Viewing page 14 of 27

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

234   THE CRISIS

There are two routes from North America to the mouth of the canal. One lies between Cuba and Haiti and the other between Haiti and Porto Rico. Whichever way is chosen by any craft, Haiti is found lying right across its path. "By one of the curious shifts of the current of commerce, such as brings an obscure station on the main line of a railroad, the opening of the Panama canal places the island of Haiti in the midst of the stream of the world's traffice." There are other islands that also occupy more or less strategic position in relation to the canal, such as Jamaica, Porto Rico, Martinique and Saint Thomas, but, unfortunately for the United states, the strong hands of Great Britain and France and Denmark are in control in these places, escept Porto Rico. It is true that there is a coaling station at Guantanamo, in Cuba, for the use of the American navy, but it is an insignificant concern and inadequate entirely for the needs of the trade. Haiti is in the midst of the stream. Haiti is isolated from the rest of America. No one will particularly feel offended if Haiti is hurt. No other sister nation to come to he help. None need say "Our turn next." Haiti, therefore, is easy to be controlled.

To the end that a nefarious scheme mgiht find ground on which to stand, public opinion in the United States is being misguided, not only in using extreme virulence in emphasizing Haiti's political misfortunes, but also in distorting the facts relating to the financial standing of this little republic. They would make it appear that it will not pay its debts and that its creditors fail even in their attempts to collect interest when due.......

Is there real cause for alarm on the part of any one, acting in good faith, even to intimate that such a debt is a menace to the existence of a government that has for over a century maintained its credit in the world? Here stands a country with a per capita debt of $13.74, with the United States with a per capita debt of $23.72 and England $80 and France $150 and Germany $15.00, and they tell you that they are alarmed by its debt threatening its national existence.

Is it difficult to uncover the hand at work and that which it is reaching after? Is it possible to disguise any longer the aim in view of the outcry concerning Haiti? Is it necessary in order to assure commensurate returns to the United states for the $400,000,000 invested in the Panama Canal that Haiti be under American control? Will Haiti yield? It is worth while to watch the game. - Bishop John Hurst, in the A.M.E. Quarterly Review.

Unknown to most persons the oldest iron implement in the world is in the University Museum, having been found by the Eckley B. Coxe expedition to Nubia a few years ago.......

It is an iron spearhead about 10 inches long, and the astonishing thing is that in every respect it resembles spearheads used by the African Negroes to this day, even to the manner in which the shaft is inserted. The spearhead was found in a tomb at Behen, near Wadi Halfa, in Nubia, by the Coxe University Museum Expedition in a long row of tombs belonging to the Twelfth Egyptian dynasty.... The find made a sensation, as in all the other tombs there was no metal but bronze. If it were possible to tell exactly the date of the Twelfth dynasty it would be easy to tell how old is this piece of iron. Archaeologists are almost 1,500 years apart in their estimates, but very recently in the Petrie estimates have been confirmed which place this dynasty at about 3400 B.C., or about 5300 years ago. The importance of the discovery lies in the fact that iron in Europe was not known until at least 1200 B.C., and was not in common use for implements until centuries later. This is one more evidence, and a very important one, that the smelting of iron was first practiced amoung the Negroes. This is the first time an implement anything like so old has been found-one whose antiquity is unquestioned. It appears that iron beads are very ancient and were esteemed as better than gold. Homer metnions a piece of iron as a great prize constested for in games. That Negroes incented the iron art seems confirmed by the fact that they never  had bronze; that they have no traditions of the art being given them and by the fact that they smelt it to this day differently from all other peoples.-Philadelphia Press.



EDITORIAL
[[image - drawing of a man writing with a quill pen]]

ORGANIZATION

If the Negroes of the United states want to know what organization is and what it can accomplish along racial lines they should buy the American Jewish Year Book. This publication has courteously been sent to this office and a glance at its pages is most informing.

The organization of the 3,000,000 Jews in America is little less than marvelous. To name a few of these organizations; there is the Alliance Israelite Universelle, over fifty years old with eight branches; there is the American Jewish Committee, a great federation of individuals and organizations "to prevent the infractions of the civil and religious rights of Jews in any part of the world." It's fourteen districts cover the United States and beside the large sums which handles annually it has an Emergency Trust Fund of nearly $200,000; the American Jewish Historical Society is twenty-two years old and has 373 members; twenty-four periodicals belong to the American Jewish Press Association; the Workmen's Circle has 509 branches with 45,000 members; the Baron De Hirsch Fund has millions for agricultural and industrial education; the Council of Jewish Women is seven years old with 78 sections covering the whole country; the Federation of American Zionists is seventeen years old with 14,000 members; the Roumanian Jews are organized with 40,000 members, and the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society has 29,000 members. There are endless secret and semi-secret orders: the B'nai B'rith with 34,000 memebers; the two branches of Brith Abraham with over 250,000 members; the Brith Sholom with 46,000 members; the Free Sons of Judah with 23,000 members, and so on. There are agricultural and colonial associations, agricultural aid societies, a Jewish chatauqua, a consumptives' relief society, beside colleges, theological seminaries and last but not least a great national conference of Jewish charities with its 115 constituent societies.

The Jewish Publication Society sends out the American Jewish Year Book annually and a nubmer of other carefully selected publications. It is supported by 12,000 members and has total assets of over $100,000. There have been 26 Jews in Congress and there are five in the present Congress.

This is the great net work of organization which makes the Jewish people the tremendous force for good and for uplift which they are in this country. Let black men look at them with admiration and emulate them. Only in our secret orders can we approach them from afar, while in voluntary organizations and philanthropic activity we can see from the record of these 3,000,000 what our 10,000,000 have to learn.