"The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude."

America of 1914 was prone to look upon this part of the Constitution as a mere scrap of paper. From what point of vantage might the Negro hope for Honor, Recognition and Equality at the hands of the allied governments?

Land of the free and home of the brave, America is assumed to be so openhearted, munificent and princely, so liberal and so generous that could she but behold a man, of whatever hue, trampled in the mire, or hear his piteous cry, she would hasten to his aid and deliver him. So much does she admire genuine human worth that a man of heart and spirit and fortitude cannot perish while she is nigh at hand. Such, at least, is the assumption.

From the debasement of industrial serfdom, the black workman wished the American people of 1914 to stop the trend of their strenuous existence and behold him ... and test him ... and proclaim him. He not only wished to be given a free field and a fair chance to work at the same job, for the same wage, during the same hours, and under the same conditions as the white workman, but he was ready to contend for all of the industrial privileges.

The black man of business not only wished to enter into business competition with members of the Caucasian race under the same conditions as customarily pertain to such arrangements, but he was eagerly hoping to insure adjustment of this situation. The black social outcast wished "jim-crow" railway accommodations and signs proclaiming inequality of race to disappear. He wished sufficient education to enable him to develop his own society. He, too, was willing for a world war, for he had come to the point where he desired immediate and explosive change. Looked down upon because of his despised blood, the black American wished to elevate the status of his womankind, too long disproved and betrayed, to the level of free and brave womanhood of all the civilized world. Concerning this situation he was grim. It required but a spark applied here to explode with terrific outburst the sinister silence of the volcano.

But in India, in South Africa, in Nigeria, and in all countries where English rule held sway, England was committed to the policy of the white overseer or foreman for the black exponent of industry. Nor could she, save through war, adopt a policy of employing either Indians or Africans at the same job and for the same wage as that received by members of the British Labor Party. On the other hand, France, whose political life was convulsed from 1894 to 1899 by principles of racial prejudice exhibited in the Dreyfus case, offered every form of equality to the darker races under her dominion. However, such equality offered by France was not equal in the sum total of advantage to the partial equality which the Negro received in America. The French workman gave more hours of toil for less monetary reward. The Negro wanted to bring the French principle of equality to apply in American industry. But the British in 1914 could not agree to industrial equality for black men. Such agreement would upset the nicely calculated economic adjustments of the English system. America would take no step until forced to do so.

It was the problem of the Negro, alone and single-handed, to grasp the opportunity afforded by world war to bring America to this point of recognition and democratic equality. The Negro, hitherto regarded as the monkey-man, the baby race, the black brute, trained by such ruthless propaganda to disrespect himself, hesitated.

There was no leadership. No ringleader arrayed the mob. No chief appeared. No captain called the hosts. No generalissimo marshalled the black phalanx. No statesman sought entanglement in the meshes of the negro labyrinth. But the Negro proposition for a test of Negro fitness, like Topsy, "just growed." The young Negro possessed the clear eye to see the situation. College trained, his vision was not blinded by proximity to issues of the Civil War, nor by financial dependence, nor by excessive spirituality. The elder Negro possessed the oratorical and linguistic powers to state the case. Also college trained, of long experience, possessing a widespread oratorical clientele, he spoke with a voice that stirred and played upon the heartstrings of all America. Never was such a proposition advanced where men, old and young, despised and rejected, penniless and without credit, without acclaimed leadership or champion, sought position of honor and recognition and equality beside the best fighting forces of the world to help defeat the greatest military machine that hell had ever invented.

Capital and labor, in previous years, had found the Negro wanting. State governments had utilized him for the purpose of increasing taxes and court fees. The national government always handled him in accordance with political expediency, despite his unswerving loyalty. Capital, labor, State government and national government had brought the Negro so low that he was ready in 1914 for any form of relief.

The Negro was ready for change, for one reason, because he had lost the honor of ministership to Haiti, Henry W. Furniss being succeeded by a white man. He was ready for change because, as the continental war proceeded, it became evident that though America might participate, her black colonel, Charles Denton Young, a graduate of West Point, and a distinguished soldier, might receive recognition as the leader of black forces on foreign soil. He was ready for change because it appeared that there had been agreement that no American Negro should participate in a test of world equality upon the field of world honor and renown.

In the American Navy Department, in 1914, time had destroyed the wake of Negro tradition, and the log had been deleted. The Negro has rendered honorable service in the navy. He was with Perry on Lake Erie. During the Civil War, Robert Smalls, a Negro, single-handed, stole the Union cruiser "Planter" from Charleston harbor and brought her into a Union port. Half the men who accompanied Hobson into Santiago harbor were Negroes. Matt Henson was the only man with Peary at the Pole. John Jordan fired the first shot from Dewey's flagship "Olympia," opening the battle of Manila. The Negro wanted change because in 1914 the naval administration reluctantly offered Negroes positions as messmen and cooks. No seamen, no members of the merchant marine, no petty officers, no lieutenants, might apply.

In the American Treasury Department, an ex-Senator of the United States, a colored man, Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, was honored by having created for him the office of register of the treasury. Subsequently the honor was conferred as a political favor upon Judson W. Lyons, of Georgia; William T. Vernon, of Kansas, and J.C. Napier, of Tennessee. The democratic executive was good enough to offer this position, created as a direct result of the Negro's activities during and after the Civil War, to Adam E. Patterson, of Oklahoma. But so great was the pressure from opposing political forces that the name was withdrawn and another position of honor lost to the race. Ralph W. Tyler, auditor of the navy, resigned his position in 1912. A white man was appointed in his place. Screens were erected in this department, shutting the Negro from the view of his erstwhile fellow-clerk. He was sent down in the cellar to emphasize his degradation as he attended to his physical wants. The Negro cried aloud for change, and in his heart he cared not how soon this change should come, nor what form it should take.

The American Post-office Department, by 1914, had taken over the bulk of the express service of the United States. The Negro was found available as a clerk, but seldom, if ever, as a foreman. The appointment of large numbers of Negroes to mere clerical positions did not mean to the Negro recognition of merit. The Negro postmaster had disappeared.

The American Department of the Interior is engaged with domestic affairs of the nation. The Negro constitutes one-tenth of the population and requires one-tenth of the necessities of American life. In 1914, a definite attempt was made in a bureau of this department to give the Negro recognition, honor and near-equality by the policy of segregating him into a Negro bureau. This policy had previously been worked out in Negro school systems and in the army. But the Negro clerks of the Interior Department, by unanimous vote, rejected the proposition for this sort of change. The kind of recognition, the kind of honor and the kind of equality which they desired had taken definite shape in their minds.

The American Agricultural Department, it would appear, should be made up of a large percentage of Negroes. The Negro was essentially an agriculturist before he came to America. He was brought to Virginia for the specific purpose of engaging in agriculture. His development of agricultural conferences in the South in recent years has been a great source of production. The Negro wanted change because this department employed messengers and clerks, but demonstrators seldom, if ever, of his color. Agricultural strategy in 1914 might well have been exonerated if it had employed Negro chief demonstrators and engaged them in interstate contest for quantity production. In one Southern State the Negro operates the greater agricultural area. In another he will operate the greater portion of such districts at an early date. In still another many of the communities of large Negro population have hardly had a white foot set upon them in two decades. The Negroes of these three states could have furnished surplus food for any nation of the allies, but a Negro might receive honor if put in charge of their development at the proper salary and with full authority to act. In 1914, this honor must not be.

In the American Department of Commerce the masters of barter and exchange are exhibited. America seeks to develop the man who can strike a bargain and outbid his competitors. The Negro wanted change because, since the invention of salesmanship he has been declared out of the scope of this department. His social status prevents him from making the proper sales approach. The Negro of 1914 came to this department only as a depositor of funds, or as a beggar for charity. He was not seriously regarded.

Lastly, in the American Department of Labor, the Negro wanted change because he was regarded in 1914 as the man requiring a boss of another color. He was not regarded as a master mechanic, manufacturer, artist or journeyman, unless the labor union, to which he was ineligible, so regarded him.

In these many ways, by capital and labor, by state and national government, in every department, had the Negro of 1914 been reduced to the state of man without honor in his own country. If war be change, however explosive in form, in 1914 the Negro wanted the world war to come to America from whatever angle that promised him the greatest advantage.

Equality in citizenship, for which the Negro yearned, meant parity of adjustment to conditions of life. Equality may be considered under three forms, industrial, business and political. As the terms are understood in America, the Negro was unanimous in 1914 in desiring industrial, business and political equality. He eagerly watched the fuse of war if perchance he might foresee from the consequent explosion the termination of Anglo-Saxon prejudice. It is but fair to say that he was not the only victim of discrimination at that time. The sub-dominant nations, including the Jugo-Slavs, the Czecho-Slavs, the Serbs and the Serfs of Russia, were subject to discrimination and deprived of the higher places of honor in the world's society.

But the Negro was not immediately concerned with any one's status save his own. He was not concerned that Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Porto Ricans or South Africans did not enjoy the advantage of living on American soil. He was only concerned with the fact that, living in America, performing the full duties of American citizenship, he was denied the advantages and privileges of its possession, while Slavs and Serbs of Europe, with white skins, were accorded the fullest measure of democratic opportunity whenever and wherever they set foot on American soil. The Negro wanted the world war to prove that he, too, was a coalescent element in the civilization of the world.

To summarize the burden of the Negro in 1914 we may include Caucasian arrogance, hatred and prejudice of race, injustice of attitude and treatment, personal fear for life and property, improperly requited toil, unrewarded ambition, unmerited disfavor and debased self-respect. What profound pathos in the love which he bore Old Glory!

THE WAR FOR DEMOCRATIZATION.

Germany of 1914 aimed to throw off the yoke which she claimed England wished to fasten on her world relationships. She aimed to dominate the world with German efficiency. She aimed to demonstrate German superiority and expose what she called Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy and cant. Already possessing the world's supply of potash, she struck directly at the coal and iron region of Belgium and Northern France. And she took them on the initial advance. With potash, coal and iron, this was a Teutonic coup for industrial and commercial supremacy indeed. Now well might she dictate who should boycott English goods. Now well might she point to the political and military dishonor of the easy defeat of Belgium and France. Now well might she proceed to the disintegration of these countries by the weapons of poverty, disease, hunger and bitter cold. Little did Germany dream what moral advantage she gave these overrun lands in the hearts of the millions of Negroes of the world. Germany felt assured that Negroes from all Africa would gloat over the assassination of Belgium. She was positive that American Negroes would rejoice. She expected the blacks of the world would rise up and hail her as the champion of a new day.

In the twinkling of an eye she reduced Belgium to industrial serfdom. She made the Belgian merchant a business pariah. She reduced the Belgian citizen to a political Helot, and imprisoned the burgomaster of Brussels, who refused to yield his citizenship honors. She made of Belgium a desert. The Belgian woman she whistled at and made a bye-word and reproach. And she called her treaty of Belgian neutrality a mere scrap of paper. Namur fell, and Charleroi and lovely Louvain. Liege succumbed in those hot August days, and Malines and Tournai and Antwerp. Poor Belgian refugees, starved and naked, fled westward. In remembrance of barbarities in the Congo under the international commission which placed Belgium in control, the American Negro quoted the poet: "The sins we borrow two by two we pay for one by one." But there was no disposition to gloat. The American Negro, be it said, came to the Belgian relief with money and goods and prayers and tears, and forgot the sins of the fathers of the suffering little kingdom. The secret of this reaction is revealed in the sympathy which the Negro bore toward another people reduced to his American status, without honor, recognition or equality.

On, on, precipitate, headlong came Germany with diabolic efficiency, thrusting viciously at the heart of France. Running amuck through St. Quentin and Arras, Soissons fell and Laon. Rheims surrounded, astride the Marne, France awaited her invader. Joffre at the gate! Foch in charge of the defence! On came the Germans! They crushed his left! They pulverized his right! He dispatched his courier to headquarters with the famous message: "I shall attack with my centre. Send up the Moroccans!" These black troops, thrown in at the first Marne, with the British to their left, pushed the German right over the stream. Continuing their action, the colonials won on the Ourcq, and the Germans evacuated Upper Alsace. Before their terrific attack, with the British steadily pressing beside them, General Von Stein admitted his defeat by the white and black allies. Paris was saved and Foch discovered to the allied world. How the hearts of black Americans thrilled as slowly the news filtered through to them of what the black colonials had done to hold the field for France! It was then that they took it into their hearts that if the United States were ever called upon to participate in this struggle, they would not be denied a place of glory equal to that which their African brethren had achieved.

But there was no time for resolve. The cataclysm involved in the threatened overthrow of English law and orderly procedure throughout the world caused the American Negro to tremble. Always conservative, if there be anything to conserve, the Negro appreciated that English law, when properly interpreted, meant freedom and life and hope eternal to him. He was unwilling to take any chances with a German substitute. The overthrow of English law he looked upon as the impending crack of doom. On came the Germans toward Calais and the Straits of Dover! On to Zeebrugge! On to Ostend! To Ypres! In her supreme desperation, England looked about the world for a force to stay the invader until she could prepare to meet the full force of the attack. She cared not whether aid be white or black, or brown or yellow. She called for help, or else Ypres should fall. Black men of Africa, brown men of India, white and red men of Canada, and yellow men of the Far East heard her call. And while America lifted not a finger, the American Negro lifted up his heart to God and prayed that Anglo-Saxon justice, rigid and cold, so often denied him, should not perish in triumph of the Hun, who knew no law save his own lust and super-arrogation.

Aboard the "Lusitania" there were no known men of color. But there were Caucasian women and children aboard. At what moral disadvantage did Germany put herself with the black millions of America when she riotously celebrated the horrible death her submarines had meted out to these weak and helpless mortals. The "Belgian Prince," first of the vessels torpedoed without warning after President Wilson's manifesto on the subject, had one lone black survivor to tell the tale of horror. He told it to his black brethren and they chafed under the diplomatic restraint, which relieved itself by polite letter writing.

Germany threatened the Panama Canal by disruption in Mexico and Haiti. The Mole St. Nicholas gave command of the canal to anyone of the great powers who might seize it. German influence was at work in Port au Prince. There occurred a riot involving both French and German Legations. The President of Haiti was assassinated. The United States marines stepped in and took over the situation. The American Negro heart went out to little Haiti. Hoping for the best, he feared the worst.

In the midst of this situation, Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico. Overnight Negro regiments of regular army and of national guard received word to go to the border. Black troopers of the 10th Cavalry were reported near Casas Grandes on March 17. The 24th Infantry, colored, set out for Mexico, and another Negro command was sent to Columbus on March 22. Through storm and dust and desert of alkali and cacti, the Negro troopers, led by Colonel Brown, came to Aguascalientes. They had passed through a terrible experience that must have daunted all save those who refuse to accept defeat. Hunger and thirst and mirage and exposure must all be overcome. Because of hardships many cavalrymen deserted on May 1, after three months' service in action. But every Negro trooper with Colonel Brown held on and defeated the Villistas in every skirmish.

On a day in June, 1916, a troop from the 10th Cavalry approached the Mexican town of Carrizal. They were forbidden to enter the town for purposes of refreshment. Captain Boyd resolved to make the entry regardless of any regulations the Mexicans might seek to enforce. He was called upon by General Gomez to advance for a parley. As he advanced with his troopers, Mexicans spread out in a wide circle around them. Gomez, himself, trained the machine gun which opened fire. The parley was a mere sham and decoy. Captain Boyd with Lieutenant Adair and eleven soldiers were killed. The rest of the troopers fell on the Mexicans, seized their gun, turned it upon them, and brought to death scores of their number, including Gomez himself. Seventeen black Americans were interned in Chihuahua, but were released eight days after upon demand by the American government. Captain Morey reported that his men faced death with a song on their lips. The lesson which the Mexicans learned by turning a machine gun on Negro troopers was of such force that no trouble has arisen since in this section of the southern republic. The Negro fell face forward in the scorching sand for his honor's sake, and for the honor of all America. He knew that his real enemy was not the Mexican, but the German who had furnished Mexico the means and the will to create disturbance on this side of the Atlantic.

It was not until April, 1917, that President Wilson proclaimed in Congress a state of war existing between the United States of America and the Imperial German Government. At the call for volunteers, Negro regiments of guard, who had served in Mexico, were found at war strength and ready to double themselves overnight. These guard regiments represented the cosmopolitan Negro populations of New York, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore and the State of Ohio. Everywhere the Negro dropped the mattock, left the ploughshare, poised himself at erect stature, passionately saluted Old Glory, answered "Here am I!"—counted fours, and away! Pro-German cried: "White man's war!" Propagandist yelled: "Cannon fodder!" Reactionary declared: "It must not be." The Negro burst the gate and entered the arena of combat in spite of all opposition to his service in honorable capacity under the United States government.

The honesty of his purpose was discredited. The Anglo-Saxon mind could not conceive any more than could the German why a man downtrodden as the Negro should rush to arms, save as a baser means of eking out a livelihood better than his civilian state. The Anglo-Saxon little dreamed that the Negro approached the war not only to uphold his cherished tradition, but also with definite ideas of honor, recognition and equality as its outcome. Or rather the Anglo-Saxon was too busy with his own affairs to ascertain the reason why.

His loyalty impugned by those who did not wish to see him uniformed, his fidelity the subject of bitter sarcasm, his trustworthiness disputed, the Negro for once kept his own counsel. German agents were in his midst. They came to his table. They mingled with him in all social intercourse. They brought forward business propositions to seek to make the interests of Negro and German one. Southerners, noting this unaccustomed intimacy of black and white, announced that the Negro had gone over to the enemy. But the Negro kept his own counsel. He called upon the nation to investigate him. And when his loyalty was found untarnished, he called upon the nation to investigate itself. It was through the influence of Robert R. Moton, of Tuskegee, that, after careful investigation, President Wilson put the stain of pro-Germanism where it properly belonged. Said the President:

MY FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:

I take the liberty of addressing you upon a subject which so vitally affects the honour of the nation and the very character and integrity of our institutions that I trust you will think me justified in speaking very plainly about it.

I allude to the mob spirit which has recently here and there very frequently shown its head amongst us, not in any single region, but in many and widely separated parts of the country. There have been many lynchings, and every one of them has been a blow at the heart of ordered law and humane justice. No man who loves America, no man who really cares for her fame and honour and character, or who is truly loyal to her institutions, can justify mob actions while the courts of justice are open and the governments of the states and the nation are ready and able to do their duty. We are at this very moment fighting lawless passion. Germany has outlawed herself among the nations because she has disregarded the sacred obligations of law and has made lynchers of her armies. Lynchers emulate her disgraceful example. I, for my part, am anxious to see every community in America rise above that level, with pride and fixed resolution which no man or act of men can afford to despise.

We proudly claim to be the champions of democracy. If we really are, in deed and in truth, let us see to it that we do not discredit our own. I say plainly that every American who takes part in the action of a mob or gives it any sort of countenance is no true son of this great democracy, but its betrayer, and does more to discredit her by that single disloyalty to her standards of law and of right than the words of her statesmen or the sacrifices of her heroic boys in the trenches can do to make suffering peoples believe her to be their saviour. How shall we commend democracy to the acceptance of other peoples, if we disgrace our own by proving that it is, after all, no protection to the weak? Every mob contributes to German lies about the United States what her most gifted liars cannot improve upon by way of calumny. They can at least say that such things cannot happen in Germany, except in times of revolution, when law is swept away.

I, therefore, very earnestly and solemnly beg that the Governors of all the States, the law officers of every community, and, above all, the men and women of every community in the United States, all who revere America and wish to keep her name without stain or reproach, will co-operate—not passively merely, but actively and watchfully,—to make an end of this disgraceful evil. It cannot live where the community does not countenance it.

I have called upon the nation to put its great energy into this war, and it has responded—responded with a spirit and a genius for action that has thrilled the world. I now call upon it, upon its men and women everywhere, to see that its laws are kept inviolate, its fame untarnished. Let us show our utter contempt for the things that have made this war hideous among the wars of history by showing how those who love liberty and right and justice and are willing to lay down their lives for them upon foreign fields, stand ready also to illustrate to all mankind their loyalty to the things at home which they wish to see established everywhere as a blessing and protection to the peoples who have never known the privileges of liberty and self-government. I can never accept any man as a champion of liberty, either for ourselves or for the world, who does not reverence and obey the laws of our own beloved land, whose laws we ourselves have made. He has adopted the standard of the enemies of his country, whom he affects to despise.

WOODROW WILSON.

The Negro braced himself, dismissed the German coldly from his household and forbade the pro-German enter. From afar off the enemy propagandist could resort but to derision and ridicule. What an attempt at laughter he made when Haiti entered the side of the Allies! How he pretended to be choking with the ridiculousness of the thing when Liberia offered her services! He flouted the idea of Negro expertness in handling weapons of modern warfare. He ridiculed the idea of Negro discretion in ideas of likely foreign origin. He questioned the potency of the Negro's native talent to meet the European situation. It was the black man's patriotic fervor, ardent in response to the call of Old Glory, zealous with passionate love of fireside and homeland, poignant with the throbbing and thrilling reaction of public-spirited emotion toward France—which overcame all.

The South asked three questions:

First—Shall Negroes and whites of the South both remain in America while the North conducts the war? Second—Shall Negroes of the South remain at home while the flower of southern chivalry, drafted for service, is far away across the sea, annihilated in battle? Third—Shall white men of the South be left at home while southern Negroes are drafted and go abroad to do distinguished service? These questions were resolved into the conclusion that southern Negroes and southern whites both must be drafted and sent against the German foe. There was no alternative.

It was altogether becoming and proper that a man whose race has suffered as the American Negro suffers today, should point the way to this goal of recognition, honor and equality which the Negro knew but as a tradition of those days following the Civil War when Grant administered the affairs of the triumphant party of freedom.

One of those New Yorkers of Hebraic origin, whose Semitic qualities are of the highest ethical type, made the play for partial equality, for partial recognition, for partial honor for the Negro. Joel Spingarn suggested and propagated the idea of a military training camp for Negroes, where they might receive instruction in all branches of military service, be commissioned up to the grade of captain and receive the recognition, honor and equality due to such military rank as they might qualify for. In addressing Negro America, he said:

"It is of highest importance that the educated colored men of this country should be given opportunities for leadership. You must cease to remain in the background in every field of national activity, and must come forward to assume your right places as leaders of American life. All of you cannot be leaders, but those who have the capacity for leadership must be given the opportunity to test and display it."

Mr. Spingarn never realized what forces he would set in motion by mere presentation of this proposition. He merely pointed out the gate. The young Negro brushed aside the opponents among his own race of this policy of segregation. He disregarded the moral principle which had actuated the older Negroes of the Interior Department in refusing to accept segregation, and seized the opportunity to produce some sort of change and readjustment. He must go up. He could go no lower than the policies of previous generations had brought him.

Directly to the President of all the United States he went. "Give us a lift!" he cried, "We want to fight!" To the Secretary of War he shouted most unceremoniously: "Give us place!" "But," was the indirect reply, "we have not the facilities at present. For instance, we have no bedding for the men whom you might muster." It was a young Negro Harvard graduate, Thomas Montgomery Gregory, of New Jersey, who advanced before Secretary Baker. "No bedding, Mr. Secretary? We will sleep on the floor—on the ground—anywhere—give us a lift!"

The Anglo-Saxon mind is subject to orderly reactions. The Secretary of War was taken aback. He realized that the young Negroes had not approached him to sell their labor. He gleaned that it was not for the purpose of barter and exchange they had come forward. Nor had they come with dreams of political advantage and social eclat, nor with vague glimmerings of spirituality. He was not ready to answer. He dismissed the audience with a little more than the usual ceremony. One of the older Negroes of the group, whose uncanny insight had often appeared beyond the orbit of average intelligence, ventured this suggestion: "He will put it up to Pershing."

And so the word got abroad that it would be left to Pershing as to how the Negro should be disposed of. It would be left to John J. Pershing, who in his earlier days had been instructor in a Negro college under the American Missionary Association. It would be left to the man who in 1892 had been a First Lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry in connection with the Sioux campaign in the Dakotas; who had been with the 10th Cavalry in the Santiago campaign in 1898; who had led Negro troops in the Philippines in 1899 till 1903, commanding operations in Mindanao against the Moros; and who had been in command of the Negro troops sent into Mexico in pursuit of Villa in March, 1916. It would be left to the man whose whole life had been spent in close contact with darker races.

To this day the Negro does not know who was directly responsible for the organization of the camp such as Spingarn proposed. It is probable that the honor belongs as much to Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts as to any one else. These black soldiers of Colonel Hayward's 15th New York Regiment, already in France with other regiments of Negro troopers of the national guard, were thrown across No Man's Land on a cold and foggy night as a lookout, far in advance of the sleeping command of thousands of white and colored American troops. The Hun planned their capture for the purpose of psycho-analytic research. It was Roberts who detected their stealthy approach. He called to Johnson. In the twinkling of an eye, the two were surrounded by German troopers. The Negroes faced certain death, but they had lost all claim to honor, recognition or equality, if they did not take with them to eternity at least one German each. Surrounded they resolved to fight it out with shot and gun. Too, too slow! Around them the Germans swarmed like bees. Bayonets then! Too, too close! Aye, butts! Wounded and winded, with knives, skulls, feet, teeth and nails, prehensile toe and larkheel, Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts defeated ten times their number of Germans and held the field of honor. This was a great self-revelation to the Negro of his powers of more than rudimentary culture, and a mighty incentive from the guard to the soldiery of the 92nd Division.

It settled forever, in the mind of the Negro, what Pershing would say as to the advisability of training Negroes to deliver their best service for their country. That general's report electrified the entire nation. Said Pershing:

"Reports in hand show a notable instance of bravery and devotion shown by two soldiers of an American colored regiment operating in a French sector. Before daylight on May 15, Private Henry Johnson and Private Roberts, while on sentry duty at some distance from one another, were attacked by a German raiding party, estimated at twenty men, who advanced in two groups, attacking at once flank and rear.

"Both men fought bravely hand-to-hand encounters, one resorting to the use of a bolo knife after his rifle jammed and further fighting with bayonet and butt became impossible. There is evidence that at least one, and probably a second, German was severely cut. A third is known to have been shot.

"Attention is drawn to the fact that the colored sentries were first attacked and continued fighting after receiving wounds, and despite the use of grenades by a superior force. They should be given credit for preventing, by their bravery, the capture of any of our men."

Whether this citation arrived May 19, 1917, by design or by accident, it served the purpose of dissolving completely all opposition to the idea of training Negroes to halt the Hun. Immediately thereafter the War Department created a training camp for educated Negroes at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.

THE CRISIS OF THE WORLD.

Des Moines Camp was organized in June, 1917, to train Negroes to the military point where other military men must recognize them, honor them and receive them on the plane of equality due their rank. The camp was designed to develop Negroid snap and vigor to the maximum of military efficiency. For this purpose, as at all other camps, there was created the background of the mother's urge, and the sister's urge, and the sweetheart's urge, the Y.M.C.A. spirit, the college fraternity spirit, and, in addition, the spirit of the elevation of a Negroid order.

The change which came over the men was indicated by their music. Their first group singing of a Sunday consisted of Negro spirituals in spondaic and trochaic verse, and phrased in many minors. The vigor of blood produced by methodical training soon permitted of vocalization only in iambics. "Over There," "The Long, Long Trail," "Sons of America," were songs they sung of hope and not of sorrow. They connoted the Negro's reaction to the cosmic urge.

Over 1200 men took advantage of the experience of the trip to Fort Des Moines for training. Theirs was the 17th Provisional R.O.T.C., but the first of national proportions. Its quota was drawn from every section of the United States. The immediate destiny of the men selected for commission from this camp would be the training of colored draftees of African descent.

Mr. Baker, the Secretary of War, in late summer, referring to the Des Moines Camp, said:

"The work at Des Moines is progressing remarkably well, and the reports I have from it are very good. The spirit of the men is fine, and apparently this camp is going to do a great deal of good, both to the country and to the men involved."

Colonel C.C. Ballou, of the War College, in charge of the work at Des Moines, said on August 19, in a Sunday interview:

"The colored race constitutes more than ten per cent. of our population, and has, since the Civil War, furnished more than its quota of fighting men of the regular army. At home or on foreign soil the ranks of colored regiments are always full, while the white regiments have with difficulty been maintained at peace strength. To question the valor of the colored soldier is to betray ignorance of history. This is the first opportunity in his history to prove on an adequate scale his fitness or unfitness for command and leadership. At Fort Des Moines, Iowa, on June 16, 1917, there assembled the largest body of educated Negroes ever brought together for a single purpose. The candidates who survive are men of marked intelligence and ability. Let any man who doubts the colored men's patriotism go to Fort Des Moines and see men who have given up professions, business and homes in order to learn to defend their country and merit a more considerate judgment of their race. Let any man who doubts the colored man's fidelity and loyalty come to Fort Des Moines and revise his opinions on what he will there learn of the spirit that has stood unswervingly behind the commanding officer in every decision that he has been called upon to make, even though that decision involved sore disappointment and shattering of hopes. These men have been started out on correct lines and will have no false ideas to unlearn."

Hardly any one in America, black or white, believed that 700 Negroes would be commissioned in the army of the United States to receive positions of honor not only beside her other troops, but on the field of battle with the flower of French and English between veteran soldiery. Everything possible to prevent, somehow or other, seemed to arise. The men were put through the bitterest drill in the hottest sun, under the most scorching orders the English language might devise. They represented every section of the United States. Not once did they break. The acid test came, when, already pricked by the numerous situations which arose to flout them, East St. Louis broke forth in the most savage pogrom Anglo-Saxon culture has ever revealed.

While 1200 Negroes, training for leadership, were undergoing the terrific process of forced attrition, their nerves turned raw by army usage, East St. Louis burst forth. Tidings reached Des Moines that the Illinois militia, called in to break up a race riot at East St. Louis, had joined the rioters and slaughtered the Negro population of the community. White women had joined in these attacks, dragging out of their houses colored women, girls and children, stoning and clubbing them to death. Aged Negro mammies, afraid to come out of their homes, had been burned to death by the mob which set fire to them. Black men had been thrown into Cahokia Creek and stormed with bricks each time they rose to the surface until drowned. A crowd of whites had torn a colored woman's baby from her arms, thrown it into the fire of a blazing dwelling, held the mother from its rescue until she, herself, was shot nigh unto death, and then allowed her to plunge into the fire to rescue her little one. Nor was this all.

But out there in camp, isolated from the usual social life, July 2 and 3 and 4, Independence Day, was indeed a test of nerve, already tried and sore and raw, for the young Negroes in training. Why should men train to fight for a country that permitted such barbarous atrocities against their race with impunity. In savage Memphis charred remains of Negroes burned at the stake before a gala mob of 15,000, were thrown from an automobile in the Negro quarter of that city! And the Negroes at Des Moines held on. It has not been recorded in history that there was here proposed any hostile demonstration, or that vengeance and ruthless retaliation was planned. Wise counsel prevailed, and the Negroes at Des Moines held on.

For three months they held on without audible murmur. Negroes from civilian life, from the national guard, from the regular army, destined for every branch of the military service, defied any propaganda, by whomever invented, to break their morale. For three months they held on. And then word came they would not be graduated. A number, in disgust, left the camp. But the great bulk of them, although at the last moment learning that they could be assigned to no military branch save infantry, remained in camp for another month and were finally commissioned as officers in the national army. It was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1917 that they received their commissions forwarded from the President of the United States. The hour and day and month a year later became famous not only in their history, but in the history of the civilized world.

They were given a grade neither high nor low. The rank of captain was granted to men who were to serve in France and England. The former country proudly made the Negro a general when he merited promotion; the latter was committed to the policy of white officers for colonial troops. In assigning rank as high as the grade of captain, America took the middle ground. In view of the international situation, she could hardly be expected to do more. She had granted partial recognition, partial honor, partial equality. It was for the Negro to gain the rest.

Seven hundred American Negroes commissioned! A baker's dozen of captains, six hundred odd lieutenants, and five hundred who dropped by the way. German propaganda had taken contrary suggestion and forced the Negro to this point of moral advantage. Plunder, arson, lynching and burning at the stake were employed against him to break his morale or incite him against America. But he held on. Seven hundred of the "sub-species, dark of skin, wooly of hair, long of head, with dilated nostrils, thick lips, thicker cranium, flat feet, prehensile great toe and larkheel" had passed every physical, mental, moral and social test and were commissioned in the American army. Doubt existed in the minds of every American citizen, including the Negro officers themselves, that they would ever see service overseas.

Assigned to various camps, the problem of recognition by white soldiers of colored officers immediately was raised, and promptly settled. In only a few cases did open clashes occur. In far more cases was the Negro received with full merited honors of his status, and in some sections on the basis of complete equality. The Negro of a northern locality, accustomed to all immunities and privileges of his home, experienced great difficulty when first assigned to camps near Baltimore, Washington, Houston or Norfolk. He would have passed through this state of his development well enough, settling his difficulties himself as they arose, had not some evil genius prompted the commanding officer of the division in which he was finally to be assembled to issue Bulletin 35, which follows:

"It should be well known to all colored officers and men that no useful purpose is served by such acts as will cause the 'color question' to be raised. It is not a question of legal rights, but a question of policy, and any policy that tends to bring about a conflict of the races, with its resulting animosities, is prejudicial to the military interest of the colored race.

"To avoid such conflicts the Division Commander has repeatedly urged that all colored members of his command and especially the officers and non-commissioned officers, should refrain from going where their presence will be resented. In spite of this injunction, one of the Sergeants of the Medical Department has recently precipitated the precise trouble that should be avoided, and then called on the Division Commander to take sides in a row that should never have occurred had the Sergeant placed the general good above his personal pleasure and convenience. The Sergeant entered a theater, as he undoubtedly has a legal right to do, and precipitated trouble by making it possible to allege race discrimination in the seat which he was given. He is strictly within his legal rights in this matter, and the theater manager is legally wrong. Nevertheless, the Sergeant is guilty of the greater wrong in doing ANYTHING, no matter how legally correct, that will provoke race animosity.

"The Division Commander repeats that the success of the Division, with all that success implies, is dependent upon the good will of the public. That public is nine-tenths white. White men made the Division, and they can break it just as easily if it becomes a trouble maker.

"All concerned are again enjoined to place the general interest of the Division above personal pride and gratification. Avoid every situation that can give rise to racial ill-will. Attend quietly and faithfully to your duties, and don't go where your presence is not desired.

"This will be read to all organizations of the 92nd Division.

"By command of Major-General Ballou:

"ALLEN J. GREER, "Lieutenant-Colonel, General Staff, "Chief of Staff.

"Official: "EDW. J. TURGEON, "Captain, Assistant Adjutant, "Acting Adjutant."

It was an altogether modern type of Negro that informed the commanding general quietly, but firmly, that he had seriously impaired his usefulness by the tone of his bulletin; that he had proposed a principle which did not bode good for the future of white people of the world when seven-tenths of the world's population was of darker hue. It is to General Ballou's credit that he admitted the question to debate, listened to reason, and capitulated.

But a certain type of southern statesmanship was not amenable to reason. Despite the wishes of the President of the United States, there were published in the "Congressional Record" articles describing the peril involved in arming and training any black peoples for modern warfare. What measure of offense these articles gave to Morocco, to India, to Latin America, to Japan, to China, to Africa, loyally supporting all the cause of France and England, can only be judged by the rebuke which President Wilson gave when his chance came.

It was in the Spring of 1918 when Germany struck through the British forces in Picardy. Then came the allies' "Hurry up!" call. The enemy opened a tremendous drive against the British front, bombarding, storming and attacking along fifty miles from Croiselles to La Fere. On the first day, 16,000 British prisoners were taken. The shelling might be heard across the Channel in Dover. The German penetrated to the third British line, taking 25,000 more prisoners. William Hohenzollern, himself, directed the drive from his headquarters at Spa. Peronne, Ham and Chauny fell. Vast stores and war material was lost, including tanks. At the Lotos club dinner, Lord Reading gave voice to a message from Lloyd George urging the United States to rush men to fill the gap. Albert fell. The real need of England and France became a question of reserves. John J. Pershing, drawing no color line, offered the whole American army.

Germany separated France from her ally. Apprized of America's preparations, she sought to destroy both France and England before the new enemy might hold place. Acceleration of all fighting forces to overseas service became the imperative duty. Not a moment was to be lost. The American Expeditionary Force must be expeditious. Casting about to find those ready to answer the call, America could not deny the preparedness of her 92nd Division of colored troopers.

On Germany came! On to Montdidier! To Amiens! To Hazebrouck! To Paris! Montdidier gone! "Hurry! Hurry!" cried Clemenceau. "Hurry! Hurry!" pleaded the aged Premier. He could no longer study the possible effects of any action of his office upon the future. His concern was the very present need. He wanted men, regardless of what adjustments their presence might upset in future world relationships.

So came a day when the Negro troopers could no longer be gainsaid. "Give me these men!" cried Joffre. "I am ready for the 92nd," announced Pershing. "We submit that they are men without honor, and of inferior American status," warned some Americans. "We shall test them," was Foch's laconic reply. "But they are black men with but 35 ounces of brain—a sub-species of mankind," America warned again.

And all France cried: "Send us men—men without fear of mortal danger—men of intrepid heart—men of audacity—men of fortitude—men of resolution—men of unquestioning, unreasoning, undying courage—men of elan—men of morale! Send Jew or Gentile—white men, yellow men, brown men, black men—it matters not! Send us men who can halt the Hun!"

So early in May of 1918 went up to sea, partly under their own officers, 90,000 and more American Negroes, registered as of African descent, and drafted to do battle in France. It was sub-species against super-man, broad head against long head, flat nose against sharp nose, thick cranium against Hun helmet. It was this unprecedented synthetic group of black men sailing the sea of darkness on a mission concerning the vital interests of Englishmen and Americans who had misused them for centuries, and concerning beloved France, which laid the real claim for honor and recognition and equality for the American Negro.

The American Negro, as he bade his black comrades "Good-bye! Good luck! God bless you! Take keer o' yo' self!" felt in his heart that all America ought to forget her prejudices. He felt that if she did not do so, she was indeed only fit to be characterized as narrow-minded, mean-spirited, illiberal and warped—entirely unfit for the position of leadership in democratization of the world.

So taken up with this idea was the entire Negro race that an editorial appearing in the "Crisis," the leading Negro magazine, from the pen of the Negro scholar, W.E.B. Dubois, came as a dash of cold water from an upper window. This article set the whole race agog. There was nothing in it about America's forgetting her prejudices, the idea which filled the Negro heart and soul and mind. It was entitled "Close Ranks!" and read as follows:

"This is the crisis of the world. For all the long years to come men will point to the year 1918 as the great Day of Decision, the day when the world decided whether it would submit to military despotism and an endless armed peace—if peace it could be called—or whether they would put down the menace of German militarism and inaugurate the United States of the World.

"We of the colored race have no ordinary interest in the outcome. That which the German power represents today spells death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom and democracy. Let us not hesitate. Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow-citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills." While many questioned his motive, all accepted his advice.

While the grievance was not forgotten, it was not allowed to jeopardize the success of the issue to weaken the black man's allegiance. Every mother's son and father's daughter remained loyal under stress and strain which would have caused the white man to curse and die.

THE FIELD OF ACTION.

Regiments of Negro stevedores, earlier in the year, had been drafted and sent overseas. These men were drawn from a specific locality, and did not represent the entire nation. They were in command of white officers. They had been destined for the Service of Supply, a service which America performed so marvelously well that it is difficult to tell, if not here, where her chief glory lies.

Black stevedores from Alabama, and Louisiana, and Mississippi, Virginia and the Carolinas, numbering far more than the entire black forces of the 92nd Division, packed and unpacked the American Expeditionary Force in a manner never attempted since Noah loaded the Ark. Rear Admiral Wilson and General McClure cited several regiments for exceptionally efficient work. The "Leviathan," formerly the German steamship "Vaterland," was unloaded and coaled, in competition with other white and black stevedore regiments, by Company A, 301st Stevedores, young American Negroes, in fifty-six hours, a world record.

What a cheer went up from the black stevedores of the far South when there landed in their midst a mighty band of black infantry, nearly 100,000 strong who, in a few short months had learned the use of powder and shot, of sword and broadsword, of bayonet and bludgeon, of trench knife and battle-ax. Cold steel or blackjack, smooth bore or sawed-off, machine gun or automatic, were all the same to them. It was a great experience for stevedore and infantryman. And the stevedore's heart leaped to his throat as he saw the black officers of the 92nd Division maneuver and march away the men under their command.

The black stevedore wondered why America had brought him so far under white officers to behold such a sight. He beheld black quartermasters, ranking and outranking captains, furnishing their men with provision and supply. The handling of purveyance and cutlery on a huge scale by black commissioned officers was a revelation to the black stevedore of the far South who had never seen such a sight in all his days.

The stevedore beheld arrive Negro signal men, monitors of their troops and of a million whites behind them, death watch to the German enemy, destined to be sentinels and patrolmen of No Man's Land. He saw pass by black American scouts and spies and lookouts and pioneers headed for the frontiers of France to gain an immortal halo of glory.

The stevedore found in his midst elegantly groomed, but speechless Negroes whom, his friends whispered to him, belonged to the United States Intelligence Department. They had come, so the wide-mouthed stevedore was told, to pit their 35 ounces of brain against the German's 45 ounces, and to prove that the Hun back brain is surplus overweight and should be reduced to Negro proportions. They had come to furnish General Pershing information, news, tidings and dispatch, embassy and bulletin, report and rumor. And the stevedore wondered if General Pershing would expect these Negro men to report to him information with precision and correctitude.

It was the Negro band, fresh from America, which gave the stevedore his greatest delight. Preceding the black troops everywhere, it produced a potpourri of full and semi-scores, melodies and plantation arias, that came as a refreshing novelty to weary English hearts and to the souls of jaded France.

But there were no Negro "big gun" men. The stevedore wondered if the black boys of the 92nd Division would have to get into the fight with Germany, depending upon the kind of barrage which some of the men whom he knew in America might lay down for him. True, the Negro artilleryman had been left behind in America. At Camp Taylor he was spurned and rejected. But he refused to accept rebuff. He won his way into the heart of commanding officer and subaltern, gained his training, made a superior record, witnessed the outpouring of the entire white soldiery of the camp to present arms and salute him as he went away to service, and arrived in France in breathless haste in time to lay down a perfect barrage for his black comrades as they advanced through the terrific fighting in the Argonne and the Marbache. Long will stevedore tradition recite the story of how these black "big gun men" came by.

The black stevedore represented a section of the United States. That section was thoroughly well represented. There was work done better than it ever had been done before. But, on the other hand, the 92nd Division had been drawn from every possible corner of the United States where a quota might be raised. It was the 92nd Division especially, however great might be the deeds of local regiments of guard, that would decide the great ultimate question. Regiments of Negro guard troops from New York, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore, and the State of Ohio, and Negro pioneers from the mountain regions of the Carolinas, might cover their respective localities with the surpassing glory of their achievements. And every regiment of them did. But the real issue was wrapped up in the great 92nd Division, the Negro national army commanded in large measure by Negro officers, which stepped into the international arena on that fateful day in June, 1918.

They landed when the German had spent his third offensive and was at the gates of Paris. Almost the first news which they received after they had settled on foreign soil was that Paris, the magic city which they had come so far to see, was destined to fall into the hands of the German. Albeit Chateau Thierry, the turning point of the decisive struggle of 1918, was only achieved when, for the war, a total of more than a million black men of four continents had been annihilated, the 92nd Division was eager for the fray—was anxious to tread the field of action for the sake of honor, and recognition and equality. It was at Chateau Thierry, on a day soon after the arrival of the 92nd Division in France, that Foch, the eminent generalissimo, but then an almost unknown quantity, again gave voice to laconicism: "The offensive shall begin and shall continue. Bring up the colonials!" America was thrown into battle holding honored position beside Gouraud's invincible Africanders. The Hun was halted in his tracks, thrown back across the second Marne, and hunted like a wolf over the Hindenburg line and into his native lair.

Soissons, Rheims, Verdun, St. Dizier and Chemin des Dames, all saw Negro troops of the United States in violent action. In the Marbache, at Belie Farm, and in the Bois de Tege d'Or, the Negro guard regiments and the Negro 92nd Division went over and at the Hun.

At Voivrette Farm and in the Bois de Frehaut, other troops of this same division smote German super-man hip and thigh. In Voivrette Woods and in the Bois de Cheminot, at Moulon Brook and Seilie Bridge and Epley the 92nd Division again victoriously contested the field of honor, against the best soldiers Prussia might afford. From July until November, their brothers of the Negro guard regiments, of Negro pioneers and Negro casuals were within earshot of the murderous rumble of contending artillery. By November 8 every command in the Negro American division, including the units of guard, had more than once or twice been at the front or over the top and at them.

Ralph W. Tyler, of Ohio, a Negro on the staff of General Pershing, representing the Bureau of Public Information, says of Hill 304:

"I have learned that Hill 304, which the French so valiantly held, and which suffered such a fierce bombardment from the Germans that there is not a single foot of it but what is plowed up by shells, and whose sides, even today, are literally covered with the corpses of French soldiers who still lie where they fell, was later as valiantly held by the colored soldiers from the United States, who fought with all the heroism and endurance the best tradition of the army had chronicled. The colored soldiers who held that bloody and ever historical Hill 304 had the odds against them, but like Tennyson's immortal 'Six Hundred,' they fought bravely and well, firm in the belief 'it was not theirs to reason why—it was theirs to do and die.' And like the patriots they were, they did DO, and this war's history will so record."

The Prussian, at last, sought safety in flight. Britisher, Frenchman, Italian, Portuguese, Canadian, black and white American were at his heels. Italy created a debacle in Austria. And then, wonderful news came through of what was happening in the Near East.

It had been impossible for the Negroes of America to come to France and preserve the nicely calculated adjustments which England had set up through the years. The East Indian, the Arabian, the Egyptian could not but observe, and observing, fail to understand why American Negroes could be entrusted in command of troops, if they were not given the same recognition and honor and equality. Quietly England prepared them all. Under General Allenby and dark-skinned officers of the East, the black Caucasians and the brown Caucasians and the yellow Caucasians fell upon the Turk, until, regardless of his German master, he cried aloud for terms. The horde of dark-skinned captors of Turkey, under the British supreme command, threatened and attacked Bulgaria, who quickly succumbed. So came the Turkish armistice, and the Bulgarian armistice and the Austrian armistice.

The Prussian fled from the field of battle. He was not swift enough. Brought to bay, he cried for mercy. All of the Negro American force was to be hurled at him in the greatest stronghold of the world, Metz. He pleaded with the American President for armistice, and was referred to Marshal Foch. It was the great war hero, with the Hohenzollern house of cards tumbled about him, who decided that for three days, until November 11, fighting must continue, and that in those last hours the Germans must feel at the hands of all the allies the severest punishment that could be meted within a limited time. Britishers, Frenchmen, men of all allied nations sought the honor. The American Negro could not be denied. Although regiments of Negro guard and of the 92nd Division had but recently been in action for a period of from three to five weeks, they craved the honor of being out in front at the stern and bitter end. It was practically the entire Negro fighting force of America which, under its own officers, went over the top at daybreak on the final morning of the great four years' struggle, side by side with white men of various nationalities, who, like them, were ready and most fit for sacrifice or service. In the last hours, when life seemed sweeter than all creation, there thousands of black men of all regiments overseas fell in search of the coveted honor of being nearest Berlin as the thunderous crash and din ceased, to roll no more. Hours before the order came for the supreme and final sacrifice, Negro signal men had caught from the air the message which indicated what was to be their special honor. There was not a man to desert or seek asylum elsewhere. All went over the top together!

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the order came to cease firing. The 92nd Division of Negro troops stood at Thann and before Metz, in advance of the progress of troops of all America. The ground which they trod had not been occupied by other than German troops in 40 years. It was the field of honor, and recognition and equality, and must be theirs of necessity. Nature had ruthlessly perfected this type of black native-born American for the high duties of a soldier. The war was over. Allies and Americans said to him:

"As brothers we moved together—as brothers—to the dawn that advanced—to the stars that fled—rendering thanks to God in the highest, that He, having hid His face through one long night behind thick clouds of war, once again will ascend above us in the vision of perpetual peace."

The Negro felt that, as the ancient Romans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in themselves not to relent, after a generation or two, before the grandeur of Hannibal, so he will not ever be the mere son of a peri.

The Negro knew that he could do one thing as well as the best of men—a greater thing than Milton or Marlowe or Charlemagne ever did—he could die grandly the death. Face forward on the flats of Flanders, in Picardy and Lorraine he died grandly, to make the world safe for democracy. For we of America must remember, in all our getting on and up in the world, that, as a psychological weapon, the bristling bayonet was incomplete until a stalwart, desperate black Negro American citizen got behind it to fight, not for his gain, but for the uplift of the masses of humanity.

The war was over. It was still a small voice within that told the Negro hosts: "As this hath been no white man's war, neither shall it be a white man's peace."

THE AFTERMATH.

But yesterday the nation tried to think of the Negro as a southern problem, the solution of which belonged to statesmanship of the South. Often we have endeavored to think of him as a national problem, and have tried to persuade the national government to take in hand matters of widespread national interest wherein he was involved. But now we must of necessity think of the Negro as an international problem, ramifications of which are bound up in the roots of aspiration and kindred feeling and powerful potentiality of Frenchman and Britisher, of Asiatic and Slav, and of the great bodies of darker peoples of all the world.

As the Negro becomes an international problem, no single section of a country can be entrusted with the administration of matters pertaining to him. Such administration may be assigned by international conclave to a particular country as its national problem, but the proper channels of administration of international policy will be up from sectional caucus, through national agency to the international parliament, and down from such parliament or league, through national agencies to the section involved. And, furthermore, sectional caucus, unless it would fail in policies of its advocacy, and suffer modification by the Congress or parliament of its central governmental administration, must henceforth regard the Negro not as an aggregate all in a mass, but as a synthesis, composed of gradations from lowest to superior. This is the new concept which the war of 1918 has forced upon America, in spite of the bias of 1914.

Civilization left the parting of the ways when Woodrow Wilson's rallying cry for world democratization led America into the war. It decided to seek the path of Peace not along the lines of permitted autocracy, but of firmly and thoroughly well administered democracy. In administering democratic government, Negro regiments, graded from private to superior officer, came first as an academic proposition, and, finally, as an actuality. They came four hundred thousand strong. No group of that number can longer be considered as a mere accumulation of black men. One hundred thousand Negroes of the 92nd Division and regiments of guard have been commanded on the field of action by black headmen, with white headlight. They have taken their objectives with speed and control and the management of both of these elements of transfused morale has been in the hands of colored college men or their military equals.

The hour of decision to make the world safe for democracy was the crisis of civilization. Victory on the fields of France has been the satisfactory denouement. The question naturally arises: Shall there be a happy ending of the great drama for the white American and a tragic ending for the Negro? Or, rather, as the American brotherhood gathers about the charmed circle and smokes the pipe of peace, shall the Negro report: "I see and am satisfied?"

In other words, shall the 92nd Division of Negro fighters and the greater hosts of black war workers overseas, return to America with honor in theory, but not pursued in fact to its logical finality? Shall these black bulwarks of the business of world war find the door of the business world of peace slammed in their faces? Shall these black survivors of terrific struggle for world democracy return home only to be declared unfit to vote an American ballot? Shall the black soldier hero be allowed to take his croix de guerre into a jim-crow car? Shall the black Red Cross nurse, rushing to the aid of benighted humanity regardless of color, be refused accommodation at places of public proprietorship whither she may seek rest or refreshment? Tragedy begets tragedy. Seventeen seventy-six begot 1861, and 1861 begot 1914.

The times demand decisive action. Sociological error, committed today, will cause malformation of an important member of the American body politic. It will cause the ship of state to ride an uneven keel. This ship of state must be brought to her ancient moorings, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address of Lincoln, and the Farewell of Old John Brown on the scaffold.

The tumult has died. Revelry and shouting fill every program. Is the Negro to return unheralded to homeland, and with his eyes to the hills, undergo patting and pitying and be given a place in the corner? Or are the colored boys in khaki to announce their return by a vigorous knocking at the gate? Shall they have cause to cry to America: "A house divided against itself cannot stand!" And shall they knock and knock and knock until America sets herself to wonder what has this army Negro to do that he becomes so unceremonious? Or shall they find the gate wide open and triumphal arches erected in every section of the country in their honor to signify that defeat of German autocracy means democratization of every section of the entire world? An international conscience demands for the Negro hero a happy ending of it all.

The Negro looks to the military agencies of America to produce a genuine peace wherein he may live happy ever after. Regarded in America as the most alien of aliens before the war, he demands recognition today as the most loyal of loyalists. But yesterday Anglo-Saxon prejudice persisted in viewing him as a physical alien, a mental alien, a moral alien and a social alien. The Negro is willing to discuss no further this prejudicial conception of himself forced home by libelous propaganda and by governmental administration for hundreds of years, if the agencies of reconstruction will perfect and put in operation a vigorous Americanization policy in his behalf.

Military life has taught the Negro the advantage derived from the use of pure food and balanced ration. It has taken him from the ghetto into the pure air of the open country, and filled his lungs with deep draughts of the free breezes of France. It has removed him from the temptation to imbibe the beverage that destroys human faculties and has accustomed him in a measure to the beneficial use of purified water. It has undertaken through carefully selected work, exercise and recreation to perfect the habits of digestion, assimilation and elimination. The result has been indeed marvelous. No America Negro who went to fight for humanity will return to America as the same physical being. No American will dare stand before the returned Negro trooper and say: "Behold a sub-species of mankind, wooly of hair, long of head, with dilated nostrils, thick lips, thicker cranium, flat foot, prehensile great toe and larkheel. Yea, behold him, dark of skin, whose mentality is like unto a child, and closely related to the anthropoid ape; whose weight of brain is only comparable to that of the gorilla." Where is the American who will dare stand before any Negro trooper returned from France and thus mock and deride him? Military agency has completely destroyed the physical concept which the white world had of the Negro in 1914, by placing him in the focus of Caucasian binocular vision, wherein his better attributes become visible in their synthetic relation.

In addition, military life has sharpened the mental powers of the Negro in command to meet the highest exactions of modern warfare. Colonel Charles Denton Young, Negro graduate of West Point, if we may trust the record, is capable of the same high character of mental processes as John J. Pershing. Military test has proven before the world that the Negro is no mental alien, but heir to all the ages of Anglo-Saxon, Roman, Greek and Egyptian culture.

In France the American Negro has produced no notorious offenders against civil or military usage. He has arisen to the moral concept of high responsibility for the future of his race in the estimation of all mankind. There is no story of moral degeneracy which has yet come from abroad concerning him. Pitfall, temptation and opportunity for vice and crime have all been shunned in light of preparation for the higher service. The Negro has proven his power of moral restraint while guided by leadership of his own color. As a social being he has sacrificed his life for the highest form of social existence, democracy. Who, then, is there to call him alien? Today he is no longer Negro, nor Afro-American, nor colored American, nor American of African descent, but he is American—simply this, and nothing more.

He has been raised to erect stature and made a man by the military branch of the United States Government, because of signal service to the American peoples. His prayer is that this military government long may live as such to train the great mass which he calls kin into a synthetic whole.

As he evolved from a student in a military training camp to military leadership, so he desires the great military organization of America to continue to exist, that through its agency he may attend the training camps which lead to industrial, business, political and social success. Universal military education for me and mine and all other Americans is his slogan, and his aim is to recreate the America of the early Seventies, which became hardened and callous through the years by reason of resistance to the German menace of autocracy, but now removed.

This American has made good in public. He has demonstrated both efficiency and initiative. He has compelled popular belief to conceive him as a man. The Caucasian world he has caused to perceive that he might function as a valuable and serviceable element of twentieth century civilization. Will the Anglo-Saxon issue to him the warrant of immunities and privileges certifying that he is four-square with the dominant opinion of mankind, and, therefore, entitled to superior status?

To this dark-skinned American are attributed all elements of beauty and racial grandeur. Forever in survival of the world's most fit, he goes on, blending readily with civilization's high ideal, philosophically tolerating abuse offered by the less refined, effecting a racial consciousness of purity in inter-social relationships, adapting himself with symmetry and poise to the tasks of the world, and bowing in humble respect before the higher laws whose harmonies order and rectify all creation.

What will the black Rip Van Winkle behold as he walks through the corridors of the American Department of State twenty years hence? Will he behold a great black mass still at the veriest bottom of our governmental organization, or will he be caused to marvel at the synthetic gradations of black American from lowest to superior? As he views progress in all departments of the government, will he see this real American organized synthetically in all branches of the service, or will he behold him still employed as the boy or the mere high private? Time and the great heart of America will tell.

The center of gravity of world interest of 1914 has shifted and come to rest at a spot most significant for darker peoples. Victory to all participants in its glorious achievement must be less disastrous than defeat. In order to satisfy the liberal opinion of the world, some form of autonomy must be devised for the newly organized man in America. Durable peace requires that American prejudice be utterly and forever stamped out; first by the reconstructed organization of the American Expeditionary Force, which beheld its organizations of every race and creed under fire and in action; second, by the American people of every locality, who have had forced upon them by world war the new concept of a branch of the species once considered inferior; and, third, by the powers of the world, who must prevent the upgrowths in America from offering malignant germs of unrest to their own systems of national government.

After the Negro has proved his value and worth in all of these trying ways, when after this he asks for a full measure of equal rights, what American will have the heart or the hardihood to say him nay?



THE NEGRO IN THE NAVY.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN NAVY—GUARDING THE TRANS-ATLANTIC ROUTE TO FRANCE—BATTLING THE SUBMARINE PERIL—THE BEST SAILORS IN ANY NAVY IN THE WORLD—MAKING A NAVY IN THREE MONTHS FROM NEGRO STEVEDORES AND LABORERS—WONDERFUL ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OUR NEGRO YEOMEN AND YEOWOMEN.

Stranger than fiction, the story of the organization, development and expansion of the United States navy from a mere atom, as it were, to the present time, when her electrically propelled men-of-war, equipped with the most luxurious compartments and modern mechanism for despatch and communication as well as her great merchant marine, floating the emblem of freedom and democracy in every civilized port of the world, is one of the most fascinating pages in the history of human achievement.

And, as it were, the very culmination of wonder and admiration, the chain of events reciting the deeds of valor and unselfish devotion to duty upon the part of her black sons, constitutes an illustrious record easily marking its participants as conspicuous representatives of a people, who have won their tardily conceded recognition in every phase of American public life.

The services of the Negro in the American navy very properly begin with the stirring and thrilling events of the American Revolution, which terminated in the independence of the colonies and the establishment of the United States.

THE NEGRO IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

The Negro in the navy was then and has been ever since no less devoted to duty and as fearless of death as Crispus Attucks, when he fell on Boston Commons, the first martyr of American independence.

In speaking of colored seamen, who showed great heroism, Nathaniel Shaler, commander of the private armed schooner General Thompson, said of an engagement between his vessel and a British frigate: "The name of one of my poor fellows, who was killed, ought to be registered in the book of fame, and remembered with reverence as long as bravery is considered a virtue. He was a black man by the name of John Johnson. A twenty-four pound shot struck him in his hip, and took away all the lower part of his body. In this state, the poor brave fellow lay on the deck, and several times exclaimed to his shipmates, 'Fire away, my boy! No haul color down!' Another black by the name of John Davis was wounded in much the same way. He fell near me, and several times requested to be thrown overboard, saying he was only in the way of others. When America can boast of such tars she has little fear from the tyrants of the ocean."

British gold and promises of personal freedom served as futile incentives among the Negroes of the American navy; for them, the proud consciousness of duty well done served as a constant monitor and nerved their strong black arms when thundering shot and shell menaced the future of the country; and, although African slavery was still a recognized legal institution and constituted the basic fabric of the great food productive industry of the nation, it was the Negro's trusted devotion to duty which ever guided him in the nation's darkest hours of peril and menace.

NEGROES IN THE WAR OF 1812.

In the second period, the War of 1812, a second fight with Great Britain, again made it necessary to call upon the Negro for his assistance. Whether with Perry on Lake Erie, Commodore MacDonough, Lawrence or Chauncey, the black man played his heroic and sacrificing role, struggling and dying that American arms and valor, the security of American lives and property, would suffer no destruction at the hands of the enemy. The fine words of Commodore Chauncey, commending their dauntless intrepidity and unswerving obedience and loyalty to the rigorous demands of duty, should be read and carefully studied by all men friendly to human excellence and courage.

COMMODORE CHAUNCEY'S TRIBUTE.

The following is a statement of Commodore Perry, expressing dissatisfaction at the troops sent him on Lake Erie: "I have this moment received by express the enclosed letter of General Harrison. If I had officers and men,—and I have no doubt that you will send them,—I could fight the enemy and proceed up the lake; but, having no one to command the Majestic and only one commissioned officer and two acting lieutenants, whatever my wishes may be, getting out is out of the question. The men that came by Mr. Champlin are a motley set,—blacks, soldiers, and boys. I can not think that you saw them after they were selected. I am, however, pleased to see anything in shape of a man."

The following is the reply from Commodore Chauncey to Commodore Perry in answer to the above letter: "Sir, I have been duly honored with your letters of the 23d and 26th ultimo and notice your anxiety for men and officers. I am equally anxious to furnish you; and no time shall be lost in sending officers and men to you as soon as the public service will allow me to send them from this lake. I regret that you are not pleased with the men sent you by Messrs. Champlin and Forest; for, to my knowledge, a part of them are not surpassed by any seamen we have in the fleet; and I have yet to learn that the color of skin, or the cut and trimmings of the coat, can affect a man's qualifications and usefulness.

"I have nearly fifty blacks on board this ship, and many of them are among my best men, and I presume that you will find them as good and useful as any on board your vessel; at least if you can judge by comparison; for those which we have on board this ship are attentive and obedient, and, as far as I can judge, are excellent seamen. At any rate, the men sent to Lake Erie have been selected with the view of sending a proportion of petty officers and seamen and I presume upon examination, it will be found that they are equal to those upon this lake."

THE COLORED MAN IN THE MEXICAN WAR.

In the Mexican War (1845-1848) we find him, in his humble positions of service and usefulness, a positive factor in the final success and triumph of American ideals. No insidious treacheries, no dark plots of poison, arson and unfaithfulness characterized his conduct, and, in the final and complete blockade of the Mexican ports, his contribution of faithful and loyal service made effective the terms by which Generals Scott and Taylor taught the ever-observed lesson of American dominance upon the Western Hemisphere and thereby preserved the Monroe Doctrine.

IN THE DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR.

In the Civil War—when the violence of domestic strife menaced the continuance of the National Union; when the preservation of slavery constituted the subject of angry and stormy debate in every section of the country, it was in the navy, no less than in the army, that the Negro evinced that dauntless fidelity to duty which aided in stabilizing the discipline of the field forces, thereby effectively contributing to the success not alone of forcing the Mississippi, and intersecting the Confederacy, but also in hermetically sealing all Southern ports and reducing to imperceptible insignificance the possibility of foreign trade with the South,—a factor which made it doubly sure that Northern arms would ultimately triumph and the Union be saved. It was a colored man, Robert Small, who single handed, stole the Union cruiser Panther from Charleston harbor, foiled the Confederate fleet, and navigated her safely to a Union port. In all the annals of courage and dazzling gallantry, this incident has been recited; and it constitutes a commendable example, with many others, however, of devotion to duty and undying love for freedom. Mr. Small became a successful business man, and was one of the few Negroes who served in the Congress of the United States.

THE NEGRO IN THE SPANISH WAR.

The Spanish-American War (1898-1900) also has its roll of honorable dead and surviving heroes—it was a Negro who fired the first shot at Manila Bay, from the cruiser Olympia, flag ship of the late Admiral Dewey, commanding the American forces on the Asiatic station. He was John Christopher Jordan, chief gunner's mate (retired) U.S.N. His career is a fair example of the Negro's ability. He was first enlisted in the United States navy on June 17, 1877, as an apprentice of the third class, the very lowest rating in which he could have entered. He advanced, despite opposition, through the different grades in direct competition with his white shipmates to the grade of chief gunner's mate, the highest rating that could be reached in the enlisted status.

It was not because of his lack of desire for further advancement that he did not go higher, nor was it due to his not being qualified, for it was conceded by all officers under whom he served that he was thoroughly competent and highly qualified for advancement. He was finally recommended by his superior officer for the position of warrant gunner, and the papers passed up for final approval by the commander-in-chief of the fleet, before being sent to the secretary of the navy. There he encountered the Negro's most formidable foe—prejudice. That official very unceremoniously forwarded the papers to the navy department with the following endorsement: "Respectfully forwarded to the secretary of the navy—disapproved. The explanation of disapproval will be found in the applicant's descriptive list."

However, this slur did not deter Jordan in his determination to go higher, for at the battle of Manila he was a gunner's mate of the first class, and his record was so conspicuous that it could not go unnoticed by the officials in Washington.

FINAL RECOGNITION.

The following letter was then addressed to Jordan's commanding officer by the bureau of navigation: "The Bureau notes that John C. Jordan, gunner's mate first class, has served as such with a creditable service since August 6, 1899. The chief of bureau directs me to request an expression of opinion from the commanding officer as to whether Jordan possesses that superior intelligence, force of character and ability to command, necessary for a chief petty officer and particularly as to whether he is in all respects qualified for the position of chief gunner's mate of a first-class modern battleship."