BEFORE THE WAR.

Civilization evolves destructive forces of change. War is change in explosive form. World notions, points of view, and general ideas of 1914 have spun the cycle of years with accelerated speed. At that time the public mind gained its concept of the Negro from encyclopaedic information. He was regarded as a "sub-species of mankind, dark of skin, wooly of hair, long of head, with dilated nostrils, thick lips, thicker cranium, flat foot, prehensile great toe and larkheel."

He was described as a creature with "mental constitution very similar to that of the child, on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and more closely related to the highest anthropoids." His brain weight, we were told, was 35 ounces as compared with the gorilla's 20 ounces and the Caucasian's 45.

In America, conception of the Negro has ever fluctuated in direct ratio to the rise and fall of military domination of the affairs of the republic. Whenever the military agencies of the government have been exalted, the Negro has been benefited by reaction of the public mind. From 1865 to 1870 exaltation of the military element of American life brought along not only emancipation of the black man, but that conception of him which resulted in the conferring of manhood rights and privileges. In this short space of five years, so highly had the Negro come into public estimation that, with the protection of the military arm of the government, there were actively engaged in his interest an Emancipation League, a Freedmen's Pension Society, a Freedmen and Soldiers' Relief, a Freedmen's Aid Society of the M.E. Church, a Society of Friends of Great Britain and Ireland for the Relief of Emancipated Slaves of America, an American Missionary Association, a Freedmen's Bureau, a Freedmen's Bank, a British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, an American Negro Aid Commission, and other organizations, too numerous for mention. So important, however, was military organization and predominance to the success of any one of these organizations, that Carl Schurz, reporting to Congress the condition of the South, declared: "If the national government firmly and unequivocally announces its policy not to give up the control of free labor reform until it is firmly accomplished, the progress of the reform will be far more rapid and far less difficult than it will be if the attitude of the government is such as to permit contrary hopes to be indulged in."

In 1870, as the military power of the United States weakened its control over the nation, forces of opposition arose to pull down to the depths the black man, who had been exalted by the agencies of military government. The Ku Klux Klan, headed by the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire, and the Grand Dragon of the Realm, with malignant fanaticism worshipped the lost cause. Hatred of white man for Negro, accentuated and embittered by hatred for the Yankee carpet-bagger and the southern scalawag, resulted in the rise of a powerful southern partisanship, stunned only so long as military power held sway. Peonage took place of colored free labor. Disproportionate appropriation of taxes between blacks and whites lowered the Negro measurably year by year. With the complete removal of military supremacy, the Ku Klux courted publicity which it had hitherto shunned. A leader, the statesman of the new era, in the person of the late Benjamin R. Tillman, of South Carolina, appeared. He split the loose organization of southern aristocracy with the blacks with lily white wedge, and trampled into dust every agency which favored the black man. He deprived the black of all weapons of offence or defence, disfranchised him, shunted him off into the ghetto, and called the world to mock him in his lowly position. This southern statesman lived to see the Solid South come into national power in 1912. From that time, until the beginning of the world war in 1914, the American negro reached the lowest point of his political and social status.

Compared with Anglo-Saxon, Frenchman, Italian, Austrian, German or Russian, he was of an order and degree reputed farthest down. No celebrity attached to his menial state. No distinction might be his as an award from the courts of nations. Dignity, grandeur and majesty applied to Guelphs, Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns. Theirs was all arrogation of supereminence. And to them all, the Negro, throughout the world, was, if a man at all, pre-eminently the mere Man Friday.

From such a status of debasement, existing in an intolerable atmosphere of derogation and disrepute, the humble and humiliated American Negro sought the exaltation of international honor. Denied and disavowed at home, through vicissitude of international war, he hoped for affirmation of a new world dictum in acknowledgment of his human qualities and worth. He did not, like Toussaint, long for the high honors of the continental emperor. He sought democratic equality, and he would as lief think of bringing the Kaiser to his level as exalting himself to the plane of that immortal celebrity.

He wanted to make good in public. He wanted to demonstrate both efficiency and initiative. He desired that popular belief conceive him as a man, not a monkey. He wished the Caucasian world to take into its head that he might function as a valuable and serviceable element of twentieth century civilization. He yearned to reveal his powers in every field of endeavor. And he expected that when the Caucasian had arrived at a fair judgment in his behalf, he would issue to him the warrant certifying that he was four-square with the dominant opinion of mankind, and, therefore, entitled to the honors of superior status.

He aimed to compensate the world by presenting a concept of beauty in place of a general notion of repellent ugliness. Instead of being regarded as a "Hottentot with clicking palate, whom the meanest of the rest look down upon for all his glimmering language and spirituality," he wished the world to find in him fitness for survival, conformity with civilization's ideal, example of the world philosophy of forbearance, human relationships, symmetry and poise in adaptation to the world's tasks, and moderation in respect of the higher laws, whose harmonies order and rectify all creation.

He sought to neutralize the misteachings of Adam Smith, of Darwin and Defoe. Smith's "Wealth of Nations" presumed the material debasement of darker peoples of colonial populations, or, in lieu thereof, such debasement of Slav, Serf or Serbian as would compensate the vanity of the superior people. Indirectly, Darwin taught, that the Negro closely approached the missing link between the savage beast and the human. Defoe delighted the world with a picture of the ideal economic status for the maintenance of white superiority over black man. These ideas the Negro wished to topple over.

He felt it necessary to repudiate the indoctrination of racial hatred proclaimed throughout the world by "The Birth of a Nation." He set over against it the reception by all civilization of the Booker T. Washington life story. He wished to substitute recognition of worth in place of the things that debase and make ashamed.

His great puzzle was the Anglo-Saxon, cold, austere and uncomplaisant. This Caucasian, fair of skin, with smooth and wavy hair, small cheekbones and elevated forehead, appeared a worshipful master whose station, under God, was of preordained and predestined eminence. Occupying Eurasia from the Channel to the Ganges, together with the most favored portions of Africa and America, he was the author and agency for law and order for the world. St. Augustine, first archbishop and lawgiver of Canterbury, himself of African descent, the son of Monica and Patricius of Carthage, had left the Anglo-Saxon from semi-barbarism to his position of world renown. Would this Anglo-Saxon ever degrade the sons of women of Africa?

The Negro's next puzzle was the French, urbane, amenable and suave. Negro emotions and French sensibilities mingled even without recourse to the vehicle of language. Imbued with all the finer Latin qualities and characteristics, the French ever invited the black man to a social world which the Anglo-Saxon denied him. E.W. Lightner, writing as a war correspondent, says:

Thus, at hob and nob with the civilities and honors and embraces of this social life, the Negro felt an unaccustomed giddiness seize him. This giddiness was not caused by lack of social poise, nor incited by the French, but it arose from the dilemma, or rather peril, in which the French intercourse placed him with relation to the adjustment of darker races to Anglo-Saxon civilization.

Nevertheless in 1914, the approach to this court of honour and equality must be made by the Negro—and made under restraint sufficient to assure Anglo-Saxon approval. This was, indeed, a complex problem. Traducers proclaimed his undeveloped capacities; he answered with a claim of long repressed aptitudes. They spoke of intolerable coalescence; he claimed that the times demanded imperative coexistence. They said he had no soul; he claimed the over-soul. They asserted his lecherous character; he referred to statistics. But when they claimed he was pro-German, he stripped for action. World war, and France, prostrate amid its terrors, offered the Negro the great opportunity of the centuries to refute the broadcast propaganda of his enemies.

Beyond the French appeared the German, ungainly, acrimonious and obdurate. Part Saxon, part Hun, part Vandal and Visigoth, a creature of blood and iron, he utilized every force of nature to exterminate his enemies. The Negro knew how to exploit none of nature's elemental energies. But he did know that he could learn how by seizing and mastering the weapons of the enemy.

Of the energies of earth he lacked both scientific mastery and the weapons which give them offensive power and direction. Of the air he lacked all control. Fire he utilized only for purposes of cooking food, but not for the development of machinery of warfare. He has no vessel upon all the seven seas. To seize and master and utilize these energies appeared a thankless job, albeit a necessary one. He voted a grim "Aye."

wreath

This is the wreath presented by the Ford-Darney Orchestra in memory of Lieutenant Jimmy Europe, leader of the famous Jazz band which won its laurels with the 369th Infantry in France. His funeral took place from St. Mark's Church in West 53rd St.

body

The body of Lieutenant Jimmy Europe who died suddenly this week is here seen being carried from St. Mark's Church. Europe was the leader of the famous Jazz band which won its laurels with the 369th Infantry in France.

nurses

NEGRO NURSES MARCH IN GREAT RED CROSS PARADE ON FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY.

arrest

THE ARREST OF THE ASSASSIN.
Scene immediately after the murder of the Archduke and Archduchess of Austria in the streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia. The arrest of Gavrio Princip, the murderer.

guardsman

NATIONAL GUARDSMAN WEARING COMPLETE EQUIPMENT, READY FOR WAR.
A soldier's equipment consists of a great number of articles, skillfully packed so that they make a small bundle, considering the number of articles. The kit includes a blanket, rifle, bayonet, kit bag, cartridge belt, canteen, pan, plate, knife, fork, spoon, tent spikes, rubber blanket and other miscellaneous articles. The photo shows three views—side, front and back, with equipment attached.

conference

THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS
This remarkable photograph taken during the Peace Conference at Paris shows President Wilson and President Poincare in the center background (directly underneath the clock). Seated next to Mr. Wilson is Secretary of State Lansing. Next to President Poincare at the right are seated Lloyd George, Balfour and Bonar Law. At the long table to the left of the photo we see seated Clemenceau, Pichon and Marshal Foch.

london

CARRYING OLD GLORY THROUGH LONDON.
United States soldiers, carrying the Stars and Stripes and Regimental Standard, passed cheering crowds at the head of a National army command that marched through London on May 11th, 1918.

joffre

MARSHAL J. JOFFRE AND PARTY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
This photograph was taken at the State, War and Navy Building, just after they had called on Secretary of War Baker. Joffre stands on the lower step in the centre of the picture.

haig

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG.
This is a late photograph of the commander of the British armies in France.

soldiers

SOLDIERS OF THE DIFFERENT NATIONS ENGAGED IN THE WORLD WAR.
This picture shows the portraits and headdress of representative fighters now engaged in the European war.

bapaume

CAPTURE OF BAPAUME BY BRITISH.
Scene on the day British troops entered Bapaume, a French city evacuated by the Germans in their retreat to the Hindenburg line. Cheerful British soldiers are seen in a street.

noyon

FRENCH PASSING THROUGH RECAPTURED NOYON.
They are on the heels of the Germans. The photograph shows how the town was wrecked by the Germans before they evacuated.

gas

HORSE AND MAN ALIKE PROTECTED FROM GAS ATTACK.
French army horses wearing gas masks, which look at first sight like oat bags. They are used when the animals have to cross a gas zone in drawing the shell wagons to the batteries.

wounded

ONE OF THE METHODS OF TRANSPORTING WOUNDED.
This man is being taken over mountainous regions, and the method of transportation has been devised in order to minimize the shock.

victory

"V-I-C-T-O-R-Y."
Sailors spelling the word "VICTORY" with flags.

telescope

Sighting through the 40 power telescope on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania. Objects at great distances are clearly distinguished through this telescope.

new york

BRITISH SAILORS IN NEW YORK.
They are from the H.M.S. Roxburgh, and took part in welcoming the arrival of Gen. Joffre in New York City

habit

THE GREAT AMERICAN HABIT.
French Jackies, for the first time in the United States, learn all the delights of the great American drink, the Ice Cream Soda.

baylor

BENJAMIN BAYLOR.
Wardroom Steward, U.S.N. Lost when U.S.A.C.T. TICONDEROGA was torpedoed and sunk September 30, 1918.

marshall

WILLIAM GARFIELD MARSHALL.
Wardroom Officer's Steward, U.S.N. Lost when U.S.A.C.T. TICONDEROGA was torpedoed and sunk September 30, 1918.

Williams

SURVIAN AUSTIN WILLIAMS.
Mess Attendant U.S.N. Lost on U.S.S. CYCLOPS, June 14, 1918.

Loundeo

T.A. LOUNDEO.
Water Tender, U.S.N. 909 N. 5th St., Richmond, Va.

Beckley

WM. M.T. BECKLEY.
Mess Attendant, 1c, U.S.N. Fell overboard and drowned, U.S.S. OZARK, July 25, 1918.

Fowler

GEORGE FOWLER.
Cabin Steward U.S.N. Lost when Liberty Boat capsized, U.S.S. LANSDALE. December 6, 1918.

In doing so, he accepted the challenge of no mere enigma. Of his own volition, he entered upon the path that led through untrod and dangerous ground. It was his problem to cut the Gordian knot of Anglo-Saxon icy reserve that in the end fair England might assume as a policy of world administration the award of citizenship rights to the darker races in the sphere of influence of the league of civilized nations. It was a part of this problem to enter the equation with such deliberate caution as to upset no part of the nicely calculated adjustments of white to darker peoples. And it was also a part of his problem that he should not relinquish his grasp upon the factors that led to honor, recognition and equality.

Germany was indignant as the Negro sought entry to the war. The South was sensitive. The North was quizzical. The whole world was hesitant. The too ardent favor which the Negro found in France gave offence to both America and England. Indeed, for the Negro to lift himself too rapidly by his own bootstraps would have offended England, whose law prohibited emigration of foreign Negroes to South Africa. And it would also offend America, strangely jealous of any sign of unwanted assertiveness the Negro might display. The Negro accepted the challenge to penetrate this maze and labyrinth, with no surety, save God's good grace, of the fate that lay beyond.

To attain the goal of Recognition, it was necessary for him to demand of the people of England, France and Italy, that he be made subject to every test calculated to reveal his worth or inferiority as an individual, business, political or social equal of the allied peoples. The goal of Honor, he had attained in every war waged by America. He was with Jackson at New Orleans, a pioneer in the Mexican struggle, 200,000 strong in the great civil crisis, the acme of terror to Geronimo in the later Indian wars, the hero of San Juan in the Spanish-American combat, and at Carrizal in the latest Mexican imbroglio. By 1914, however, he had lost all rewards of honor which he had previously won. As for Equality, since the Civil War, he had been guaranteed this goal by three amendments to the Constitution of the United States. These forgotten amendments read in part:

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: