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THE LOOKING GLASS       131

Following this comes the Northcliffe international prize of $125 to Charles Knight, a Negro, for the riveting record on shipbuilding.

Each in his own way contributes to the cause of democracy. Each performed his particular task better than his fellows. Each acquitted himself as best sustains the traditions of America.

The foundation of patriotism, builded by their fathers at Fort Pillow, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, underlies a structure of achievement that constantly grows more imposing. 

The Negroes of America have kept the faith and bared the strong arm in defense of the liberty they have themselves known but a short half century.

The Booklyn, N. Y., Times says:

The performances on the fire-swept slope of San Juan, when the Twenty-fourth Infantry, steady and strong, helped the Regulars to save the day and win the all-important crest, gave it a new meaning. When, in Mexico more recently, a handful of Negro cavalry died under our flag in an ambush, we recognized again the fine soldierly qualities in trained Americans of the dark skin. Col. Hayward, when he organized the old Fifteenth Regiment of the Guard, understood what he was doing. "I am very proud of them," he says now, with reason for his pride, "for they are clean, brave men, fearing nothing."

The Boston Evening Transcript says:

This regiment, now the 315th, was the first entire regiment of New York troops to take its place in holding a portion of the front line of trenches in France. It has acquitted itself no less bravely than has the "old 69th New York" in the Rainbow Division, or the "old Massachusetts Ninth" in the Yankee Division, or the "Dandy Fifth" and the "Old Lancers" and "Roxbury Horse Guards" of the same organization, or the "Sarsfield Guards" and the "German Blues" who were embodied in the 102d Regiment, composed of Connecticut men, some of whom were Yale collegians but more of whom were sturdy foundrymen from the Bridgeport factories.

The diverse make-up, racially, of the American organizations which have so far distinguished themselves on the fighting front disappears utterly in one firm blend of heroic American citizenship. 

Let us borrow the words of Parson Stoughton in 1666, and say that God has sifted many more than three kingdoms to find the wheat for this glorious planting of liberty.

Even the New York Times, which was so bitterly opposed to a black regiment in New York State, has this comment:

If any regiment in Cuba, white or black, made a better record than the Twenty-fourth, for bravery, for humanity, for discipline and duty, will some one speak up? But it is an old story the gallantry and stanchness of our Negro soldiers when the country calls in the hour of her need. New York may well be proud of the 369th Infantry, which was the old 15th.

The New York Tribune says:

There could not be more loyal Americans or better two-fisted fighters than our Negro soldiers. We are proud as proud of them, and we salute them all in the persons of Privates Johnson and Roberts, cited for the Croix de Guerre before the army of France.

The New York Evening World adds:

Courage and self-sacrifice of the highest order were shown by these two American Negroes.

Every colored man and woman in the United States can be proud of what two colored fighters have done in the service of the country which has given them much but which still owes their race surer guarantees of justice.

There is just one way the American people as a whole could recognize the valor of Privates Johnson and Roberts, colored, in a manner worthy of the nation:

To resolve that so long as Negro fighters face the enemy and thereafter so long as the Republic they have helped to defend endures, throughout the length and breadth of the United States, law, public condemnation and swift punishment for the guilty shall combine to make the lynching of a Negro and abhorred and obsolete crime. 

It is perhaps natural that after this a letter in the New York Evening Post should demand an additional chance for Negroes to serve the country.

SIR: As there is so great a dearth of nurses that the Red Cross has to institute a drive to increase the number of them, can you explain why that organization has persistently refused to accept the services of a qualified group numbering 3,000 registered nurses?

These are young colored graduates of Lincoln Hospital, who are eager for oversea service. If we have colored troops among our forces, why not have colored nurses back of the firing line?

SOUTHERN PRAISE

THE leaven of the War for Democracy is spreading in the South. The Chattanooga, Tenn., Times writes:

The Negro citizen is making golden opinions for himself among all classes of people because of his unqualified exhibition of genuine patriotism and devotion to the country in the time of its emergency. Everywhere he is responding promptly and with enthusiasm to the call for enlistment in the various branches of the military service, and he is making good in nearly every training camp he has entered. The women are taking his place in the workshops and fields wherever his going has left a serious vacancy. Negroes are buying bonds and thrift stamps according to their abilities and in various ways they are showing their willingness to do their part. This refers, of