Cayton's weekly. [volume], January 12, 1918, Image 1

About Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921

Image provided by: Washington State Library; Olympia, WA

                
J&uf£Qh&meed&(
PRICE FIVE CENTS
CAYTON'S 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 main 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
PATRIOTISM
No person has the right to claim the pro
tection of the T Tnited States and he disloyal
to its principles and he or she frailty of mak
ing treasonable utterances or publishing
papers that incite rebellion either by open
declaration or innendo should he taken in
hand by the officers of the law and backed
np by the patriotic citizens and said offi
cers of the law should in the language of
Kin" 1 George exclaim:
"Lav on. McDuff and to hell with
him AA-ho enough." Treason is a most
reprehensible crimp and while ive do not
favor cfinital punishment, yet to the person
o-m"ltv of it. death seems to he the only pun
ishment adeonafp for the crime. Who will
betray a land and country from whence
an existence comes, is
"A monster of snch hiddeons mem
That to he hated needs but to be seen."
To sharp in the o-lory and emoluments of
an organized government and then for sel
fish reasons refuse to <?o to its rescue when
it is in trouble, is evidence of one's absolute
Ip«V of manhood It's not for the citizens
of this pnrmtrv to arcne. why we are in
flip war. but thp thiner for all to do is to
hpln o-et ont of the war. Onr masters at
present mnv he more or less crnel, but we
nrp nof certain what we will sret in case we
change masters. Then let each and all of
ns use onr best efforts to suppress treason
and sedition.
P>nt. the acts of last Saturday's mob in
wreekinjr the printine plant of H. C. Piffott
& Co. under the cruise of suppressing sedi
ttion and promoting 1 patriotism is one of
the most dastardly acts that has ever been
committed in the Northwest There prob
ably is not a person connected with that
nrintincr concern who is not as intensely
loyal as the president of the United Sttaes
himself, one even hem" 1 a Spanish-American
war veteran, and the concern is patronized
by many of the most loyal citizens of the
state, even to the Red Cross. This mam
moth nrintitng concern was wrecked be
canse for sooth a paper was printed on the
ponoern's presses whose utterances bor
dered dansreronsly close to sedition.
Cflrrying ont the se principles the City
of Seattle should be totally destroyed
simply because multiplied hundreds of
red-handed anarchistic I. W. "W.s live in
the city. There is no excuse under the snn
for the wrecking of the Pisrott printing
plant and every one connected with the out
rage should be sent to prison for ninety
nine years and one day after. "Recalling
similar outbreaks said to be in the interest
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, SATURDAY, JAN. 12, 1918
of the provernment we are moved to ex
claim, Oh. Patriotism! 0, Patriotism! What
crimes are committed in thy name.
However, the managers of the Pigott
printing plant are not wholly blameless for
they know during these exciting times how
little it takes to move men to form into a
mob and once formed and moving, how
much it takes to quiet them down. While
the paper in ouestion. by keeping just in
the bounds of the law. was able to continue
to get by. yet no one could pronounce it a
patriotic publication and it should have
been kicked out of the office.
The Boston Branch of the Equal Rights
Libertty League has appealed to the colored
fold's of the oovmtry to pnt on silent pa
rades and wear deep mourning for thirty
days in memory of the thirteen soldiers that
vpi-p hung in Fort Sam Houston, to all of
which the editor of Dayton's "Weekly takes
exceptions. In our opinion it is unpatriotic
for the colored folk of this country to do
either of those things, for the reason, that
those men admitted that they shot up the
town of TTonston and supposedly took hu
man life in so doing. T?eorardless of what
their provocation may have been, it is a
well known fact that two wrongs never
"iake a richt. and they therefore took the
law into their own hands and committed
acts, which the law has said, who commits
su^h mnst he hanged until dead. And for
ten million or more people to aro into mourn
im? for men who wilfully violated the law
and took human life, because, forsooth, they
had been treated uniustly in the way of
beinrr p-iven their public and political riorhts,
would be admitting that the whole r>f them
are condoners of crime, which might en
tourage the commission of even more
heienons offenses in order to get even. May.
perhaps, the findings of the court martial
were but appeasing the prejudices of the
South acrainst the colored folks, bnt there is
7io denying the fact that the soldiers did,
contrary to army orders and regulations,
violently seize the firm arms of the camp
and marched into the city and attempted
to kill every white person in sieht, which
thinr>' even the Liberty League itself mnst
admit was a crime aand if a crime. thos(
who committed it should be punished. The
colored folk in the United States, in the
opinion of the writer, will not get very far
practicing retaliation and as said above, two
wrongs never make a right. Let's act well
our part, just and square, and, as in the
case of slavery days, the day will come
sooner or later when the white folks will
-ome almost in a body to our assistance.
We think the hanging of the colored sol
diers under the circumstances was ridicu
lously severe, but according to the letter of
the law it was just and fair.
Within the past thirty-two years, accord
ing to a statement made up 'by George B.
Vashon of St. Louis, Mo., and carried by
the Associated Press, twenty-five hundred
colored men. women and children have
been lynched in the United States for
cnmes and alleged crimes, and in many in
stances crimes that would have been looked
on as petty offenses, if they had been com
mitted by white persons, and yet those
persons were lynched without havin" an
opportunity to prove their guilt or inno
cence. This number, be it remembered is
made up from the reported lynchinprs and
it is safe to say that fully as many more
were lynched without the record makers
l-nrvHnn 1 anything of them. The lives of
I- 'r<wly of colored persons have been
tn>pti by tbe vicious white folks of the
South sin "c the war, and no record of which
v;is eve? mftde public. Even but yesterday,
comparatively speakintr. a man was burned
at the stake by the Huns of Tennessee,
arnrmd whose burning pier thousands of
white men women and children (fathered
and enjoyed an old fashioned Indian Avar
dance and similar crimes against nature
knve been periodically pulled off in the
SSonth. Colored men, women and children
have been lynched in the South for daring
to walk on the sidewalks of the southern
'ities ;Mid down in the state of Mississippi
poire t-Mrtv years ajErn a colored man was
shot anl killed for asking a white man who
lWf>d in a pine loir hut for a drink of water
—"the impudence of a nigger riding up to
a white man's door and asking for a drink
nf water" so incensed the man that he
rnahed into the house .got his gun and shot
him. and he was not so much as tried be
fore a coroner's iurv. To dispute a white
man's word in the South is almost certain
death for the black man and many of them
have gone to an untimely grave or burned
at the stake for such an offeive. We rus
r»e°t t^at this lono 1 list of crimes affair)st
black folks had something to do with the.
TTonston traeredy in which the soldiers play
ed the game of get even. No other class of
citizens in the United States would have
submitted to these abuses and vet remained
lnval. but the black man. and, we thank
God that he has. because we believe it
means a brighter day for him. We are un
able to see any relief, but we truly believe
it tis cominp-. and the day will yet come
when this will truly be the land of the free
and the home of the brave."
Lincoln's birthday the Republican Na
tional Committee will meet and discuss the
political situation and make preparations
for the next presidential campaign and, as
on many similar occasions, the question 'of
the reeoonizine 1 of the colored vote will be
the all-absorbing question. There is hut
one colored man techniaclly a memher of
the committee and the committee has if
within its power to oust him. The regular
committeeman from Mississippi died and
Perry W. Howard was selected in hi« ste-id.
hut his confirmation by the committee is
heinq- bitterly opposed by the Lily White
Republicans of the state and the Lily White
members from the other southern states are
lining' up against Howard. Owing 1 to the
disfranehisement laws there is no colored
vote in any of the southern states, but fully
a half million colored persons have left the
South and settled in the North. East and
West and have become full-fledged voters
and if the committee goes on record against
the confirmation of Howard it will cost the
Republican party multiplied thousands of
colored votes. We do not think this advis
able on the part of the colored voters, for it
would be a true case of cutting off their
noses to spite their faces, but these voters,
since the Taft administration, have labored
under the belief that the leading Republi
cans of the North were 'trying 1 to unload them
for the sake of breaking" into the "Democratic
party in the South and thereby establish a
Lily White Republican party in the South,
which was responsible for many of them
VOL. 2, No. 31