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198 THE CRISIS arose, as if surprised, then opened his mouth with a frightful grimace, stuck the barrel of the revolver into it and pulled the trigger. Slowly he sunk to the ground, without a groan, where he had brutally violated the little girl, Colene Craddock, and afterwards strangled her to death, in a mad frenzy of fear, when she continued her horrified screams. Old Jaspard found the body of Sheriff Griffin the next morning when, through morbid curiosity, he stopped at the creek on his way to town. Two days later they buried the sheriff in the graveyard in back of the country church. The little 'poor white' was interred in potter's field. And soon no one in the district spoke of the tragedies except the old Negresses, bent with age, who hobbled to the charred tree stumps to which their sons had been lashed and burnt up. Each evening at sunset they made their sorrowful journey and knelt in silent prayer while great tears trickled down their wrinkled old faces. Soon they stopped, one after the other, for the ravenous mob had destroyed their only support. When the coroner read Sheriff Griffin's confession, addressed to the governor, he destroyed it - tore it into small pieces and threw them into the fire. He muttered: "He was too damn good a man to leave this sort of a reputation." The Outer Pocket The Negro vote has been thrown away on the Republican Party ever since Lincoln was taken out of office. I consider Grover Cleveland's administration did more justice to the Negro than any President's since then. Could not the Socialist Party put a plank against lynching and do justice to the Negro in their Platform, thereby securing the entire Negro vote and also the votes of many white brothers like myself? The Negro voters have an immense power and if it was rightly used they would compel the Government of the United States to protect their men, women and children against the possibility of lunching and other outrages. The greatest blot on this Government has been the injustice done to the Negro Race. The candidates, both Republican and Democratic, promise everything before election and do nothing for the race afterwards. Speaking of Socialists, you say the vote for that party "is at least temporarily thrown away." Has not the Negro vote been thrown away for the last 40 years? There has to be a commencement to a would-be successful party. It certainly would be a great improvement for the colored voter to follow the suggestion of Miss Inez Milholland. I have great expectation of the good that will be done by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. George C. Bartlett Tolland, Conn. The present arrangement of the pages I consider the better. In the old way, the prejudiced white man casually looking over the magazine, came at once upon a list of the wrongs of the Negro race which was not something his intolerant mind did not care to have brought to its notice. In this way, his attention is arrested by forceful writing, which whets his curiosity if nothing else, and he peruses the pages "to see what these fellows do talk about anyway" - and sometimes he developed a real interest. "A Fragment," in the September number, ought to arouse the interest of anyone whose heart is not ossified or whose mental liver is not "hob-nailed." Some day, some member of your race will write one of "the great American plays" for which they are clamoring and will have the business acumen to get it before the public [[italics]] sub rosa [[/italics]] under his white manager's or secretary's manipulation. When successfully launched, he can emerge; they cannot, in sheer self-pride, refuse to accord him openly the praise and hand of fellowship which they have bestowed unknowingly. After that, it will be easy for the rest who follow. More through the Arts I think, than in any other way will the chasm be bridges. (Mrs.) Evelyn Renolds-Jones Santa Cruz, Cal. I am taking the opportunity to write to point out to you the necessity of making the N. A. A. C. P. a decidedly universal The Outer Pocket 199 affair. Had it not been for a fellow passenger - an American traveling from Liberia to America via England - I would not have known such a paper existed. J. A. Vanderpuye Edinburgh, Scotland. We are up against it here and trying the courts to see if we have any school rights in our County, State or Nation. The City School Board of Checotah, Okla., hired me last summer, or last spring, for this year promising me nine months' work as Principal of the City School for Colored Youth. Now we are informed that we are only to get three months and the whites are getting nine just the same. Call the race's attention to these things for we are in the fight. We have our white friends, but can these be friends? J. L. Umstead Checotah, Okla I am enclosing a photo of my home. No one of common sense would want to live in this section; but one of the troubles is that many of these people have struggled and worked for years and acquired splendid homes and property; they can't find a buyer and are tied here; they can't just give it to these people. We have our cash money tied up in real estate and I have tried hard to find a reasonable buyer. Many are like me - they wish with all their hear to leave here; but it requires a great deal to go where I wish to go. Sometimes I feel quite hopeless, still no matter the sacrifices I shall not always live here. Edenton, N. C. I like your paper very much, Mr. Editor, because you make it my paper as well. You try to present to a very biased world my longings, my desires, my hopes and ambitions - likewise those of every other Negro. Don't become discouraged by adverse criticism (I know that you won't); just keep on printing the truth about me and the other fellow. Perhaps my blessings may alleviate some of his curses. Anyway, by following the course you have adopted you can't go wrong. John H. Owens Chicago, Ill. Being a read of your magazine for almost two years I have not had anything to say, although at times I have wanted to personally object to a good many things. I could not fully decide it would be the proper thing. Now that the one man has gone from our race, in the person of Dr. Washington, and as one who tries to agree with any one who is for the upbuilding of our race I thought I would try and say a few words; even now I may be wrong. If so you can use your own decision about publishing this and whatever way you decide I will not think any the less of The Crisis magazine, for I do enjoy reading every page of it. Now as I was born in the South and lived in the extreme South, the same as Mr. Washington, I can fully side with his way of managing and doing things, and I have also come in contact with some hard propositions; some I could not digest in doing so i can also understand the method of The Crisis in doing things and in that is the reason I was so long coming to my conclusion. I have also seen the play "Birth of a Nation" and my idea is that it shows more plainly the low side of the whites as well as the colored, and it was in a day when the Negro had not had time to develop his mind and the Negro of today should be a more cool-headed example of the advantages and opportunities of this enlightened time instead of encouraging the same way of bonding together to fight and kill. To my mind a more sane way would be better. Just here is where I must and we all as a people should give Mr. Washington credit for working on the Q. T. with the same white people to get the money and at the same time train hundreds and thousands of Negroes to prepare themselves for the position of social equality; and when the time was at hand to come up independent and demand out rights he would have a nation of well-trained and educated Negroes to help and back him in his undertakings; for our of ten million Negroes only one-third are capable of under-standing a good and sane problem, which is not his fault but the white people's. But what we want is to get prepared for this thing that we are fighting for and when it comes we will be ready to stand up and hold our own, and the Negro has enough to fight the White man's political world. (Miss) R. Devoe Trenton, N. J.
