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THE BROAD AX, CHICAGO. ILLINOIS, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1922
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THE BROAD AX
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THE BROAD AX
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JULIUS F. TAYLOR
Editor and Publisher
Associate Editor
DR. M. A. MAJORS
November 25, 1922
Vol. XXVIII
No. 10
Entered as Second-Class Matter. Aug
iV. 1902. at the Post .Office at Chicago,
ill - Under Act of March 8. 1879.
AUDACITY, VULGARITY, SEN
SUALITY AT WENDELL
" PHILLIPS HIGH SCHOOL
DANCING CLUB
By Dr. M. A. Majors
Accidently the writer saw through
a window into the Antillies Hall, at
3524 Michigan avenue, some very dis
gusting, low, underworld stunts and,
on making inquiry what club or so
ciety it was holding such a smutty
orgy, was informed that it was the
Wendell Phillips High School Danc
ing Club. We were told that some
teacher acted as chaperon at their
weekly dances. We stopped, struck
dumb on learning that a teacher of
our own race would allow such as we
saw to be carried on in her presence.
Any woman would blush for shame Xo
see the ugly, low, nasty dances we
saw done by boys and girls between
14 and 15 years of age, and supposed
to be the representative element of
the race in the high school.
The sights we saw are indescribable
and too low to dwell upon, and we
wonder how in God's name a teacher
can let such filth go on under her
observation. After nearly sixty years
we are greeted with new and startling
surprises. Unwarranted degradation,
the shadow of the old red light dis
trict, the grotesque insolence of ever
horrifying spectacle marauding the
minds of what we call tender youth
enacted as if it was intended to de
stroy every possible human decency.
If this school is to be allowed by
the "parents of the children, by the
school authorities, and by the citi
zens, what need is there for educa
tion? What need have we to hope
for better things? If the ugly de
bauch is to be encouraged we might
close up our Sunday schools and find
interesting pastime in forbidding
goodness and respectability among
people with a dark skin.
.If this High School Dancing Club
is indorsed by the school authorities,
it is a covenant with hell, born en tne
devil, and fostered to kill out of the
ambitious hearts of our young men and
women all that is noble and inspiring
and that is respectable. This article
is intended to reach our. newspapers,
preachers, politicians and civic, dubs,
hoping that a speedy investigation of
this club shall be made and that it be
disorganized for the glory of our chil
dren, the purity of our girls and the
decency of our young manhood.
We had but one thought in mind
when our eyes beheld the surprising,
shocking lack of decency and the bold,
"daring vulgarity of those children to
call the police.
WHY NOT HONOR IN PLACE
OF DISHONOR?
By Dr. M. A. Majors
'Is there a concerted action on the
part of most white people to wring afl
of,the Negro blood out of the Ameri
can flag?
What -a calamity has come to the
Negro race "by the painstaking effort
(h seems) at Washington to -humble
.and humiliate the 24th infantry, the
very flower o the U. S. Army.
For forty years this regiment has
added lustre and raised the standards
of valor and patriotism to army life,
and years after years presidents who
have adorned the White House have
looked upon them as bulwarks to
American safety. Under the present
administration the achievements of
-thisregiment are discredited, the men
virtually disarmed, and sent to Geor
gia military training school tinder the
order of the secretary of war, to be
HON. MICHAEL ZIMMER
The popular and efficient Superintendent of the Cook County
Hospital, who 'would make a splendid Democratic can
didate for Mayor of Chicago in 1923
bulldozed and take insolent treatment
from the Georgians, whose reputation
for cruelty to Negroes is without a
parallel in this country
A movement is on foot to petition
the president, through our congress
men and U. S. senators; with a pos
sible minimum of prospect of getting
the president to rescind action, and
restore the regiment to its former
status. Should the president do this
he will win the gratitude of all loyal
citizens of the republic
SYMPATHY, JUSTICE AND OP
PORTUNITY ARE DUE
NEGRO CITIZENS
President Lowell of Harvard and
Other Leaders Speak at
Hampton Meeting
Boston, Mass. That the so-called
"Negro problem" should be studied
as a unique opportunity, an adven
ture, and a challenge to our democ
racy and our Christianity, which we
should not fear, but for which rather
we should give thanks" was the opin
ion expressed by Dr. Tames E. Gregg,
principal of Hampton Institute, in his
recent address, delivered m Old South
Church, of which Dr. George A. Gor
don is the pastor, at a meeting which
was held under the auspices of the
Hampton Association of Massachu
setts and was presided over by W.
Cameron Forbes.
President A. Lawrence Lowell of
Harvard University declared that sym
pathy, justice and opportunity are due
members of the Negro race. Mrs.
Henry Lane Schmelz of Hampton,
Va, a prominent Southern white wo
man who is chairman of the Woman's
Inter-Racial Committee of Virginia,
outlined the development and work of
the Commission on Inter-Racial Co
operation throughout the South.
"This adventure of enabling differ
ent races to live and work happily to
gether bristles with difficulties, ' said
Doctor Gregg.
"The curse of slavery, even more
hurtful to the white plantation own
ers and slave-breeders and slave-traders
and merchants, in rum, molasses
and cotton, who profited financially by
it than to the Negro slaves themselves,
has left us in the North as well as
in the South a tradition of thought
less injustice, a certain callousness to
cruelty, that is amazing and shametui.
"The fact that three score of our
colored fellow-citizens are put to death
by mobs every year is the most ter
rible evidence of this brutal lawless
ness. Let me hasten to say that law
lessness has repeatedly been exem
plified in the North as well as in the
South, and that there are many white
men and women of the South who feel
the shame of lynching quite as keenly
as any people in the North.
"Then there is still in most of the
Southern States an inequality in edu
cational privileges which cannot be. de
fended. One state superintendent of
public instruction reports that in 1920-
21 the public expenditure for the edu
cation of white children was $3926" per
capita and for colored children $4.84
per capita. Teachers are often under
paid. School terms are often pitifully
short In every state in the South,
however, the set of the current, edu
cationally is toward the improvement
of the Negro schools.
"General Armstrong set out on this
adventure of faith, hope and love more
than fifty years ago when he estab
lished Hampton Institute as a school
in which young men and women
should be trained in head, heart and
hand; in mind, conscience and will, for
unpretentious, unselfish, trustworthy
leadership to go out and ' do as he
said, 'a quiet work that shall make the
land purer and better.'"
President Lowell Pleads for Jacrice
President Lowell said: "We owe
the Negro sympathy for the years of
suffering he has endured and for the
handicaps he has been placed tinder.
His aspirations, yes, even his hopes,
deserve our sympathy. It is only just
that if we are to be of any help in
solving the Negro question, we should
be first of all in sympathy with the
man we are trying to aid. We owe
the Negro justice, in every sense of
the word. If guilty of a crime in the
eyes ot the law, he must be pun
ished but punished by criminal jus
tice and not by the false standards of
criminal justice set up by mob vio
lence."
Discussing the opportunity that
should be given the Negro, President
Lowell quoted Booker T. Washing
ton's declaration that the Negro should
be given the opportunity "to achieve
anything he can prove himself capable
of achieving."
"The Negro should be given the op
portunity to achieve an education and
even a career, declared President
Lowell.
ANTI-LYNCHING SENTIMENT
FAST GAINING GROUND
Twenty-two Lynchers Indicted
in
Georgia This Year Four Con
victed, Fifteen to be Tried
One Indicted in Previous 37 Years
Race Relations Committee Seeks Bet
ter Anti-Lynching Law Emi
nent Jurists Appointed to
Draft It
Atlanta Ga. (Special to The Broad
Ax) That there has been a surpris
ing increase of anti-Iynching senti
ment in Georgia recently and a grow
ing determination on the part of
Georgia people that the sanctity of
the law must be upheld, was clearly
indicated in reports made to the State
Committee on Race Relations in its
recent semi-annual meeting in this
city.
It was pointed out that during the
present year twenty-two indictments
BOOK CHAT -BY MARY WHITE
OVINGTON, CHAIRMAN OF THE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR
THE ADVANCEMENT OF COL
ORED PEOPLE.
"NIGGER"
lb
E. I
Price
Clement Wood. Published by
Dutton & Co.. New York City.
$2.00 Postage 10c extra.
The tlicmc of this new novel by
Clement Wood is that the Negro is
not permitted by the white man of
Alabama, where the story is laid, to
rise above the status of the title of
the novel. Emancipation, the hope of
the older generation, has not brought
liberty to the younger. The old
grandmother, befote she dies, assures
her husband that the emancipation of
which he fondly dreamed is only to
lie found in Heaven. "You been look
in' fcr 'mancipation in dc life w'ut is;
but ills here 'mancipation ain' gwine
come till dc life to come." And
judging from the fate of the colored
people in the book, she is exactly
right. Out of a family of seven all,
in one way or another, fail to live
and win happiness. The soldier dying
in France, the other soldier killed in
America, the ne'er-do-well, the daugh
ter nearly white who, for a time, goes
"over the line" to return home with
her baby, the tired drudges, these
are her children. To all has come
little but suffering. Naturally hers is
the cry of the slave, that liberty can
only come in another world.
The picture of the white men and
women in Mr. Wood's novel makes
one understand the fate of the col
ored. No abolitionists ever painted
the white southerners so cruelly as
this seni of Alabama. His whites arc
not only cruel to blacks. In his first
novel "Mountain," he describes the
father of the hero, a rich manufac
turer, as cruelly heating his little son
every morning, day after day, be
cause he has committed a single act
of indolence. It seems as though this
author meant that -vc should get out
have been returned against alleged
lynchers and four convictions se
cured, carrying penitentiary sentences.
Fifteen of these cases arc still to be
tried, most of them on the charge of
murder, bcsidfcs a number of damage
suits growing out of injuries and
losses inflicted by mobs. In one
lynching case both the deputy sheriff
and the chief of police arc under in
dictment.
The significance of these facts was
emphasized by the statement that in
the 37 years ending with 1921 there
had been 430 lynchings in Georgia
and that record of only one indictment
in all that time had been found.
The state and county race relations
committees have been active in a num
ber of recent cases, conducting inves
tigations, securing evidence, and
otherwise supporting local officials in
their efforts to vindicate the law.
The need of an effective anti-lynch-
ing law in tne state was stressed ana
the responsibility for drafting and
getting such a bill before the next
legislature was delegated to a commit
tee of eminent jurists headed by Judge
Samuel B. Adams of Savannah.
HON. HUGO PAM
One. of the most honorable aad upwght JBge of the Superior
Court of Cook County, -who has legicms ef warm frieads who
would be highly delighted te see him. eater the race for
Mayor of Chicago h JS23
of our minds the picture of the kindly
slaveholder, so popular with the ear
lier southern writers, and remember
the overseer who fulfilled the law of
the slaveholder and day after day
beat the defenseless people within
Ins power. The whites in Stribling's
"Birthright" were cruel, but they had
a touch of good nature. They did
their cheating with a laugh. There is
rfo laugh in "Nigger." From the
time Jake and his family appear upon
the scene until the last page, when
the old man shivers, tortured by his
memories, there is tragedy. "Util
ity," that might be the title of the
story. It is futile for a Negro to be
educated, it is futile for him to fight
Tor his country, it is futile to attempt
to he white. It is even futile to give
up the struggle and be a "no account
nigger," for to the ne'er-do-well Tom,
the most alive of the figures, comes
only sorrow. Don't expect to be
anything but a "nigger," at least in
Alabama. That is the gist of the
is evident that the author be
lieves this will not be changed unless
we have amalgamation. "As long as
cither race had as its ambition to re
main itself there must be conflict.
For equality meant sameness, one
ness." So his light colored girl thinks,
and, seeing only sorrow ahead, is
tempted to kill her light colored
child.
Clement Wood has written a great
tragedy; and it seems only just that
in Birmingham, the city of Octavius
Roy Cohen's ridiculous Negro
sketches, we should have this dark
picture. That it is unduly dark every
Negro will feel. But it is a swiftly
moving picture of suffering that
flashes across- the pages as a moving
picture flashes across the screen.
Sometimes it is pathetic, sometimes
gigantic No one can follow it in its
swift motion and be unmoved.
NEGRO DEMOCRAT ELECTED
IN NEW YORK
New York City. One colored can
didate won in New York and his vic
tory' was a big surprise. Lawyer
Henri W. Shields. Democratic aspir
ant from the 21st assembly district,
was sent to the legislature. Balden.
race Republican candidate, made a
good run, but the general disaffec
tion, from the Republican ticket by
colored voters caused his defeat by a
few hundred. Oliver Randolph, the
only colored candidate in New Jer
sey, was elected to the legislature,
while Congressman Parker, who vot
ed against the anti-Iynching bill, met
the dust He was fought as bitterly
bv colored voters as was Lavton of
Delaware, who also bit the dust when
Robert Nelson's cohorts took the field
against him. Dupont suffered as a
result. Harry E, Davis of Cleveland
lost for the legislature. The terrific
fight against Pomcrenc by the labor
unions nullified whatever colored sup
port he won.
HON. MILES
Ex-City Attorney of Chicago, and one of its ablest and most
eminent lawyers, who would make a tip-top candi
date for Mayor of Chicago in 1923
THE MAN ABOUT TOWN
Takes Up "The Black Man's Burden"
From Various Standpoints
States a Few Plain Facts That Can't
Be Disputed
I sec by the Chicago Tribune, the
arch enemy of the Negro, that a man
by the name of P. W. Travis has
asked the Federal Court to appoint a
receiver for the Douglass National
Bank, a race institution recently op
ened by several of our leading citizens.
without knowing or going into the
merits of the case or the causes of his
actions. I must say that it is a shame
that a member of the race (and I un
derstand that the man is named Chav-
ers instead of Travis and that he was
at one time connected with the bank
until he had some financial troubles
recently in one of our courts), should
be so shortsighted and unfair as to
try to injure this institution that is
destined to do so much for the Ne
gro in the commercial world.
The men behind this bank arc men
who arc financially situated so as to
do for this bank whatever they
promiNC to do. They arc men of
standing in the business and profes
sional world. I have been told that
this man Travis (or Chavcrs) is sore
because he was ousted from the high
and exalted position of president and
is seeking to get his recnge. Such
actions have done more to retard the
progress of the Negro than any one
thing: the "I can't and you shant"
policy. Such Negroes ought to be
driven out of the race, so that we can
march on and keep step with the
progressive races of the world.
I wonder what has become of my
good friend Bishop A. J. Carey. Be
fore we elevated our friend to the high
and exalted position of bishop in the
great A. XI. E. Church, we used to
see him occasionally on State street
and at some of our race gatherings.
He was a power for good in our city
and was always on the firing line,
fighting for the uplift and advance
ment of his race. How, Bishop, we
miss you and your able advice in our
race struggles. We did not know
when we elected you bishop that it
meant that you would take no more
interest in local affairs, if we had we
possibly might have kept you waiting
a few more days or at least until we
got this new crowd that came up here
during the world war, straightened
out. In short. Bishop, don t forsake
us now. we need you more now than
at any other time. Do you hear me?
I hope so.
They tell me that the Regan's Colts
are after the scalp of Jim Berwington
for some statements he made in a
circular in his feeble effort (in the re
cent campaign) to elect his bosom
fnend Charles Ringer county treas
urer. 1 don t know how true it is
and I do hope that it is false, but if
it is true. I am not surprised. You
all might remember the awful attack
Jim" made on Xfayor Thompson dur
ing one of his campaigns, you may also
recall the attack that he made on Xfrs.
Bertha Montgomery, because she
dared to demand the money for her
club members who was hired by Ber
wington to do some political work,
before election day. The attack on
the mayor was on a circular letter and
the attack on ilrs. Xlontgomery was
in a newspaper and on her person
ally. Both attacks came near caus
ing "Jim" his life. The day after his
attack on Thompson, two unknown
men slipped up behind him and hit
him on the head with a "black jack,"
and the friends of Xfrs. Montgomery
had to do everything within their
power la keep her husband from re
sorting to a physical encounter. My
advice to you "Jim" is to "cut out that
stuff and attend to your business, if
you don't some day you may wish
that you had taken ray advice. Hear
me before it is too late.
THE MAN ABOUT TOWN
J. DEVINE
THE JAPANESE AND THE
UNITED STATES
The .Memphis Commercial Appeal is
very much exercised over the recent
decision of the United States Supreme
v.ouri regarding the citizenship of Jap
anese. No comment Ueing necessary,
the following remarks arc taken bodily
from its issue November 18. 1922
". . . It must appear that if the
Government can refuse citizenship on
the grounds of race and color It mn
also refuse citizenship for many other
reasons.
"". . . There should be few Prot
estants against the right of the Na
tion to choose its citizens, although it
must be admitted that a bar based on
race and color is weakened by the
provisions admitting those of African
descent. Since our descended Africans
are of many different shades of color
a considerable burden of fact mif
placed on the courts of citizens ' ,
disproving the claims of those of .
who might insist upon Africar
scent.
". . . We believe that rigid - .,
for good citizenship are more in p
tant than immigration restriction a
based entirely upon the quantit
immigrants admitted."
This last sentence sums up the very
prevalent attitude in the South and
shows where the effort is made to rule
out people of color "rigid tests for
good citizenship." Is this editorial a
reminder of the past, or a hint of the
future? Watch Tennessee.
COL. YOUNG TO BE BURIED IN
AMERICA. NATIONAL CEL
EBRATION SUGGESTED
Washington, D. C The War De
partment has announced that final ar
rangements have been completed for
the return to the United States of the
remains of Col. Charles Young, from
Nigeria, in Africa.
When the body arrives in America,
appropriate services will be held in
New York City, and in Washington.
D. C, prior to the final burial in Arl
ington Cemetery, near Washington.
The occasion of the burial of this
distinguished American soldier will as
sume national proportions, and if the
body does not arrive too far from the
date, Xfarch 12, the birthday of CoL
Young, will be suggested for the gen
eral observance.
URBAN LEAGUE NOTES
School Affairs
The Urban League has had a repre
sentative on the Joint Committee of
School Affairs, which is exerting pres
sure upon the school scandal to push
the investigation so that guilty or in
competent board members may be sin
gled out and properly handled. The
Urban League is the only colored or
ganization to receive public mention
in this connection.
Race Commission Report
Chicago newspapers should be com
plimented for the amount of space
they have given particularly to the
recommendations of the Chicago Com
mission on Race Relations. When a
book of the extent and thoroughness
of this report is available for public
use, every minister, lawyer, doctor, la
bor leader, school teacher in fact, all
people who have to any degree or ex
tent the responsibilities of leadership
should acquaint themselves with iuone
way or the other. The Chicago ur
ban League has a copy in its library
and any interested persons may con
sult it at the League office.
That Orchestra
They practice twice a week some
where. Last Friday they allowed four of the
Urban League staff to attend their re
hearsal, on condition that they wouio
not tell anybody about them.
They oretty nearly mopped up oa a
selection from Wagner's Tannhauser.
It is so hard to keep a secret, yon
know.
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