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The Looking Glass

LITERATURE.

HARRIET MONROE in Poetry:

THE ROSE-BUSH
"Old Mammy Jones, I came to see your rose-bush."
"Come right up, sonny!"
"Why does your rose-bush grow so taller and prouder
Than any white people's roses?"
"Dunno, sonny — ask de good Lo'd."
"Look, it has a thousand arms,
And they carry a million roses
In their baskets of leaves —
Over your roof, Mammy Jones,
Into your porch, into your wood-shed,
Pushing and crowding out everything
From the ground to the sky —
As round as the world!"

"It's to trim my ole cabin up, sonny."
"My mother has a garden, Mammy Jones,
With nice little rose-bushes in it
That the gardener trimmed,
And this morning there were pink and yellow buds
And lots of green ones.
But not roses and roses like yours,
Way up for God to smell 'em
In the sky!
Why is it, Mammy Jones?"
"Donno, sonny — p'raps de good Lo'd like Mammy Jones;
P'raps he give a bouquet to his gal."


THE QUESTION

They were sauntering down the red road
As I passed them —
The round-lipped black woman and her child.
And the child was saying:
"Why's white folks better'n us, Mammy?
What's white folks, anyhow?"


President King of Oberlin recently said:

Any race that fearlessly and unselfishly gives her best men for the cause of a country like the Negro has, has the right to expect to live in that country and enjoy the right of liberty, life, happiness and protection.

Attention is called to the Children's Year Leaflet, Number 1, issued by the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor. It begins with the words, "The second year of the war ought to be marked by determined nation-wide effort on behalf of childhood." It is pointed out in an accompanying letter that for every one hundred births, ninety-nine white children and one hundred and eighty-one colored children die before they reach the age of one year. These figures are, of course, based on a very small registration of Negro births, and are, perhaps, therefore, exaggerated; nevertheless the need of colored people to co-operate in the "Save One Hundred Thousand Babies" movement is imperative.


"K. C. B." in the New York American, replies to the general manager of the Pullman Company, who defends the tipping system for porters:

My dear Mr Hungerford. I read it. On a railroad train. A week or two ago. And afterward. I sat with the porter. For an hour. And talked with him. And he has a home. And a wife. And four children. And two of his boys. Are in France. And on his coat. He wears a button. With two stars. And every week. He makes a payment. On His Liberty Bonds. And I don't know. But I have an idea. That in one of the windows. Of his home. There's a Red Cross card. And I was going to ask him. About tipping. But I didn't do it. And the next day. When I left the train. I felt impelled. To take his hand. And wish him luck. And express the hope. That all would go well. With his two soldier boys. But Mr. Hungerford. Instead of that. I gave him alms. And I want you to know. What I gave. For the reason I gave. Is because I know. That if I don't give. And others don't give. That he can't live. And those boys in France. Would never have been. And if it should be. That the time will come. When a man's welfare. Will take the place. Of the dividend. It's more than likely. You'll come to see. Just what I mean. And until then. We'll give our alms. So that dividend checks. May be fat and full. And the porter man. May continue to live. I thank you.


Three colored authors are having their works issued by the Cornhill Company, Boston. We have reviewed Mr. Johnson's "Fifty Years and Other Poems," and are glad to note that it is receiving widespread attention elsewhere; Maud Cuney Hare's "The Message of the Trees" is still in the press; Georgia Douglas Johnson's "The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems" has just appeared in a tasteful and well printed volume, 62 plus XII pages. We can best review it by quoting a bit of Mr. Braithwaite's sympathetic introduction:

Here, then, is lifted the veil, in these poignant songs and lyrics. To look upon what is revealed is to give one a sense of infinite sympathy; to make one kneel in spirit to the marvelous patience, the wonderful endurance, the persistent faith, which are hidden in this nature. 

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars

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