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84 THE CRISIS reactionaries? Why should it thrust forward Nelson and Gailor and leave in the background Dillard, Weatherby, Bishop and Peabody? Is not this but one of many signs which show that this great institution is the church of John Pierpont Morgan and not the church of Jesus Christ? THE STRENGTH OF SEGREGATION WHEN the American people in their carelessness and impudence have finally succeeded in welding 10,000,000 American Negroes into one great self-conscious and self-acting mass they will realize their mistake. At present it is still possible to make Negroes essentially Americans with American ideals and instincts. In another generation, however, at the present rate we will have in this country a mass of people of colored blood acting together like one great fist for their own ends, with secret understanding, with pitiless efficiency and with resources for defense which will make their freedom incapable of attack from without. The actual organization of this group is progressing by leaps and bounds. It needs now but to be knit together into one great unity. This can be done—it is being done. Those who advise "race pride" and "self-reliance" do not realize the Frankenstein which they are evoking. The Negro cannot be beaten in this line by any present methods. The physical intimidation of lynching cannot be kept up; the economic intimidation of exclusion from work cannot, with the present organization of Negro industry, be kept up after ten years. Continual social insult is powerless against those who refuse to be insulted. After this—what? What can America do against a mass of people who move through their world but are not of it and stand as one unshaken group in their battle? The yell of the segregationist is the last scream of beaten prejudice. After that American civilization will be compelled through long centuries to tear down the walls which they are now building around the finest and most gifted single group in its polyglot population. THE EXPOSITION THE New York emancipation exposition which took place in New York during the last ten days of October was perhaps the largest single celebration which colored people have had in the North. The total attendance was over 30,000; the order was perfect; not a single arrest was made and there were no serious accidents. But the exposition was not simply an assembling of crowds. It was an organized, logical affair. There were comparatively few exhibits, but each exhibit was in its place and meant something, and when combined with photographs and charts told a continuous and complete story of fifty years unusual progress among colored Americans. To this was added a series of entertainments. But greatest of all was the historical pageant. It became, as it was designed to be, a great popular festival with 350 actors living their parts. Its imagery and beauty have been seldom surpassed, and Mr. Charles Burroughs and his helpers deserve all praise in their signal success. When one remembers under what extraordinary difficulties the nine commissioners organized this exposition, and what a fire of indefensible criticism they underwent, the exposition must go down in history not simply as the greatest attempts to celebrate the jubilee of freedom up to this time, but also as a singularly successful effort in honest administration and widespread co-operation. A MAN THEY DIDN'T KNOW A STORY By JAMES D. CORROTHERS (In Two Parts—PART I) THE opposition was right. President Nefferman had blundered. In fact, he had not understood the situation at all. Now the people recognized this. A crisis was at hand. War seemed inevitable. An appalled and anxious nation looked for a way out—with honor. Yet, at the beginning of all this, President Nefferman had laughed, flouting all thoughts of serious possibilities. The chief mouthpiece of the opposition, stung to hysteria by the president's bungling, mercilessly assailed him, urging his immediate impeachment, and stood not upon the order of it flaming and virulent denunciation. Bristling invective, scathing rebuke, scourging and knouting, it volleyed and showered upon him in the fury of its wrath. Perhaps this great paper, a veritable "thunderer" among its kind, was most dangerous to the interests of the president and his friends when it condescended to ridicule, and malignantly played the fierce light of its derision upon the pitiful man. Again and again it shouted: "Nefferman laughed!" "Laughed in the face of this black and ominous storm, thick-belching from the noxious shores of hell! Laughed and could not be made to understand the oncoming, dreadful thing. He laughed, actually laughed! And all the mountebanks, mimes, grafters and money bags of his senile administration laughed with him, in unison. They had made 'theirs' and were content. So doubtless, too, was poor fat-witted Nefferman. He laughed until is own private money bags rumbled and burst and laughed. This was caught up and echoed by the money bags of the protected 'interests.' It became the laugh of millions, as if every bag had a golden mouth, and all the bags had burst. But from the tormented, seething populace it evoked no merriment; awoke no answer; provoked no response but malediction. To the anxious, fearing people the fearful levity of Nefferman and his friends was as mocking and hateful as the bacchanalia of devils who lead the doomed to hell, among echoing rocks, and beside murmurous rivers of pitch. "But it was all very funny to Nefferman. His lazy brain reported: All is well. He laughed—amid these flashings from Sheol! He actually threw back his beefy, Midas-eared head; wrinkled his butcher-hued face in complacent, Neffermanian smiles; opened his big mouth wide and—laughed! Had it not been for a little isthmus at the back of his neck the whole top of his head would have been an island. "Dolt! "Already the Orientals, through their secret treaties with Mexico were at the beginning of things. The American consulate in Mexico City had been damaged; several Americans in Mexico had been imprisoned, tortured and killed; shots, always 'random shots,' had been fired across the border into the United States, wounding our citizens and destroying property; American soldiers had been hit, and skirmishes were frequent until forbidden by the American government. Then began the desertions of our Negro soldiers to Mexican ranks. There these trained men, of a race never before disloyal to their land or flag, manned the machine guns for the 'Mexicans,' and sent vindictive volleys crashing back into American homes and towns. "'Mere straws!' observed Nefferman, not realizing that 'straws' tell which way the winds blow. "Next came the California 'land law' movement, against which Japan formally protested to this government—her only open move.
