LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
EDGAR H. WEBSTER 
 
CHUMS AND BROTHERS 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION OF A SOCIAL GROUP OF 
 OUR AMERICAN CITIZENRY WHO ARE IN 
 THE FIRST AND LAST ANALYSIS ' 'JUST FOLKS" 
 
 BY 
 EDGAR H. WEBSTER 
 
 Principal of Normal Department, Atlanta University 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 F AA7TC 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY RICHARD G. BADGER 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S, A. 
 
TO 
 
 SILAS X. FLOYD ALONZO H. BROWN 
 
 BENJAMIN F. ALLEN JAMES G. LEMON 
 
 GEORGE A. TOWNS EUGENE H. DIBBLE, JR. 
 
 NATHANIEL W. COLLIER HARRY B. PETERS 
 
 WILLIAM A. ROGERS JOHN P. WHITTAKER 
 
 AND THE THOUSAND OTHER YOUTH OF 
 ATLANTA UNIVERSITY 
 
 WHO WERE IN MY EARLIER YEARS AT ATLANTA AS MY 
 
 CHUMS AND MY BROTHERS, AND IN THESE 
 
 LATER YEARS AS MY SONS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRO APOLOGIA VITA SUA ........... 9 
 
 THE A. U. SPIRIT ............. 12 
 
 FIFTY YEARS OF FREEDOM ........... 15 
 
 MRS. LUCY E. CASE ............. 18 
 
 WHY NOT MAKE FRIENDS? I .......... 26 
 
 BEING A FRESHMAN ............. 32 
 
 THREE CRITICAL POINTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY .... 38 
 
 "THE TOGA VIRILIS" ............ 43 
 
 BREAKING THE LAW ............. 52 
 
 THE EUROPEAN WAR A CONFLICT OF IDEALS ..... 58 
 
 AN OUTING WITH TANNER ........... 63 
 
 STUDENT BIOGRAPHIES ............ 71 
 
 NOVEMBER 17, 1915 ............. 76 
 
 A NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE 1916 ......... 83 
 
 A LAY SERMON .............. 90 
 
 IN THE DAY COACH ............. 96 
 
 THE NEGRO A REVIEW ........... 100 
 
 TRUE BLUE ............... 112 
 
 WHY NOT MAKE FRIENDS? II ......... 122 
 
 "THE CAR SHED" ............. 128 
 
 COLORED BOYS IN CAMP AT FORT DES MOINES ..... 133 
 
 AT FORT DES MOINES ............ 137 
 
 THE OLD CAR SHED AGAIN ........... 141 
 
 A LABORATORY STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY ........ 146 
 
 FROM THE CANTONMENTS, I .......... 153 
 
 5 
 
6 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FROM THE CANTONMENTS, II 160 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER 167 
 
 A NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE 1918 175 
 
 FROM THE CANTONMENTS, III 180 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY AND THE CHURCH 187 
 
 "BoN VOYAGE" 193 
 
 WITH THE MEN IN KHAKI 200 
 
 FROM "OVERSEAS" 210 
 
 THE MOTHER COUNTRY 225 
 
 THE MILLS OF THE GODS 229 
 
 SUPPOSE IT HAD BEEN YOUR SON? 238 
 
 THINKING BLACK ABOUT AFRICA 242 
 
CHUMS AND BROTHERS 
 
CHUMS AND BROTHERS 
 
 PRO APOLOGIA VITA SUA 
 
 SOME years ago, a friend, not born to the pur 
 ple but to the Negro race, a former student in 
 my classes, who had taken a professional course and 
 was now a successful practising physician, called 
 upon us at our home. He came up the front walk 
 as our friends do, was invited in at the front door, 
 and sat with my wife and myself in our front room 
 where we receive our guests. The conversation took 
 many a turn, for our caller was and is a widely- 
 read man, and who can tell a story and tell it well. 
 But finally the conversation turned upon the race- 
 question as our conversations are apt to turn. And 
 in closing up a discussion which had some painful 
 elements, our friend remarked: 
 
 "There are three classes of white folks in this 
 country, Northern white folks, Southern white folks, 
 and You-folks. The Northern white folks do not 
 pretend to understand us; the Southern white think 
 that they do understand us, but they are mistaken, 
 they do not understand us. But You-folks, you un- 
 
 9 
 
10 Chums and Brothers 
 
 der stand us. You know that we are 'just folks.' " 
 At another time we, my wife and myself, were 
 dining with some friends. We were their guests. 
 Our host was a Negro educator, the President of 
 a well-known school for colored youth. The din 
 ner was a good one, tastefully served in a home 
 whose appointments betokened both means and cul 
 ture. After the meal had been fully discussed, the 
 ladies by some subtle sympathy left us men to our 
 selves, and talked together of the things that inter 
 ested them. As neither he nor I smoked, cigars 
 were not in order, but we had a heart to heart talk. 
 Finally my host said to me and of me, "You have 
 been so long a time with us, and so identified with 
 our people, that sometimes we forget that you are 
 not one of us, and we talk with you as we talk 
 among ourselves." 
 
 I thought at the time and I still think that that 
 was about the finest compliment that a man could 
 receive. It was about that time that I began to 
 write short articles for some of the colored papers, 
 articles in which perhaps the fundamental note was 
 an endeavor to interpret the colored people to them 
 selves and to such white people as might read the 
 articles as "Just Folks." 
 
 It is with the hope that this interpretation may 
 come before a wider constituency, that I have col 
 lected some of these papers and added some others 
 and put them into a book. While- each article is 
 
Pro Apologia Vita Sua 11 
 
 in a sense complete in itself, and while the occasions 
 which called them forth have in a sense passed, there 
 is a thread of unity running through them, per 
 haps only the desire to show my friends as "Just 
 Folks>" 
 
THE A. U. SPIRIT 
 
 DURING the summer just passed (1919), I re 
 ceived a letter from a student, who wrote 
 somewhat out of his heart thus: "I entered At 
 lanta University last fall because of the Student 
 Army Training Camp. I became so imbued with 
 the A. U. spirit, that after the camp closed I re 
 mained and I am hoping that I may be able to come 
 back and finish my course." 
 
 It is a subtle matter, this college spirit. Perhaps 
 each school has it. And yet it is different in dif 
 ferent schools. The Harvard spirit is not the Yale 
 spirit, nor is the A. U. spirit quite that of its sister 
 schools. 
 
 Three times since '65, at least three times, have 
 the colored people of the United States felt a great 
 disappointment. The first, perhaps, was the result 
 of the reaction of 1877, when the Negro governments 
 were overturned and the present regime in the South 
 inaugurated. However sympathetic we may be 
 toward the South in the overthrow of its social and 
 its economic regime, we ought to be similarly sympa 
 thetic toward the Negroes as we realize how bit 
 terly all their anticipations of Freedom were dis- 
 
 12 
 
The A. U. Spirit 13 
 
 appointed. In the second place, the Negroes threw 
 themselves heartily into the Spanish-American war 
 and still recall San Juan Hill. They saw the South 
 demonstrate its loyalty and come back into the sis 
 terhood of the states, and they did not understand 
 why their own loyalty to the country and their own 
 prowess in the war did not assist in a fair solution 
 of their own problem. Thirdly, having subscribed 
 liberally to Liberty Bonds and Thrift Stamps, hav 
 ing accepted cheerfully all the limitations placed 
 upon us all by a war situation, and having sent their 
 sons to the training-camps and to the front, where 
 these Negro youth made a record not surpassed by 
 their white soldier-comrades the race having shown 
 an unexampled loyalty during these critical months, 
 the disappointment comes, that although the Negro 
 fought to make "democracy safe for the world and 
 the world safe for democracy," he finds the old 
 bureaucratic regime for him still existing, and the 
 mob-law and the lynch-law of the past thirty years, 
 still operative. 
 
 The Negro soldier boys in France found them 
 selves for the first time not embarrassed by the fact 
 that they were Negroes. This is epitomized in a 
 sentence from a letter which was published in a 
 northern magazine during last year, and taken from 
 the letter by the white officer who acted as censor. 
 
 "Mother, I have to look in the glass to assure my 
 self that I am colored." 
 
14 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Years ago, in his student life at Atlanta Uni 
 versity, the Reverend Leigh Maxwell remarked, "I 
 never think of myself as colored when on the A. U. 
 campus. But the moment I step off the South Hall 
 walk into the street, then I know that I am a Ne- 
 gro." 
 
 Some years ago at a gathering of graduates and 
 former students at some school function, one of the 
 party, when called upon to make some remarks, said : 
 "When I get discouraged and disheartened at the 
 restrictions that surround us, I go out and walk 
 around the Atlanta University campus, that little 
 bit of New England upon the red clay hills of North 
 Georgia, and I begin to feel enheartened and en 
 couraged." 
 
 The underlying thought of the Negro upon the 
 factors of his situation is, on the whole, saner than 
 that of the Southern white folks. "Forty acres and 
 a mule" long since ceased to have attraction. He 
 does not ask charity, but he does ask justice. He 
 is not ashamed to be a Negro, but he is angered at 
 the restrictions that his African lineage places upon 
 him. All he asks is that the Democratic spirit 
 which is the thing we fought for shall come to him 
 and his children. That spirit he finds or thinks he 
 finds exemplified upon the campus of Atlanta Uni 
 versity. Here if anywhere in the South, 
 
 The rank is but the guinea's stamp; 
 The man's the gold for a' that. 
 
FIFTY YEARS OF FREEDOM 
 
 WHAT THE RACE HAS ACCOMPLISHED 
 
 THE following table is printed in the first annual 
 report of the Illinois Commission (National) 
 Half Century Anniversary of Negro Freedom. The 
 table may be put down as trustworthy. It should 
 be cut out by every Colored man, carefully pasted 
 on a sheet of card-board and kept before the mir 
 ror, that it may attract his attention and arouse a 
 genuine satisfaction in the progress of the Colored 
 race since 1865. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE RACE IN 1863 
 
 Population, slaves 3,953,760 
 
 Population, free 487,960 
 
 Total 4,441,720 
 
 Illiteracy 90% 
 
 Value of property, estimated $1,200,000 
 
 Colleges and universities 1 
 
 College graduates, estimated 30 
 
 Physicians and pharmacists 
 
 15 
 
16 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Lawyers 
 
 Banks owned by Negroes 
 
 Number of Negro towns 
 
 Number of newspapers 1 
 
 Number of churches owned 400 
 
 Value of church property, estimated at . .$500,000 
 Membership of Negro churches, estimated at 40,000 
 Number of children in schools, estimated at 25,000 
 
 A HALF CENTURY OF FREEDOM, CONDITIONS IN 1913 
 
 Total Negro population (U. S.) 9,828,294 
 
 Homes owned by Negroes 500,000 
 
 Churches owned by Negroes 31,393 
 
 Church membership 3,207,305 
 
 Sunday schools 24,380 
 
 Sunday school scholars 1,448,570 
 
 Illiteracy, Census 1910 30.5% 
 
 Value of property, estimated at . . $1,000,000,000 
 
 Number of farms owned 250,000 
 
 Value of church property $65,000,000 
 
 College and University graduates 8,000 
 
 Professional men 75,000 
 
 Practising physicians, estimated at 3,500 
 
 Practising lawyers 1,500 
 
 Number of business men, estimated at 50,000 
 
 Children in schools 2,000,000 
 
 Number of Negro towns 50 
 
 Number of Negro teachers 30,000 
 
Fifty Years of Freedom 17 
 
 Land owned by Negroes, acres 20,000,000 
 
 Or square miles 31,000 
 
 Drug stores 300 
 
 General store and other enterprises 20,000 
 
 Newspapers and periodicals 398 
 
 Hospitals and nurse training schools 61 
 
 Banks owned by Negroes 72 
 
 Insurance companies 100 
 
 62.2% of all Negroes in the United States, 10 years 
 of age and over, are engaged in gainful occu 
 pations. 
 Property owned by Negro secret societies $8,000,000 
 
 Capital stock in Negro banks $2,000,000 
 
 Annual business done by Negroes .... $20,000,000 
 
 The Illinois Commission was appointed by Gov 
 ernor Dunne in response to an act of the Forty- 
 eighth General Assembly of Illinois to arrange HALF- 
 CENTURY ANNIVERSARY OF NEGRO FREEDOM. 
 
 An exposition, having reference to this anniver 
 sary, will be held at the Exposition Coliseum, Chi 
 cago, 111., during the month of August, 1915. It 
 is the purpose of the commission to make the ex 
 position a national affair. 
 
 Copies of this report and other matter of inter 
 est may be obtained by addressing the Illinois Com 
 mission, Half-Century of Negro Freedom, 128 N. 
 La Salle Street, Chicago, 111. 
 
MRS. LUCY E. CASE 
 
 MRS. LUCY E. CASE, originally of Sutton, 
 Mass., and for forty-five years officially con 
 nected with the Atlanta University, passed quietly 
 away at her home in Charlton City, Mass., July 19, 
 1914. The funeral services were held in the Con 
 gregational Church, Friday afternoon, in the midst 
 of surroundings familiar to Mrs. Case in her early 
 years, and to which she had returned when the in 
 creasing infirmities of advancing years prevented 
 her continuing actively in the work in which she had 
 spent so many useful years. 
 
 The simple service was one that she, herself, had 
 planned, and which we were glad to carry out. Dr. 
 Horace Bumstead, with whom Mrs. Case worked 
 at the University during much of her time of serv 
 ice, outlined the life of Mrs. Case, two of the gradu 
 ates sang as she had requested certain of the "Old 
 Time Songs," and each of us spoke briefly of the 
 influence and large outcome of her life. As one of 
 the graduates said, the service was not altogether 
 one of sadness. There were the clear air, the bright 
 sunshine, the beauty of flowers, the song of birds, 
 
 18 
 
Mrs. Lucy E. Case 19 
 
 and Mrs. Case. To how many of the students of 
 Atlanta University will the words "Mrs. Case" call 
 up the gracious little woman whose influence was so 
 marked, so pervasive, and so beneficent! 
 
 Mrs. Case's early years were spent in New Eng 
 land. Her father was a thrifty and successful 
 farmer, living upon the farm first cleared by his an 
 cestors, and still in the possession of descendants 
 of the original settler. As a young girl Mrs. Case 
 attended Leicester Academy, from which she was 
 called home at fourteen to the bedside of her dying 
 mother. This experience was followed by six years 
 of invalidism which left their impress upon her 
 fragile form, but also left their influence upon her 
 Christian character. She knew suffering all her 
 life and was made strong thereby. 
 
 For some time she attended Mount Holyoke Sem 
 inary and came under the influence of Mary Lyon. 
 And who can claim that this influence was not per 
 petuated in the thirty years of active service that 
 Mrs. Case later gave to the sons and daughters of 
 the Freedmen? Perhaps the spirit of Mary Lyon 
 still lives in hundreds of homes, schools, and com 
 munities in the South, Mrs. Case herself being the 
 personality that disseminated the spirit that she 
 herself caught from Mary Lyon. 
 
 The Mount Holyoke life was followed by her 
 marriage. Her married life, although brief, was 
 apparently a very happy one. To the surprise of 
 
20 Chums and Brothers 
 
 her Southern friends, Mrs. Case possessed consid 
 erable talent for versification. A poem, read at the 
 funeral and written upon the anniversary of her 
 husband's death, shows a great deal of poetic in 
 sight. Another poem, based upon the story of the 
 lame man at the Gate Beautiful and which had this 
 comment upon it, "A School Exercise. 5% hours," 
 may serve to illustrate something of the pertinacity 
 which she showed toward set tasks and also some 
 thing of the quality of her scholarship. 
 
 The Civil War being closed, Mrs. Case joined the 
 army of teachers that went South to the work of 
 educating the Freedmen for citizenship. Under the 
 American Missionary Association she worked for 
 a year at Macon, Ga., and for a year at Albany, 
 Ga. There are people still living in Albany, who 
 recall the little woman that somehow entered their 
 lives and left there a deep New England impress. 
 
 Following the year at Albany, Mrs. Case was ap 
 pointed a teacher in the Atlanta University, then 
 about to open its doors. She was present to meet 
 the first class that entered the school in 1869. Her 
 name appears upon every catalogue from the first 
 to the forty-fifth, either as an active worker or as 
 honorary matron. Beginning as a teacher in many 
 lines, with the growing number of pupils and the 
 better organization of the work, finally she became 
 matron in the Boys' Hall. Perhaps it was here 
 that she did her most useful and most lasting work. 
 
Mrs. Lucy E. Case 21 
 
 Many a grown man living today a useful and worthy 
 life looks back gratefully to a quiet interview with 
 Mrs. Case, in which admonition for work neglected 
 or rebuke for wrong done or censure for opportu 
 nity wasted might close with a talk of great spir 
 itual earnestness, and a prayer which left him with 
 a great purpose awakened. 
 
 The purpose that Mrs. Case had in her work in 
 the Boys 7 Hall (South Hall) is illustrated by this 
 incident. I had hardly made my entrance upon the 
 Campus as one of the new teachers, in 1887, when 
 I was invited into her rooms, and she said, "I no 
 tice that you wear your hat in South Hall. We 
 try to make South Hall a home and not a dormi 
 tory, and so we require the boys to remove their 
 hats and we expect the teachers to set them the ex 
 ample." In all the years since, I never enter the 
 Boys' Building without that gentle admonition com 
 ing to mind. 
 
 Perhaps the strength of Mrs. Case's character 
 is best shown by the grace with which she could 
 yield her scepter after having for so many years 
 held it. The second matron of the Boys' Hall hesi 
 tated a long time before accepting the position, 
 knowing that the first matron would remain among 
 the scenes where she had ruled so long. "But 
 never," said her successor, "did Mrs. Case, in any 
 way, by look, word or act, make the work hard for 
 me." That is, when she who had been queen, became 
 
22 Chums and Brothers 
 
 queen-dowager, she resigned absolutely, so that her 
 presence made easier and not harder a position hard 
 enough in itself. And when with advancing years 
 it seemed best that her home should be transferred 
 from the Campus to New England, she quietly ac 
 cepted the decision without a word of complaint, 
 though it may be in the spirit of the Apostle who 
 said "I have fought a good fight, I have kept the 
 faith." On her sixtieth birthday, the Junior class 
 gave Mrs. Case a reception in the Girls' Hall, which 
 some still recall. It will please the young women 
 of that class to know that the quotations selected by 
 each and written upon cards and bound with a rib 
 bon and presented at that time, were among Mrs. 
 Case's effects, and a number of them were read at 
 the funeral. The closing quotation expresses per 
 haps, the attitude of Mrs. Case's mind during her 
 closing years. 
 
 For age is opportunity no less 
 Than youth itself, tho' in another dress ; 
 And as the evening twilight fades away, 
 The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 
 
 Two movements are distinctly discernible in the 
 South today among the whites. One is a forward 
 movement, which recognizes the disabilities and re 
 strictions under which the Negro lives, and which 
 presses for Justice and Opportunity for the Freed- 
 man's children, the other a reactionary movement 
 
Mrs. Lucy E. Case 23 
 
 which seems to hark back to the dominant senti 
 ment following the War. This is a sentiment which 
 holds on to as much of the facts of slavery as the 
 new forms would permit. It was this spirit which 
 required the return of the Northern army and which 
 led "to the awful mistakes and hardships of Recon 
 struction." While I would comment upon these as 
 "both real and fancied," I would ask what there was 
 in the work of Mrs. Case and of others like her to 
 which the most pronounced reactionary can take 
 exception ? 
 
 Two sentiments are in the South today concern 
 ing the Negro. The following quotation illustrates 
 one of these: "The Negro is not only here, but he 
 is improving wonderfully in education and in the 
 acquisition of property. The statistics are beyond 
 correcting; the fact is, that the race is making 
 forward strides away from gross illiteracy and de 
 pendent poverty." The following quotation illus 
 trates the second: "We say," a Church paper said 
 only a few weeks ago, "that in fifty years of free 
 dom the Negro has advanced so little that his con 
 dition is not encouraging." 
 
 But the writer goes on and says, "If that be true, 
 it is a grave indictment of us white folks, for the 
 Negro has these fifty years accepted the conditions 
 we have furnished him; if there are no encouraging 
 signs after our management of him for fifty years, 
 the difficulty lies with the management." If the 
 
24 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Negro in freedom has failed, Mrs. Hammond places 
 the failure upon the Southern whites. But Dr. 
 Dillard refers to the statistics to show that the 
 Negro has made forward strides. An average of 
 the two views might lead to the conclusion that the 
 Negro has made progress, but would have advanced 
 farther under a more sympathetic attitude and man 
 agement in the South. This leads to the inevitable 
 conclusion that such progress as the Negro has made 
 is the result of an innate capacity for progress, plus 
 the influence of that body of trained teachers from 
 the North who in the past half century have been 
 teaching Negro youth. Of these Mrs. Case is but 
 one significant example. 
 
 The passing of Mrs. Case in a sense closes an era 
 in the history of the Freedmen. Mrs. Case was 
 probably the last survivor of the little band that in 
 '69 opened for the first time the doors of Atlanta 
 University. Perhaps with her death an era closes 
 in which the "forward movement" of the colored 
 race has been accomplished by the Negro himself, 
 aided by his Northern friends and held back, as Mrs. 
 Hammond suggests, by "Southern management." 
 
 May it not be that the new half-century shall see 
 to it that not two but three forces are cooperating 
 for the solution of that vexing problem known as 
 "the Southern problem." In this solution, we count 
 first "the innate capacity of the Negro for progress" ; 
 second, a more sympathetic management on the 
 
Mrs. Lucy E. Case 25 
 
 part of the white South, as shown by the forward 
 movement referred to above ; and third, the con 
 tinued assistance of the North. The result will be 
 an ever-widening securing of Justice and Opportu 
 nity for all the sons and daughters of all the nation 
 alities and races that call this broad land "our 
 Country." 
 
WHY NOT MAKE FRIENDS? 
 
 WHILE the Old World is rocking with the 
 shock of war, while many of the nations 
 involved have to face not only the foe from with 
 out, but alienated, unassimilated subjects within, 
 who will either refuse to fight or give but half-hearted 
 support to their rulers, the United States has never 
 been more united, more virtually one, than now." 
 
 This was written by an Austrian-Slav, who has 
 become an American man of letters, and who knows 
 whereof he speaks. Listen to this, from an Amer 
 ican editor of a St. Louis paper: 
 
 "We have in this country a wonderful mixture of 
 races, but the population does not remain mixed. 
 The differences disappear. Many kinds of metal 
 go into the melting pot, but only one kind comes 
 away. The children of Germans, Italians, Hunga 
 rians, Poles, Greeks, Syrians, and Jews from the 
 cities of the Pale mingle in our streets, and in our 
 schools, and come out singing the same songs, cheer 
 ing the same flag, reverencing the same heroes, and 
 holding the same essential ideas of liberty and gov 
 ernment." 
 
 26 
 
Why Not Make Friends? 27 
 
 "Europe has the same mixture, but the melting 
 pot is cold. The races live side by side, clinging 
 tenaciously each to its own language, and dress, 
 and social customs and traditions and prejudices. 
 . . . And this because these mixtures in Europe are 
 not self-governing, . . . but one race is lording it 
 over another and forcing that other to do things 
 that it would not do if it were free." 
 
 If Central Europe must go to war with Eastern 
 Europe and Western Europe it would help the of 
 fensive if there were no Slav-problem in Austria- 
 Hungary, no Polish problem on the eastern boundary 
 of Germany, and no subject-French in Alsace and 
 Lorraine on the western. That is, if Germany has 
 been preparing for forty years, as we understand, 
 for the war she so suddenly thrust upon Europe when 
 she attempted to cross the neutral border of Bel 
 gium, she would have done well during that time by 
 some method of benevolent assimilation to have made 
 friends with the aliens within her boundaries. 
 
 As to the defensive, the warring factions of Eng 
 land flowed together at once upon the declaration of 
 war. But Great Britain has a delicate situation 
 in South Africa and a similar situation in India, 
 which today may make England wish that for the 
 last half-century she had been cultivating friend 
 ship with the 400,000,000 of her darker Aryan sub 
 jects, instead of treating them with "a racial ar 
 rogance which looks with contempt upon those of 
 
28 Chums and Brothers 
 
 all shades of color and which denies to them, not 
 only equality with (Englishmen) but also some of 
 the most elementary rights of fellow-citizens," so 
 that "membership in the British Empire carries with 
 it neither equality of rights nor parity of oppor 
 tunity (to the Indian)." 
 
 How much more effective would be Russia in her 
 attack upon Germany, if she could count upon a 
 steadfast loyalty on the part of Finland, or of the 
 12,000,000 Russian Poles who separate Russia from 
 Germany! How the Czar must recall his broken 
 pledges to both as he issues new ukases of privilege 
 and autonomy! How the Russian Bureaucracy 
 must wish that a friendly interest had guided them 
 in the handling of the great body of the Russian 
 serfs, so that by "equality of rights and parity of 
 opportunity" they might have become as efficient 
 soldiers, man for man as are the German soldiery 
 in the present crisis. 
 
 No war reaches the conclusion that was antici 
 pated at its beginning. A contemporary calls at 
 tention to these facts : that Slavery ceased in the 
 United States with the close of the war of '61-'65, 
 a result not planned by either party to the war; 
 that the French Republic arose out of the Franco- 
 Prussian War of 1870, another result far remote 
 from the thought of either nation; that the Rus 
 sian Duma was the most unexpected outcome of 
 the Russo-Japanese war. What will be the out- 
 
Why Not Make Friends? 29 
 
 come of the present war, perhaps one will prophesy 
 in the line of his hopes. To me this is certain, that 
 however the resort to arms may culminate, it will 
 be followed by a great development of the Demo 
 cratic idea in Europe, as upon every nation in 
 volved will be pressed the great desirability of having 
 friends within the nation's borders. 
 
 But is the United States so "virtually one" that 
 it needs not the lesson of "making friends"? 
 
 The editor quoted above noted that "an assistant 
 superintendent of schools in St. Louis was enter 
 taining a visiting German educator. He took him 
 to a room where various kinds of Slavs and Orien 
 tals were mixed in a wonderful manner with a 
 sprinkling of children from native American fam 
 ilies. Wishing to show the visitor the large num 
 ber of foreign children present he asked the Amer 
 ican children to rise. Every child stood on his 
 feet." 
 
 There you have it! The melting pot in opera 
 tion. But no colored child stood on his feet. And 
 why? There were none there. All were native born 
 Americans. They sing the same hymns, salute the 
 same flag, venerate the same heroes as do the chil 
 dren of the European immigrant and the native 
 born white child. But mark the difference! without 
 that commingling, fraternizing, socializing, and 
 democratizing influence which moulds, welds, and 
 fuses the representatives of different European na- 
 
30 Chums and Brothers 
 
 tionalities into the body of American citizens. 
 
 "I look upon Germany," said a German-Ameri 
 can, "as a man looks upon his mother; I look upon 
 the United States as a man looks upon his bride." 
 By implication, he would forsake all for his bride. 
 The Negro is both son and bridegroom to this his 
 native country. What are we doing for the Negro ? 
 
 The mayor of Luxemburg rolled his automobile 
 across a bridge and opposed himself to an advanc 
 ing German army corps. He held out the treaty 
 in which the great nations of Europe covenanted 
 to respect the neutrality of Luxemburg. The Ger 
 man officer drew his revolver and said, "My orders 
 are to go on." The Psalmist asks, 
 
 "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who 
 shall dwell in thy holy hill?" 
 
 And one answer is: "He (the nation?) that 
 sweareth to his (its?) own hurt and changeth not." 
 
 Now the saddest thing of this European war is 
 the downfall of the expectation that the world had 
 somehow reached the point that international 
 treaties would be held sacred. How about guaran 
 tees within the nation? The Negro feels, rightly 
 or wrongly, that toward him national guarantees 
 have no meaning. A great war centered around 
 him. A dozen years of stormy history followed, in 
 which certain phrases apparently in his interest be 
 came a part of the constitution of his native land. 
 At the outcome, he thought then, and still thinks 
 
Why Not Make Friends? 31 
 
 himself, a citizen. But he finds himself the subject 
 of special legislation in which he has no voice, the 
 victim of restrictions to which no immigrant from 
 Europe is subjected, and there are frequent hints 
 of further limitations upon the sphere of his ac 
 tivities. 
 
 And the Negro wonders "Why?" and asks if he 
 is always to be outside the melting pot. But if the 
 unthinkable should have to be thought out, if the 
 unimaginable should become actual, if the President 
 of the United States should call upon every able- 
 bodied man from 18 to 45 years to volunteer to de 
 fend the country against a combined invasion on 
 the part of Canada, the nations of Europe, those 
 of South America, and those of the Orient, shoulder 
 to shoulder with the native born Anglo Saxon sol 
 dier, and with the European immigrant soldier made 
 American through the "melting pot," would be the 
 native born Negro soldier. In which of the wars of 
 his country has he ever been absent? 
 
 I prophesy, Laddie, a remarkable development of 
 the Democratic idea in European countries as the 
 result of the present war. This will show itself by 
 the taking into partnership in economical, educa 
 tional, governmental affairs all the members of the 
 races that live within the nation. Why may not 
 this country learn this same lesson out of the Eu 
 ropean war, and cultivate friendship with all the 
 children of men who reside within our borders? 
 
 September, 1914. 
 
BEING A FRESHMAN 
 
 MY dear 
 Your mother writes me that she has seen 
 you in your college home; that you are in the most 
 beautiful college town she has ever seen; that she 
 has seen the Athletic field, the golf links, and the 
 commons; and she has decided that you were right 
 in going to a so called small college and in not al 
 lowing yourself to be lost in a large college. She 
 says that you have made the Freshman base-ball 
 team and that you are enrolled in the subsidiary 
 choir. She also notes that you have only fifteen in 
 your class, and that instead of meeting instructors 
 you meet the head professors. Best of all from 
 the mother's standpoint, that you recently made 
 "B" in German. All this appeals to her, and I am 
 not sure but that she has correctly diagnosed the 
 case of the small college against the large college. 
 
 I rejoice with you and for you, my dear boy, that 
 you enter college halls under such pleasant sur 
 roundings and with such awakening opportunities. 
 President Hyde in answer to the question: 
 
 "Does College Pay?" 
 says: 
 
 32 
 
Being a Freshmcm 33 
 
 "To be at home in all lands and all ages ; to count 
 Nature a familiar acquaintance and Art an inti 
 mate friend ; to get a standard for the appreciation 
 of other men's work and the criticism of one's own; 
 to carry the key of the world's library in one's 
 pocket; and to feel its resources in whatever he un 
 dertakes, to make hosts of friends among the men 
 of one's age who are to be leaders in all walks of 
 life; to lose one's self in generous enthusiasm and 
 co-operation with others for common ends ; to learn 
 manners from students who are gentlemen; and to 
 form character from professors who are Christians, 
 these are the returns of a college for the best four 
 years of one's life." 
 
 I do not know that Dr. Hyde's answer needs any 
 expanding. But I will emphasize two of his points. 
 And first, if you may not expect to be a leader in 
 the world of action you will in your college life 
 make "hosts of friends" among those who are to be 
 leaders. You will come to appreciate that the dif 
 ference is not one of kind but one of degree. In 
 fact, greatness and leadership are so frequently mat 
 ters of accident, that you may feel some day, and 
 feel properly, that but for accident you might have 
 become as great as is your friend ; and that you ap 
 preciate his greatness because his qualities are yours. 
 
 And again, you can hardly expect to meet later 
 in life a set of men of whom you can be so sure as 
 you can be of your college professors and teach- 
 
34< Chums and Brothers 
 
 ers. Those men are not "working you." They are 
 working for you. And to live in daily contact with 
 men whose sole purpose is a generous giving of them 
 selves for your enlargement and future usefulness, 
 is to live about as near heaven as one can on this 
 earth. And the influence of such contact ought 
 to be to send you out into the business of life ready 
 to render disinterested service to your generation. 
 
 I think that I shall put first among all the ad 
 vantages of college years, this daily contact with 
 vigorous young life, out of which is to develop the 
 men of the future ; and second, this contact with the 
 men of the present, men who are masters in their 
 departments and who will not only lead you into 
 the fields of knowledge, but who will influence your 
 own thinking and character by their own standards. 
 
 But there is a third advantage which will come 
 to you and which perhaps looms larger before you 
 than do any of the others cited in the quotation 
 above. You will recall a conversation around your 
 mother's table one evening in the summer just closed 
 when three of us were discussing your opening col 
 lege career. And one of you remarked, ... it 
 was not you, nor was it I: 
 
 "You are going to college to get a diploma. Get 
 it by any means that you can ; but get it." 
 
 It was a startling remark. We wondered if it rep 
 resented college ethics, even as a similar remark, 
 "Get money, my boy. Get it honestly if you can; 
 
Bemg a Freshman 35 
 
 but get it," is said to represent certain forms of 
 business ethics. 
 
 But this does lead to the thought that in our 
 modern life the possession of a college degree as 
 evidenced by a college diploma carries with it cer 
 tain economic and social advantages which give the 
 parchment a tremendous value in the eyes of those 
 who do not hold it or who are seeking it. One of 
 New York's most successful lawyers was so impressed 
 with this that he seriously contemplated in his later 
 years throwing aside his very lucrative practice that 
 he might enter college halls and graduate. 
 
 This valuation is not inherent in the diploma it 
 self. It is not a valuation placed upon it by col 
 lege faculties or boards of trustees. It is a valua 
 tion which has come partly as the outcome of the 
 changing idea of the college and partly because 
 of the men-out-of-college themselves. Your grand 
 father's diploma was a certificate of entrance upon 
 a professional school through which he made his en 
 trance upon his professional career. In his day 
 the college was practically a fitting school. Today 
 it is largely an end in itself. It is possible that 
 the development of the university idea may bring 
 the college back to its earlier scope. But I rather 
 doubt it. For illustration, the Harvard man is he 
 who has received his bachelor-degree at Harvard. 
 This makes him a Harvard man as no higher de 
 gree can. 
 
36 Chums and Brothers 
 
 The possession of the bachelor's degree will later 
 give you entrance into any college or university 
 club in any city in which you may reside. It intro 
 duces you to the entire circle of college men in the 
 place. It becomes a letter of recommendation 
 which may open up to you valuable social or busi 
 ness opportunities. It puts you into an elect and 
 desirable company as nothing else can. 
 
 There lies upon my desk a report, containing a 
 long list of names of persons more or less notable. 
 Their names give recommendation to any organiza 
 tion. Most of the names are followed by letters in 
 dicating scholarship or honorary degrees. Follow 
 ing one name are the letters D. D. and Ph. D. I 
 know that they do not belong there. By what fell 
 scheme in the mind of the printer's devil they got 
 there may never be revealed. But there they are. 
 And their presence in a place where they do not be 
 long, discounts, so far as I am concerned, the en 
 tire list of degrees in the report. 
 
 Imagine the man who possesses a college degree 
 that he knows he has not earned. He finds himself 
 received as belonging to the college cult with all its 
 titles and advantages. Must he not wonder how 
 many of the others are like himself, grafters, and 
 must he not raise the question: Is not the whole 
 thing based upon fraud, and has it any real value 
 of its own? 
 
 Dr. Brown, of Yale, writes : 
 
Being a Freshman 37 
 
 "The young fellow at college finds himself sud 
 denly injected into a crowd of students who are 
 foes to sobriety, clean living, intellectual achieve 
 ment." 
 
 Despite the opportunities and advantages al 
 luded to in the body of my note these are some of 
 the temptations that go with college life. Perhaps 
 the most insidious of these is the temptation to de 
 mand the diploma without earning it. 
 
 Some one has described a college faculty as "a 
 body of men who having received degrees, make it 
 hard for other men to get them." It is the duty 
 of the faculty to shield the great body of graduate 
 college men from unworthy additions, whether from 
 the standpoint of character, native ability or in 
 tellectual achievement. 
 
 Amid all the distraction and allurements of col 
 lege life may you come to your last Commencement, 
 a knight, without fear and without reproach. 
 Faithfully your friend. 
 
THREE CRITICAL POINTS IN AMERICAN 
 HISTORY 
 
 MODERN history is written in the cartoon. It 
 has been reported that as Boss Tweed, of 
 Tammany notoriety, reached the coast of Spain in 
 his flight from justice in New York, he was arrested, 
 not because of papers issued against him but be 
 cause a cartoon, published in a New York paper, 
 represented him as fleeing with a bag of gold. This 
 cartoon had met the eye of a Spanish official who 
 recognized the likeness in the drawing and who held 
 him while the United States was notified that they 
 held the man safe in custody. 
 
 A recent cartoon represents the Bull Moose as 
 dead and lying on his bier covered with a shroud. 
 A floral tribute lies upon his breast bearing the 
 words, "Rest in Peace." The letters "T. R." upon 
 a card tied to the ribbon on the tribute indicate the 
 donor. The Democratic donkey, with a wide 
 mourning band upon his hat, stands weeping, and 
 says, 
 
 "He was my best friend." 
 
 The G. O. P. elephant is dancing and singing: 
 
 "Ah! Ha! I did it." 
 
 38 
 
Three Critical Points in American History 39 
 
 And he carries in his hand (?) a big stick with 
 the legend: "Nov. Election, 1914." 
 
 And the gopher looks on disconsolately and re 
 marks: "What shall we do without him in 1916?" 
 
 Years ago in the city of Boston and, I believe, on 
 its then main street, a young man found himself 
 suddenly one of a mob that was leading another with 
 a rope around his neck to a convenient lamp-post. 
 Fortunately the police interfered or it might have 
 gone hard that night with William Lloyd Garrison. 
 But the incident remained in the mind of Wendell 
 Phillips and led him to the next meeting of the 
 Abolition Party in Old Fanueil Hall, "The Cradle 
 of Liberty," at which time he spoke words that still 
 burn. It is rather the fashion in this day to decry 
 the work of that little band of agitators known as 
 the "Abolitionist Party," and the constructive work 
 of Lincoln and of Sumner is held up in contrast. 
 This is all right, but it must be recalled that Phillips 
 and Garrison could do no constructive work. Up 
 to the night when Wendell Phillips took up the cause 
 of the slave, there was no position in the public 
 service of Massachusetts to which he might not have 
 aspired. After that first fatal address in which he 
 took sides on the great social problem before the 
 country, there was nothing left for him but to be 
 come a prophetic "voice." And how effective a 
 "voice" he became, the history of the past sixty 
 years attests. 
 
40 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Years passed. The scene has shifted to Chicago 
 where the Republican party sat in Convention to 
 nominate its presidential candidates. Against the 
 protests of a small but influential minority, James 
 G. Blaine, of Maine, was nominated as the party 
 leader. That night, George William Curtis, editor 
 and an essayist of no mean order, the most popular 
 lecturer upon the American lecture platform, and 
 having within his grasp any political preferment 
 that he might have asked at the hands of the Re 
 publican Party in the state of New York, bolted the 
 nomination. 
 
 All that was said of George William Curtis and 
 his small company of followers in the daily papers 
 of that time would be interesting reading now. The 
 word "Mugwump" is one addition to our English 
 Dictionary that remains. Just why George William 
 Curtis bolted the nomination of Blaine I do not now 
 recall. Perhaps it was Elaine's record in Congress. 
 But in that "bolt," Independency and Mugwumpery 
 became respectable and both parties have ever since 
 had an eye to the independent voter, who, having 
 no hope of office or of consideration of any sort 
 from party leaders, votes for men and measures, and 
 has become the balance wheel in our political system. 
 
 Again the scene returns to Lake Michigan, and 
 again the Republican convention is in progress. 
 Personally I felt it a mistake that "The hat was 
 put in the ring." And yet, Mr. Taft had made two 
 
Three Critical Points in American History 41 
 
 serious mistakes, one with the tariff and one with 
 the conservation policies bequeathed him by his 
 predecessor in office. While one cannot say but that 
 Mr. Taft might have been elected to succeed him 
 self, had Mr. Roosevelt kept his hat out of the ring, 
 it is extremely improbable. The call to Mr. Roose 
 velt to enter the contest was extremely loud. The 
 election showed that he was the party candidate, 
 though not the candidate of the organization. The 
 "steam-roller" was applied. Mr. Roosevelt fol 
 lowed the example of George William Curtis and 
 bolted. The Progressive Party was formed. 
 
 The popular vote and the vote in the electoral 
 college was divided in the order, Wilson, Roosevelt, 
 Taft. Whether Mr. Roosevelt could have coralled 
 all the Taft vote had the latter been eliminated from 
 the contest and so have succeeded Mr. Taft can 
 never be known. There can be no doubt but that 
 he controlled a large part of the Republican vote 
 that would have gone to Mr. Wilson had the con 
 test not become triangular. Without question, Mr. 
 Wilson is a minority president because of the Pro 
 gressive movement in the election of 1912. 
 
 The cartoon referred to above suggests that the 
 Progressive Party is dead. This may be so. 
 Whether it is or not, it is more than likely that its 
 founder and head has made so many political ene 
 mies that there is nothing for him politically in the 
 future. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party at its 
 
42 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Baltimore Convention learned the lesson of the bolt 
 at Chicago, and the Democratic organization did 
 not dare to override the voters of the party by any 
 steam-roller methods. And it will be a long time 
 before any other party organization sets itself 
 against the party wishes. 
 
 The Good Book asks: "Which of your prophets 
 have your fathers not stoned? And ye build them 
 their monuments." Perhaps it would be good advice 
 to say: "Do not become a prophet unless you are 
 willing to be stoned." Yet the progress of religion, 
 of freedom, and of social uplift goes on because 
 there are prophets who accept the stoning with no 
 special expectation of the monument. These are 
 the men whose sole interest in in the progress of 
 reform. 
 
 One of the strange facts in all reform is that 
 the opposition remains out of power, but its prin 
 ciples become a part of the policy of the party in 
 power, and the opposition carries its points though 
 it remains the opposition. Let no one enter the 
 ranks of the Reformer and expect to be popular with 
 his generation or to reach any preferment at its 
 hands. For him there awaits "Crucifixion," but the 
 Cause moves on. 
 
 December, 1914. 
 
"THE TOGA VIRILIS" 
 
 A STAID New England household was awak 
 ened rudely one night just after midnight by 
 the loud cry : "There's a man in the house ! There's 
 a man in the house 1" The startled inmates sprang 
 from their couches, hastily threw on all sorts of 
 wraps, made a quick survey of the house from attic 
 to cellar. As the entire household gathered in the 
 dining-room, the father looked sternly at his oldest 
 son and said: 
 
 "What is all this noise that you have made about 
 a man in the house?" 
 
 The son lifted himself to his greatest height, threw 
 back his head proudly and said: 
 
 "Father, I am the man in the house. I was twen 
 ty-one at midnight." 
 
 How well I recall, Laddie, my own twenty-first 
 birthday. How keenly alive! no longer boy, but 
 man ! I could sue and be sued in my own name. I 
 could be arrested, tried and convicted, responsible 
 for my own acts. No longer any parental or fam 
 ily shelter for me! At that moment the "toga 
 virilis" of our American citizenship descended upon 
 me. There were its rights, its privileges and its im- 
 
 43 
 
44 Chums and Brothers 
 
 munities. And sobering thought, there were its ob 
 ligations, its duties, its responsibilities. I could 
 make and unmake careers; I could indicate lines of 
 governmental action. 
 
 Lad, I congratulate you that on the morrow in 
 your father's house a boy will step into manhood. 
 In that chamber that you and your brother have 
 occupied so many years the transformation will take 
 place. It will not be your brother. It will be you. 
 Upon you, boy, tomorrow, as upon myself years 
 ago, the "toga virilis" will fall and you. . . . 
 
 Why do you interrupt my thought? Whenever, 
 boy, did my imagination run riot over you and about 
 you and for you, that you did not put in the mean 
 rejoinder! Manhood for you an "iridescent 
 dream!" No "toga virilis" for you. And you hand 
 me "the white primary"? 
 
 Is there no civic "manhood" for you? The 
 "white primary," boy, is that move on the political 
 chess-board, by which the faction of the South in 
 power had made "a check-mate" to keep itself in 
 perpetual power. And I confess I do not see the 
 move which will break the situation and release the 
 "king." But let the figure go. Is there no com 
 fort anywhere? Must the situation go on forever? 
 Well! forever is a long time! And "many a well 
 laid plan of mice and men" has "gang aft agley." 
 
 Does it occur to you, that the state that in '61 
 entered upon a great civil war to keep you at your 
 
"The Toga Virttis" 45 
 
 then constitutional valuation of three-fifths of a man 
 somehow out of that conflict elevated you to become 
 five-fifths of a man? And that state would put up 
 a strenuous fight if there were any movement on 
 the part of the national government to reduce you 
 to that valuation in national affairs which your state 
 puts upon you in matters local. If the matter 
 were not serious it would be humorous. Whenever 
 before in all history, in the realm of science, eco 
 nomics or civics, did a man or a state both "eat 
 its cake and save it"? And yet that is what the 
 south did before '61, and what it is doing since. 
 Your racial valuation prior to the war was 1,000,- 
 000 out of your total number of 3,000,000 in the 
 matter of state representation in national inter 
 ests. Today, your racial valuation is man for man, 
 so that your state and your states in the south have 
 a representation in Washington based upon 8,000,- 
 000 and more of your folk. In your state every 
 man of the dominant race counts as two and one- 
 third northern men in national affairs. In this 
 state, the ratio is fifteen-eighths ; in North Carolina 
 about one and a half; in Florida, one and three- 
 fourths ; in Alabama one and three-fourths ; in Mis 
 sissippi two and a quarter; in Louisiana one and 
 three-fourths; in Tennessee one and a quarter. It 
 would seem that some day the better sense of the 
 south would say, "We have an undue preponderance 
 of power in the national councils and we 
 
46 Chums cmd Brothers 
 
 ought . . ." But, Laddie, when did ever a people 
 willingly relinquish power? Could the south have 
 done this in '61 a great and devastating war might 
 have been averted. Could it do it today. . . . Per 
 haps that is too much to ask of our human nature. 
 
 But be happy, boy, that your state values you as 
 a unit in its interests at Washington, though it does 
 not seem to value you even as a fraction but rather 
 as a cipher in local matters ; though I do believe that 
 the tax-gatherer has his own valuation upon you. 
 
 I can not help thinking, my boy, that right here 
 is a rift in the cloud. The north is getting a little 
 restive. And it may be that such states as Ten- 
 nessee^and North Carolina that have the least ad 
 vantage may themselves some time realize the in 
 felicity. In the meantime other influences may be 
 at work. Let me give you a bit of history. In my 
 own state in my young manhood there arose a set 
 of young men, born to the purple, members by in 
 heritance to all the traditions of the Republican 
 party. They were ambitious of preferment within 
 the party. And when the fellows ahead of them 
 should all have died off then their turn would come. 
 But there were too many in the ranks ahead to hold 
 out an alluring prospect. By the time the older 
 men were taken care of politically they themselves 
 would largely have passed off the stage. The only 
 hope lay in a break. And they left the family party 
 and joined the opposition. They became leaders 
 
"The Toga Virttis" 47 
 
 and most if not all attained positions of public pre 
 ferment. One became governor and succeeded him 
 self. Senatorial honors might have become his, but 
 that he died in office. There is an interesting and 
 similar situation developing in this very state. 
 Some of the state electorate who did not welcome a 
 Democratic regime and who recognized that a vote 
 for the Republican nominee could have no meaning 
 in the state threw themselves into the third party 
 movement. They did not elect a president. They 
 did not expect to. But they got counted. They 
 dared later to put out an opposition state ticket, 
 and they carried thirty counties. This is only a 
 straw, but it shows a wind. And some day history 
 will repeat itself and a body of strong and ambi 
 tious young men in these southern states will find 
 the ranks ahead so full that the only hope of pre 
 ferment for them will lie in building up an opposi 
 tion party. 
 
 The Irishman, fresh from the old country, and 
 having still upon his boot-heels the mud of the 
 Emerald Isle, was met upon landing by the dele 
 gation that proposed to induct him into American 
 citizenship. He was sounded as to his political con 
 victions, and when in reply to his inquiry, "Is there 
 a government here?" he was told that there was, 
 he said; 
 
 "Then I'm agin it." 
 
 Similarly, my lad, keep up your suffrage fences 
 
48 Chwms cmd Brothers 
 
 and whenever an opposition party lifts its head, 
 say: 
 
 "I am with it." 
 
 Whenever in the past, your folk, young man, have 
 expressed themselves it has been on the side of law, 
 order, sobriety and public decency. If the finer men 
 of the south said, "you colored voters will help us 
 to elevate civic life" when has the colored voter 
 failed to respond? Call to mind the cities which 
 in the past have had a temporary release from the 
 city-partnership with intemperance; of the educa 
 tional systems in cities and counties made possible 
 by the votes of your people combining with those 
 of the whites. Surely as one reflects upon the past 
 and compares it with the present, he must recognize 
 that there is no tyranny to compare with that of 
 the enfranchised over the unfranchised, or the dis 
 franchised. Nevertheless whenever an opportunity 
 offers to assist in public betterment by your vote, 
 let your vote be counted. 
 
 It sometimes seems to me that our southern white 
 friends are paying too much attention to the "mint 
 and anise and cummin" and neglecting the "weightier 
 matters of the law." A recent Russian writer thus 
 characterizes Germany as a nation that "from sup 
 plying the world with the best music and literature 
 and philosophy had become an authority of uniforms 
 and decorative dinner-ware. They have fashioned 
 
"The Toga Virmi 9 49 
 
 a great empire but they have become a small peo 
 ple." 
 
 So the south seems more intent upon holding the 
 figment of power than of developing a place where 
 the principles of the Declaration of Independence 
 shall find living expression and where there shall be 
 opportunity for all and special privilege for none. 
 
 The Russian writer quoted above and who is the 
 daughter of a man who can call himself "Prince" 
 in commenting upon the union of the progressive 
 and the reactionary forces in Russia, says: 
 
 "If progressive Russia has joined forces with re 
 actionary Russia for the moment, it is because she 
 /eels herself strong enough to postpone her own 
 demands." Even so you can afford to throw your 
 self with all the influences that make for civic bet 
 terment even if for the moment "you postpone your 
 own demands." 
 
 Laddie, there is a progressive south. I quote one 
 of its spokesmen : 
 
 "If it be true that the Negro has advanced so 
 little in a long fifty years, that is a grave indict 
 ment of us white folks, for the Negro has for fifty 
 years accepted the conditions we have furnished 
 him. If there are no encouraging signs the diffi 
 culty may lie with the management." 
 
 Even poor, discouraged, down-heartened Elijah, 
 was sent home with the knowledge that he had seven 
 
50 Chums and Brothers 
 
 thousand companions. Boy, you are not alone. 
 Your fellows are not alone. There are another 
 seven thousand in this Israel. 
 
 But I must not forget my major premise, which 
 was to congratulate you upon receiving tomorrow 
 the "toga virilis." We are told that the old regime 
 was full of poetry and of refined living; full of 
 beautiful women and stalwart men, who lived with 
 open hand and a generous hospitality. It may be 
 so. Grant it if you will for the sake of argument. 
 The system had one fatal defect. It gave all op 
 portunity to one man and all handicap to another. 
 But times are changed and the handicap is largely 
 removed. The opportunity is now yours. But with 
 the opportunity to carve a career comes the re 
 sponsibility to do so. Opportunity spells responsi 
 bility, and you can not now as once you might have 
 done, hide yourself behind any man's back with the 
 plea that 
 
 "God and the world have been too much for me." 
 
 They also tell us, that under the old regime your 
 folk were carefully sheltered, taken care of, beloved. 
 We are told that it was a happy, care-free life; 
 your wants supplied in health; nursing and medi 
 cine in sickness ; tears in death. Doubtless it may 
 have been so. There may have been a poetry, an 
 affection, and a shelter in the old regime. I never 
 was there. 
 
 But, my boy, infinitely better than the safety 
 
"The Toga Vires' 9 51 
 
 that comes from being sheltered is the safety that 
 comes from being strong. It is the difference be 
 tween innocence and virtue. The old-time shelter 
 may have given you the one. If in this newer time 
 you are to accomplish anything, you must achieve 
 the other. 
 
 Laddie, accept the "toga virilis" with all its limi 
 tations and all its responsibilities, and with it and 
 by means of it create in yourself a virtue and a 
 strength that shall some time show itself in "the 
 healing of the nations." 
 
BREAKING THE LAW 
 
 ONCE on a time, so the story opens, I chanced 
 to call upon my friend, the druggist, to con 
 gratulate him upon his fine new store. I was shown 
 over the establishment, even to the "sanctum sanc 
 torum," where the prescriptions are filled. As we 
 sat there, my friend and I, we discussed all the con 
 veniences and appliances for an up-to-date drug 
 store. And I remarked, "Doctor, I am feeling well. 
 I cannot ask you to fill a prescription for me. But 
 I should like to spend a little money here in honor 
 of your venture. Suppose I go out and invest in 
 a glass of cherry-phosphate?" 
 
 My friend quickly replied, "Let me send and have 
 it brought in here." 
 
 But I said, "No, Doctor, let me go out and drink 
 with the boys." 
 
 So I stood at the fountain and allowed atmos 
 pheric pressure to assist me in the enjoyment of a 
 cooling draught, when I happened to discover what 
 had not been very apparent before, namely, that I 
 was in Africa, and that I was breaking the law. I 
 looked furtively around for the man in blue-coat 
 
 52 
 
Breaking the Law 5& 
 
 and brass buttons who might approach, put his hand 
 on me, and say, "Come with me." 
 
 As I walked up the avenue I was humiliated as 
 I recalled my own insignificance, for I had crossed 
 a line and nothing had happened. 
 
 In Mrs. Stowe's New England story, "Old Town 
 Folks," Harry, the hero, as a very little boy, had 
 a great desire to do something that he knew was 
 wrong. The temptation took the form of a deter 
 mination to swear. But for a long time the lad 
 had never brought himself up to the point of ac 
 tually doing the thing that seemed so wicked and 
 so attractive. But one night, in the attic cham 
 ber, after his mother had heard him say his prayers, 
 had tucked him safe in bed, and all the house had 
 become quiet, Harry suddenly threw off the cover, 
 sat up in bed, and said the thing he had so longed 
 to say. Then with the speed of thought he crouched 
 down under the clothes and waited. Alas ! there was 
 for him no whirlwind, no earthquake, no consuming 
 fire, not even a still small voice. There was for him 
 nothing but a humiliating sense of insignificance in 
 that he had defied the powers that hold the universe 
 together, and his defiance had passed unnoticed. 
 
 Would you gain an idea of your real importance 
 in the affairs of this world? Take a basin of water 
 and place it upon the table. Sit before it and, 
 leaning the head upon the left hand, gaze into its 
 
54 Chums cmd Brothers 
 
 placid depths and count one hundred. Then with 
 the right forefinger rub the forehead three times 
 back and forth. Now carefully put this same fore 
 finger into the water as deep as possible. Count 
 ten aloud. Quickly remove the finger and look for 
 the hole in the water. Its size will indicate to you 
 a close approximation to your indispensability in 
 matters pertaining to this mundane sphere. Thus 
 felt Harry after his little attempt at being wicked, 
 and thus I felt at being unnoticed after my little 
 infraction of the law. 
 
 Later in that summer, I found myself in another 
 southern city, in the hottest of all the hot summer 
 weeks. One of those days I was upon the business 
 streets being shown the city by some friends. It 
 was the day when the man who can afford it, dons 
 his Palm Beach suit, his white canvas shoes, and 
 Panama hat and at least looks cool. The heat was 
 bearable but the thirst was not. Finally I spoke 
 out in desperation, 
 
 "Friends, is not there some place where we can 
 go and get a cooling drink?" 
 
 There was a momentary pause, and one of my 
 
 hosts said, "Why, yes, let us go over to Cafe 
 
 and have some soda." 
 
 And so I found myself in Cafe not once but 
 
 several times in a somewhat prolonged visit in that 
 city. And as we sat around a little table and were 
 
Breaking the Law '55 
 
 served for the last time, I looked at the proprietor 
 and said to him: "Doctor, are you aware that you 
 are breaking the law in serving me?" 
 
 With the quickness at repartee which so fre 
 quently makes me think that there must be a blood 
 bond between the Negro and the Irishman, one of 
 my friends replied, 
 
 "Not so ! not so ! the white man can do as he 
 pleases, the colored man must obey the law." 
 
 Still later that summer I was in another south 
 ern city. This time I felt more courage. And the 
 first time that I was served at a fountain I asked 
 again my question, or rather I put the same ques 
 tion in a new way. This time I said : 
 
 "Doctor, do you ever serve white people?" 
 
 The doctor smiled slightly and replied, 
 
 "Yes, occasionally some people from the country 
 drop in not knowing the place and I always serve 
 them." 
 
 I could not but ask myself what would happen if 
 a colored man should stray into a white cafe. 
 
 Still later I chanced to be in a town in which only 
 the day before the governor had met an appoint 
 ment that called together several thousand people 
 from far and near. Sitting in a grocery store that 
 had a soft drink counter, my friend, the proprietor, 
 spoke of the governor's visit and of the crowds in 
 attendance, and he remarked: 
 
 "We had a big day's business yesterday." 
 
56 CJvums and Brothers 
 
 In reply I inquired, 
 
 "Were there a good many colored folk in town 
 also?" 
 
 "Yes," was his reply. But we had a large white 
 trade yesterday. We always do on such days." 
 
 I must have looked incredulous, for my friend 
 hastened to add, 
 
 "The country people feel more at home with us 
 than at the white cafe up town." 
 
 Again I realized that the white man can do as he 
 pleases, and that I had company into the land of 
 "privilege." 
 
 I am not sure but that the recitals above bring 
 up my excursions into the land of privilege up to 
 date. In a different line is the following incident. 
 A lad, of whom I think a good deal, was obliged 
 recently to take a night journey across two states. 
 Not being of the privileged class he took the colored 
 coach. He was the only occupant. I have often 
 thought that if I were the president of a Southern 
 railroad, I should frequently be tempted as was the 
 boy Harry, spoken of above, as I found myself 
 daily obliged to haul coaches more or less empty in 
 response to a social demand. But since I am not 
 a railroad president, the temptation does not meet 
 me in just that same way. The night was cold, the 
 steam-fittings were loose, and the car was filled with 
 a cloud above and a flood of water below. Never 
 theless, the lad, accustomed to make the best of a 
 
Breaking the Law 57 
 
 situation, prepared to spend an uncomfortable 
 night. The conductor saw the infelicity, not to say 
 the inhumanity, of the situation and said to the 
 boy, "I will put you where you can be comfortable." 
 
 The youth spent the night in the white coach. 
 I have often wondered since what were his thoughts, 
 as thus warm and comfortable he realized a certain 
 danger in his position. Did he pull his cap over 
 his ears? and his coat collar up around his neck? 
 Did he keep his face sedulously away from the aisle? 
 Was he not glad when the time came to change to 
 another line, and he could take the car which the 
 law requires? Suppose during the night some half 
 drunken white men had found him in the white 
 coach? 
 
 I recognize the right of the majority to impose 
 laws upon the minority. And I mean, in the main, 
 to obey the law even though I would it were other 
 wise. But even the majority should not pass laws 
 whose infraction from one class of the citizenry they 
 care nothing about, while holding another class se 
 verely to the letter. 
 
THE EUROPEAN WAR A CONFLICT OF 
 IDEALS 
 
 SOME student left a novel on a table, in some 
 way it found its way to my desk, and in a rare 
 moment of leisure I opened it and glanced at the 
 ending. It proved to be a love story located in 
 Kentucky just at the opening of the war of 1861. 
 The hero is casting his fortunes in with the con 
 federacy and the heroine is following her father into 
 hospital service for the northern army. After the 
 war has settled the question at issue they will return 
 and live happily together forever afterward. 
 
 She says: "It's a war between two ideals, what 
 ever else they may say about it. But it's really that, 
 between two ideals of civilization." 
 
 "And men," he added quickly, "always fight for 
 their ideals as for nothing else. It will be to the 
 last gasp." The present European war is a similar 
 conflict of ideals. If this be true, then the present 
 war began when the barons wrested the Magna 
 Charta from King John. It will continue until one 
 or the other of two ideals of government conquers. 
 The conflict is between democracy and autocracy; 
 between the idea that government is by consent of 
 
 58 
 
The European War a Conflict of Ideals 59 
 
 the governed, and that government rests upon the 
 divine right of Kings. 
 
 The general conflict among the European powers 
 was inaugurated at the moment that the German Em 
 peror sent word to the other powers that "the war 
 between Austria and Servia must be localized or the 
 gravest consequences would ensue." This meant that 
 Germany would defend Austria in her attack upon 
 Servia. But back of this pronunciamento lay a sit 
 uation in Germany itself. Perhaps this is best ex 
 pressed in a letter which appeared in the Springfield 
 Republican of August 10, and written by a German 
 American in Hartford. 
 
 "No German here," he writes, "supports the 
 Kaiser's action. It looks to me, a land lubber, as 
 though William saw power slipping away from him, 
 democracy gaining, scandals among his relatives in 
 creasing, his future uncertain and the only thing 
 for him to do was to have a war which would hold 
 the people together reuniting his empire for twenty 
 years or more. Then he might be in heaven or 
 somewhere else. After the war, it would require 
 some years for the Socialists to become strong, and 
 the Godgiven right of German Kings might be su 
 preme until that time." 
 
 To one at all familiar with the spread of liberal 
 ideas in Germany within the past twenty years, and 
 certain criticism of and limitations placed upon the 
 Kaiser, the above characterization seems fair, and 
 
60 Chums and Brothers 
 
 interprets the position of Germany. The conflict 
 of ideals had entered the Kaiser's own domain. He 
 recognized a tendency to limitation of his power. 
 Fortunately for Germany and for the rest of the 
 world if the revolution had gone as in England dur 
 ing the century just closed. Today England is 
 more nearly a pure democracy than is the United 
 States. The government is more quickly responsive 
 to public opinion than in our own country. Fortu 
 nately for England, leaders of the type of Gladstone 
 and rulers of the type of Victoria were on the stage, 
 or the revolution from monarchy to democracy 
 might not have been bloodless as it was. But Wil 
 liam is of a different type from Victoria and his ad 
 visers are not of the Gladstone order. If then, 
 William was to save himself and his prerogatives, 
 it was either a war at home or one abroad. And the 
 Austro-Servian imbroglio offered the opportunity. 
 
 We in the United States would do well to hold in 
 mind that this war is a conflict of ideals. And to 
 remind ourselves as to the effect upon our own in 
 stitutions in the event that the German Militaristic 
 philosophy of government wins out in the present 
 contest. Given, Germany in control of the North 
 Sea, with England reduced to a third rate power 
 and France controlled from Berlin, and our secur 
 ity because of our isolation comes to an end. 
 
 With a strong military power controlling western 
 Europe, a military power must inevitably and of 
 
The European War a Conflict of Ideals 61 
 
 necessity develop in the United States. War-meas 
 ure-taxes will become the rule, larger armies and 
 larger armaments, more dreadnoughts, submarines 
 and aerial fleets must be provided. The sons of 
 white men and the sons of colored men will spend 
 two, three and even four years in military service, 
 and the bills be paid by enhanced taxes from those 
 out of service ; the withdrawal of the young men 
 from the ordinary walks of life will throw the work 
 of the men more and more upon the women. In time, 
 the larger portion of the farm work will devolve 
 upon women as it does now in Germany. There 
 will develop here a military party anxious to test 
 itself with Europe, or even more anxious to gather 
 power to itself at home. Republican institutions 
 will be in danger, and quietly, perhaps as in old 
 Rome, absolute monarchy will fasten itself upon the 
 United States, even though the forms of the present 
 institutions are preserved. 
 
 However the advice may be, to hold ourselves neu 
 tral in this European crisis, no man who believes in 
 the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pur 
 suit of happiness" can but hope and pray that the 
 democratic spirit in Europe shall be successful over 
 the autocratic and must expect that the war will go 
 on until democracy conquers. 
 
 It is a sad commentary upon our Christian (?) 
 civilization that all the beneficent instrumentalities 
 of modern science should be turned toward making 
 
62 Chums and Brothers 
 
 war more dreadful. The old phrase was "Scratch 
 a Russian and you find a bear." Where in our mod 
 ern life can you scratch anyone and not find a bar 
 barian? Surely the conflict abroad exemplifies this. 
 And one deplores any further advance in science, if 
 the victories won in the laboratory are in the end 
 to simply make war more unfeeling and deadly. 
 February, 1915. 
 
AN OUTING WITH TANNER 
 
 YOU have read the letter? Read me the first 
 lines. 
 
 "It was certainly a pleasure to receive your 
 Christmas card. And the remarkable thing about 
 it was, that Tanner turned up the next day, and 
 spent Sunday with me. He came over to sell a few 
 pictures." 
 
 What is there, Laddie, between my Christmas card 
 and Tanner's return to America that should call 
 forth any comment, or be in any sense remarkable? 
 
 Ah! boy, how much that letter calls up the past. 
 Few people in this town remember that Henry Os- 
 sawa Tanner, America's most distinguished painter, 
 taught art in one of its schools. And fewer still 
 ever knew that on a cool morning in early June a 
 quarter of a century ago, four of us, young men, 
 
 Tanner, and C and H - and myself rode out 
 
 of this town in a hack drawn by three horses, en- 
 route for the mountains of western North Carolina. 
 School was done. The year of work had come to 
 its end, and we were beginning a picnic that was to 
 last the best part of four months. How little we 
 recked of the future ! We left the city on the north 
 
 63 
 
64 Chwms and Brothers 
 
 side, the world and its care behind us ; the mountains 
 and their joys before. 
 
 Tanner and I were city-bred. The others were 
 of the country, and we gladly left to them the con 
 trol of the team, while we enjoyed the rear seat and 
 care-free pursued our journey. 
 
 That first night in camp! To me it was a new 
 experience to lie with the ground for a couch and 
 the stars in the blue as my coverlid. Early in the 
 night a cloud came and rain dropped upon our faces, 
 and it was often reported afterward that I mur 
 mured as I turned to shield my face from the rain : 
 
 "What a foolish fellow you are to thus court cer 
 tain death by this exposure." 
 
 But somehow the cloud passed and we slept, if 
 not the sleep of the righteous, the sleep that tired 
 men only sleep. 
 
 Sunday we spent at a local hostelry, and I recall 
 one incident that has local color. Going into the 
 stable to look after the horses, we met the small boy 
 who took out from a recess a suspicious bottle and 
 invited us to help ourselves. And when we declined, 
 he took a long draught himself, and remarked, 
 
 "It's mighty good." 
 
 Mountain roads lose a certain fearsomeness by 
 acquaintance. But as we neared our destination, 
 the road did not improve. All at once the wheels 
 on the lower side sank and the wagon lurched as if 
 
An Out wig with Tanner 65 
 
 to throw itself down the steep mountain side. I 
 was on the lower side, and Tanner on the upper. 
 How it was done I never knew. But in some desper 
 ate movement due to the instinct of self-preservation, 
 I saw Tanner sitting on a rock by the roadside and 
 I was hanging out of his seat. Evidently I pushed 
 him out. But we reached our haven safely, and as 
 we gathered in the little hotel in the mountain town, 
 I noted the absence of Tanner. Somehow in those 
 days I was slow of comprehension and assumed that 
 he was taking care of himself to reduce expenses. 
 In all those weeks the real reason never dawned 
 upon me. 
 
 The horses belonged to the other men. I was to 
 hire my horse. It was a novel experience, but I soon 
 learned to mount and to hold on. Every day had 
 its special objective point. Our first ride led us 
 three or four miles away to an interesting water 
 fall. And while at the falls, a heavy mountain 
 shower came up and drenched us. And again I 
 had the vision of serious disaster to befall me. We 
 hurriedly mounted, and rushed for the hotel, and 
 got dry in the ride and never thought of a change 
 of apparel. So my second hazard passed unnoted. 
 
 And those three fellows, how they taught me to 
 ride! Coming in from an excursion one evening, I 
 purposely kept in front to show my skill in the 
 mount. And I noted that my horse was going by 
 leaps and bounds and I gloried in my prowess, and 
 
66 Chums and Brothers 
 
 did not know until afterwards that my comrades 
 were maliciously whipping my horse through his best 
 paces, they having, as they said, the fun of their 
 lives. 
 
 Tanner was the photographer of the party. This 
 was before the era of the Kodak. Tanner prepared 
 his own plates and developed his own pictures. And 
 one of the simple pleasures of the vacation was to 
 help Tanner in the dark room. Here I got my first 
 lessons in photography. And Tanner's pictures 
 were always artistic. I look them over occasionally 
 now and recognize the artist even in the photog 
 rapher. 
 
 C and H were married, and their wives 
 
 appeared soon after our own arrival. So that nat 
 urally Tanner and I were a good deal together. 
 And Tanner at one time desired to go off on a 
 lengthy excursion which did not appeal to the oth 
 ers, nor for that matter to me. But I said, 
 
 "Tanner, if you are bound to go you shall not go 
 alone." 
 
 A twenty mile ride brought us to the little stream 
 where we might fish or might paint. That is, Tan 
 ner might. Neither pursuit appealed to me. We 
 erected our little tent, ate the supper which Tanner 
 prepared in the skillet (for he was a man of many 
 parts) and fed our horses, and lay down for a night 
 without dreams. Ah, that air, and those stars and 
 the green of the trees and purling of the brook! 
 
An Outing with Tarmer 67 
 
 All at once there was a pull at my pillow, which 
 was of the bundles of oats bought for the horses. 
 I was awake instantly; a second pull and I was on 
 my feet, to discover that the interlopers were the 
 mountain razor-backs that had scented our larder 
 and proposed to help us in its enjoyment. Thrice 
 that night I rose to defend our possessions, but as 
 I recall, Tanner slept calmly on. I policed the 
 camp. 
 
 We spent the next day in that dell of exquisite 
 loveliness, glad that if "man made the town" that 
 "God made the country." 
 
 Early after a dinner prepared as only Tanner 
 could prepare it, we broke camp, intent upon a 
 mountain climb where the second night was to be 
 spent. How, as some incident calls up the past, 
 the little insignificant items recur to the mind. We 
 stopped at a farm house to purchase chickens for 
 our refection. The good woman called her fowl 
 around her with loving words and corn, and they 
 came by the dozens, if not by the hundreds. And 
 having allayed their fears and worked upon their 
 instincts, she treacherously picked out three of the 
 most promising of the flock, shooed the others away, 
 who never missed their mates. And these she quickly 
 prepared for us. We crossed her palm with silver, 
 and escaped with our booty. 
 
 Our climb to an elevation of over 6000 feet was 
 not difficult, and we reached the top in season to 
 
68 Chums and Brothers 
 
 erect our camp and to gather a large pile of wood 
 when we found ourselves in a cloud. Not a light 
 fleecy cloud, but one full of wetness, a wetness that 
 sticks. So we took our night watches, changing 
 perhaps hourly, Tanner keeping up the fire for me 
 and I again keeping up the fire for Tanner. And 
 between times, lying upon the soggy earth with our 
 shoulders in a puddle. Nor cared we! The spirits 
 of the mountains might conspire to drown us out 
 or drive us away, but our courage was up to any 
 test. So the long night passed and with it the 
 cloud, and the sun awoke us in the morning, with the 
 world at our feet. 
 
 And as we stood upon the very apex of the moun 
 tain, that morning we saw remnants of storms all 
 around us. And one storm cloud came upon our 
 right so near that we could almost touch it. And 
 right there before us it rained itself to pieces and 
 disappeared, fairly worn out with its efforts. 
 
 Coming down the mountain, we lost the trail. 
 And the mountain was steep. And we zigzaged our 
 way down the slopes, thankful that the horses kept 
 their horse-sense in a situation that seemed to have 
 some danger. But finally we struck a trail which 
 led to a cabin. And here they told us to go the 
 way we did not think could be right, and to follow 
 the plainest trail and we should reach our destina 
 tion. What a thing a plain trail is ! Fortunately 
 it was plainer to the horses than to us, and in large 
 
An Outing with Tanner 69 
 
 part trusting ourselves to them, we filed through a 
 valley, climbed a mountain, reached a highway and 
 recognized our location. 
 
 Sitting upon a mountain top, I saw Tanner 
 stretch his first ambitious canvas. It may have 
 been two feet by fifteen inches. I saw the artist put 
 the first brush of paint upon that white surface. I 
 saw it grow from day to day. I saw Tanner put 
 on the finishing touches. I have stood many a time 
 since on the spot where Tanner sat. Happy moun 
 tains ! to have Tanner depict you ! Fortunate moun 
 tains, that you look even now just like the picture 
 of you that he painted ! And I ... I suppose that 
 I could have bought that picture for the money that 
 I gave Tanner for photographs. And I lost the 
 opportunity. Boy, what would I not give today 
 if I could show to you and to yours Tanner's first 
 ambitious effort, and know that it was mine or 
 yours ? 
 
 You know the story? It ought to be told to en 
 courage every boy with a definite aptitude. There 
 was the boy with the artist's soul and the love of the 
 brush. And there was the practical father who saw 
 no future in art, but in a clerkship. And the boy, 
 disappointed and out of his element, a Pegasus yoked 
 to a plow, sickened. And hope faded. And the 
 distraught father said: "Henry, get well and you 
 shall paint." And the boy got well and still paints. 
 
70 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Do you not see, Laddie, what that letter recalls 
 out of the past? How little I sensed it then or for 
 years afterward, that I had spent a summer with a 
 genius, that for once in my life I had lived inti 
 mately with one of the world's masters. How little 
 any one of that group of four young men dreamed 
 that one of us would make a name for himself and 
 for his people. Out of all the company that came 
 and went in that little mountain summer resort, 
 some of whom looked askance at him, I do not know 
 of any one that the world has heard of save Henry 
 Ossawa Tanner. 
 
STUDENT BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 NOTE: During the year 1915, I asked several graduates of 
 the school who were then or who had been taking graduate 
 work in Northern Universities to tell me something of their 
 work and of their efforts to sustain themselves while at this 
 work. The replies were representative and illustrate that our 
 Negro youth can make the same effort to grow along their 
 chosen lines that their white brothers make. 
 
 YOUR letter is especially appreciated as it tells 
 me that you are still interested in what I am 
 doing and that you still hold me in regard. This 
 
 year I am Senior in the Dental College of 
 
 University. The years spent here have been strenu 
 ous ones. When in school with you I was, to a 
 large extent, financed by my people. Here I have 
 had to foot all my bills. I have found it impossible 
 to earn enough during the summer to defray all the 
 expenses of the school term. But in several ways 
 I have been enabled to keep myself thus far from 
 absolute bankruptcy. 
 
 In my Freshman year, I worked a good deal in 
 this city. In my Sophomore year I worked a good 
 deal in the printing office of this University. This 
 
 71 
 
72 Chums and Brothers 
 
 year I obtained a position as night-watchman. 
 Here I work only part of the month. There is noth 
 ing hard about the job, but the hours are long and 
 there is a consequent loss of sleep. I never get 
 sleep enough when working. While I consider my 
 self fortunate in having the necessary work, yet it 
 is burdensome and often interferes with school work. 
 Last summer I spent at work in this city. The pre 
 vious summer I worked in a hotel in New York state. 
 
 You inquire as to my school expenses and I, there 
 fore, give you the following itemized statement: 
 
 Tuition $100.00 
 
 Matriculation, First Year 5.00 
 
 Athletics and Library Fees 2.00 
 
 Board and Lunches 96.00 
 
 Lodging, Two in a Room 32.00 
 
 Laundry 20.00 
 
 Books, New 25.00 
 
 Total $280.00 
 
 Add to this total the amount of numerous inci 
 dental expenses which inevitably arise and you will 
 not fall below $300.00 for the school term. Most 
 of the students in my Alma Mater never realize what 
 they are getting until they leave. The $15.00 
 
Student Biographies 73 
 
 which is charged there for total monthly expenses 
 barely covers the cost of my food in this city for a 
 month. But I hope that my figures will not dis 
 courage any of my fellow alumni who are meditat 
 ing a similar course. 
 
 in 
 
 Your second question relates to my total annual 
 expense. In reply, I did not keep track of my 
 other expenses. I was so busy hustling, trying to 
 get board and carfare together, that if I got that 
 I was happy. I do know that I spent every cent 
 that I could get hold of. 
 
 My laundry was only the cost of my collars, the 
 other well, Saturday was my wash-day. I never 
 bought a suit of clothes from the day I entered the 
 Medical School until I graduated. At Commence 
 ment, my gown (bless its memory 1) covered the 
 worst places. The morning of graduation I had to 
 mend a hole in my coat. 
 
 Books: I had only two that I could call my 
 own. The others I borrowed from fellow-students 
 or from the library. I waited on table for my board 
 part of the time, and at other times I was taking 
 care of furnaces, shoveling snow, and doing chores. 
 Part of my first year I worked in a beer-garden for 
 tips. Saturday and Sunday nights it was worth 
 three or four dollars a night. I finally left the 
 place because I was getting notorious. 
 
74 Chwms and Brothers 
 
 The last two and a half years I worked in the 
 Post Office at night. I got on the average about 
 three hours of sleep. Sundays I slept all day. You 
 see it is impossible to tell what my annual expenses 
 were. They were the sum of all these items. 
 
 The principal thing is to get the tuition for the 
 first year. One who has hustle, grit, and determina 
 tion can make it. It is not hard to get a place to 
 earn board and lodging. If a fellow knows how to 
 wait on a table he will not find making his way as 
 hard as might appear. 
 
 IV 
 
 I had a little money that I had saved and I did 
 have friends upon whom I could call in an emer 
 gency. And while I never made the call, the as 
 surance put me in the attitude for such an adven 
 ture as undertaking to work my way through a great 
 university. The first thing that I did after regis 
 tering was to make application for work to the Stu 
 dent-Service-Bureau. There are lots of odd jobs 
 and some steady work for which the university gives 
 credit on term bills. In addition to this I was will 
 ing to put myself in the attitude of wishing work be 
 fore all my friends and before the janitors. Through 
 these I got my most remunerative work. I hauled 
 books between the libraries; I operated the stere- 
 opticon for transient lecturers; I got a steady job 
 
Student Biographies 75 
 
 which netted me between $30.00 and $40.00 per 
 quarter. I was messenger at the Medical School, in 
 which capacity I went three times a week to the 
 abattoir to fetch a twenty-pound bucket of embryo 
 pigs. I did this for months. I printed bills of fare 
 and waited on table at the Commons. I was a reg 
 ular policeman at athletic games. Finally, I secured 
 a positon in the Post Office where I worked for 
 months. 
 
 Versatility, quickness to see opportunities and to 
 select the best of several, willingness to work these 
 are the means. I forgot to say that I read French 
 and German to a western friend and he paid me 
 well. 
 
 NOTE: The writer of the above illustrates his own point 
 that versatility is a prime qualification for this adventure. 
 While expertness in some line is the prime requisite for the 
 mature man for success, for the young man, versatility is the 
 more important. If one could know in advance just what 
 demands would be made upon him in the struggle for a foot 
 hold, one might begin at an early date to work along the lines 
 of his future occupation. It is a mistake for our schools to 
 train for expertness when the more vital thing is versatility. 
 
NOVEMBER HTH, 1915 
 
 WHEN rumor had become established fact 
 and we knew that Mr. Washington was dead, 
 there came to mind a verse, learned in early boyhood, 
 which had not recurred to me in years. I quote from 
 memory : 
 
 Good Lord, when one man dies who wears a crown, 
 
 How the world trembles, how the nations gape; 
 
 But when that one man's victims, poor worms, die 
 at his behest, 
 
 Ye pitying souls, shed not one tear from your in 
 different eyes. 
 
 And I found myself, by some subtle law of sug 
 gestion comparing Wilhelm of Berlin with Wash 
 ington of Tuskegee. History, I surmise, will ad 
 judge the one as one of the most destructive forces 
 of all time ; the other as one of the most efficient con 
 structive agencies of his generation. Resulting 
 from the action of the one, fifteen million men in 
 sixteen months have been "put out of the fight," 
 either killed or maimed or health shattered. Under 
 the beneficent work of the other, the children of a 
 nation with a population of a hundred million, have 
 
 76 
 
'November ifth, 1915 77 
 
 been helped educationally, as ideas which this man 
 put into active operation have been shown to have 
 educational value, not alone for "defectives, Indians, 
 and Negroes," but for the children of all classes 
 and conditions. 
 
 As I journeyed on Tuesday afternoon to repre 
 sent Atlanta University in honoring the founder 
 of Tuskegee Institute, I learned that a death which 
 had come to me as a lightning-flash out of a clear 
 sky was not altogether unexpected by those near 
 est him and that he had been for some years a broken 
 man. On the train, sitting with Dr. Frissell of 
 Hampton, I asked if he had not been the victim of 
 overwork, if he had not been for years an overtired 
 man. The reply was "Yes," and I wondered then 
 and have wondered since if the sacrifice was neces 
 sary. Carl Hilty remarks in one of his essays that 
 if each of all the people would do his share of the 
 work of the world, none of us would be overworked. 
 It is because some do less than their share or even 
 do none of it that others are overborne. Surely 
 Mr. Washington never shirked his portion. Could 
 we not all of us have made life easier for him? Yet 
 how necessary he was to our successes ! Whoever 
 arranged a public meeting or a convention and 
 asked him to come and make it a success, that he 
 ever failed? Somehow he wrought until his human 
 machinery gave out, nor stopped until then. 
 
 Reaching the school ground most of us sought 
 
78 Chums and Brothers 
 
 the chapel where the body "lay in state." I noted 
 first the four students in military dress guarding 
 their Principal. And ever and anon, the relay came 
 in, went to the other, gave the simple military sa 
 lute, and took the place on guard. Thus all day 
 Monday, and Monday night, Tuesday and Tuesday 
 night, and Wednesday morning until the chimes 
 struck the hour of noon was the body of Mr. Wash 
 ington guarded by his students. Next I noted the 
 floral tribute. And again and again and yet again, 
 I sought the chapel to look upon this wonderful ex 
 pression of affection for Mr. Washington and to 
 grasp, if I could, its meaning. I learned what al 
 ready I might have known, that not only did men 
 admire him for his ability and esteem him because 
 of his success, but that somehow he tied men to him 
 with the cords of love. Sad it is that we are limited 
 to so few means of expressing our affection at such 
 a time! There were telegrams without number. 
 Letters without number and flowers. ... As we 
 waited for the Tuskegee train at Chehaw, the train 
 from Montgomery pulled in and it seemed as though 
 the express car was filled with floral tributes. And 
 these were but a portion of the lavish wealth of flow 
 ers that poured in upon the school. One who has 
 knowledge of such matters estimated the value. The 
 figures were astounding; I will not quote them. At 
 the best it showed how poor is our richest tribute at 
 such a time. There they were upon the rostrum, 
 
November ijih, ip/5 79 
 
 arranged by some skilled hand. The multiplicity 
 had become a unity, so that the various pieces melted 
 into one world tribute. The usual suggestions of 
 mourning were absent. There was quiet conversa 
 tion as those from abroad met, shook hands, and 
 communed with one another. Our host was there 
 as at other times. We talked much of him and 
 there was a solemn joy. If a good man had done a 
 good work and had passed away, the passing was 
 accomplished amid the scene of his labors, while still 
 in the maturity of his powers and with harness on. 
 
 I saw those flowers on Wednesday morning at a 
 time when few others saw them. The early sun was 
 streaming through the stained glass of the windows 
 and fell upon the east end of the rostrum, touching 
 with color the flowers and giving if possible added 
 beauty. And as the sun mounted, the colors 
 changed and passed along the rostrum as though 
 a rainbow was passing over the scene. I said to a 
 student present, as later I said to others, 
 
 "My boy, you will live many years and you may 
 know many men, but you will never again see such 
 a tribute as this. There are not a half dozen men 
 in the country who could call it forth. This is 
 worthy of a monarch.'* 
 
 And then I reasoned with myself that in the case 
 of the monarch, one might suspect a certain per 
 functory character to such a tribute that was ab 
 sent here. 
 
80 Chums and Brothers 
 
 The service was extremely simple and carried out 
 the wishes of the family and of Mr. Washington 
 himself. At a half hour after ten, the procession 
 of students, led by the school band, had started from 
 the administration building. The students were 
 followed by the family, these by the guests from 
 abroad, and following these came the officers and 
 teachers of the school. The city of Tuskegee sus 
 pended all business during the hours of the service 
 and I understood that the mayor and the council 
 were present, with a goodly representation of citi 
 zens from the city itself. One Tuskegee matron, a 
 white woman, leaned forward and spoke to one of 
 the colored women present of Mr. and Mrs. Wash 
 ington, and again I wondered, asking myself, if in 
 his death, he, in whose honor we had gathered, had 
 conquered the South in a way that in his life he 
 had not done. 
 
 The service consisted of Scripture lessons read 
 by the chaplain, a prayer of wonderful power and 
 beauty by Dr. Frissell, a lifelong friend and teacher 
 of Mr. Washington. A part of the fifteenth chap 
 ter of Corinthians I, one telegram from the board 
 of trustees, expressing the sympathy of the board 
 in the loss the school had sustained and stating the 
 determination of the board to stand by the school, 
 and one brief address by one of the trustees, who 
 spoke warmly of Mr. Washington and who supported 
 the statements of the telegram, were also read. 
 
November ifth, 1915 81 
 
 With these were rendered alternately certain old 
 time songs, some of Mr. Washington's favorites, in 
 cluding "My Brother's Taken His Crown and Gone 
 Home," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." The last 
 hymn, "Still, Still with Thee, When Purple Morn 
 ing Breaketh" seemed peculiarly appropriate, be 
 cause written by Mrs. Stowe. Then the procession 
 reformed and we gathered about the open grave 
 to the east of the chapel. Here to the music of 
 Scripture selections and after a brief prayer, all 
 that was mortal of Booker Taliaferro Washington 
 was laid to rest. The taps sounded, the students 
 on guard found their work finished, and the family 
 and friends slowly moved away. There came to 
 mind the words of Tennyson, written of another, 
 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, 
 He is gone who seemed so great. 
 
 It was a little startling on reaching home to open 
 The Outlook to find a letter from Mr. Washington, 
 evidently penned during his last illness, a plea for 
 Haiti and the Haitians that we be patient in our 
 dealings with this people even as we have been patient 
 elsewhere. 
 
 I close by quoting from an editor: 
 
 The Negroes' chief spokesman before their white 
 fellowmen is gone. And this is the white man's loss. 
 It is a greater injury to misunderstand than to be 
 
82 Chums and Brothers 
 
 misunderstood, and without this spokesman, the 
 white people will be more in danger of misunder 
 standing their black fellow-countrymen. 
 
 While the writer feels that there are other voices 
 that ought to be listened to, it remains true that 
 for twenty-five years Mr. Washington has been 
 heard as no other speaker for the colored race and 
 "it is not likely that there will soon arise a Negro 
 whom the white people of the South and the North 
 will so readily heed." 
 
A NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE 1916 
 
 A SENSE of humor frequently saves a tense 
 situation. It is said of President Lincoln 
 that at one time he called his cabinet together to 
 discuss a course of action upon which he had already 
 made up his own mind, somewhat to his surprise 
 every member of his executive family negatived the 
 proposed action. The President sat for some mo 
 ments in deep thought, disappointed perhaps at the 
 unfriendly attitude of his advisers. Then he looked 
 at them, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile about 
 his lips. "Gentlemen," he said, "the ayes have it." 
 The President thus assumed responsibility for a line 
 of action against the advice of his cabinet, but the 
 tenseness of the situation was relieved by the hu 
 morous statement in which he announced his de 
 cision. 
 
 I have often felt that the Man of Galilee must 
 have been similarly endowed with a sense of humor 
 as he met the various crises of his life. Instead of 
 looking upon the Pharisees with bitterness, the hu 
 morous side must have appealed to him as he ex 
 claimed : 
 
 83 
 
84 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Ye are like children in the market-place. We 
 have piped unto you and ye will not dance ; we have 
 mourned unto you and ye will not lament. 
 
 To paraphrase the Master, "Ye are sullen chil 
 dren, who will not play anything. Ye will not play 
 wedding, and ye will not play funeral." 
 
 Recall the incident when Peter said to his Mas 
 ter: 
 
 Behold, we have left all and followed thee. What 
 shall we have therefore? 
 
 And Jesus must have smiled inwardly, though all 
 signs of an appreciation of the humorous side were 
 carefully suppressed, and something like the fol 
 lowing may have passed through his mind: 
 
 Boys, what have you given up? Some leaky boats 
 with rotting sails on the Sea of Galilee ; a little house, 
 Peter, on a side street in Capernaum; and possibly 
 for you, John, a small house in Jerusalem. And 
 what shall you receive? Boys, your names are writ 
 ten already upon the foundation stones of the New 
 Jerusalem. Do ye grasp that? If it is too poetic 
 a statement, know then, that you are the founders 
 of a new civilization ; you will be the marked men of 
 all time! Verily I say unto you, that ye that have 
 followed me ... when the Son of Man shall sit 
 upon the throne of His glory, ye shall sit upon 
 thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And 
 everyone that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or 
 sisters, or fathers, or mothers, or wife, or children, 
 or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive in this 
 
A New Year's Message 1916 85 
 
 world an hundred fold and in the world to come 
 life everlasting. 
 
 And this leads to the thought of the moment, 
 namely that there are two words in the English lan 
 guage that I do not like in the usual uses made of 
 them. And these words are "Sacrifice" and "Com 
 pensation." I recently noticed in some comments 
 upon the life of Mr. Washington, that the writer 
 spoke of the sacrifices that he had made for his peo 
 ple. He might have said with Peter, "We have 
 left all; what shall we receive?" I cannot imagine 
 this. What did Booker T. Washington sacrifice? 
 Born, no one knows when; at his death every tele 
 graph line in this and in foreign countries carried 
 the news. Sacrifice! NO! Opportunity! To him 
 came an opportunity which expressed itself in the 
 Atlanta speech which lifted him at once into the 
 forefront of publicity, and made the history that we 
 all know possible. 
 
 We sometimes speak of the sacrifice of Lincoln. 
 Ask, what did he sacrifice? A little law office in 
 Springfield, Illinois ; a small and not very lucrative 
 law practice; a reputation as a story-teller, and a 
 lawyer who studied both sides of a case until he 
 knew his opponent's side even better than his own. 
 What was the outcome? He became the one man 
 of his century! The South sacrificed Lincoln, but 
 Lincoln achieved a CAREER. Even in the supreme 
 
86 Chums and Brothers 
 
 event of all history, the Crucifixion, I can see that 
 the Jews sacrificed their Leader, and in that sacri 
 fice the history of the Jewish people ever since has 
 been written. But the Master became the most sig 
 nificant figure in the history of two thousand years 
 and the most effective force in the world of today. 
 This raises the question, What is sacrifice? And 
 here I suspect that I am against the ordinary usage 
 as the illustrations above bear witness. Let us make 
 the test ! When a man accepts a lower for a higher 
 opportunity, he makes a sacrifice. The reverse is 
 neither sacrifice nor compensation. It becomes op 
 portunity. When Daniel Webster graduated from 
 Dartmouth College, he was offered the clerkship of 
 Rockingham County, New Hampshire, at a salary of 
 $1200. He planned to accept the position, for 
 $1200 a year seemed large to a boy out of college, 
 and with college debts to pay. He chanced to drop 
 into the office of a prominent Boston lawyer and 
 stated the situation to him. And the lawyer-friend 
 made this proposition: "Webster, if you go into 
 that clerkship, you will remain clerk of Rocking 
 ham County as long as you live. Come here into 
 my office. Study law here, without pay, and make 
 a career for yourself." Webster followed the ad 
 vice, gave up a salary, studied law, and made a Ca 
 reer. This is the center and core of the matter. 
 Not a sacrifice, for which in some way a compensa 
 tion comes, but a career! 
 
A New Year's Message 1916 87 
 
 It is here that our personal conflicts arise; our 
 temptations meet us here. These are not choices 
 between what is absolutely right and what is abso 
 lutely wrong. Perhaps no sharp line can be drawn. 
 The question is as between the high and the low, 
 the good and the better, the better and the best. 
 And here is where the judgment comes in. For some 
 how, whether we wish it or not, we feel the inner 
 compulsion to follow judgment, although against 
 self-interest apparently. The thing we wish to do 
 fights the thing we know we ought to do. And if 
 we choose the thing we wish against the thing we 
 know we ought, there is real sacrifice and no real 
 compensation. I am watching with much interest 
 three young women that I know who seem to illus 
 trate this. I am sure that they are not at all 
 unique, but I happen to know of them. All three 
 have become foster-mothers of children, two of them 
 of their own younger brothers and sisters, and the 
 third of a sister's children. They are making 
 homes for the orphaned members of the family. 
 From one point of view, how much these women have 
 given up! From another point of view how much 
 fuller and richer, how much more point to live in 
 this acceptance of a plain duty. They are not be 
 moaning a sacrifice, nor are they asking for com 
 pensation. They are feeling the glory that comes 
 out of a worthy career. 
 
 One of the sad phases of life lies in the fact, that 
 
88 Chums and Brothers 
 
 we can only know the thing that we get; we never 
 know the thing we might have had. Here we stand 
 in our youth before two closed doors, one of which 
 we may open. When we choose the one, we forever 
 close all the possibilities which lie within the other. 
 It is this problem of choice which betrays our dual 
 nature. On the one hand we are tied to the brute 
 creation; on the other hand we are joined with the 
 angels. We stand with our feet upon the earth, but 
 our heads are among the stars. We are human and 
 divine. In Biblical phrase we are flesh and spirit 
 and "the flesh warreth against the spirit. " And be 
 tween these two, the transient and the permanent, 
 the low and the high, the good and the better, the 
 things of the flesh and those of the spirit, there is 
 eternal conflict. And there will be eternal conflict 
 until the spirit becomes master, and the flesh becomes 
 subservient to the purposes of the spirit. 
 
 And here, at the opening of a new year, it is well 
 for us to have our attention called to this conflict 
 of the centuries which presents itself to each new 
 born child and to recognize that our temptations 
 are not toward the wrong as against the right, but 
 toward the low as against the high, the good against 
 the better, the flesh as against the spirit; and at 
 this time to highly resolve to train our judgments 
 to know what is high and best and of the spirit and 
 to earnestly pray that we may be resolved to choose 
 
A New Year's Message 1916 89 
 
 these things as against the low, the merely good, 
 and the things of the flesh. 
 
 Most holy God, we pray that Thou wilt teach us 
 to discern the excellent. May we not be contented 
 with the good but ever be searching for the better 
 and the best. Give us a great appetite for the high 
 est and may our hunger be our defence. 
 
A LAY SERMON 
 
 THE little book of morning prayers had this 
 petition recently: 
 
 "Dear Lord, keep me from the loneliness of self 
 ishness." The phrase has remained in my mind a 
 month. "The loneliness of selfishness." I take it 
 that it does not mean, "Lord, let me be selfish, but 
 save me from the consequent loneliness." It is 
 rather a negative beatitude, as though it read: 
 "Cursed is the man who is selfish ; he shall be lonely." 
 
 Infraction of the physical laws we expect will 
 meet with their immediate punishment ; and we build 
 in accordance with these laws in the confident ex 
 pectation that if we do not, our building will tum 
 ble. But some how we expect to escape the infrac 
 tion of the moral law, or at least, we expect the 
 punishment will be deferred to some indefinite time 
 in the future, forgetting that the punishments for 
 infractions of the moral law are just as sure and 
 just as prompt as those of the physical law. The 
 text says that this is so. There is "selfishness," the 
 breach of the law of "brotherly kindness" ; and there 
 is the "loneliness," the lack of friends, the sure and 
 prompt result. 
 
 90 
 
A Lay Sermon 91 
 
 Perhaps none of us would be willing to tell that 
 he was selfish, and therefore lonely; or that he was 
 lonely because he had been selfish. But literature, if 
 it is true to life, and no other writing is literature, 
 is filled with illustrations of this law and its pen 
 alty. Winston Churchill in "The Inside of the 
 Cup" creates the character of Eldon Parr, the multi 
 millionaire. Eldon Parr has made his millions per 
 fectly legally, and perfectly immorally. An astute 
 lawyer has been well paid to make it possible. And 
 Eldon Parr has built him a palace of forty-five 
 rooms, each exquisitely furnished with all that art 
 and money could accomplish. But as you wander 
 with him through his sumptuous dwelling, you real 
 ize that his selfishness has crushed out the life of 
 his wife and she has passed away; you know that 
 he has driven his only son out of his home because 
 the young man would not follow his father's plan 
 ning; and his one daughter leaves her father's house 
 that she may make a career independent of her 
 father, and in a sense in reproof of him. And El 
 don Parr dwells alone ; there are servants, it is true, 
 but no family and no friends. And when Eldon 
 Parr dies, which room will miss him? Which chair 
 long for him? Which work of art will weep for 
 him? He owns the world, but he has no friends. 
 He has the power that money gives, but whether 
 he knows it or not, he is lonely. 
 
 Similarly, Thomas Nelson Page, in "Red Rock, 
 
92 Chums and Brothers 
 
 A Story of Reconstruction," paints two characters 
 who are under the punishment of selfishness. 
 Whether or not the book is a good picture of the 
 times it purports to depict is not the question that 
 interests here. But in the case of the two charac 
 ters, the "scalawag" and the "carpet-bagger," he is 
 true to life. Now one can imagine a southern man 
 to so differ from his neighbor in all those questions 
 that brought on the Civil War, that he took the 
 northern viewpoint of the matter of principle; but 
 not to Hiram Still. Still deserves the name, "Scala 
 wag," for he had served the North merely that he 
 might despoil his neighbors of the South who should 
 have been his friends. So sure is he of his righteous 
 unpopularity that he remarks to one of the civilian 
 Northerners : 
 
 "To be honest with you, Major, I feel as if hav 
 ing you right here by me was a sort of protection. 
 They daresn't touch a gentleman who's been in the 
 Union army, and who's got big friends. And that 
 is the reason I'd like to have you right close to 
 me." So, then, to celebrate his successes, he gave 
 a large reception, he was obliged to confess to one 
 of his guests, "Pve got a lot of folks from the city 
 that I don't know, and some from the country I 
 know too well ; but not one of my neighbors has come 
 not one gentleman has put his foot here to-night." 
 I suspect that Page created Jonadab Leech, the 
 "carpet-bagger" to match Hiram Still, the "scala- 
 
A Lay Sermon 93 
 
 wag." And I would not accuse the one as more 
 typical than the other. But the author is true to 
 his conception of Leech, and having made him ex 
 tremely successful in acquiring property by means 
 of his governmental position, and also, having made 
 him a power politically, so that Leech sees ahead of 
 him the governorship of the great state ; perhaps 
 the senatorship ; and there may be the White House 
 in the distance, all at once his house of cards tum 
 bles, and Leech finds himself at last, without for 
 tune or power, and so without friends, and left to 
 the tender ministrations of the wife whom he had 
 spurned in his hour of success. And so again our 
 author is true to life, and he says with emphasis, 
 that no man can spend his years making the world 
 pay tribute to his selfishness, and at the end not 
 come out shorn of his friends. 
 
 "Human beings," says Washington Gladden, "are 
 made to live upon this planet and to find in mutual 
 co-operation a large part of the good of being. The 
 law of life is therefore, love or good will. There 
 are sharers in one another's welfare ; each one is 
 largely dependent for his happiness on the well- 
 being and well-doing of others. This is the organic 
 law of human society. . . ." "This is known as 
 Christ's law. Jesus declared it and incarnated it; 
 but it has been the law of human conduct ever since 
 humanity existed upon the earth, and it always will 
 be, in every world inhabited by men. But this law 
 
94 Chums and Brothers 
 
 is constantly violated by those who insist on dis 
 criminating their own interest from and exalting it 
 above that of the community, or preferring their in 
 dividual good to the common good, and on using 
 their fellowship, as far as they can, as means to 
 their own ends." 
 
 Our human interest lies with persons and with 
 things. The important idea is the emphasis. He 
 who makes persons first will be apt to live in accord 
 with the law of good will, the law of love. He who 
 makes things first will be very likely to break the 
 law of love, with its consequence penalties. For 
 "every man who seeks his own interest at the ex 
 pense of his neighbors, naturally becomes their en 
 emy, and makes them his enemy." 
 
 I sometimes think that the first of these is truer 
 than the second. Whom do you hate? The man 
 who has injured you? I am not so sure. His 
 meanness to you has revealed to you his real char 
 acter, and something of pity fills your heart to him ; 
 a pity akin to love; you hoped better of him and 
 he disappointed you. But the man you have in 
 jured, him you hate; for you have revealed your 
 self to him, and he knows you at the very point you 
 do not wish to be known. 
 
 Perthaps none of us would be willing to con 
 fess to "selfishness" as his principle of action; and 
 yet perhaps some of us ought to ask ourselves, why 
 it is that there is so much ill-will between us and the 
 
A Lay Sermon 95 
 
 world. Self -study may show that we have put the 
 emphasis upon things, and not upon persons, and 
 that we have wished goods and power rather than 
 friendliness and friends. And here lies a subtle 
 temptation, to use persons as things, irrespective of 
 the law of good will. Right here lies the source of 
 family ill-will ; of ill-will in society ; in the nation ; in 
 international relations. 
 
 But whatever may be the self-revelations of the 
 world, may we not all at times pray the simple 
 prayer : 
 
 "Dear Lord, deliver me from the loneliness of self 
 ishness." 
 
IN THE DAY COACH 
 
 I WAS glad, after eighteen hours of aristocratic 
 isolation in the Pullman car, to drop into the 
 democracy of the day coach for the last hours of 
 the journey. Here the gregarious instinct asserted 
 itself and I enjoyed to the full the company of three 
 young men who, one after the other, dropped into the 
 seat beside me, as we sped across the state. Each 
 of the three might form a point of departure for 
 a newspaper article, but I write only of the third. 
 
 He came into the car from the College town 
 through which we passed and I found that he was 
 a College student going home for a week-end. Our 
 conversation began upon the cloud into which we 
 were entering, touched upon the Chicago Conven 
 tion, and then turned into topics nearer the stu 
 dent life. He was a student of four languages, 
 among these his mother tongue, the English. He 
 had been taking a course in Shakespeare and he con 
 fessed, with some modesty, that the commentators 
 had written more into the works of the great poet 
 than the poet had ever thought of putting into his 
 own plays. 
 
 This comment showed me that my seatmate was 
 96 
 
In the Day Coach 97 
 
 reading Shakespeare as well as reading about Shake 
 speare and it opened the way to a discussion of other 
 authors and other books. I confess to being mo 
 mentarily thrown out of control of the conversation 
 when my seatmate asked me if I had read any of 
 Dixon's works. 
 
 "There are two books by Dixon that ought to 
 live. They are 'The Clansman* and 'The Leopard's 
 Spots.' My sympathies are with the North up to 
 and through the War. But these books give such 
 a clear picture of the Reconstruction, that after the 
 war my sympathy turns toward the South." 
 
 Perhaps my face betrayed me. I do not know. 
 But the young man went on. 
 
 "Perhaps I am wrong, but I never had any care 
 for or any liking for the Negro. 
 
 Here I managed to interpolate, "The man I do 
 not like is the man I do not know." 
 
 And I added, "I am sure that if you could chum 
 with a colored student, you might find him very com 
 panionable and very lovable. You know, of course, 
 that in the Eastern colleges the colored athlete has 
 frequently been very popular." 
 
 This remark evidently touched a familiar line of 
 thought. 
 
 "Yes," my acquaintance replied, "the first gentle 
 manly Negro that I ever met was a student. We 
 have near us a colored college and they have beaten 
 all of our teams this season at baseball. They play 
 
98 Chums and Brothers 
 
 a good game and they are gentlemen. They are 
 much more gentlemanly than the usual white teams 
 with which we play." 
 
 This was a pleasing admission, but the speaker 
 at once began to hedge as though he had admitted 
 too much. 
 
 "After all," and this was the qualifying statement, 
 "you cannot expect a people only two centuries from 
 savagery to acquire the civilization we have been 
 ten thousand years in acquiring." 
 
 I now took the reins in my own hands. 
 
 "Reconstruction was bad enough doubtless, but it 
 was not as bad as it is painted. It was bad in spots, 
 but not bad everywhere nor bad anywhere all the 
 time. I am myself interested not so much in the 
 history of reconstruction, as in the admissions of 
 Southern writers upon that history. In the other 
 matter, if the word 'Loyalty' was ever exemplified to 
 the value of one hundred per cent, it was in the loy 
 alty of the Negro to the Southern white man before, 
 during, and since the Civil War. I am glad that 
 you recognize the gentleman in the Negro student. 
 I wish you to recognize that if he has not accom 
 plished all that he might have accomplished in two 
 centuries, this may be because he has not had either 
 in the North nor in the South a fair chance. You 
 are a student, but you have read only one side. You 
 must read these books to get the other side." 
 
 And I gave the young man the following list: 
 
In the Day Coach 99 
 
 DuBois' "Soul of Black Folk," his "Quest of the 
 Silver Fleece," and his "The Negro," and I added, 
 Thomas Nelson Page's "Red Rock," with the com 
 ment that it is a novel of Reconstruction in which 
 the author has tried to please both his Northern 
 and his Southern readers with fair success. Lastly 
 I added Walter Page's "The Southerner" in which 
 a Southern writer laughs at the South. 
 
 The train stopped and I have not met my College 
 friend again. 
 
THE NEGRO A REVIEW 
 
 WHEN William E. Burghardt DuBois, col 
 ored graduate student of Harvard Univer 
 sity, in the Department of Sociology, chose as his 
 graduating thesis, "The Suppression of the African 
 Slave Trade," he thought that he had a problem 
 that would require about six weeks of hard work. 
 But as the problem opened before him, the six weeks 
 lengthened into three years. The study took him 
 on a travelling fellowship into France and Germany 
 for two years. When the study was completed, the 
 thesis written, accepted, and published as one of 
 the Harvard Historical Monographs, and the author 
 had received his "Doctorate," the book, "The Sup 
 pression of the African Slave Trade" was, is, and 
 will remain, a masterpiece of historical writing, and 
 a statement of a portion of history which perhaps 
 will never need to be rewritten. It is a monument 
 of historical research. 
 
 The same is not true of the new volume by the 
 same author, entitled "The Negro," issued by Henry 
 Holt and Co. (1915). Nor does the little book 
 make any pretence of being exhaustive. In his 
 preface the author says: 
 
 100 
 
The Negro A Review 101 
 
 The time has not come to complete a history of 
 the Negro people. Archaeological research in Af 
 rica has just begun, and many sources of informa 
 tion in Arabian, Portuguese, and other tongues are 
 not fully commanded. And too, it must be frankly 
 confessed, racial prejudice against the darker peo 
 ple is still too strong in so-called civilized centers for 
 judicial appraisement of the darker peoples of Af 
 rica. Much intensive monographic work in history 
 and science is needed to clear mooted points and to 
 quiet the controversialist who mistakes present per 
 sonal desire for scientific proof. 
 
 Yet within the limitation which Dr. DuBois rec 
 ognizes and states and while not writing a history 
 of the Negro people, for which neither the material 
 nor the time are ready, the author shows that there 
 is a history and that it is a creditable one. The 
 Negro has an historic background. The Negro him 
 self has doubted this ; even his friends have doubted ; 
 while those distinctly unfriendly have been sure that 
 the background does not exist. 
 
 The trouble with Africa is both physiographic 
 and climatic. It is a great plateau lying across the 
 Torrid Zone, with only four great rivers reaching 
 the ocean and only one of these navigable from the 
 mouth. These conditions have made it easily pos 
 sible for the great human drama played here to hide 
 itself from the ears of other worlds ; and placed 
 practically every budding center of culture at the 
 mercy of barbarism, sweeping a thousand miles with 
 
102 Chums and Brothers 
 
 no Alps, or Himalayas, or Appalachians to hinder." 
 It is a curious fact that of all the peoples of an 
 tiquity that appear upon the pages of history, the 
 only ones that have persisted through the "wrack of 
 time" are the Jews and the Negroes. And if the 
 first one can solace themselves with the history of 
 David and Solomon and the Jewish contribution of 
 the mono-theistic idea to the civilization of the world, 
 the others may comfort themselves with the thought 
 that there was a Kingdom of Ethiopia which modi 
 fied and for a century controlled Egypt, and left 
 evidences of its control in the monuments that line 
 the Nile Valley. Nor need the Negro fail to recog 
 nize that Africa made its contribution to civiliza 
 tion, for our author quotes Dr. Boaz: 
 
 It seems likely that at the time when the Euro 
 pean was satisfied with stone tools, the African had 
 invented and adopted the smelting of iron. ... A 
 great progress was made when copper was found 
 in nuggets large enough to be hammered into tools 
 and later on was shaped by smelting. But the true 
 advancement of industrial life did not begin until 
 the hard iron was discovered. And it seems not 
 unlikely that the people who made the marvellous 
 discovery of reducing iron ores were the African 
 Negroes. 
 
 One sentence in the book will stagger most read 
 ers (p. 144): "Remembering that in the fifteenth 
 century there was no great disparity between the 
 
The Negro A Review 103 
 
 civilization of Negroland and that of Europe, what 
 made the striking difference in subsequent develop 
 ment?" This question will cause some people to 
 smile ; it will make others question themselves as to 
 what they know of the civilization of the fifteenth 
 century, either in Europe or in Africa. The au 
 thor answers the question as follows: 
 
 European civilization, cut off by physical barriers 
 from further incursions from barbaric races, settled 
 down more and more to systematic industry and to 
 the domination of one religion; African culture and 
 industries were threatened by powerful barbarians 
 from the west and central region of the continent 
 and by the Moors in the North ; and Islam had only 
 partly converted the leading peoples. . . . When, 
 therefore, a demand for workmen arose in America^ 
 European exportation was limited by religious ties 
 and economic stability. African exportation was 
 encouraged not simply by the Christian attitude 
 toward heathen, but also by the Moslem enmity 
 toward unconverted Negroes. Two great modern 
 civilizations agreed at least in the policy of enslav 
 ing the heathen blacks, while the overthrow of the 
 Ankias (a powerful and highly developed Negro na 
 tion) by the Moors, . . . brought about the eco 
 nomic chaos among the advanced Negro peoples, and 
 the movement among the more barbarous tribes 
 which proved of prime importance in the develop 
 ment of a systematic trade in men. 
 
 The chapter on "The Trade in Men" is sad read- 
 
104 Chums and Brothers 
 
 ing. How many promising civilizations have been 
 wiped out by the hands of barbarism! There comes 
 to mind the story of the Illinois Indians, settled 
 upon a beautiful island in the Illinois River. Here 
 they had developed many of the arts of the agri 
 cultural stage. In the last part of the eighteenth 
 century a band of Iroquois suddenly appeared, and 
 in the seige of "Starved Rock," with the exception 
 of one Indian brave who leaped from the rock and 
 swam to safety, the entire company of twelve hun 
 dred men, women and children, were put to the 
 knife. Thus one of the most hopeful of Indian be 
 ginnings was utterly destroyed. But in Africa, it 
 was not a few hundreds. It was millions. It was 
 not a hostile tribe. It was Christianity united with 
 Islam. 
 
 It was not bronze metal but bronze flesh that 
 Europe wanted. A new tyranny, blood-thirsty and 
 cruel, and built upon war, forced toward the Niger 
 delta. . . . The native industries were changed and 
 disorganized. Family ties and government were 
 weakened. For into the heart of Africa, this dev 
 ilish disintegration, coupled with Christian rum and 
 Mohammedan raiding, penetrated. The face of Af 
 rica was turned south to these slave-traders instead 
 of northward toward the Mediterranean, where for 
 two thousand years and more Europe and Africa 
 had met in legitimate trade and mutual respect. 
 The full significance of the battle of Tenkabidou, 
 which overthrew the Ankias, was now clear. Here- 
 
The Negro A Review 105 
 
 after Africa was to appear before the world, not as 
 the land of gold and ivory, of Sausa Musa, and 
 Meroe, but as a captive slave, dumb and degraded. 
 The mutual desire to avoid a painful subject has led 
 the historians to gloss over the details of the slave 
 trade, and leave the impression that it was a local 
 west-coast phenomenon, and confined to a few years. 
 It was, on the contrary, continent-wide, and cen 
 turies long, and an economic, social, and political 
 catastrophe, unparalleled in history. 
 
 The by-product of slavery was perhaps worse 
 than the slave trade itself. The number of slaves 
 exported is not known. Hubbard estimates that in 
 four centuries fifteen millions were brought to Amer 
 ica. Our author says : 
 
 Certainly it seems that at least ten millions were 
 expatriated. Probably every slave imported rep 
 resented an average of five corpses in Africa or upon 
 the high seas. The African slave trade meant the 
 elimination of at least sixty million (60,000,000) 
 Negroes from their fatherland. The Mohammedan" 
 slave trade meant the expatriation or forcible mi 
 gration of nearly as many more. It would be con 
 servative then to say, that the slave trade in Africa 
 cost one hundred million (100,000,000) souls. Yet 
 people ask today the cause of the stagnation of cul 
 ture in that land since 1600. 
 
 The chapter on "The Negro in the United States" 
 deals with the question "from the standpoint of the 
 
106 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Negro group itself and seeks to show how they re 
 acted against it, what they did to secure their free 
 dom, and what they are doing with their partial 
 freedom today." It is not easy to read Southern 
 History from Southern writers or Southern litera 
 ture without sympathy for the South in the destruc 
 tion of its social and economic system. It is well, 
 therefore, that the history of the Negro in the 
 United States should be presented from the stand 
 point of the Negro himself. If Southern society 
 went to pieces because of the Civil War, what as to 
 the overthrow of the African usages and economic 
 life because of slavery ? 
 
 "The transplanting of the Negro was a social revo 
 lution. Marriage became geographical and tran 
 sient, while women and children were without pro 
 tection. The private home as a self-protective, in 
 dependent unit did not exist. That powerful in 
 stitution, the polygamous African home, was com 
 pletely destroyed and in its place in America, arose 
 sexual promiscuity, a weak community life, with 
 common dwellings, meals, and child nurseries. The 
 internal slave trade tended further to weaken natural 
 ties. A small number of favored house servants had 
 their private homes, came in contact with the cul 
 ture of the master, and assimilated much of the 
 American civilization. This, however, was excep 
 tional; broadly speaking, the greatest social effect 
 of slavery was to substitute for the polygamous 
 
The Negro A Review 107 
 
 Negro home a new polygamy, less guarded, less ef 
 fective, and less civilized." 
 
 As to the mooted question, which of the two views 
 of American slavery is correct, our author remarks, 
 
 Both are true. They are not opposite sides of 
 the same shield. They are different shields. There 
 are pictures, on the one hand, of the house servant' 
 in the great country seats and in towns, and on the 
 other hand, of the field laborers who raised great 
 crops of tobacco, cotton and rice. ... It was the 
 milder and far different Virginia house service and 
 the personal retainership of town life in which most 
 white children grew up; it was this that impressed 
 their imaginations and which they portray so viv 
 idly. The Negroes, however, knew the other side, 
 for it was under the harsher, heartless driving of 
 the fields that fully nine-tenths of them lived. 
 
 The discussion of Reconstruction from the Negro 
 standpoint is interesting reading. Flemming, in his 
 history of Reconstruction in Alabama, writes, 
 
 To the rich, hereditary slave holders, who were 
 relatively few in numbers, it was more or less a mat 
 ter of property, and that was enough to fight about 
 at any time. But to the average white man, who 
 owned no Negroes, and who worked for his living 
 at manual labor, the question was a vitally social 
 one. The Negro slave was bad enough; but the 
 Negro freed by outside interference and turned loose 
 on society, was much more to be feared. 
 
 While this feeling was doubtless a factor in the 
 
108 Chums and Brothers 
 
 situation, at the close of the war, it is a matter al 
 ways to be regretted that the South could not or did 
 not accept the logical results of the war. Perhaps 
 they could not. If this was so, then the story of 
 the last half century had to be what it was. Upon 
 this point the author writes : 
 
 Quite unexpectedly and without forethought the 
 nation had emancipated four million slaves. Once 
 the deed was done, the majority of the nation was 
 glad and recognized that, after all, this was the only 
 result of a fearful four years' war that in any sense 
 justified it. But how were the results to be secured 
 for all time? There were three possibilities: (1) 
 to declare the slaves free and leave them to the mercy 
 of their former masters; (&) to establish a careful 
 government guardianship, designed to guide the 
 slaves from legal to real economic freedom; (3) to 
 give the Negro the political power to guard him 
 self as well as he could during the development. It 
 is easy to forget that the United States tried each 
 one of these in succession, and was finally forced to 
 adopt the third, because the first had failed utterly, 
 and the second was thought too paternal and too 
 costly. To leave the Negroes helpless after a paper 
 edict of freedom was manifestly impossible. It 
 would have meant that the war had been fought in 
 vain. 
 
 The discussion of the Freedman's Bureau and the 
 whole problem of Reconstruction is sane. The au 
 thor neither minifies nor magnifies the situation. To 
 
The Negro A Review 109 
 
 the charge of extravagance on the part of the Ne 
 gro governments, he writes, 
 
 The extravagance, though great, was not univer 
 sal, and much of it was due to the extravagant spirit 
 pervading the land in a day of inflated currency and 
 speculation. 
 
 This finds an interesting affirmation in "Flem- 
 ming's History" (quoted above) : 
 
 All sense of values had been lost, which may ac 
 count for the fabulous and fictitious prices in the 
 South for several years after the war, and may also 
 account for the liberality of appropriations of the 
 first legislatures after the surrender. The legisla 
 tors had become accustomed to making appropria 
 tions of thousands and even millions of dollars, with 
 no question as to where the money was to come 
 from, "for the state had three public printers to 
 print the money." 
 
 One is tempted to quote quite fully from the book 
 upon this topic of Reconstruction. Resisting this, 
 it may be said that on the whole, the Negroes need 
 not be ashamed of the work done by the Negro gov 
 ernments immediately after the war. The construc 
 tive work of the Negro governments deserves more 
 than a word. They gave the South three things : 
 Democratic government, free public schools, new 
 social legislation. More than this, in legislation 
 covering property, the wider functions of the state, 
 
110 Chums and Brothers 
 
 the punishment of crime and the like, it is sufficient 
 to say that the laws on these points were not only so 
 different from and revolutionary to the laws of the 
 older South, but they were so wise and so well suited 
 to the needs of the new South, that in spite of the 
 retrogressive movement following the overthrow of 
 the Negro governments, the mass of this legislation 
 with the elaborations and developments, still stands 
 upon the statute books of the South. 
 
 The history since the "triumph of reaction in the 
 South" is so recent that it need not be dwelt upon 
 in this review. To the writer of this review, the leg 
 islation of the reaction and since, aimed at the Ne 
 gro, seems "class legislation," and therefore abhor 
 rent to the spirit and letter of the constitution. 
 
 Perhaps the present is too close to the era of Re 
 construction for a judicial appraisement. Hereto 
 fore we have had the Northern point of view and the 
 Southern point of view. Now we have the Negro 
 point of view, and the student of this period will 
 have to consider all three, if he is a student. Mean 
 while the story of the progress of the Negro since 
 the surrender, reads like a romance. If one wishes 
 the statistics, they are well epitomized in this book. 
 Heretofore the case of the Negro has been stated for 
 him. Now the Negro has his own spokesman. And 
 this particular book should enhearten every colored 
 man who too often has been made to feel that there 
 is a certain stigma in color. 
 
The Negro A Review 111 
 
 In one of the sermons of my boyhood, the preacher 
 said, "The Mohammedan wars in Europe ended when 
 the followers of Christ and those of Mohammed 
 learned to respect each other." Similarly, we may 
 expect the present war in Europe will end when the 
 Teutons and the Allied nations shall have learned 
 mutual respect. So in the South, the problem of 
 the South will find its right solution when the South 
 ern white man and the Southern colored man learn 
 thus to respect each other. Perhaps out of the Eu 
 ropean conflict we shall learn some lessons; and if 
 Europe is to become more democratic, the Southern 
 States of the United States will not be left behind. 
 
 August, 1916. 
 
TRUE BLUE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THIS appreciation appeared in TJie Atlanta In 
 dependent of May 26, 1917. It is from the pen 
 of a young man in the Railway Mail Service, who 
 occasionally writes for the colored press. 
 
 This "appreciation" is so genuine and so expres 
 sive of the inner thought of the Negro, that it seems 
 right and appropriate to include it in a little vol 
 ume which tries to show that our colored citizens 
 are after all "Just Folks." 
 
 The little incident in the chain-gang was com 
 pleted in this way. The man referred to is the one 
 who found his voice. His term in the chain-gang 
 expired shortly after, and he found work in or near 
 Albany. He was present at a religious service and 
 told the incident and concluded with these words : 
 "I thought that if a white man thought enough of 
 me to shake hands with me under those circumstances, 
 that God must love me." 
 
 112 
 
TRUE BLUE 
 
 An Appreciation 
 
 WELBORN VICTOR JENKINS 
 
 AS grateful as my people are, I sometimes fear 
 they fail to realize how much we are in 
 debted to the people of New England. Certainly I 
 do not believe that there is an intelligent Negro in 
 America who feels that the extent of gratitude we 
 owe to Lincoln can ever be reached. Yet even Mr. 
 Lincoln, because he earnestly desired to reconcile a 
 divided country, would have been compelled to mod 
 ify his opinions and demands relative to making 
 freedmen and citizens of former slaves. There is 
 no criticism of Mr. Lincoln's course that is to say, 
 the course he in all probability would have taken. 
 He had wonderful foresight. He was indeed a very 
 wonderful man. I believe there is not in all history 
 a parallel to Abraham Lincoln. To be called "Our 
 Liberator" by the Negro race, the "Savior of the 
 Union" by the people of the North, and yet at the 
 same time "Our best Friend" by the people of the 
 South against whom he had waged a dreadful war, 
 
 113 
 
114 Chums and Brothers 
 
 then to be known by us all as "the greatest Amer 
 ican since Washington," is to be remarkable in no 
 siriall sense of the word. 
 
 Nevertheless we owe a still deeper debt of grati 
 tude (if such a thing can be) to those staunch New 
 Englanders, that hardy though kindly race of in 
 tellectual near-Gods, who started the great ball of 
 Abolitionism rolling; and who persistently kept on 
 calling from the very first for the "previous ques 
 tion" ; kept on calling in a voice that could be heard 
 distinctly above the noise of stormy debate, the 
 screams of the press, and the thunders of the plat 
 form. 
 
 North and South admit now that slavery was a 
 curse and Emancipation a blessing for the entire 
 country. We have buried the hatchet of "section 
 alism," we have "bound up the nation's wounds," 
 we have become in a very hopeful measure one grand 
 country. 
 
 But the status of citizenship which shall be ac 
 corded the sons of former slaves still seems to be an 
 open question. The class of education which shall 
 be designated for us and the degree thereof is still 
 a matter of gravest concern to certain students of 
 the Negro problem. It is just here that we owe 
 another dual debt to New England which I even fear 
 again we do not always remember as we should. 
 
 Directly after the war, there came among us 
 ministers and teachers from New England, bringing 
 
True Blue 115 
 
 with them the highest message of the white man's 
 civilization. We startled the world by the manner 
 in which we "lighted off" from the sparks of this 
 eternal anvil. We took blaze like a field of dry 
 grass. From many centers of the South, storms of 
 criticism arose. It was loudly contended that higher 
 education would ruin the Negro as a laborer. This 
 was the day when some wag coined the celebrated 
 gibe, that, "Soon as you teach a Nigger, 'haec-hic- 
 hoc,' it is good-bye forever to his 'Gee, haw, Buck.' ' 
 It was thought that any step the Negro was car 
 ried beyond the "three R's" was fraught with the 
 direst consequences. Many foremost thinkers ad 
 vocated total ignorance for the blacks as the sur 
 est guarantee of white supremacy. 
 
 As a race we might have been very apt to mis 
 construe the meaning and purpose of education. 
 Having lived for three hundred years in the luxu 
 rious and aristocratic South it would have been easy 
 for us to look upon education as a thing which 
 leads away from work instead of toward it. It 
 would have been easy for us to look upon "book 
 learning" as an end in itself. Having only lately 
 escaped from the horrors of slavery, it was easy 
 for us to consider colleges as stepping-stones to a 
 life of luxurious ease, or a sort of open sesame to 
 an esoteric cult of mysterious free-masonry whose 
 votaries deigned to look with occasional favor upon 
 the great mob of lesser mortals whom God must 
 
116 Chums and Brothers 
 
 have made in overtime. And thus as in the case of 
 many individuals we might have gutted our ship 
 upon the reefs of snobbery. 
 
 "The thing I found so surprising in Tennyson," 
 wrote Ellen Terry in her memoirs, "was the sublime 
 simplicity of him." This is what a highly refined 
 and delicately impressionistic woman has to say of 
 the supreme master of lofty and restrained senti 
 ment in our language and one of the few great poets 
 ever born. 
 
 The few great men I have met made this same 
 peculiar impression upon me. Booker T. Washing 
 ton was as far from being a snob as I from being 
 the prime minister. A young man of my acquaint 
 ance once accepted an invitation to go fishing with 
 him, glad of a chance of seeing how a great man 
 would act behind the scenes, and of hearing what 
 he would say. My friend says that he was almost 
 shocked to find that Mr. Washington would crack 
 jokes and gossip and relate commonplaces like the 
 most ordinary of men. Wonderful thing, this sim 
 plicity of great men! And we might fill the world 
 with books on the lives of Thoreau, Edison, Bur 
 roughs, and all that glorified host of immortals that 
 love the simple way and the simple life. 
 
 But we will draw nearer and speak of one we 
 know and have seen in the flesh, who comes and goes 
 quietly among us, shedding a kindly influence like 
 some benign spirit loaned to us from heaven. 
 
True Blue 117 
 
 Some months ago a certain gentleman attended 
 a celebration in a South Georgia town, and after 
 the exercises, unlike most distinguished visitors, he 
 did not tarry overlong with the "elect," but as soon 
 as possible betook himself to the precincts outside 
 the city walls, where the unfortunate toil in sorrow 
 all day under cruel gun-men, and sleep at night 
 chained to posts like wild beasts. There was to be 
 a service and a white minister preached upon some 
 one of the threadbare themes. The prisoners lis 
 tened with bowed heads, conscious of their degrada 
 tion. And when the sermon was ended they looked 
 expectantly toward the keeper for the harsh order 
 to rise and lockstep to their quarters. At this in 
 stant a gentleman who had said nothing, asked per 
 mission to go down and shake the hand of each un 
 fortunate and he looked with a smile of kindness 
 and love into each downcast eye as he passed. And 
 the face of each human dog lighted up one after 
 another until one succeeded in finding voice to say, 
 "We hope you will come again. No one like you 
 ever came among us and shook our hands before." 
 The good man said, "I hope to come again, but I 
 hope not to see you when I come." And that one 
 word of love, hope, and kindness, made a Christian 
 of the convict who even in the degradation of his 
 chains caught the divine spark which beamed from 
 that noble face. Compare this way of making men 
 good with that other way of the lash and the oath 
 
118 Chums and Brothers 
 
 and you lay hold onto a mighty thought. The con 
 verted man was a convict in the chain-gang at Al 
 bany, Ga., and the gentleman, the good man to whom 
 I refer is no other than our own , whose un 
 obtrusive ways and whose love for the higher yet 
 simpler life almost make us forget what manner of 
 great man he is. 
 
 The Caucasian race is a superior race . . . su 
 perior in the civilization which is the standard of 
 the world. Whether according to Agassiz, the 
 zenith of that race has been reached in the belli 
 cose nations of Saxony, and from hence there will 
 be a waning of the Aryan domination of the world 
 with a corresponding rise to power of the darker 
 nations I am not prepared to say. But for today 
 (and who can say for how many days to come) the 
 Indo-Germamc breed of the human race tops the 
 list. But the superiority of that race or any other 
 race is lost on me the moment it stoops to vain and 
 vaunting show or yields to prejudice. I am trying 
 to say that when a white man feels called upon to 
 impress me what a low-born, ignorant plodder I am 
 as compared with himself and demands of me cour 
 tesies which he proudly refuses to return, I do not 
 feel my degradation as he would wish, and his su 
 periority vanishes, to say the least. I may not an 
 swer him, but I smile to myself, and thus do I "save 
 my face." 
 
 But when a man like meets me upon the 
 
True Blue 119 
 
 broad plane of humanity, treats me like a human 
 being whom God made, and did not leave for the help 
 to finish, leads me into forgetting for the time that 
 I am identified with a climbing race, then straight 
 way a consciousness of my true status by compari 
 son falls upon me like a feeling of guilt, and I grow 
 sad; even tears well up as I gaze upon the almost 
 unattainable heights to which the mighty Caucasian 
 has climbed. 
 
 It is a fact that numbers of our friends at the 
 North who were most insistent in their demands for 
 equal rights for the br other-in-black, changed their 
 minds when the great tests came after the war, . . . 
 especially those who happened to come South to live 
 and thus came face to face with the question. In 
 many cases they adopted the views and attitudes of 
 the South. I know scores of them to whom the word 
 "Nigger" comes perfectly naturally and who send 
 all "Negroes, dogs, porters, and messengers" to the 
 rear as a matter of course. 
 
 But out of New England has come a dyed-in-the- 
 purple coterie that is rock-ribbed in its opinions 
 on the subject, iron-clad in its attitude, and bomb 
 proof against all change of front. Conscious of 
 innate superiority which is the culmination of ages 
 of culture they have made the profession of being 
 without prejudice. And they have lived up to it. 
 They remind me of the "Old Guard." They will 
 die on this conviction but they will not yield a sin- 
 
180 Chu/ms and Brothers 
 
 gle inch. With no intention of kindling antagonism 
 tween the races, they have instilled race pride and 
 self-respect into our people, and while encouraging 
 a healthy discontent with conditions and while hold 
 ing up the same present ideals to us that have been 
 held up to their own people for a thousand years, 
 and while exploding the theories so laboriously set 
 forth in Mr. Dixon's books, their intention has al 
 ways been to help the Negro in the South as a part 
 of the South. 
 
 Among those noble people who came from the 
 North and have spent their lives in unselfish mis 
 sionary work among our people, two stand out in 
 
 my mind as incomparable. These are Miss 
 
 and . For these the colored people fail 
 
 entirely to find words that can in the slightest way 
 express their love, devotion, and gratitude. 
 
 The son of a New England minister. Exactly 
 
 thirty years ago he came South to , and has 
 
 been intimately identified with the work of that 
 school ever since. Hundreds of grateful students 
 look back upon their association with him as the 
 most ennobling influence that has touched their 
 lives. He has so much of the spirit of Christ in 
 making himself at home among the lowliest of peo 
 ple. And he has the courage to live up to his con 
 viction. Though the gentlest of men, he boldly 
 crashes through the most ancient bars of custom 
 and convention when they stand athwart the path of 
 
True Blue 121 
 
 his belief as to what colored people are entitled to 
 as human beings and as citizens of this country. 
 
 Sometime before my mother died I took a notion 
 to put into a short story the likeness of the greatest 
 friend to colored people I ever knew. It was the 
 last story I ever read to my mother. She wanted 
 to know who "Henry Maxwell" was ; and I told her 
 that he was one of the students of the University 
 whose wonderful proficiency in mathematics it was 
 easy to change over into "Henry Maxwell's' * marvel 
 lous gift as a dramatic speaker. And those who have 
 read my "We Also Serve," will at once recognize 
 "Professor Baer" as no other than - , who 
 
 seems to me to be the most unbiased and the most 
 sincere white man in his love for the colored that 
 I have known. 
 
 May 26, 1917. The Atlanta Independent. 
 
WHY NOT MAKE FRIENDS? 
 
 I RECENTLY asked a lad who has attained such 
 years that he might be called into active mili 
 tary service, what he would do if the United States 
 should declare war against Germany. The quick 
 reply came, "I think I should put on my short 
 pants. " We laughed, and I said, "I hope you have 
 two pair, one for me." 
 
 More recently, a young man speaking of the ap 
 proaching visit of ex-President Taft to our city, 
 remarked, "I should like to hear President Taft. 
 Do you suppose that I can get in?" He is a young 
 man of considerable prominence for one of his years. 
 He has attained his majority; he pays his taxes; 
 he is rather unusual for one so young. I venture to 
 assert that few young men of his state are a more 
 valuable asset to the state than he. I could not 
 but ask myself, Why should he put such a ques 
 tion? However, I simply advised him to make the 
 venture and see how it would come out. 
 
 Fortunately, it may be, an invitation came from 
 the Chamber of Commerce for the college men to 
 
 122 
 
Why Not Make Friends? 
 
 attend in a body to hear Mr. Taft and incidentally 
 we were advised that seats would be reserved for 
 us. So the invitation was given out in chapel, 
 though no word was said as to the reservation. We 
 trusted that that would take care of itself. 
 
 On the great occasion we occupied some of the 
 assigned seats. But it was a little trying, as all 
 the assigned seats were not occupied and as we had 
 naturally chosen the best of the assignment, to be 
 asked to move into the poorer section to make room 
 for some belated people who ordinarily do not have 
 special seats assigned to them. But we were gra 
 cious and moved as directed. 
 
 Curiously enough, as we sat and listened to a mas 
 terly presentation of present-day issues, we noted 
 among the crowd that stood in the rear of the great 
 hall a few of our own sort. They were standing 
 among the others and seemed not out of place, and 
 no one apparently marked their presence. I was 
 led to wonder if after all certain lines of demarka- 
 tion are not more artificial than natural. 
 
 Early in the great war, I wrote an editorial with 
 the title "Why Not Make Friends?" In it I called 
 attention to the United States as the "melting pot," 
 in which emigrants from all the countries of Eu 
 rope were fused into the composite mass of Amer 
 ican citizenry. And I deplored the fact that some 
 of us, who are native and not imported, should some 
 how remain outside the melting pot. I prophesied 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 that if the time should arise when America should 
 need soldiers to spring to her defence, that shoulder 
 to shoulder with the naturalized citizens from Eu 
 rope, would march to the defence of their native 
 land those of us whose ancestors lived in Africa. In 
 view of the possibility before us, I again raise the 
 question, "Why Not Make Friends?" 
 
 The visitor from abroad to the Southern states 
 is always puzzled at the situation which confronts 
 him. He cannot understand that a country whose 
 corner-stone is "democracy" should also keep up a 
 sort of bureaucratic regime. In Flemming's "His 
 tory of Reconstruction in Alabama," the author 
 quotes an ante-bellum orator as exclaiming, prior to 
 the outbreak of '61, "The world is arrayed against 
 us in our philosophy of government. It is, therefore, 
 our business to educate the world." 
 
 Since that day, the education has been reversed 
 and the remark now sounds foolish. But an orator 
 of today might exclaim in similar phrase, "In the 
 treatment of our social problem, the world is against 
 us ; it is therefore up to us to educate the world." 
 
 Perhaps the trend of events is the other way. The 
 Man of Galilee once exclaimed, "Your fathers stoned 
 the prophets, and you build them monuments." Why 
 must each generation repeat the same mistake and 
 refuse to listen to the prophets of its own day, while 
 building monuments to those of the parent gener 
 ation ? 
 
Why Not Make Friends? 125 
 
 "I have no lamp," exclaimed one of the Revo 
 lutionary fathers, "but the lamp of experience." 
 Why not, then, learn by experience, and recognize 
 that if the fathers made a mistake, we may likewise 
 be making a mistake. 
 
 The mills of the gods do not always grind slowly 
 and just now the mill-wheels are moving with ac 
 celerated speed. Nicholas of Russia, who might 
 have gone down into history as the greatest peace 
 maker of all time, will now be happy if permitted 
 to live upon his own estates as a private citizen. 
 The Russian Jews suddenly find restrictions lifted 
 and political prisoners find the prison doors opened. 
 Even in Germany some voices are speaking more 
 loudly than formerly and the prophecy seems to be 
 that even autocratic Germany will put on something 
 of democracy. How is it at home? 
 
 A French essayist, writing upon "Nationalism," 
 in comment upon all the nations of Europe, claims 
 that France is the most completely unified nation 
 of them all. This may account for the tremendous 
 fight that, all unexpectedly, that nation has put up 
 in self-defence. The author writes enthusiastically 
 on the other side, of the power of the United States 
 to be the "melting pot" of all the peoples of Eu 
 rope that have sought its hospitable shores. But 
 he closes with the remark that this country has not 
 yet been willing to nationalize either the African 
 or the Asiatic. And he implies that here are two 
 
126 Chums and Brothers 
 
 problems to tax American statesmanship in the near 
 future. 
 
 There is no question in my mind that the Heav 
 enly Father intends that the nations and races of 
 the world shall live together in peace, unity, and 
 harmony. For us the Asiatic question can wait for 
 the present. But the question of the status of our 
 native colored citizens cannot long remain without 
 answer. 
 
 The lessons from the great war point to the 
 proper solution. Surely in the crisis that now faces 
 this country if we felt we knew with positive assur 
 ance that all the people within our borders were 
 happy, we could feel sure of putting up just such 
 a fight as we honor the French for doing. But one- 
 tenth at least of our population is not happy and 
 ought not to be. And yet, in the event of war the 
 colored people of this nation who have been loyal 
 to the flag in every crisis hitherto, will be loyal 
 now. 
 
 But the war which has already emancipated the 
 Russian and the Jew of Russia, and which seems 
 likely to emancipate the Pole of Germany and of 
 Austria, and which will without doubt bury the Irish 
 question for Great Britain, should result in the sec 
 ond Emancipation of the Freedmen of this country. 
 Surely it shall not be said as of aforetime, "Ye can 
 interpret the signs of the weather, but ye cannot 
 discern the signs of the time." 
 
Why Not Make Friends? 127 
 
 And so again I press the question, "Why not make 
 friends?" 
 
 March, 1917. 
 
 NOTE: This was written a year and a half before the war 
 closed. The events since are an interesting commentary upon 
 the topic discussed. Despite a loyalty unexampled on the 
 part of our colored citizens, the country as a country has not 
 yet awakened to the advantage of making friends with all 
 peoples within its boundaries. 
 
"THE CAR SHED" 
 
 YEARS and years ago, my son, before you were 
 born, I was admiring a picture of roses. 
 And I ventured an honest, simple, and inartistic 
 comment to my artist friend. And the comment 
 was, "The picture is beautiful; every rose is per 
 fect." 
 
 To this the artist friend replied, "True, every 
 rose is indeed perfect; and that is the fatal defect 
 of the picture. In looking at roses, you see only 
 one rose, to which all the others contribute a set 
 ting. You may change your point of view and ad 
 mire another rose, but it is always one rose." And 
 I had had a lesson in art appreciation. 
 
 Later, I heard a similar comment upon that won 
 derful painting of Rosa Bonheur, the famous painter 
 of animals, "The Horse Fair," which hangs in the 
 Metropolitan Museum in Central Park. As one 
 looks at the picture, he sees that every horse is per 
 fect; as a study of horses, the painting is a great 
 success. But as a picture, the eye wanders from 
 horse to horse, searching for a dominant element in 
 the painting, to which the other elements are con 
 tributory, but this the eye fails to find. 
 
 128 
 
"The Car Shed" 129 
 
 That was a brave company of youth that we saw 
 off to the Officers* Training Camp, that Tuesday 
 afternoon, Laddie. Sixty men there were, and you 
 among them, representing a great cause, and though 
 feeling a great responsibility, eager to go. And we 
 who gathered in your honor, your fathers, mothers, 
 friends, sharing, in a sense, your eagerness, were 
 vividly conscious of certain elements in the picture 
 which were not at the surface. 
 
 And, first, we knew that you, men, were starting 
 to the Training Camp in response to a demand that 
 you, yourselves, had created. The Officers' Train 
 ing Camp at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, was granted 
 in response to a petition of colored college youth, 
 who, finding the regulation camps closed to them, 
 united in a demand upon the government for a camp 
 of their own. All honor to those college students, 
 who, debarred by limitation of numbers from going 
 with you, had by expressing willingness to go, and 
 signing the petition, given force to it and so com 
 manded the attention of the government at Wash 
 ington. 
 
 We knew, secondly, my boy, that those who went 
 to the camp would be expected to do a year's work 
 in three months. We understood the stress this 
 would mean to your physique, your mentality, and 
 your character; we also knew that men in the other 
 camps were failing to meet these demands, and we 
 trembled while we hoped for you. And our prayer 
 
130 Chums and Brothers 
 
 was that, having for the first time in all history 
 an equal chance with the other man, you might make 
 good. 
 
 And, Laddie, we were not ignorant of the dan 
 gers, physical and moral, that were sure to accom 
 pany and surround the camp. And we prayed the 
 prayer of the Master for his disciples, not that you 
 should be taken out of the world, but that you might 
 be kept from the evil. We prayed that you might 
 have the clear vision to know the wrong, however 
 attractive the guise, and shun it; that you might 
 recognize the right, however plain the garb, and pur 
 sue it. And when the boys come back if come back 
 they do may they come with clean bodies, clean 
 minds and clean souls, knights without fear and 
 without reproach. 
 
 And this brought up the shadow, which, whether 
 we wished it or not, we knew was present. Some of 
 us recalled the clarion call on Sunday evening from 
 the Scotch Chaplain, "Meet me in Flanders," and 
 we knew that some of you might meet him in Flan 
 ders, and might not come back. We also remem 
 bered the remark of the wise man on that same eve 
 ning, "We are sending you forth not to die for your 
 country, but to live for it ;" but some of us recalled 
 a chapel talk when another wise man reminded us 
 that going to war to kill is brutal, but that going 
 to war with the willingness to be killed for a great 
 cause, this glorifies war. And, further, my son, do 
 
"The Car Shed" 131 
 
 you recall that the last time that you read the 
 Scriptures in public you closed with that statement 
 of the Master that sums up the entire Gospel, 
 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
 lay down his life for his friend." Whether you ap 
 preciated this or not, you are the men of whom Lin 
 coln spoke at Gettysburg, the men who give "the last 
 full measure of devotion," because you were giving 
 yourselves. And you gave without reservation. 
 
 There were then at that moment, Laddie, all the 
 elements of a grand canvas; the subjective elements, 
 these to which I have alluded. These gave the color 
 scheme. There were the objective elements, you, 
 men, sixty of you ; we, your friends, a crowd of us ; 
 the cars waiting, which were to take you as they 
 take others; and the dim, dusty, dingy old carshed. 
 There were lights and there were shadows ; there was 
 the foreground, the background and the middle dis 
 tance. As each person has his own horizon, inde 
 pendent of those of others ; as each has his own 
 rainbow, a rainbow all to himself which no one else 
 may share, so each of us composed the picture ele 
 ments into a grouping of our own ; and each of you 
 young men was the center of some picture. Oh, the 
 glory of it, that the love of a universe is not centered 
 upon a few ! Each ! Each of you was supremely 
 dear to some one ! 
 
 And you, Laddie, you, my boy, were the domi 
 nant note of my picture! How could it be other- 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 wise! I was with you when there came to you the 
 first glimmering suggestion of a coming possibility, 
 like the cloud, "no larger than a man's hand." I 
 saw you put the suggestion aside as foreign to 
 righteous plans and ambitions along the lines you 
 love. I saw the suggestion return to you again and 
 again, and yet again, with an insistence that could 
 not be gainsaid. And I was with you, a disciple 
 unasleep, when in your Gethsemane you bowed in ac 
 ceptance of the thing that must be; and I partook 
 of your joy that came with the full surrender, the 
 joy that comes to every man when he gives himself 
 to the highest call. You and your fellows, my son, 
 entered into the experience of the Christ in the gar 
 den, when, we are told, "There appeared unto Him 
 an angel from heaven, strengthening Him." 
 
 That was a wonderful gathering that Tuesday 
 afternoon in the old car shed. There were tears, 
 Laddie, but no weeping. There were hand-clasps, 
 and such hand-clasps, but almost no words. In such 
 moments, the tongue is silent; the eye and the hand 
 become eloquent. And so the great train, slowly 
 but surely took you away from us. You wrote back, 
 "It was a great send-off." It was more than that. 
 It was a sacrament ! 
 
COLORED BOYS IN CAMP AT FORT DES 
 MOINES 
 
 July 18, 1917. 
 
 CAPTAIN BALLOU, in charge of the training 
 camp at Fort Des Moines remarks, "We are 
 paying these boys $100 a month, and we are making 
 them earn it." That the captain is correct, the 
 following program which comes from one of the 
 men in camp testifies : 
 
 MORNING 
 
 5 :45 Reveille. 
 
 6 :00 Breakfast. 
 
 6:30 Policing (cleaning up the camp). 
 
 7:00 First drill (one hour). 
 
 8:00 5-minute rest. 
 
 8 :05 5-mile >ike. 
 
 9:00 Physical exercise (one hour). 
 
 10:00 Bayonet drill (one hour). 
 
 11:00 Conference until noon. 
 
 12:15 Dinner. 
 
 AFTERNOON 
 
 1:00 to 2:30 Semaphore signalling. 
 133 
 
134 Chums and Brothers 
 
 2 :30 to 3 :00 Rifling. 
 
 3 :30 to 4 :00 Conference on the Manual of Arms. 
 
 4 :30 An hour to clean up and dress for retreat. 
 
 5:45 The retreat with inspection of arms. 
 
 5 :30 Supper. 
 
 7 :00 to 9 :00 Conference, or study usually in the 
 dining-room where we keep quiet. 
 
 9:45 Taps and to bed. 
 
 A local paper notes that from every corner of 
 the United States, 1200 Negro youth have gathered 
 for the R.O.T.C. at Fort Des Moines 40 per cent, 
 men of high professional standing, 40 per cent of 
 them with college training, 10 per cent with business 
 training and 10 per cent soldiers from the regular 
 army colored regiments. These men are drilling in 
 preparation for officers' positions in the Negro regi 
 ments to be raised by the selective draft law. 
 
 Fourteen companies, each occupying a building 
 with its officers, have been formed, and have been 
 drilling nine hours a day, learning formation drill, 
 rifle practice, signal practice, and all the manuals of 
 the army that they could assimilate in twenty hours 
 of study and discussion. One of the most interest 
 ing characters at the camp is Sergeant George A. 
 Holland, who has served almost twenty years in 
 the regular army as regimental sergeant of the 
 Twenty-fourth infantry colored. Sergeant Holland 
 stands 6 feet tall and weighs 239 pounds. He out 
 ranks all the other supply sergeants in the coun- 
 
Colored Boys m Camp at Fort Des Momes 135 
 
 try, and has only been prevented from climbing 
 higher because of the rule that only white officers 
 shall command colored troops. But the sergeant 
 may now become captain or even colonel in the con 
 scripted army. 
 
 Sergeant Holland is with Co. 7 of the camp. This 
 company is made up entirely of Georgia men, and 
 of them the sergeant comments, "Fine bunch of 
 men. Nearly all of them are graduates or have 
 been students in colleges in Georgia." To Georgia 
 belongs the credit of having more men than any other 
 state. Georgia is the only state having an entire 
 company made up of men from the state. 
 
 The following quotation from an address by Cap 
 tain Ballou deserves wide reading: 
 
 Here are assembled representative colored men 
 from East, West, North, and South, to prove or dis 
 prove their fitness for the responsibilities of com 
 mand. These duties require more than patriotism 
 and personal courage. They require extended mili 
 tary knowledge, trained judgment in handling men 
 under the varying conditions of camp and field ; high 
 standards of truth and honor ; exceptional qualifica 
 tions as instructors of soldiers and administrators 
 of all the affairs upon which depend their content 
 ment, health, discipline, and military efficiency, and 
 also that intangible and important quality that is 
 expressed in the term 'leadership.' These qualities 
 you must develop and possess if you are to com 
 mand the confidence and best efforts of your sol- 
 
136 Chums and Brothers 
 
 diers. They must see in you one who always looks 
 out for the welfare of his men, and secures it, and 
 who can be trusted to accomplish the maximum re 
 sult with the minimum cost in life and limb. Physi 
 cal, mental, and moral strength, patience, endur 
 ance, and courage, industry, alertness, and obedience 
 to law are merely a few of the qualities you must 
 possess to attain success. 
 
 The paper comments, "Every Negro at the Post 
 is a man of intelligence and imagination. He real 
 izes that the opportunity for his race to make good 
 has come. He does not want to fail." 
 
AT FORT DES MOINES 
 
 THE second half of the three months of the Geor 
 gia Boys at Fort Des Moines opened July 29. 
 These second six weeks will move more rapidly than 
 have the first six weeks. The following quotations 
 from letters received from the Fort deserve a wide 
 reading and indicate something of the spirit and 
 the experiences of our sons, to whom has come for 
 once an opportunity equal to that of their white 
 brothers. We may believe that they are standing 
 up to this opportunity. 
 
 A post-card may sometimes say a good deal, as 
 does the following taken from such a card, "Very 
 hot here and the work is hard. We are all trying 
 to make good. The fellows are all well." I am be 
 ginning to like that word "fellows." It has a 
 warmth in it that we who are hungry for warmth 
 need. But one who knows something of the heat 
 that comes as hot waves in the North central states 
 can understand what it means to be "hot" in Des 
 Moines. We do not know it in the South, but the 
 fellows are plucky and will endure it. 
 
 Another "fellow" writes more fully: "This army 
 life is fine and I enjoy it. Although it is rather 
 
 137 
 
138 Chums and Brothers 
 
 warm here the fellows are holding up nicely. To 
 day we went four miles from here to the rifle range 
 spending the whole day in shooting. At noon we 
 were served box lunches consisting of bread and but 
 ter, jelly sandwiches, sliced fish, and hot coffee. Our 
 latest work and in fact the work of the whole week 
 has been in forming company for marching, includ 
 ing patroling. That part is great. We go right 
 out in thickets, through high grass, cross streams 
 and ditches as though in actual combat. It is ar 
 ranged that certain fellows are the enemy. Under 
 an instructor they go out perhaps a half a mile or 
 a mile. When they have their positions, those of 
 us who are left behind are to capture them or be 
 captured by them. Yesterday we captured our 
 enemy after two and a half hours, making in all, 
 perhaps three miles. Tuesday, our enemy was 
 rather crafty. They went on about a half mile, and 
 to keep from being discovered they covered them 
 selves in some brown hay that resembled our Khaki. 
 Not expecting any one to be in the piles of hay we 
 went boldly up and when we were about sixty feet 
 they fired upon us. In actual battle, we should all 
 have been captured. We are fortunate in having 
 good instructors who seem interested in us. I must 
 tell you my shooting record. I have been successful 
 in getting an average of twenty-two points a day 
 out of twenty-five. Today I made thirty-eight out 
 of a possible fifty. Harry made thirty-nine." 
 
At Fort Des Moines 1891 
 
 Another fellow puts it this way, on June 22, after 
 two weeks in camp: "I have just come off guard 
 duty about two hours ago. Yesterday I was de 
 tailed for guard duty. I went on at eleven o'clock 
 Saturday morning and was relieved twenty hours 
 later. One is on duty two hours and off four hours, 
 and so on. One cannot take off a piece of the gar 
 ment while on guard. One has even to rest with 
 the ammunition belt and bayonet on. This has been 
 a very hard week. The entire regiment is to parade 
 in the Stadium this afternoon in public. There is 
 to be a public celebration in which we take part." 
 Surely our fellows are getting much practice in all 
 the details of army life. 
 
 This last quotation, written July 14, when the 
 camp was a month old, is significant of the real 
 spirit of our sons. 
 
 "I have been here a month today, yet I feel that 
 I have grown more than a month in power. This 
 has been the greatest month of my life. I pray God, 
 that should I live, my life may be better on account 
 of this month and the two more that I am hoping 
 for." 
 
 This last quotation indicates two things : one that 
 the boys in the R.O.T.C. are awaking to the fact 
 that they may be called into actual war; and that 
 they are adjusting their minds to the possible per 
 sonal outcome. Our boys are imbibing the spirit of 
 Claudius Lavergne, the French lad, who wrote to 
 
140 Chums and Brothers 
 
 his family: "Tonight I leave for the trenches. To 
 night I shall be watching over you, rifle in hand. 
 You know who will be watching over me." 
 
THE OLD CAR SHED AGAIN 
 
 ONCE upon a time, and this is veritable history, 
 I was called in the dead of winter into the wilds 
 of New Hampshire to the funeral of a dear friend. 
 The snow lay deep upon the ground. It covered the 
 fences. And along the country roads and over those 
 fences came relatives and friends from near and 
 from far, to pay the last respects to the friend who 
 would never again in this world respond with ex 
 pressions of friendship. And I recall that as we 
 sat in that quiet front room in the New Hampshire 
 farmhouse, and sang a few quiet hymns and listened 
 to a quiet discourse, and bowed our heads during 
 the quiet prayer, that during the pauses of the 
 prayer, I heard the chink of dishes in the next room 
 where kindly neighbors were preparing a meal for 
 those who had come from a distance, and who must 
 be fed before they took their long journey into the 
 cold. 
 
 So it always is, life in the midst of death. The 
 old world rolls on and ushers in the new day despite 
 our agony and our heartbreak. I have read that 
 upon the blood-stained battle fields of the present 
 war in Europe, that this spring the flowers never 
 
 141 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 bloomed so profusely or were so beautiful. It is as 
 though the Eternal Father tried to cover up the 
 effects of human malice and hate, and hoped by song 
 of bird and beauty of flower and twinkle of star to 
 call men back to their better estate, and to assure 
 man, 
 
 "That life is ever lord of death, 
 And love can never lose its own." 
 
 But I confess that it was with a little jolt to the 
 feelings that as we turned down the long walk that 
 leads to the street, bent upon the sweet mission of 
 saying "God be with you" to our soldier boys, this 
 time not clad in civilian attire, but in khaki, and 
 carrying commissions as they went, it was a little 
 jolt to the feelings, I repeat, that as we started down 
 the long walk that other group of lads came tumbling 
 down the steps that lead into the boys' hall, clad 
 not in khaki, but in their togs bent upon a prac 
 tice game upon the gridiron. It is the old, old cry, 
 "The King is dead. Long live the King." Nor 
 would we have it otherwise and I accepted it as in 
 evitable that the game must go on. 
 
 And so we gathered again in the dim and dusty 
 old Car Shed, much the same company that gath 
 ered in the same place in June to send our sons to 
 Fort Des Moines. There was the same repression 
 of feeling as on the other occasion. Again, there 
 
The Old Car Shed Again 143 
 
 were tears, but no outcry, handclasps and such hand 
 clasps, but almost no words. I recall that in June 
 one matron took me by the hand and as I saw her 
 eye filled with tears, mine also filled, and I said, 
 "Madam, do not cry, for if you do, I shall," and 
 she said on this occasion, "You see I am not crying 
 now, for the boys have done so well." And I might 
 have said, "Madam, this is the time to cry and not 
 that. Then we could have prophesied this gather 
 ing. But who can prophesy when these men shall 
 return or in what shape or under what circum 
 stances?" But I did not say it. That thought was 
 in every one's mind. 
 
 But I missed the boy. I had had one handclasp 
 and one word, when other friends claimed him, and 
 loth as I was I could not hold him against them 
 nor would I. But I longed for one more word, one 
 more look into his face. I looked almost vainly, but 
 all at once I found him looking for me. With a ges 
 ture of command he called me to him, and while his 
 right hand sought mine with a warmth and a vigor 
 new to me, with a gesture of protection he threw 
 his left arm around my shoulders as though to de 
 fend me from an approaching onslaught of Vandal, 
 Hun and Teuton. It seemed as though we stood 
 there for hours but it was only for seconds, while the 
 railway officials called out, "Board the train, men." 
 But that gesture of protection seemed to me to typify 
 America defended by Ethiopia; the Son of an Ethi- 
 
144 Chums and Brothers 
 
 opian Princess, the grandson of an Egyptian Pha 
 raoh standing guard over the Pilgrim-Puritan- 
 heritage. 
 
 The student camp at Fort Des Moines was 
 granted in response to a student demand for an op 
 portunity for officer-training for colored students 
 as for white. The granting of that petition by 
 President Wilson represents the one constructive 
 movement for the Negro since the passage of the Fif 
 teenth Amendment. And when the boy signed that 
 petition he knew and I knew that the plans for his 
 career which we had made all vanished into thin air ; 
 and that there was for him, the khaki, the camp, it 
 may be France, or Flanders. And it may be that 
 some night he will write me from "somewhere in 
 France," as wrote Bernhard Claudius Lavergne, the 
 young French soldier, to his mother: "Tonight we 
 leave for the trenches. Tonight I shall be watch 
 ing over you, rifle in hand. You know who is watch 
 ing over me." 
 
 Because I believe that God is good, I have faith to 
 believe that out of the welter and destruction of the 
 present, in His own time He will bring a lesson and 
 blessing to humanity. But Bernhard-Claudius-La- 
 vergne had a brief experience standing guard at the 
 trenches, and who knows how soon your son or mine 
 may follow him? Ever since that petition was 
 signed, I have looked upon our youth, not as dead, 
 but as dying; dying of the great white plague of 
 
The Old Car Shed Again 145 
 
 war that is enmeshing us all. And it seems to me 
 that if there is anything that I can do to show to 
 them my admiration, and my love, now is the time. 
 It may not be for long. 
 
 O, Righteous Father, with whom is no variable 
 ness, neither shadow of turning, grant that these, 
 Thy sons and our sons, shall not go forth upon a 
 fruitless errand. Grant, we beseech Thee, that they 
 and the hosts that battle with them shall accomplish 
 that purpose which we believe is Thy purpose; and 
 that their sacrifice shall usher in the reign of uni 
 versal brotherhood; that Liberty, Democracy, and 
 Peace shall come, and shall come permanently to all 
 nations and to all peoples that inhabit the earth. 
 
A LABORATORY STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ASA H. GORDON 
 
 TO any one interested in Social Science, the 
 training camp at Fort Des Moines has been a 
 most interesting laboratory. The first thing to at 
 tract the attention of the trained Sociologist as he 
 daily observes the phenomena here is the peculiar 
 revelations of long dormant elements of various char 
 acters brought about by the group activities and 
 purposes here. The revelations are sometimes con 
 trary to expectations. An unexpected act in a place 
 like this produces a remarkable influence upon the 
 disused part of a person's character. The evan 
 gelist would say, "Men have been born again" out of 
 this turmoil of preparation for the great world game. 
 The untrained man would label the souls of some who 
 seemingly have radically changed, as "made in Fort 
 Des Moines." But science teaches her disciples that 
 these apparent radical changes are only due to the 
 fact that the individual in obedience to the funda 
 mental law of self-preservation has assembled and 
 put to use those elements of his character best fitted 
 to assure his survival in his present environment. 
 As is generally known the group of men gathered 
 146 
 
A Laboratory Study m Sociology 147 
 
 here at Fort Des Moines represents almost all pro 
 fessions followed by colored men. Out on the pa 
 rade ground in every company, you can find the 
 lawyer, the doctor, the student, the mail-carrier, the 
 business man, and the "old soldier" marching side 
 by side. These men vary a great deal in personal 
 ideas and in individual mental development, but if 
 soldiers are to be produced here, there must be team 
 work. In the company barrack-room and elsewhere, 
 the man of individualistic tendencies has become 
 somewhat communistic in his practices if not in his 
 theories. All this is done because it is realized by 
 those concerned to be necessary for the attainment 
 of the purpose of the camp. This is a great object 
 lesson of the way democracy must come and results 
 in the realization by all classes that it is necessary 
 for the highest happiness of all, individually and 
 collectively. 
 
 I said that revelations of character are sometimes 
 contrary to expectation. For example, in the early 
 part of the game here, a professional man made 
 this confession: "I have not uttered a prayer in 
 ten years, but when I saw a young fellow just gradu 
 ated from my old college kneel beside his bunk in 
 prayer last night, I felt a great longing for spiritual 
 power, and I, too, fell down before the Great Com 
 mander of the Universe." So men have found lost 
 chords of their lives here in this camp. Men with 
 pro-social tendencies have found it necessary to be 
 
148 Chums and Brothers 
 
 aggressive here because men of anti-social habits are 
 plentiful in the army. 
 
 A few weeks after the grand beginning, the shadow 
 of the color line fell heavily upon the camp. Men 
 were refused meals at restaurants in Des Moines 
 and moving picture houses "reserved" special seats 
 for the "boys out at the camp." The fighting spirit 
 was aroused as it never would have been in the same 
 group of men outside an army camp. But military 
 discipline calmed the troubled seas, and the men de 
 cided that the end to be gained was worth more sac 
 rifice and a different sacrifice than that they planned 
 to make. But on the question of the color line, 
 men's minds have been changed out here, and when 
 the men here who do not go to France, get back 
 home, a mob in their vicinity will be in a danger 
 zone without doubt. The camp has been worth while 
 as an antidote to mob rule and lynch law in the 
 South. 
 
 Perhaps the most general and profoundest trans 
 formations that have come about have been in the 
 purposes and ideals of the men concerning the great 
 world struggle. The men out here have continually 
 been spoken of as the flower of the race. This is 
 highly figurative and only partly true, of course. 
 It has seemingly been assumed by many that every 
 man who came did so because he believed the great 
 war to be purely a fight for democracy and civiliza 
 tion and he desired to play his part, or at least de- 
 
A Laboratory Study in Sociology 149 
 
 sired to see the Negro race do its share. This also 
 was not true. The motives of the men who came 
 here were very much mixed, as they ever have been 
 in great movements such as the Crusades, for exam 
 ple. Some came purely for adventure; some of the 
 army men came simply because they were ordered; 
 some came for a healthful vacation; some came to 
 escape conscription ; some came for pure love of the 
 fighting game; and some came for one hundred dol 
 lars a month. Many came because they believed 
 that the ultimate end of the game in Europe is 
 to be democracy and peace. But once a man got 
 here his individual purpose began to be transformed 
 into the spirit and purpose of the camp. Here was 
 demonstrated the influence of the social mind. The 
 fact that a great many of the men here were work 
 ing to gain ability for the game, made others play 
 hard to keep from doing them an injustice. The 
 expectations of the masses of people outside so often 
 expressed by speakers who came here helped to mold 
 the social mind. It was often stated and is yet 
 held by some, that the failure of the camp here 
 would mark the failure of the Negro. Thoughtful 
 people, of course, realized that this was not true, as 
 no single event can decide the destiny of a people, 
 but it had its effect. It was said that the Negro 
 race was on trial here. That was only remotely 
 true. Then there came personal touches of lives 
 that counted. For example, a young man who came 
 
150 Chums and Brothers 
 
 here with rather mercenary aims and without the 
 slightest intention of receiving a commission re 
 ceived a card one day from a little girl, a girl whom 
 he loved, on which was written among other things : 
 "Now I know you aren't afraid nor a slacker," This 
 changed the young man's purpose and from that 
 day he was here to go to France. Most of the 
 regular army men here naturally believe in fight 
 ing. They are larger than any other single group 
 and so their school of thought has profoundly in 
 fluenced the social mind in coming to the conclusion 
 that a group must acquire its rights by fighting for 
 them. So when William Pickens of Baltimore came 
 here and said: "The runaway slave was the first 
 Abolitionist; the Negro, nor any other people ever 
 gained liberty without fighting for it. If we fight 
 in the great world war it is because we as a race 
 shall profit by it," he received the greatest ovation 
 of any speaker who has so far been here. 
 
 Officers of the army have stated that the men 
 at Fort Des Moines far surpass in physical fitness 
 the white men elsewhere and the city of Des Moines 
 has been surprised that an army camp could con 
 tain such a fine set of men. But the student of 
 Social Science, believing as he must, in the power 
 of education, has not been surprised. One of the 
 finest and most gratifying statements that has yet 
 been made by a visitor to the men was that of Mr. 
 
A Laboratory Study m Sociology 151 
 
 C, H. Tobias, of the Y. M. C. A. : "I am not sur 
 prised that you men have made good here, for I 
 know whence you came." 
 
 As is always true of any great gathering for 
 some noble purpose, the camp has, I believe, been 
 a tremendous help to every man whether he gets a 
 commission or not. It has helped many men phys 
 ically, it has helped some morally, and it has helped 
 the country. Of course the average man will hold 
 that only those who go to France have been suc 
 cessful. We would all like to play in the great game 
 across the waters. But the thoughtful man will 
 realize that not all who were successful here in some 
 way were successful in a military way. Because^ 
 here as elsewhere, where human frailty steps aside, 
 artificial barriers have in some cases prevented the 
 survival of the fittest. So President Hope was right 
 when he said in an address here, "I think as much 
 of the man who honestly tried to get into this camp 
 and failed as I do of you men here, and I think as 
 much of the men here honestly trying to make good 
 but who a few days hence will not be here, as I do 
 of you who will remain . . . they all have been will 
 ing to do their duty." Every man who has been 
 here these weeks is a better man and a better citi 
 zen and inside or outside the army, whether he goes 
 to France or not, has already rendered a service, 
 gentle reader, to 
 
152 Chums and Br oilier s 
 
 Your flag and my flag, 
 
 The flag that flies above 
 The nation where we work and live, 
 
 The Country that we love. 
 
 NOTE: This study of the "boys" at Fort Des Moines was 
 made by one of their number. Mr. Gordon was of the class 
 .of 1915. With several of his classmates he entered the 
 R.O.T.C. Being under weight, he was not commissioned and 
 after the camp closed he entered the "Y" work and did some 
 eifective work at Camp Gordon, and later with the S.A.T.C. 
 
 Mr. Gordon is a student in Sociology, a subject in which 
 he specialized, and he looked at the camp at Fort Des Moines 
 from that point of view. 
 
FROM THE CANTONMENTS 
 
 r 1 1HE training officers reached their cantonments 
 J[ to report for duty November 1, 1917. They 
 have been a busy company of young men ever since. 
 But they find time to keep us in touch with their 
 work. Their letters have a wonderful interest, but 
 are markedly free from any word as to their spe 
 cific work, and we understand that they are under 
 orders to be very careful not to write about camp 
 matters and military operations. Some of these 
 letters have a more than personal interest. All of 
 the Atlanta University students have had courses 
 in sociology, in which the problems of the Negro 
 have had more than passing notice and yet these 
 students are for the first time getting in touch with 
 the real problems of their own people. They all 
 speak with surprise of the ignorance and the illiter 
 acy of their men. They cannot, in too many cases, 
 write their own names. Few have the equivalent of 
 four grammar grades and very few indeed have been 
 through a grammar school. Many do not know 
 why they are in camp and think it a "chain-gang." 
 
 153 
 
154 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Two quotations will show the spirit of the officers : 
 
 We have 153 men and among them is one man 
 only who has had any college training (this is the 
 writer). One other has had high school, and only 
 from 15 to 20 have had grammar school education. 
 
 This writer is from the South, but his men seem 
 to be from the East, for he further comments: 
 
 The situation really surprised me, especially here 
 in the East where schools and colleges are to be had 
 for the asking. So many in my battalion can 
 neither read nor write that a night school has been 
 opened. 
 
 A hopeful element, duplicated in all the letters, 
 appears in this letter: 
 
 But on the whole they are a fine lot and just as 
 willing and obedient as can be, and they are taking 
 things for what they are worth. Since they have 
 become uniformed and have come to be somewhat 
 soldierly, they are making a good showing. 
 
 The second quotation is from an observer: 
 
 I met the captain. He was a young man of a 
 genuine soldierly bearing, about thirty years old. 
 He told me that he had 243 men in his company, 
 and that there were 63 unable either to read or to 
 write. The government intends to furnish material 
 to teach them, but he said his four lieutenants gave 
 the money out of their pockets. The two lieuten 
 ants and two privates who have taught have already 
 
From the Cantonments 155 
 
 begun to teach these men. In a heart to heart talk 
 with the illiterate privates the captain told them 
 that he expected everyone of them to write a card 
 home at Christmas. Twenty can write already. 
 They do this after a hard day's drilling is done. 
 When the government begins its school, he intends 
 to report "not a single illiterate." 
 
 In a different line is the following quotation: 
 
 I saw the lieutenants hard at work with their men. 
 I watched the officers of both races do their work. 
 
 Lieutenant carried me to his barracks. You 
 
 would have been proud to see how prompt his men 
 were in saluting him, and to note the fine relation 
 existing between him, a mere youth, and those sturdy 
 men. 
 
 A curious incident was brought to the writer's 
 notice which illustrates the attitude of our student- 
 officers toward their work. A mother said to her 
 lieutenant-son, that she could be reconciled if he 
 were fighting for France. But she could not bring 
 herself to think of his fighting for the United States, 
 which . . . Her sentence was interrupted by her 
 son, whose commission was not a week old: 
 "Mother, I am an officer in the United States Army, 
 and as an officer, I cannot permit anyone, not even 
 my mother, to speak disparagingly of my country." 
 
 In similar vein is this from a "Y" Secretary: 
 
 When the account of the Houston trial began 
 
U56 Chwms and Brothers 
 
 leaking out here, our men crowded around the daily 
 newspaper to read the comments and they began to 
 utter evil comments about the country. I felt it my 
 duty to say something to them. 
 
 I tried to think and found myself burning, too. 
 I prayed for something to tell them. Finally I said, 
 "No one has the right to take the law into his hands 
 and now we have this to be thankful to God for 
 we have commissioned officers of our own race who 
 can adjust our wrongs in the proper way so that 
 such a shame shall not be ours again." 
 
 To write or to act in a manner loyal to our noble 
 country, and convincing to the extremely cloudy 
 mind of the young colored American is a task that 
 calls for the master mind of our leaders. If they 
 condemn it ... treason; if they uphold it, in full 
 . . . distrust from those whom they would lead. 
 My thoughts are, those who take the law into their 
 hands deserve punishment, but the conditions under 
 which such things take place surely should be con 
 sidered in the reckoning. I think the men who irri 
 tated these men should be called into question. 
 
 Another lieutenant writes of' the men from the 
 South: 
 
 They tell me of conditions out of which they have 
 come that are largely those of slavery. I was dis 
 posed not to believe, but others confirmed the facts. 
 
 This lieutenant doubtless has read DuBois' "Souls 
 of Black Folk," and the problem of peonage has 
 probably come before him in academic fashion. To- 
 
From the Cantonments 157 
 
 day he knows the facts. So he knows his problem 
 and his brother officers know it as they could not 
 have known it otherwise. And what are a few 
 frozen ears, noses, or fingers to these men who never 
 left the pine barrens or the Black Belt or the red 
 clay hills, as they find themselves no longer ex 
 ploited. What geographical ideas must these be 
 absorbing, as they find themselves in the North ; and 
 what Sociological and Economic ideas are they get 
 ting as they find themselves in great groups working 
 together under officers of their own race ! And what 
 ethical notions must drift into their minds as they 
 find these officers respected by their fellow officers 
 of the white race, and they themselves free to come 
 and go without being told where to go or not to 
 go, but free! 
 
 Perhaps the finest thing that comes to our stu 
 dent officers, is their meeting as they do, and as they 
 will more and more meet with men who have done 
 things, men of affairs. After an interview with his 
 general, a lieutenant sums up his impression in the 
 simple phrase, "General - is a strong man." 
 The following incident illustrates the attitude of the 
 commanding officers toward their subordinates, 
 whether white or colored. A general was travelling 
 with a body of his officers for several hours across 
 country. The party was returning from a match 
 game of football with the men of another canton 
 ment. Among the party were two Negro lieuten- 
 
158 Chums and Brothers 
 
 ants. During the journey the general went into the 
 dining-car and sent his orderly back to invite all 
 the officers to dine with him. Perhaps it was nat 
 ural that the two colored officers did not go with 
 the others. Their absence was noted by the gen 
 eral, who sent his orderly again to demand their 
 presence and attendance and they had the satisfac 
 tion, not only of being entertained with him at din 
 ner, but of having an interesting conversation with 
 him afterwards. 
 
 The larger number of Negro commissioned officers 
 are either first or second lieutenants. So far as I 
 know, few became captains who had not been in the 
 regular army previous to their assignment to the 
 training camp at Fort Des Moines, where they 
 were the training officers under the white officers of 
 the camp. Two of these captains were ex-Atlanta 
 University students and one of the new captains is 
 an alumnus of the school. He writes: 
 
 I took charge of my company November 4, and 
 I think I may pardonably say I have a fine set of 
 young men among whom a fine spirit exists. The 
 work is strenuous and taxing, but I enjoy it just 
 the same. 
 
 In the same letter writing upon the larger issues, 
 he says: 
 
 Events now transpiring in this great world debacle 
 confirm my conviction more and more that the prin- 
 
From the Cantonments 159 
 
 ciples of Atlanta University, the principles for 
 which she has stood so unflinchingly for more than 
 a generation, despite unfriendly criticism, misun 
 derstanding on the part of those without her faith in 
 humanity, are right and eternal and must prevail. 
 The world must come to our way of thinking to in 
 sure enduring peace among men. 
 
 The following has a touch of Christmas cheer: 
 
 This is Christmas morning, about 11 o'clock. I 
 have finished the dining-room and recreation room 
 decorations for the men's Christmas dinner. I wish 
 so much that you could see it ; then you could real 
 ize just what the officers are doing to make every 
 thing as pleasant as possible for the men. They 
 have everything they want for dinner, turkey, candy, 
 nuts, fruits, pies of every kind, cranberries, celery, 
 lettuce, and as much of it as they can eat. The let 
 ter closes thus : "I thank you for your papers and 
 cards, but really I have not had the time to do all 
 the work assigned to me, much less to write to any 
 one. And the work had to come first." 
 
 January, 1918. 
 
FROM THE CANTONMENTS 
 
 ii 
 
 SOME one once remarked, "The man I do not 
 like is the man that I do not know." And the 
 remark has a deeper signification than appears at 
 first. I have said elsewhere that if the southern no 
 tion of the Negro was to persist, that it was a mis 
 take to send the colored soldiers in training into the 
 northern cantonments. There they would meet the 
 Anglo-Saxon soldier on terms of fair equality, and 
 a mutual liking would ensue. And this seems to be 
 borne out by all the facts that come to us from let 
 ters and from visits from our own training-lieuten 
 ants as they return to us on leaves of absence. The 
 following incident illustrates how camp friendships 
 cut across certain lines of demarkation. A group of 
 soldiers, white and colored, were out together fra 
 ternizing as soldiers will ; and the group went to a 
 restaurant for a lunch. This occurred in Virginia. 
 The proprietor expressed his willingness to serve 
 the white men but not the colored. To this the 
 white soldiers made no demur, but ordered viands 
 for the entire group, and took them with necessary 
 
 160 
 
From the Cantonments 161 
 
 dishes upon the sidewalk where all sat down and 
 ate as though sidewalks were convenient dining 
 tables. And the passer-by looked on with differing 
 emotions. To some of them it was a new illustra 
 tion of the democratic spirit. 
 
 So far as personal information comes from the 
 various northern cantonments it is of most pleas 
 ant relations among the representatives of the two 
 races. An interesting phase of this is shown in the 
 course of study which our officers-in-training enter 
 with their white confreres. To many of them, the 
 meeting in mixed classes was a new experience. Per 
 haps I have said this before, but if so it is worth 
 repeating; that I am always glad when one of our 
 college men matriculates in a northern university. 
 If one finds that Anglo-Saxon gray matter is finer 
 than African "gray matter," accept the fact, for 
 facts are what we wish. But if the result shows, as 
 I think it will, that "gray matter" is "gray matter" 
 despite the presence or absence of a little tropical 
 blood, the revelation will not hurt but help both 
 parties to the intellectual contest. Meantime, the 
 meeting in mixed classes has opened upon new op 
 portunities for acquaintance and friendship and 
 some exchange of courtesies. The following is a 
 case in point. Two men, lieutenants, representing 
 each his own race, were out upon a reconnaissance 
 walk in connection with a course of study. They 
 came to a stream too deep for the colored officer to 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 wade across in his low boots, but not too deep for 
 the white officer who chanced to have on his long- 
 legged boots. The white man sensed the situation, 
 and said, "You can not cross without getting wet. 
 Let me carry you across." No sooner said than 
 done; the colored officer sprang upon the back of 
 the white officer and in less time than it takes to 
 tell it the act of courtesy was carried out and both 
 men dry and comfortable were upon the opposite 
 bank pursuing the purpose of their walk. 
 
 Two illustrations of the contest of "gray matter" 
 with "gray matter" have come to me recently, in 
 both of which the colored officer led the class. The 
 one was in a class studying the rapid-firing gun, 
 about which the leading colored officer rather mod 
 estly claimed that his leading was rather a matter 
 of luck, but which I interpret as rather a matter 
 of "nerve." The other was a distinctly scholastic 
 test, being a course upon field fortification, in 
 which mathematics played no small part. In a class 
 of thirty, there were four colored officers, and one 
 of these led the whole class. He with a similar mod 
 esty ascribes his success to one of his college teach 
 ers ; but my own idea is, that his success is due to 
 a student attitude toward his work while in school. 
 To him a teacher's assignment was always a duty 
 to be performed and not a task to be avoided. 
 
 Not all the items are from the northern canton- 
 
From the Cantonments 163 
 
 ments. One gets hints of pleasant relations exist 
 ing in the southern camps. Perhaps this is as sig 
 nificant as anything that has come to me. A friend 
 of mine was riding across Alabama and Mississippi, 
 and behind him sat two men, one a soldier who had 
 been on a furlough and who was returning to camp. 
 He said to his seat-mate, that he had gone into the 
 war with a good deal of unwillingness, but that he 
 had got so much good out of the camp and so much 
 real enjoyment that he was glad to get back. "And 
 
 what about the * '?" asked the other. "Do they 
 
 make good soldiers?" His friend said in reply, "I 
 have cut that word out of my vocabulary. I have 
 got acquainted with the colored men in the camp, and 
 I have learned to like them and to know them, and 
 they are making good in camp, and to me they are 
 colored soldiers." I do not think this incident 
 ushers in the millennium, but it does illustrate that 
 when men can get together in circumstances where 
 the lines of social cleavage are forgotten, that a 
 certain "camaraderie" is bound to develop. I would 
 not prolong the war one day; nay, one hour; no, 
 not a moment; but I have the faith to believe that 
 the war will not end until the spirit of comradeship 
 which the cantonments illustrate shall become gen 
 eral outside the cantonments. For after all 
 
 "The rank is but the guinea's stamp. 
 The man's the gold for a' that." 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 I find the following in a religious paper. It is 
 from a letter from a soldier in camp, and bears the 
 caption, "Express Your Love." The boy writes, "Do 
 I ever get tired of being told you love me? Never 
 stop writing it. The fellow for whom I have the most 
 pity in the army is the one who has no one to love 
 him or writes to tell him so. You know in the army, 
 the immorality is due either to the 'nobody-cares' 
 attitude or 'nobody-will-find-out' attitude. The fel 
 low who gets a bit of both of these can easily go 
 wrong if he chooses." 
 
 In larger lines a chaplain writes that he prefers 
 the camp to the country, for "here one finds the 
 stimulus of struggle with nature plus the fellowship 
 of large bodies of able, good men which even the best 
 small town can furnish but periodically." He pre 
 fers it to the city, because "the electric lights, the 
 autos, the movies, the theaters are there, but you 
 can walk from one end to the other of a vast city 
 of 40,000 without seeing a single saloon, or of the 
 advertising of the sex-impulse for commercial pur 
 poses." And he prefers it to the college campus, 
 "because the equivalents of fraternity and chum and 
 athletics and glee club and college journal and 
 Y. M. C. A. are there, but each in its proper rela 
 tion to the main show, but electives and snap-courses 
 have entirely disappeared." 
 
 Said one lieutenant to me, "We handle the in 
 struments of death so frequently and so familiarly 
 
From the Cantonments 165 
 
 that we become accustomed to them and the thought 
 of death loses its fears." This calls up a ques 
 tion asked upon the cantonment, "What are our 
 boys thinking about? It is hollow mockery to talk 
 of a ministry of merely social service to a clear- 
 eyed boy who looks you squarely in the face and 
 asks you if death ends all and how you know it 
 doesn't. I thank God that my boys are laying hold 
 upon the only real argument for immortality the 
 practice by the will of the principle that he that 
 loseth his life shall find it. The only way to know 
 that there is no such thing as death is to dare to 
 face it as Jesus did for a great cause and find out." 
 
 There is a side of the war which perhaps we have 
 not said much about or thought much about which 
 came to me in a personal letter from a friend in the 
 north. Two of his sons are in the service and the 
 third is getting ready. He writes, "Their lives are 
 completely broken up. If they return they will have 
 no jobs and no money. The places they might have 
 filled will be held by somebody else, and besides, 
 the life in the army establishes the habit of living 
 for the day only, without plan for the future; you 
 can not plan; when orders come you simply obey 
 them; that's all. You can not think of buying a 
 home or of establishing a family and a permanent 
 way of life." 
 
 And right here is the ultimate sacrifice which our 
 
166 Chums and Brothers 
 
 soldier boys accept. We are sending them out to 
 be citizen soldiers, fighting to make war unneces 
 sary; they are not to be and become professional 
 soldiers, but when they come back what is there for 
 them, but to remain so far as they can in the serv 
 ice? And this suggests that new world into which 
 we are entering, a world of military preparedness, 
 and universal military service so different from our 
 traditions and our history. Surely 
 
 "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfills Himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
AN OPEN LETTER 
 
 \ 
 (Editorial Introductory Note) 
 
 THE columns of The Atlanta Constitution have 
 of late years shown marked interest in the 
 progress of our people. In fact, it is today so dif 
 ferent from that of two decades ago that it has 
 called forth encouraging comment from our people 
 all over the country. The day is still fresh in the 
 memory of many of us when we expected no words 
 of encouragement or defense, all then was gall and 
 bitterness. We now look upon the Constitution as 
 the one paper among us that believes in fair play. 
 The following letter from the pen of Prof. E. H. 
 Webster was intended for its columns because there 
 are many things in it that our white neighbors and 
 friends elsewhere ought to know. We do not be 
 lieve it any ulterior motive other than omission on 
 the part of the editor of the Constitution that it did 
 not appear in its columns. 
 
 ATLANTA, GA., Nov. 17, 1917. 
 Editor The Atlanta Constitution, 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 The friends of the colored people, and especially 
 the teachers of their children, are always grateful 
 for any cordial word that appears in the columns of 
 
 167 
 
168 Chums and Brothers 
 
 the Constitution. And so we appreciate the para 
 graph in a recent issue, speaking of the colored 
 men of Atlanta who had earned commissions in the 
 training camp at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. These 
 commissions were given Oct. 15, 1917, and the offi 
 cers were given two weeks' furlough before report 
 ing to their different cantonments. The list as you 
 presented it was not quite correct. You gave the 
 names of nineteen. Twenty-one of the colored youth 
 of Atlanta received commissions, either as First 
 Lieutenants or as Second Lieutenants. It will be 
 a satisfaction to your readers to know that one- 
 half of all the commissions granted to colored 
 Georgians went to Atlanta ; and it is an item of in 
 terest to us, that on a different alignment, one-half 
 of the commissions were given to men who had been 
 or who were at the time students of Atlanta Uni 
 versity. 
 
 For two weeks these officers clad in khaki were 
 seen about the streets of Atlanta. I think had the 
 option been left with them they would have pre 
 ferred civilian attire. But the military rules are 
 strict at this point during war time. The recogni 
 tion accorded these young officers by their fellow 
 officers was, to say the least, curious. Some of the 
 white soldiers recognized the uniform with the ap 
 propriate salute, and that ended it. A few did the 
 same as though it were a joke and laughed as they 
 did it. Most of the white soldiers failed to see their 
 
An Open Letter 169 
 
 colored comrades in arms and passed them without 
 looking at them. 
 
 The student camp for the training of colored of 
 ficers originated in a student movement that had its 
 inception at Howard University, Washington, D. C., 
 and which was warmly seconded by the students of 
 the colored colleges in Atlanta. The United States 
 had maintained for two years and was proposing 
 to maintain summer student training camps, whose 
 graduates were to receive officers' commissions. To 
 these camps, the colored college students were de 
 barred. They never understood why they were de 
 barred, but they were. A movement to establish 
 a private camp under the sanction of a govern 
 ment was well under way when President Wilson 
 declared that a state of war existed between this 
 country and Germany, and that movement was 
 quashed. Again denied entrance into the national 
 camps, this student movement was inaugurated, and 
 a hundred of the college men of the Atlanta schools 
 signed the petition, and when granted, the full stu 
 dent quota allowed the schools was filled by volun 
 teers who had signed the petition. And double the 
 number would have gone to camp had the number 
 allowed been larger. 
 
 The training camp at Fort Des Moines was unique 
 among all the training camps. Of the twelve hun 
 dred colored men in camp, 40 per cent were college 
 students, 40 per cent were professional men, 10 per 
 
170 Chums and Brothers 
 
 cent were colored business men, and the remaining 
 10 per cent were taken from the regular army. 
 These latter made the first officers of the training 
 body, and were detailed from their regiments for 
 that purpose. 
 
 These men were supposed to take a year's regu 
 lar training in the three months. In all that time, 
 there was not a single brawl in the camp. The 
 guard house was significant as having no use. The 
 city of Des Moines, that demurred at the bringing 
 of twelve hundred negro troops into their midst, 
 regretted when the time came that the officers left. 
 In public and in private, the officers in training car 
 ried themselves in a way to win admiration and re 
 spect. 
 
 The white officers in camp were highly pleased 
 with the quality of the men and the quality of their 
 work. A great disappointment came to the men 
 at the close of the third month when the war de 
 partment issued orders that the men should remain 
 in training a fourth month. Permission was, how 
 ever, given any who wished to withdraw to do so as 
 "honorably discharged." A number took advantage 
 of this opportunity. But to the credit of your 
 Georgia company, not one took advantage of the 
 offer. They remained to a man. 
 
 The concluding phrase of the Constitution's para 
 graph upon these commissioned men read that "all 
 have been ordered to report after their furloughs to 
 
An Open Letter 171 
 
 northern camps." It seems to the writer peculiarly 
 unfortunate that this had to be so. One under 
 stands, perhaps, that it had to be so, while we wished 
 that it could have been otherwise. Sixty years and 
 more ago, an Alabama statesman exclaimed, "The 
 world is against the South in its understanding of 
 the negro. It is our duty to educate the world." 
 As that attitude of mind has passed, the present at 
 titude of mind of the South toward the negro will 
 pass. And fifty years hence, when the world shall 
 have become safe for democracy and democracy safe 
 for the world, the South will look back in surprise 
 that at this critical juncture, all these young col 
 ored officers had to be assigned to northern camps. 
 And yet the Secretary of War states that he is not 
 entering this war to solve a southern social question, 
 but to whip the Germans. And with that in mind, 
 it was well to avoid any friction in the matter. 
 
 The best comment that the writer has seen upon 
 the Houston riot was in a northern religious jour 
 nal. Without reducing the condemnation of the 
 riot one iota, the editor frankly recognizes that the 
 riot began in white arrogance and white usurpa 
 tion and said, "The South must learn to accept the 
 plain results of the Civil War, and must learn to 
 respect the uniform of the soldier, whoever wears 
 it." 
 
 And yet, if it must be so, as a teacher of these 
 young men, and their friend, I cannot but be glad 
 
Chwms and Brothers 
 
 that they are to get their entrance into real army 
 life in the freer atmosphere of the north, where the 
 traditions are different, and where they will receive 
 the treatment their commissions warrant without let 
 or hindrance. But I am wondering how many of 
 these colored officers who survive Flanders or France 
 will be willing to return to the South after the war, 
 if they must return to conditions so different from 
 what they are meeting now in the North. They are 
 the very flower of their race, just the young men 
 to be held to the South for the upbuilding of their 
 people, but weaned from the South by the very free 
 dom which the North grants and which the South 
 denies them. 
 
 Being a negro is no crime, but the Southern atti 
 tude too often makes it appear such. You are not 
 aware, for you are protected from it, how often 
 the fact that one is a negro is rubbed into the man 
 of color in the South. We object to the German 
 Emperor giving to every submarine commander the 
 right to declare war upon the United States, but the 
 Southern States give every small official the right to 
 declare war upon the negro. The South is steadily 
 losing its best colored youth, as these get in touch 
 with the North and remain there. 
 
 One phase of the colored officer situation comes 
 to me with tremendous force. It is the reports that 
 come of the ignorance and illiteracy of the negro 
 conscript soldiers. The fact comes to me from every 
 
An Open Letter 173 
 
 camp where there are colored recruits, whether 
 North or South. They can not, in too many cases, 
 even write their own names ; few have had the equiva 
 lent of four grammar grades and very few, indeed, 
 have been through a grammar school. Many do 
 know why they are in camp and think of it as a 
 chain-gang. Some of the stories are humorous, but 
 most are pitiful. These recruits are the product 
 of the Southern schools of the past fifty years. And 
 they are to meet in Europe the best trained soldiers 
 of the Old World. These young officers are optimis 
 tic among conditions that would seem to be decid 
 edly pessimistic. And I admire their courage, 
 though I tremble for the product. 
 
 The language of the Supreme Court decision in 
 the matter of segregation is a curious commentary 
 upon this point. "We have permitted," the Court 
 says, "segregation in schools and public conveyances 
 on the principle that the advantages of the one and 
 the accommodations of the other should be equal." 
 But the court declines to go further, and ^ne won 
 ders if it is not because the court recognizes, that 
 if the principle of segregation is further admitted, 
 the gross inequalities that have followed will con 
 tinue to follow. 
 
 The one thing which we ought to hope shall come 
 out of the war is a real renaissance of the democratic 
 idea. For this, this country is fighting. Without 
 expanding that thought at all, it seems to the writer 
 
174 Chttms <md Brothers 
 
 that in the new world that is to come, we shall put 
 our valuation less upon property and more upon 
 men; and this nation and every nation will see to 
 it that every man has a fair chance to the largest 
 development of his possibilities, that we must do this 
 for our own safety. The schools of the future will 
 be very different from the schools of the past; but 
 they will open themselves to all youth irrespective 
 of race, color or previous condition. The state will 
 demand that each achieve the utmost possible, and 
 put no barriers in the way. 
 
A NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE 1918 
 
 "God bless you!" So I breathe a charm 
 Lest grief's dark night oppress you. 
 For how can sorrow bring you harm 
 If 'tis His will to bless you? 
 
 And so, not "all your days be fair 
 And shadows touch thee never"; 
 But this alone "God bless you, dear," 
 And thou art safe forever. 
 
 THERE is a revival hymn whose words will not 
 come to command but whose thought is "Count 
 your many blessings." And I recall the pastor of 
 my youth declaring that if we would thank God for 
 three things given every time we pray for one thing 
 that our prayers would take on a different charac 
 ter. Perhaps it will be well for us at this time to 
 think through the items for gratitude in the im 
 mediate past as we face the immediate future. 
 
 Three years ago last August the writer came 
 from New York to Charleston by boat, leaving the 
 great metropolis on the day that the war was be 
 gun. And during the hours of that journey, the 
 baseball news from the shore vied with war news 
 from Europe for the important position on the little 
 sheet published each day as the wireless sent its mes- 
 
 175 
 
176 Chums and Brothers 
 
 sages to us at sea. Among the first items that 
 caught my attention later in the month was the 
 offer from a strong weekly journal for a subscrip 
 tion until the end of the war for one dollar. I have 
 often wondered if that offer was ever withdrawn. 
 In the light of events that have taken place the 
 offer seems a little foolish. But it does remind us, 
 how little the world at that time appreciated the 
 magnitude of the problem before it. Little recked 
 Kaiser, and little recked we, that with the crossing 
 of the Belgian frontier and the invasion of north 
 ern France was set in motion a train of circum 
 stances which would lead in this country to what 
 some of us in our wisdom or lack of wisdom, call 
 "The Second Emancipation of the Negro." 
 
 But it is the steps of this emancipation which it 
 is worthy to think through at this time when a new 
 year is opening with its yet unspoiled page. 
 
 Looking out upon a situation in his time com 
 parable perhaps to him as the present is to us, the 
 Psalmist exclaims "God is not in all their thoughts." 
 And ofttimes it seems to the onlooker as though the 
 thought of the Hebrew writer was matched in our 
 day. But no one can read of the events in this 
 country taking place in the years 1861-1865, but 
 sees if he is thoughtful, that until amid the clash of 
 arms a definite goal was pointed out by the march 
 of events which was as distinctly the divine purpose 
 in the war, as though God said to a new Moses, to 
 
A New Year's Message 1918 177 
 
 tell a modern Pharaoh, "Let my people go." And so 
 one is brought to the conclusion that behind the 
 present conflict there runs a purpose of God, and 
 that the war will not cease until the world recog 
 nizes that purpose and accepts it. 
 
 I suspect that a tabulation of items in this sec 
 ond Emancipation will not bring out any new ma 
 terial, but it may serve to call our attention to cer 
 tain marked events which may let us see that the 
 "charm" in the first line of the little poem above, 
 is operating. 
 
 The war in Europe created a labor-shortage in 
 the north. This awakened a competition for Negro 
 labor. This has led to that exodus of colored labor 
 ers from the south to the north which has given the 
 new opportunity to thousands never before beyond 
 the boundaries of the county in which they were 
 born; it has brought them in contact with new men 
 and new ideas and new standards of living. More 
 than this, it has shown the south the true value of 
 its labor, and for its laborers which must act toward 
 righting conditions which ought to have been righted 
 years ago. For us at least the old law of competi 
 tion is working well. 
 
 The second item is wrapped in the first. If the 
 south after the war is to be as it was before the war, 
 then the recruiting of Negro troops was a mistake. 
 And the second mistake was in sending them north 
 to be trained. 
 
178 Chums and, Brothers 
 
 And the third item grows naturally out of the 
 second. Some of us could have told the fact, but 
 it is now coming out that colored recruits, too many 
 of them, do not know what schooling means. And the 
 country is awaking to the fact through the illiter 
 acy of the men from the south. Said one woman 
 after a visit to a cantonment, "I did not believe it 
 possible for so much ignorance to be gathered to 
 gether." She has not known her problem. It was 
 my fortune to be registrar in the registration of 
 June 5th. And the men who could not sign their 
 names made a sad showing.* The south has neg 
 lected its colored citizens. And the north is now 
 taking notice. And after the war there will be a 
 new school law. The country knows the facts. 
 Never again will it permit such shameful neglect. 
 And it took a war to acquaint the country. 
 
 Since April 2, of the year 1917, four constructive 
 movements have taken place bearing upon the Ne 
 gro. In historic order these are: the colored col 
 lege student movement which resulted in the colored 
 officers' training camp at Fort Des Moines. This 
 movement demonstrates the right of the Negro col 
 lege to exist, a right sometimes denied. Second in 
 order was the appointment of six hundred twenty- 
 four of these cadets to the officers' reserve corps, 
 and their assignment as training officers among the 
 cantonments of the north. All this the writer has 
 dwelt upon in other connections and will not add 
 
A New Years Message 1918 179 
 
 at this time. Next in order, and growing out of 
 the Negro officers and the Negro recruits, was the 
 appointment of Mr. Emmett J. Scott to a position 
 as assistant to the Secretary of War, a position 
 almost within the President's cabinet, as Mr. Scott 
 is thus numbered among the President's advisers. 
 Lastly, come the Supreme Court Decision in the 
 Louisville segregation case. Segregation as prin 
 ciple leading toward the enforced crowding of peo 
 ple in special sections seems to have met its death 
 blow. 
 
 Other items of joyous import for the Negro might 
 be added to these. I quote from a letter recently 
 received from a student-friend: "Just as I begin to 
 feel patriotic and clamoring to do my bit, along 
 comes something which makes me feel as no citizen 
 wishes to feel toward his country. Yet I am an 
 American and am willing and wish to serve my coun 
 try at any price where I can do the most good." 
 
 So the facts gathered in this message for the New 
 Year have sprung out of war conditions. But they 
 will remain after the war is over, and they are the 
 earnest of other steps of progress yet to be made. 
 Surely, we may read the handwriting upon the wall 
 it is hopeful and we may take courage. 
 
FROM THE CANTONMENTS 
 
 ni 
 
 THE first step in good composition," said our 
 English professor, "is the gathering of the ma 
 terial." The letters received from our men in the 
 cantonments illustrate that this first step is being 
 taken by them. Our young men are having experi 
 ences full of interest and which they are describing 
 graphically. These letters seem to me too costly to 
 keep to myself and unless the letter has a too per 
 sonal note I find myself sharing them with their 
 friends and with my friends. And this is not alto 
 gether my own habit, for one of them writes, "Your 
 letter has been read by each of the school comrades 
 with me in camp." A clipping from a northern 
 paper contains the rumor that the 9d division, 
 "our" division, is now undergoing intensive training 
 preparatory for early removal to the western front ; 
 and we may be sure that the letters that we shall be 
 receiving from "somewhere in France," will be drawn 
 out of the new and interesting material that the bat 
 tle-scarred front offers. And this calls up a sug 
 gestion made by the government, as to the quality 
 of our own letters to our boys in cantonment or at 
 
 180 
 
From the Cantonments 181 
 
 the front. "Write to the soldiers," we are told, 
 "but write cheerful letters." Let the soldier feel 
 "that his family and his friends stand behind him in 
 the great enterprise that he has undertaken." 
 
 In the same line I quote from a letter written 
 from the front and recently published. "The evil 
 temptations that surround a camp can best be met 
 by the soldier who feels himself in close touch with the 
 standards of his bringing up, and correspondents 
 will do well to keep the tone of their letters on a 
 plane that will invigorate the morale of their boys 
 in France. . . . Boys who do not hear often from 
 home or who get depressing and commonplace let 
 ters are much more likely to slip or fall than those 
 whose families supply them with constant moral and 
 mental refreshment." And the writer continues, 
 "This advice applies not only to parents and wives 
 but to girl friends who should remember that as our 
 soldiers come closer to the stern realities of life, 
 they mature quickly and judge things more and 
 more by their intrinsic value. When they finally 
 come home they will not be satisfied with the trivi 
 alities that may have come to them before the war. 
 They will be disappointed if they do not find a seri 
 ous mental attitude to correspond with their own 
 maturity of thought." 
 
 The items that come to mind at this time gather 
 around one cantonment, that of Camp Sherman, 
 Ohio. Here the United States has established a Sig- 
 
182 Chums and Brothers 
 
 nal Service Battalion, and in this battalion a goodly 
 number of our own youths have been placed. A 
 good deal that is pleasant has been said about Camp 
 Sherman. One young man writes, "Camp Sherman 
 has been called the ideal camp of America. I rise 
 to confirm this statement. Y. M. C. A. number 75 
 has colored secretaries and is usually considered a 
 Colored Y. M. C. A. ; but any soldier can go to any 
 Y. M. C. A. and sit and read or write or attend any 
 lecture he pleases and not a word of contempt is 
 uttered, nor is any one 'jim-crowed.' The same 
 freedom holds in theaters, in ice-cream parlors, and 
 everywhere. One feels like an American." 
 
 The largeness of the military life from the busi 
 ness side makes a strong appeal to our youth whose 
 business experiences have necessarily been limited. 
 "It is marvelous," writes one, "how our government 
 is able to collect clothes and food for so many and 
 without apparent over-exertion of any one. Yet, 
 here we are by the hundreds, well clothed and well 
 fed, and that regularly, too. But more remarkable 
 is it, how all these men can be compelled to work 
 and how every one down to a single man is accounted 
 for. But in addition to the general army discipline, 
 such as everybody's going to bed or getting up at a 
 certain time, or doing any sort of labor without mur 
 mur, yet the boys of the Signal Corps have experi 
 ences that call for initiative and coolness that are 
 not to be passed over lightly." 
 
From the Cantonments 183 
 
 "For the prime function of the Signal Corps is to 
 TRANSMIT INTELLIGENCE ... and when 
 given a bit of information to find or to transmit, 
 NO EXCUSE will be accepted as a sufficient reason 
 for failure. Just how one will convey his message 
 when his comrades and his apparatus have been 
 wiped out by the enemy depends upon his initiative." 
 
 The writer adds, "I am working harder than I 
 have ever worked in my life. I can take twelve 
 words a minute from a wireless receiver. Fifteen 
 accurately per minute are required. Thirty is the 
 highest record ever made. One of your boys takes 
 eighteen a minute." The wireless signaling has su 
 perseded other forms of signaling at the front, as 
 these expose the sender to the Teuton sniper whose 
 sure aim instantly destroys the hand or head that 
 rises into view. 
 
 Stress is laid upon accuracy in sending messages. 
 "One wrong word inserted may result in the loss 
 of thousands of our comrades. We have a wireless 
 station on the top of our barracks, and the more 
 advanced men get the war, weather, and baseball 
 news directly from the government stations at An 
 napolis and Arlington. We feel proud that our 
 country has entrusted so important an office to us. 
 We shall perform our tasks like men." 
 
 The good feeling which Camp Sherman illustrates 
 is matched by similar good feeling elsewhere. One 
 writer in a published article says of Camp Dodge, 
 
184 Chums and Brothers 
 
 "There is a large contingent of Negro troopers here. 
 It is interesting to note that there has been prac 
 tically no friction resulting from race prejudice. 
 Even the Northern soldiers salute the colored offi 
 cers without any protest." Speaking of this to an 
 officer from another cantonment, he replied, "The 
 same is true of our camp. The relations of the 
 races are perfectly friendly." 
 
 There has just come to hand a photograph of a 
 colored company officered by colored officers. A 
 hundred and thirty men are in the picture, and as 
 they stand with rifle "at rest" each man looks every 
 inch a soldier. This particular picture has a special 
 interest for me for of the four officers, three have 
 been in my own classes, and because of this fact the 
 picture has come to me. And as I look at those 
 faces, each of which looks straight back at me, I 
 can discern individual characteristics despite the 
 uniformity of the khaki which they wear. And there 
 comes again to me with a force I can not measure, 
 the thought that here is Africa defending America ; 
 that portion of our citizenry that has not always 
 felt the full measure of our Democracy still stand 
 ing guard and preparing soon it may be to go over 
 the top in defence of the principles of the Pilgrim 
 and the Puritan. And I am wondering as I con 
 tinue to look at the picture, what shall take the place 
 of "war" in the new world that is to be and that is 
 becoming, that shall unite men and shall build up the 
 
From the Cantonments 185 
 
 sentiment of "loyalty" to country as the fact of war 
 these past twelve months has built up among us. 
 Peace seems to be divisive, to separate men into 
 groups ; war unites. Peace develops group con 
 sciousness, selfishness ; war dissolves all class lines 
 and makes all brothers. There is a striking phrase 
 in a little volume bearing upon the situation in which 
 the world finds itself, which goes after this fashion, 
 "Through that war (1870) France took her soul 
 out of the custody of an Emperor and handed it 
 to her people; through the same war, Germany 
 placed her soul in the hands of an Emperor. De 
 feated France, rid of her Bonapartes; victorious 
 Germany, shackled to her Hohenzollern !" Perhaps 
 America this past year has found its soul. 
 
 I am sure that these men have found their souls. 
 They have made the supreme sacrifice. How soon 
 they may be called upon to carry this out in action 
 none of us can tell. If they come back from France 
 it will be as freemen ; if they do not come back they 
 will have fought to make us free. And so, my broth 
 ers in khaki, trained to be soldiers by my own stu 
 dents, my prayer for you is but a paraphrase of 
 the prayer in the Garden, "not that these should 
 be taken out of the world, or necessarily left in the 
 world; that I leave to circumstance and to the Di 
 vine Will. But, Righteous Father, whether they 
 come back to us or present themselves at the last 
 reveille, may they in either case have been kept from 
 
186 Chwms and Brothers 
 
 the evil of the world, and come to us or to You 
 wearing the 'white flower of a blameless life.' May 
 they possess their souls!" 
 
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE CHURCH 
 
 IN a recent lesson in Sunday School one topic 
 raised the question, "What have Foreign Mis 
 sions done?" Twenty-five phrases characterized 
 this work. Of these I select but one as pertinent 
 to the point I wish to discuss. "Foreign Missions 
 have greatly extended the markets of America by 
 creating in Oriental peoples a thousand appetites 
 which only international trade can supply." This 
 means, I take it, that international trade is one of 
 the by-products of Foreign Missions. 
 
 Sitting in the library a few days ago, I opened 
 a new book on Commercial Geography, and read a 
 sentence like this : "Originally commerce was largely 
 a matter of transporting luxuries; today the com 
 merce of the world is largely devoted to carrying 
 the great staples which enter into our living." And 
 I wondered if this too, were a by-product of Mis 
 sions, and if in a true sense we are less and less 
 exploiting those nations that produce certain luxu 
 ries of our modern life, and are instead exchanging 
 with them for those things which have become their 
 necessities. 
 
 And this calls up a statement which I cannot 
 187 
 
188 Chums and Brothers 
 
 place, in which the speaker asks, "Why should I go 
 to the heart of Africa and try to give to the people 
 there the things of our Western civilization, of 
 which they know nothing and care nothing?" And 
 the answer must be "This will build up international 
 trade." 
 
 Two philosophies are warring in our educational 
 world. The one came to us with the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, university men, some of them, who early 
 established at Cambridge and elsewhere universities 
 of the type with which they were familiar, schools in 
 which the training of the mind and the power of 
 thought was the main object. To a large extent 
 this fundamental purpose still dominates the uni 
 versity life of America. The other philosophy deals 
 with practical efficiency, and with the problems of 
 practical life. In a sense these two schools of edu 
 cational thought are approaching each other. But 
 also in a sense they are widely apart. In a recent 
 educational gathering in this city, at which these 
 two philosophies came into conflict, one speaker re 
 marked with emphasis, "We must remember that 
 the open door in China was forced upon European 
 nations by an American statesman, trained in the 
 American university." 
 
 I confess that as I get a clearer insight into the 
 thought of this newer school, I appreciate more and 
 more its tendencies and its purposes, and I also see, 
 though dimly, the common meeting ground of these 
 
The University and the Church 189 
 
 two schools of educational thought. But I also re 
 mind myself that the situation in which we find our 
 selves at this time seems to have arisen out of wor 
 ship of efficiency and practicality, and the domina 
 tion of things which the German nation so well exem 
 plifies, and which borrowed from Germany has so 
 markedly affected the teaching of today. And I 
 find myself wondering if, after the war closes (if any 
 remnant of our civilization is left when it does 
 close), I say, I wonder if we shall not return to the 
 university idea of the past, when the humanities and 
 literature, and pure philosophy and religion, were 
 the ordinary subjects of the curriculum, with the 
 classics thrown in, all coupled to the notion of high 
 thinking and fine living. 
 
 JBe this as it may, I confess again to feeling that 
 if the people whom the Civil War set free were 
 trained in ideals it was well for them that the schools 
 established by Erastus Cravath at Nashville, by 
 Edmund Asa Ware at Atlanta, and by others in 
 other places, were established by men trained in uni 
 versities whose philosophy was idealistic rather than 
 in our more modern schools whose philosophy tends 
 to the practical. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that the Morrill bill, 
 which is behind the state universities with their em 
 phasis upon practical matters, was passed about 
 the time that the Civil War closed, so that the only 
 type of college that could come to the aid of the 
 
190 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Freedmen was that of the type antedating the war. 
 So we must credit to the schools of that type the 
 initiation of that progress and much of the progress 
 itself of the Negro of which he and his friends are 
 so justly proud. And this progress takes many 
 forms, economic, social, educational, religious. 
 
 And I repeat here something said elsewhere in 
 another connection. Standing upon the steps of 
 Stone Hall, a Southern white man said to me, "This 
 school must mean a good deal to the colored people 
 of Atlanta!" I replied, "This school means much 
 to the white people of Atlanta. In terms of money 
 it is worth a million dollars a year to the city and 
 the state." And this is true of Atlanta because the 
 war had hardly ended before Storrs School, Storrs 
 Church and Atlanta University were presenting, not 
 so much the practical things of life, as the ideal 
 things of life ; and these institutions with their sister 
 institutions have "developed so many appetites" and 
 standards among the Freedmen which only inter 
 state commerce could supply. 
 
 I used this argument once with a shrewd business 
 man, telling him that his business and all business 
 in this country was larger and more profitable be 
 cause of Atlanta University ; I doubt if he appreci 
 ated the statement, but this fact gives warrant, if 
 one is needed, to the demand upon business men that 
 they support and endow these schools for the Freed- 
 men's children and grandchildren. 
 
The University and the Church 191 
 
 The most significant event in the history of At 
 lanta is the opening of Storrs School, on that 
 memorable morning when the colored boys and girls 
 of Atlanta saw a white man carrying in wood to 
 keep them comfortable, and who, having made them 
 warm, opened up their souls to ideals of life and 
 fed those ideals. Such was the influence of that 
 incident and that year, that in the half-century 
 since of the history of Atlanta University, the uni 
 versity has not been able to overcome the tendency 
 of colored folk to settle around Storrs School. And 
 this tendency has made the fourth ward the great 
 colored ward of the city. 
 
 The bit of land on the corner of Houston street 
 and Piedmont avenue is historic ground. It is not 
 too much to say that on that spot was born demo 
 cratic education for Georgia, white and colored. 
 When the American Missionary Association yielded 
 up its claim upon Atlanta University, it generously 
 gave the university all the property around the uni 
 versity to which the association had any claim. It 
 has always been a matter of regret to me that the 
 association could not or did not see its way clear 
 to give to the colored people of Atlanta the site of 
 StorrS School, to be held in perpetuum, for their 
 civic, social and educational betterment. The few 
 thousand dollars received for the property were 
 small in comparison with the preservation to the col- 
 
192 Chums and Brothers 
 
 ored people of a bit of ground so wrought into the 
 fiber of their history. 
 
 If we may accept the statement of Southern writ 
 ers, that the wealth of the Southern states before 
 the war was developed out of the labor of the Ne 
 gro, we must believe that under that regime he was 
 fairly efficient. If we may interpret the cry from 
 the Southland because of the exodus of Negro labor, 
 drawn North by a vacuum in the labor market as 
 evidencing present day efficiency we may perhaps be 
 excused if we think that efficiency comes with the 
 demand. And if so, then we may also rejoice that 
 the first teachers who met the Freedmen and their 
 children touched the sleeping souls of their stu 
 dents and awoke them to ideals. 
 
"BON VOYAGE" 
 
 THE telegram came in May. It said, "Your 
 friends, who have become my friends, have re 
 ceived orders to prepare to leave for some port of 
 embarkation." The telegram told two things, that 
 the same lovable qualities that endeared these youth 
 to us had made friends for them at the cantonment, 
 and that the event for which our boys had been 
 nearly a year in expectation and in preparation was 
 about to occur. I advertised the fact somewhat 
 widely among their friends, and telegram and let 
 ter went promptly across the spaces. Back came 
 a reply, "Our departure has been delayed by conges 
 tion of traffic on the roads and at the terminals." 
 This gave a breathing space, and somehow as the 
 fact stared at us, the courage came to meet it. 
 There was time now for some last things, some mes 
 sages of affection, perhaps some prayers. All at 
 once there came a bunch of cards, mailed en route, 
 and a telegram that came first, but the cards in or 
 der stated, "We are in the station at Chicago being 
 served by the young women of the canteen;" "We 
 are journeying through Canada;" "We have been 
 detained twelve hours at a little town in New York 
 
 193 
 
194 Chums and Brothers 
 
 on a siding, and the town turned out and gave us 
 a royal send-off." The telegram announced the ar 
 rival in New York and being quartered at Camp 
 Upton. That was Saturday, June first. The tele 
 gram reached me Sunday. I sent back a night let 
 ter, "If there is any certainty of your remaining un 
 til the tenth I will see you off," and the reply came 
 back, "Come at once, by Saturday, if possible." 
 
 Now, the boys had come to see us in October and 
 I had said to one of them that if they were in the 
 country in the vacation I would go to see them. 
 And the opportunity was mine. The journey to 
 New York I will not describe, but it seemed as though 
 every interference possible to hinder presented itself. 
 Early Sunday morning I reached the metropolis, 
 and took the first train for Camp Upton. It took 
 four hours and a half to cover the seventy miles 
 across Long Island. We waited an hour and a half 
 at Jamaica and troop train after troop train in 
 endless procession went back empty to the camp. 
 And then came the question, Had these trains con 
 veyed our boys away in the night, had we missed 
 the purpose of our journey and were we too late? 
 And some had gone the night before. Gone! the 
 trains took them somewhere, where, perhaps, they 
 boarded the transports and there waited a day, it 
 may have been a week when, unannounced, the 
 ships slipped from their moorings and under convoy 
 
"Bon Voyage" 195 
 
 ! 
 
 of cruisers and destroyers began the voyage to 
 "some port of France." 
 
 Thus our men from Camp Sherman had slipped 
 out into the night and men from Camp Grant were 
 busied with preparations to leave at midnight, but 
 my welcome at the barracks had a warmth which 
 remains with me still. They were a busy company, 
 these officers, so recently students in our colleges ; 
 the last things were being done to perfect the equip 
 ment. But they were not too busy to look after my 
 creature comforts and three times in twelve hours 
 I ate as soldiers eat and was satisfied. And now 
 and then one gave me a few minutes and we had 
 heart to heart talks, such talks as are possible only 
 in the presence of great movements. And once, 
 "the boy" brought two soldiers' kits and we sat and 
 ate a meal together as we had done many a time 
 before, and it seemed like a sacrament. I must not 
 omit to mention the words of praise for our Georgia 
 boys and the way they carried themselves during 
 the summer at Fort Des Moines. 
 
 At two o'clock Monday morning the two com 
 panies quietly gathered along the street between the 
 buildings, with overcoats and packs. There was 
 no noise, no confusion. These 500 men were be 
 ginning their great adventure and something of sol 
 emnity marked their bearing. And I stood and 
 watched them as they lined up and waited. Two 
 of their officers stood with me, the two boys who 
 
196 Chums and Brothers 
 
 were nearest to me of all that company; they were 
 my own students, and something of the spirit of 
 the men in the street below came to me, and throw 
 ing one arm across the shoulder of each of my 
 boys, I said: "Lads, it seemed last June, and last 
 October as you started for Fort Des Moines or for 
 your cantonments, that I could not let you go, but 
 to-night my feelings have changed. I rejoice to 
 see you enter upon your great work. There are 
 now no unshed tears. I am glad to see you go." 
 And then my own boy piloted me to my lodging 
 place for the night. Then came the drum beats and 
 I knew the men were leaving, and in a few moments 
 I heard the sound of departing trains and the men 
 from Camp Grant were swiftly borne away and no 
 word has yet come as to their progress upon the 
 great ocean and toward France. 
 
 I had missed the men from Camp Sherman: Those 
 from Camp Grant I was with for twelve hours, and 
 I saw them off to France. Monday I spent with 
 the men from Camp Dodge, and I met them all, and 
 with most of them I had a chance for a real con 
 versation, and a conversation takes time. Again 
 I ate with soldiers as a soldier, and at these meals 
 I met and exchanged ideas with officers that I was 
 not likely to have met under other circumstances. 
 I spent several hours upon the training field and 
 saw our own student-officers training their own men. 
 Perhaps I should say watching their men, for the 
 
"Bon Voyage" 197 
 
 drill was being left to the non-commissioned offi 
 cers. I saw, therefore, not our own men training 
 but the results of their training. I was pleased with 
 what I saw. I had to be. I recall that a group 
 of officers and myself were watching an evolution 
 when I noticed a double rank of men, thirty-two 
 abreast, bearing down upon us. I wondered what 
 must happen, for we were manifestly in their way, 
 and I confess to an impulse to run. But as the 
 platoons were not more than three feet away then 
 rang out a sharp command which might have been 
 "to the right, march,'* and the men instantly de 
 ployed in double file at right angle to their previ 
 ous direction and we were safe. I was especially 
 pleased with the attitude of the officers toward the 
 men. I recall a "right wheel" that worked badly, 
 for at the word "halt" the line was curved and not 
 straight. And the sergeant in command in a most 
 patient and kindly way explained how it happened 
 I think the fault lay with the man around whom 
 the wheel is made I think he should lose a step, 
 but I am not military enough to be sure; however, 
 the courteous manner of the officer remains with me, 
 though the instructions do not, and the men a moment 
 later repeated the movement, and "halt" came to a 
 perfect alignment. 
 
 Something of this I had seen before. The next 
 was the bayonet drill and this had a curious inter 
 est, and as the bayonets were in their sheaths this 
 
198 Chums cmd Brotlwrs 
 
 seemed only a variation of rifle practice. But later 
 I found a group drilling with naked bayonets upon 
 dummies and here the real intent of the bayonet was 
 made evident. I will not attempt a description. It 
 stands out the most distinct item of the day. And 
 I am sure that if to those men comes the chance 
 "to bayonet" or to "be bayonetted" they will take 
 the initiative. 
 
 And what I saw at Camp Upton I doubt not is 
 being rehearsed somewhere in France to-day for the 
 Camp Dodge men who left during the week, and they 
 with their confreres from Camps Grant, Sherman, 
 Dix and Meade are a part of the million and more 
 of American soldiers now in France, and I find my 
 self jubilant over the fact that they count in the 
 army fighting for world-liberty. And my prayer 
 for them now is the old prayer with a new phrase 
 "that these Thy sons and our sons, this particular 
 group, may have an opportunity for a service so 
 significant that it shall stand out and be recognized 
 as the nations of the world gather around the 
 peace table and debate the great questions there to 
 be adjusted." 
 
 NOTE: Since this article was written the Red- 
 Cross card stating that "the ship on which I sailed 
 has safely arrived over-seas" has been received. 
 These cards are posted as the men enter the trans 
 ports, and so far as I know, there is no limit to 
 the number each may post. They are mailed from 
 
Voyage" 199 
 
 the port of embarkation as soon as word is received 
 of the safe arrival of the ship abroad. They thus 
 reach the persons addressed at least two weeks be 
 fore a letter can come. These cards are mailed 
 without postage. The first word to me from abroad 
 is dated June 23rd, and was just three weeks in com 
 ing across. So the Red Cross cards precede any 
 personal communication by more than two weeks. 
 The comfort of thus early knowing that our sons 
 had safely passed through the war zone is not meas 
 ured in words. They and their men are now com 
 pleting their training in France. They can hardlv 
 enter the second division of the American army, the 
 second 250,000 to be ready for the firing line by 
 the middle of August, but they may be a part of 
 the third division and ready for the front in the 
 fall. 
 
WITH THE MEN IN KHAKI 
 
 MOST of us would be willing doubtless if once in 
 a while with the other things we slough off, we 
 could slough off our personal identity. And yet 
 there are times when we are glad that through the 
 passing years we retain enough of ourselves to re 
 mind our friends that we are the same selves in a 
 true sense that we were. And so as I stepped off 
 the train ; and the boy now grown to man met me I 
 was glad that despite the ten years that had elapsed 
 since we parted, and despite the disguise in the shape 
 of the uniform of an army "Y" secretary that he 
 wore, enough remained of the lad that I had known 
 to identify him and as we clasped hands the decade 
 of years slipped out of sight and we took up our 
 friendship at the point where it had broken off. 
 
 A well-groomed machine took us quickly over the 
 good roads and the six or seven miles to the canton 
 ment and having been stopped by the guard that 
 looked upon me disapprovingly, but accepted the au 
 thority of the "Y" secretary we shortly found our 
 selves at the Y. M. C. A. building. I had written 
 the "boy" that I could eat off a "kit" and sleep on a 
 "cot" but as I looked upon the little room set apart 
 
 200 
 
With the Men in Khaki 201 
 
 for my use and, noted the flood of light through its 
 three windows, the simple but effective furnishings, 
 and the shelves filled with books whose titles made me 
 long to read their pages, and the wish came that 
 the forty-eight hours of my visit might be forty-eight 
 days. My room opened upon the auditorium and 
 every time I passed through I saw a dozen or more 
 men in khaki writing letters. In many cases it seem 
 ed a struggle, and as I glanced at the pages, the 
 handwriting was crude and unformed. But they 
 were getting the letter-writing habit, and each let 
 ter would get somewhere and tell some one not only 
 the happenings of the day or the week, but by word 
 or by implication tell the receiver of the love and 
 remembrance of the writer. 
 
 I was a little disappointed at the meals to find 
 that the secretaries do not eat out of kits. But the 
 table furnishings were exceedingly simple, and the 
 meals I ate those days at the barracks seemed like 
 a prolonged picnic. And I am wondering now, as I 
 reflect upon the simplicity of our catering, and yet 
 its satisfactory nature, each meal marked by com 
 radeship with men having an exalted mission, if 
 it is worth while to make so much of creature- 
 comforts. Perhaps one outcome of the war will be a 
 return to a more simple life. 
 
 After breakfast I was invited to the morning con 
 ference of the secretaries. Here I found I had met 
 three out of the five present, the force being short 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 by one man who had been sent to another camp. 
 After a brief religious service, a discussion arose as 
 to the carrying on the work of the absent man until 
 his successor came, and it was enheartening to note 
 the team work, as each offered to do not a little but 
 as much as possible of the work. After this with the 
 "boy" I went to a barracks where the men were in 
 terned ; he carried with him " Y" papers and envelopes 
 and stamps to sell. As we entered the mess hall the 
 men lined up. Each bought several stamps. Many 
 bought stamp books; all took sheets of paper and 
 envelopes and I inferred that on that Saturday and 
 Sunday those men were sending last messages home 
 just prior to being entrained for some port of 
 embarkation, and thence to "somewhere in France." 
 
 That Saturday afternoon I watched a baseball 
 game between teams of competing regiments. The 
 sun stood at 99 degrees and the white sand of the 
 parade ground made looking difficult. But I stood 
 out a large part of the game and I saw something 
 that I had never seen before. The batter made a 
 home run to have it counted "foul" ; made a similar 
 strike and a home run to have that likewise a "foul" ; 
 and then lost out on three strikes. But even more 
 interesting to me was it to watch the athletic 
 director of the "Y," and I decided that if I only 
 could do it, that would be the work I would like. 
 
 But after supper, I stood near the business man 
 ager's desk and watched him play the "big brother" 
 
With the Men m Khaki 203 
 
 to so many who seemed to need a big brother that 
 to be business manager seemed to me the position of 
 positions. And for a few minutes I played the part. 
 A burly fellow, an overgrown boy, held up a stamp 
 from which the sweat of his body had removed all 
 the mucilage. In a helpless way he had hunted for 
 the glue-bottle; the director was busy. So he 
 looked at me; and I said "wait," and I went to my 
 grip, got out a tube of paste and helped him out. 
 And that act of good will classified me, and a dozen 
 other men came up with stamps that would not stick 
 for a similar courtesy. The last man brought up a 
 bundle and asked me to stick on a "Y" letter head 
 on which he had placed an address. I made a more 
 shipshape bundle for him, sighed as I noted the size 
 of the paper and the smallness of my tube of paste, 
 but put the address in place, and then printed the 
 same more legibly. He looked at me without vocal 
 thanks, but with an air of relief, and said: "You 
 will send it off at once, won't you?" As I looked 
 at the hundreds of similar bundles piled in the gath 
 ering room I felt doubtful, but said : "Speak to the 
 director." 
 
 This brought up an experience the day that I was 
 "registrar without pay." A mother brought her son 
 to be registered and having shown that he had weak 
 eyes, and a weak heart and was weak-kneed also, she 
 said, as though I was the court of last resort, "You 
 will not send him away from me, will you?" 
 
204 Chwms and Brothers 
 
 It being Saturday, the evening entertainment was 
 in the hands of the men themselves. The auditorium 
 was filled. I sat on one side and noted that amid 
 all the hurly burly two men in the center of the hall 
 kept writing letters. I could not have done it. 
 There were solos and quartettes ; one young fellow 
 walked a loose wire to our edification, and finally 
 lay down upon it as though to sleep. Then he got 
 up, sat upon a hoop and rolled back and forth until 
 he rolled off. But the stunt of stunts that captured 
 the audience was the boxing. I have thought that 
 the interest for the boxers lay in the boxing gloves 
 that were tied onto their hands. Perhaps they obeyed 
 the Marquis of Queensbury's rules. But they ad 
 vanced and retreated, and ducked and punched, and 
 when one gave a good blow he was roundly cheered. 
 
 Is it that war and religion have a common ele 
 ment? Was it a Sunday habit? or was it the social 
 instinct that brought so many to Sunday school the 
 next morning? The building secretary did a daring 
 thing. He called all the men who could not read or 
 write, or who were in the First Reader to the plat 
 form where he could meet them in class. And they 
 came. The others were gathered in groups accord 
 ing to their school grades, and the chaplain took a 
 large class of low grade, too large a class to be a 
 credit to the state that has given such limited op 
 portunities. The most mature class 7th and 8th 
 grades was given to me. The lesson was upon the 
 
With the Men m Khaki 205 
 
 Good Samaritan. After one or two trials to get 
 together, we read verse by verse, and the men read 
 well. When we came to the priest, I asked why he 
 did as he did. There was no lack of reasons rele 
 vant and irrelevant. Finally one soldier said and 
 I can see him now "Perhaps he drew the social line 
 upon the man." That answer seemed to interest 
 the class. I confessed the thought was new to me; 
 I knew the feeling toward Samaritans, and that 
 pious Jews had no social dealings with publicans 
 and sinners, but among themselves did the priestly 
 class and the Levites have only business relations 
 with the merchants and farmers? So I suggested 
 that the action of both priest and Levite may have 
 been due to fear from the possible nearness of the 
 thieves. Then we counted up the number of things 
 the Samaritan did. It is a goodly number, and sur 
 prised the class. Then the question came, What 
 did the Samaritan forget to do? The man who gave 
 the answer above spoke up, "He did not forget any 
 thing." "It seems to me," I said, "that he forgot 
 to draw the social line from your answer; and from 
 mine, he forgot to be afraid." In reply to the ques 
 tion, who is my neighbor? we repeated twice the verse 
 of my childhood: 
 
 "Who is my neighbor? He who needs 
 
 The help that I can give; 
 And all the law and prophets say, 
 This do and thou shalt live." 
 
206 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Finally I put this question, What is the easiest 
 thing in the world to do? The man who had an 
 swered my other questions spoke up quickly, "To be 
 good." "No," was my reply, "that is the hardest 
 thing. To make friends is the easiest thing. A 
 kindly look, a handshake, a gentle word, an act of 
 good will are enough. And if this is so why is it 
 that we are so prone to make enemies?" and there 
 the lesson ended. 
 
 The Sunday School closed with a bit of evangel 
 ism. Under these new surroundings, with this great 
 body of men more or less strangers, facing military 
 drill and the certainty of being sometime at the 
 front, the deeper problems of life must appeal to 
 these fellows as never before. And to the invitation 
 of the religious secretary to declare themselves, both 
 at the Sunday School and at the evening service, a 
 dozen or more men came forward to give the hand 
 of fellowship, and the act was cemented as far as may 
 be by giving a pocket testament, which each received 
 after filling out a card, with the name, the address, 
 the church and the pastor. With this the secre 
 tary put the pastor in touch with the man and thus 
 a line of connection was opened. As I observed this 
 twice that Sunday, I wondered if the work of the 
 religious secretary might not be the most inter 
 esting. 
 
 I was a little nervous over the afternoon and that 
 brings in a little story. I had met two lieutenants, 
 
With tJie Men in Khaki 207 
 
 for strange to say, in this southern cantonment two 
 men, both college men, had risen from stevedores 
 to second lieutenants by sheer force of merit. They 
 were strong fellows and twice I had long talks with 
 each. And one of them had chanced to say that 
 the men were a hard audience to speak to. "You 
 can call them together, but you must put the 'pep' 
 into what you say or they will get up and leave you." 
 Did he know that I was to speak that afternoon, 
 and was he giving me a little advice in advance? I 
 told the fellows that story which seems to me one of 
 the most significant items in the history following 
 President Wilson's declaration of war, the story of 
 the student movement that gave us first the O. T. C. 
 at Fort Des Moines, then the 626 commissions ; then 
 the return of our commissioned officers as training- 
 officers in the various cantonments; then their gath 
 ering at Camp Upton in June ; and lastly their trans 
 fer overseas, where they are now training to go to 
 the front. At the close I showed the picture of the 
 183rd brigade at Camp Grant, a picture full of 
 light and arrested motion ; of its kind I have seen 
 none better. They crowded around it eagerly. At 
 the last one asked, "Are the officers all our men?" 
 "All the line officers are your men," was the reply. 
 "They are fairer to us up there than down here." 
 I had to say, "Yes." 
 
 I had another opportunity to watch the men that 
 afternoon as a long procession marched past the 
 
08 Chums and Brothers 
 
 business secretary to purchase stamps. Many let 
 ters were written home that Sunday. I saw one 
 man with three. I said to him, "Those will cost you 
 nine cents. You cannot afford to write so many 
 letters. Think how many cigarettes you might have 
 bought with that money!" 
 
 "I do not smoke," he said, "nor chew, and so I 
 can write all the letters I wish." By this time a 
 little group was listening as I went on, "Good. 
 When you get over there you can mail your letters 
 free of postage. Remember that your friends here 
 are as eager to hear from you as you are to hear 
 from them. Write them often." 
 
 That evening the building secretary took us in 
 his machine around the camp. It is one of the larg 
 est, being planned for 100,000 men. What im 
 pressed me was not so much the bigness the rifle 
 range is twenty miles long as a certain air of per 
 manence and I remarked to my friends, "The govern 
 ment is not only in the business of preparedness, but 
 is in it to stay. Never again shall we be caught 
 unprepared." 
 
 After the evening service the "boy" and I walked 
 out in the lighted streets, and finally strolled into 
 the A. L. A. Library. Opposite the entrance were 
 shelves of books marked Technical. Glancing at the 
 titles, they were books on aviation, on gas engines, 
 automobiles, explosives, munitions of war, books I 
 had not heard of and of which there were manv 
 
With the Men m Khaki 209 
 
 duplicates for the use of the men. The Librarian 
 told us that there were more of these than any other 
 group. In contrast to these were the first readers 
 for men taking their first lessons in books. These 
 are the limits. One item was the 60 or more geome 
 tries always in use in the O. T. C. by men studying 
 for examination necessary to their commissions. I 
 reflected that this side of the library seemed adapted 
 to one group and not the other. Yet I could but 
 hope the time was coming when this inequality might 
 be adjusted. 
 
 As we sat together late that night, I thought much 
 of the men and the secretaries; what it must mean 
 to these soldiers, gathered from so many localities, 
 many of them of limited education and advantages, 
 to meet these six secretaries, each touching them at 
 a dozen different points, as they realize that these 
 are not working them but are working with them 
 and for them. 
 
 Nothing, however, was said on this line. We read 
 two or three short prayers, and separated for the 
 night. Early the next morning we said our last 
 words of "Good-bye" at the station, the "boy" went 
 back to the camp and I continued my journey, feel 
 ing that I was closing a wonderful experience, one 
 that I would not willingly have dropped out of an 
 interesting summer. 
 
FROM "OVERSEAS" 
 
 IT was six weeks after seeing the men off to 
 France in June, before any word was received 
 from them. Even the Red Cross cards were 
 strangely belated. After letters began to come they 
 came with a pleasing frequency, though these were 
 received weeks after they were written. They were 
 in the main fragmentary and always dated "Some 
 where in France." In August, the newspapers gave 
 more information so that I was able to locate our 
 lads in the Vosges mountains and we wrote them 
 that we knew where they were. After this the let 
 ters were a little more specific. The writers felt 
 authorized in telling us as much as we already knew. 
 When I saw that these men from the R.O.T.C. 
 were censoring their own letters I was more than 
 pleased to note that no information leaked out 
 through their correspondence. Until the War De 
 partment told the world where the 92d Division 
 was, their position and their actions overseas were 
 absolutely unknown. 
 
 The possibilities of unintentional information be 
 ing given out is illustrated in the case of a white 
 lieutenant who wrote his mother that in a canteen 
 
 210 
 
From "Overseas" 
 
 he had been waited upon by Mrs. Vincent Astor. 
 At that time that lady was known to be near Bor 
 deaux and we came to the conclusion rather fairly 
 that his division was located near that city. 
 
 This group of letters was written after the armi 
 stice was signed and our young men could write 
 freely. These lads had had a wonderful experience 
 and were feeling the first freedom from the duty of 
 censorship. As these letters came, we shared them 
 with one another ; they were too costly to be kept to 
 one's self. The letters to students have a frank 
 ness not only in the letters themselves but in the 
 diction, which is freer than in the letters addressed 
 to me. This gives them an added interest. 
 
 Pont-a-Mousson, France, 
 Hq. Co. K, 365th Inf., 
 A.P.O. 766, A.E.F., 
 24 November, 1918. 
 
 dear Father: 
 
 Today is "Dad Day" with us when every 
 soldier is asked to write a letter to his father. Just 
 a short itinerary of my sojourn in France. After 
 leaving the port of Hoboken, N. J., June 10, 1918, 
 I spent twelve days on the deep blue ocean. We 
 landed at Brest, France, the port from which Caesar 
 is said to have sailed for England. There we re 
 mained three days in a rest camp. Then we de- 
 
212 Chums and Brothers 
 
 parted for our first training area, twenty-eight miles 
 southeast of Chamont. 
 
 After three days' travel over French railroads in 
 box cars, we arrived at Bourbon Les Bains, from 
 which we walked 8 miles to Parnot where we were 
 billeted. Here we spent some busy, happy days. 
 The people were very hospitable and kind and they 
 did all in their power to make us happy after those 
 hard, strenuous days on the drill ground and ma 
 noeuvre field. After seven weeks of training we went 
 into the front line trenches. There we worked for 
 a few days with the French before taking the 
 trenches alone. St. Die was where the Division Head 
 quarters were located. From all information that 
 we could ascertain, our company was the first of 
 the 92d Division to occupy the front line trenches. 
 The officers present at that time were Capt. Echols, 
 Lieuts. Burgess, Smith, Nelson and Peters. Here I 
 had my first experiences with a patrol in "No Man's 
 Land." After spending 22 days in the front line 
 and 11 days in the support, our division was re 
 lieved to assist the new commander in any details 
 desired. After 24 hours I marched 8 kilometers to 
 St. Die. I joined the company about 4 o'clock 
 P.M. and then the company left St. Die at 5:30. 
 We hiked 45 kilometers to Lavaline. It was a stren 
 uous hike and many fell out. The next morning we 
 took a train for Givry in the Argonne Forest. 
 
 Our Battalion was detailed to follow up the ad- 
 
From "Overseas" 
 
 vance with the 77th Division. Here we encountered 
 a few Germans but with no losses. At this time, 
 T was detailed to attend a School of Arms at Gon- 
 drecourt. I visited St. Dozier and Toul before my 
 arrival there. 
 
 Here I spent a wonderful month in study and 
 work. Then I returned to the Marbach sector 
 
 where I found my company on X hill south of 
 
 Metz, with the enemy three hundred yards away in 
 Bois de Frehaut and- Bois de la Voivrette. After 
 a day or two Capt. Echols took charge of the Bat 
 talion as the Bn. Commander was gassed. Lieut. 
 Burgess and the other officers were gassed, leaving 
 me alone with the company. The orders came to 
 go over the top, and I had the chance and opportu 
 nity for which you had longed. With a company 
 of two hundred strong and a Sgt. in second com 
 mand, I led my company over the top. When the 
 armistice was signed we were pressing on the final 
 drive for Peace. My men were in Bois de Frehaut, a 
 previous German position. This is your Christmas 
 letter. We are now resting in Pont-a-Mousson. 
 
 Just a little secret to you. I was again recom 
 mended for promotion, on Nov. . However, there 
 will be no more promotions according to the War 
 Department. 
 
 YOUR SON. 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 Headquarters, 1st Bn. 365th Inf., 
 
 A.P.O. 766, 
 Amberieu, France. 
 . Webster: 
 
 You cannot imagine how much your most in 
 teresting letter of Dec. 4 pleased me. It found me 
 well and enjoying what we term our last days in 
 beautiful France. 
 
 The horrors of war are over and everyone is 
 watching with interest -the Great Peace Conference 
 and the result of the same. But to the anxious sol 
 dier of the A.E.F. comes the question, "When is it 
 our turn to start for America to see the loved ones 
 left behind?" Yet we are anxious to see the results 
 of the great cause we fought for and for which so 
 many of our brave comrades died. 
 
 We are blessed at this time with good Y. M. C. A. 
 workers and they are doing their bit to make the 
 anxious boys happy; on January 1, my good col 
 lege President Hope was my guest for New Year's 
 dinner and how happy I was to have him! Dur 
 ing the conversation he spoke of the splendid work 
 of the boys of the Atlanta schools and of course it 
 was with deep regret we had to mention our dear 
 comrades, Rush and Canady. God bless their fam 
 ilies and the great cause for which they died ! 
 
 You spoke of our dear Harry commanding Co. 
 K. in the first line the day the armistice was signed. 
 Yes, it is true, and not only that, he commanded 
 
From "Overseas" 215 
 
 that company with only the assistance of N.C.O.'s 
 for twelve days in one of the most dangerous posi 
 tions in the sector. Yes, Harry is a good soldier 
 and a leader of men and when he returns to you and 
 to his school, you can say, "Here is a commander 
 that won the affection of not only the men of his 
 company, but of the entire Battalion of which he 
 was a member, and of the members of other Battal 
 ions that knew him." 
 
 Yes, I know just how anxious those young men 
 of the S.A.T.C. were to join their brothers in France 
 to put a crushing blow on the Boche, but they did 
 as you told them. They did their bit. 
 
 We have a wonderful major for Battalion Com 
 mander. He is a young man just S9 years old, but 
 a wonderful man, with brilliant ideas, and a real 
 "American," a real brother. Yes, we love him; he 
 has been with us only since the armistice was signed 
 but no better time when men were worn with the hor 
 rors of war could they have sent us such a blessing. 
 He dines with us and discusses questions and gives 
 his ideas. He is a lawyer and has been in the leg 
 islature of - - (a southern state). He is a man 
 born with new ideas of Democracy for all men. He 
 read to us at supper a few nights ago his platform 
 and among the things he put concerning colored peo 
 ple, were better schools and higher grades, their 
 rights as citizens, and justice by law. 
 
 We hope to be home soon, just when we do not 
 
(216 Chums and Brothers 
 
 know. But it won't be long. Then we can chat in 
 a more general manner about conditions and future 
 happenings. America would be a fine place to live 
 in and men would be proud of her if such men as 
 the young lawyer I mentioned came out for real De 
 mocracy and not for a sham. 
 
 Feel proud of your boys who have been in the 
 great war and of those who were willing, those dear 
 mothers, wives and other relatives who have had to 
 suffer. They should be proud of their boys, for 
 great was the cause for which their boys fought. 
 
 I must tell you this for fear that I will forget 
 it. An officer in our regiment was in the hospital. 
 He had to censor a letter from a white private from 
 Alabama. And in the letter were these words, 
 "Mamma, I am in the hospital with a number of 
 Negroes. Of course I have to wait on them and they 
 wait on us, and some of our boys are in bad con 
 dition. But the wonderful patience they have ! and 
 how they wish to share with us! I am a changed 
 boy. I shall always treat the colored man more as a 
 brother when I return, and whenever I have a chance 
 to say a good word for him, I will do it." 
 
 I have had wonderful experiences and we wonder 
 if we shall ever relate all of them or shall we for 
 get some. 
 
 "Bonne Annee pour vous et famille." 
 
 Yours, 
 
 LIEUT. . 
 
From "Overseas" 217 
 
 France, 
 
 October 26, 1918. 
 TV/T Y dear friend Bert: 
 
 l^A Your most interesting letter of a few weeks 
 ago was received. I was over-rej oiced to receive 
 your letter, being in the front line where everything 
 from home is good and a place where a piece of news 
 paper with just six English lines is cherished. 
 
 Bert, my dear old pal, I just can picture you and 
 myself for a good time when I return. I long for 
 that day of real good times that we used to have, 
 the days that have passed and gone. 
 
 Here is wishing you the very best of success in 
 the Officers' Training Camp and hoping that you 
 will not have to come to the trenches; it is enough 
 for one pal to be in this war and the other to keep 
 the home fires burning until the other return or 
 "partee tout suite. 9 ' Comprenez? Wee! Wee! 
 
 It is my hope and desire to be just as the words 
 you quoted. I have seen quite a bit of beautiful 
 France. I have been on many a battle-field, under 
 all sorts of barrages and heavy artillery fire and 
 thus far I am safe and sound. It is the marvelous 
 work of "Our Maker." Harry is a dear boy. I 
 just had a letter from him to-day; he is so thought 
 ful. I would that I was as good as he. He is an 
 ideal young man. One worthy of the best that there 
 is in life; he will rejoin us in a few days. 
 
 I feel ashamed that I have not written Prof. 
 
218 Chums and Brothers 
 
 Webster and a number of other dear friends, but 
 the time has not permitted me. My work requires 
 me on the job at all times. There is no relief for 
 me except when the Division rests and that is not 
 often. 
 
 We hope to end this war soon, so that no more 
 of our boys will have to come over to take hands in 
 this dastard struggle. 
 
 The Intelligence work is most interesting ; it deals 
 directly with the enemy. 
 
 An American soldier who is doing his bit, is a sol 
 dier whether he be an officer or an enlisted man. 
 Do not think that I would push you aside because 
 I am an officer. He who stood by me when fire was 
 its heaviest, and who, under the heaviest fire on a 
 certain sector for four years, went with me for a 
 kilometer and a half, was no other than my orderly, 
 and I love him. 
 
 I have a staff of my own ; a fine bunch of chaps ; 
 two sergeants, one corporal and three privates 
 whom I have slept and eaten with for the last two 
 months. These chaps are real workers ; they stick 
 with me to the last. We have had hard work but 
 not as yet has a complaint come against us. I have 
 direct charge of 83 men with the aid of the staff 
 mentioned above. I hope to be able to send you some 
 of the samples of my work. 
 
 Now that it is school time and I am sure that 
 everything is in its bloom, I wish I was there. I 
 
From "Overseas" 219 
 
 should like so much to see a real good foot-ball game 
 Thanksgiving; but the game for us will be against 
 the Boche, and the score will be in our favor. 
 
 Could you imagine for 29 days in a certain sec 
 tor, I did not pull my shoes off except for a bath 
 and not again for 16 days? 
 
 I have made and studied maps, so that when I 
 sleep, I see them. I even talk about them in my 
 sleep. I hope to be able to continue this work when 
 I return. It is my joy. 
 
 It was just at the break of day on the morn of 
 - when I was ordered by the Battalion Com 
 mander to get information from our line, when a 
 barrage of a box kind was put down and all com 
 munication was cut off from our front line. Shells 
 were falling from all directions but I succeeded in 
 reaching my objective; we were then able to com 
 municate over wire, a message for support was sent. 
 As I was returning and the shelling was still heavy, 
 I met a Sergeant in command of a platoon going 
 with the speed that was at his command to the as 
 sistance of the Co. on the right flank. I smiled as 
 he passed; his passing remarks were: "Lieut., here 
 is your platoon going to their comrades' assistance; 
 we saw you go by and we remarked that if you did, 
 we would be your living image and we will do it." 
 It was my platoon when I was in the Company and 
 since I have been on the staff, this Sgt. has com 
 manded the platoon with a soldierly quality and he 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 was highly praised by the Regiment and by Com 
 manders. I love this lad for he did my will. We 
 then went into other sectors and he continued and 
 finally, in this sector, when he was inspecting his po 
 sition, he was killed by a heavy shell from the enemy. 
 My soul is sad, for he was a good man. A part of 
 my happiness is now buried with him, I had the ut 
 most confidence in his leadership. Thus is life 
 for soldiers. How many such good men have fallen 
 for the cause of their country! We that are spared 
 to see this day, we know not when our turn will 
 come. I am sad when I write of my dear boy, but 
 I love to tell the story of such a good man. 
 
 Bert, my dear Pal, remember me to all the boys 
 and girls and to your dear mother, father and fam 
 ily. Just a prayer for our black boys over here 
 with the tortures of war and the things we had to 
 contend with at home. 
 
 May the "God of Heaven" right this world, not 
 only the German people, but our own free-born 
 Americans ; and may Democracy pull off her clothes 
 of hypocrisy. 
 
 I would that I could tell you all that I want to. 
 
 Regards to all. 
 
 I am your Pal, 
 
 CHAS. 
 
From "Overseas" 221 
 
 Metz, Germany, Dec. 5, 1918. 
 
 DEAR Pal: 
 It is indeed a pleasure to write you at this 
 time. I wrote you a letter some time ago, but due 
 to congestion and delayed mail service, I am in doubt 
 as to whether you received it or not. Hope you 
 and the bunch are getting along all O. K. How are 
 Thomp, Stinson, White and the other fellows? Give 
 them my best regards. Would have written the fel 
 lows but have been almost too busy to sleep at 
 times. Tell them all to write a few lines. My re 
 gards to the class of '20. Guess you are all very 
 happy over the defeat of Kaiserism. We are feeling 
 a bit proud over here. And I am indeed glad that 
 I had a real active hand in helping to settle up the 
 fuss ; and very fortunate for me, that I am still alive 
 and have not lost any of my limbs, only received 
 one slight shrapnel wound, which did not amount to 
 much. Was only in hospital a short while. But 
 during our five days' stay on the firing line, the first 
 time up, we were certainly highly entertained by 
 the Huns. I was Bn. Gas N.C.O. and that was some 
 job; was slightly gassed twice, but nothing serious 
 resulted. My health is better now than any other 
 time since I have been over. 
 
 I was in the U.S. Technical Gas School 15 days, 
 received quite a deal of instruction in warfare gas- 
 defence. This trip provided an opportunity for me 
 
222 Chums and Brothers 
 
 to visit Paris a short while and I am crazy about 
 that Burg, the most beautiful city that I have ever 
 seen. Why, it is really a dream, full of "Pep," styles, 
 and fine-looking French girls. 
 
 I have had a chance to visit quite a few of the 
 European cities. We landed in Liverpool, England, 
 went to Southampton, London, and other small Eng 
 lish towns, before crossing the channel coming into 
 France. France and England are two real coun 
 tries, they measure up to everything that I have 
 heard about them. A man is really treated as a 
 man over here. No discriminations in any form; 
 we go anywhere and everywhere we want to, and 
 the people are very kind and generous. And the 
 French girls are very beautiful. They are kind, 
 friendly and affectionate. While in Paris I visited 
 some of the largest hotels, theaters and museums, 
 was given the same courtesy, attention and welcome 
 as any other soldier. I really like it well enough to 
 stay here. But one disadvantage, I cannot speak 
 this language. Just a few simple words in my vo 
 cabulary. And unless some of these American sol 
 diers poison this country with prejudice, I will al 
 ways have the highest respect for it, because it is 
 really some country. The white American chaps 
 are very friendly and kind now. We all use the 
 same "Y's" over here, and ofttimes they are joining 
 in with the colored soldiers telling each other about 
 their front line experiences. We are expecting to 
 
From "Overseas 99 
 
 leave Metz in a few days but do not know where we 
 are going. It will probably happen that we will be 
 homeward bound real soon. Tell Thomp cham 
 pagne is almost as free as water over here, also wine 
 costs only from 5 to 15 francs. Well, write me the 
 news real soon. Sincerely your Pal, 
 
 Sgt. - - 
 Hdqs. Co., 802 Pioneer Infantry, 
 
 A. E. F., France. 
 
 Oisseau, April 14, 19 . 
 
 1% /f Y dear Friend: 
 
 *** Yesterday, I have received your letter 
 dated of the March 24. I am very glad to know 
 how you do and that you are returned in Atlanta. 
 Much American officers and soldiers write to Ois 
 seau, but I have not received letter of Lieutenant 
 Smith. I hope that he is not ill. 
 
 If it is a pleasure to write me, it is also a very 
 great pleasure to read you. My father and mother 
 and myself, we have kept a good souvenir of you. 
 Often we think and speak about you. Your stay 
 at Oisseau has not been long enough, because dur 
 ing this time we have had much pleasure, we shall 
 not forget the good moments that we have passed 
 with you, but you must be glad to be returned in 
 Atlanta with your soldiers and your scholars will 
 be glad to see you again. 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 Remember me kindly to your "fiancee" and the 
 Lieutenant Smith if you see him. All my family is 
 well. If there are faults in this letter, forgive me. 
 Answer at an early date. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 NOTE: This letter with its naive recognition of faulty Eng 
 lish tells better than words of the pleasant relations that 
 existed between the French people and the colored officers, and 
 in many cases the colored soldiers. One cannot but recognize 
 how happy our Negro men "overseas" were to be in a land 
 where their African blood was not a necessary interference to 
 good comradeship. 
 
THE MOTHER COUNTRY 
 
 My native country, thee, 
 Land of the noble, free, 
 Thy name I love. 
 
 IT was on the second day of December, four weeks 
 after the armistice was signed, that I received 
 the following message from Washington: "Deeply 
 regret to inform you that Second Lieutenant - 
 Infantry is officially reported as missing in action 
 since October tenth. Fuller information when re 
 ceived." 
 
 Asking that a copy of the telegram be mailed to 
 me, I turned to the secretary, gave her the purport 
 of the telegram, and said, "Fortunately I know 
 where the boy was and is, for at the time he is re 
 ported missing he was in a school of Advanced Mili 
 tary Practice at Gondrecourt, later, he was with 
 his men as acting captain, and led them 'over the 
 top,' and was in charge of them on the firing line 
 when the armistice went into effect." 
 
 That night I telegraphed: 
 
 "Harris, Adjutant General, Washington, D. C. 
 Your telegram reporting Second Lieutenant - 
 missing received. The report is incorrect, as I have 
 
 225 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 advices from him as to his whereabouts at the time 
 reported as missing and since." 
 
 On December 11, the following despatch was re 
 ceived from the Adjutant General's office: "Cabled 
 
 for information concerning Second Lieutenant . 
 
 Will advise report when received." 
 
 This second word from the busy offices of the 
 capital city moved me more than the first one; it 
 showed behind the awful facts of desolating war, 
 the Mother Country trying to keep in touch with 
 those of us whose sons and brothers were in some 
 way "put out of the fight," and to let us know as 
 early as might be how it went with the soldier-boy 
 who had made, or was likely to make, the supreme 
 sacrifice, or who was as in this case, "missing in ac 
 tion." 
 
 The publication of the report in the local press 
 was the occasion of telephone calls and notes from 
 friends of the lad, and it was with great satisfac 
 tion that I could always reply, "The report is a 
 mistake. The boy is alive and well and with his 
 men." 
 
 This does not end the story. On January 31 
 there came a third telegram signed "Harris, Adju 
 tant General," and reading: "Lieutenant , 
 
 previously reported missing in action since October 
 tenth reported present with organization November 
 thirtieth." 
 
 This third message from the office of the Adju- 
 
The Mother Country 
 
 tant General seemed even more significant than either 
 of the others. For the lad is a colored lad, and 
 in the absence of any close kinfolk, he had given my 
 name as his reference, and my name appears among 
 the war records. Now Our Country has not always 
 been as loyal to him and to his people as it should 
 have been. Even in France, he was made to know 
 that he was a Negro, though the French people, 
 themselves, did what they could to make him realize 
 that he was an American Soldier. But when the re 
 port came from overseas that the "boy" was "missing 
 in action," no one in Washington inquired if he were 
 colored or white, or if I were white or colored. In 
 his calamity, if calamity it should prove, his Amer 
 icanism stood out and the entire machinery of this 
 great government was put to my disposal to prove 
 or disprove the report, and to bring such comfort 
 or solace or assurance to me as the facts would war 
 rant. 
 
 Now this simple recital of the effort of the gov 
 ernment to keep in touch with the friends of the sol 
 dier who makes the supreme sacrifice, or who is likely 
 to make it, or as in this case, whose whereabouts is 
 uncertain, always brings with it a great wave of 
 affection for my country. And this effort on the 
 part of the government to find out the facts, brings 
 to me a realizing sense of the over-shadowing, shel 
 tering and protecting care of the government, and 
 is a parable of the over-shadowing, sheltering and 
 
Chwns and Brothers 
 
 protecting care of the Almighty Father. And I 
 sing as though it were a new song: 
 
 My native country, thee, 
 Land of the noble, free, 
 Thy name I love. 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 
 
 IN an issue of the National Geographic Magazine 
 shortly after the abdication of the Czar Nicholas, 
 there appeared two maps of the world, one repre 
 senting the Democratic world of 1776, and the other 
 the Democratic world of 1917. White areas rep 
 resented democracies; shaded areas represented 
 countries democratic in principle though monar- 
 chial in form ; and black areas depicted autocracies. 
 In the first map the only white area was that lying 
 along the Atlantic coast of North America, and east 
 of the Allegheny mountains. The rest of the map 
 showed only black autocracy. The other map 
 showed North and South America white, Asia largely 
 white and shaded, Africa and Australia white, and 
 Europe white or shaded, except a black patch ex 
 tending from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, 
 and taking in Asia Minor, and including the mili 
 tary despotisms of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bul 
 garia and Turkey. With this exception the world 
 was largely democratic, either in fact or in prin 
 ciple. 
 
 Now this change from a world autocratic to a 
 world democratic took place in 141 years. Meas- 
 
 229 
 
230 Chums and Brothers 
 
 ured in terms of one lifetime this seems long. Let 
 us look at it in another way. My great-grandfather 
 was killed while logging in the early part of the last 
 century. His widow survived him about fifty years, 
 dying in 1862. I never saw my great-grandmother 
 but my sister, as a very young child, met her once. 
 So that the time that elapsed from a world auto 
 cratic to a world democratic is covered by the lives 
 of two individuals that touched in the old age of the 
 one and the babyhood of the other as "ships that 
 pass in the night." 
 
 As one thinks through the change from autoc 
 racy to democracy he wonders that autocratic Eu 
 rope that hated free America with a hatred beyond 
 words to express, did not combine to attack the new 
 republic and thus wreck the little experiment in de 
 mocracy at its beginning. Fortunate perhaps it 
 was for us, that the French Revolution and the Na 
 poleonic Wars so occupied the attention of Europe 
 that we were given the time needed to adjust our 
 selves and to develop a strong front to a possible 
 European interference. A war does not settle 
 questions, it merely opens them, and there must be 
 allowed the element of Time if the purposes of the 
 war are to be accomplished. The American Revo 
 lution left thirteen jealous, quarrelsome little na 
 tionalities along the Atlantic coast, planning to erect 
 barriers against each other, and only waiting for Eu 
 rope to be free to pick them up one at a time. It 
 
The Mills of the Gods 231 
 
 was the genius of Washington that united these frac 
 tious little countries under the Constitution; and 
 the Constitution itself required eight decades for its 
 interpretation and application. What reputations 
 were made in those eighty years ! Calhoun, the nul- 
 lifier; Clay, the compromiser; Webster, the ex 
 pounder of the Constitution ; Lincoln, the savior and 
 the Emancipator. 
 
 Even with the Civil War, the war between the 
 States, the Rebellion call it what you will a half 
 century, has failed in the accomplishment of all that 
 the war was fought out for. Perhaps it was but 
 natural that the South should try to hold on to as 
 much of the old regime as was possible under the 
 new forms. Even here, I sometimes think that the 
 first thought was right. In a little town in middle 
 Georgia and I doubt if this is an isolated case 
 the good people got together and debated: "The 
 war is over ; the Negro is free ; we must educate him 
 for citizenship." And they established schools and 
 hired teachers, and a promising experiment was be 
 gun. Then came the reactionary, a man of influ 
 ence who had been high in the councils of the Con 
 federacy. He said, "This must not be; it is dan 
 gerous ; you must stop it." And so the experiment 
 was dropped before it had fairly begun. Suppose 
 the reaction had not set in; how different the last 
 fifty years would have been ! There would at least 
 have been no 13th, 14th and 15th amendments; they 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 would not have been needed. These amendments 
 crystallize the results of three and a half years of 
 war. 
 
 If the plain results of the war of '61 could have 
 been accepted but they could not have been. Here 
 again the element of Time had to come in. He is a 
 poor student of history who does not see in the more 
 than half century since Lee's surrender that much 
 has been gained ; one needs to reckon with a tendency 
 here for the conquered to become in time conquer 
 ors. In the eleventh century William of Normandy 
 at the battle of Hastings conquered England and 
 made that country an appendage to Normandy. In 
 three centuries, the historian tells us, by the quiet 
 pressure of ideas, a bloodless revolution had taken 
 place and Normandy had become an appendage to 
 England. While the pressure of the conquered 
 upon the conquerors can be seen in our own problem 
 since '65, he is a man of narrow view and limited 
 faith who does not project himself to the point when 
 the amendments passed as the outcome of the reac 
 tion in the south will be accepted in their most sim 
 ple and obvious meaning throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land. 
 
 So much by way of illustration. What we are in 
 terested in is the present world situation in which 
 the league of nations and the treaty of peace are 
 before us. Twice at least in history has this situ 
 ation been matched, at least in kind, though not in 
 
Tlie Mills of the Gods 
 
 decree. The first was at Runnymede, when the 
 Barons confronted King John and compelled him 
 to sign the Magna Chart a, which as the king signed 
 he meant to break. The great charter became the 
 bulwark of our English liberty. The second has 
 already been referred to, the convention which "in 
 order to secure a more perfect union" created out 
 of the thirteen Atlantic states the Federal Republic, 
 known as The United States. I quote from a recent 
 address : 
 
 "There was no government prior to the writing 
 of our constitution and the founding of this repub 
 lic, that could secure for its people either religious 
 freedom or civil liberty, or freedom of speech, or 
 freedom of the press, or security of individual rights, 
 or popular education, or universal franchise; just 
 the securing of any one of those things during all 
 these thousand years had baffled philosophers and 
 statesmen. Immediately upon the adoption of our 
 constitution and the founding of this republic, we 
 began automatically to secure all of these privileges 
 for the first time. We wielded a wholesome influence 
 on other countries and they began to secure them 
 just in proportion as they imitated the ideas pro 
 mulgated in the constitution." 
 
 Now the local situation in 1787 was not unlike 
 the world situation in 1919. The proposed con 
 stitution met with discussion and criticism. "Un 
 less," said the opponents, "you write into this con 
 stitution some popular fallacies to please the peo- 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 pie, the constitution will never be adopted. I quote 
 again : 
 
 "George Washington had taken no part in the 
 discussion up to that time, but when he heard that 
 statement, he rose from the President's chair and in 
 tones of suppressed emotion, said, 'It is too prob 
 able that no plan we propose will be adopted, per 
 haps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained; 
 if to please the people, we offer what we ourselves 
 disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? 
 Let us raise a standard to which the wise and hon 
 est can repair ; the event is in the hands of God.' ' 
 
 So new, so striking, so startling was the Amer 
 ican Constitution when first promulgated, that the 
 writer from whom I have quoted calls it "inspired," 
 and he calls attention to this fact, that the conven 
 tion, after meeting daily for four weeks without 
 writing a single word, was on the fifth week about to 
 adjourn and abandon their purpose. At this junc 
 ture, Benjamin Franklin addressed the Chair in these 
 words : 
 
 "The longer I live and the more I know, the more 
 I believe that God governs in the affairs of men, and 
 if the sparrow cannot fall without His notice, is it 
 probable that an empire can rise without His assist 
 ance? 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor 
 in vain who build it.* I firmly believe this, and I 
 also believe that without His concurring aid, we 
 shall succeed in our political building no better than 
 the builders of Babel. I therefore move you that 
 
The Mills of the Gods 235 
 
 from henceforth we open our daily deliberations with 
 
 morning prayer." 
 
 From that moment they made progress. 
 
 Now the League of Nations Covenant and the 
 Treaty of Peace are on a world scale what the 
 Constitution was in 1787. Of them a friend in New 
 England writes, "As I understand the League of 
 Nations and the Treaty of Peace, they are pretty 
 bad; but perhaps they are the best we can get un 
 der present circumstances. Let us accept them, and 
 amend them as occasion demands as we have amended 
 other constitutions." In the words of Washington, 
 "Let us now raise a standard to which the wise and 
 honest of the world can repair." 
 
 In the progress of time, the Germans, who today 
 cling to all they can of the past, will find themselves 
 relieved of the burden of supporting an imperial es 
 tablishment, relieved of the tax to support a stand 
 ing army of 4,000,000 men; of the support of a 
 navy that must equal or exceed that of England and 
 be the first navy of the world; and they will find the 
 standing army becoming an army to reinforce the 
 great body of laborers and to relieve the German 
 woman of much of the labor in the field that hitherto 
 has fallen upon her, and will now fall upon the men. 
 In addition to these patent reliefs, as time moves on 
 there will come to Germany as to the United States 
 those privileges that naturally flowed out of the Con- 
 
Chums and Brothers 
 
 stitution, a list of privileges that it would be well 
 to be in the mind of everyone: 
 
 Religious freedom, 
 
 Civil liberty, 
 
 Freedom of speech, 
 
 Freedom of the press, 
 
 Security of individual rights, 
 
 Popular education, 
 
 Universal franchise. 
 
 When the Germans realize these benefits coming 
 to them out of the new conditions, they will under 
 stand that the war freed them from a military 
 regime even as the rest of the world was freed from 
 the fear of military domination. 
 
 As with Germany, so with her allies. Italy pre 
 sents a different problem, for Italy is a party to 
 the terms laid down to the Central Powers ; yet Italy 
 is not happy. We trembled some months ago when 
 we learned that the Baltic Sea had become a German 
 lake, and also we trembled when the Black Sea, that 
 great trade route between the Occident and the 
 Orient, had likewise become a German lake. And 
 we breathe more easily now that this situation has 
 passed. Now we do not see why the Adriatic should 
 become an Italian lake. Being 4000 miles from 
 Italy, and with our American traditions and proce 
 dure preventing, perhaps, a thorough understanding 
 of Italy's position, we do not and perhaps cannot 
 see the situation from the Italian standpoint. Never- 
 
The Mills of the Gods 237 
 
 theless Italy must live with France on her west, and 
 the Jugo-Slavs on the east, and it is better to be 
 on friendly terms with her neighbors than otherwise. 
 For, and this is the gist of the whole matter, if there 
 is to be a new world, and that is what we fought for, 
 then the old principle of action, "exploitation," 
 which reached its largest expression in the German 
 demand for world-power, must give way to a new 
 principle in which more of the idea of "give and 
 take" shall rule. 
 Aug., 1919. 
 
SUPPOSE IT HAD BEEN YOUR SON 
 
 AS we sat around our fire in our mountain cabin, 
 the evening paper had for us but one item. 
 A lad whom we knew, a student in my own classes, 
 had been arrested in Cobb County, and the mob had 
 gathered to execute first and to try afterwards. 
 Fortunately some lawyers were present and these 
 with the wit or wisdom of the Sheriff, managed to 
 spirit the lad to Atlanta where for the moment he 
 was safe. 
 
 Perhaps the story is best told in his own words : 
 "Finishing my work at Cartersville, Wednesday 
 morning, I left there at 2 P.M. Arrived at Ken- 
 nesaw at 3 :40 P.M. I checked my bag at the ticket 
 office of R.R. Station and spent a pleasant hour at 
 King's Wigwam. Returning to Kennesaw at 5 :35 
 I got my bag from the check room and was sitting 
 on it talking to King in front of the station, when 
 I was approached by a group of countrymen, and 
 told that I was suspected of something, and would 
 have to be carried to Marietta. An old man in over 
 alls placed a long pistol in my face telling me I was 
 under arrest and not to move or he would shoot 
 me. He searched me, finding not even a pocket knife 
 
 238 
 
Suppose It Had Been Your Son 239 
 
 upon my person. I was made to sit in the white 
 waiting-room with about two hundred countrymen 
 staring at me until the train arrived. I tried to 
 find out what I was suspected of, but was told that 
 I would find out in time. With the gun always en 
 trained on me I was placed in the white coach and 
 taken to Marietta. I offered identification card, 
 etc., to certify who I was, but they were not accepted. 
 Upon arriving in Marietta, I was taken through the 
 heart of the city to the Court House, gun always 
 on me. A crowd of about seventy-five followed me 
 into the Court House. I then found that the 
 charge of which I was suspected was criminal as 
 sault upon some woman in Cherokee County, and 
 that my bag had been rifled while checked in the 
 ticket office at Kennesaw, and revolver found which 
 I had within, under all my wearing apparel. Sev 
 eral persons who followed said that if I were the 
 right person there would be a lynching in Marietta 
 that night. I was placed in a cell where there were 
 four criminals. Later, the Sheriff came up, ques 
 tioned me, and told me that it was a very serious 
 case ; that runners had been sent to Cherokee County 
 to bring back the crowd, and that the cry of lynch 
 ing him was already in the air at Marietta. I told 
 him of having been in Cartersville Monday, Tues 
 day, and Wednesday morning. Through Mr. A. 
 King, to whom probably I owe my life, two lawyers 
 of ability were immediately put upon my case. They 
 
240 Chums and Brothers 
 
 came to see me telling me that my father had been 
 telephoned and was on his way to Marietta, of the 
 danger that I was in, and that they were trying to 
 get me out of there. 
 
 "Later the Sheriff came up, all lights were turned 
 out in the jail. He warned us to be as quiet as pos 
 sible, as the danger was great and that I was to be 
 taken to Atlanta if possible. Later I was taken out 
 of the jail through some side way . . . placed in a 
 high powered car in which we raced for Atlanta. 
 The Sheriff told me that there were more cars and 
 more people in Marietta than there were at the 
 lynching of Loo Frank. In fact they had very little 
 hope of getting me through. We reached Atlanta 
 about 10:50 P.M. without being molested. I was 
 allowed to call my mother up and talked with her 
 for about ten minutes. The Sheriff told the jailer 
 that he did not believe that I was the right party. 
 He was very nice to me and just before we reached 
 the jail he stopped and bought me a lunch. Later 
 Daddy came down with the lawyers. He found a 
 number of friends there waiting. The night in jail 
 was horrible. I was allowed to remain in a room 
 where prisoners roam during the day, and had a 
 bench to sleep on. The next morning innumerable 
 people came to see me. About 11 A.M. the brother 
 of the woman who it was claimed was assaulted came 
 down and, after much deliberation, said that I wasn't 
 the party. I was released about twelve with a hun- 
 
Suppose It Had Been Your Son 
 
 dred dollar bond for having a weapon in my bag. 
 The lawyer's fees cost Daddy over three hundred 
 dollars. 
 
THINKING BLACK ABOUT AFRICA 
 
 A YOUNG friend of mine, a former student, 
 now studying in a Northern University, sent 
 me, just before he was called to the colors, a thesis 
 prepared for some class purpose entitled "Thinking 
 Black About Africa." The argument was that Af 
 rica or the desire to possess Africa was the cause of 
 the war. Europe has become a congeries of manu 
 facturing nations during the past half century and 
 each was looking for a world market and for a source 
 of raw material. Shut out from the Western con 
 tinent by the Monroe Doctrine, they had turned 
 toward and had partitioned off the Dark Continent. 
 The argument further declared that the proper set 
 tlement of the African riddle was "Africa for the 
 Africans," and that any peace that settled the Afri 
 can problem from a European standpoint was 
 foredoomed to failure. The leadership of Europe 
 was accepted that in time Africa might be brought 
 into the family of nations ; but the slogan was, "Af 
 rica for the Africans." 
 
 The students of Atlanta University will recall a 
 visit some months ago from two Frenchmen, and will 
 also recall a characterization made at that visit, 
 
 242 
 
Thinking Black About Africa 243 
 
 that in the order of beneficent administration and 
 the opening of opportunity for the African, him 
 self, the nations stood in the order, France, Great 
 Britain, Germany. France, as the most democratic 
 country of the world, was giving the largest oppor 
 tunity to her African subjects. 
 
 The new map of Africa shows Germany elimi 
 nated. German East Africa, German Southwest 
 Africa and German Kameroon have either passed to 
 the control of Great Britain or have been divided be 
 tween France and Belgium. The German plan of a 
 railroad from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean has 
 become a dream; and the railroad from Cairo to 
 Cape Town across territory controlled by Great 
 Britain is becoming an accomplished fact. 
 
 One of the most signficant items of the World 
 War is this, that the component parts of the Brit 
 ish Empire have been unstinted in their aid to the 
 Mother Country in her dire distress. There must 
 be something in the English manner of handling her 
 distant possessions that makes them loyal. This 
 we might have expected of Canada, South Africa, 
 and Australia; but that India and the Dutch of 
 South Africa so recently conquered in the Boer War 
 should not fail in the emergency, surprises and 
 pleases. Now does this partition of Africa among 
 the Allies have in it the promise of an Africa for 
 the Africans? I am afraid the answer must be "no" 
 
244 Chums and Brothers 
 
 unless a new spirit comes into the world. And this 
 I am expecting. 
 
 This leads far afield for the answer, for the an 
 swer comes not from Africa nor from Europe but 
 from America. I am much interested in a chapter 
 entitled "The American Character" in a little book 
 by Dr. Francis G. Peabody of Harvard University. 
 "What is it," he asks, "then, in this vast economic 
 development, which may prove disastrous to the 
 American character? It is the confusion of the 
 spirit of industrialism with the spirit of commer 
 cialism. Industrialism is creative, constructive, edu 
 cative. It is engaged in making things which other 
 people want, or in bringing things where other peo 
 ple want them. It is the organization of produc 
 tion and distribution. Commercialism, on the other 
 hand, is a habit of mind, a social creed, a trader's 
 point of view, which estimates all things by the 
 money-standard, and hopes to obtain by money 
 things which money cannot buy. Good and evil, 
 success and failure, are, to the spirit of commercial 
 ism, not ethical but monetary terms." 
 
 I like the distinction, and I recognize the danger 
 of becoming commercialized. But in the industrial 
 ism of the nation, Dr. Peabody sees a real idealism. 
 "By one of the most dramatic coincidences of his 
 tory, the same nation which has become thus com 
 mitted to commercial enterprise, is at the same time 
 the heir of a great tradition of moral and religious 
 
Thinking Black About Africa 245 
 
 idealism. The early settlers of the Western conti 
 nent were not freebooters and buccaneers, tempted 
 across the sea by the lust of gold, but sober and God 
 fearing exiles, seeking freedom to worship God after 
 the dictates of their own consciences." The Pilgrims 
 and the Puritans who settled New England bear evi 
 dence of this; as do the German Pietists, the Mora 
 vians and the Quakers who settled Pennsylvania ; the 
 Catholics who sought Civil Liberty in Maryland, and 
 the Huguenots who sought a shelter in Charleston. 
 This same idealism, the thought is, shows itself in the 
 voluntary support of two hundred thousand churches 
 valued at a billion dollars, as against the State 
 Church of the European countries where the bish 
 ops are appointed by the prime minister, and the 
 clergy are government officials. More than this, it 
 shows itself in the vast missionary movement, financed 
 from the "gains of commercialism" and not sup 
 ported by the government. And we may add to this, 
 the establishment and the endowment of our colleges 
 and universities, before and since the establishing 
 of the State Universities; and to these, the estab 
 lishing of all those beneficent institutions which en 
 deavor to share with the less fortunate, some of the 
 results of our industrialism. But on a still larger 
 theater the same idealism shows itself in the nation's 
 attitude toward world problems; the "Open Door" 
 in China ; "disinterested candor with Japan has won 
 that proud nation to a confidence which even the 
 
246 Chums and Brothers 
 
 hysterical animosity of legislators has not yet been 
 able to destroy"; our attitude toward Cuba and 
 Spain, as the outcome of the Spanish War ; and our 
 showing a new method of dealing with subject peo 
 ples as with the Filipinos, where we have exchanged 
 the principle of exploitation for that of building 
 up a people to a personal national life. "Even the 
 politicians of the United States have come to real 
 ize that a candidate who would win popular applause 
 must be or at least pretend to be a moral idealist, 
 promoting a cause which the conscience of the peo 
 ple should support. . . . "The largest and finest ex 
 pression of this fundamental note in the American 
 character is offered in the story of the past two 
 years. After years of patient and long-suffering 
 neutrality the American people were summoned to 
 abandon their commercial independence and to take 
 part in a world-war; and in words whose eloquence 
 of phrase is matched by their depth of feeling, the 
 representative of American opinion speaks for a 
 united country. 'We have no selfish ends to serve. 
 We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no 
 indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation 
 for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but 
 one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We 
 shall be satisfied when those rights have been made 
 as secure as the faith and the freedom of the nations 
 can make them.' ' 
 
 Thus speaks America at its highest and best. This 
 
Thmkmg Black About Africa 247 
 
 is the new spirit that is in the world. It is prin 
 cipally new to Europe, where the secret treaties, bol 
 stering up selfish ambitions, have been the story and 
 the history. They do not understand it as yet. But, 
 that spirit of generous idealism is in the world; it 
 came to America with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower 
 three hundred years ago come next year; it has be 
 come the fundamental note of our history and of our 
 diplomacy ; it controls the action of one hundred and 
 twenty millions of people in America today, and it 
 has made its entrance into world politics, during 
 and since the World War as never before. 
 
 And it is here that I look for the solution of the 
 African riddle, and an Africa for the Africans, the 
 increasing spirit of idealism that shall more and 
 more control in national and international affairs. 
 
 God hasten the day ! 
 
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 Chums and brothers. 
 
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