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180        THE CRISIS

"Dr. Du Bois' visit to Southern California was," according to the Los Angeles Liberator, "a great personal triumph. The ovation tendered him by the colored people was such as no other colored man has ever received. * * * The City Club, which is composed of the white business men of this city, Dr. Du Bois $150 to address them at their noon luncheon Saturday. This the doctor could not do without breaking previous engagements, so he declined. 

"Dr. Du Bois lectured to large audiences at San Diego, the University of Southern California and Pomona College. At Pomona College he was greeted by an audience of 1,000 persons. His lecture there, as at other places, made a profound impression upon his white hearers and greatly changed their attitude on the race question. He put the Negro's claim for justice before them in an entirely new light and one that will prove beneficial to both races."

Says the New Age, of Los Angeles, which should not be confused with the Age of New York, elsewhere referred to:

"The eminent author gave no impression of the man with a 'chip on his shoulder,' but of a courageous, devoted leader who will not permit his vision of the best for race and country to be obscured. Neither did he give any hint of being too small to recognize the greatness of any other race leader or show antagonism to anyone per see. Less than ever can we understand why De Bois and certain other great race leaders must so often be antagonized in the popular mind. All of them have been needed and are needed now. 

"Dr. Du Bois came modestly and intent only upon delivering his message, without claiming personal honor. He can neither fawning nor patronizing, but calling upon his fellows for thoughtful consideration of the problems which he so reasonably treated. He made his impress, and not as a dreamer. He seems a very practical man to those of western spirit. That he should claim for the race and that he insists upon the races claiming for itself that which is merely its due is not a hard doctrine for this section, nor do these claims seem useless merely because they may not be reached just now. All the more reason for helping the process along as he does."

GIVE THEM THE PARK!

Imagine what it must mean to live in a city hotter than New York without the privilege of breathing the free and fresh air of a Central Park! Such is the condition of the colored people of Memphis, but we fear that this appeal from the Appeal-Avalanche, overwhelming as an avalanche in its convincing forcefulness, will fall on the frozen hearts of a Southern city council:

"The Negroes now have no public par and no public place of amusement. The better class must find amusement in their homes and in the churches. The irresponsible ones drift into dives and to places where disorder is capitalized and made to yield a revenue. 

"The Negro is at present the heavy labor power in the South. The Negroes nurse children, cook, work on the streets, drive automobiles, work in homes, work in the factories and work everywhere else.

"If we are to continue to use Negro labor we must see to it that it is effective, and it will be effective only to the point the Negro remains healthy and strong. 

"From a purely commercial and sanitary point of view, then, the NEgroes should have opportunity to live under conditions conducive to health, and there is nothing so health giving as plenty of fresh air. 

"We denounce Negroes for herding in divers, and yet the presiding genius of the craps table is usually some low-down but thrifty white man. 

"We denounce Negroes for frequenting dives, and yet they are about the only placed where they can have amusement of any sort. 

"The Negro, then, ought to have a park, and he should have reasonably convenient means of access to the park. 

"There is a higher cause than that of commercial prosperity for a Negro recreation park. It is a part of humanity to give to the Negroes opportunity for innocent amusement. 

"The Negro is the great wealth producer in this territory, and an appreciation of this fact in the shape of improved living conditions for him would be responded to by more generous effort on his part to observe the law and to merit the trust that is put in him."
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EDITORIAL

A NATIONAL EMANCIPATION EXPOSITION.
IT IS a matter of sincere congratulation that the Negro of the United States is to have a national exposition to celebrate the year of jubilee. This will take place in New York City during the last ten dats of October.

The Pennsylvania exposition, while large and excellent in its way, has been restricted largely to the State by the terms of law.

The New Jersey celebration has met many disappointments which will make it small and local, but doubtless good in its way.

The New York celebration , too, will be small having but $25,000 to expend. but it will have two characteristics: it will be national in scope and complete in detail.

By means of the new exhibition method of the child welfare committee the nine commissioners of the New York exposition have determined to make this exposition have determined to make this exposition a complete picture of Negro progress and attainment in America. With detailed charts, models, moving pictures, maps and a few typical exhibits a complete picture of present conditions will be presented. while a magnificent pageant in seven episodes, with music and costume, will give the historic setting. There will be no multiplicity of detail, no endless repetition and country-fair effect. On the contrary, one fine and dignified presentation of great facts in simple form, with a frame of beauty ands music, will be attempted. Nothing like this has ever been done by black America. It will be worth traveling far to see. 

BURLESON.
THERE is no doubt but that the Bourbon South is fighting hard to control Mr. Wilson's Negro policy. For a time they held back the spectacular fire eaters and marked time, being content with the dismissal of two or three leading Negro officeholders. Then they plucked up courage. Postmaster General Burleson is said on good authority to have frankly announced this policy: The gradual weeding of this Negro out of the civil service of the United States until he is left only menial positions. Encouraged by this the white railway mail clerks are conducting a systematic and open campaign against the colored clerks in defiance of the plain rules of the service. The official organ , the [[italics start]] Railway Mail [[italics end]], says editorially:

"There is a new man at the head of the post office department, a man from the South, who knows the Negro problem as it is. * * *

"Of Course the Negros will oppose this measure because they feel it is the first step removing them entirely from service. They assert that they have the qualifications and the ambition to make good railway clerks.