The Crisis 1925-11: Vol 31 Iss 1
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fol. 31-——No. NOVEMBER, 1925 Whole No. 18] EDOLLAR AND A HALF A YEAR A. | NASB « ‘ | ‘ ‘ ee FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY
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Winning through our Contract and Service the approva®™ and Public. THE SOUTHERN AID SOCIETY Home Office Group 525-27-29 N. 2nd St. Richmond, Va. is entering the closing period of an uncertain year with new high rec- ords for New Business Production, Premium Collec- tions and Service to Policyholders. The following expressions attest the points emphasized above: 612 Jackson Street Lynchburg, Va. June 12, 1925. Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc. 527 North Second Street Richmond, Virginia Dear Sirs: Your letter of the 10th inst., advising me that a check of Three Hundred and Sixty-five ($365.00) Dollars had been mailed to me in full settlement of the death claim of my husband, George E. Reide, has been received. Your representative, Mr. . D. Burton, gave me your check for Three Hundred and. Sixty-five EXPRESSION FROM A WELL-KNOWN AND DISTINGUISHED DENTIST 2505 Nicholas Ave., S. E. Washington, D. C. July 15, 1925. Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc. District Office: 1901 - 7th St., N. W. Washington, D. C. | Gentlemen: I herewith record my commendation of your ($365.00) Dollars, which was the full amount businesslike method in paying benefits to my covering the life of my husband, George E. late wife, Mrs. Georgianna Hamilton. Also for Reide. Your company was the first one to and confidence of Policyholders@ OF VA., Inc., in paying the death claim. Your company was the first to notify me that check awaited my call. your promptness Very truly yours, W. E. HAMILTON, D.D.S. respond out of the many that he belonged to. 1 heartily thank you for your prompt co- operation in such matters and I wish for your company all of the success that is due it. Respectfully yours, VIRGINIA J. REIDE. Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc. Home Offices: 925-27-29 N. 2nd St., Richmond, Va. INSURES AGAINST SICKNESS, ACCIDENT AND DEATH. Operating in Virginia and District of Columbia. 5 > | 4 ~ | be “a &
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THE CRISIS A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES PUBLISHED MONTHLY AND COPYRIGHTED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE AT 698 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, N. Y. CONDUCTED BY W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS; JESSIE REDMON FAUSET, LITERARY EDITOR; AUGUSTUS GRANVILLE DILL, BUSINESS MANAGER. Vol. 31 No. 1 NOVEMBER, 1925 Whole No. 181 COVER Page A Photographic Study of the Head of a Negro Woman, by F. H. Cloud. OPINION “$5000”; “Krigwa 1926"; “The Challenge of Detroit’; “The Y. M. LETTERS FOUND NEAR A SUICIDE. A Prize Poem by Frank Horne. THE COLORED Y. M. C. A. Illustrated. President John Hope......... 14 COLORED TENNIS CHAMPIONS. Illustrated. Gerald F. Norman...... 18 IMPRESSIONS OF THE 16TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE, N. A. A. C. P. OUR BOOK SHELF. W. E. B. DuBois, Emmett J. Scott, Jr., Langston “HIGH YALLER”. A Prize Story by Rudolph Fisher. Illustrated by Laura THE DECEMBER CRISIS The Christmas number of THE CRISIS will have an unusual cover, a prize story, “The Little Page” by Effie Lee Newsome, and the reproduction of the Liberian National Hymn, one of the most thrilling of anthems. FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY; ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF A YEAR FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTION TWENTY-FIVE CENTS EXTRA RENEWALS: The date of expiration of each subscription is printed on the wrapper. When the subscription is due, a blue renewal blank is enclosed. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: The address of a subscriber can be changed as often as desired. In ordering a change of address, both the old and the new address must be given. Two weeks’ notice is required. MANUSCRIPTS and drawings relating to colored people are desired. They must be accom- panied by return postage. If found unavailable they will be mailed carefully to the sender but we assume no responsibility. Entered as second class matter November 2, 1910, at the post office at New York, New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
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THE CRISIS PAINE COLLEGE AUGUSTA, GA. STANDARD COLLEGE COURSES Approved Two-Year Normal Accredited Senior High School Up-to-Date Junior High School “To develop leaders you must have the best possible equipment for literary training and that is what we are striving for at Paine College’, said one of the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This Church contributes largely to the support of Paine College. A Good School at Reasonable Rates For further information, address RAY S. TOMLIN, President, PAINE COLLEGE. Virginia Union University is now a Class A College Excellent courses are offered in College as well as in Theology and in High School Work. The summer session is for college students only. For full information address the President at Richmond, Virginia. 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 School of High Standards and a Rigorous Pace WILEY COLLEGE Marshall, Texas Recognized as a Class “‘A’’ College 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 universities represented on its faculty. More than two hundred and fifty enrolled in college department. $35,000 invested in scientific laboratory and library research equipment. Due prominence given te musie who athietics. M. W. DOGAN, President. The Cheyney Training School 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 canal in the public schools of Pennsylvania. Registration Day, Tuesday, September 15, 1925 First semester began Wednesday, September 16, 1925. For further information and catalog, write LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL, Principal Cheyney, Pa. Mention Tue Crisis
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THE CRISIS Vol. 31° ~No. 1 NOVEMBER, 1925 Whole No. 181 $5000 E take pleasure in announc- ing that the American Fund for Public Service, better known as the Gar- land Fund, has granted the sum of $5000 to THE CRISIS MAGAZINE for special work in research. When THE CRISIS was first founded it was hoped that we might have the opportunity of making from time to time scien- tific studies in the social condition of American Negroes. But until this grant no money has been available except in very small amounts. This study is now going on under expert students and the publication of the results in THE CRISIS and in other forms will be announced later. KRIGWA, 1926 E have printed and mailed to inquiring friends the first bulletin of our plans for Negro Artists and Writers. We will be glad to send this bulletin to all who apply, not forget- ting a stamp. Our program to encourage Negro Art next year is as follows: Krom October 1925 to April 1926 we shall publish the prize materia! of our 1925 contest. From November 1, 1925, until May 1, 1926, we shall be glad to receive manuscripts, drawings and paintings for the following prizes aggregating $600: for stories, prizes of $100 and $50. lor plays, prizes of $100 and $50. oS WEB Du Bais For CRISIS covers, prizes of $75 and $25. For essays, prizes of $75 and $25. For poems, prizes of $75 and $25. These manuscripts, etc., mst be in THE CRIsIs office on or before May 1, 1926. The award of prizes wil! be announced in October, 1926. The name and address of the author must appear on the first page of the manu- scripts. Please keep a copy of all manuscripts as none will be returned. Paintings and drawings will be re- turned in November, 1926. THE CHALLENGE OF DETROIT N Detroit, Michigan, a _ black man has shot into a mob which was threatening him, his fam- ily, his friends and his home in order to make him move out of the neighborhood. He. killed one man and wounded another. Immediately a red and awful chal- lenge confronts the nation. Must black folk shoot and shoot to kill in order to maintain their rights or is this unnecessary and wanton blood- shed for fancied ill? The answer de- pends on the facts. The Mayor of Detroit has publicly warned both mob and Negroes. He has repudiated mob law but he adds, turning to his darker audience, that they ought not to invite aggression by going where they are not wanted. There are thus two interpretations: 1. A prosperous Negro physician of Detroit, seeking to get away from his people, moves into a white resi- — i) 7
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8 THE dential section where his presence for social reasons is distasteful to his neighbors. 2. A prosperous Negro physician of Detroit, seeking a better home with more light, air, space and quiet, finds it naturally in the parts of the city where white folk with similar wants have gone rather than in the slums where most of the colored are crowded. Which version figures: (foo 7? is true? See the 1370 1930 1930 Negro Population of Detroit 1900.. 4,111 1910.. 5,741 1920. .40,838 1925. .60,000 (estimated) Two thirds of this population in 1920 were crowded into three wards— the Third, Fifth and Seventh. Mean- time the total population of Detroit has more than doubled in ten years and the people have reached out on all sides to new dwelling places. Have the Negroes no right to rush too? Is it not their duty to seek bet- ter homes and, if they do, are they not bound to “move into white neigh- borhoods” which is simply another way of saying “move out of congested slums”? Why do they not make their own new settlements then? Because no in- dividual can make a modern rea! es- tate development; no group of ordi- nary individuals can compete with CRISIS organized real estate interests and get a decent deal. When Negroes have tried it they have usually had miser- able results; in Birmingham, Ala- bama, twenty years since, they bought a nice street and lined it with pretty homes; the city took all its prosti- tutes and stuck them into a segre- gated vice district right behind the pretty homes! In Macon, Savannah, New Orleans and Atlanta crime and prostitution have been kept and pro- tected in Negro residence districts. In New York City, for years, no Ne- gro could rent or buy a home in Man- hattan outside the “Tenderloin”; and white Religion and Respectability far from. stretching a _ helping hand turned and cursed the blacks when by bribery, politics and brute force they broke into the light and air of Harlem. Some great leaders in Ne- gro philanthropy like Clarence Kelsev formed a financial bloc to push the Negroes out of Harlem, to refuse mortgages to landlords renting to them; but only one practical project of furnishing them decent quarters came to fruition. Dear God! Must we not live? And if we live may we not live some- where? And when a whole city full of white folk led and helped by banks, Chambers of Commerce, mortgage companies and “realtors” are comb- ing the earth for every decent bit of residential property for whites, where in the name of God can we live and live decently if not by these same whites? If some of the horror-struck and law-worshipping white leaders of Detroit instead of winking at the Ku Klux Klan and admonishing the Negroes to allow themselves to be kicked and killed with impunity—if these would finance and administer a decent scheme of housing relief for Negroes it would not be necessary for us to kill white mob leaders -in order to live in peace and decency. | | 50 oon | | | ovo 2.0 — — = |
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NOVEMBER, 1925 9 These whited sepulchres pulled that trigger and not the man that held the gun. But, wail the idiots, Negroes de- press real estate values! This is a lie—an ancient and bearded lie. Race prejudice decreases values both real estate and human; crime, ignorance and filth decrease values. But a de- cent, quiet, educated family buying property in a decent neighborhood will not affect values a bit unless the people in that neighborhood hate a colored skin more than they regard the value of their own property. This has been proven in a thousand in- stances. Sudden fall in values comes through propaganda and _ hysteria manipulated by real estate agents or by Southern slave drivers who want their labor to return South; or by ignorant gossip mongers. Usually Negroes do not move into new devel- opments but into districts which well-to-do whites are deserting. The fall in values is not due to race but to a series of economic readjustments and often, as in Baltimore, real estate values were actually saved and raised, not lowered, when black folk bought Druid Hill Avenue and adja- cent streets. Certainly a flood of. noisy dirty black folk will ruin any neighborhood but they ruin black property as well as white, and the reason is not their color but their con- dition. And whom, High Heaven, shall we blame for that? But these facts make no difference to organized American Negro haters. They are using every effort to main- tain and increase race friction. In the South time and time again com- munities have almost forgotten race lines until the bitter, hate-preaching liar stirred it up again. The whole present “Anglo-Saxon” and “race purity” agitation in Virginia has arisen because one white family open- ly acknowledged its colored grand- mother! The whole crusade in De- troit has come to a head because, in 1920, 663,000 Southern whites had migrated and were living in Wiscon- sin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Their numbers are swelling. They are largely clerks, artisans and laborers, not illiterate but ignorant of the modern world and forming by habit the lawless material of mobs. They are ruining the finer democ- racy of the Middle West and using the Negro as an excuse. What shall we do? I know a black man. He is a professional man and a graduate of a great eastern school. He has studied abroad. His wife was educated in a good western school and is a quiet housewife. His son is a college graduate and a high school teacher. They have never been ar- rested. They conduct themselves as cultured folk. This man is living in an apartment in Harlem. He would like more air and sunlight and less noise. He would like a new, small, modern house in the further Bronx or in the hills of Westchester or New Jersey or in the higher part of Queens. He sees daily in the pa- pers new homes advertised suitable to his means—$500, $1,000 even $2000 down, the rest as rent. Can he buy one of these? Not without plot- ting, deception, insult or murder. For instance: A man bought a mod- est home in Staten Island. He was a mail carrier with a fine record; his wife was a school teacher, educated and well-bred. They had four sturdy children in school. As a result he has been mobbed and insulted, his prop- erty injured, his glass and shrubbery broken, his insurance cancelled, his life threatened, his existence made miserable. - His neighbors do every- thing to insult him and his, even to crossing the street to avoid passing him. He sticks to his home even though offered a profit to sell, “on principle’. He is “colored”.
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10 THE Another man in Detroit bought a fine home in a former exclusive dis- trict which is now changing. He was a physician with a large practice, the founder of a hospital, public-spirited and well-liked. He had married the daughter of perhaps the greatest of the interpreters of Negro folk songs with world-wide reputation. He moved in. A mob of thousands ap- peared, yelling and cursing. They broke his windows, threw out his fur- niture and he and his family escaped under police protection. He gave up his home, made no resistance, moved back whence he came, filed no protest, made no public complaint. He was “colored”’. A little later another physician in Detroit bought another beautiful home and moved in. A mob—almost the same mob—came, cursed, threw stones and ordered him to move. He gathered his family and friends with- in and locked the door. Five or six thousand people lined the streets. The police set traffic officers to divert the traffic that could not get through. The mob invaded his yard and ap- proached his doors. He shot and shot to kill. His wife and his friends are now in jail charged with Murder in the first degree! He was “col- ored”’. Gentle Reader, which of these three examples shall my friend of Harlem follow? Which would you follow if you were “free”, black and 21? THE Y. M. C. A. HAT is our goal? For long years We have said: It is to be an integral part of this nation finding each of us as individuals our place in eco- nomic and social life according to our ability and desert. To this the great organization known as the Young Men’s Christian Association would not assent. Sev- enty-two years ago it indicated, by recognizing a “colored” Y. M. C, A. CRISIS in Washington, D. C., another and different ideal, an ideal which every white Christian organization in the land has more or less openly em- braced. This ideal would have the black American develop as a closed self-directing, self-supporting group, touching the nation only. here and there at strategic points and having its own ideals, its own loyalties, its own organizations of offence and de- fence and perhaps even its own dwell- ing quarters and burial grounds. Not that the leaders of the Y. M. C. A. or of the Methodist and Epis- copal Churches and other’ white groups envisaged at first this extreme development. They thought first of the Negro as a submerged group, re- ceiving charity and led by benevolent whites. Then there came embarrass- ing questions of recognizing’ colored leaders of the group and of their re- lation to white leaders in conven- tions, in offices and on committees. This was all the more embarrassing when these leaders were, as in the Y. M. C. A., men of education and high character like William Hunton. The more black men were segregated and pushed aside from the main or- ganization the more they demanded and could not be denied their own organizations and the power to guide them. One thing alone held and holds back this development and that was funds. The great charities and endowments supporting national uplift move- ments came from white folks and were administered by white officials. A demand for power and autonomy on the part of the blacks easily be- came a_ self-denying ordinance of poverty. They were usually told to support their own movements. This has been the history of the fight in most of the churches. In the Y. M. C. A. the development has been similar but less bitter and catastrophic because it was a meet- ing of well trained men white and
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black and because a great Jew gave Christians funds for colored Y. M. C. A. buildings which allowed them to be just without cost to themselves. Today there is gradually rising, therefore, an independent autono- mous colored Y. M. C. A.—national, even international in scope—whose connection with the white Y. M. C. A. is daily growing less and less and confined more and more to general policies and the rare personal con- tacts of a few officials. Surely this and similar movements have discovered some fine and loyal white friends of the Negro who have given of their knowledge and experi- ence and wealth to help the colored work. But with few exceptions these friends are convinced of the need and advantage of racial separation in so- cial work. Before this conviction their colored fellow-workers are silent and busy. Yet ever and anon must they not ask—whither? whither? JOHNSON HE death of Henry Lincoln ( Johnson removes the leading | Negro politician from our mm) midst. Johnson represented the old school of politicians, but he was far and away the best represen- tative. He was a man of education, of unusual ability, of impressive phy- sique and above all of indomitable courage. At the same time Mr. Johnson was an American Politician trained in the school of the later Reconstruction leaders like Bill Pledger and looking on politics not as a matter of ideal but of hard, bitter, conscienceless fighting mainly between unprincipled and selfish men. Despite all we may wish and dream this is what Ameri- can politics was yesterday and is largely today and the man who enters must strip himself—strip his body and his soul, his mind and his con- science and go in to kill and be killed. NOVEMBER, 1925 11 Happy is the politician that out of all this shameless nakedness can hold to his heart some shreds of clothing. Roosevelt was such a man. He stripped and fought—stole Nicara- gua, rushed into needless murder called war, cheated and plotted with the wiliest and wickedest and yet withal preserved here and _ there ideals, goals, beliefs and helped his country reel onward and slowly up- ward. Johnson, too, with all his bitter fighting hugged to his soul shreds of ideals. He “sold out’ his fellow politicians but he never sold out the Negro race; he took the can- didates’ money and pocketed it but the candidates found that he usually pocketed them too and they had to yield something to get loose. They thought they had Johnson pacified, bribed and quieted at the last presi- dential convention and then he turned and compelled them to put a black man in the Inner Circle—on the Na- tional Committee. Thus at times he gained much for us, at other times he yielded and lost. But always he was the big, genial, fearless man, fighting in the jungles of Georgia. God rest his restless soul. Oberlin, Ohio, EAR EDITOR: I noted in this issue of THE Crisis that your are launching a campaign for new subscribers for your magazine. I am a constant reader of THE CRISIS and want to be counted among the ten thousand new subscribers. Although the campaign begins in No- vember I am sending a check today for a year’s subscription. I am truly, CLARENCE J. GRESHAM. Now for the 9999! We want to hear from our friends. We hear from our enemies daily. But our best friends take us for granted. 4
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LETTERS FOUND NEAR A SUICIDE By FRANK HORNE Second prize poem in the Amy Spingarn Contest. Dr. Horne was born in New York City in 1899. He was educated at the Col- lege of the City of New York, the Univer- sity of Chicago and the Northern Illinois College of Opthalmology. He is a practis- ing optometrist in New York City. a * To All of You My little stone Sinks quickly Into the bosom of this deep, dark pool Of oblivion... I have troubled its breast but little. Yet those far shores That knew me not Will feel the fleeting, furtive kiss Of my tiny concentric ripples... . To Lewellyn You have borne full well The burden of my friendship— I have drunk deep At your crystal pool, And in return I have-polluted its waters With the bile of my hatred. I have flooded your soul With tortuous thoughts, I have played Iscariot To your Pythias..... * To Mother I came In the blinding sweep Of ecstatic pain, I go In the throbbing pulse Of Aching Space, In the eons between I piled upon you Pain on pain Ache on ache And yet as I go I shall know That you will grieve And want me back..... * * To Bennetti You have freed me— In opening wide the doors Of flesh— You have freed me DR. FRANK HORNE Of the binding leash. I have climbed the heights Of white disaster. My body screaming In the silver crash of passion..... Before you gave yourself To him I had chained myself For you. But when at last You lowered your proud flag In surrender complete You gave me too, as hostage— And I have swept my joy At the dawn-tipped shrine Of many breasts. * To Jean When you poured your love Like molten flame Into the throbbing mold Of her pulsing veins Leaving her blood a river of fire And her arteries channels of light, I hated you... Hated with that primal hate That has its wells In the flesh of me And the flesh of you | ae 12
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To NOVEMBER, 1925 And the flesh of her I hated you— Hated with envy Your mastery of her bein With one fleshy gesture You pricked the irridescent bubble Of my dreams And so to make Your conquest more sweet I tell you now That I hated you. * * To Catalina Love thy piano, Oh girl, It will give you back Note for Note The harmonies of your soul. It will sing back to you The high songs of your heart. It will give As well as take .....: * To Mariette I sought ccnsolation In the sorrow of your eyes. You sought reguerdon In the crying of my heart. . We found that shattered dreamers Can be bitter hosts ..... * * * You call it Death of the Spirit And I call it Life... The vigor of vibration, The muffled knocks, The silver sheen of passion’s flood, The ecstacy of pain... You call it Death of the Spirit And I eall it Life. * * To Telie You have made my voice A rippling laugh But my heart A crying thing . better thus, A fleeting kiss And then, The dark o “Chick” Oh Achilles of the moleskins And the gridiron Do not wonder Nor doubt that this is I That lie so calmly here— This is the same exultant beast That so joyously Ran the ball with you In those far flung days of abandon. You remember how recklessly We revelled in the heat and the dust And the swirl of conflict? You remember they called us The Terrible Two? And you remember After we had battered our heads And our bodies 13 Against the stonewall of their defense,— You remember the signal I would call And how you would look at me In faith and admiration And say “Let’s go”, How the lines would clash And strain, And how I would find an opening, A wee small space, Amidst tangling arms and torsos, And how I would slip through Fighting and squirming Over the line To victory. You remember, Chick? When you gaze at me here Let that same light Of faith and admiration Shine in your eyes For I have battered the stark stonewall! Before me. I have kept faith with you And now I have called my signal, Found my opening And slipped through Fighting and squirming Over the line To victory. To Wanda To you, so far away So cold and aloof, - To you, who knew me so well, This is my last Grand Gesture This my last Great Effect And as I go winging Through the black doors of eternity Is that thin sound I hear Your applause? .....
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THE COLORED Y.M.C.A. PRESIDENT JOHN HOPE N the City of Washington in the month of October was held the National Y. M. C. A. Conference on the Colored Work. Delegates from all parts of the United States attended. White and col- ored leaders in Y. M. C. A. work at home and in foreign countries were present. This was a deliberative assembly. The usual set speeches, in the main, gave place to an earnest inquiry into what the Colored Y. M. C. A. is, what is its present field, how is it functioning in this field,. what new fields may it enter and how shall all this be accomplished. No meeting in the interest of Y. M. C. A. work among colored people has ever been approached with higher hopes, more serious purpose and greater sense of responsibility than this. In such quiet and orderly manner has the Y. M. C. A. done its work among colored men that many may not realize its present proportions. But there are 140 Y. M. C. A. Associations in colored schools and colleges and 68 city, railroad, town and country centers. This work extends from New York to Los Angeles and is in many places in the South. Last year Y. M. C. A. dormi- tories supplied 446,000 lodgings, served 302,000 meals, had 81,500 men and boys at- tending Bible classes and 285,000 attendine other religious meetings. There were 1578 young colored men and boys led to a Chris- tian decision and church membership, while 1089 were led to enter Christian callings as a life work. There are 16 modern build- ings, 14 of which are standard buildings, and the property in use for Y. M. C. A. work among colored men amounts to several million dollars. The history of Y. M. C. A. work among colored people is to be written by Dr. J. E. Moorland and he has already assembled data for this work. The purpose of this article is not to enter_much into the histury of the Y. M. C. A., but a few facts may serve as an explanation of its present con- dition and prosperity. Dr. Moorland has found that the first Y. M. C. A. for colored people was or- ganized in the City of Washington in 1853 and its first president was Anthony Bowen. THE LATE WILLIAM A. HUNTON The first college Y. M. C. A. was organized at Howard University in 1869. In 1867. the first connection between the work among the colored people and the American move- ment was made by the New York colored Association’s sending a delegate. At this meeting the following resolution was passed: Resolved: That the Committee on As- sociations of this convention be instructed -to report such measures as in their judg- ment will best promote the formation of the Y. M. C. A.’s among the colored brethren throughout the United States and British provinces. It is interesting to note that in these early days Southern as well as Northern white men showed a deep interest in Y. M. C. A. work for colored people, two of the most active men being General Gregory of Virginia and General Johnston of Alabama, both former officers in the confederate army. But there was no well organized work in the interest of colored people until 1888 when William A. Hunton, a young Canadian colored man, was appointed secretary of the colored Association at Norfolk, Virginia. He was the first salaried employed officer of any race for a colored Association and, to quote Dr. Moorland, “so faithful and pa- 14 he
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NOVEMBER, 1925 15 tient was he in his work and so efficient that it was decided by the International Committee in 1890 to employ him as Inter- national Secretary for colored work through- out the country”. William A. Hunton re- mained International Secretary for colored work until his death November 27, 1916, and during these years served as student secretary and secretary for city work, rep- resenting his constituency at many meetings not only in America but in Europe and the Orient. Thinking of the contribution of this or- ganization to colored people one element stands out beyond all others in my mind and that is the colored personnel, and I know of no organization that continues te carry the spirit of the first leader so dei- nitely as does the colored Y. M. C. A. Wil- liam A. Hunton was a man of such sound Christian character that he seemed to have settled practically all the questions that usually continue to baffle men in their var- ious relations. He showed no restlessness, almost no discouragement, he had infinite patience, was long-suffering and forgiving and relied absolutely upon the leadership of Jesus Christ in the most practical matters of life. Men who might be disposed to do questionable things in dealing with other people felt compelled to deal fairly with Hunton. He was equally at home with boys, young men and elderly men. He moved among women with consummate charm and through his whole life as we knew him for many years in public affairs and in his personal relations there was no question or suspicion. When we realize that from 1888 to 1914, the year that he was stricken with an incurable disease, Hunton mingled with thousands of Negro boys and young men, addressing them in public meet- ings, conversing with them in class rooms and in dormitories, it may then be possible to understand the influence of this man or the lives of hundreds of men who are oc- cupying positions of large leadership among Negroes today. When the work became too heavy for one man, Jesse E. Moorland, a young Congre- gational minister working with much suc- cess as a pastor, was persuaded to leave the pastorate and work in a coérdinate ca- pacity with Hunton. Here was the begin- ning of specialization, for Hunton took the student work and Moorland the city work. When Hunton became incapacitated Moor- DR. J. E. MOORLAND land took charge of all the Y. M. C. A. work as senior secretary. But Hunton had already laid hands upon another fine youn man named Channing H. Tobias, who took up the student work when Hunton had to withdraw. Moorland and Tobias worked together until two years ago when Moor- land was retired, having reached the age limit set by the International Committee, and Tobias was given charge of all the Y. M. C. A. work for colored people at home and abroad. When Hunton was stricken and Moor- land was given charge, he found new prob- lems. The executive and financial side was becoming more severe as the work grew, and to Moorland’s activities belongs much of the credit for its growth. He showed himself a fine organizer and financier while _still maintaining the moral and spiritual quality necessary for a Y. M. C. A. leader no matter what may be the particular phase of his work. Through the trying years of the war he gathered about him a good war work personnel that functioned well at home and abroad in spite of many obstacles. A few years ago when it was decided that the interests of colored people ought to be represented by colored men on the International Committee, Dr. Robert R. Moton and Bishop Robert E. Jones were appointed as members. Than these no other men were better prepared to represent the interests of colored people on this distin- guished committee; and when further repre- sentatives from the colored group were Ware A |
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16 THE CRISIS L. K. McMillan W. C. Craver J. H. McGrew R. W. Bullock F. T. Wilson” t Work Student Work City Work Boys’ Work Student Work R. P. Hamlin Cc. H. Tobias R. B. DeFrantz City Work Senior Secretary Personnel and Finance added, the same care as to personnel was’ vided with uplifting influences than any exercised through the appointment of Mr. F. B. Ransom, a lawyer and business man of Indianapolis, and Mr. W. F. Trotman, a thoroughgoing business man of Brook- lyn, both of whom had previously shown their interest in the Y. M. C. A. work of their community. One year ago when ar- rangements were making for the great Buf- falo meeting where there was to be a re- organization of the International Y. M. C. A., colored delegates were appointed on state committees and sent as representa- tives to the Buffalo meeting, while Dr. R. R. Moton as a member of the International Committee of 33 assisted in making ar- rangements and served as one of the Vice- Presidents at the Buffalo meeting. With the reorganization colored men have been appointed on various committees and one was made a member of the executive com- mittee. Negroes are probably more poorly pro- other group in the United States. Ignor- ance and poverty prevent them from doing very much for themselves in comparison with what other groups with greater learn- ing and wealth can do, while racial preju- dice shuts Negroes out from many open- ings that other groups have. The more prosperous Negroes are tempted into error because too few wholesome attractions are presented to them, while the unguided poor find themselves in most pathetic situations. Julius Rosenwald felt keenly this condition among Negroes and looked about fom an agency that might give relief. The colored Y. M. C. A. seemed to him to offer the fin- est opportunity, so he came forward with an offer that thrilled colored people and the era of greater things for the colored Y. M. C. A. began. He said he would give $25,000 towards the erection of any city colored Y. M. C. A. building costing $100,000. After many years have passed and many such | ~ wy a | = ve * | — : ; f ‘ ~ & >
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NOVEMBER, 1925 17 buildings have been erected this offer still stands and it is hoped Mr. Rosenwald -may provide that this offer be guaranteed to colored people for many years to come. The colored boy who has found himself alone in a strange city in the midst of great downpull and no elevating influence, may conjecture what it would mean to have the physical comforts of a Y. M. C. A. building and the educational, moral and religious influences that go with these ma- terial comforts. But this is not all that the colored Y. M. C. A. indicates. From the very first there has been an equality even where at times separation has existed; and considering some of the sad traditions and circumstanc- es of interracial endeavor probably no or- ganization stands out for greater fairness and affords a finer brotherhood than the Y. M. C. A. Perhaps the beginnings of a more modern interracial endeavor was in- spired by Y. M. C. A leadership, and the improved understanding and enlarged sym- pathy existing today between white and colored students in the South is traceable directly to the planning of the Y. M. C. A. Discrimination, injustice and a lack of much that makes other people prosperous have a tendency to draw the victim of these into himself, and much that Negroes do necessarily has to be as a measure of self- relief. But the Y. M. C. A. makes the ef- fort to open up to Negro youth the world as his field. It urges young Negroes to at- tend student volunteer meetings and many other gatherings where the world is spread out before the gaze of youth. In this way Max Yergan became the first Negro mis- sionary to the Indian in Asia where he re- ceived a training that has made him the successful pioneer Y. M. C. A. missionary among the youth in Africa where he now lives and works; and many another youth is looking to Africa as a place to invest his life in the reclamation of the world through Jesus Christ. The problem of Negro youth in the hours when he is not at work has not been ade- quately met and no organization in Amer- ica is so well prepared to meet it as the colored Y. M. C. A. Boys’ work men are needed in many centers and it may be that the colored Y. M. C. A. will have to carry on much more work where standard build- ings are not to be obtained. Africa makes an appeal so momentous that it appalls even while it inspires. The way must be opened by governments and churches for the American colored man to do his part in improving the lives and sav- ing the souls of millions of Negroes. What are some of the needs? 1. The deep interest of the colored lay- man. Negroes are not well enough ac- quainted with Y. M. C. A. work. Some see the gymnasium and the billiard table but do not get the grand objective. Neither the church nor the school can do this work. Colored people must come to know the Y M. C. A. as an indispensable agency for the protection and improvement of colored boys and men. ' 2. We must give our money freely to the support of this cause, and more and more must colored men of large means be so attracted to this work that they will give liberally. 3. There must be a sufficient number of valuable young men to supply the demand for secretaries. The work is already im- peded for lack of well educated and con- secrated young men and the call is going to be for even larger numbers. Positions are now open for executive secretaries, edu- cational and religious secretaries, athletic directors and men for rural work and boys’ work. What are the chances for a rather early accomplishment of the objectives mentioned and much more? Much depends upon one rman—Channing H. Tobias, chosen years ago from hundreds of other college men, taken from a pastorate, a professorship and a possible future bisphopric to serve young colored men. He was without fear and beyond reproach, physically fit, intel- lectually keen, and with a spirituality that made him able to interpret Christ to all classes of his people. His years of service have also been years of personal develop- ment. He is known and trusted by all groups of colored people and has the re- spect and confidence of white people North and South. Channing H. Tobias faces the specific task of redeeming Negro youth the world over. Considering what Negro youth has to undergo, who would gainsay the arduous task to be accomplished by this most outstanding spiritual leader of Negro youth today—Channing H. Tobias, Senior International Secretary of colored Y. M. C A. work? q *
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COLORED TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS GERALD F., NORMAN WW HE American Tennis Association held its Ninth Annual Championships on the courts of the Industrial Institute, Borden- town, N. J., during the week of Aug. 24-29. The matches were interesting from many angles; first, because of the large number of entries, again for the variety and styles of play exhibited by the various con- tenders, the representation from about twenty-two states of the Union, and the differences in ages of the players ranging from eleven years to fifty-four. The Finals were played on Saturday afternoon before a crowd of about fifteen hundred enthusiasts, and the gallery was thrilled time and again by the wonderful display of tennis. Entries were as follows: Men’s Singles, 116 entries; Ladies’ Singles, 35 entries, Men’s Doubles, 49 entries; Ladies’ Doubles, 14 entries; Mixed Doubles, 13 entries; Jun- ior Singles, 16 entries. New Champions were crowded in every event except the Men’s Doubles, in which the defending Champions, T. Holmes and T. Thompson of Washington, retained their titles. Edgar G. Brown, of Chicago, the favorite in Men’s Singles, was eliminated by Ted Thompson of Washington, after a thrilling five-set match in the semi-finals on Friday, and Tally Holmes, of Washington, 1924 Champion, was put out by Eyre Saitch, New York Champion, in the other Semi-finals in straight sets. Saitch and Ted Thompson met in the Finals on Saturday and Ted de- feated his opponent also in straight sets, 6—3, 8—6, 6—2, thereby winning the Championship. Miss Isadora Channels, of Chicago, three times National Champion in Ladies’ Sin- gles was defeated in the Finals of that event by the 17-year-old Champion of Phila- delphia, Miss Lulu Ballard, in straight sets, 6—1 6—3. The Men’s Doubles event was a repetition of last year’s matches, in which Holmes and Thompson of Washington defeated Eyre Saitch and George Smith of New York in 18 a decisive manner, 6—3, 7—5, 6—4. The 1924 Champions in Mixed Doubles, Dr. B. M. Rhetta and Miss N. Nicholson of Baltimore were eliminated on Friday in the semi-finals by Dr. L. Downing of Virginia and Mrs. C. O. Seams of Chicago. This new team met Mr. and Mrs. E. K. Jones of Flushing, N. Y., who had defeated a champion New Jersey team in their march to the Finals. The match was a close one, but the New Yorkers were defeated after some brilliant playing by the score 6—1, 6—4, making Dr. Downing and Mrs. Seams (“Mother Seams’) the new Mixed Doubles Champions. The Ladies’ Doubles event produced new Champions in the persons of Miss Lulu Ballard and Miss Ora Washington of Phil- adelphia, who defeated Miss Channels and Miss L. Hines of North Carolina in straight sets, 6—2, 6—3. The Finals in Junior Singles found Lenoir Cook of Washington facing James Trottman of New York. The former won easily by the decisive score, 6—1, 6—0. St. Louis was chosen as the place of the next Championships, to be held during the third week of August, 1926. The election of officers for the coming year was held at the Annual Meeting on Monday evening, Aug. 24th. The following were the results: President, Dr. Harry S. McCard, Baltimore, Md.; First Vice-Presi- dent, Dr. D. I. Hoage of New York; Second Vice-President, Miss L. V. Junior of Phila- delphia; Executive Secretary, Gerald F. Norman of Flushing, N. Y.; Recording Sec- retary, J. M. Burrell of Newark, N. J.; Treasurer, Eugene K. Jones, of New York; Ass’t. Executive Secretary, James S. Wat- son, of New York; Ass’t. Recording Secre- tary, Charles P. Buchanan of New York. The Executive Committee includes L. B. Granger, Bordentown, N. J.; J. L. McGriff, Portsmouth, Va.; T. R. Holmes, Washing- ton, D. C.; Richard Hudlin, St. Louis, Mo.; L. C. Downing, Roanoke, Va.; William Hughes, Wilberforce, Ohio. =
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19 NOVEMBER, 1925 SSIW cust ‘SNOIAWWHO SINNA3L GaxO TOD AUPE L J | § 7 \ | | = 4 3 g & j
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THE LATE HENRY L. JOHNSON @ Daisy Robinson Tapley, who died re- cently in New York, went to Chicago from Michigan at a very early age, where she was organist of Quinn Chapel. Upon her marriage she joined the famous Williams and Walker company of which her husband was already € member. While abroad she met Coleridge-Taylor and enjoyed his friendship and that of the best Negro artists in London. In New York an out- standing feature of her musical life was the establishment of educational recit- als through which many young as well as established artists received a chance to ap- pear before the public. Mrs. Tapley was the first Negro to give a recital in the audi- torium of Wanamaker’s store and she trained the chorus of workers for the Lin- coln Day celebrations which used to be held there. She was trainer for the first Eman- cipation pagent held in 1913 and also for the Negro chorus for “The Open Door” for Atlanta University. For twelve years she was director of the Y. W. C. A. Glee Club of Brooklyn and for eight years direc- tor of the choir of the Concord Baptist Church. Mrs. Tapley had long been a teach- er of voice and-«piano and an accompanist of unusual ability. ( In Nassau, in the Bahamas, Thaddeus Augustus Toote has been made Acting At- torney-General. Mr. Toote, a native of the Bahamas, was educated in the Nassau _ Schools and at Ellesmere College, England, where he excelled both in his studies and in athletics. Subsequently he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, and succeeded in passing all his Bar examinations in two years. In 1914 he was admitted to the bar of the Bahamas, where he has practiced ever since. ( An octogenarian of many experiences is Dr. E. E. Green of Wilmington, N. C., who is still enjoying excellent health. His edu- cation was pursued at Lincoln University MRS. DAISY TAPLEY = hy ¢ a. * . | y ¥ 20
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NOVEMBER, 1925 21 Gwe ag ; | | Thaddeus A. Toote E. E. Green Miss Marie Lenox Fielding A. Ford Andrew F. Hilyer William L. Imes
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22 THE and in the Medical School of Howard whence he received an M.D. in 1886. To both these schools he gave his teaching ser- vices for a brief period becoming later prin- cipal of a large public school for six years. For two years he was a member of the North Carolina Legislature. His religious affiliations have always been with the Pres- byterian Church in which he has held im- portant offices, serving as moderator on two occasions and representing his Presbytery in General Assembly at Philadelphia, Sara- toga and Los Angeles. His wife was his constant helpmate, spending before her death in 1923 much time in social work of every phase. ( The first Girl Reserve Secretary of the Linden Branch of the Y. W. C. A. of Oak- land, California, Miss Marie Lenox, is dead. She was a graduate with high honors from the Oakland Technical High School and the State Teachers’ College of San Francisco, In 1923 she was made Gir] Reserve Secre- tary and filled her position with great sat- isfaction and credit. Young as she was, her name and ability were so outstanding that her loss is felt deeply not only by her friends and by the members of the loca! branch of the Delta Sigma Theta to which she belonged, but also by the community at large. ( The passing of Andrew Franklyn Hil- yer of Washington, D. C., has left a great gap. Few men have lived more usefully than he. He was a native of Georgia, but received the most important part of his education at the University of Minnesota of which he was the first colored graduate. For forty-three years he labored in the government as expert accountant; for twelve of these years he served as trustee of Howard and was one of the founders of that University’s Citizens’ Association. The first colored Business League in the District owed its rise to his organization and -for four successive years under his supervision a Directory of Negro Business was published. He was also the treasurer offthe famous Coleridge-Taylor Choral So- ciety, a gold certificate member of the N. Ay A. C. P. for many years, and member of, the Epsilon Boulé. children and his widow, Mrs. Amanda Gray Hilyer. ( Fielding A. Ford, who at the time of his death had been for four years treasurer of His death bereaves twa CRISIS the Philadelphia Branch of the N. A. A. C. P., was born and educated in the Quaker City and pushed his way up from com- positor in the office of the Odd Fellows’ Journal to the position of Letter Carrier. This position he held for twenty-one years. The Board of Directors of the Frederick Douglass Hospital and Training School numbered him among their members; he was also financial secretary of the Citi- zens’ Republican Club and used his influ- ence to induce this organization to endorse actively the work of the N. A. A. C. P. both locally and nationally. His widow, father, mother and brother survive him. ( The new pastor of the St. James Pres- byterian Church in New York City is the Rev. William Lloyd Imes, born in Memphis, Tenn., the son of the Rev. A. and Elizabeth Wallace Imes. Lloyd Imes was educated in A. M. A. and Presbyterian schools and holds the degree of A.B. from Fisk, B.D. from Union Seminary, New York, and a Master’s degree from Columbia. He has already served successfully at Bethel Chapel, Plainfield, N. J., and at Cen- tral Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia whence he was called to the pastorate of St. James. ( The colored schools of Baltimore have opened with an enrollment of more than 15,780 pupils. The Dunbar High School of Washington, D. C., is accommodating 2,000 pupils, while Tuskegee opens with 1,400 on the roll. @ The Harmon Foundation, an institution devoted to making loans to worthy students, maintains an honor roll on which it lists beneficiaries who have made good. From this roll recommendations are made from time to time to employers. Four students of Fisk University have thus been honored. ( During the visit of the Prince of Wales to Cape Town a luncheon was tendered his Royal Highness by the Mayor and Council of the city. To this Bishop Gregg of Law- rence, Kansas, who was also at the time in Cape Town, was invited. He writes us: “Naturally I have accepted the invitation.” C R. Wellesley Bailey of Germantown, Philadelphia, has been admitted to mem- bership in the Philadelphia Neurological Society, which in the forty years of its existence has never before had a Negro physician in its ranks. Dr. Bailey is the only colored neurologist in the city.
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NOVEMBER, 1925 23 OBSEQUIES OF THE LATE M. GEORGES SYLVAIN AT PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI Be ~ | 4
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24 THE CRISIS BOUTTE’S PHARMACY, NEW YORK CITY ( Matthew .V. Boutté, proprietor of Routté’s Pharmacy in New York, has at the age of 40 served with distinction both in the army and in private life. He was Lorn in Olivier, La., and began his early cducation in the parochial schools of the parish. Thence he entered Straight Col- lege and so on to Fisk University where he was graduated in 1908 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. From Fisk he entered the school of pharmacy of the University of ‘Tllinois and was the first colored student to receive, in addition to the degree vf Ph.G., the degree of Ph.C. from that Uni- versity. For a while he conducted the Northside Pharmacy in Nashville and taught chemistry for three years at Me- harry Medical College. In 1917 he received a commission as captain from the Officers Training Camp at Des Moines and in 1918 went to France with the advance guard of the 92nd Division. He was the only colored officer to serve on the General Staff of the A. E. F., Intelligence Section. After the war he opened a pharmacy in New York which carries over $10,000 worth of stock and does a gross business of more than $50,000 a year. His specialty is prescrip- tion filling, his files showing a collection of 90,000 of these in four years. “€ Dr. Emmett J. Scott, recent graduate of Harvard Dental School, has received an appointment as Assistant Instructor in Prosthetic Dentistry at Harvard. @ Mr. John E. Nail, Chairman of the Finance Committee of the 135th St. Branch of the Y.-M. C. A., New York, was made third Vice-President of the Forty-fourth Convention of the Y. M. C. A. of the State of New York which convened in New York City. ( The first Centennial concert held at the Goodyear Theatre in Akron, Ohio, pre- sented a unique program. The last hun- dred years was divided into musical periods each one of which was represented. The most striking scenes were the 4th and 5th. The 4th represented the Fisk Jubilee Sing- ers of 1869, consisting of a chorus of about 50 colored men and women who sang three Negro spirituals under the direction of Car] Diton of Philadelphia. The 5th scene was a chorus from the Akron Liedertafel, the oldest musical organization in the city. | | | 'VE 4
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NOVEMBER, 1925 25 MISS MARY F. GREY ( An ardent worker in the Cleveland N. A. A. C. P. is Miss Mary F. Gray, an em- ployee of the probation department of the Municipal Court of Cleveland. In a Civil Service examination held recently in which there were 79 applicants, of whom 74 were white, Miss Gray made the highest average of 97.9. A new administration hall has been erected at the Texas College, Tyler, Texas, at a cost of $120,000. The money was re- ceived from the following sources: Gen- eral Education Board, $20,000, Chamber of Commerce of Tyler, $5,000, Methodist Epis- copal Church (white), $35,000, Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of Texas, $60,000. The president of Texas College is Mr. W. R. Banks, a graduate of Atlanta University. € Ralph J. Bunche, pre-legal student of the class of ’27 of the University of California, has had an unusual career for his two years of college work. As a freshman he won a $200 scholarship and repeated his achievement in his sophomore year. He holds the gold medal for first place in the Inter-forensic Society Oratorical Contest. He is a member of the championship Var- sity basketball team and has received a cold basketball watch charm. Moreover he has been made a member of the Blue C Society, an honorary athletic fraternity; treasurer of the “Forum” Men’s Debating Society; assistant sport editor of the “Southern Campus” University Year Book; reporter on the “Grizzly”, the university daily and member of the cast of the annual Greek drama production. With all this he has kept a straight “A” scholarship record in the second semester of his sophomore year. (@ Twenty-eight years ago John Givens purchased a ten-acre expanse of lard in Miami, Florida, for $250. This summer he sold the same ten acres at a gross price of $175,000, 700 times his buying price. MARTIN HALL, NEW ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, TEXAS COLLEGE, TYLER, TEXAS | | | | | | — if — ©
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THE CRISIS SYSZLHONVG FHL dO 265 4 | ky | 7 | | > | : fr | | v
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Nafional - Association for: the --- Advancement: Impressions of the Sixteenth Annual Con- ference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People JAMES A. ATKINS for nearly a month previous to the coming of the N.A.A.C. P., Denver had been bombarded by the big berthas of political theory, the howitzers of economics and the “seventy-fives” of ethics and religion. Its religious and political zealots were dismayed by the violence of the attack and its liberals seemed to see a gleam of hope on a far horizon. The Y.M. C.A,. Convention at Estes Park, the National Conference of Social Work and the Jewish Social Workers’ meeting in Denver had ex- ploded so many of its moss-backed social, economic and religious concepts that when the N.A.A.C.P. delegates arrived, it was al- most ready to bow before the shrine of true Americanism, almost ready to make a sympathetic effort to understand those problems which vex so sorely the souls of all Americans, black and white. After a short but tuneful musical pro- gram, the visitors were welcomed by George W. Gross, President of the Local Branch of the N.A.A.C.P., Mrs. Gertie N. Ross, Presi- dent of the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs and the Hon. Benjamin F. Stapleton, Mayor of the City of Denver. Mr. James Weldon Johnson, Secretary of the National Association, then expressed the purpose of the organization. “A purpose which is often misunderstood and frequently willfully misunderstood,” he said. “This purpose,” he declared, “is identical with the purpose of the founders of the country.” After stating that the N.A.A.C.P. always stands for justice and fairness, Mr. John- son introduced the leading speaker of the evening, and one of the founders of the N.A.A.C.P.: Mr. Charles Edward Russell, distinguished author, fearless champion of the rights of man and a battle-scarred veteran in the fight for Negro equality. -Colored-People. Rough-hewn and rugged, standing four- square to all the raging winds of prejudice, while making his stirring address demand- ing the recognition of the political, economic and social rights of the Negro, I seemed to see in him a reincarnation of the spirits of Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, Wil- liam Seward and Thaddeus Stevens appeal- ing to their prejudice-maddened posterity not to remove the corner-store of that gov- ernment for which rivers of blood had been shed and millions of dollars spent in the war of the rebellion. The enthusiasm which his speech aroused and the discussion which it provoked among Negroes of all shades of opinion demon- strated the emergence of a new and more articulate Negro as perhaps few other things could. Moreover it revealed that the key note of the new Negro’s demands are not Charity and Paternalism but Justice and Equality. These he is determined to have, as a full pledged American citizen, if pos- sible, but have them he must, no matter what the color of the flags to which he swears allegiance. Quietly, almost shyly, did Mr. Herbert Seligmann, Publicity Agent of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, begin his address on “The Press.” His filmy blue eyes seemed to blink, as he a slender fair-haired man with a bulging forehead and the introspective look quietly viewed his expectant audience through his double lenses. In the twinkling of an eye he assumed the attitude of an unusually alert professor in the lecture room of a great uni- versity. Dispensing with the perplexing technicalities of his subject he told of the change in the attitude of the American Press toward the subject of lynching. This change he attributed to the activities of the N.A.A.C.P. and other organizations that are trying to save the Republic. “A few years ago”, he declared, “editors of the South did not hesitate to condone lynching, but today no editor in America would think of doing such a thing.” 27 =
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28 THE One might conclude that the program com- mittee had conspired to make Friday night, June 26, Modernist Night, for, “Science vs. Pseudo-science on the Race Problem,” by Dr. Herbert Adolphus Miller, Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University was the address which followed that of the Rev. Robt. Hopkins on Race Prejudice. A daughter of the abolitionists, moreover, Mrs. Florence Kelly, secretary of the Na- tional Consumers’ League of New York City brought us a message of cheer from white comrades who are fighting economic oppres- sion with the same grim determination that we are fighting the triple headed monster-—- political, economic and social discrimina- tion. One of the last of the feminists who is still able to link the freedom of woman with the cause of justice for all men, she with the unselfish spirit of democracy stands opposed to jimcrowism, residential segregation and all that is subversive of Negro freedom and democracy. I can see her now, this staunch friend of the freedmen and their sons, thick- set, slightly bowed, a few locks of her iron gray hair falling over her face, as support- ing herself on the altar, with great effort, almost shrieking, she addressed us in a high soprano voice. Filled with emotion she told how we had surpassed her fondest dreams. Realizing that the gravest danger to the Republic con- sists in the very things which the Negro race is being forced more and more to or- ganize against and combat, she said: “When this association was formed sixteen years ago, the primary need was the welfare of the Negro race; today the primary need is to defend the integrity of the Republic.” She acknowledged our prowess and bade us continue our fight for democracy. The parade Sunday, June 28, had all of the variety of color and form that the wealth of emotion of our group could afford. If under ordinary circumstances the en- thusiasm of the local branch of the N.A.A. C.P. registers a temperature of about 40 degrees F., on the day of the parade it must have registered very close to the boiling point. About fifteen hundred persons rep- resentatives of every Negro organization in the city took part in the parade. The music of the numerous bands and the many beautiful floats were features. The line of march was through the down-town business district to the Municipal Auditorium where CRISIS the Sunday afternoon monster mass meeting was held. The parade, broadly speaking, was a revelation to white Denver and, for the most part, received lavish praise. Here and there, however, some of the tourists from down be- hind the sun recorded their disapproval with some such sarcastic remarks as: “Where are those niggers going?” “What do they want—social equality?” “I didn’t know this was a nigger town!” It was a hot and tired crowd that filled the Municipal Auditorium after the parade. It was threatening rain and the weather was unusually hot and sultry for Denver. But just the man to spur up a tired crowd and fill it with new life was on hand, in the person of Mr. Walter F. White, author of “The Fire in The Flint,” Assistant Secre- tary of the National Association. Dashing hastily through the entanygle- ments of a formal introduction, Mr. White with his you-don’t-say-so eyes flashing fire, instantly ripped off the masque of mob rule, the theme of the afternoon session, and ex- posed its grim unjoking visage to his vitriolic gibes. Knowing that this meeting was being broadcasted by KOA and that Ku Klux listeners-in were clustered abou’ radio sets like bees around a hive, he let go his barbed tongue, with such unerring aim, at the heart of the klan, that he threat- ened to annihilate all the “Koo Koos” in the state of Colorado. Luckily for them Mr. White was only the presiding officer of the meeting and those who followed him did not lay down as destructive a barrage as he. Mr. White made a hit with the Denver audience, but in nothing he said more than in this: “I hope the day will soon come when we can sing—‘My Country ’tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty’—and not sing a lie.” In 1922 a well-set, square-jawed, gray- eyed man with something of the dynamic personality of Theodore Roosevelt aspired to the governorship of the state of Coloradc. A bond dealer by profession, one of the best Colorado ever saw, he had accumulated a fortune and seemed to be nearing the age when he would naturally be expected to re- tire. But not so with William E. Sweet, he had other ambitions. He had decided to blaze a new path through the dismal swamp of politics. This thick-set, dynamic man, with the heart of a lion and the sometime tigerish eye, was the first speaker on the Sunday
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NOVEMBER, 1925 29 afternoon program. “America holds human life cheap,” declared he. He pictured the mob spirit rampant, and said that while we theoretically deplore the mob spirit, yet the fact remains that violence is of frequent oc- currence in the United States and that there is less respect for law in this country than in any country of like standards of civiliza- tion. He predicted, moreover, that mob rule will eventually tear the constitution to shreds and trample the flag under foot. In closing Mr. Sweet said, “The world needs Christ desperately.” He then quoted Sir Philip Gibbs, “The Philosophy taught by Christ, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ must be applied before mob action will close and law will be made supreme.” The Director of Branches, Robert W. Bagnall, seems to be the emergency man of the association. In the absence of U. S. Senator Burton K. Wheeler he spoke and in his characteristic manner told something of the enormous expenses of the association and its needs. Of course, Dr: Bagnall him- self wears none of that lean and hungry look so often ascribed to the pleaders of causes of the needy. When I see him ! think of what, Juvenal said, ought to be prayed for. “Mens sana in corpore sano.” But I think even if Dr. Bagnall has prayed Juvenal’s suggested prayer it has been an- swered in this wise: “To him that hath shall be given,” for Dr. Bagnall looks younger and more physically fit as the years go by. Not only does he seem to have dis- covered the fountain of youth but he seems to be able to administer this elixir of life, this something of his vivid and vital person- ality, to puny and withered branches of the N.A.A.C.P., and to audiences suffering from atrophy of the pocket book, with the result that the puny take on the ruddy glow of life possessed by the Director himself and the empty pocketbooks seem to be filled. Again on Tuesday night in the absence of Mr. Spingarn, Dr. Bagnall told us something of the Negro’s contributions to American life, of Granville Wood and his electrical inventions, of Elijah McCoy and his oiling cup, of Matzeliger and the shoe lasting machine which makes Americans “the best shod people in the world”. He also told us something of the Negro’s gifts to literature and art, of Dunbar and Toomer and McCoy and Cullen, of Burleigh and Dett and Roland Hayes. It was all very inspiring to hear of the achievements of these men but much more inspiring it would have been if we could have seen and heard some of the younger brilliants mentioned. If only they could have come to Denver to sit at the reporter’s table or in the audience. We missed them, One morning shortly after I had entered high school, I sat, mouth agape in childish curiosity, and stared at a quiet young man with a very large head whose height could not be accurately gauged because of a slight stoop which seemed to give him a peering expression. He had just entered the schoo! room and had been introduced as Professor William Pickens, winner of The Ten Eyck prize in oratory at Yale. Our teacher, himself a Yale man, was overjoyed to have Mr. Pickens look in on us and to make a few remarks. Needless to say, for one time, our teacher’s pleasure was ours. Next to the last night of the Conference, this same young man delivered an address on “Jimerow up North”. Time has not ex- acted a heavy toll of him. He is more rug- ged now and the massive head with its face heavy of feature seems to have grown a herculean body. After reading the outline of his speech, Mr. Pickens laid it aside and launched his attack, free of all impediments. I can see him, raised to full height, wearing a neat fitting tuxedo, as he stormed the battlements of racial discrimination, disfranchisement and jimcrowism. Demolishing with shafts the time defying citadel of racial inferiority. His sound diagnosis of present day social conditions and his exposure of the hollow mockery of all the racial bogeys made his speech one of the events of the year. The last speaker on what I have termed before as “The Modernist” Program was Dr. DuBois. Clean-cut, well groomed, he never looked the part of a swarthy French savant more than on this particular night. As usual, he was genteel, his pleasant tenor voice modulated and rhythmical, his enuncia- tion impeccable. His great store of nervous energy under complete control, vibrant with the enthusiasm of maturity, he seemed to be in the fullness of his powers. The me- phistophelian profile of other years seemed to have softened and he appeared to be stouter than before. Has he lost the old fire? I wondered. At any rate, he will have something to |
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3U THE say, I thought. And he did. I cannot suffi- ciently record my admiration of his address on “Modern Industrialism and the Negro”. Leaning on the altar his hands clasped before him, he poured forth one continuous stream of musical words, words of wisdom. Words of fatherly advice. Words of friend- ly reproof. Words of the acknowledged leader of his people, in his own field of en- deavor, who, sure of his position, his long and rigid apprenticeship served, could now look down from his pedestal of fame and smile indulgently at the carping criticism of the most bitter opponent of his policies. From the lofty heights of achievement he could see in the distance the end of the wil- derness. It was no time for bitterness. His heart was too full. Exalted by the wonders of his splendid vision, his speech flowed musically on until weighted down by the mighty volume of its truth, it was de- posited in the crucible of our racial con- sciousness, there to be assimilated and ab- sorbed into the streams of our racial life. Candidly did he tell of the strong indi- vidualistic tendencies of the American Negro. Frankly did he acknowledge the deep rooted conservatism of our group in all maters of moment except the race prob- lem. Again and again he reminded us of the futility of our trying to overleap our- selves by aping the aristocracy. He then exculpated us because of our ignorance of the fundamentals of the labor movement. In discussing our lack of knowledge of the labor movement he called attention to our lack of facilities for securing indus- trial education. Explaining the ambiguity couched in the term industrial education, he told that it prepares the so-called inferior peoples to be better servants of the “superior peoples”, but on the other hand it prepares these, the “superior peoples”, for life. Still leaning over the altar, his hands clasped before him, or, making now and then a short gesture with the left hand, he out- lined with his even voiced eloquence the plan by which THE Crisis Magazine plans to meet the growing demand for knowledge of the elements of the Labor movement—its origin, development and growth up to date—so that the Negro race in America may with equa- nimity meet the ever changing conditions in the world of labor, of which it is an integral part, and that the American Negro may build broad bases for the future of all Negro peoples. CRISIS On the Sunday afternoon’s program Mr. Johnson followed former Governor Sweet. Dressed in a neat-fitting, light gray suit—in- cidentally, both the ex-governor and Mr. White wore shades of gray also—Mr. John- son began his speech by saying: “The Negro needs power”. Mr. Johnson himself seemed to be greatly in the need of power, for fol- lowing the vigorous Rooseveltian speech of former Governor Sweet—a man with a big voice and a very forceful gesture—his seemed to be a small voice indeed. But he gained power as he spoke and his control over the audience became so strong that I could feel the tension. Something must break—I thought. And it did. Before Mr. Johnson could reach the conclusion of his statement in which he was explaining how the Negro with his numbers, wealth, religion and education could obtain more power, one aged white man in a screeching voice yelled: “How can he do it?” When Mr. Johnson reached the conclusion of his speech, his voice far from being the still small voice that it was in the beginning, was a voice of thunder. Telling of the N.A.A.C.P.’s position on the inter-marriage laws, he said that the laws which permit the inter-marriage of races are the only safeguard that the colored woman has against the passions of the white man. “Let him marry her or leave her alone”, he con- cluded. It was James Weldon Johnson, the poet, the dreamer of dreams, the man of so many and such varied experiences who, with a voice choked with emotion, attempted to re- spond to the speech made by Dr. Du Bois in presenting him the Spingarn Medal. It was a speech, made by the emotions of the man, in which the voice refused to respond. With all eyes focussed on him as he received the bit of ribbon in honor of his achieve- ments, he seemed ready to collapse. We felt all that we did not hear, for could not our race-soul grasp the moment of triumph which had come so frequently in the life of this man who himself had only a little while ago gripped our hearts and written: “Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet, Come to the place for which our fathers sighed.”
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Necro SPIRITUALS OUR BOOK SHELF W. E. B. DuBots, EMMett J. Scott, Jr., LANGSTON HUGHES +, ~ The Book of American Negro Spirituals. By James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson and Lawrence Brown, The Viking Press, New York. The Basis of Racial Adjustment. By Thomas Jackson Woofter, Jr. Ginn and Company, New York. The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer. By Halbane MacFall. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. The Sailor's Return. By David Garnett. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. R. James Weldon Johnson has ed- ited, with an introduc- tion, a book of Negro spirituals containing musical arrangements chiefly by his brother, J. Rosamond John- son, and with other arrangements by Law- rence Brown. The result is peculiarly sat- isfying. It is one thing for a race to produce artistic material; it is quite another thing for it to produce the ability to interpret and criticize this material. This is par- ‘ticularly true when the artistic gift is a matter of primitive development in the rich childhood of a people. For a long time the Negro had to depend upon white critics for the presentation of his folk songs, and while Allen and White and Krehbiel did excellent work, they lacked the inner knowl- edge and inspiration which would make their word authoritative. The authors of this book bring these essential things. Mr. Johnson’s introduction, which runs over forty large pages, is in itself a most entertaining comment on the folk song. He characterizes “this noble music”, defends the Negro as its original creator, examines the origin and “miracle” of its production. He then speaks of our late discovery cf African art in various lines both in the Motherland and in other parts of the world. He has a notable explanation of the way in which the new Christian religion came to modify African music in America and make the Negro folk song possible. The THE BooK OF AMERICAN process of folk song making is explained with interesting references to “Ma” White and “Singing” Johnson. There is a study of variations in solo and chorus singing, in the use of melody and rhythm and the curiously difficult art of rendering them, and the many methods of approach. Mr. Johnson discusses the dif- ficulty of recording these spirituals because of the “curious turns and twists and quav- ers and the intentional striking of certain notes just a shade off the key”. The rhythm of the work songs is analyzed and that too of the “shout” songs and of the dance which has so largely disappeared now from the Negro churches. There is a special attention paid to the fact that the folk songs were harmonized by the singers and not sung in unison as some have as- sumed, and Mr. Rosamond Johnson and Mr. Brown have especially brought this out in their renditions, with a great deal of care and with notable success. The poetry of the folk songs is illus- trated by many quotations, such as “De blood came twinklin’ down”, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” and others. There are several pages on Negro dialect and generous acknowledgment of the credit due those who have helped preserve the Negro spiritual. “The credit for the first introduction of spirituals to the American public and the world belongs to Fisk Uni- versity.” The book has words and music of 61 songs. “The collection here presented is not definitive but we have striven to make it representative of this whole field of music, to give examples of every variety of spiritual.” The musical setting as done in this book one - must hear to appreciate the peculiarly high and unique quality of the work. Never before have the “Spirituals” had just this sort of original and yet true musical ac- companiment. It is as though something unknown and wild and yet sensed in the song of black folk had been caught and caged forever. The book is published by the Viking Press and it is hoped that it will have wide use and vogue. W. E. B. D. 31
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32 THE CRISIS THE Basis HOMAS JACK. oF SON WOOF- TER, JR., has writ- ten and published a book called “The Basis of Racial Adjust- ment” which is far and away the best thine on the relations of the races in the South, that has come from a Southern white writer in our day. It is singularly fair and thoughtful; so eminently fair indeed, that after glancing at the first pages and noting the catholicity of treatment I was compelled to go through the rest of the book with a fine-tooth comb to find the lurk- ing surrender to Southern race hate. I did not find it. There were some few statements to which I might take exception: his treatment of the Dyer bill for instance, and possibly some parts of his chapter on the Negro in Government; but even here my criticism would be very, very slight. I know of no book by a Southern wh.te man with which I so thoroughly and hearti- ly agree. Take for instance, this state- ment: “The taxation of colared people to pay a bond issue which is spent entirely for the erection of white public schools is just as dishonest in a community as the activity of the highwayman who, with the aid of a bludgeon, converts your cash to his own uses. These are the types of ac- tion to be avoided by interracial codes.” Or this: “To assume that every member of an advantaged group is superior to ev- ery member of a disadvantaged group is a blind error, and the assumption that group differences are fixed and ineradicaole for all time is equally as mistaken.” Or again this: “If all men were exactly alike, specialization would not be so effective as it is when special abilities can be devel- oped and put to work for special ends: To argue, therefore, that the Negro and the white man are very different, is a point in favor of, rather than against, their co- operation.” And finally this: “For the white South, what is needed above all is fairness, a determination to enforce suf- frage tests equitably on white and black alike, and a resolve to break away from the one-party system and to regain preémi- nence in the national forums of political action by building a political system around the live national issues and forgetting the more or less dead issue of Negro domina- tion,” RACIAL ADJUSTMENT The book is in 12 chapters and treats Racial Coéperation, Occupations, Law and Order, Government, Education, Religion and Race Contacts. It is published by Ginn and Company. W. E. B. D. THE WOOINGS HE author, one OF judges from. the JEZEBEL PETTYFER title, intended this novel to be a chronicle of the many love affairs of Jezebel Petty- fer, a brown beauty from Barbadoes, who flits across the scene of action several times. Irstead he has given us the story of Jehu Sennacherib Dyle, private in Her Brittanic Majesty’s West India Regiment of Foot, stationed at Jamaica. This book was first published in 1897. A well-known critic, in hailing its reap- pearance, extravagantly describes it as probably the best novel yet written about the Negro. To the casual reader, this ex- cellence seems well hidden. MacFall appears to be a sort of British Octavius Roy Cohen. He comes about as near to reproducing the real Negro in print as Al Jolson does upon the stage. The tone of the whole novel is one of sustained con- tempt, almost hatred, for Negroes. At the start he essays to strike a note of humor. One passage has Dyle relating to the judge’s wife how her favorite dog Aris- | totle, called “Harry Stottles” by Dyle, was overcome by death. He tells her, “a spasm tremmled all along his limbs, den he opened his eye—shut his eye—gathered up his be- hime legs—and gived up de ghost”. The dog is buried in the garden by Dyle as the judge’s wife sheds tears over his grave. The same night Dyle is discharged as a result of her coming upon him in the kitchen after he has cut up the dog with a bread knife, wiped the implement on his trousers, put it back on the clean bread platter, and has begun to melt the fatty portions to get the black-dog grease which will drive away his sweetheart’s rheuma- tism. About midway through the book, Mac- Fall abandons such labored attempts at humor, puts aside all sympathy for his characters, and begins to show himself a genuine Negro-hater. From this point on all Negro women are “slipshod Negresses”’, or “slattern gossips”, or something equally as offensive. Negro men are ape-like.
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NOVEMBER, 1925 33 They do not think—ideas “penetrate their wool”, Again and again he speaks of the “odor of Negroes”, or “the smell of Afri- ca”. All this is a pity—MacFall displays flashes of ability. He suggests in the pas- sage which describes the lamentation of a girl over her paramour, a_ saloon-keeper slain by an English sailor, what he might do if he could regard Negroes as human. In another place he gives a touching ac- count of Dyle’s last boyish words with his mother. She is about to leave the child forever, and he, sensing this, pleads with her to promise him “before God” that she will return by dark. But such passages are rare. The author, moulded years ago in the school of Kemble and Thomas Nelson Page, sees Negroes only as a strange class of creatures, aping the actions of white people. A book less appealing to a colored man would be hard to find. EMMETT J. Scott, JR. . , HE Sailor’s Return, oS by David Garnett, is RETURN a quiet story about two simple souls, Tulip and William, the first a little African girl and the latter a Brit- ish sailor man, who attempted to live a peaceful married life in the tiny English village of Maiden Newbarrow toward the middle of the last century. That Tulip happened to be an African princess did not make her at all pretentious or over- bearing in her manners. And that Wil- liam had been in many ports and had known many women did not make him less kind to his dark Tulip. They would have been very happy with their inn bought with Tulip’s money, and their baby Sambo to look after, had it not been for their pro- vincial neighbors who did not understand them and so, for that reason, did not like them. Their trials and difficulties wit! William’s relatives, the parson, and the folks of the country-side make up the story. The tale is told in simple fashion with- out any literary flourishes or attempts at fine writing, but the lovable character of Tulip and the manliness of William are beautifully brought out. After the death of her husband through foul play, Tulip sacrificed her last shilling that her litile son might go back to Africa where her peo- ple were still rulers, and at the ship’s side she took farewell of her child. “And al! little Sambo thought of was to see the sail- ors dancing on the deck, for he did not know that he was to lose his mother.” And then she went back to Maiden Newbarrow to become a servant at the very inn in which she had been mistress. The book is an excellent bit of narrative prose beautifully bound and a delight to see as well as to read. LANGSTON HUGHES. ‘HIGH YALLER”’ A Story Us RUDOLPH FISHER This story won the first prize of $100 for fiction in the Amy Spingarn Prize Contest for 1925. The story is in five parts. Parts one and two appeared in the October Crisis. Send for a copy if you have not read them. The story concludes in this issue. IIT. A young man leaned nonchalantly on the high foot of Jay’s wooden bed, grinning goodnaturedly at him; a young man who looked exactly like Jay, feature for fea- ture, with one important exception: his skin was white. “Who in hell are you?” asked Jay. “What you would be if you could,” came the prompt, pleasant response. “Liar.” “Straight stuff, brother. Think of the heights you might rise to if you were I.” “Hell!” grunted Jay. “Eventually, of course. But I mean meanwhile. Why, now you’d be in a big firm downtown, on your way to wealth. Or you might be a practicing physician— your old man could have kept you out of the draft.” “Oh, well, I’m not doing so worse.” “No, nor so better. And then there’s Evelyn.” |
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34 THE “What about Evelyn? Why, I wouldn’t even know her.” “You’d know somebody like her. Don’t kid yourself, boy. You like ’em pink. Re- member Paris?” “You lie like a bookmaker. I like ’em intelligent. If they happen to be bright on the outside, too, why of course, I don’t bar ’em.” “No—of course not.” The sarcastic caller paused a thoughtful moment. “I’ve got a jawful of advice for you, old-timer.” “Swallow it and choke.” “Now listen. Don’t you get to liking Evelyn, see. She’s too damned white.” “What of it?” “Be yourself, son. You ask me that, after these last two weeks?” Jay reached up and wiped a mosquito from his forehead and smacked at another singing into his ear. They irritated him. “T’ll like whoever I damn please!” he flared. “Don’t get high, now,” soothed the other. “I’m only warning you. Pull up on the emergency before something hits you. That girl’s too fair for comfort.” “But I like her.” The other disregarded this. “You’re too dark, buddy. You’re ultra-violet anyhow, alone. Beside her you become absolute black—invisible. The lady couldn’t see you with an arc-lamp.” “Shucks! Evelyn doesn’t care.” “You’re wrong there. She does. She can’t help it. But she doesn’t want to, so she tries hard to make herself believe she doesn’t. She takes up with you, tells her- self how much she likes you, invites all sorts of embarrassments upon both of you. She might even marry you. It’s like taking bad inedicine she thinks she’s got to take and telling herself it’s sweet. She figures it’s better to gulp it down than to sip it, and it’s better to say it’s sweet than to make faces.” “Well, maybe. But I’m just conceited enough to think she likes me.” “Of course she does. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about your color. Tf you were I, now, she’d jump at you.” “Humph! I don’t see her jumping at MacLoed.” “Mac isn’t either of us, buddy. He hasn’t got a thing but his looks, and Evelyn’s too wise to fall for that alone.” “There are others.” CRISIS “None who can make her forget what she’s trying to do. She thinks it’s a sort of duty to be colored, so she’s going to make a thorough job of it—do it up brown, you might say. See? The only man that could unscramble her would be a real white man. She’s not going to compromise.” “You’re too deep for me. But I don’t believe she cares about the color of a fel- low’s skin.” “You don’t? anyhow.” “How come?” “To save her feelings. Every time you two go out together you’re in torture. Ev- erybody stares at you—jigs and ofays both. You’ve tried it now for two weeks. What’s Well, stay away from her happened? The first night you went to Coney Island and nearly got yourself mobbed. A couple of days later you went into an ice-cream parlor on One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street, a place where Evelyn goes anytime she likes, and the pro- prietor had the nerve to tell you your pres- ence hurt his business. Then how about that crowd of jigs on the subway? And last night, when you wanted to get up and punch that shine waiter in the ear because he gave Evelyn the once over and then rolled his eyes at you behind her back, as much as to say, ‘Oh, boy! How I envy you!’ —and she looking at him all the time in the mirror! Tonight caps it all. You go out to enjoy yourself in a ‘colored’ place, and get jim-crowed by a man of your own color who’s afraid to let the two of you be seen. Do you think Evelyn enjoys a string of things like that?” “She enjoys ’em as much as I do.” “But it isn’t the same. When people look at you, it’s just with surprise. All their look says is, ‘Wonder what that nigger is doing with a white woman?’ But when they look at her, it’s with contempt. They say, ‘Humph! What a cheap drab she must be to tag around with a nigger!’ No mat- ter whether it’s true or not. Do you sup- pose she enjoys being looked at like that?” Jay was silent. Sounds came from the street below into his open window; an empty Coney Island bus, rumbling, clattering, shrieking, eager to get in before daybreak; gay singing of a joy-riding chorus, swell- ing, consummating, dying away; the night- clear whistle of a lone, late straggler—_ “Yaller Gal’s Gone Out o’ Style”.
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“What do you expect me to do about it?” he finally asked. “Ease out. See less and less of her. When you breeze away for your vacation, forget to write.” “Simple, ain’t it?” “Quite.” The devil “And now that that’s settled, suppose you go to sleep a while.” / “Suppose you go to hell,” suggested Jay glumly. “With pleasure. See you again.” Jay closed his smarting eyes. His caller departed into the clothespress or the hall or up the airshaft, he wasn’t sure where; he knew only that when again he looked about, he was alone. straightened up. NOVEMBER, 1925 35 “IT think too much of you, dear. And you’re thinking too much of Jay. Surely the last two weeks have shown you how impossible that is.” “Two weeks isn’t a long enough test.” “Quite long enough. The only place you and Jay could be happy together would be on a desert island that nobody could find. You can’t go to a single place together without sooner or later wishing the ground would swallow you.” “Oh, I’d get hardened to it.” “Would that be happiness? And even if you did, he wouldn’t. You don’t think he enjoys all this, do you?” “No, I suppose not.” “No. And don’t think he’s dumb enough to put himself into it for life, either.” “I WISH YOU'D LET ME ALONE.” Evelyn Brown, too, lay in bed, debating with a_ visitor—a sophisticated young woman who sat familiarly on the edge of the counterpane and hugged her knees as she talked, and who might have been Evelyn over again, save for a certain bear- ing of self-assurance which the latter en- tirely lacked. “Well, you’ve tried it,” said this visitor. “See what a mess you’ve made of it.” “I wish you’d let me alone.” “He cares enough to, I think.” “Then you’ve got to care enough not to let him,” “How?” “Drop him.” can’t.” “You must. Don’t you see now why you lily-whites seek each other? It’s self-pro- tection. Whether you do it consciously or not, you’re really trying to prevent painful embarrassment.” | dh \ A)
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36 THE “But I can’t just shut myself away from everyone who happens to be a little darker than I am. If I did it before I didn’t real- ize it, and I wasn’t to blame. But if I do it now, intentionally, I’m just drawing the color-line, and that wouldn’t be right. What can I do?” Her visitor smiled. “Do? Get out. Pass. What else?” “That’s impossible. There’s mother. Wherever I’d go I’d have to take her, and she couldn’t pass for anything but Ameri- can Negro—” Her protest was drowned in her visit- or’s laughter. It was harsh, strident laugh- ter, like the suddenly stifled outburst she’d heard at Hank’s that night. It was long, loud laughter that left the visitor breath- less, panting pitiably. Of a sudden Evelyn sat upright, fearfully aware that the laughter of her dream had merged into something real and close. She listened a moment. It was her mother in the next room. Asthma again. She met both the women lodgers in the hall, frightened, helpless. “Did you hear her?” Shortly Evelyn hurried from her mother’s room, leaving the two women with her. She slipt on as little as she dared and sped out to get a physician. A half hour passed before she returned with one. She noted a bright light in the front room and hastened to it, thinking the two women had taken her mother there for air; but she found only the two of them, huddled together on the sofa, shivering in their bathrobes, with something close to panic in their eyes. . IV Jimmy MacLoed, red-eyed, stretchy, dis- consolate, and broke, all the event of a pro- longed and fatal night of stud-poker, got up at noon-time, dressed, and strolled lan- guidly into the street, wondering from whom he could bum four bits for break- fast. At the corner of One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Street and the Avenue he en- countered Jay Martin, hurrying to lunch. This was luck, for Jay always had bucks. “See me go for breakfast?” he asked. “No,” grinred Jay, “but I’ll add it to the five I’m by you already.” Dick’s lunchroom seemed to have been designed so that the two waitresses could CRISIS serve everybody without moving from where they stood. You could pass from the little front door to your stool before the counter without colliding with someone only when there was no one else there Many a patron had unexpectedly thrust his knife further into his mouth than he in- tended because some damn fool, rushing out, squeezed between him and the wall. But one of the waitresses was pretty; and the ham with your eggs was cut thick, not shaved; and the French fried potatoes were really French fried, not boiled ones warmed over in grease. Jay and MacLoed considered themselves lucky to find two of the dozen stools still unoccupied. They gave their orders and rested their elbows on the counter while the waitress that wasn’t pretty threw down some pewter implements before them. “Too bad about Evelyn’s old lady, huh?” said MacLoed. Jay became grave. elyn,.” “Evelyn? Wha’ d’ y’ mean?” “Nobody’s seen her since the funeral.” “No? Only three days. Maybe she’s gone off for a rest.” “Didn’t leave any notice at the office.” “Think she went dippy and jumped in the river or somethin’?” “No. But I think she’s jumped out of Harlem.” “You mean—passin’?” “IT don’t know. The last time I saw her she was sick enough to do anything. Those two women roomers wouldn’t stay in the house another night. None of her friends would either, even after her mother was safe in the undertaker’s. She had three rotten days of it, except when my mother was there. Nobody much went to the fune- ral. I sent the only flowers. Next day, my mother went around to see how she was making out and found nobody home.—There hasn’t been, since.” “Didn’t leave word with nobody, huh?” “Nope.” funny. “Nope.” “Hm! right.” “Passing?” “Yea.” Mac contemplated the ham and eggs that the homely waitress had just slid between his elbows. “Don’t blame her. I'd . “Too bad about Ev- ’D she have any relations?” Then that’s what she’s doin’ all
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NOVEMBER, 1925 | 37 do the same thing if I didn’t have so damn much brownskin family.” “Why?” “Why?—Why not? Wouldn’t you?” “Be white if I could?” Jay paid the wait- ress. “I don’t know.” “The hell you don’t. What would you be afraid of? Meetin’ somebody? Hell! Don’t see ’em. If they jump you, freeze ‘’eom.—But you’d never meet anybody you knew. S’posin’ you looked white and didn’t have anything to stop you, what would be the hold-back?” Jay chewed a minute thoughtfully. Then he looked at MacLoed as if wonderinz whether he was worth a reply. Finally he answered : “Kids.” “Kids?” Mac ingested this with two pieces of the real French fried potatoes well swabbed in ham gravy. “You mean you might get married and have a little pickaninny to account for, huh? Well, you could get out o’ that all right. Just tell her she’d been runnin’ around with a nigger and quit.” Jay knew MacLoed too well to be shocked: “You might not want to quit,” he said. “You might like her. Or you might have a conscience.” “Humph! stuff, buddy.” “And even if your scheme worked with a man who was passing, it wouldn’t with a woman. She couldn’t tell her white hus- band he’d been running around with a co!- ored girl. That wouldn’t explain the pick- aninny.” “No.—The woman catches hell both ways, don’t she?” “It’s a damned shame.” Jay was speak- ing rather to himself than to MacLoed. “I know. I took her—places. That girl was white—as white as @nybody could be. Lord only knows what she’ll be now.” Three or four men had come in, standing in what little space they could find and read- ing the menu signs while they awaited seats. No one paid any particular atten- tion to one of these who was “ofay”. White patrons were not infrequent in Dick’s. This one had moved close enough to Jay to hear his last statement. He touched him on the Shoulder. As Jay turned the white man drew aside his coat, and Jay glimpsed a badge. When the officer motioned him to Conscience and kids. Old step outside, there was nothing else to do, and with an “Excuse me a minute, Mac—be right back,” he preceded the other to the sidewalk. Outside, Jay asked, “What’s the-idea?” “Didn’t want to start a row in that dump. Somebody might ’a had a gun.” “What’s the idea?” “Let’s walk down this way.” Jay knew better than to refuse, though “this way” led toward the police station. “So you think it’s a damned shame, do you? Well, I think it’s a damned shame, too.” } “What the devil are you talking about?” “Come down out o’ that tree, son. I’m talking about you and the white girl you picked up at Manhattan Casino a while back. You y’self said just now she’s white. That about settles it.” “White? Why, I only meant——” “IT heard you. You said ‘white’. White’s white, ain’t it?” Presently: “‘What’s the charge?” “Don’t play dumb, bud. There’s been too damn much of this thing goin’ on here. We're goin’ to stop it.” Suddenly Jay Martin laughed. The two walked on in silence. Ve From a point in the wide, deep balcony’s cimness, Jay followed tthe quick-shifting scenes; not those on the screen at which he stared, but others, flashing out from his mind. Coney Island. He and Evelyn arm in arm, inconsequent, hilarious, eating sticky popcorn out of the same bag, dipping in at the same time, gaily disputing the last piece. Their laughter suddenly chilled by an in- tentionally audible remark: “Look at that white girl with a nigger.” A half-dozen lowering rowdies. Evelyn urging him away. People staring. An ice-cream parlor. A rackety mechani- cal piano, tables with white tops and dap- pled wire legs; outside One Hundred ‘and Twenty-fifth Street traffic shadowing past; Evelyn and he, wilted with the heat, wait- ing a couple of eternities.for a waitress; he finally looking about impatiently, beck- oning to one, who leers through him. The proprietor. “Of course we don’t mind serv- ing the lady, sir; but while we can’t actually refuse, why—er—frankly your presence is unprofitable to us, sir.” People staring.
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38 THE The subway. He and Evelyn in a corner of the car. Above the rattle and bump of doors and clang of signal-gong, wild laugh- ter, coarse, loud. Different. Negro laugh- ter. Headlong into the car, stumbling over one another, a group of hilarious young colored people. Men contesting seats with women, and winning; women flouncing defi- antly down on the men’s knees. Conscious of the attention attracted by their loudness; pleased with it. Train starting, accelerat- ing. Train-din rising. Negre@noise rising through and above it, like sharp pain through and above dull ache. “Oh, you high yaller!” Evelyn ashamed. People staring. Finally a back room in the police station. Two or three red-faced ruffians in brass-but- toned uniforms, sneering, menacing, quite like those Coney Island rowdies. Himself, outraged, at bay, demanding to know on just what score he was there. Surly accu- sation, hot denial, scalding epithet—fiame. A blow. Swift, violent struggle. “Now mebbe y’ll leave white women alone!” Emp- tiness. After a time release; release raw with bodily anguish, raw with the recur- rent sting of that cover-all charge of police- men, “resisting an officer’. What an enormity, blackness! From the demons and ogres and ravens of fairy tales on; storm-clouds, eclipses, night, the valley of the shadow, gloom, hell. White, the standard of goodness and perfection. Christ himself, white. All the angels. Imagine a black angel! A black angel with a flat nose and thick lips, laughing loudly. The devil! Standards, of course; but beneath the stand- ards, what? An instinctive shrinking from the dark? He’d seen a little white child run CRISIS in terror from his father once, the first black man the child had ever seen. Instinc- tive? He looked about. All this balcony full of fellow creatures instinctively shrink- ing from him No help for it? Awful idea. Unbearable. A general murmur of amusement refo- cussed his attention for a moment on the screen. Two chubby infants sat side by side on a doorstep; the one shiny black, with a head full of kinks and eyes of twinkling midnight; the other white, with eyes of gray and the noonday sun in its hair; both dimpled and grinning and happy. Kids. Old stuff, buddy. Evelyn—would she dare? The thoughts that gathered and throbbed like an abscess were suddenly incised. Off to one side, a row or two ahead, he had caught sight of an oddly familiar face. The dimness seemed to lift mockingly, so that he should have no doubt. Evelyn, like an answer. Different, but—Evelyn. The atti- tude of the young man beside her was that of an escort, and something in his profile, in the fairness of his hair and skin, dis- cernible even through the dusk, marked him to the staring Jay as unmistakably white. Watching with quickened pulse Jay saw the young man’s hand move forward over Ev- elyn’s arm, lying on the elbow-rest between them; move forward till it reached her own hand, which turned palm-upward to clasp it. Saw one white hand close firmly over the other. He rose abruptly and made his way past stubborn knees to the aisle. The orchestra struck up a popular bit of Negro jazz. It fell on his ears like a guffaw: the familiar refrain of “Yaller Gal’s Gone Out o’ Style”. Zhe Looking Glass LITERATURE "THEN to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and "tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, while his Lord is crucified. —James Russell Lowell in “The Present Crisis”. * René Maran writes with regard to the Spingarn Contest: “It was very hard for me to make a choice among the stories which you were kind enough to submit for - my examination,—an honor, by the way,
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which I greatly appreciate. It seemed to me that they were all more or less valuable. However, upon reflection, I decided to clas- sify them as follows: first, ‘High Yaller’; second, ‘There Never Fell a Night Se Dark’; third, ‘Three Dogs and a Rabbit’. In my opinion ‘High Yaller’ has one great defect. It is too long. But this length has its compensation in the numerous qualities both of w@iting and of style and more es- pecially in the sorrowful humanness of the subject which it treats.” * * Joel E. Spingarn, whose wife, Amy Spingarn, was the donor of the Spingarn literary prizes, sends a generous note: I am tremendously disappointed that I cannot attend the celebration tonight, and it will be no less a disappointment to Mrs. Spingarn when she learns that the distri- bution of her prizes has taken place during her absence in Europe. I think she would be a little comforted if you made clear to her friends that she is not responsible for attaching her own name to what really are the Crisis Prizes for Negro Literature and Art. But whatever their name, may they serve the purpose for which they were in- tended—to help bring to light the infinite riches that lie hidden in the soul of a gifted race. * The power of the press is certainly most strikingly vouchsafed for by this word from Rothschild Francis speaking for the stricken people of the Virgin Islands: We read with great interest your Edi- torial in THe Crisis for August dealing with the Virgin Islands. It has a true ring, and explains conditions as they are out here. On Thursday night nearly two thousand natives gathered at Market Square to hear it read. The American Civil Liberties Union since 1920 has endeavored to place our deplorable conditions before the Amer- ican people. To you and this Union we owe MUCH + * + Articles on the Negro in current litera- ture: Christianity and Native Labor,—Dr. Norman Leys,—The Brotherhood World, July 1925. Progress in Negro Public Schools in the South,—-School and Society,—July 1925. A Southern Boyhood,—Benjamin Braw- ley,—Southern Quarterly, July 1925. Ketchin’ Babies,—S. McCoy,—ZIllustrated Survey, August 1, 1925. Negro Colleges,—School and Society,— August 8, 1925. How Chambers of Congress Can Help Solve the Negro Problem,—L. M. Favrot,— NOVEMBER, 1925 39 American City, August 1925. Porgy,—Du Bose Heyward,—Bookman, September 1925. White Australian Policy,—“Sydney”,— Foreign Affairs, October 1925. The Color Line,—Melville J. Herskovits, —American Mercury, October 1925. SOMETHING ELSE ON THE STAGE HE semper quid novi, the “always something new” which the public con- stantly awaits might really be achieved were theatrical managers to follow Carl Van Vechten’s prescription in the October Vanity Fair for the Negro Theatre: Awaiting the appearance of a dusky Charlot or a chocolate Ziegfeld, permit me to offer a few hints to prospective purvey- ors of Negro revues. First and last: ad- vertise for a dark chorus. I don’t think it will be necessary to look for “chocolate to the bone” cuties. Indeed, a fascinating ef- fect might be achieved by engaging a rain- bow chorus: six black girls, six “seal- browns”, six “high yellas”, and six pale creams. With the proper costumes, and a director capable of contriving appropriate evolutions and groupings, it is impossible to set a limit to what might be done with this human palette of color. In case, for some reason, this scheme is found imprac- ticable, as many dark girls as possible should be engaged. There are certainly many Negroes who prefer dark girls; white people who go to Negro shows expect to see them and are _ disap- pointed when they don’t. Seek beauties who can dance and sing, and see that the lightest is about the shade of strong coffee before the cream is poured in, and I guar- antee that your show will be a success even if you throw in all the old stuff, the ceme- tery scene with the ghost, the moon song, rendered by the tenor who doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and the I want to be in Dixie, or the Mammy, or the cotton- bale song. It might be well, however, to eliminate these stale features also, together with the repulsive liver-lips and cork com- plexions of the comedians. I believe, if I were a Negro and it were my profession to make people laugh, that I could parade my material as successfully without these childish adjuncts as with them. At any rate it would be a welcome relief to see somebody make the attempt. THE INFLUENCE OF AFRICAN ART HE Museum of Natural History in New York offers vast possibilities for students comparing varying national con- tributions to the world of art. H. E.
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40 THE Schnakenberg comments especially in The Arts on the influence of African sculpture: Among the many influences which have had a bearing on the inspiration of much modern art, African Negro sculpture has played an extremely important part. Tak- ing the work of Picasso, Matisse and Der- ain, we find many a canvas where the painter has obviously learned much from the simple, swelling surface of a Congo mask or figure. In the African Hall of the Museum we unfortunately have not the same opportunity of studying Negro sculp- ture at its highest development that is of- fered by the great collections of the British Museum and the Trocadero. The African Negroes were a race whose art expression had but little growth; it is practically impossible to affix dates to their images and masks, because the same forms continued with but slight variations through the course of centuries. So that while the examples shown here, which are mostly of fairly modern workmanship, may lack the pure inspiration of the earlier work and of that beauty of surface that only time can give, they have much of the formal sig- nificance of the older and greater carvings. There are masks from the Congo, bronze castings and ivories from Benin, wooden headrests with figures of women and of animals, and carvings from the Kasai dis- trict. WHAT PRICE BLACK MAGIC? M OST of us think of the word magic in connection with the word super- stition. Yet for years there has been proof of the existence among untutored peoples of a power not explainable by occidental, or at any rate, by white science and learn- ing. Such a power, says John W. Van- dercook, inexplicible, inevitable, sure, is to be found among the Bush Negroes who live in the jungles of Suriname, a Dutch colony on the north shore of South America. Mr. Vandercook writing in Harper’s tells us: Our science in the north has made us masters of our world. But it is worthless in the forests around the belt of the globe. The jungle does not want it. Build a fine road in the forest—but do not leave it. When you return you will find only the unhindered monotony of the trees. Their life will have sprung with double strength from the decay of your work. That is the forest way. It is always destroying that it may live. For all your tools and your crafts and your learning it cares not at all. The jungle has been master for ten thou- sand unchecked years. White men from the top of the world will never defeat that mastery. But there are a people in Suriname who know the jungle and survive there. They are the Bush Negroes, descendants of re- CRISIS bellious African slaves who many years ago went back into the bush and there, in an environment much like their ancestors had left behind, recreated the strange crafts of survival in the forest. The almost for- gotten gods came back. The wise men found their old lost wisdom. Magic be- came real again. Magic is the great reality of, the jungie. We northern races, when we think of mazic, see a vaudeville performer with a pack of marked cards. Magic is trickery, sleight of hand, legerdemain. It is _ serio-comic foolery. Magic to us is the thinnest stuff in the world—the semblance of empty il- lusion. We must forget all that in the tropic forests. There magic is the vital craft of survival. In a land where a locomotive turns to dust, where all the science of Eu- rope is empty and will avail nothing against the powers of the jungle, magic, developed through a thousand, thousand years has taught the Negro how to live, how to meet the terrors of the manifold deaths that lurk always amid the immut- able silence of the trees. It is the most serious, most important thing in the black man’s world. It is never stained with trickery. There is no place for the char'a- tan of skilled fingers and the patter of the stage. Jungle magic is never for effect. It is purposeful, studied. When famines, pesti- lences, and evils come upon the forest peo- ple, it is magic that wards them off. It deals with things—with medicines, potions, and ideas—which, in the forest, are mote real than steel and far more dangerous. Magic saves. Then it is white. Magic kills. Then it is black. It .is the science of the jungle. The Bush Negro witch doctor is the jun- gle scientist. His craft deals with mate- rials, with causes and effects. Witchcraft is not priestcraft. It is never religious. It takes two ways—the way of Obeah, or white, good magic, and the wissi, or Voo- doo way, the black way. MOB-LAW HE Virginia Pilot of Norfolk, Virginia, has this portrait of a mob: In Asheville, North Carolina, last week, a mob stormed the jail in which a Negro accused of criminai assault was supposed to be confined. A prudent sheriff had re- - moved the man, and the mob did no more than liberate some other prisoners. Inci- dentally, reputable white men have now come forward to testify that the Negro was actually at work under their own eyes two miles from the scene of the crime at the moment of its perpetration. The prudence of the sheriff saved the State of North Carolina from the disgrace of murdering an innocent man under the guise of wreak- ing merited vengeance on a criminal. | But the Asheville jail officials did more
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than save an innocent man’s life. They have issued an interesting description of the mob. They say that it was obviously inflamed with whisky, and that among its members they recognized several individu- als who had lately enjoyed the hospitality of the county in the very institution that they were attacking. In other words, the impetuous, chivalric gentlemen engaged in defending the honor of Southern woman- hood are eeety identified as a gang of drunken jailbirds. This bucketful of icy truth dashed in the face of a public intoxicated by false tra- dition is more sobering than many prosecu- tions. The Asheville mob undoubtedly was pretty much like all other lynching mobs. Drunks and jailbirds—shallow-pates and thin-wits—there is the type of citizenship that does our lynching for us. The sooner we quit sentimentalizing mobs and see them for what they are, minions of the devil out to serve their master, the sooner we shall proceed to put them where they belong. One of the most horrible of the lynchings that have taken place in America is the one which recently occurred in Mississippi. J. L. Roulhac, a staff correspondent, writes about it in the Memphis News Scimitar: * * * I watched a Negro burned at the stake at Rocky Ford, Miss., Sunday afternoon. I watched an angry mob chain him to an iron stake. I watched them pile wood around his helpless body. I watched them pour gasoline on this wood. And I watched three men set this wood on fire. I stood in a crowd of 600 people as the THE NOVEMBER, 1925 41 flames gradually crept nearer and nearer to the helpless Negro. I watched the blaze climb higher and higher, encircling him without mercy. I heard his cry of agony as the flames reached him and set his cloth- ing on fire. “Oh, God; Oh, God!” he shouted. “I didn’t do it. Have mercy!” The blaze leaped higher. The Negro struggled. He kicked the chain loose from his ankles but it held his waist and neck against the iron post that was becoming red with the in- tense heat. “Have mercy, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do Soon he became quiet. There was no doubt that he was dead. The flames jumped and leaped above his head. An odor of burning flesh reached my nostrils. I felt suddenly sickened. Through the leap- ing blaze I could see the Negro sagging and supported by the chains. The setting was a little sawmill. The. crowd stood on a huge pile of sawdust and the Negro’s death pyre was in a small gul- ley beside it. They calmly watched the flames leap and dance. There was no talk- ing now, everything was silent. When the first odor of the baking flesh reached the mob there was a slight stir. Several men moved nervously. “Let’s finish it up,” someone said. Instantly about 12 men stepped from the crowd. They piled wood on the fire that was already blazing high. The Negro was dead, but more wood was piled on the flames. They jumped higher and higher. Nothing could be seen now for the blaze encircled everything. Then the crowd walked away. In the vanguard of the mob I noticed a woman. “ANGRY” MOB > | F [Pa | | —
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42 THE CRISIS She seemed to be rather young, yet it is hard to tell about women of her type; strong and healthy, apparently a woman of the country. She walked with a firm even stride. She was beautiful, in a way. The crowd walked slowly away. “I’m hungry”, someone complained. “Let’s get something to eat.” * * * The Jackson, adds this: For the first time in the history of this state, so far as known, a mob member has publicly admitted his guilt, and issued a statement concerning the affair. William N. Bradshaw, of Union county, admits he was a member of the mob that searched for the guilty Negro, and declares that “Gov. Whitfield won’t have a lick of luck with any investigation of the burning of Jim Ivy.” “And furthermore,” he continued, “not an officer in Union county or any of the neighbor counties will point out any mem- ber of the crowd. Why, if he did, the best thing for him to do would be to jump into an airplane headed for Germany—quick. “Sure, the officers know who were there. Everybody down there knows everything else. We're all neighbors and neighbors’ “But investigation? Shucks, there won’t be any—or if there is, it won’t amount to anything. No officer down there is going to dare try to identify anyone, because no- body’s mad about it. Even one of the judges down there said he ‘didn’t believe in Mississippi, Daily News a “HAVE MERCY! I DIDN’T DO IT!” mob law except in a few cases, and this was one of them,’ and that ‘he’d have gone to the burning if it hadn’t been bad policy.’ They’d be plenty mad, though, if anyone were arrested, and there’d be a million dol- lars ready in five minutes to go his bond.” A coroner’s jury which investigated the lynching returned a verdict that Ivy came to his death “at the hands of a mob, the members of which are unknown.” Finally we append a note from Still- water, Minnesota, dated September third: Max Mason, one of the nine Negroes charged with raping a white girl on the cir- cus grounds at Duluth, Minn., June 15, 1920, and the only one to be convicted upon trial after three of them had been lynched, was released from Stillwater prison upon condi- tional discharge today. One of the Justic*s of the Supreme Court of Minnesota in a dissenting opinion said, “In my view the evidence does not sustain the conviction”. It is the general opinion that Mason was not guilty and that the girl’s story of be- ing criminally assaulted by six men was manufactured for the purpose of conceal- ing some other transgression upon her part. One of the jurors is reported to have said that while he voted to convict Mason he did not believe he was guilty, but he did believe Mason had some knowledge about the matter that he did not tell. Mason spent the afternoon with attorney W. T. Francis, in St. Paul, who had been working to secure his release for the past two years. q 4 we > = i