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16 THE CRISIS reign of terror in the Turkish Balkans is a fortunate ending to that incident." But the Independent acknowledges our guilt: "That this is a barbarous country, in spots is undeniable when we learn that in 1913 as many as 79 colored men and women were killed by mobs, lynched without trial. The crimes charged against them were various, some serious, others trivial. Some of the victims were doubtless innocent. The figures prove a shocking degree of barbarism to exist with us; and the only relief we find is that there is a pretty steady decrease in the number. In 1892 there were 155 lynched, and 154 the next year. At this rate of decrease we may be quite civilized 20 years from now. There have been only 22 lynchings in the first six months of the present year." And the Boston Traveler and Evening Herald adds: "Here is a record of atrocities for which we venture to say no parallel can be found in any of the 'barbarous' nations now at war, and compared with which the atrocities charged against the German soldiers would appear for the most part as trifling indiscretions incident to the heat of war. "Before we throw any more stones at the Germans, let us be sure we are not living in a glass house. If war is what Sherman said it was, it is natural to expect a few human devils in an army of three or four millions of men engaged in deadly conflict; but who would expect to find mobs of human devils at work in times of peace at the very feet of Liberty Enlightening the World? "Meantime, we should like to direct the attention of Mr. Wilson and the southern gentlemen who sit in the saddle at Washington to this paragraph from an address to the people of the United States issued by our colored brethren at their recent convention in New York City: " 'Let the American people, and especially the President, in view of the bloody war of all Europe and the probable grant of freedom to Ireland and suffrage to women, freedom to the Poles and Finns and relief from segregation and disabilities for the Jews, induced by the needs of warring nations, remember that TWELVE MILLION NATIVE CITIZENS IN THIS COUNTRY ARE WORSE PROSCRIBED THAN THOSE OF EUROPE. We appeal to President Wilson to free colored Americans from Jim-Crow cars, disfranchisement, lynching and segregation, especially under the federal government at the federal capital, now, rather than await some awful war here.' " Even the New Orleans Item is getting a bit peeved and says: "Several recent lynchings in Mississippi and Louisiana give evidences of a savagery beyond excuse." The Des Moines (Ia.) Register and Leader publishes a letter in which the writer says: "Andersonville was simply a demonstration of the fiendishness that existed in all of that part of the country known as 'the south,' and engendered by three centuries of the institution of slavery, and which exists to-day in somewhat less degree. But a few months since the writer had occasion to take a seventeen-mile ride in a 'mail hack' in 'border state,' in a county where no Negro is allowed to 'alight.' In course of the ride there was a discussion of the Negro question, in which I asked what would be done in case a respectable, educated Negro with good character should buy a farm in that county and move in. The only other passenger said, 'Damn him, we would lynch him before mo'nin.' The driver, who was son of a 'county judge,' said, 'We would strip him, tie him to a tree, slit his skin into strips one inch wide, takeoff one at a time, and then pile brush about him and fire it.' This is but a late day expression of the same civilization that was responsible for Andersonville and was not war." Mr. Stansberry Boyce, Washington, D. C., sends us these notes on the war: "Leopold left a legacy to be paid by the Belgians for the inhuman slaughter and mutilations of the inoffensive inhabitants of Congo in his greed for rubber. "Esconced far to the North of Europe it might never have been the opportunity of any future African king to enforce payment but God moves in mysterious way and the Belgians now know what it is to murder a harmless people at their own firesides. "Will the Canadians refuse to fight alongside the East Indian whom they would not acknowledge as a part of the human family and were forbidden to enter Canada as also were the West Indian Negroes? "The Africans and their descendants in American have proven to the world that they do not lack courage and military ardor. This the French have recognized by enlisting OPINION 17 them in their present struggle. We hope for the sake of the Africans that they will give a good account of themselves, but the colored race is like the Irish who are invincible in fighting for other nations but not for themselves." SEGREGATION B. T. WASHINGTON'S ADVICE Mr. Booker Washington's endeavor to induce colored people to stop fighting segregation ordinances has brought bitter retorts from colored papers. The Columbian Herald of Louisville, Ky., calls it "obsequious doctrine" and says: "When Booker Washington advises the delegates to the Negro Business League to cease fighting segregation laws and to devote themselves to acquiring wealth and intelligence, he was simply advocating his propaganda which he has been preaching for the past quarter of a century, vis., 'The line of the least resistance,' or to state it more accurate, 'no resistance at all.' "It is this obsequious doctrine that has resulted in growing up a generation of moral cowards among the Negroes of this country. This teaching of his has brought about a condition of economic serfage that has well night sapped all the manhood and darkened the hopes and stiffened the ennobling aspirations of the Negroes for fifty years. It is to be very much regretted that a man of such commanding opportunity and wide influence in his day and generation should be so servile and spineless in his teachings. "It is this very damaging doctrine that has brought about the unbearable and humiliating conditions of jim crowism, disfranchisement and segregation, which may be regarded as 'the unkindest of all.'" The Louisville News says: "It is inconceivable that one who occupies so prominent a position in the Afro-American world should so far forget his position and his dignity as to urge his race to cease protesting against the most cowardly and humiliating legislation in the land. "If is safe to say that segregation has many champions even among our race, but almost without exception they are to be found among the element where there is the least intelligence and where there is an inherent fear of opposing anything the white man chooses to do. But here we are smitten from an unexpected quarter; a recognized leader of his race, an educator, tells us to forget our manhood; to forget the sacred and inalienable rights of political and personal liberty and to passively submit to the humiliation of being pushed aside as though we are a race of lepers, because we would seek cleaner and healthier neighborhoods in which to live. "To submit to a degradation without serious objection is worse than cowardly; it is unmanly and ignoble and any race that would do so without exhausting every means of moral and legal protest is unworthy of the name of civilized. Segregation is wrong, wrong in principle and fact; and, if Dr. Washington believes it is wrong, as we think he does, it is to be deeply regretted that he lacks the moral stamina to say so. "It is obvious even to the friends and supporters of Dr. Washington, that if he is quoted accurately, he cannot in the future be regarded as being in sympathy with the Afro-American who places his self-respect and manhood above everything else, and who is not willing to sacrifice either for the sake of living on more congenial terms with his white brother." In striking contrast to Mr. Washington's advice the Rev. Quincy Ewing, a white southern minister of Mississippi, lays bare the whole inner meaning of segregation and "Jim-Crow" legislation. "Consider further that, while no Negro, no matter what his occupation, or personal refinement, or intellectual culture, or moral character, is allowed to travel in a pullman car between state lines, or to enter as a guest at hotel patronized by white people, the blackest of Negro nurses and valets are given food and shelter in all first-class hotels, and occasion neither disgust nor surprise in the Pullman cars. Here again the heart of the race problem is laid bare. The black nurse with a white baby in her arms, the black valet looking after the comfort of a white invalid, have the label of their inferiority conspicuously upon them; they understand themselves, and everybody understand them, to be servants, enjoying certain privileges for the sake of the person served. Almost anything the Negro may do in the South, and anywhere he may go, provided the manner of his doing and his going is that of an inferior. Such is the premium put upon his inferiority; such his inducement to maintain it." A correspondent writes us:
