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The Honorable C. D. B. King, Secretary of State and President elect of Liberia, and Mrs. King.

of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, which today has underwritten $20,000,000 worth of insurance and employs 700 agents. Mr. Merrick died recently and his funeral was attended by large numbers of white and colored citizens.

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The Looking Glass

LITERATURE

CHARLES BERTRAM JOHNSON, in his "Songs of My People":

My people laugh and sing
  And dance to death,—
None imagining
  The heartbreak under breath.

We have received Smile, a magazine of the Hoffman Preparatory School in Chicago, Ill., which was edited, and edited well, by Albert J. Nolan, the only colored student in the school's student-body of two hundred and eighty.  The "Story of Slavery" is the name of a little pamphlet by the late Booker T. Washington, dealing very briefly and a trifle too leniently with this unhappy subject. Miss Tracy D. Mygatt sends us "Good Friday, a Passion Play of Now," which deals with the treatment of the "conscientious objector." It is very dramatic and reaches a really thrilling denouement.

The Birth Control Review for September is the Negro Number. It contains a one-act play of Negro life, "They That Sit in Darkness," by Mary Burrill, and a short story, "The Closing Door," by Angelina W. Grimke. The workmanship of Miss Burrill's play is good, but it is written too obviously to point a moral. "The Closing Door" is in exquisite vein and is very readable indeed.

JAPAN OPENS FIRE

AMERICA'S attitude toward her dark inhabitants, too long at variance with her professions of humaneness, has provoked the wide-spread notice of the Japanese press. The Asahi, Osaka, says of the Washington riots:

What an irony that such disturbances should have occurred in the capital of America, the protagonist of the League of Nations! Most of the American papers fear that if all the Negroes, who amount to over 10 per cent of the whole population of America, should rise in revolt, the consequences will be very serious. Apprehension alone, however, does not suffice to remedy the situation. Is it not most urgently necessary to rectify the arrogant attitude of the whites toward, not only the black, but other colored races?

The Maninichi, another Osaka paper, says on the same subject:

The principle of humanity not being executed in the country which professes to vindicate that principle, bloody strife occurred in its capital, and the authorities are trying to prevent serious disturbances by proclaiming martial law. American statesmen, not to mention Mr. Wilson, should first satisfy the 10,000,000 Negroes in America, before meddling in the affairs of other countries, on the plea of justice and humanity. They discriminate the racial white from black, but confound the logical white and black, and attempt to dictate to the world. If they are not crazy, they are foolish.

The Daily Nippu Fiji, Honolulu, draws a parallel between the treatment of Koreans by Japanese and the treatment of black Americans by white:

Generally speaking, misunderstandings and clashes, which are liable to come up among different races, are quite the order of the day. As regards the Korean uprisings, all the wrongs are not necessarily on the side of the Japanese government, but unfortunate events have taken place.

The recent clash between the whites and blacks in America is another example of conflict which has risen from racial misunderstanding.

Discriminatory treatment of the Negroes by the whites, who exercised it to the furthest degree, is the price of the clashes and the general effect arising therefrom.

The Negroes may have many shortcomings and faults, but that this is the time for the American people to reflect seriously upon this important question is the consensus of opinion of the leading Americans.

Certain elements among the Americans, finding a capital opportunity in the Korean question, make it an excuse for anti-Japanese agitation. Many see to it that the question furnishes materials for the abuse and criticism of militarism in Japan.

But, who knows but that the United States, the symbol of democracy and liberty, is being confronted with the Negro question far more seriously than the Korean question.

We can not applaud the extreme militarism of Japan. We are for the correction of militaristic tendency in the country. At the same time, we cannot give our endorsement to the mistreatment of the Negroes in America, who are persecuted by the whites in the name of democracy.

Japan rose to correct its wrong done to Korea in the past. When will the United States solve the Negro problem?

And finally the Yorodzu, Tokyo, scores that other arch-oppressor of dark peoples—Great Britain:

What races have been and are being persecuted by the whites? Indians, though subjects of Great Britain, are not given treatment in South Africa such as is becoming human beings; they are not permitted to enter Australia. This alone suffices to cause racial war.

How are the Indians governed in their own country? According to the reports of The Times, at the end of last year 3,000,000 died from influenza during October and November, 7,000 out of a total population of 30,000, or about 22.5 per cent, dying in some cases. The average income of the Indian is 19 yen, of which 3.70 yen, or about 20 per cent, is paid as taxes. Of a total population of 315,000,000 in India, 295,000,000,



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