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30        Editorial

dominant culture despises, how much wilder and wilder will be the conflict when black and brown and yellow people stand up together shoulder to shoulder and demand recognition as men! Let us give then our sympathies to those nations whose triumph will most tend to postpone if not make unnecessary a world war of races.

A CORRESPONDENCE
THE General Federation of (white) Women's clubs sent a representative to the meeting of the National Association of Colored Women at Wilberforce, and the magazine of the General Federation published an excellent article concerning that meeting. On the strength of this magazine has evidently obtained the mailing list of the colored organizations and is sending this letter broadcast:
General Federation Magazine Only official organ of the General Federation of Women's clubs New York, N.Y., Sept. 22, 1914.
My dear Madam:
Your name has been sent to me by Miss Zona Gale, formerly Chairman of Civics of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, who recently spoke before your Colored Women's Convention, as being one of the prominent colored women in this country who would without doubt be interested in the General Federation Magazine, which is the official organ of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.
I am using this month an account of your convention by Miss Zona Gale and I know you will be interested to see that in this important Magazine. May I not hope for your support in the way of at least one subscription to the Magazine?I would like to add this also: If one woman could be appointed in each club or organization to take subscriptions, she might find it profitable herself or her organization to make a business of this matter. The price of the Magazine is $1.00 a year and we allow a discount of 25% on each subscription. Can we not join our forces in some way? We should be glad to give you publicity in the Magazine whenever you desire.
We are sending you a sample copy of our Biennial number.
Very cordially yours/
(signed) Harriet Bishop Waters.
General Federation Magazine.

This letter has received the following reply from The Crisis Office:
Dear Madam:
I have your circular concerning a subscription to the General Federation Magazine.
Do you think it is fair to ask a colored person to subscribe to the official organ of an organization which discriminates against them so outrageously as yours does?
Very sincerely yours, etc.

We trust that similar letters will go from every colored woman approached. This is not a matter of hatred or complaint. It is a matter of self-respect. The General Federation of Women's Clubs has insulted every black woman in America. They have deliberately and openly pat a brand on her. Clubs composed of every race and nation in America are welcome to this federation except those of black women. Against this contemptible action taken by northern white women to placate the petty spite of southern white women colored women cannot and do not wish to take any action. They are quietly and effectively doing their own club work. But they refuse to forget the insult or condone it. Above all they resent on the part of these narrow-minded white women the assumption that the exclusion of colored women's clubs from the General Federation has "helped" the colored organization. The stealing of my purse may make me careful and saving but I owe little gratitude to the thief, and at all events for the thief, and at all events for the thief to demand gratitude is adding insult to injury.

THE BURDEN OF BLACk WOMEN       31

THE BURDEN OF BLACK WOMEN

Dark daughter of the lotus leaves that watch the Southern sea,
Wan spirit of a prisoned soul a-painting to be free;
The muttered music of thy streams, the whispers of the deep.
Have kissed each other in God's name and kissed a world to sleep.

The will of the world is a whistling wind sweeping a cloud-cast sky,
And not from the East and not from the West knelled its soul-searing cry;
But out of the past of the past's grey past, it yelled from the top of the sky;
Crying: Awake, O ancient race! 
Wailing: O woman arise!
And crying and sighing and crying again as a voice in the midnight cries;
But the burden of white men bore her back, and the white world stifled her sighs.

The White World's vermin and filth:
All the dirt of London;
All the scum of New York;
Valiant spoilers of women
And conquerors of unarmed men;
Shameless breeders of bastards
Drunk with the greed of gold,
Baiting their blood-stained hooks
With cant for the souls of the simple,
Bearing the White Man's Burden
Of liquor and lust and lies!
Untankful we wince in the East,
Unthankful we wail from the Westward,
Unthankfully thankful we sing,
In the un-won wastes of the wild:
I hate them, oh!
I hate them well,
I hate them, Christ!
As I hate Hell,
If I were God
I'd sound their knell
This day!
Wjo raised the fools to their glory
But black men of Egypt and Ind?
Ethiopia's sons of the evening,
Chaldeans and Yellow Chinese?
The Hebrew children of Morning
And mongrels of Rome and Greece?
Ah, well!

And they that Raised the boasters
Shall drag them down again: 
Down with the theft of their thieving
And murder and mocking of men, 
Down with their barter of women
And laying and lying of creeds,
Down with their cheating of childhood,
And drunken orgies of war-
       down,
            down,
               deep down,
Till the Devil's strength be shorn,
Till some dim, darker David a-hoeing of his corn,
And married maiden, Mother of God,
Bid the Black Christ be born!

Then shall the burden of manhood,
Be it yellow or black or white,
And poverty, Justice and Sorrow-
The humble and simple and strong,
Shall sing with the Sons of Morning
And Daughters of Evensong:

Black mother of the iron hills that guard the blazing sea,
Wild spirit of a storm-swept soul a-struggling to be free,
Where 'neath the bloody finger marks, thy riven bosom quakes,
Thicken the thunders of God's voice, and lo! a world awakes!