The Crisis 1926-05: Vol 32 Iss 1

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More About the Southern Aid Society’s Superior Policy and Insurance Service Claim payments for March, 1920, exceeded $58,000.00, a New High Water Mark for our limited territory. Rea Office Group, 525-7-9 N. 2nd St., Richmend, Va. Our 3 in | Policy Contract, provid- ing, for one small premium, protec- tion against Sickness, Accident and Death, offers the greatest Insurance Service and Protection to the public. Here is an example of thousands of cases carried by the SOCIETY 1620 10th St., N. W Washington, D. C., February 3, 1926. ”? Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc., 1903 Seventh St., N. W., Washington, D. C. Gentlemen: I am writing to thank you for the prompt service rendered my mother, Mrs. Maggie Hart, during her life by the payment to her of nearly Seventeen Hun- dred Dollars ($1700.00), in benefits; and following her death, cheerfully paying me, the beneficiary in her policies, One Hundred Fifty Dollars ($150.00), the full death benefits due on said policies. I further wish to commend the courtesy and kindness of your agents in their calls to our home to pay sick benefits and to collect premiums. In fact, I cannot say enough for the Southern Aid. Very truly yours, (Signed) (Mrs.) LILLIE RHODES. Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc. Home Office: 525-27-29 N. Second St., Richmond, Va. Insures Against Sickness, Accident and Death. Operating in Virginia and District of Columbia.

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WS Coe Che Crisis 0A ‘Record of the Darker ‘Races (ontENTS FoR [YJ AY, 1926 COVER Page A North African Cousin of Ours. OPINION “The Crisis as Reward”, “Miss Fauset’”, “The Phelps-Stokes Fund”, “Howard and Lincoln”, “Disfranchisement’’, “Crime”, ‘Lynching’, Cen, Te ENO. WER oc sn(e onc sia5 06 sore See BES ees eee SES JOHN BROWN. Illustrated. Clarence Darrow.............020+eeee 12 BY WS; A Pon: Penmaes 6. 6 5. 6 oii aC aOR eee 16 THE CHURCH FIGHT. A Prize Play. Illustrated. Ruth A. Gaines- IRE ot ee, Sora ee ig a ty cag al cian ahaa g SS SAE ee wee OR RUR eRTY 17 DRAWING, “K: P. L. N. T.”. Aaron Dougins . .... . ccc cc csvecceeccee 19 THE LITTLE PAGE. Illustrated. Effie Lee Newsome...............+--; 21 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED Sow wt eee Sa re, OWNS RY Se ATE ER aRL SG Soin aha Term gS 23 DIRGE. A Poem. Arma Bontemps. ..... . 2.0. ccc cc ccc tec ccennetaecn 25 ee ce, “PRI G65 5 on Ss as hls 66 os eee ees tee tien 26 ET: SNM Sees 5s ose 5-H GUS we Wie So. ew woe see me eLt 32 Tee Se AT: WEES BEEBE” nk. oioivccc ici ees oe ewe saw eeee es 34 THE NEGRO IN ART. A Symposium. Vachel Lindsay, Sinclair Lewis, INIT RUN ng asa 5 5 9a ds eed Rib aah MRR Sie RIOTS CAO YA RE 35 BEWARE OF SPRING. A Poem. E. Ralph Cheney...........--+-+++-: 36 Test LOORIME, GLASS. Bikestvated 2... cc 5cc ie ce ca Reels bette cecens Vol. 32, No. 1 Whole No. 187 May, 1926 THe Crisis MAGAZINE: Published Future Numbers of monthly and copyrighted by the National Association for the Advancement of Col- THE CRISIS ored People at 69 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Conducted by W. E. Burg- hardt Du Bois; Jessie Redmon Fauset, Contributing Editor; Augustus Granville will contain Dill, Business Manager. 15 cents a copy, “Conditions in Harlem” $1.50 a year. Foreign subscriptions $1.75. by James H. Dillard The date of expiration of each subscrip- tion is printed on the wrapper. When “Othello, the African” the subscription is due a blue renewal blank is enclosed. The address of a sub- scriber may be changed as often as de- sired, but both the old and new address must be given and two weeks’ notice is by a professor of the University of London ‘“‘An Echo from Toulouse, France” necessary. Manuscripts and drawings re- by Idabelle Yeiser lating to colored people are desired. They “i + must be accompanied by return postage Colored Judges ; and while THE Crisis uses every care it And a continuation of our symposium assumes no responsibility for their safety on Negro Art in transit. Entered as second class mat- ter November 2, 1910, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of “a ay S42 ham: :0f ° March 3, 1879. =

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THE CRISIS ADVERTISER * The North Carolina College for Negroes FORMERLY The Durham State Normal School OPENED ITS FALL SESSION SEPTEMBER 15, 1925 _ As our courses are soon to be limited to work of College Grade, the school beginning September 15, 1925, will offer only the third and fourth years of high school work and Senior Normal work. THE FOLLOWING COURSES WILL BE OFFERED: 1. THE LIBERAL ARTS COURSE Leading to the A. B. Degree and offering sufficient work in Secondary Education to enable students to secure High School Teachers’ Certificates, Class A, and High School Principals’ Cer- tificates at the completion of the course. 2. THE SCIENTIFIC COURSE Leading to the B. S. Degree. 3. THE PRE-MEDICAL COURSE _ A two-year pre-medical course preparing students for entrance into medical colleges will be given. . 4. SPECIAL COURSES IN COMMERCE AND MUSIC The faculty will consist of men and women from the best Colleges and Uni- versities in the country and will meet the requirements of the North Carolina College Conference. For Catalog and further information address: THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLEGE FOR NEGROES James E. Shepard, President Durham, N. C. 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. Lincoln University Pioneer in Collegiate and Theological Education Accredited by the Association of Colleges of the Middle States and Maryland. Lincoln Graduates are Leaders in the various professions and in all parts of the country. Address: The Dean of the University LINCOLN UNIVERSITY CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA For full information address the President at Richmond, Virginia. School of High Standards and a Rigorous Pace WILEY COLLEGE Marshall, Texas Recognized as a Class *‘A’’ Cellege by Standardizing Agencies. Has operated on the basis of four quarters a year since June, 1921. Graduation in June and August. Entrance any quarter. Leading colleges and for Teachers (A State Normal School) Cheyney, Pa. A Pennsylvania State Normal School offering, in addition to the regular Normal Academic Course of two years, professional three year courses in Home Economics and Shop Work. A diploma from any of these courses makes a graduate eligible to teach in the public schools . : ; of Pennsylvania. Registration Day, Tuesday, ee eg ea Sake aoa 5 September 15, 1925. First semester began $35,009 invested an celentific Isborators ‘and .library: ¢ Wednesday, September 16, 1925. ae costes on prominence ’given* se musie « For further information and catalog, write iCKN ILL, Principal gas - o- « My.W- DQGAN,, Prpsideat, . ae oo ad ag Mention THe Crisis The Cheyney Training School CeO TLS ee weer

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ee ee Re es, whe THE CRISIS Vol. 32 No. 1 MAY, 1926 Whole No. 187 Ue ¢ OPINION of W. E. B. DU BOIS z SW May 1st is the last day for hand- ing in stories, essays and drawings for the $600 in prizes which THE CRISIS is offering. THE CRISIS AS REWARD IN DENVER, COLORADO, the Men’s Club of the Church of the Holy Redeemer holds an annual ora- torical contest. Each contestant is awarded a year’s subscription to THE CRISIS and the prizes are books. This year eleven subscriptions were dis- tributed. Other cities please copy. MISS FAUSET MISS JESSIE FAUSET, after seven years’ active service as Liter- ary Editor of THE CRISIS, changes this month to the less exacting duties of Contributing Editor. The office will miss her monthly co-operation but our readers will still have the oppor- tunity of following her gifted pen in our pages. Several of her essays will appear in the near future. THE PHELPS-STOKES FUND FOR THE FIRST TIME in its his- tory the Phelps-Stokes Fund is prom- ising to do something of which we wholeheartedly approve. At the an- nual meeting in November the follow- ing action took place: “The President, for the Committee on the proposed re-survey of Negro Colleges, pre- sented a communication from the National Association of Colleges for Negro Youth, dated October 30th, 1925, and signed by President Peacock, requesting an appropria- tion of $5,000.00 towards a re-survey of Negro Colleges and it was VOTED :—That the sum of $5,000.00 be granted to the Association of Colleges for Negro Youth to enable it to make a re- survey of Negro colleges and of the whole subject of Negro Higher Education, on the following conditions: 1. That a supplementary sum of at least $5,000.00 is raised in satisfactory pledges and at least half of this amount paid into the association for this purpose, by June 1, 1926. 2. That the Association is able to secure the services of competent investigators of its own selection.” It is the bounden duty of the offi- cers of the above Association to see to it that this investigation is made; that the work is done scientifically ; and that there is no interference from without such as spoiled the effi- ciency and accuracy of the former study. HOWARD AND LINCOLN WE CONGRATULATE HOWARD and Dr. Durkee on his resignation as president. It was a step due long ago and bound to come sooner or later despite the effort of the Board of Trustees to whitewash the situa- tion. Howard should proceed to elect a colored man as president and this not because there are no white men fitted for the job but because no one of the white men best fitted will feel like stepping into Dr. Durkee’s shoes. The situation is too complicat- ed. Howard is our greatest univer- sity and this is the place for the Ne- gro race to demonstrate that it can conduct a modern institution of learn- ing. No first-class white man wants the job. No second-class white man should have it. There are a few first-class colored

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8 THE men who could make Howard what it ought to be. We could easily name three or four. There may be one or two others who by scholastic train- ing, moral character and executive ability could be put in this place. But certainly these three the Negro people know and trust and if Howard University can get rid of the unfor- tunate gentleman who is at present Chairman of the Board of Trustees and if. the colored members of the Board will stand up today as they never have in the past, we may hope to see one of these men selected. The case of Lincoln is less hopeful. During the Fisk fight The Continent, a. Presbyterian journal of Chicago, deliberately misrepresented the char- acter of the fight after facts had been put before it. Recently two white men asked to head Lincoln have de- clined because of the opposition of the alumni. The alumni have peti- tioned the Board of Directors for ful- fillment of the pledge to give them representation on the Board which was made years ago. To this the Trustees have replied: The Trustees are deeply appreciative of the loyalty of the alumni of Lincoln Uni- versity, and are not at all unmindful of the wholly natural desire of the alumni for a voice in the Government of their Uni- versity. Obviously, the Trustees would be glad if they could feel it for the best in- terest of the University to accede to this desire. They regret sincerely that they cannot feel such action to be wise. They have given most serious consideration to the matter during many months before ar- riving at a decision. At a meeting of the Board, held Decem- ber 15th, it was unanimously RESOLVED: That the Board of Trustees of Lincoln University are unitedly agreed that it is for the best interest of all con- cerned that the policy in regard to the constitution of the Board of Trustees which has always been maintained at Lincoln University shall be continued. “All concerned”! Are the stud- ents, parents and the alumni con- cerned or only the rich Presbyterian donors? What the end of this extraordinary case of pigheadedness is going to be, CRISIS we are at a loss to know; but we do know that no president is going to stay at Lincoln University without the consent of black folk. DISFRANCHISEMENT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE the Bourbon South, forgetting that the world has moved, tries its old game of winning by lying. Recently South- ern governors have united in pro- testing that the Negroes of their states are not disfranchised. They can vote, says McRae of Arkansas, “but not many of them do it”. “They disfranchise themselves”, says Parker of Louisiana. “They do not comply” with the election laws’ of the state, says Whitfield of Mississip- pi. They vote “as often as the whites”, says Peay of Tennessee. Their disfranchisement is ‘“‘self-im- posed”, says Fields of Kentucky. And so the governors of Georgia, Florida, Virginia, the Carolinas and Texas declare that honest to God they have not nullified the 14th and 15th amendments. All this, of course, is silly subter- fuge as the following facts will show: Only 12.8 per cent of the voters of Mississippi go to the polls; 19.7 per cent of the voters of Florida; 13.8 per cent in Alabama; 15.5 per cent in Arkansas; 13.2 per cent in Louisi- ana; and less than 7 per cent in that realm of crime and darkness that be- longs to Cole Blease. Moreover, in 11 Southern. states the proportion of voters voting decreased between 1920 and 1924 from 6 per cent in Louisi- ana to nearly 36 per cent in Florida. What effect does this disfranchise- ment have upon the country? 1. It disfranchises Southern whites in al- most as large proportion as Southern Negroes. 2. It throws the political power into the hands of cheap poli- ticians and scoundrels. Men like Perry Howard are forced on the col- ored race. Not only are Howard's actions denounced in Congress as “a

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erectoewne oem eee oo MAY, disgrace to a decent government’, but he is accused by the papers of his own state of open collusion with white democrats; and he has sup- ported for United States Marshal in the Northern district of Mississippi a politician concerning whom it has been charged in sworn affidavits that this man has helped to burn one Negro and lynch another. 3. There has been no re-districting of the basis of rep- resentation in the national House of Representatives for twenty-five years because the Rotten Boroughs of the South fear the necessary investiga- tion. 4. It makes the national “Get- out-the-vote” campaign silly and meaningless. 5. It makes a third party movement impossible of suc- cess as long as the Southern white voter has seven times the political power of the Northern voter. 6. It encourages chicanery and mob law. Elizabeth Little, a colored woman, was put in jail in Birmingham, Ala- bama, last January for trying to reg- ister. The voters of the Negro town of Boley, Oklahoma, are fighting in the courts to compel the registrars to admit their names to the lists. 7. It stifles freedom of body and spirit in the South for, as Bertrand Russell says in Harper’s, “There cannot. . . be any freedom in parts of the world where white men govern colored pop- ulations”. CRIME THE JUNIOR ORGANIZATIONS of the Ku Klux Klan are receiving thousands of copies of “Educational Studies Number 10” which concerns “the Negro and his relation to Amer- ica”. This pamphlet is arranged without the slightest regard for Truth. It asserts, for instance: “The Negro is constantly increasing in criminality”. As a matter of fact, between 1910 and 1923 the number of Negroes committed for crime de- creased over 26 per cent. It discovers that 70 per cent of Negro criminals are under 30 years 1926 9 of age, but apparently does not know that 80 per cent of the white crim- inals in New York City are under 22. It repeats the canard that educated Negroes are more criminal than the illiterates, a conclusion contradicted by every known fact and resting sim- ply upon a partial census report in 1910. In this case they asked Negro criminals if they could read and write and naturally most of them said they could. With these falsehoods go the usual half-truths, namely, that the Negro is the most criminal element in our population and that he is more crim- inal in the North than in the South. Crime is social disease; it is a com- plex result of poverty, ignorance and other sorts of social degradation. As the peculiar victim of these things the Negro in the United States suf- fers more from arrest and punish- ment at the hands of police and courts than any other element. This goes without saying. The reason of it is clear. Practi- cally the whole South traffics in Ne- gro crime and makes money out of it. The convict lease system is in full blast in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Lou- isiana and elsewhere. It is called by other names and technically “re- formed” from time to time but one has only to read the terrible expos- ures in the New York World of the money made out of selling criminals in Alabama and Florida to realize what is happening. The natural delinquency arising from his position in the United States is increased by the Negro’s treatment in the courts and in jails. A legis- lative committee of investigation in South Carolina reported in 1923: “Both the superintendent and direc- tors testify that there are no written or printed rules to govern the conduct of and control over prisoners. The situation might well be summed up as follows: the discipline-of the peniten-

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10 THE tiary is largely based on the perscnal likes and dislikes of the captain of the guard.” The United States is deliberately manufacturing Negro crime and has been doing so for 150 years. And despite this, Negro crime has de- creased 26 per cent in the last 13 years. LYNCHING EVERY 23 DAYS A MAN IS LYNCHED in America and we say lynching is over because once we lynched two men every three days. The situation is still intolerable and uncivilized. The Southern states are still incapable of punishing lynchers. Even men whom the courts have de- clared innocent have been seized by mobs and lynched and then those same courts were unable to punish the lynchers. The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill is be- fore the Congress. The South is cow- ering and complaining. The Galves- ton News calls it “legislation by re- venge”. The Columbia, S. C., State calls it “rotten politics” to “incite race feeling’. The Houston, Texas, Post sees an “invasion” of state rights. The New Orleans Picayune declares it “unconstitutional”, etc. Is it revenge to stop public mur- der? Is it politics to stop lynching? Is it unconstitutional] to enforce Sec- tion 1 of the 14th Amendment which says that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”? If any Southern state does not want its rights “invaded”, let it stop lynching or punish the lynchers. If it cannot do this the United States government must and will. If the men like Dyer and McKinley who have pushed this bill are playing petty politics then the Negro voter answers simply that that is precisely the kind of petty politics he wants played; that he doesn’t care a rap whether the senators and representatives who are pushing this legislation love him CRISIS or hate him, are actuated by the highest patriotism or the lowest self- ishness. What he wants is that they should push the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill and he is going to vote for any man who does it and against any man who doesn’t. COOLIDGE THE STEERING COMMITTEE of the National Republican Confer- ence, under the chairmanship of Dr. W. A. Byrd, went down to Washing- ton March 16 to call on President Coolidge. They said to him two words. First: In bringing to your attention the Dyer- Lynching Bill, we come as Republicans who supported you and who still support you. The publication of legislation necessary, with Dyer Bill unmentioned, has left the impression that you are opposed to the Bill. In our opinion this is unfortunate. As Negroes we feel, because of the havoc lynching is making with our lives, that no more important domestic legislation can be enacted by this Congress. Second: Our attention has been called to the fact that a member of another race is being considered as the successor to Minister Sol- omon Porter Hood, who is in America striv- ing to regain his health. We hope our in- formation is untrue. Nevertheless we are asking you to join us in requesting the State Department to continue a colored man as Minister to Liberia. Mr. President, we feel that this government in times of peace is too stinted in its giving Negroes a share in the administration of the affairs of state. Our loyalty at all times, our heroism and eagerness to serve in times of war and our faithfulness to everything American entitle us to a greater share than we now enjoy. We had hoped and still hope that you will use your good offices to remedy this injustice. To these words in the presence of six members of the Committee Calvin Coolidge answered: 1. “I am in favor of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill and have always been in favor of it.” 2. “If Minister Hood’s health fails and he is unable to return to Liberia, a colored man will be named as his successor.” BY THE WAY YOUNG COLORED MEN should

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attend the Military Training Camps. As long as white men are being trained we dare not lag behind. A demand for enrollment in these camps ought to be sent to the War Department immediately.—tThe School of Education of Teachers Col- lege of Columbia University is go- ing to learn about Negro educa- tion. The only persons whom it has been able to find so far to give it information are W. A. Aery of Hampton, Jackson Davis of Virginia, N. C. Newbold and W. I. Weather- ford of the South, and Thomas Jesse Jones. No Negro who knows enough about Negro education to be invited to Columbia has been found.—Ne- groes are developing guts. They have refused to be Jim Crowed at the “Sunday School” Convention at Bir- mingham, Alabama. In Brooklyn, New York, they are going to make the courts punish the policeman who beat a colored woman and _ they marched with banners to do it. The Chief of Police McLaughlin cannot attend to this matter; he is too busy trying to keep white women out of colored cabarets.—The world is saved. From the Philippines comes this information: The Guardian Association has just in- formed us frankly that children of Negro fathers and Filipino mothers are not to be benefited by the $1,000,000 drive now being carried on in the U. S. to care for the orphans of American soldiers. In other words, only white bas- tards need apply.—The World To- morrow has a beautiful edition on Social Equality with trenchant re- marks by Pickens, Frazier and Zona Gale.—Is it not interesting to see how the atrocious murders of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma have softly dropped out of public print?—Eugene Debs is being deprived of citizenship because he will not say that he is sorry.—Geneva failed because Lo- carno was a deception.: They did not simply shake hands and admit Ger- MAY, 1926 11 many to the League but they made a lot of secret promises that could not be fulfilled. Peace waits.—There was much fine mingling in churches, white and black on Inter-Racial Sun- day but a white St. Louis pastor told the real truth when he wrote to a col- ored colleague: Frankly I hate to preach in your Church because I find myself saddled with the shame of the whole white race! It is at such a time that I feel the terrible hypoc- ricy of the dealing of our race with yours most keenly. That is never a pleasant ex- perience, but I suppose it is a cleansing ex- perience; so try me again some time, for my own good. Bishop Lee is dead. His daughter writes: “Upon arriving home recent- ly I found the March CrIsIs at his bedside. My father had been an ad- mirer of THE CRISIS since its birth, and east, west, north and south he sought this magazine in the homes of his ministers and often lightly repri- manded what to him seemed an over- sight upon their part when they failed to show satisfactory acquaint- ance with this publication.”—In the English House of Commons it was re- cently admitted that 450 Negroes had been executed for murder in British Nigeria during recent years and that “none of these were allowed the ad- vantage of being defended by coun- sel”. English Justice!—The Ameri- can Association for the Advancement of Science is going to hold its annual meeting in Philadelphia next Christ- mas. The subject of the social science section will be “Law Enforcement”. The secretary is F. L. Hoffman, a man who, ever since his book on Race Traits and Tendencies, has been villi- fying the Negro race and misinter- preting the statistical facts concern- ing it. Recently in New York City he was invited to insult a Negro audience on the same subject. Small wonder that in six sessions on law en- forcement with twenty-four different subjects, lynching and mob violence do not appear.

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John Brown An Estimate of the Great Emancipator on His One Hundred and Twenty- sixth Birthday CLARENCE DARROW OHN BROWN was born in Con- necticut in 1800. His parents were farm- ers, and like all who really work were poor. His natural instincts were never warped or smoothed or numbed by learn- ing. His mind was so strong, his sense of justice so keen, and his sympathies so deep, that he might have been able even to withstand an education. He be- lieved in destiny and in God. He was narrow, fanatical and self-willed; like all men who deeply impress the genera- tion in which they live. Had he been broad and profound, he would have asked himself the question, “What is the use?” and the answer would have brought an easy life and a peaceful death. He was a man of one idea, which is all that the brain of any man of action can ever hold. He was not a philosopher, and there- fore believed he had a mission in the world, and that he must early get at his Master’s work, and never rest day or night, lest that work should not be done. He was of the type of Cromwell, of Calvin, of Mahomet; not a good type for the peace of the world, but a type that here and there, down through the ages has been needful to kindle a flame that should burn the decaying insti- tutions and ancient wrongs in the crucible of a world’s awakening wrath. His life was one of toil and hardship and poverty. In his earlier years, he was a farmer, a wool grower, a merchant, a tan- ner, and with all a fairly successful man. Up to his middle life, the demands of busi- ness and the claims of a large family took nearly all his time and strength; but more and more the crime of slavery obsessed his CLARENCE DARROW mind until, casting all else aside and forgetting even those of his own household, he answered all carp- ers “as another dreamer years ago”. He turned to the helpless and _ the poor and waiving aside his kin, he said “These are my brethren and _ sis- ters”. For the same eternal voice has called to the devoted souls, “Unless you desert Father and Mother, Brethren and kindred, you cannot be my disci- ples”. His own slen- der means, with all that he could beg and borrow, was from that time de- voted to the cause for which he gave his life; and while he lay in the poor, Virginia jail waiting for the end, he could not spare the money to bring his family to his side to give their kind ministrations before he mounted the gallows that choked out his life and immortalized his name. His work was so important that he had no time to get money, and no thought of its value. Unlike many other reformers, he went about his Master’s work in such great haste that he did not even wait to accumulate enough money to save the world before he began his task. Most of John Brown’s biographers tell us when and why he became the champion of the black, but they do not tell us right. His love of the slave was a part of that fire that, although it seems to slumber, still now and then, through the long and dreary night, kindles a divine spark in the minds of earth’s noble souls, which lights the dark and devious pathways of the hu- man race to nobler heights. Lucky are the sons of men when these prophets are born upon the earth; above 12

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MAY, 1926 13 their neglected cradles sing the morning stars and around their humble homes, hushed and expectant, await the early breezes that shall drive away the fog and mist before the rising sun. John Brown found the power of slavery thoroughly intrenched in the United States. No other institution in the land seemed more secure. True, here and there, voices were raised to denounce the curse, but for the most part these came only from the weak, the poor and the despised. The pulpit, the press, the courts, the wealthy and respect- able gave it their sanction; and more pow- erful still was the fact that slavery was hopelessly interwoven with the commercial and financial institutions of the land and any attack on this was an attack on the sacred rights of property—the sin of sins! Even in his business life, John Brown talked and worked against slavery. He was one of the chief conductors of that Underground Railroad which sent so many helpless captives by devious ways across the continent, beneath the Stars and Stripes, until they were landed as free men under the protection of the British Flag. But to John Brown this was only bailing out the ocean with a dipper. This might free a slave but it would not abolish Slav- ery. The system must be destroyed. When the slave power, reaching out its arm to perpetuate itself, turned to Kansas to fasten its shackles on a new state, John Brown sent forth four devoted sons and two others of his kinsmen to help fight the battle of Freedom in this new land. In the meantime, he was busy in the East raising money and men to help the cause. Kansas was in the throes of a Civil War. It is idle to ask or answer the question as to where the blame should be placed for any special act through these bloody days and nights. The war was not between men, but between two systems, old as the human race: Freedom and Slavery. Then, as ever, officials and power and wealth were with slavery and the dreamer and the idealist with liberty. Then as ever, the power of slavery was united, and the forces of freedom divided. Fighting for liberty were the Garrisons, who believed in non-resist- ance; the Beechers who believed in appeal- ing to the heart,—the heart of a system that had no heart; the Sewards and Sum- ners who believed in the ballot; and John Brown who believed all of this meant War, and could be settled by no other method save that of war. John Brown could not long resist the lure of Kansas; with a slender purse, a few trusted men, a small number of guns, a large family and a devoted soul, he made his way to that historic land. He found the enemy militant, triumphant and inso- lent. He found the friends of Freedom peaceable, discouraged and submissive. He gathered together a small devoted band and prepared to fight. “Where will you get supplies?” asked one of the peaceful and meek. “From the enemy” came back the reply. Guerrilla warfare was the order of the day. Guerrilla warfare was murder because the killed are so very few. In this war- fare, the name of “Brown” was a terror to the other side. He was silent, active, resolute and unyielding; next to his belief in abolition he believed in God. None of his band drank, smoked, told doubtful stories, jested on sacred things, or indulged in levity of any kind. They had daily prayers, stern visages, frequent Bible read- ings and they knew how to shoot. The commander, like all fanatics, believed he was called of God to do His Work, and so he was. Every man is called of God, if he but believes it strong enough. When an army goes to battle singing psalms and muttering prayers with a leader called of God to perform his task, let the world be- ware; such an army cannot lose, no mat- ter what its size. Even though vanquished and destroyed, from the bones and ashes of the dead will spring a multitude that will prevail against all the powers of hell. At first, victory seemed with the slave holder in the guerrilla war; the village of Lawrence, a free soil town, was sacked and burned without a struggle in its defense. John Brown, chagrined that a town should be given up without a fight, called together his four sons, two kinsmen and two other trusted men, armed them with knives and pistols, bade them mount their horses and follow him. He did not even need to tell the party the specific errand for which they rode, what ever the details might chance to be, the cause was freedom, and with them the method did not count. Across the prairies and swamps and through the night they kept their way, until they reached a little settlement, where slept the leaders of the Lawrence raid; five of these they

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14 THE dragged from their homes, took to the woods, cut them to pieces, and then rode away. At once Kansas was aflame; the Free Soilers with whom Brown had fought were the ones who most loudly condemned the act. With one accord they hastened to deny either sympathy or complicity with: the deed. A silence profound and deadly fell over the leaders of the State. A price was put on John Brown’s head but no one seemed over anxious to win the prize. The pendulum swung back, as pendulums al- ways have and always will. Even the non- resistants took up their guns and the bat- tle for Freedom in Kansas was won. Then John Brown turned east; he did not even wait to run for office and claim the reward for his labor; there still was work to do and he was growing old. For a time he busied himself gathering bands of slaves and taking them across the United States to the hospitable northern land. Long since he had exhausted his own funds and collected all he could for the great cause; long since he had given up all other business except his Master’s work. At Harpers Ferry he said: “For twenty years I have never made any business ar- rangements that would prevent my answer- ing the call of the Lord”. Perhaps no one knew the exact plan of his last great fight. For years he had given up all hope of a peaceful solution of the great cause; he did not believe in moral suasion or political action. To the Non-resistant he answered in the language of the Hebrew prophet: “Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins.” As near as can be known, Brown had a plan of forcibly taking possession of vari- ous points in the Allegheny Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains, fortifying them and collecting forces of men, black and white, to engage in the wholesale business of deporting the blacks from the South. He had long lived in these mountains, and looked upon their rising peaks and deep ravines with reverence and awe. He be- lieved that God had raised the Alleghenies as a bulwark for Freedom and for the Lib- eration of the Slaves. Harper’s Ferry was the place to strike the blow. Harper’s Ferry was a natural outlet of the Great Black Way to the north. This Great Black Way lay east of the mountains, running from Harper’s Fer- ry south through the Virginias and Caro- CRISIS linas, reaching three out of the four mil- lions of blacks in the United States. Along the way with weary feet had fled most of the poor fugitives in their escape from the land of darkness to the land of light. Harper’s Ferry, too, had the government arsenal packed with arms, used by the Na- tion in defense of slavery. These he would capture and place in the hands of the blacks and his comrades to fight for free- dom. Immediately surrounding this town was a country where the blacks were more numerous than the whites and where he might expect to get recruits when the blow was struck. When Brown formulated his plan, he vis- ited all the abolitionists that he knew and could trust to enlist their help. He re- ceived some contributions of money, given for vague, indefinite purposes, but no man of influence would either join the expedi- tion or give sanction to the plan. Fred- erick Douglass, the leading colored man of his time, counseled him not to undertake the task; he pointed out that it would sure- ly fail, and he believed that failure would seriously harm the cause. But all argu- ment was of no avail; win or lose, John Brown had no choice; whether he had many followers or few, a voice had spoken to his soul, and that voice he must obey. How could he fail? His cause was the greatest cause for which any martyr ever lived and died! The Liberty of Man. No sordid motive ever moved his life; his com- mander was the great Jehovah, and the outcome had been determined since the morning stars sang together and the world was new. With scarce a score of men he reached Harper’s Ferry, rented a farm house awaiting the fatal day. John Brown, tall, gaunt and grey, with serious face and stooping frame, taking upon his devoted head the crimes and sor- rows of the world. Around him were five sons and kindred, whom he loved with a tender devotion, next to the Negro and his God; seven obscure blacks, fresh from the bonds of slavery, and nine more unknown whites, made up the army, that with bowed heads and consecrated souls challenged the strongest institution of the land and made war upon the United States with force and arms. And strange to say this poor and motly band of humble unknown men was triumphant in the fight. On the 17th of October, 1859, about 8 oT eas om

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i Tare o’clock at night, the little army left the farm house for Harper’s Ferry, five miles away. They quickly captured the arsenal, and took possession of the town; then their plans began to go awry, the citizens ral- lied, the regular troops were brought upon the scene, Brown and his followers were penned in the engine house, and made a last desperate stand against overwhelming odds. John Brown was seriously wounded, two of his sons were shot down by his side, six escaped, all the rest were either shot or hanged. Brown was indicted, immediately placed on trial while suffering from his wounds, was brought in and out of the court house on a cot. Of course, convicted, and within six weeks after the raid, was hanged. He was convicted and hanged. For though one of the purest and bravest and highest minded patriots of any age, he was * vied by the law; the law which takes no ac- count of the motives of men, but decides upon their deeds alone. The news of John Brown’s raid sent an electric shock around the world; the slave power was aghast at the audacity of the act, and knew not where to turn. The lead- ing abolitionists of the North were stunned and terrified at the man-hunt coming on. The great William Lloyd Garrison promptly and fiercely denounced Brown’s mad act. Beecher and Seward cried out against the man who had so criminally and recklessly hazarded his friends and the cause. Bold and wrathful were all these old abolitionists when there was no risk to run, but here was a maniac who trans- formed their words to deeds; with grand juries and inquisitors abroad in the land, no one’s neck was safe. In the first mad days but one man stood fearless and unmoved while the universe was falling around his head, and this was John Brown. When faint voices cried out for his rescue, Brown promptly made re- ply: “I do not know that I ought to en- courage any attempt to save my life. I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love than to die for it, and in my death I may do more than in my life.” But soon the mad frenzy of the mob be- gan to die away. A few brave souls stood unmoved in the fury of the storm. While Brown still lived, the calm, sane voice of Emerson called his country-men to view Brown’s deeds in the light of the motives MAY, 1926 15 that fired his soul; he told the world that soon the day would come when his deeds with their motives would place John Brown among the Martyrs and Heroes of the earth. Theodore Parker did not lose his head in the mad unseemly haste to save his neck, and brave, old Wendell Phillips fearlessly hurled his maledictions in the teeth of the maddened foe. But when the scaffold bore its fruit, and the dead hero’s heart was cold, the pulse of humanity once more began to beat; the timid, the coward, the time server, the help- less and the weak looked on the brave, cold clay, and from a million throats a cry for vengeance was lifted to the stars. Men cried from the hustings to wake a sleeping world; newspapers condemned the act; ministers who still were Christians ap- pealed from the judgment of the court to the judgment of their God; church bells with sad tones tolled out the tidings of Brown’s passing soul, and men and angels wept above his bier; and still the tide rolled on until in less than two short years the land resounded with the call to arms, and millions of men were hurrying to the field of strife to complete the work John Brown began. Once more at Harper’s Ferry was gath- ered a band pledged to the same great cause—“The Liberty of Man”. A band un- der the leadership of Grant swept down the Great Black Way with fire and sword and in a sea of blood washed the crime of slavery away. But while the victorious hosts were de- stroying the infamous system that had cursed the earth so long, John Brown was sleeping in a felon’s grave and around his decaying neck was the black mark of the hangman’s noose, the reward of a Christian world for the devoted soul that had made the supreme sacrifice for his loyalty and love. More than any other man, his mad raid broke the bondman’s chain. True the details of his plan had failed, where the plans of the prophets always fail; the men who worked with him, and the poor for whom he fought, left him alone to die. John Brown offered his life and the lives of those he loved for the despised and weak; and while he fought and died, these idle and nerveless and stupid looked blindly on as their masters strangled him to death. But this story, too, is old, old as the hu-

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16 THE man race. Ever and ever hangs the de- voted Christ upon the cross and ever with faint heart and dumb mouths and palsied hands the poor for whom He toiled stand helpless and watch their savior die. The world has long since accepted the results of John Brown’s work. Great as was the cost, all men know that it was worth the price. But even now the idle, carping and foolish still ask, “Did John Brown do right and would it not better have. been done some other way?” Of all the foolish questions asked by idle tongues the most childish is to ask if a great work should not have been done some other way. Nothing in the Universe that was ever done could have been done in any other way. He who accepts results must accept with them every act that leads to the re- sults. And all who think must accept all results. High above the hand of man is the hand of destiny, all potent in the world. To deny destiny is to deny God and all the forces that move the Universe of which man is so small a part. To condemn an act as wrong assumes that the laws of justice laid down by the weak minds of man are the same as the laws of the Universe, which stretches over infinite matter and infinite time and space and regards nothing less than all. The world may ask the question, “Did John Brown’s work fit the everlasting scheme of things?” It cannot ask whether this or that taken apart from all was good or bad. Nothing in the Universe stands, or can stand, apart from all the rest. Na- ture works in a broad way and takes no account of the laws of justice as man has laid them down. Nature would prepare the earth for the human race; she sends her glaciers plowing across a continent, car- CRISIS rying death and destruction in their path, and she leaves powdered rock and fertile valleys in their wake. For some mysterious reason she would change a portion of the globe and she sends an earth quake to cover the land with the sea, to raise islands in the trackless ocean, to shake down cities, lay waste provinces and destroy the “un- just” and the “just” alike. John Brown was right; he was an instru- ment in the hands of a higher power. He acted as that power had given him the. brain to see and the will to do. In answering his inquisitors in Virginia, he said “True, I went against the laws of man, but whether it be right to obey God or man, judge ye.” Long ago it was said, “By their fruit ye shall know them”. The fruits of John Brown’s life are plain for all to see; while time shall last men and women, sons and daughters of bondmen and slaves will live by the light of freedom, be inspired by the hope of liberty and bow down to no mas- ter’s will. The earth needs and will always need its Browns; these poor, sensitive, prophetic souls, feeling the suffering of the world and taking its sorrows on their burdened backs. It sorely needs the prophets who look far out into the dark and through the long and painful vigils of the night wait for the coming day. They wait and watch while slow and cold and halting the morn- ing dawns, the sun rises and waxes to the noon, wanes to the twilight and another night comes on. The Radical of today is the Conservative of tomorrow and other martyrs take up the work through other nights; and the dumb and the stupid world plants its weary feet upon the slippery sand soaked by their blood and the world moves on. My Words FRANK HORNE WOULD they were . a Pegasus herd, And I could whip them Flying . up the crest of Parnassus With great wings outspread and all a’shine In the morning sun. . But instead . . . they trudge and crawl Like any plow horse— A sluggish pack . .. their broad backs wet And steaming In their labor. Their pace is so slow In the morning sun... . )

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ST vo SIRENS coe TR SLEEPER LOPE PREM a Sean The Church Fignt A Prize Play BY RUTH A. GAINES-SHELTON VHIS play took the second prize of $40.00 in our contest of 1925. For rights of reproduction please write THE CRISIS. Mrs. Shelton is 53 years old and has three children and two grandsons. She was born in Missouri, educated at Wilberforce and Characters: The Brethren Ananias Investigator Judas Parson Procrasti- nator The Sisters Sapphira Instigator Meddler Experience Take-it-Back Two-Face ScENE.—In the kitchen of Sister Sapphira’s home. A small kitchen table with red table cloth on it and breakfast dishes for two; kit- chen chair; cup- board with dishes in it; pans and skillets hanging up. TIME.—7:30 in the morning. Brother Ananias and Sister Sapphira have just finished their breakfast. Ananias has on overalls and jumper ready for day’s work. Sapphira is in neat house dress, gingham apron, with dust cap on. Brother Ananias. (Lighting pipe.)—Well wife, I must go, it’s 7:30 and I’ll have to skip along; but I want you to remember if that committee meets here today tell them that we ain’t going to pay another cent into the Church unil Parson Procrastinator leaves. Tell them Parson Shoot, from Rocky-town, says he’ll come and take our Church any time. Sister Sapphira.—Don’t you worry, An- anias, I ain’t going to pay no more money to that man. Why he has plumb robbed the treasury. Why it’s just a shame for a preacher to stay at a Church until he MRS. R. A. GAINES-SHELTON 17 She has written and staged a number of successful amateur plays. One of her daughters, a kinder- garten teacher, is studying dramatic art at Emerson during her summers. lives in St. Louis. kills it plumb dead. Here honey, take your dinner bucket. (Ananias takes his bucket, says good- bye as he goes out the door.) Sister Sapphira. (Cleaning up table.) —I do hope they can git brother Procras- tinator moved by night. I’ve got so much work today it looks like I just ain’t got time to fool with all them people a-coming here. But we’ve got to attend to God’s work first. (Knock at door; opens door.)—Why, you all are here be- fore I’ve got my house cleaned up; but come right in. I’m so glad you all mean business. (Enter Sister Instigator with glasses on, looking over them; Sister Med- dler, chewing gum. Sister Experience with book and pencil looking very important. Sister Take-it-Back, with head down as if afraid of being discovered, Sister Two- Face, smiling sweetly with pretty hat and veil on; Brother Investigator, with Bible; Brother Judas, leaning on cane. All ladies are dressed in house dresses except Sister Two-Face, who has a street dress on. Sister Sapphira shakes hands with each one calling the name as she does so.)—Just sit right down and let us see what can be done. I’m just all on fire about it. Brother Investigator. (Sits down at ta- ble, takes off glasses and wipes them.)— Well, Sister Sapphira, I’ll tell you in the

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18 THE beginning, it’s no easy task to move a Min- ister. You see, in the first ‘piace, we got to have a “charge” aginst him; now what charge have we aginst Parson Procrasti- nator? Sister Instigator.—Well Brother Inves i- gator, we ain’t got no particular charge agin him, only he’s been here thirteen years and we are tired looking at him. Brother Investigator—That won’t do, Sister Instigator; you must have sufficient evidence and proof that he has broken the law, or lived unrighteously. Sister Meddler.—Couldn’t we make up some kind of a charge agin him? Sister Experience.—Better not do that sisters, you'll get into trouble! Sister Sapphira.—There’s no danger of that; we could just simply say that Broth- er Procrastinator has not walked in the straight and narrow path since he’s been here. Brother Investigator.—Well, Sister Sap- phira, you can’t say that unless you tell just wherein he failed to walk in the path. Brother Judas.—Well, I'll just tell you the truth, Brother Investigator; you know I know him. He and I have been arm and arm ever since he’s been here. He’s a pretty crooked sort of a fellow. Of course I wouldn’t like for him to know I squealed on him. Sister Take-it-Back.—Well I know one thing, and I saw this with my own eyes: I saw him hold on to Sister Holy’s hand so long one night at prayer meeting until Brother Two-Face had to speak to him about it! Sister Sapphira.—There now! Do you hear that? I’ve been watching them two, for some time. You know Sister Holy was the one what gave him that gold pencil. Sister Experience.—Sisters you all had better listen to me; you know I’ve been in one church fight, and I promised God that I’d never be in another. Now in the first place, no church fight can be built on a lie. It’s better to let the preacher stay, than damn our souls trying to get rid of him. Brother Judas. 4Singing.)—‘We want no cowards in our band.” Sister Experience——If there’s anybody here, that’s afraid to come out and fight in the open, let them get out at once. Sister Take-it-Back.—Well I’m one that’s not afraid; you all know me. You know what I say first, I say last; and I started CRISIS out to move Brother Procrastinator and I don’t expect to stop until he’s gone. Brother Judas.—That’s the way to win out; Sisters, you got to have that fighting spirit. Sister Instigator.—I tell you, we just must git rid of this man. Why none of the young people will come to Church because he can’t read so anybody can understand him. If he don’t go, this Church is going to destruction and ruin. Brother Investigator.—Now sisters and brothers, I have listened careful to every word you said and I ain’t yet had sufficient evidence to ask Parson Procrastinator to go. Sister Experience.—Brother Investigator, I wish to drop this word of warning. When I was in the fight aginst Parson Hard-head, some of the sisters told so many stories that the Bishop had to turn them out of the Church for lying. Now I don’t think we ought to tear the Church all to pieces just to git the Minister to go. If he ain’t doing right, let the officers see that he does do right; if he ain’t a good man, let the Church get together and pray for God to touch his sinful heart, and convert him. For after all, we are serving God, not man. Men may come and men may go, but God stays forever. Sister Instigator—I see Sister Experi- ence ain’t with us in this fight. Of course I ain’t never been in a church fight before, but I am in this one heart and hand. Sister Meddler.—I think we ought to find out where Brother Procrastinator got his money from to buy that $7,000 house on 6th Street. Sister Sapphira.—Oh yes! I forgot that. That does seem funny when we poor crea- tures can’t hardly get a crust of bread to eat; now, there’s a charge agin him right there. Sister Meddler.—That’s so, thought of that. agin him. Brother Investigator.—What’s that, Sis- ter Meddler? Sister Sapphira.—Why he bought a big house on 6th Street and paid a whole lot of money spot cash for it. Brother Investigator.—Well what can you do about it? That was his own affair so long as he does not infringe on ours. Sister Instigator.—I don’t know why it ain’t a charge against him. It gives our Church a bad name to have the Parson I never That is a good charge

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} Me fy hy he ey he te pV A. DOUGLAS | POSTER OF THE K. P. L. N. T. (KRIGWA PLAYERS ee oo a OF HARLEM, NEW YORK CITY. DRAWN BY AARO e f f

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20 THE flashing money around like he was a rich man and then agin where did he git all that money anyway? I know Morning Glory Baptist Church didn’t give it to him, because we only pay him $10 a week. Sister Meddler.—He don’t deserve but $5 a week. Brother Judas. (Looks out window.)— Sisters, here comes Brother Procrastinator now. Brother Investigator. (Goes to door.)— Come in Parson Procrastinator, I am glad you came. (Parson Procrastinator enters with long Prince Albert coat, stove-pipe hat and gold- headed cane; a big gold watch chain is prominent.) Parson Procrastinator.—Yes,. Brother In- vestigator, I just got back from Conference, and heard a church fight was on agin me and that they didn’t want me to come back again another year. Now I am here; what charge have you all agin me? (Silence). Brother Investigator.—I just told them, Brother Procrastinator, that they would have to have some charge agin you. Parson Procrastinator.—That’s correct; now let me see who’s here. (Puts on glasses; looks around.) Why here’s my old friend who will die by me I know. Ain’t that so Brother Judas? Brother Judas.—Oh yes, Parson, you can always depend on me. Sister Experience—Parson Procrasti- nator you know I am your friend; I told them there was no charge agin you, but some of them said they had a charge. Brother Procrastinator—Had a charge aginst me? Now who was it who said so? Sister Take-it-Back—It wasn’t me, Brother Procrastinator, I’ve never seen nothing wrong out of you. Sister Sapphira.—I never said it, Parson. Parson Procrastinator.—Well, somebody must have said it. Look it up in the min- utes, Brother Investigator. Sister Meddler—I know who said it, cause I was looking right in their mouth when they said it. Sister Sapphira.—I know I never had no charge agin Brother Procrastinator ’cause I don’t know nothing about him only some- thing good. Sister Two-Face.—Parson Procrastinator you do look so fine since you came back from Conference, and we is all just crazy about you. CRISIS Brother Investigator (who has been searching minutes). It says here in the minutes that you bought a $7,000 house on 6th Street, but I failed to put down who said it. Parson Procrastinator.—So that’s it, is it? Well, I wants the one who said it, to git right up and tell me why they call it a “charge” agin me. - Sister Experience.—Well I never said it but I know who did” say it. But it’s none of my business. Parson Procrastinator—yYes it is your business, Sister Experience, you know from your past experience what it means to have a church fight. Now I want the one what said that charge to own it. Sister Meddler.—I think it was sister,— Parson Procrastinator.—That will do, Sister Meddler. We want the sister what said it to speak for herself and if she can’t say last what she said first, she is a pre- varicator by the law. Now Brother In- vestigator since nobody will own the charge agin me, just scratch it out, and I wants all them what’s for me to stand, and Brother Investigator you count ’em. Brother Investigator.—All what’s in the favor of Parson Procrastinator staying with us this year, stand. (All stand except Sister Experience.) What’s your objection Sister Experience? Sister Experience.—I was just sitting here counting the liars. Parson Procrastinator.—Well that. will do. That vote is carried. If it is carried by liars, just put it down, Brother Investi- gator; and I will meet you all at prayer meeting Friday night. (Goes out.) Sister Two-Face.——Ain’t he a wonderful man. I don’t think we could ever get an- other one like him. Sister Instigator.—Well I had intended to tell him just what I thought of him if he had stayed. Brother Judas.—Well, he’s a good man, and we can’t afford to let him go. Sister Sapphira.—I said that in the first place. The trouble with our people is they never stop to think. Sister Take-it-Back.—That’s just it, Sis- ter Sapphira. Now I thank God I’ve never said a harmful word agin the man in my life. Sister Meddler. (Who has been standing serenely all the time with a look of disgust on her face.)—You all ought to be ashamed

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of yourselves after starting all this fuss and then denying it. Never mind I’m going to tell Parson Procrastinator. Sister Two-Face.—I’m glad I didn’t say a word agin him. You all know I always did love Parson Procrastinator. I was the one what gave him that gold pencil, but I didn’t want everybody to know it. Sister Experience.—Sisters, do let us go home, before we defy the law any longer. Brother Investigator—yYes, all stand please, (with uplifted hands)—Lord, smile down in tender mercies upon those who MAY, 1926 21 have lied, and those who have not lied; close their lips with the seal of forgiveness, stiffen their tongues with the rod of obe- dience, fill their ears with the gospel of truth, and direct Parson Procrastinator’s feet toward the railroad track. Brother Judas. (In hard “Amen.” (All break up in confusion each saying that Parson Procrastinator should be moved and they weren’t going to put up with him.) voice. )— CURTAIN The Little Page Bits of Wisdom and Beauty for Crisis Children EFFIE LEE NEWSOME CALENDAR CHAT “Was so very a gypsy.”—Complete Angler (5 tPSIES this month. Why? During my childhood days in Ohio, May was their month for taking the coun- tryside. You would see their white cov- ered wagons along the pikes that are now well kept macadamized highways. There were no autos then to disturb the gypsy pasturage and their lank horses would be grazing over the hills and glens, along brooksides and in the yard of the farmer whose stake-and-rider fence had tumbled down. Those gorgeous days have passed. No more do children who go in search of May flowers find gay painted wagons or covered donkey carts cresting the thoroughfares of violets. One can no longer have one’s fortune told “on the way to town” by some large-eyed Romany woman. There have been many books written about these gypsy or Romany folk. Many a wise old scholar has paused to consider them, to make profound studies of their language and customs, their observation of these in various lands—for as you know gypsies live practically all over the world— and the characteristics that they preserve in common. Charles Godfrey Leland, a distinguished Philadelphia traveler and author, carefully studied the gypsy people in many countries, writing especially vivid and attractive ac- counts of those in Russia. However, Le- land cannot be called the master gypsy interpreter though he was deeply fascinated by his study. Leland’s gypsies we find nearly always indoors—in biting Russia of the snows. But there was one George Borrow an Englishman whose Romany Rye or Laven- gro you perhaps have read. He cast his lot almost entirely with the gypsies in the open on heath and in dingle, watching with them the skies, feeling with them the rains, with snake charmers, horse doctors, knife grinders at country fairs. He studied the gypsies day by day. It was they who gave him the name of “Romany Rye” or gypsy gentleman. But even he was criticised by the French- man who wrote of that wild Basque gypsy girl, Carmen. And Borrow found fault with the gypsies of whom Cervantes had written years ago. And Lafcadio Hearn—called the “Citizen of the world”’—thought that Charles Godfrey Leland was presumptuous to write of gypsy folk at all after Borrow and his pen had passed through Romany- land. And so it went. In the meantime the care-free gypsies have gone on quite unconcerned living as their forefathers lived, scratching their ancient patterans in the soil of pikes and byways. Here are drawings of two kinds of patterans or marks that gypsies trace to indicate to a comrade which way they have

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tn i) THE HE traveled. He can read by the patteran how to join them. You will note that the patterans on this page are pointing in the same direction— the longest line always shows the way to go—and that is toward the other matter on the LITTLE PAGE. -Kipling tells us to “Follow the Romany patteran”. But it is much safer to follow those on paper! CRISIS GREEN HEIGHTS HE green hills are so pretty in the spring. I look at them and don’t get tired at all. They are so green, so bright and beautiful, Except where trees let black lace shadows fall. There stands the elm like an umbrella wide: There, willows by each little hillside creek. Some hills have corn that shines like knives of steel. Some hills are pastured by brown cattle sleek. And others are no more than bright green heights, That just roll upward, sleepy, to the sun, While waves of heat, like little flames of glass, Rise from the slopes the sunlight rests upon. PEWEE, MY WOOD PEWEE EWEE, my wood pewee, Singing a gentle song, Hid in the forest deep, I’ve loved you, oh, so long! You’re but a modest bird, I such a timid child, Never can we two meet Save in the forest wild! TO THE QUAIL QUAINT and dainty little quail, With quiet dignity You walk the meadows of young May, And seem in harmony With all her mellow mornings mauve And evenings silvery. GERANIUMS PINK LIKE the little cleanish smell That Pink Geranium knows. It isn’t like Carnation’s breath, It’s milder than the Rose, But just that simple smell, somehow, The meadows have when people plough.

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pe National Association for the Advance- ment of Colored People DETROIT MOB VIOLENCE CASE FTER various postponements, it is ap- parent at the time this issue of THE CrIsIs is going to press that the trials for murder of Dr. and Mrs. Ossian H. Sweet and the other nine refendants will be in full swing this month. These cases, it will be remembered, are those which arose when a mob estimated at 1500 persons attacked on September 9th last the home of Dr. Sweet at Garland and Charlevoix Avenue, Detroit, when that mob resented the pur- chase and occupancy of a home in that neighborhood by Dr. Sweet. It will also be remembered that, led by Clarence Dar- row as chief defense counsel, the eleven defendants were tried jointly before Judge Frank Murphy of the Recorders Court of Detroit in October, the result being a hung jury after the twelve men had debated for forty-six hours. There have been various changes in the counsel for the new trial. Arthur Garfield Hays of New York, who so ably assisted Mr. Darrow, will be unable to participate in the new trial because of a number of very important cases in the New York courts. Mr. Hays, however, has agreed that if during the progress of the trial there is need of his services, he will give up whatever case he is then handling and go immediately to Detroit. Walter M. Nelson, Cecil Rowlette and Charles Mahoney of Detroit, the latter two colored attorneys, will not be associated with the defense in the newtrial. Julian W. Perry, a colored man, will be associate counsel. ° Thomas F. Chawke of Detroit, reputed to be the ablest criminal lawyer in the State of Michigan, has been retained by the N. A. A. C. P. The defense counsel in the new trial therefore will be composed of Clarence Darrow, Thomas F. Chawke and Julian Perry. It is generally felt that this is the ablest combination which could be secured. Contrary te the procedure in the first 23 trial- when all eleven defendants were tried jointly, defense counsel has demanded sep- arate trials for each of the defendants. Robert M. Toms, the Prosecutor, has an- nounced that Henry Sweet, brother of Dr. Ossian Sweet and a senior college student at Wilberforce University, will be the first to be tried. There is considerable feeling in Detroit that in the event either of ac- quittal or conviction of Henry Sweet, no more of the defendants will be tried. In the case of conviction, the defense will, of course, immediately appeal the case and it is felt that the trial of the other ten de- fendants will be held in abeyance pending the outcome of the appeal. It is also felt that should Henry Sweet’s trial result in a hung jury, no one of the other ten de- fendants will be tried until he has again faced a jury. THE CHICAGO CONFERENCE NVITATIONS have been extended to a number of the most distinguished colored and white persons of the United States to speak at the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the N. A. A. C. P. which opens in Chi- cago on Wednesday, June 23rd. Among the vital problems to be considered at the Conference will be the rising flood of at- tempts at residential and school segrega- tion which is being felt in Northern and border states and which constitutes the most serious problem affecting race rela- tions at the present time. Some indication of the seriousness of this matter can be seen from a recapitulation of the cases now pending in the courts. For example, there was argued in the United States Supreme Court in January by Moorfield Storey, Louis Marshall and James A. Cobb for the N. A. A. C. P. the matter of residential segregation through property holders’ agreement in which case no decision has yet been rendered by the Supreme Court. The New Orleans Segre- gation Ordinance, passed in direct opposi- tion to the United States Supreme Court

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24 THE decision in the Louisville Segregation Case, has been appealed by the N. A. A. C. P. to the United States Supreme Court in which argument is soon to be heard. In Norfolk, Va., a similar ordinance was passed and was defeated by the Norfolk Branch of the N. A. A. C. P. when the case of a Jewish merchant establishing a residence in a block in which the majority of residents were Negroes was taken into the local courts. In March, the City Council of In- dianapolis, Ind., passed a segregation ordi- nance even after the Attorney General of Indiana and the Corporation Council of the City of Indianapolis had declared in un- qualified terms that the ordinance is un- constitutional. The Indianapolis Branch of the Association is taking the matter into the local courts and in this effort has the support of practically all of the fraternal, church and other organizations of that city as well as the aid of the National Office. In Baltimore, in Detroit, in Cleveland, in Staten Island, N. Y., and in numerous other places, the problem has arisen in one form or another and thus appropriately this is- sue will be of paramount interest at the Chicago Conference. Perhaps it is pecu- liarly appropriate that we should meet at Chicago to consider this situation inasmuch as one of the most serious race riots ever known in America arose in that city as a direct result of attempts at the restriction of the homes of Negroes to segregated areas. Of almost equal importance and interest at the present time is the question of the disfranchisement of Negroes in the South. The migration of Negroes from Southern states has caused a number of the more enlightened Southern states to realize that prominent among the causes of that migra- tion with a resultant economic loss to the South has been the denial of the ballot. The appeal of the case of Nixon vs. Hern- don to the Supreme Court of the United States has been allowed. This case, test- ing as it does the denial of the ballot through the White Primary System, will naturally be a focusing point for this move- ment towards the ending of disfranchise- ment. A great deal of attention will be given at the Chicago Conference to this case as well as to the whole issue of dis- franchisement. A third and most interesting feature to be emphasized at Chicago will be the cul- CRISIS tural renaissance now being expressed through Negro singers, poets, novelists and artists in various fields. Within the last few years, the work of Negro artists has gained such widespread recognition that un- doubtedly the cultural contributions of the Negro are playing a most important part in consideration of the Negro in America. Old stereotypes are rapidly being changed and with these contributions has come a new conception of the role that the Negro is playing in American life. Inasmuch as this movement has been so largely the re- sult of the work of the younger Negroes, a prominent part on the program will be played by the younger people. There will appear at Chicago several of the most out- standing Negro artists of today. The three subjects already mentioned are but a part of the broad canvas we will survey at the June meeting. No person who is interested in this whole movement can afford not to attend the Chicago meet- ing. Elaborate preparations are as well being made for the entertainment of dele- gates, members and guests. Chicago has long been famous for its social life and there will be many affairs for the enter- tainment of those who attend the Confer- ence which will serve as welcome respites from the more serious parts of the pro- gram. One of the entertainment features being planned is a boat ride on Lake Mich- igan on Saturday, June 26th, when the en- tire day will be given over to recreation and when there will be opportunity for the visitors from the various parts of the country to know each other in a more in- formal and friendly manner. The National Office is desirous of print- ing the program some time in advance of the opening date of the Conference. This cannot be done until the branches notify the National Office of the names of the delegates and members who plan to attend the Conference. Branches are asked to elect their delegates, if possible, in May and to notify the National Office not later than the first of June. Branches are also urged to organize parties to travel to Chi- cago together thus insuring a large attend- ance and relief from the tedium of the journey when these parties go in a body. Full information regarding the Confer- ence can be secured by writing to the Na- tional Office of the N. A. A. C. P. A cor- dial invitation is extended to all persons

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TET LEN OTL ORT who are interested to come and help make the Conference the great success which it undoubtedly is going to be. MONUMENT TO THE NINETY-THIRD DIVISION IN FRANCE Hamilton Fish, Jr., member of Congress from New York, has written the National Office asking that the N. A. A. C. P. aid in bringing to the attention of the public the bill introduced by himself in Congress pro- viding for the erection in France of a mon- ument “to commemorate the valiant ser- vices of the Ninety-third Division of the American Expeditionary Forces at a cost not to exceed $30,000”. Accompanying the letter, full text of which is given below, Mr. Fish says in a supplementary note: “This bill is right, fair and just or it would not have been reported out favorably two consecutive years by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House, in spite of considerable opposition by certain elements from the South. The passage of this bill carrying the approval of Congress would be a conclusive answer for all time to the arraignment of colored soldiers by General Bullard. If the bill does not pass, and if the 98rd Division, or the Regiments that made up the 93rd Division are not recog- nized by a monument, it will be a most un- grateful act, and I am afraid the colored people would remember it in case of an- other call to arms. There is only one way to get action and that is by arousing the colored people in this country to the sig- nificance and importance of demanding the passage of H. R. 9694.” The N. A. A. C. P. is very glad to help make this bill generally known and urges upon members of the Association and read- ers of THE Crisis to write to the Congress- men whose names: are given by Mr. Fish urging passage of the bill. Mr. Fish’s let- ter reads: “I am pleased to inform you that H. R. 9694 introduced by me authorizing the erec- tion of a monument in France to commem- orate the valiant services of the 93rd Di- vision at a cost of not to exceed $30,000 was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Repre- MAY, 1926 25 sentatives on March 17. The bill as re- ported includes all four Regiments of that Division: the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd. “There is plenty of time to have this bill enacted into the law if the colored people throughout America will only write to their Senators and Congressmen urging them to get busy and help by requesting the Re- publican leaders, such as Speaker Nicholas Longworth, John Tilson, the Majority Leader, William Wood, Chairman of the Congressional Committee, Martin Madden, Chairman of the Committee on Appropria- tions, and Bertram Snell, Chairman of the Committee on Rules, to bring the bill up immediately for consideration, and a vote in the House of Representatives. The bill will pass by a big majority if the Repub- lican leaders will permit it to come to a vote, and they will act favorably if they realize that the colored people of America are in earnest and want Congress to com- memorate the valiant services of their sons in the 93rd Division, many of whom paid the supreme sacrifice. The casualties in- cluding the dead and wounded in these four Regiments amounted to forty per cent. Three out of four of these Regiments had their flags decorated with the French war cross. “The 369th was a volunteer Regiment from New York; the 370th, another volun- teer Regiment from Chicago; the 371st was a drafted Regiment from the South, and the 372nd was composed of one battalion from Ohio, one from Washington, D. C., and separate companies from Massachu- setts, Connecticut and Maryland. “It seems to me that it is the duty of all colored people who are proud of the heroic conduct of these Regiments on the battle fields of France to show the members of Congress that they are united in wanting this bill passed immediately. “As an officer of the 369th Infantry I would consider myself derelict in my sacred duty to those who paid the supreme sacri- fice, or came home mutilated in mind or body, if I did not urge the passage of this bill to commemorate their heroic memories. If this bill fails to pass the 93rd Division, with its unquestioned record for gallantry and conspicuous service, will- be the only American Division out of more than thirty that participated in the fighting to go un- recorded on adequate and suitable monu- ments erected by the government.” Dirge ARNA BONTEMPS H bury my bones in the dark of the moon, In a place where the soil is bare, And none will say that I mar the clay Or the vine buds there too soon. But the worm will think me sweet somehow. As he gnaws away I’ll hear him say, “T scorn the taste of white flesh now”.

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See = The Horizon ~ oy @ The General Education Board reports the following appropriations for work among Negroes from its foundation in 1902 to June 30, 1925: Association of Colleges for GET VOUS 6.620 s0civcss 500.00 Colleges and Schools ....... County Training Schools.... Critic Teachers ......0++05. Expenses Special Students at 8,362,974.14 721,152.05 72,561.85 Summer Schools ......... 99,319.93 Home Makers’ Clubs........ 129,430.29 John F, Slater Fund........ 104,474.89 Medical Schools ............ 769,653.83 Negro Rural School Fund... 601,810.00 Rural School Agents ERNE vavices sys kee Summer Schools ........... Survey of Science Teaching. $11,880,960.74 Of this sum $8,068,976.04 has actually been paid out. For the year ending June 30, 1925, the following appropriations were voted for Negroes: Colleges and Schools ........ $ County Training Schools .... 760,120.71 47,313.97 208,351.43 3,297.65 575,925.00 79,000.00 Critic: TAerS” «5 5 ves ce 0s 12,000.00 Expenses of Special Students at Summer Schools ....... 3,000.00 John F. Slater Fund........ 48,000.00 Medical Schools ............ 89,592.91 Negro Rural School Fund... 87,500.00 Rural School Agents ....... 100,000.00 BORIS: ooo his 5s oa oem sx 29,550.00 Summer Schools ........... 26,300.00 $ 1,050,867.91 ( The black employees of the government railroad in Sierre Leone, British West Af- rica, have been on a strike since the middle of January. They demand a recognition of the union and the same pension and wage increase systems as the white employees en- joy. The railroad has threatened their dis- missal and is running the trains with sol- diers and white civil servants imported from the Gold Coast. @ The Camp Curtain Junior High School of Harrisburg, Pa., holds an annual track meet in June. Our picture shows the win- ning track team of 1925. 26

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THE REV. W. J. HOWARD @ Rev. William J. Howard was born in Virginia in 1854. He was educated at Way- land Seminary, now Virginia Union Uni- versity. In 1886 he became pastor of Zion GEORGE J. MICHAELS MAY, 1926 27 Baptist Church of Washington, D. C., and made there a notable record for long service and sympathetic co-operation with the best enterprises of the city. He died December 30, 1925, in the 40th year of his pastorate and left a widow and seven children. @ George J. Michaels, a student of the New Bedford High School, has been cap- tain of the football team for the season of 1925. The New Bedford Standard thus de- scribes one of his battles: “Launching an offense built around Geor- gie Michaels, the star Crimson leader, the New Bedford High School football team MR. G. D. HOUSTON swept the Provincetown High School play- ers off their feet yesterday afternoon at Sargent Field and galloped wildly up and down the field until they had registered eight touchdowns and dropkicked four points after touchdowns making the score 52-0.” @ The new principal of the Armstrong Technical High School in the District of Columbia is G. David Houston. He was born in Massachusetts in 1880, educated at Harvard, taking his A. B. cum laude .in 1904 and his A. M. in English in 1916. He has taught at Tuskegee, at the Douglass

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28 THE CRISIS A VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE CONFERENCE High School in Baltimore and at the M Street High School in Washington. For seven years he was professor of English and head of the Department of English at Howard University but not being able to endure President Durkee he became a teacher and department head in the Dun- bar High School. He has written a num- ber of articles on the teaching of English and is a member of the Sigma Pi Phi and Omega Psi Phi Fraternities. He is mar- ried and has two duaghters, one of whom will enter Radcliffe in the fall. C A Vocational Guidance Conference for high school girls has been held at Canton, Ohio, and was attended by 38 girls from Canton, Akron and Alliance. @ Several conferences of natives have been held since Premier Hertzog of the Union of South Africa announced his native policy. One at Cape Town resolved “uncompromis- ingly to oppose the political, industrial and territorial segregation scheme of General Hertzog”. @ A new administration building has been in service since last February at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute. It was for- mally dedicated May 3 in the presence of ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, W. VA. COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE ‘PR PORTERS TS SETS TED REREERESETS ae :

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MRS. L. A. JOHNSON the United States Commissioner of Educa- tion and the Governor of the State. It contains offices, class rooms, laboratories, a library and an auditorium. @ The depositors in the Mechanics Bank of Richmond, Va., of which John Mitchell, Jr., was formerly president, have been given a dividend of 40 per cent. @ Duffield and Company will publish a book on “What is Civilization” this spring. Among the contributors are Hendrik Van Loon, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, Ralph Adams Cram, W. E. B. DuBois, Paul Shorey, Chi Fung-Liu, Maurice Maeterlinck, Ramsay Traquair, Wilbur Abbott, Herbert Joseph Spinden and Elizabeth Robins Pennell. @ The Lott Carey Foreign Mission Society of the United States collected last year $76,634.06. They have headquarters in the building in Washington at the corner of N and llth Street which was formerly owned by Senator Champ Clark of Mis- souri. They carry on mission work in Liberia, Haiti, Russia and India. @ The Supreme Life and Casualty Com- pany of Columbus, Ohio, reports net assets for 1925 of $241,175. Its income during the year was $131,732 and its disburse- ments $121,002. @ On February 1, the Citizens and South- ern Bank at Philadelphia, under the presi- MAY, 1926 29 dency of R. R. Wright, Sr., became tix Citizens and Southern Bank and Trust Company, with $125,000 capital and a sur- plus of $31,250. @ Mrs. Lena Allen Johnson, wife of the former assemblyman of New York, E. A. Johnson, is dead. She was born in South Dakota in 1865, educated in the public schools and at the Boston Conservatory of Music and taught music in the family of Senator Pettigrew and at Bennett and Shaw. She was married to Mr. Johnson in 1894. She was a great grand-daughter of Bishop Richard Allen, founder of the Afri- can M. E. Church, and her sister is the wife of Professor John R. Hawkins, Financial Secretary of that church. @ John W. Thompson, who died recently in Rochester, began life as a hotel waiter. He was self-educated and was a friend of Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. It was chiefly through his efforts that the well-known Douglass statue at Central Avenue and St. Paul Street, Rochester, was erected. To- ward this monument the Republic of Haiti donated $1000. Mr. Thompson was born in Virginia. His first wife was white, Miss Mary E. Overton, and was the mother of J. W. THOMPSON

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THE CRISIS N. A. A. C. P. PRIZE BABIES EDWARD BROWN, JR. JEAN GRANT 2nd Prize, Charleston, W. Va. his: three children. His second wife was colored, Miss Harriet A. Edward Chapman. @ Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell is dead at Denver, Colorado. She was a former teacher at Wil- berforce, Ohio, and a grand- daughter of the late Bishop Shorter of the A. M. E. Church. Her husband, Thomas Camp- bell, is a well-known attorney at Denver. @ Ethel Greenlee of Morgan- 3rd Prize, Yonkers, N. ¥. MRS. E. CAMPBELL MADELINE WHITE ist Prize, Yonkers, N. Y. town, N. C., and Dosie McDaniel of Spartanburg, S. C., both CRISIS agents, died recently. They were active and talented young women. @ The Rev. T._L. Griffith of the Second Baptist Church of Los Angeles went to that city five years ago from Des Moines and has finished a new $150,000 church edifice which has just been dedicated. @ Mrs. Mattie Quinn has been SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, LOS ANGELES

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MAY, 1926 MRS. MATTIE QUINN teaching in the public schools of Oktib- beha County, Mississippi, for thirty years. During that time she has been the mother of nine children of whom one died in in- fancy, one was drowned at the age of fourteen, one died of influenza at the age of twenty-four, two are now in the high school and one in his third year at Hamp- ton, two are married and one is teaching. @ The John F. Slater Fund from 1882 to 1926 has appropriated $2,026,214 to private institutions for Negroes and $822,770 to public schools. During the year 1925-26 it gave over half of its income of $68,850 to county training schools, $6,600 to private secondary schools and $12,258 to colored colleges. It financed the Hampton-Tuske- gee endowment campaign with $10,000. There were in 1925, 233 county training schools in the South, 40 of which were full high schools and the rest with at least a full grammar school curriculum through the eighth grade. These schools employ 1563 teachers and they have a total enroll- ment of 66,136 of which 7,555 are in high school grades. Of their total receipts of $1,362,131, $768,172 was paid from public funds. Teachers’ salaries average $614. @ The educational work of the M. E. Church among Negroes, formerly carried on by the Freedman’s Aid Society, is now organized as the Department of Educational Institutions for Negroes under the Board of Education of the M. E. Church with headquarters at Chicago. W. S. Bovard is Secretary of the Board and P. G. Ma- veety, Secretary of the department. Both these are white men. Eighteen institutions are under the supervision of this depart- ment including Gammon Theological Sem- 31 inary, Meharry Medical College, Bennett, Claflin, Clark, Morgan and Philander Smith. q Dr. E. Y. Strawn of St. Joseph, Mo., is among those colored physicians mentioned in “Who’s Who in American Medicine”. He is an alumnus of Lincoln University, Mis- souri. Dr. D. L. Stewart of Atchison, Kan- sas, is also mentioned and is the only Atchi- son physician so honored. @ Naba Tsibeni, Queen of Swaziland and the most famous native woman of South Africa, is dead at the age of 70. The Swazis were subjugated by the Zulus but regained their independence when the Zulus were defeated by the British. Naba was the wife of King Umbandine and when the land was threatened by the Boers in 1886 she advised her husband to appeal to the British for protection. This was refused repeatedly until 1901 when the British an- nexed the Transvaal and also Swaziland. They made her Chief Regent after the king’s death until her grandson, Sobhuza II, was made Paramount Chief in 1921. @ His Royal Highness, Prince T. P. A. Houenou, of the First Royal Dynasty of Dahomey, died at Ouidah, December 13 in his 70th year. He was a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor and an officer of the Black Star of Benin. @ The Queen Esther Girls of the Scott M. E. Church, Maysville, Ky., gave a pan- tomime, “Oh Zion Haste”. QUEEN ESTHER GIRLS

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John Work Martyr and Singer OHN WESLEY WORK is dead and now that his fine soul has passed it is time that people knew just what this man went through in order to resurrect and make eternal the Negro Spiritual. He was born in Tennessee, August 6, 1873. His grandfather, Stephen Boyd, was a well-to-do free Negro who had bought his wife and children and had established at the close of the Civil War a bus line which gave him a handsome revenue. But he was generous to a fault and when anyone, black or white, came to him in trouble he gave him money, clothes or food, and thus he died a poor but lovable’ man. John Work’s_ = father was reared in New Orleans and coming there in close contact with theatrical life learned much of harmony, devel- oped a beautiful tenor voice and left a love of music to his son. Even in school young John was singing; in col-? lege he led the Glee Club under Adam __ Spence. As a teacher he became a master of the music of his people and in his death he remains the one who began the restora- tion of the Negro Spiritual to the Ameri- can people. He entered Fisk University in 1891. Already his character had formed. He was notable for his unbounded faith in his fel- low men and his great generosity. His mother often said that “Johnny” believed everybody was good. His soul was sacri- fice; his deed was generosity and good will. In 1895 he was graduated from Fisk and went to a small Tennessee town to teach and thence to Harvard University to study Latin. In his second year he was called back to Fisk as Latin teacher. Immediately he became head of the move- ment to restore the Jubilee Song. The music was dying all over the country. Negroes everywhere felt that jubilee music was a heritage from slavery which they must forget. John Work began popularizing the music, collecting new _ material, interesting the young people, re-organizing the Glee Club and leading the chapel singing. So wonderfully did the students respond that President Cra- vath sent for John Work and said, “Young man, it is your duty to conse- crate yourself to the development and preservation of the music of your people. “The time will come when you will be tempted to turn aside from it and stu- dy other music but you must let nothing come be- tween you and your God-given task”. Thus John Work received his great commission. He never forgot it. He never was untrue to it. And in this work he found a true help- mate in Agnes Haynes, a Normal graduate who was teaching at Fisk. They were mar- ried and together with John’s brother, Fred, they began systematically collecting and studying the slave songs. But the path was not easy. Even inside Fisk University, that old Mother of the Spirituals, all was 32

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MAY, 1926 33 not agreement on this music. The white music teachers from Oberlin were doing ex- cellent and devoted work in classical music. Every year some great oratorio was per- formed. Every month a recital of the great masters was heard. These teachers were strange to the Negro music. Most of them did not understand it, some of them posi- tively disliked it. Jennie Robinson, fine, unselfish soul though she was, said frankly that she “could not abide the Negro music”. So that the Fisk Conservatory which was being built up and which was sending out colored music teachers all over the South, and even the North, was being built up without its chief cornerstone. But Erastus Cravath never wavered and John Work never doubted. He evolved a new harmonization of the Spirituals, a new bringing out of the pure music shorn of the extraneous stuff which religion and custom had built around them. The students of Fisk soon were not only singing Negro mu- sic as it never had been sung before, but wanted to sing it. The Glee Club was sing- ing it in preference to its regular music. In a few years John Work had restored the folk song to Fisk and given it in a new guise to the world. He trained a great chorus at Nashville that annually filled the vast city auditorium with white and black, with music lovers from state and nation. He trained and traveled with Fisk quar- tettes until the sound of his singing was known again all over the North. And not simply known but as the great critic Kreh- biel said: “A concert goer might live a lifetime and never hear such beautiful homogeneity of tone, as that which they produce, nor such euphony, perfection of nuance and precision.” It was John Work who first wrote Negro melodies on the phon- ograph and it was the publishing of his little volume “The American Negro Folk Song” that began a new line of study and a new art literature in America. Slowly and ominously there came to Fisk University momentous change. Cravath died. Other rather shadowy figures suc- ceeded him, without fixed policy and yet without radical change. But at last there came a man as president, sincere but stub- born and opinionated, who did not believe in Negroes as Cravath, yet believed in them; who wanted to build a great Uni- versity, but to build it of Southern white men and Northern white men working for colored people and guiding them strictly in limited paths where they should go. The ideals and accomplishment of John Work, even his generous character, fell gradually under suspicion. The revolt and unrest in the student body was interpreted as due in part to Work’s student friend- ships. and his deep sympathy with every rebellious soul. There is nothing sadder in the tragic history of human souls than those years from 1915 to 1923 when at Fisk University the soul was slowly being crushed out of John Work. Friends grew timid and aloof. Students were afraid to be seen approach- ing him. His wife and children withdrew from almost every contact with their fel- lows. And why? There was no why, there was only suspicion, dislike, innuendo and cold disapproval in the seats of power. The new administration at Fisk and the Music Department redoubled their fight against the jubilee song. The Glee Club was taken away from Work. An attempt was made to take away chapel singing, and yet withal Work could not realize his position. He could not understand. To him Fisk was all. He had written and com- posed the Fisk Song—one of the noblest and most beautiful of college songs in all America. Yet his very selfless devotion was his undoing. His deep interest in the wel- fare of the sti ients, his intimate associa- tion with them, was more and more resent- ed and misinterpreted. Caught in the whirlpool he struggled dizzily on. He was displaced from his posi- tion of leader in music, from his headship of the department of Latin and History, and people, even Southern whites, put in his and other colored teachers’ places. He was forced to go on long, cold and un- comfortable journeys with the Glee Club to the neglect of his work and family and at his own severe financial loss. “There were times that called for supreme effort to steer between Scylla and Charybdis; but there was no faltering on his part.” Temptation faced him. Booker Washing- ton had a standing offer for him to come to Tuskegee and name his own salary. Hampton offered him a position. The new colored State Normal School at Nashville, continually a sort of rival to Fisk and backed by Southern whites, wanted him. One or two Northern organizations offered him permanent and lucrative work. And always Roger Williams University, a small colored school in Nashville of his own Bap-

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34 THE tist denomination, was offering him its presidency. But Work stood firm in his loyalty to Fisk. “Done made my vow to the Lord, And I never will turn back, I will go, I shall go, To see what the end will be!” And the end came. Even he at last saw it. The alumni were dumb. The president was an open enemy. The trustees were mystified. John Work resigned and on the day he signed that resignation his heart literaNy broke. He went to Roger Williams, took up the work there, struggled with it two years and died. Died after the effort of his former Fisk students to give him some little pub- lic testimony of their continuing respect had been turned almost to tragedy by petty persecution and narrowness. Died on the day when some one taunted him anony- mously. Died on the car that had started him North to heal his broken heart. The Theatre: 6颗 ULU BELLE” is more than a play; it is a decisive step in the curious psychology of race relations in the United States. Ten years ago this play would have been unprofitable. Twenty years ago it would have caused a riot. In plot it is ordinary, almost trite. A prostitute woos a young man from his fam- ily, tires of him, flirts with a prize-fighter and runs off to France with a viscount. Here the lover, released from jail, finds her and, being repulsed, kills her. This sordid but all too human drama has been given a most extraordinary setting with the perfection and finish which is charac- teristic of David Belasco. The scenes in San Juan Hill and Harlem are done with a realism and delicacy that no theatre-goer can afford to miss. But all this is merely in passing. The real point of the whole thing is that for the first time on the American stage the Negro has emerged as a human being who is not a caricature and not a comedian, and who reacts to the same impulses and emo- tions as other folk. And in addition to this ninety-seven persons in the cast of one hundred and fourteen are really colored and not ridiculous imitations. Also, the four principals are not made up to look as most white people think colored people ought to CRISIS One who loved him with the love that passeth all understanding writes: “And so he walked through life, living a life of love, blessing all with whom he came in contact, feeling that God had laid His hands on him and he must serve others. Worn out and weary from so great labor, feeling very, very tired, when others were planning for a happy free day, because it was Labor Day, early on the morning of the seventh of September, he kissed his wife ‘Good-bye’ and lay back in her arms to rest! “Our brother’s took his flight and gone home! And the angel's waiting at the door!” On the foundation labors of John Work all of the modern flowering of Negro music has taken place. On his devotion to Fisk University will rise a new Fisk; and in front of that new Fisk a monument to John Work must stand that all who run may read:— “John Wesley Work, Singer and Martyr.” “Lulu Belle” look but simply, naturally and with ex- traordinary truth. I knew, of course, that Miss Ulric was white. The exaggerated dialect fixed the racial status of the doctor. I was in doubt as to the prize-fighter, and the lover absolutely deceived me. I was sure he was colored. A hundred years hence all this will seem like a twice-told tale but remember that never before in the history of the Amer- ican theatre has a promoter dared to stage a play whose plot involves love-making be- tween white and colored folk although that love-making has been going on for three hundred years. American prejudice would not allow it to be mentioned, much less represented, until today. And why does it do it today? Why, despite the silence and evident bewilderment of the critics, is “Lulu Belle” the biggest drawing card in New York? Simply because tne tragedy and comedy of the relations between white and black, and white and yellow, and white and red in the world race problem, is the most dramatic thing at the end of the au- thor’s pen in this 20th century. He cannot help writing about it. He has got to write about it. And publishers must publish it and managers must stage it. Witness “The Shanghai Gesture” and “Lulu Belle”.

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The Negro in Art How Shall He Be Portrayed A Symposium E have asked the artists of the world these questions: 1. When the artist, black or white, por- trays Negro characters is he under any obligations or limitations as to the sort of character he will portray? 2. Can any author be criticized for paint- ing the worst or the best characters of a group 3. Can publishers be criticized for refus- ing to handle novels that portray Negroes of education and accomplishment, on the ground that these characters are.no dif- ferent from white folk and therefore not interesting? 4. What are Negroes to do when they are continually painted at their worst and intone by the public as they are painted? 5. Does the situation of the educated Negro in America with its pathos, humili- ation and tragedy call for artistic treat- ment at least as sincere and sympathetic as “Porgy” received? 6. Is not the continual portrayal of the sordid, foolish and criminal among Negroes convincing the world that this and this alone is many and essentially Negroid, and preventing white artists from knowing any other types and preventing black artists from daring to paint them? 7. Is there not a real danger that young colored writers will be tempted to follow the popular trend in portraying Negro character in the underworld rather than seeking to paint the truth about them- selves and their own social class? Here are some answers. More will fol- low: 1. Neither the black nor the white artist should be under obligations or limitations as to the sort of character he will portray. His own experience and his inmost percep- tion of truth and beauty, in its severest in- terpretation, should be his only criteria. 2. An author can be criticized for paint- ing the worst or best characters of a group if his portrayal thereby becomes artistical- ly false; he should be free to choose his characters according to his desire and pur- pose. ° 8. Publishers assuredly may be criticized for refusing to handle novels portraying Negroes of education and accomplishment, on the ground that these characters are no different from white folk and therefore not interesting. The Negro of this type has an 35 artistic as well as a social right to speak for himself; and what he has to say is all too interesting, as a rule. 4. The work of such magazines as THE CRISIS and Opportunity suggests a possible way out. Through his songs, through drama, poetry and fiction, the Negro should make every effort to put before the public a true picture of the race, in totality; and white folk of sufficient intelligence and courage to recognize the issue as it stands should be enlisted as an auxiliary force to the same end. 5. The situation of the educated Negro in America surely merits all possible sin- cere and artistic treatment. If such enter- prises seem doomed to failure in this coun- try, they should be taken to Canada or England, or to the continental countries, and so finally reach the United States pub- lic with their prestige already established. 6. The portrayal of sordid, foolish and criminal types among Negroes is not con- vincing the world that such groups alone comprise the essentially Negroid, but it surely is doing a great deal to foster that opinion in the United States, where there are many anxious to believe it. The por- trayal of such types by no means damns a race; look at the long line of English, French, Spanish and Russian novels and plays dealing with such characters; nor does one need to confine the list to those countries exclusively. Such _ portrayals have their place and deep significance ar- tistically; but they at once become false and evil if used for propagandist purposes, or with ulterior racial motives. 7. Such a danger can scarcely be stated as a general phenomenon. The average young colored writer, if he be honest as an artist, will write the thing that is in his heart to write regardless of so-called “pop- ular trends”. Any artist who speaks the truth as he sees it and refuses to com- promise with Mammon has none too easy a time; it is not a question of color, it is a question of courage. One has no reason to believe that the sincere black artist will be more easily daunted than a sincere white The one diffi- or brown or yellow artist.

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36 THE culty that does seem to exist, in the light of a thoughtful reading of recent Negro novels and poems, is that many times an ingrained bitterness tinges work otherwise clearly and beautifully carried out. For that the Negro is not to blame, nor can one state the solution of the problem back of it. The only way out is up; and that seems to be the way which the younger Negro artists, singers and writers have chosen for themselves and for their peo- ple. More power to them. VACHEL LINDSAY. After reading your letter it suddenly oc- curred to me that just possibly all of the astounding and extraordinarily interesting Negro fiction which is now appearing may be entirely off on the wrong foot. All of you, or very nearly all, are primarily ab- sorbed in the economic and social problems of the colored race. Complicated though these problems are in detail, yet inevitably they fall into a few general themes; so that there is the greatest danger that all of your novels will be fundamentally alike. For example, this problem of going over and passing for white must be one which will appeal to all of you. It must needs be much the same in your book or in Wal- ter White’s. Ordinarily I hate committees, confer- ences and organizations like the very devil. But I wonder if there isn’t a problem here which demands a real and serious con- ference? Should American Negroes write as Americans or Negroes? Should they fol- low the pattern of the Jewish authors who are quite as likely to write about Nordics as about fellow Jews; or that of Zangwill, who is of importance only when he is writ- ing about Jews? Should there be a Negro publishing house so that the Negro author can tell all of the ordinary publishing hous- CRISIS es to go to the devil? Should there be a club—a comfortable small hotel in Paris to which the American Negroes can go and be more than welcome? These and a thousand like topics suggest themselves to me as they have, of course, suggested themselves to Dr. DuBois and yourself. Their very complexity makes me feel that it is impossible to give any defi- nite answer to them. Of this alone I am sure—you cannot, all of you, go on repeat- ing the same novel (however important, however poignant, however magnificently dramatic) about the well-bred, literate and delightful Negro intellectual finding him- self or herself blocked by the groundless and infuriating manner of superiority as- sumed by white men frequently less white than people technically known as Negroes. . SINCLAIR LEWIS. Naturally I think it a great mistake for Negroes to become too sensitive. If, as a race, you were the ideal people senti- mentalists sometimes try to make you how uninteresting you would be. Why not quit thinking of Negro art? If the individual creating the art happens to be a Negro and some one wants to call it Negro Art let them. As to Negroes always being painted at their worst I think it isn’t true. Suppose I were to grow indignant every time a white man or woman were badly or cheaply done in the theatre or in books. I might spend my life being indignant. I have lived a good deal in my youth among common Negro laborers. I have found them about the sweetest people I know. I have said so sometimes in my books. I do not believe the Negroes have much more to complain of than the whites in this matter of their treatment in the arts. SHERWOOD ANDERSON. Beware of Spring E. RALPH CHENEY Nature employs such obvious tricks to snare men’s hearts Beware her blatant beauty, you who freedom prize! Each chorister of Spring owns necromatic arts And many strong men drown in pairs of dancing eyes.

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ee, The Looking Glass WW LITERATURE If a full-grown man and woman wish to live together as man and wife it is only de- cent to allow them to do it, no matter what their color. Our laws forbidding intermarriage of Negroes and whites reduce the colored girl to the position of a dog, without the respect which should be accorded human beings, and without the redress of wrong accorded the white woman. Charlotte Anita Whitney. E have received the following books and pamphlets: “Tuneful Tales” by Bernice Love Wiggins, a volume of poems; “Little Clusters” by Dr. Lucie B. Anthony, lesson studies in health and primary meth- ods; “Poems” by Sarah Collins Fernandis: “We who from Western windows Gaze upon sunset skies See in their changing splendors Promise that satisfies” “The Past, Present and Future of the Ne- gro”, by Dr. Abd Ellatif Soliman, is a book of 324 pages published in Los An- geles by a colored Egyptian. It follows well-beaten tracks and suggests colonization as a solution. A GREAT PRELATE R. H. P. JONES writes of the late Bishop Benjamin Franklin Lee of the African M. E. Church in the Euclid Ave- nue Church Bulletin, Pittsburgh: Bishop Lee was scholarly, profound, es- sentially a teacher. Accurate himself in expression, he appreciated and even in- sisted upon accuracy in others. His erudi- tion never made him aloof nor unsympa- thetic, rather it imposed an obligation to instruct those who from whatever cause were uninformed. Greater than his learn- ing was the heart which directed the mas- sive brain. The general church believed in B. F. Lee. He was no trickster, no wire puller, no dip- lomat, no mixer, nor temporizer. He had but one question to ask concerning any con- templated course and that question was never was such a course popular—but was it right? ... 37 % a He mastered himself. I never can for- get a scene enacted years ago, in which the bishop, acting as president of a body of men, was bitterly, cruelly assailed, villi- fied, traduced—the president could have used the rightful authority of a presiding officer and silenced the offender—he could have seated the speaker on “points of or- der”—which many raised, but he did not— he permitted the speaker to proceed, even protected him in his greatly abused right, until the offender had finished and then the bishop turned his attention to the business in hand—under gross _ provocation—he opened not his mouth. THE DURKEE-TURNER INCIDENT N the August Crisis, 1925, we took up the difficulties at Howard University in an editorial on Kelly Miller. We followed this in September by an editorial on George William Cook and in October by a state- ment of the circumstances under which the president of Howard called Kelly Miller a “contemptible puppy”. In the December, January, February and March numbers we promised the printing of an article on the Durkee-Turner incident. The article has long been in type but we have delayed it in order to collect certain missing and perti- nent facts. These we finally have at hand but since President Durkee has resigned there is little need in publishing the whole story. Nevertheless in order to keep our promise in part and for the sake of his- torical accuracy, the climax of this aston- ishing incident, in 1924, follows: There were four or five men majoring in Botany, preparing for advanced degrees and a career in that field. Some of them had already exhausted the limits of the present courses and equipment. Turner - went to consult Dr. Durkee as to a more equitable distribution of the Government Appropriation for Laboratories, which would allow for expansion of the work and would make it possible for students to do the catalogued courses properly. The Pres- ident argued that there was little use of trying to develop Botany in that building as the entire building would soon have to

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38 THE CRISIS be turned over to Chemistry. The students mentioned were likewise c on- cerned and anx- ious about their future, as two of them were to take their A. B. degrees that year. They had consulted Prof. Turner about the opportunity for them at Howard, who referred them to the Dean (Woodard). After consulting the Dean they took the matter up with the President. The Presi- dent informed these students, in his con- ference with them, that any difficulties which they might have had in getting the things they needed in the Botany Depart- ment was the professor’s fault and they should find him alone responsible. An explanation of this statement was the next item taken up with the President. His reply was “What did you send these stu- dents to me for?” At that Turner quietly assured him that he had referred his stu- dents to their Dean, and their coming to him was of their own volition or from the Dean. The President’s next rejoinder was “What do you want to lie about it for?” Turner told him that it was only his posi- tion as President of Howard University that saved him, otherwise such statement would meet the response it merited. Tur- ner went to the next item of additional as- sistance for his classes, the President jumped up and said he would not discuss it and showed Turner the door. Turner informed him that he had still a few more items to go over and wasn’t through yet. “Well,” said the President, “then I’ll put you out”, and with that he pounced on Turner, who had on his overcoat and glasses, grabbed him around the shoulders, pushed him over chairs and around the room like a mad man; and finally when it was found that the door was too small to push Turner through he gave up. Turner, who had of- fered only passive resistance, left the of- fice saying that the conference would be DR. J. S. DURKEE resumed later, but in the Courts, which was the proper place for such disorderly con- duct. Turner is a man _ weighing 150 lbs. and 5 :. A ip: 40 height while Durkee is 6 ft. in height and weighs over 200 Ibs. In a very few minutes Dean Woodard came excitedly to Turner’s office, called him from his class and told him that the President was morti- fied and terribly ashamed of himself and was ready to do anything possible to make amends. He left and came back again in a few minutes, and Turner, after some hesita- tion, but with assurance from Woodard, went to the President’s office. The Presi- dent apologized fulsomely for his actions, recommended to the Finance Commitee, and had approved on that same day, about $500 worth of equipment which he had stead- fastly held up for the botanical laboratory, and he further promised, in the presence of Dean Woodard, that he would not interfere again with reasonable requests for equip- ment. PROF. T. W. TURNER PAUL ROBESON LIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT publishes a fine appreciation of Paul Robeson in the New Republic: Paul’s mother was a school teacher and a Bustill of Philadelphia—that is to say, a woman of an “old Philadelphia” colored family, who prided herself on her birth and background. His father, the Rev. William Robeson, who had escaped at fifteen from the South and from slavery, put himself through Lincoln University and become a Methodist minister, was of pure black stock, probably very -close to the African. The people of the North Carolina community from which he came are said to have been of the Bantu tribe. In any case, his sim- ple relatives on the paternal side, who fol- lowed the minister from North Carolina to Princeton, became in a sort Paul’s female guardians after the death of his mother, which happened when he was very young. This southern clan might still, so far as

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A OL SS a | LTT Te ITER ET culture went, have been living in a primi- tive rural community, and it was much the same with his father’s congregation in Som- erville, New Jersey, whither the elder Robe- son moved three years later. When Paul sang the Spirituals and work songs of his race with his aunts and cousins or with his father’s congregation, he was living and feeling wholly in the old Negro mode. As he was at the same time working ambitiously in white schools his existence enacted itself on two entirely different levels. It is a fact —though few of the dominant race have the imagination to realize it—that the life of a Negro, or an Indian, or even a Rus- sian Jew must always be lived in the United States on two planes. This double exist- ence too often creates below the surface a deadly war of shame and blame. “YOUR SOUTHERN POETS” HE Bookman tells of a lecture by John Drinkwater, the English writer and playwright, in a white Southern girls’ school of the most aristocratic type: This school is located in the Black Belt, so called because for generations, until the recent exodus of Negroes for Detroit and way stations, the census showed that eight out of every ten inhabitants were colored. The two whites and their descendants feel that they have to keep a stiff upper lip and practice segregation even to their mental associates. Drinkwater’s lecture on “Some Aspects of Modern Drama”, illustrated by passages from his plays, was most enthusi- astically received by faculty and students. He was prevailed upon to make an im- promptu talk to the English classes on poetry, and to read some of his most famous verse. The girls were simply spellbound. Hoping to break the ice, Drinkwater sug- gested, “Name me some of your Southern poets”. But those students, who were fa- miliar with Poe and Father Ryan and Hayne and Lanier—some of them blood kin to Lanier!—sat there dumb with awe of the great Englishman. So Drinkwater said, “T’ll start you off with one of your best, Paul Laurence Dunbar”. The ice he was seeking to break congealed afresh. If he had gone on, as well he might, to cite them Countee Cullen, the hot water pipes might have frozen and burst! OUR LAURA WHEELER AYS the Public Ledger of Philadel- phia: At the home of Mrs. Carl Diton, 432 North 53d street, Laura Wheeler is exhibit- ing landscapes, figure studies and portraits, but it is in the portraits that the painter reveals her appreciation for light and color, a modern appreciation, vibrant with rich pigments. . . In fact, as one passes from canvas to can- vas, he becomes keenly aware of the paint- er’s intense interest in human beings, and MAY, 1926 39 especially in young girls. When she turns her attention to figure sketches, a number of which use as material the young girls whom she teaches at the Cheyney School, she works into her brush stroke more than technical knowledge. Shining through the composition and the color one senses love for young girlhood. And there is also a certain crisp and welcome accent of racial pride expressed in such well-conceived and gracefully executed portraits as “Dorothy” and in the lovable, sensitive characteriza- tion of an old colored lady, a portrait which leads one back more than half a century to plantation days. Miss Wheeler is not afraid to tackle the all-important problem of form and construc- tion in the shaping of figures and of heads. There are on exhibition a number of can- vases made in the life class at a French academy, and there is an extremely inter- esting study of hands—not hands posed in the studio, but the hands of Arab vendors in an Arabian market—the hands that sell and the hands that buy. The most finished of the portraits are those of “Dorothy” and the smoothly painted portrait of a young French violin- ist. The study of the head of a young girl in a red dress, and the full-length sketch of the same girl sitting against a yellow drap- ery background upon which light is reflected provide notes rich in color and interesting both from the human and the technical point of view. The landscapes are less successful, al- though many of them are very pleasing in composition, and one feels that once the artist has analyzed for herself the quality of form and of light in her grasp of por- traiture, she may bring to her nature paint- ing much the same vitality. Miss Wheeler began her career as a stud- ent in illustration under Henry McCarter at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and, after winning a Cresson trav- eling scholarship in 1914, spent some time in Europe. LIBERIA HE annual message of President King, delivered before the Legislature last December, stated that Liberia was a rec- ognized member of the League of Nations in good standing and that the importation of arms and ammunition into Liberia had not been prohibited by the International Conference. Of the frontier difficulties with France the President said: “The proposals we have offered for min- imizing, if not totally preventing, such in- cidents were readily accepted on the part of the French Government.” These pro- posals and their acceptance naturally bring into view “(1) the immediate resumption, towards final completion, of the delimitation survey commenced some fifteen years ago;

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40 THE CRISIS (2) a modus vivendi by which minor dis- putes between French and Liberian natives along the frontiers may be peacefully ad- justed by French and Liberian officials on the spot pending the tracing of the definite frontier.’ The total receipts for the fiscal year end- ing September 30, 1925, amounted to $923,- 410.50 which was an increase of $234,- 951.47 over last year. THE SMOKE KINGDOM ‘E copy this story from the Rochester, New York, Herald: One who sojourns for any length of time in Central Pennsylvania is almost sure to hear, sooner or later, of “The Smoke King- dom”. Its story is one of the many tradi- tions that for years have passed by word of mouth among the dwellers of the Alle- gheny Mountains. . A condensed version of it is, that in the early days of the Nineteenth Century, previous at any rate to 1830, a Negro of herculean frame, superior intelligence, and great daring appeared in the town of Wil- liamsport and obtained employment with the owner of a livery stable. The man gave the name of George Smoke. Report is that he was a fugitive from Southern bondage, and that, in time, his former masters learned where he had taken refuge, and took measures to recapture him. Be that as it may, George Smoke was one day in Williamsport, and the next day he was not. The young daughter of his employer, tradi- tion says, disappeared at the same time. Inquiries as to the whereabouts of the miss- ing pair were futile. Ten years later a prospector found a cabin in a clearing on a lonely hill in the Pennsylvania wilderness. In it a white woman worked and sang, and tawny chil- dren played around its door. The prospector, so the story goes, recognized in the tall and dusky head of the house the missing George Smoke, and in the woman, the girl who had disappeared from Williamsport. She did not care to hear about her former friends, though she wept when the prospec- tor told her her parents had died. She said she was happy with her children in the mountain home which Smoke had made for her. The Smoke children were nu- merous, in time other families intermarried with the Smokes, and there grew the col- ony of which the aging George Smoke was the founder and patriarch. In connection with this tradition of “The Smoke Kingdom’, one reads with interest two entries in a volume recently published by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The author of the book reprints the United States census reports of the enumeration of free Negro heads of families in the United States in the year 1830. According to these lists, in Dunn- stable Township of Lycoming County lived one George Smoke, head of a family of ten persons, at least one of whom had reached the extreme age of 100 years. In the neighboring Chapman Township lived Jerry Gains, likewise with a family of ten persons, whose ages reached from 55 to 100 years and George Gains, head of a family of three, ranging in age from 24 to 36 years. Traditions of the settlement called “The Smoke Kingdom” have associated members of the Gains family as friends and re- tainers of the Smokes. Many- descendants of the families are still living in Pennsyl- vania, and tellers of the story agree in their praise of the unusual and exotic beauty of the daughters of these houses, and of the courage and physical prowess of the sons. JUSTICE IN DIXIE WE quote from the Winona, Mississippi, Times. The italics are ours. Fisher has the mind of a 10-year-old child and did not grasp the purpose of the sentence. He was told to stand and when asked by Judge Alcorn if he had anything to say he said, “Naw suh”. His attorneys, Greek Rice and Vincent Brocato, told him to address the court if he desired and say whether or not he was guilty. “I don’t see why you sentence me; I ain’t guilty,” said Fisher. Judge Alcorn then pronounced sentence. He told Fisher that it was the court’s duty to sentence him to death, although the task was an unpleasant one. He stated that he had been tried by a good jury that had all the evidence and that he had had able counsel to defend him. He told the meee that when men committed murder they must pay the penalty. . . . Fisher was the first of the four Negroes, charged with the slaying of Nicholas, to be tried. He was found guilty. Raeford Leon- ard, the second tried, received a life sen- tence, and Lindsey Coleman was acquitted and then murdered 30 minutes after the verdict was rendered. Albert Hobbs, who was arrested and charged as an accomplice, was exonerated by the testimony of the other Negroes. This morning his case was called and passed to the files and he has been released from custody. The cases of J. T. Traynham, Tom Nicholas and H. S. Blockley, who were in- dicted with G. O. Cain, for the murder of Coleman, were continued until the third Monday in February. All have been re- leased on bond. * * * We may add this bit from the New Or- leans Louisiana Weekly: Frank Bell, a colored man and a patient at the Flint-Goodrich Hospital, was re- cently knocked down while being attended in the hospital. Bell, when asked if he

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had any pain in a certain portion of his anatomy, replied to the physician “yeah”. Bell says immediately the physician hit him and cursed him, saying: “You black brute, you; don’t you know I am a white man, and that is not the way to reply to me.” When asked concerning the matter, the superintendent, Dr. Heath, said that there was an altercation in the hospital, in which the attending physician lcst his temper and did some things for which he was sorry. * * * The Houston Chronicle, January 6, 1926, carried the following scare headlines, three columns wide, and added a story stretched out to a column in length together with a six-inch picture of Mrs. Memeley: Girl Tells Police of Assault by Big Negro SISTER TOLD TO KEEP QUIET OR BE KILLED Assailant Drags Victim Two Blocks to Gar- age in Montrose; Report Made to T. P. Lee and Police Held helpless in a big Negro’s arms, slapped every time she tried to make an outcry, threatened with death if she kicked him again, a pretty little 23-year-old wo- man told police Tuesday night that she had been assaulted in the bathroom of the ser- vant’s house in the rear of T. P. Lee’s home at 3812 Montrose Boulevard. The woman assaulted was Mrs. L. E. Memeley, who lives at the Cline Apart- ments at 1209 Smith Street. She said the assault took place about 9 o’clock Tuesday night. Four days later the careful reader after searching might have found this modest note: “The people of Houston want to know what has become of your sensational story in The Chronicle of the 6th about a white eae being assaulted by a Negro in Mon- rose? That’s another anonymous inquiry. We judge that the city editor thought it well to drop the subject. It’s one of those stories which everybody reads but which should not have been printed. On the other hand, Shakespeare sometimes put things in print which we wish Bill car left unsaid. Can’t expect constant pan in a daily newspaper. Didn’t old Homer himself oc- casionally nod? THE CRISIS ADVERTISER WALTER WHITE’S New Novel Saf fiat iw FLIGHT The Story of a Girl who ‘‘Passes’’ Mr. White’s chief character is perhaps more significant and representative than is commonly realized—a colored girl of Creole descent, she successfully goes white and marries a millionaire. Her life apart from her own people, how- ever, becomes gradually unsatisfactory and through a series of experiences which lead her to discover the true genius of her race, she returns to it. Those who know Mr. White’s work need not be told that this novel is not only im- portant but keenly interesting through- out. $2.50 Everywhere THE WEARY BLUES THE WEARY BLUES by LANGSTON HUGHES With an introduction by Carl Van Vechten. This young poet has been recognized by the New York Times as “the most startlingly human of all this advance guard from Parnassus. . We sin- cerely hope that Langston Hughes will receive the wide reading he deserves”. $2.00 Everywhere ALFRED A. KNOPF TEE 730 Fiith Ave aay] NEW YORK KA OMMEFIBK. Mention Tue Crisis

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THE CRISIS ADVERTISER Hampton Institute Hampton, Virginia TEACHERS COLLEGE School of ture—four-year course leading to de- gree of Bachelor of Science. School of Education—four-year high-school teacher’s course leading to degree of Bachelor of Science; and two two-year courses for primary, intermedi- ate and upper-grade teachers. School of Home Economics—four-year course leading to degree of Bachelor of Science; and two-year course. Summer School for Teachers—courses leading to degree of* Bachelor of Science and State Certificates. SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Offers four-year course leading to degree of Bachelor of Science and two-year course—aims to prepare men and women for business positions or to teach business subjects. LIBRARY SCHOOL Offers one-year, professional course—aims to prepare librarians for normal schools, colleges and branch libraries in ¢ity systems. TRADE SCHOOL Offers four-year course leading to degree of Bachelor of Science; and two year course—aims to train skilled builders. CTS Enrollment, including practice and summer school and classes for teachers in service, 2,251; graduates, 2,753; and ex-students, over 8,800. JAMES E. GREGG, Principal. 1891 1926 AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA A Technical School of High Grade College courses in Agriculture, En- gineering and Education. A strong Commercial Course, Vo- cational High School and Trade School. Fall Term begins September 15, 1926. SUMMER SCHOOL BEGINS JUNE 14, 1926 For further information, address F. D. Bluford, President, Dept. C A. & T. COLLEGE Greensboro, N. C. THE TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE Founded by Dr. Booker T. Washington Offers a Opportunities to Negro Youth for Thorough Education in a School and College Courses and in Agriculture, Mechanical Industries and in Industries THE DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL INDUSTRIES for Boys comprises forty i,” including Car; we Brick! aying, Auto-M chanics, Applie Electricity, hoto graphy, Printing, meeice Shop Practice and Tailoring. THE _ WOMAN’S INDUSTRIES _ include Home Economics—Courses in Foods, Clothing, Millinery, Apptied Art, Laundering, Household Management in addition to Home Crafts and Ladies’ Tailoring. THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT with 2,000 acres of land offers a comprehensive four-year course in Secondary Agriculture and a full four-year college course in Advanced Agriculture to train young men and women as Farm Demonstration and Home Demonstration Agents, Teachers of Agriculture and as Scien- tific Farmers. TWO-YEAR COLLEGE COURSES are offered in Education for the training of Teach- ers in Elementary Schools, for Teachers of Me- chanical Industries and in Business Training. ROBERT R. MOTON, Principal or women. FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE COURSES leading to the Bachelor of Science degree are offered in Agriculture and in Home Economics. THE BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL offers courses in Theological Training and Christian Service for Active Pastors, Sunday School Workers and Candidates for the Ministry, in- cluding a Summer School for Ministers for five weeks beginning July 6th. THE JOHN A. ANDREW MEMORIAL HOSPITAL and Nurse Training School pro- vides a three-year course in Nurse Training which qualifies its graduates for registration in all southern states. A SUMMER SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS, of ten weeks, divided into two terms, begin- ning June Ist and meeting the requirements of the Boards of Education of all southern states. Location Unsurpassed Information furnished upon application WILLIAM H. CARTER, Treasurer TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE, ALABAMA Mention THe Crisis

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