White, which I will answer to-day. I will send him the official declaration of our State Department denying any discrimination in admitting americans to Cuba. I think this matter is settled for ever.

I am very grateful to you for the valuable books you have procured me. The following have arrived:

Your Very Blues

W. White's Rope and Foggot.

Calverton's Anthology of Negro Lit.

Nearing's Black America.

Herskovits' American Negro.

Locke's New Negro.

Sorry to say that Moton's: What the Negro Thinks, did not arrive yet.

I have not had chance to read none of these books, except your
*Your* Blues,--which I know almost by heart; *Harry's* Essay in the Calver-
ton's Anthology and a good deal of The New Negro. This splendid book has
made a deep impression on my mind. I am unable to drop this book--it is
so interesting in every respect. You have given me a great help by sup-
plying this series of books so enlightening on the American Negro. I have
much to learn out of them.

I am receiving regularly the Pittsburg Courier, the N.Y. Amster-
dam News and The Crisis. Thank you sincerely. Are you getting the Sunday
edition of the DIARIO DE LA MARINA? I have been sending same since you
wrote you are interested on it. If it happens to fail, let me know at
once. The Opportunity did not come.

Mr. Villarreal address:

Juan Jerez Villarreal,

Dolores 48. Santos Suarez, Habana, Cuba.

L.Hughes, Rep. letter March 28 #2

1

Pedroso's add:

Regino Pedroso,
Anton Recio 48, Habana, Cuba.
(I handed him your book)

Guillen's address is correct.

From Dr. Alain Locke I did not receive the copies of his book *The New Negro* for the Club Atenas and the Union Fraternal. Perhaps he sent some direct to these clubs. Fernandez de Castro got a copy too. At his request I am sending you by this mail one copy of REVISTA DE LA HABANA and one copy of SOCIAL; both of them bring reference to your xix-first call to Havana; in the first one are four poems of yours translated into Spanish. Last Sunday I decorated my page with your portrait and with three of those translated poems.

Guillén is producing the best kind of negro poems we ever had; indeed we had no negro poems at all, and what he is writing is of the best quality of emotion and "técnica". It has risen a huge wave of enthusiasm among whites an colored "of every description". The satirical weekly magazine:LA SEMANA--the most popular paper in Cuba--is going to publish in its coming edition an interview made by Fdez. de Castro to Guillén on the subject of his new poems. All the literary and information papers here are anxious to get poems of this kind from Guillén. La Semana, Social, La Revista de la Habana and other papers were indignant because our poet did not give them the preference to start in their papers with this new literary style; they don't want to understand that a negro poet, loyal to his race, should prefer a negro paper or page to give his negro poems. I will send you LA SEMANA containing the interview mentioned above.

Several of our white and colored musicians are working to musicalize the "Motivos de Son" that I sent you. Guillén is writing other poems of the same kind for SOCIAL of Massaguier and for other magazines. My opinion is that this kind of work should be our specialty of our negro page and bring the reader to look for it in our page, but you know, we have to be courteous and friendly to all.

10

La Habana, May 1st/930.

GUSTAVO E. URRUTIA

#95, Corrales St.

Mr. Langston Hughes,

Box 94,
Westfield, New Jersey,

My dear Langston:-

A few days after you left Havana, there was another racial
trouble at La Playa de Mariano, similar but more exciting and trage-
cendental than the rejection of Dr. Alexander from the Casino de La
Playa, which took place while you was here, and was commented by the
press as you can remember.

Now the bigoted concern was the Havana Yacht Club ( you know
the place, the building, and perhaps you was informed of the boasting
and aristocratic behaviour of these folks)

With opportunity of the Central American Olympic Games which took place lately here in Havana, arrangements were made by the Olympic Committee with the H.Y.C. to celebrate the swimming events in the part of the bench within the limits of the Club's property. In the teams of the several Central American countries there were planty of colored athletes. All the swimmers were admitted to the building, waters and grounds of the Club regardless of color or race while training was going on, and also during the first contest day, which was a thursday, but, owed perhaps to protests from members of the H.Y.C., or to something else, for the second contest day, which was the following Sunday, orders were issued to the porters at the gate of the grounds of the Club to permit no colored people.

These orders meant the exclusion of negroes not only from the
clubhouse but also from attending to the swimming events any more, as
the entrance gate, far from the building some 100 meters, is the only
access to both, the clubhouse and the bench.

Nobody could legally bar the negroes from attending to the
Olympic events as this was a government affair, but they did, and negro
attendants same as negro athletes were denied admission at the gate.

Two white-negroes from the Club Atenas were welcomed, as they were taken for whites on account of their light color. Two other members of the same club and many other colored persons were returned, among these, some colored athletes from Panama. Diplomatic representations were made by the Panama Legation and they got diplomatic excuses and apologies. By this expedient they avoided the withdrawal of the Panama team from the games, with the corresponding scandal. The swimming contest was transferred to the Miramar Yacht Club and finished in this place, not far from the H.Y.C.

(1) later on

Re: Hav.Y.C. #2

11

The Club Atenas protested too against the offence to the Panama athletes, to the members of the club and to the whole colored race. Our great and old patriot and statesman Juan Calberto Gómez produced an indignant letter, public declaration and a "resolution" was voted at an assembly of the colored societies, which you saw published in our Sunday page of March 30. In the same issue Guillén wrote our editorial: *Un Bochorno para Cuba*; every cuban paper, daily, magazines etc. protested and condemned the action of the H.Y.C. White and colored folks from every city in the country protested too. Fernandez de Castro, leading the white "intelectuales" wrote an energetic letter of solidarity with the negroes, which was signed by a few of these newly minded whites in representation of many others and we had the whole public opinion backing us.

The president of the H.Y.C. sent a letter to the newspapers explaining that they did not intend to offend the colored people, but bar them crowd from the clubhouse, not on account of color but to prevent damages to the property. This was only too foolish to say that, as everyone was admitted to the grounds except the negroes. The whole nation broke against the offence and the white press without exceptions decided in our favor. Some of those papers are still writing on the matter.

I thought it wise not to insist ourselves any more on the matter and let the whites do. This is the first time the whitex people take our defence in cases like this. Whenever we had some trouble of this character we fighted alone against bigotry, while our best white friends kept silence.

Things have changed in a favorable way for the negro. If the majority of the whites will continue to go against discrimination as in this instance, prejudice shall be abolished before long. Nobody will dare to stand such a bitter criticism. This is the meaning of my Armonias of April 6: *Un Triunfo de la Democracia*

I am not boasting but I think this reaction from the whites against discrimination is the result of the work we are doing in our Sunday page of the DIARIO.

The Club Atenas is going to print a booklet with a full record of the incident and everything that has been written on the matter (telegrams, letters, articles etc.) I will send you and Mr. Walter White one copy each on due time.

To-day I am sending you one number of *La Semana* published two weeks after the incident, with a vigorous editorial and several cartoons on the same matter.

I have written so long to explain you the facts as they actually happened, for there has been too much misinformation in the foreign press.

Excuse my English and learn to be courageous enough to write in a foreign language regardless of elegances or DISPARATES.

La Habana, July 10th 1930.

GUSTAVO E. URRUTIA

95 Corrales St.
Havana, Cuba.

My Dear Langston

Thanks for your letter of sympathy on my mother's death. Also received yours of the 18th ult. and have read what you wrote to Guillen.

Songoro cosongo, songo be, areDELIGHTFUL NEGRO PHONEMAS. HAVE NO MEANING.

Am writing you now to ask me that you should get me permission from the editors of The Pittsburgh Courier, that I may translate and have published in my page of the Diario de la Marina the series of my "courageous" articles by A.M. Wendell Malliet, which they have started at their number of the Saturday 5, (Vol XXI, No.27).

You know I have no money to pay for reproduction or translation fees, but I am anxious to serve those articles to our cuban negroes, and perhaps the editors would agree if you explain them the facts.

Please take this matter up as soon as possible and drop me a few words to let me know whatever be the results.

Are these papers and The N.Y. Amsterdam News real negro papers or are they extra issues of white papers for colored people? I notice at their first pages, signs like "extra" or several black stars, and remind of some Schuyler article read in one magazine, where he explained how there were too few real editorial negro companies. I wish they were.

Will you please tell me in Spanish or somehow the sound of the English word WEARY? Does it sound like *uírí* in Spanish or like *uéry*?

I got Moton's What the Negro Thinks, already, it is also a splendid book. You do not lack great writers as we do. He was awarded a medal for this comprehensive work, I think.

Remind my request on Wendell's "courageous" series and do your best for your cuban friends,

Con un fuerte abrazo y esperando leer pronto su novela, y que le produzca bastante "platay, soy su amigo y admirador,

art for copy of

16

La Habana, Niciembre 4-930.

GUSTAVO E. URRUTIA

Corrales #95.
F-0--2567.

My dear Mr. Langston:-

At last I come to write for The Crisis.--A la fuerza ahorranc--
No doubt, you know the letter Mrs. Bethune writes me in the December
issue of The Crisis. I saw it in the regular subscription copy which
I owe to your kindness, and I also got a "marked copy" from the N.A.
A.C.P. So I have been caught in the trap and have to face the "dan-
ger" of rendering a public statement on the matter for a reply to
Mrs. Bethune.

From the enclosed copy of a letter I lately sent ot this lady,
you will get some more information. Now I see further say that I have
written one "Armonias" for next Sunday Dec. 7, copy of which please find
under this same envelope, and that I wish you would translate these
"Armonias" into English and send the translation to the editors of
The Crisis for publication in the January issue, with a few words from
yourself of explanation and introduction to American readers. I think
it is a most earnest and interesting matter this question of the admis-
sion of Negro American tourists to Latin-American countries, and also
I believe it a good chance to "shape my figure" before the Americans,
as an opening for further writings in The Crisis and other papers.
Am I right or wrong?

Now, my dear poet, I don't know whether you are not too busy at
present to take care of this translation. At any rate, I ask
you I wish you would ask the editors of The Crisis, on receipt of
this letter, to save space in this January magazin for
this reply to Mrs. Bethune, and you let me know at once, by airmail,
whether you will make the translation into English or not. In case
you will not, I should ask Mrs. Margaret Ross Martin from Havana, to do,
but frankly I would prefer you to do it for me as you did for Guillen
and Pedroso. Yo no tengo la culpita de ser tan envidioso.

Un abrazo de

Address:
Gustavo E.Urrutia
#95 Corrales St.
La Habana, Cuba

C--O--P--Y.

La Habana, Nov. 26/93.

Mrs. McLeod Bethune,
Daytona, Fla.

My dear Mrs. Bethune:-

I have just seen printed in "The Crisis" of December, the letter which you wrote me on Sept. 15. On this matter I ought to render you some explanation or else I would look somewhat unpolite for not having answered you on due time.

A few days after you and Mr. Sims Page left Havana, I wrote each a letter covering the number of the "Diario de la Marina" which carried the interviews I made you both, asking both of you to keep in touch with me and apologizing with you for the bad printing your portrait had, owed to the fact of being a reproduction of your pictured contained in the "New Negro".

Of none of these two letters I got a reply, which frankly I, would confess did not surprise me, as I have a end experience of the courtesy of many an American visitor who, after leaving Cuba never cared even to answer to my letters. I could name lots of them.

Later on, Mr. William Pickens came down, and you know of his letter to the American Secretary of State, of my translating it into Spanish and publishing it in my daily and what followed. On returning to the States Mr. Pickens told me he would have you and Mr. Sims Page write me one letter each corroborating what he stated in his address to Mr. Stimson, in order that I might use same whenever I deemed it advisable to publish them to enforce our thesis as colored complaints. With this meaning I got your letter of Sept 15 and expected that from Mr. Sims, which, by the way, never arrived at all. Under this impression I didn't think of a reply to your letter which for me was but an instrument in the controversy. If I was wrong I beg your pardon.

Now that your letter has been printed in The Crisis, I see that you or somebody else is willing to stir up this matter of the admission of colored people touristes to Cuba, which is a very important one in my opinion, and so, I have now one reason to take it up in my Negro page of the DIARIO. I will publish a Spanish version of same and answer to your question at the same time.

Everything being explained, I wish you would send me by return-ing mail one good photo portrait of yours to insert it with your letter-ter. Also please inform me on the choosing of yourself by somebody as one of the 10 or 50 worthiest women of U.S. I read of this grateful selection in a newspaper but I lost same. You no doubt know of the abnormal conditions of the Cuban politics. For some reason the leading newspapers are engaged in a hunger strike. Your letter and portrait will go in the second Sunday edition of the Diario to be published after the strike is over, as for the first one the material is already sterotyped.

Yours truly,
Gustavo E. Urrutia

Address: Gustavo E. Urrutia
95 Corrales St. Havana, Cuba.