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[[Left page]] 218 THE CRISIS The Crisis Founded - November, 1911 (without capital, save that an editor and office rent were furnished free). 1912 - Average monthly net-paid circulation - 22,000 copies. 1915 - Average monthly net-paid circulation - 32,156 copies. 1916 - Average monthly net-paid circulation - 37,625 copies. (Our circulation books are open to interested parties.) 1914 - CRISIS self-supporting except one-half salary of the editor. 1915 - CRISIS entirely self-supporting, paying all salaries, rent and costs. 1916 - CRISIS self-supporting and entirely out of debt. Excuse this crowing. We cannot help it. We feel that way. Next: Will you not help us to write of this record: "1917 - Net-paid circulation, 50,000?" If every other reader will secure us one new subscriber by July 1, the thing is done. Will you promise? If so, drop us a postal card. ENGLAND AND THE NEGRO A BUMPTIOUS colored correspondent from Canada has taken the CRISIS to task for daring to criticize England's attitude toward the Negro. At the same time, there come to us several extremely interesting communications, For instance, Dr. Wilfred Duhaney, of Kingston, Jamaica, writes that on applying to the Department of Immigration, Australia, he was officially informed that the High Commissioner "is now in receipt of a reply from the Minister regretting that he is unable to see his way to grant authority to you to enter and remain permanently in Australia. I am to explain that the matter of admission of colored immigrants into Australia is regulated by the application of the dictation test prescribed by the Commonwealth Immigration Act, 1901-1912. "This test may be applied in an European language at the discretion of the officer who applies it and is intended to act as a bar to the entrance of colored immigrants. "The department has no authority to express any opinion as to whether an alteration of the law relating to the subject will be made after the close of the war, but it appears unlikely." Sir H. H. Johnston, writing in the New Statesman says: "It is a scandal when we think of the high ideals of the British Empire, so much mouthed on platforms by ministers who know nothing whatever by actual experience of our colonies, that there is no university in any part of British Africa (except, perchance, Egypt and the Sudan) wherein, a black man or a colored man, a Negro or a Negroid, can pursue his education on the highest planes and acquire those degrees as doctor of medicine, surgeon, lawyer, scientist, or musician, which are considered absolutely necessary for the lawful practicing of certain careers." And finally, a student of medicine at McGill University, Canada, writes: "In the present crisis, a great number of Negroes from Canada, the West Indies and Africa are shedding their blood in the allied armies for the maintenance and further development of the British Empire. One can hardly conceive that the medical department of the most distinguished university in Canada, an integral part of the British Empire, a democratic country, would debar British negroes who had satisfied their matriculation requirements, and who had received permission to come over for the 1916-17 session. Yet this is what has been practically done for they have told all of the colored men [[Right Page]] O SEA, THAT KNOWEST THY STRENGTH 219 who matriculated this year that they would admit them with this proviso: "They must leave at the end of theur third year as the university cannot give them their full clinical work on account of the objection to their presence in the hospitals by their governors on account of their color.'" We would humbly suggest that our Canadian friend use some of his explosive force at home. THE TUSKEGEE RESOLUTIONS AS to the resolutions of the Tuskegee conference touching the migration North the CRISIS confesses itself to have been in a quandary for the simple reason that we did no know what the resolutions said. A telegram to Tuskegee has brought the full text just as we go to press. The southern white papers assert editorially and in their news columns that the chief burden of the Tuskegee resolutions is advice to the Negro not to migrate from the South. From this advice, it goes without saying that the CRISIS absolutely dissents. On the other hand, certain spokesmen for Tuskegee assert that the resolutions simply deprecate any mass movement if Negro labor and call for better treatment on the part of the South. As a matter of fact, the Tuskegee resolutions may be thus analyzed: out of fifteen inches of printed matter the following subjects are treated: The Boll-Weevil and Floods, one inch; "Advice to remain in the South," five inches; "Diversified Farming," one and one-half inches; "A Plea to the South in Behalf of the Negro," two and one-half inches; "Lack of Enforcement of the Law," one-half inch; "Congratulating the South and Urging Co-operation of Races," three and one-half inches. With the subject matter of the various resolutions we have no quarrel. In few cases do we dissent from the statements, taken by themselves; but we do solemnly believe that any system of Negro leadership that today devotes ten times as much space to the advantages of living in the South as it gives to lynching and lawlessness is inexcusably blind. O SEA, THAT KNOWEST THY STRENGTH [[Image]][[Image]][[Image]] BY MARY EFFIE LEE [[Image]][[Image]][[Image]] HAST thou been known to sing, O sea, that knowest they strength? Hast thou been known to sing? Thy voice, can it rejoice? Naught save great sorrowing, To me, thy sounds incessant Do express, naught save great sorrowing. Thy lips, they daily kiss the sand In wanton mockery. Deep in thine awful heart Thou dost not love the land. Thou dost not love the land, O sea, that knowest thy strength. "These sands, these listless, helpless, Sun-gold sands, I'll play with these, Or crush them in my white-fanged hands For leagues, to please The thing in me that is the Sea, Intangible, untamed, Untamed and wild, And wild and weird and strong!"
