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in those states is practically nil, our representation in government is almost nil, and our influence upon legislation negligible. In the far South, despite the fact that the most ingenious of the disfranchising laws leaves tremendous loop-holes and chances for us to vote, we have scarcely taken advantage of them. We must have, there, teamwork in politics and it must come  before the next Presidential election. But above all, we need team work in work. 

OCCUPATIONS. 

THE pressing problem before the American Negro is earning a living. The older assumption was that it was easy for the Negro to find a place in the great American industrial machine where he would be treated decently and given a living wage, provided only that he was properly trained for the work offered. 

This assumption was only partially true. We see more and more clearly that economic survival for the Negro in America means the building of his own industrial machine; that he must employ labor, that he must organize industry, that he must enter American industrial development as a group, capable of offensive and defensive action, and not simply as an individual, liable to be made the victim of the white employer and such of the white labor unions as dare. 

CO-OPERATION.

BUT how shall we enter? Shal we try the old paths of individual exploitation, develop a class of rich and grasping brigands of Industry, use them to exploit the mass of the black laboring people and reproduce in our own group all the industrial Hell of the old Europe and America? No! This method has been advocated but it has been advocated by people who did not realize the new spirit that has come to the industrial world. Slowly and with great difficulty this new spirit is going to work itself out in the white world; but if we American Negroes are keen and intelligent we can evolve a new and efficient industrial co-operation quicker than any other group of people, for the simple reason that our inequalities of wealth are small, our group loyalty is growing stronger and stronger, and the necessity for a change is our industrial life is becoming imperative. Think of the teeming thousands, not to say millions, of colored workingmen who are literally mad to get simply the ordinary decencies of employment, who are anxious and eager for proper industrial leadership on the part of their own people. 

Brethren, the door of opportunity is open before us, leading to such kingdoms as neither Alexander nor Napoleon ever dreamed of. 

In the next number of The Crisis we shall pursue further this line of argument. 

THE DOUGLASS MEMORIAL

A TREMENDOUS effort has been made by the National Association of Colored Women to preserve and restore for posterity the home of Frederick Douglass. $15,000 was the sum called for to pay off the mortgage and to put in shape the home and grounds. Of this sum, $2,395.20 has been raised since August 1916. But considering the cause, this response is by no means rapid enough. On another page we publish the list of states which have already contributed, but some states have contributed nothing. Most remarkable of all the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA has contributed not a penny! Let every church and every organization get busy and push forward in this movement. When it come to honoring our greatest Negro, we can't afford to be slackers. 

CONCERNING THE FREDERICK DOUGLASS MEMORIAL

By Mary B. Talbert

The first movement toward commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass was inaugurated by a special committee appointed by the Chairman of the Executive Board of the National Association of Colored Women, at their biennial convention, held at Baltimore, Md., August, 1916. A committee of five was appointed to prepare and carry out plans for a centennial celebration, which would be national in character, and which would have for its ultimate object the saving and restoring of the home of the greatest Negro that came out of slavery. 

When the report of the Executive Board was adopted by the general body, this committee was enlarged by the president. Following the election of Mrs. Mary B. Talbert as President of the National Association, the joint committees appointed by Miss Hallie Q. Brown and Mrs. Booker T. Washington were asked to meet at the home of Mr. Douglass in Anacostia, D. C., and look over the home and grounds, look into the legal aspect and see if it was worth while to same to posterity this historic home of Douglass. 

It is with the greatest pleasure that we are able to report that this project, unique in the brief history of the Negro in the United States, was considered favorable and the president decided to issue the call to all patriotic, race-loving Negroes to share in the celebration and to save and restore the home, in the same manner that the white women saved the home of George Washington. the call was made for $15,000 for the paying of the mortgage and for the restoration of the home and grounds. 

The mortgage of $4,000 and the interest had first to be paid, and then the home put into proper shape.  This called for a new roof, gutters, cellar and foundation, interior repairs including the repairs of all furnishing and finally the beautifying of the grounds. 

the committee realized that our people become very tired of any proposition constantly placed before the public, and hence the call was issued for funds large enough to cover the mortgage and for the restoration of the home and grounds in a manner befitting the honoring of the great Douglass. Mrs. Talbert soon saw that to

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The Frederick Douglass Home