Newspaper Page Text
m , rv 'jv ' JffBf
i'l1fcl Jf.1l-,
!
tV"
HEW TO THE LINE; LET THE GHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY
7jr; ;v
- -amsC
a "af "-P " J .-Lfc. " - .- - --w.sr
Vol. XVH.
The Negro Conciousness
And Democracy
THE TBUB DOCTRINE OS TEACHING OF BOOKEB T. WASHINaTON.
IN RELATION TO THE NATIONAL NEGBO BUSINESS LEAGUE.
AN ABLE ABTICLE rEOM THE PEN OF LLEWELLYN JONES.
BEFEODUOED FROM THE "PUBLIC" OF CHICAGO, BY SPECIAL BEQUEST.
The thirteenth annual session of the
National Negro Business League, held
under the presidency and chairmanship
of Booker T. Washington, has just ad
journed. The meetings -were held in Chicago
in a Negro church building, before
practically exclusively Colored audi
enees, only a few months after a "very
different series of meetings had been
held in the same city for the same pur
pose the uplifting of the race. This
other series of meetings was, of course,
the convention of the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People.
The one convention reminds the ob
server irresistibly of the other; the
success of either movement depends up-,
on the success of the other. The gospel
preached by Mr. Washington to his
Colored business men Trill yield fruits
to be sure, but bitter ones, if the gos
pel preached by Burghardt Du Bois and
Oswald Garrison Villard is ignored by
either Negroes or whites.
Lest this observation be taken as an
adverse criticism of the National Negro
Bosincss'League, let us hasten to indi-'
rate the' admirable work it is doing.
The league is the offspring of Tuske
gee and Mr. Washington's practical
mind. In nearly every city throughout
the country North and South where
the number of Negroes in business is
sufficient to form a nucleus, a business
league is formed. Its primary function
is in each case inspirational, and in
many cases it acts secondarily as a
chamber of commerce for the Colored
people. In connection with these leag
ues other and more directly practical
organizations, the Negro Bar Associa
tion, the Negro Press Association, the
Negro Bankers' Association, and the
'egro Funeral Directors' Association
have sprung.
The purpose of tne parent organiza
tion in its national aspect is easily
gathered from such an annual meeting
as has just been held in Chicago. Before
a large audience of Colored people the
more successful business men of their
race stand up and testify to-the worth
of their business experiences. As one
of the delegates expressed it to the
writer it isan "experience meeting.'
Then the experiences and their meaning
are drian home by Booker T. Washing
ton in his annual address.
See, he tells his audience, what your
brothers are doing. Do not, he urges,
revile the white "" because ha de
nies you equal rights and privileges,
hut learn ffbm Tnm that Business is
the avenue through which your limi
tations may bo transcended. When you
graduate from college do not clamor
for further recognition, but follow the
example of Mr. X, who" has so con
vincingly told os of his success, and
rtart a brick yard in the South. Or
if yon of the other sex' feel cramped
and limited, follow the example of
Mrs. Y. and start a national business
in toilet preparations. But don't quar
rel with wealth or with the; status quo,
This address with its cheerful optimism,
its comparison of the Negro race's
wonderful progress in fifty years with
the "noble" Indian's retrogression
and helplessness in the same time, and
its sturdy note- of self-sufficiency, be
S ended, there are more business ex
periences. Then there are reports from the other
organizations. The "bankers, for in
stance, ten how the number of Negro
tanks has increased from two in 1900
to about fifty-seven at. the present time,
na how those of them enrolled in the
egro Bankers' Association are plan-'
S a strong central bank to handle
tto reserve fcnSa rf -mwalidTi m.
to exercise mutual control and support
a to organize the- Negro creclit n
a systematic basis. Then State -report
are read slmwinn im . a. .t-
txtians of which thare are ver thirty
-"'"fi WT tt WAV U1KAOA"
-have used their opportunities for
work and propaganda during the year.
Much of the propaganda work is
done through the Negro churches, and
it has been one of the tasks of -Mr.
Washington to rescue these institutions
from their other-worldliness, and guide
them into those channels of social out
look where they can render a maxi
mum amount of service to the members
who hold them in such high esteem and
give them such a relatively greater part
in their lives than the members of the
dominant race givo their churches.
Such, in brief, is what you may see
and hear at an annual meeting of the
National Negro Business League.
What are we to think of it as a factor
in the spread of fundamental democ
racy f
No two persons would think alike in
the matter, of course. The individual
ist democrat and the social democrat
would view the influence of this
League from very different standpoints.
The writer's idea of democracy would
lead him to view the work of the
League with only qualified assurance
and hope, if it were alone in the field
and if there were no Burghardt Du
Bois to balance its tendencies.
To take the positive aspects of the
matter first, however, the work of the
League, as far as it goes, is a tri
umphant answer to the people who talk
the usual nonsense about the inferior
ity of the Negro. The Negro is differ
ent from the white man, they say, and
must remain so. To the older answer
"Hath not a Jew eyes! Hath not
a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions f Fed with
the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases,
healed by the same means,, warmed and
cooled by the same winter and summer
as a Christian is!" to this the Negro
business "" adds, "Hath not a Negro
business ability, hath he not established
banks, printing works, newspapers, pub
lishing houses, missionary enterprises
in Liberia, Negro communities with
lighting and water plants, and are they
not all flourishing and paying divi
dends; and are not the Negro lawyers
making good in the courts!"
But this very success will bring its
own limitations to the Negro con
sciousness. We whites who have .had
banks and business enterprises and for
tunes for many years are beginning to
get rather disillusioned about them. At
the very lime when we see that they
are destroying even white equality (not
using that last word, however, in its
mechanical sense) the Colored man,
apparently oblivious of the meaning
of our Socialism, Singletax, or the
more spontaneous ana naive mvuw
tion of dynamite, the Colored man in
the person of Mr. Washington and his
disciples, unknowing the meaning of
the word "villainy" in the quotation,
and meaning its very opposite, glee
fully exclaim: "The villainy you
teach me I will execute, and it shall
go hard but I will better the instruc
tion." '
The white man who claims that the
Negro cannot and should not try to
imitate the white civilization, and who
says that the Negro consciousness is
a different consciousness from ours, is
simply making the claim thai the Ne-
cro is slightly different from human.
Vnr -wTiftfc are the distinctively white
qualities and virtues if they are not
those rexy qualities which we call hn
manf
' A,xriena in discussing the matter with
the writer eaia 4hat what Vas wanted
to solve the problem was a psycholog
ical inouiry into the Negro conscious
ness, bS ihat all action in the prem-l
ises ahoula watt Tana o-b3u w -;
This is a promising theery, but a lit-'
tie reflection shows that its precise is
altogether false.
The ry Kefr
1 thatjif
Chicago, September 7, 1912
S"' ftafc . m iiiiVCHBiiiiiiiiiVL . ,-. Tfwrf
a
gBWWHWBWWIIllllWlE y... .. .
JOHNJT. CONNEBY.
The promMent and successful wholesale coal merchant; former vice president
of the City Fuel Company, feels more than positive, that, Woodrow Wil
son and Thomas B. Marshall wQl be elected president and vice president of
the United States.
has value for democracy ip the Negro
self-consciousness. And the moment
you present the Negro with a chart of
his consciousness, he takes up a certain
attitude toward it which is unpredict
able which was necessarily not in the
consciousness as originally analyzed
and your labor is in vain as far as its
original intention was concerned. But
if you could reduco the Negro to an
analyzablo resultant of hereditary and
social forces you are using a method
which is just as valid if applied to
tho white man. In your reduetiqn of
the Negro to the sub-spiritual, you re
duce the white to tho sub-spiritual; you
place both races on the plane of what
is philosophically known as naturalism,
on the plane where efficiency, survival,
and not love, is the final good.
The Negro answer to such a reduction
is Mr. Washington's doctrine of lais-
sez faire democracy, the piling up of
Negro fortunes, the aggressive business
enterprise of Negro business men, the
creation of Negro capitalist and Ne
gro proletariat, and the duplication in
Negro circles of our own whole round
of industrial troubles.
That this is no idle fancy would be
evident to anyone who spoke to some
of the Negro delegates to the recent
conference. One prominent Southern
Colored man denounced the unions to
the writer. Because they excluded Ne-
No, bnt because they put a
roesf
buffer between tho worker and the
stimulus of straight competition, so
that the worker was not spurred to
"do his damndest."
But must we not admit that real
democracy requires two conditions for
its ideal success f The first of these is
that evaj r"ni is an end in himself
not a means merely to your end or
mine. And the second and just as im
portant condition is that all truly hu
man ends are reconcilable and co-ordi
nate, so that as a recent writer, Pro
fessor Warner Kte, has pointed out,
in a remarkable book in a fully con
scions society, conflict and personal sac
rifice are eliminated by that mutual
recognition and intelligence which sees
to it that while I gain my ends through
your instrumentality, I shall do it in
such a way that my doing so enables
you to gain your ends while working
for mine.
Bight here is Trhere Dr. Du Bois and
his school supplement the work of Dr.
suppl
Washington: They see that the Negro
cannot gain anything more than a ma
terial and partial victory by becoming
more and more self -sufficing. Two
camps of self-sufficing and self -regarding
peoples will never constitute a democ
racy. .Every wnite advanee in tne con
ception of social justice must be shared
with the Negro. The Negro who is
graduated from a college must not be
allowed to take. Dr. Washington's ad
vise to go South and start a brick yard,
he has academic ahffiiie thai eanl
bjmployed in other and more ideally
fruitful ways. The white unions, for
instance, must cease their suicidal and
immoral policy of discouraging or ex
cluding Negro members. The Negroes
must not meet such exclusion with a
self-sufficient, J 'Well, I shall achieve
in some other way." They must in
sist on achieving in that particular
by insisting on admission to every union
that claims to be Labor.
To achieve tho proper solution of
this problem, in short, simply means
that whites as well as Negroes shall
be guided by ideals as well as by op
portunism, shall have the courage of
their lip-service io spiritual realities,
shall either admit that they do not
believe in democracy at all b,ut only
in the struggle for. existence, or else
pursue their achievement of democracy
in the only way possible; by the frank
recognition of and action upon the
spiritual implications of democracy and
self-consciousness.
DEATH OF SAMUEL COLERIDGE-
TAYLOB, THE FAMOUS NEQEO
COMPOSES.
8amuel Coleridge-Taylor, the great
est and most famous Negro composer
in the world; died in Loudon, England,
last Sunday.
He was only 37 vears old, beinc born
I August 15, 1875 in London. All of his
educational, including his musical ad
vantages, were imparted fo him in the
city of his birth and it has been well
said, by, Booker T. Washington, "That
"It is given to few men in so short
a time to win for themselves a posi
tion of such prominence on two con
tinents as fell to the lot of Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor. i
"Mr. Coleridge-Taylor early gave
evidence of powers of a high order,
and at the time of his death ranked
as one f the most interesting and re
markable of British conductors and
composers. Bos sympathetic setting in
cantata of portions of Longfellow's
'Hiawatha' did much .to make V
known in England and America.
"Mr. Coleridge-Taylor had written
much, had achieved much. His work,
moreover, possesses not only charm and
power, but distinction, the individual
note."
In the death of Coleridge-Taylor, the
Colored race throughout the world, has
lost its greatest musical composer.
Solomon Livingston, who was well
known among the real estate dealers
of tho south side, his office being lo
cated at -4711 South State street, died
very suddenly Wednesday morning
from heart failure. Hie was on his
way from his home at- 5818 Calumet
aveL, riding in his autor when he was
striekea. down. He leaves a bereaved
wiiew d ee son and heca of friend
toMKiUi feat.
The State Street Fair
and Carnival Bears Fruit
BEV. W. a BBADDAN, PASTOS OF BEBEAN BAPTIST CHUBCH SOUNDS
THE PBAISE OF BANKKB JESSE BTNQA.
FOB MOBE THAN SUCOESSFULLY BBINaiNa FOBWABD AND CONDUCT
ING: THE OAENTVAL.
The following letter speaks for it
self: Chicago, Dls.
Aug. 31, 1912.
v 5008 5th Ave.
To Mr. Jesse Binga,
36th Place and State St.
Dear Mr. Binga:
A grateful church and pastor would
thus express their thanks to you and
your associates for the courtesy ac
corded them during tho Carnival. It
was indeed noblo of you and your com
mittee to freely give churches and char
itable Organizations permits to sell and
collect money for their Institutions dur
ing the Carnival.
I have always held you in high es
teem, because of your business accu
racy, but now more so because of your
manifest interest in Churches and Char
ity, irrespective of Creed.
During the Carnival the church of
which I am the proud pastor of, these
twelve years gained upward of a hun
dred and fifty dollars, in the gross.
But I expect what wo accomplished
was or could have been accomplished
by others had they entered the enter
prise with the same spirit that char
acterized Berean Baptist Church.
To my mind, tho Carnival afforded
our visitors, who havo just left our
doors, an opportunity -to see what our
merchants and business men are do
ing on State street, the glengonie cen
ter of our people and trade.
Hitherto we havo been compelled to
entertain them by taking them to the
"Grand or for a Moonlight ride ae
eross the lake." But this year wo were
enabled to show them an enterprise
launched and pushed to fruition by men
of our own race. State street blazed
with lights, mirth and laughter was
indeed a beautiful sight, and evidently
relished by our guests, as I saw many
of them pass and repass.
E. EABL WABD, A LEADING AFEO-
AMEBIdAN TEAMING CON
TRACTOR OF COLUMBUS, OHIO,
LOST HIS LIFE IN LAKE MICHI
GAN.
The Afro-American population of Chi
cago and of Columbus, Ohio, were horri
fied and shocked on Wednesday morn
ing to learn that the body of E. Earl
Ward, the leading and the wealthy
teaming contractor of Columbus, Ohio,
was found floating in Lake Michigan,
near the south end of Jackson Park,
and -o one will ever be able to tell
whether ho committed suicide by drown
ing himself in the lake or whether some
one murdered him and threw his body
fin it.
It is claimed that four or Ave days
before his body was discovered in the
lake, that he sent two diamond rings
and 34 in money to his partner, S. W.
Byrd, at Columbus, Ohio, at the same
time forwarding him a short letter
which seemed to indicate that it was
his intention to end his life in some
manner.
Mr. Ward came to Chicago little
after the middle of August to attend
the sessions of the National Negro
Business League, and he was on its
program as one of the speakers, and
he had not departed for his home since
the adjournment of the league.
He was well known in this city and
was extremely popular with the ladies. I
He attended the reception and grand
ball at the 7th Begiment Armory at
the dose of the sessions of the league
and, being rtry affable, he was sur
rounded all the time by a number of
the most beautiful ladies who attended
that fashionable social function.
Mr. Charles Smith, 5363 Dearborn
street, arrived homo Tuesday, from, a
three weeks vacation trip to Washing-
tan. P. CU sad Baltimore, Md w&ere
he attaried' the sewteac of the Kaifht
St
No. 49.
I was on the street every night un
til 11 P. M., and aside from a few
instances of youthful exuberance that
annoyed the choleric and dyspeptic
everybody seemed happy.
Chicago Negroes, owes to you and
your Committee, a debt of thanks for
promoting and carrying out the State
street Carnival, and if they are slow
in expressing their thanks, remember
that yours was a pioneer effort and as
such will be appreciated in the future
more than at the present. .
Negro history and tradition will re
fer to your committee, as not only one
who said "I will" but. really did.
Thanking you again I beg to remain
W. S. BRADQAN, D. D.
Minister at Berean,
4838 Dearborn St.,
City.
Bev. Father J. B. Massiah, of St.
Thomas church and many other citi
zens, have written similar letters 'like-
the abov to Mr. Binga, highly prais
ing and commending him for the great
amount of race enterprise which ho
displayed in conceiving and launching,
the State street Fair and Carnival,
which was never attempted before by
Colored people residing in any part of
this country.
It was tho first time, that, the author
ities of any city large or small in any
part of the United States, ever gave
6 or 7 blocks of its main thoroughfare
over to Colored people to be used for
such purposes, and it speaks vol
untas for them, and for manager Binga
of the Carnival, that he, and they did
not abuse in any manner, the confi
dence imposed in him, and the Colored
citizens in general by the city council
of Chicago and Mayor Carter H. Har-
Irison.
OLD LAND
MARK REMOVED
DEATH.
BY
End came quietly while surrounded by .
members of his family at the home
on Lauderdale Street was known
far and wide as a benefactor of his
race.
Col. B.
death of
departed
B. Church is dead. In the
Col. Bobert B. Church who
this life Thursday, August
29, 1912, at his late home, 384 Lauder
dale street, tho community loses one
of its most prominent and substantial
citizens and the race sustains a heavy
loss of one of its most practical and
thorough business men, who by pluck
and economy worked his way up from
the bottom to the very top. The fu
neral of the' deceased was Held Monday
from Emanuel Episcopal Church, of
which he was a loyal member. Col.
Church, who was a Mason of Mt. Nebo
lodge No. 8, passed from the labor to
reward in his 78th year, surrounded
by friends and relatives. CoL Church,
who had been ill for over 18 months, '
retired from active business pursuits
October last, and consigned his busi
ness to the hands of his youngest son,
who has had the management of the
Church estate ever sinee. Col. Church's
Loldings were variously estimated at
from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 with a
rental of more than $50,000 a month.
CoL Church had property scattered all
over Memphis. He owned 100 houses,
a park and auditorium and was the
first president of the Solvent Savings'
Bank, and Trust Company. He was
noted, f orchis charitable inclinations.;
He donated $1,000 several years ago
to the Confederate reunion at Memphis:
He gave to several local institutions.
CoL Church leaves behind to mourn bj
Iocs & wife, Vis, Annie Church, two
sons Ayers and Bobert B. Church, Jr.,
two daughters, Miss Arnetto and Mrs.
Mary Churci-TerrsIL The Tribsae,
NsshvQfe, Ten, Aag. 32, 12.
. : fe-jfe 'f-i'
