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The Month

• "My fellow American Citizens," was salutation of the sparkling but unecouraging address delivered to Porto Ricans by President Hoover, who visited that interesting American island on March 23-24. The address sparkled with delightful generalities of human brotherhood that was a studied and kindly rebuke to that disheartened element of the population that longs for independence. The white world, whether American or English or French, is all bulldog when once it takes hold of weak and unfortunate people.

Porto Rico, which was once the dominion of a son of Columbus, and whose story is to be found in every chapter of the romance of the discovery of the western world, has a population of 1,500,000 feverish, excitable souls. It is African and Spanish. Three elements constitute its class distinction, which is the life of the Latin world. They are the mixed bloods, the whites in the Negroes. Genius has sprung from each class and contributed to a glory all but faded now.

Until the United States conquered the island by the sword of Gen. Miles and appropriated it in the Paris Treaty, mere color was as morning, midday and evening, necessary maybe, but unimportant. But color, like the Constitution, follows our Flag.

Eloquent and honeyed words of comradeship uttered by President Hoover were in the calculation of his excursion. Having been baptized into the communion of benevolent imperialism by the anointed ministry of western grandeur, Porto Rico may now turn its thoughts to other things than freedom. Its life is been of the sword, and until it can draw the sword it will remain a part of our Empire.

The cordiality of brotherhood, the linguistic assurance of the comradeship of the quality, which was heart and soul of the Hoover speech at San Juan, found no life in his address the next day to the Virgin Islanders. There it was almost "Good Morning" and "Goodby." The Virgin Islanders are COLORED and were not taken into the perplexing scheme of American Government by sword or treaty. They were bought and paid for. Denmark had them but found them to be too expensive even as a luxury. The United States coveted the islands for the purpose of defense but was embarrassed to bid for the land without bargaining for the residents.

At St. Thomas Mr. Hoover smiled upon the children, shook hands with the president of the local counsel, addressed kind but on relieving phrases to a hungry people in search of bread and retired to the Arizona for conference with "the governor." Looking back to the American Revolution England, mother of empires and colonies, may now smile and be pardoned.

But in the play, lest dulling spirits command the present scene, divinity comes on as the Author prompts. The president was but messenger for our country and its sentiments.

• two happy notes come from France. Despite bombardment from the deadly guns of American prejudice, France is still safe for man. Voltaire remains her preacher. Her romance still lives on the point of the pen of Dumas. Her worlds are many but her Suffering is capital of them all. When all other comforts flee, Brotherhood turns to France.

Announcement of the appointment of Blaise Diagne, the great Frenchman in black, to the new French Cabinet as Secretary Of State for Colonies, shocked Great Britain and alarmed the United States, but throughout the French world it has been greeted with enthusiastic praise.

The distinguished deputy, known as father of liberty, has been féted by every authority in Paris. His elevation, as French editors and orators declare it, demonstrate a wisdom peculiar to France.

The French worlds distant from Paris and the spirit of France both see in Diagne the link that binds soul and body. So endless seen the celebrations in his honor.

*   *   *

Paris is the freeman's kingdom but it is a woman's world. And woman, when she is lovely and gifted in the charms of womanhood and when she is womanliest in tender touches of the graces, finds in Paris a crown studded with the pearls of adoration.

There is Josephine Baker, an American girl, of color in her country, but of charm and a shining genius in Paris. By incomparable talent she captured the admiration of the stage of Europe. Even Americans have been forced to acclaim her first of the living actresses. And now her loveliness and character, her charm as woman refined in her own naturalness, have captured the imagination of Paris.

Official Paris has chosen her to represent Paris in the exposition of its genius. In France this young woman, who would be but a "Negress" in her own country, is chosen by the world's city of cultivation to be darling and daughter of Paris! Frail art has conquered the heights.

• Nothing could be more heartening to all engaged in the war against American Race prejudice than the debate held in Oklahoma City, between teams representing Oklahoma City University and Wiley College.

Here young Colored men from Texas met young white men from Oklahoma. They met in a southern city, one of the hardest cities in the South. The question debated was not of Race. It was: "Resolved, that the nations should adopt the policy of free trade." Both Races packed a church edifice to listen to young men, whose parents cannot agree as to their children, debate a question about which our states have never agreed.

The young men came to no agreement on tariff and free trade, but all did agree that a policy of free speech and high thinking should be adopted.

Debaters from Wiley, one of the foremost colleges, had the democratic end of the argument. Young white southerners took the Republican side. That, also, is worth attention. When young men of the South no longer allow color to separate them in the world of intellect, take notice that times are getting  better. In Oklahoma they are indeed bright.

Another debate we had with us. A team from Fisk met a team from New York University in New York City. They argued the subject, "Resolved, that the several states should enact compulsory unemployment insurance legislation."

Again young men of both Races got away from the "race problem." They disputed a question general to all. They put away passion and contended in reason.
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Apt in Speech 
From France
Debaters
[[decorative flourish]]
Professor Johnson
A Medal for Harrison Two Deaths Tuskegee 50 Years Old
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At Oklahoma City South met South. In New York South met North. At both places color was put aside and man met men. Upon such a scene Lee, the captor, and John Brown, the captive, might well look down.

• As we touch young men in the school world we will not overlook those who fill the lamps. Next to the election of Arthur Howe as President of Hampton the appointment of James Weldon Johnson to a professorship at Fisk is news important to all who follow knowledge.

Mr. Johnson returns to the first work his hands found to do, and will fit happily into the life and spirit of Cravath's renowned university. He has made the rounds of life, school principal, lawyer, politician, diplomat, lyric writer for songs that still delight, author evangelist of agitation, poet, and is now prepared to speak in one breath the authority of experience, knowledge
and genius.

• When the Springarn medal was presented to Richard B. Harrison at the Mansfield theatre, New York, on March 22, he responded in very simple language. He said he wished to think,  above all, "the friends and preachers who have helped me." The "friends and preachers" Mr. Harrison referred to are found in the South where his supreme, his lasting work was done. The great have all worked their way from South to North.

The medal was given him because he reached Broadway, and yet if he had never seen Broadway his name would live. Mr. Harrison is 66 years of age. Most men at this age are preparing to put off "this mortal." He is bright in the youth of his art. He had mastered a thousand parts before he attempted one by which he will live as the consummate actor.

Lt. Gov. Lehman, himself of a Race that knows obstacles, presented the medal. One sentence of his address is the essence of the tribute: "You have served your art, you have served your people and you have served the community, of which we are all equal partners."

• THE DEATH of Archibald J. Carey, bishop of the African Methodist Church and among the few foremost men of public and religious life, occurred March 23. High in the official life of Chicago and as high as man can go in his Church, Bishop Carey had lived a life of ceaseless industry; of high accomplishments and striking achievements. He had been an educator. He had been a celebrated preacher and pastor. He had reached fame in the profession of politics as practiced in the United States. And he reached the goal to which every Methodist preacher aspires. He was a genius if ever there was one entitled to that label.

Bishop Carey was born in Georgia August 25, 1868. He was a graduate of Atlanta University. He married Elizabeth Davis, the daughter of a remarkable figure of the Reconstruction in Georgia, Madison Davis, around whom a history of a stirring period might be written. She survives him, together with three daughters and two sons, one of whom is himself a preacher. Bishop Carey's will always be a distinct name in the story of the age in which we live. 

But a day following the death of Bishop Carey announcement was made of the passing of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, long a woman of prominence in the world of women and Chicago affairs. She achieved wide note as an agitator against lynching. She was a prolific writer and bold in her labors for equality. Mrs. Barnett, wife of an illustrious lawyer of of the Chicago bar, was born in Mississippi. She knew the mob in Memphis and fled it when her fiery darts pierced the armor of oppression. 

As a lecturer she stirred two continents in her life, her own and Europe. She was the mother of four children. In her city he figure was seen on every important public occasion. Among women she was a dauntless and an unquestioned leader.

•TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE, whose name tops the story of modern education, is 50 years old. In 1881, in the Summer of that year, Booker T. Washington came out of Virginia and West Virginia to take over Alabama. He was the pride of Hampton. General Armstrong, the statesman of education, had anointed him. He was strange. He spoke but little, but had wanted to preach. Indians at Hampton feared him. He himself was red but not Indian. He was all Negro and half white.

The story of Tuskegee is now a legend. Booker T. Washington, with Lincoln, is himself a history of the country. The celebration at Tuskegee last month was one of a series of events. Since 1895 it has been a continuous celebration.

Booker T. Washington began his ministry in education talking of work. His successors now live in a high social world and talk culture. Death took him from Tuskegee but placed Tuskegee more completely under his domination than it was when he lived. 

He had been a slave. He lived to become a dictator, although his Race had to fight political slavery in poverty. He was the orator of Simple Things. He entertained every President of the United States from McKinley until he died. Woodrow Wilson disliked him. Virginia met Virginia and there was a tug of war.

He sat at the head of the table with white men from the North and from the South under his spell. He made Negro education a theme. He showed Dillard how to be useful. He showed Rosenwald how to be beneficent. He showed Roosevelt how to be brave. He had an amazing eye and wore a No. 10 E shoe.

He put power behind the Negro editor. He made the Negro business man important. He took the town to the country. 

Four hearts beat with his and sustained him: Margaret Murray Washington, his wife, herself a genius; his secretary, Emmett J. Scott, king of detail and execution, John H. Washington, his brother, builder of physical Tuskegee, and Warren Logan, his treasurer, who attempted no other rôle.

His successor, Robert R. Moton, has conquered a task as difficult as man ever knew. He sustained the Washington Idea and maintained himself in a leadership for which he made no bid. 

Of the greatest American Negro, Washington, the greatest Negro poet, Dunbar, wrote the stirring lines: 

[[italic]] A poor Virginia cabin gave the seed,
And from its dark and lowly door there came
A Peer of princes in the world's acclaim,
A master spirit for the nation's need. [[/italic]]

By 1981, the Tuskegee Centennial, the white youth of the South will wrestle with knowledge at the food of the Slave. No more than Harvard or the University of Chicago is Tuskegee destined to remain closed against race or color or creed.

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