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Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, July 13, 1918, Image 1

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Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093353/1918-07-13/ed-1/seq-1/

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PRICE FIVE CENTS
CAYTONS WEEKLY
Published every Saturday at Seattle, Washington.
U. S. A.
In the interest of equal rights and equal Justice to
all men and for "all men up."
A publication of general information, but in
the rnnin voicing the sentiments of the Colored
Citizens.
It is open to the towns and communities of the
state of Washington to air their public grienvances.
Social and church notices are solicited for pub
lication and will be handled according to the rules
of journalism.
Subscription $2 per year in advance. Special
rates made to clubs and societies.
HORACE ROSCOE CAYTON. .Editor and Publisher
TELEPHONE: BEACON 1910
FOR RACE GOOD
The cnll to Washington last week of lead
ers of the race and newspaper men by the
■war department will have a "wholesome ef
fect on the race in general. Some may doubt
the wisdom of these special gatherings of
race men, thinking of them as begotten of
an undemocratic idea. And we must admit
that they do not wholly square with the
democratic idea, but we must also admit
that they are the beverage to foist us up to
the plane of democracy, and which can not
come about of itself. It is impossible to
reason away the race question, and a seem
ingly hard condition when avc are doing
and dying for the great cause as other men.
The race question is a national asset, and
of questionable value. In fact it is posi
tively of no value to the reputed national
spirit and by which our country is known
and rated throughout the world. When the
foreigner thinks of America he thinks of
a haven for persecuted men—that's our
country's reputation as known overseas.
And we are often chagrinned at this whole
some wholesale view, viewing our race as
the exception to the rule of things making
for that spirit which has ever abided in
man —seeing one man as another, one nation
as another in the great essentials of citizen
ship, of life.
It is useless to charge our country with
indifference as it concerns the Negroes. We
have a condition bequeathed us and for
which no living man of this day is respon
sible. We think it cruel that the white race
will not righten their attitude when it is
such an apparently easy thing to do. We
often doubt the boasted humanity and
Christianity of such a perverse people in our
conclusion. Hut we may as well come to it,
to the fact that prejudice is ingrained, and
as certain as a thing of blood. It will not
be overcome by violent assault. It must be
bred out of the bone, and as it were bred in
and by methods now being employed and
by others yet to be discovered.
The Avhite man is as helpless as our race
in bringing about a sudden revolution of
feeling. It is easier to charge the Hun from
his most formidable position than to dis
lodge prejudice. The white man is helpless
for the moment but he must be relied on to
help in the mater and because he knows that
to some extent his own salvation is involved.
It has taken this great war to most de
monstratably prove that the white man must
get busy and he got busy, helping in care
ful ways to erect the Negro to his place as
a citizen of the country and not merely a
denizen. The call of Negro men to camps
for officers was a splendid move in the
right direction. For as these were lifted
up so was the race lifted up. A few short
sighted among us saw that splendid move
as another race affliction, holding that it
was merely a species of segregation sup
ported by those in high authority. The sep
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, SATURDAY, JULY 13, 11)18
-arate camps gave opportunity to thousands
and in now walks of life. Efficiency in new
walks of life menus inroads on prejudice
when the war is over. The separate camps
have been the Negroes' opportunity. This
lias no reference to that visionary what
might be, but to what is. A condition con
fronts us and no theory. Those camps are
vast industrial centers as well as military
schools. The pood by "way of efficiency of
the thousands Avill be felt throughout the
land, having the tendency to reduce preju
dice to the minimum because of the demon
strated higher usefulness of race men not to
speak of that good that will redound owing
to an honorable and heroic part taken in the
great war.
The gathering at Washington, of editors.
of leading race men was but a furtherance
of the grand scheme of erecting the race to
a plane of white men. White men, we say
again, saw the necessity, but were helpless
when it came to reading the race in the gen
eral nation at once on equal terms. They
have no power to speak things into exist
ence but they can help give things the
proper trend, leaving it the adjusting years
to bring about the best possible results.
The race can ask no more than this, that
by some method it is let in on everything
doing in the country. Those in authority
can do this, and as they have come so near
doing, thus teaching the remaining white
people of governmental intents and prin
ciples by precept and example. And in the
meanwhile the Negroes will appreciate in
the eyes of the white race and will observe
with pleasure the increasing estimation of
themselves. —The Freeman.
THE COAL TRUST
Consumers of coal in and about Seattle
not only feel that the price is unreasonably
high, but the quality is unreasonably low
in heat production. Tn other words the
price of coal is not only as high again as
it was in normal conditions, but in a ton of
alleged coal put in one's bunkers there is
almost as much rock and dirt as there is
coal. In other words a ton of steam coal
that was formerly sold for $4.75 now sells
for $9.65 and add the rook and dirt that's
in the coal to that amount and each ton of
coal costs in the neighborhood of $14. These
high prices have come about with the fuel
administrator looking on and giving his con
sent. The coal trust of the Northwest with
I). C. Botting as general manager, has
cinched the people going and coming. Mayor
Hanson is right in asking for an impartial
investigation, the investigators made up of
men neither directly or indirectly inter
ested, and if he gets what he has asked for
its our firm belief that the Northwest Coal
Trust will get a long dose of prison stripes.
Winter is coming and it is very apparent,
that there is going to be a coal shortage and
simply because the coal barrons are profit
eering and realize the greater the distress
for fuel the more money they will realize
out of the siatuation. This is the kind of
cussedness thats hastening government
ownership in this country and once it gets
under headway not a single public util
ity will be left out of the fold. Men all
over this country who have grown fabu
lously rich by gouging the consumers are
devising all kinds of schemes to not only
rob the public, but to defraud the govern
ment out of its just income tax. It is
claimed that the coal miners are not per-
mitted to work but two and three days per
week lest too much coal be taken out, thus
causing a shortage in the dead of sum
mer. The government would be justified in
seizing the coal mines and operating them as
the railroads of the country arc being
operated.
EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS
Last Tuesday it was a thundering day
and it did so of ye old time southern style.
It sho' did sound natural.
No. constant reader. Yon Ilinderberg has
not as yet been knocked over into hadese,
but multiplied thousands of his men have
been and his time is coming.
One of Seattle's very wealthy men was
arrested some days ago for hoarding flour.
All through life; this chap has been so pe
nurious and pickaunish that he walked to
iiis office every morning and then gave
himself credit for a nickel.
Those Mexican editors saw many won
ders while in this country that they will
tell to their German friends, who impatient
ly awaited their return.
Publicity paid Edison, so goes the story,
bill its profiteering that's paying the big
ones just now.
Judgng from the- past week's war re
ports Vence is no longer in danger.
Income dogers may not be slackers as
the term is generally understood, but they
are against the government and should be
punished just as severely as slackers.
These are no times for getting rich.
The live leading meat profiteers art; out in
a paid advertisement of thousands of dollars
denying they are gouging the government
but the most of us believe that they are
not only income dogers, but public prevari
cators as well.
Austria-Hungry is the new spelling.—
Boston Transcript.
One trouble with the House of Represent
atives is that it is equipped with a mighty
small Kitchin.— Milwaukee Sentinel.
It's hard to see how anybody could expect
the Central Powers' kings to win out over
the Allies' aces. —Nashville Southern Lum
berman.
We can't help wondering what the circu
lation manager of the New York American
now thinks of its editorial policy.—Phila
delphia Inquirer.
Perhaps this, from F. I*. Adam's column
in The Stars and Stripes, will help us vis
ualize the war: "The difference between
American and French automobile driving is
this: In America when your tire blows up
you say. "Good Heavens! There goes our
tire!' and in France you say, 'Hooray!
That was only the tire.' " —Kansas City
Star.
How different we are from Wilhelm—we
are well content with a modest place in the
shade.—St. Louis Star.
VOL. 3, NO. 5

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