•*»V • WMI | . NOs. 28. '• ' • SHALL MAKE YOU FREE.” • —John vili 82. teSDAY, JULY 1«, 1931. j •• ^ - ‘ ...: think*. It is not my pUrp writ61 a review or critic! the book, but in basfl«|r taWthe Ife" at tfcr'P^k'w the subject of this krtfeNMlfe jot db^h somb reltectitths which iavte come td tnWlH read thfe book ' MnjJ WT'MM tried tb think mylray throitth the ktoany profelehSs fc whfctflt presehts? ,'',f,"WTrr ■ *"* My observation has that when a wHter b discuss this questioh irt the inteMa&__~r «ces. Asj^»lfe ? writing ah article *! the question ‘as ' to Jesus Would draw the ’ # ih His Church if He le OB fearth. I 4li hot _Jhrtajte^to ans«# tjtoi question/’buf put it dOWli tlud my readers and I might face it squarely. Au brother minister and . Hiiihi8ionary In ” China promptly WrOte me up, or down, as 4S !® ble'^lttWChiftBSi? ___ not dfaw' any colbf lih*P in "the Church lii China- He ho doubt interchanges socialr visits With themvSn<5 sits down at their tables and they bt his; and yet I do not suppose that anybody ever thought Of his adVocbting the intermarriage Of Airiefi canb dndr7Chinm " I Motion this stibject in ' order 'that I may at the beginning that I am opposed to the inter-ihar riSge^.thb rac^l.’ r> * m f It is not necessary to marry oeople just because one iS try ing to think’ his wby through a maze of problems in order to ^discover his Christian duty towards a dfhole rice of peo ple. -i perfectly good people that they think at all. There are some people v/ho stjilf thttik of the whole Negro race in t^hia off •’A -ite Negro laborer oh I arm, ur U CodrifTthe n.iwheh, or the old time m&myf .Jlttey'ha^ noif*eftl^ ized that there are hundred® and thousands pf* ihtflll^ght young ‘"Negroes graduating from high grade toTFfcges hlid JS- -r/ -oELiji universities' e illiterate Negroes deal ifc tWSSWSf»“butrfh«S col lege and tthfvertity graduate* •re." luthern people h^ve d*1 do * ]Sf Negro. 4We n^*r? hhVe known what the thinking' down m |Wir iW«bst ?ouls. .We know little ot noth ing of what ^ these thou^nds cf educated Negrbes are think jng Worse thah that; *e have .. ,/orse rnan **»»»?, j, no way offindingPutr fitter do not corifideWhs. Principal Moton devotes a ^holrchapter in his bbok to thd^UgwiVT Know tnfeNegtfd:” He tkkes the position that'those Whpbbast loudest along this Hne'know the least about the real* in ward thoughts of the Negro. He goes 'even further and says; that the NegrdrknOws'f-the white poeple a great 'deal befc ter than the. white mad know* the Negro. ^ * Here is a quotation from the book Worthy Uf % tion: "Any one #ho * \TolS vo 14 the Negro at today take Account of the con ic progress' of the race, it rapid since the eraancipa accelerating with each „jn Of the nature and ♦jfctent oif this progress the erwhehniar majority of " people in America are, «iy' speaking, entirely t .. only a few peo putside the-race know act rhst is going on within ;e/ and indeed only a rel small number within _3 know the solid facts progress/* • • ,wnat tides the intelligent, %ducated Negrh) ithink of the any discriminations that are iced against Ids race? If ‘rWfii go rto the Negro sec of any city, town or vil youwill observe it has neglected by the city au s/There are few, if any, streets "Or sidewalks;' of" the modern conven ahd comforts are con siMftUousr by their ^absence. -In niany states the laws require the railroads have separ coaches ’for the whites and fit does'not take close tion tb notice -that the ^vaad accommodations' Negroes are Usually infe-> % those provided for the If g N§gro trav ft Is almost impos n to get a Pullman #tee»Bto lie down. ill Negro who travels * * spend a night' in a *m\ fbr* ity itr is often impos to find decent ac to him. Wltcn & ik'hfis cMldfento school he Hi&dVfts that the buildings areiS£’ a rule inferior to those fOrlhe White chfidren. An ed ucated N%gro teacher receives hiadK lesg Salary than a' white teabhdr with the same educa tjohMt IS Often difficult for a NegrO to receive justice in the courts. By various processes he ha^ been deprived of his con stitutional'right to Vote. When it coriteb* tO9 Hie house of God, thd Negro niay attend a white church if he will take a seat id 'the 1 gallery especially pro vided fbr%idi- When a church Court toefets1 the white miius tCrk afid elders are handsome ly ehtertahned. The Negro re ceiVfeS Entertainment that * is ihuch inferior. These are a few of4'the discriminations that maynhe hOted.' Many more of stf similar hature might be cib* la'idw s umriii i . edif What does the intelligent, ea ucat&liNbgro u' think’ of these 'linations?-'! What dees tfcr&te Negrtr, who is not toh&VO any thoughts,' _thefti ? They think a ptetttyV if #W’inay be allowed to tcMTa current phrase.- *'•••' 1 Principal Motors book gives us some very dear intimations a’s to* What^tRey think. This is a question of flrsfrrate impor tance to the Chnwh. Here are tfen to twelve millions of people living in" our vfery midst. ‘ We Want them tb be Christians. % thdh &&?. devout ffiirtetmhififAftWe] want the tfcdlitfhtftil, educated ‘ Negroes tb -fUnlih1 true J and loyal to CKMittanity. If we-are really in earnest about this we Will have to trOaft them in a; Chris tian way. ThSfe discrimina tions lire dr^mg the iron into the sdultf thoughtful Ne grO&r.lf our way1 of acting is ChtlAtian they do not want to stians. Mdhy educated hUVe already grown ,hrt toward Christianity. Haifa ’1 One day I asked a friend of ipftig, U ministUr in !the Pres hyteriatt’Church, it he rehlly Hit^ J Wt his Christian; duty thejNegro iU. He was ., Thdn I asked if he ’5it5WoUld he1 be willing to ‘Md' ifc m replied that he was hi i\’. ><:.> & KI ij%i ndlr boosting. d Wrdo* weH'to face these two qtlestkms- ' t But let UTdeiue a »He er home. ■ The Southern ‘Web* byterian Church has fewer Ne gro members today than it had in I860; Why? Largely because we have ‘never troubled our selves to find out what the Ne gro thinks;- For example our General Assembly --in-* urged our colored memoers to continue their' membership in> the white churches and'to con^ tihue to attend the */white churches. Of course, they were to sit tri the gallery. But if they felt they must have their own churches, then the Assembly proposed that they should hawe white pastors and White eldiers until they could raise up *jbiis»i tolligent ministry and eldership n4 fhoii*1 ftwn Tflhof all aAinuh of their* own. That all sounds eminently Sensible, but it did not take into considerationHe* gro psychology *’ it''dfhnfesam* merit. That Assembly evidenfly did notrfctdp to i ihquire whab the Negro was thinking. They had just been given their free* dom and the righjpof franchise. Many of them sat in the legis lative halls in those terrible ■ihys of reconstruction, r With their riew freedom H^Wehh hi rio frame of miitf loiubjBlft themselves to the government of White pastors and elders.* After that, our Church, owS. period of' nianys f years?triedv many other experiments. with\ the Negro churches, but »®**f seeming to take into eonsidsf* ation what the Negroes >thi«ii selves thought about it. hy$a$% it was difficult ~ to- disfiOjgelk what they really did ally in 3,916 we Wet out ” churches Off into ar Synod and esffled it ‘ Americatt Synods The nimie was unacceptable. year the Negroes Snedecor Memorial vOTim/' „ Was all so' ^tactfully - done hat many of us did not mrfen aspect one of the1 underlying ?asons. uM •at tne present tunc Presbyteries of the ; Saedecor Memorial1 Synod Send foa»jJ?e gro ministers and- four*‘*uling elders, ;.to, the General Assem bly each year. I do not think that it would take very ck** scrutiny to observev thaVthe entertainment, provided for them is very inferior to that provided for the i white cons-. missioners- Nor would it take a! keen observer to discover that they are not active mem bers of the Assembly. For fif teen years they have sat there as silent observers. When the question of Church union, comeS Up some brother invari ably talks about> the Negron question in a way that wounds the sensibilities of these Ne gro commissioners. Within' the past few years - one rof these Negro, commissioners returned from our General Assembjywre signed the pastorate, nand left the Presbyterian Ohucpch. riff, saw a letter from his^ penf in which he poured ouWiis soul, a'nd said that he Could aottre rnain in a Chureh j where ha Was treated as if he were less than a man. If^we will thihk nf! it we will discover that our whole attitude‘toward our Ne gro commissioners is paternal rather than fraternal. IilWe want ahy considerable number of self-respecting, eduaated Negroes ' to come into noeur Church or remain in it we will have to change our whole rfat titude towards them. It is high time for us to study seriously two or three such central’ questions as these: Whatndoes the Negro think? What is our Christian duly towards (the Negro? What would fee thfe,u S'gUQ ilp : .... teaeh everything but TOIL BUZEISS IK BIISI By Dr. Carter l*. Woodson A few days ago a friend of ijae lamented the ,fact that af r investing his life’s earnings i the drug business and mak ~ evety. effort to stimulate ntorprise, he has falied. I occasion, thereupon, to re ad.,., him that • men . have wn rich, as a rule,, not by of oth what thousands a are doing, butjby undertak g something new. If instead going into the retail dispens g of drugs, he had conceived id carried out the idea of the lainrdrug store, he would ,become an independently 2i» man There is always a chqgice to this .because the large ma jority Of .people do no? think ihd, therefore, leave the field Wide open ,for those who have methihg new with which to e the public. Negroes even und this possible during the ys of slavery when the race supposedly had no chance at Mi. •• I {About - a hundred years ago Thomas Day, a. North Carolina iNegrp, realized that the rough furniture of thq people in his community did not meet the requirements of those of mod ern^ taste. #e, , therefore, worked out a “.Style of ornate and .beautiful furniture which attracted the attention of the ffiost aristocratic people of the State Und built up for himself jgy most successful business. Piersons in that State are still talking about the Day furni ago Jiabr h*. If North Carolina would of, this rn out more Negroes —. . pe today, instead of the ther large number who are ,ing to teach and preach, aie of its present economic oblems might , thereby be : 1 ADOUl a century a i f Negro showed himseit t > be equally as ingenious. This was Henry" Boyd. After buj ing himself in Kentucky, he went to Cincinnati to start life as a free than. There he encoun tered so much prejudice against Negro labor, that he could not find employment at his trade Of cabinet making. A new thought came to him, however; and in this way he solved his own problem. : i Boyd1 conceived the idea that People had been sleeping long enough on > straw, ticks and Wooden slats, and he invented tho bed, the most com fortable bed prior to the use qf springs in beds. Boyd’s cord ed bed* became popular through out the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, and he built up a profi table, trade which required the employment of twenty-five white and black artisans. Oth er enterprising Negro business men like Boyd gave the Negro element Of Cincinnati more of an aspect oft progress before the Civil War than it has to day. Has the Negro less chance today than he had a century I For about thirty years I knew an old Negro lady at Gordons ville, Va., who gave the world .something new in frying chick en. She discovered the art of .doing this thing in the way that others could not, and she mad? 4 godd living selling her exceptionally prepared chicken and fried puffs at the win dows of the cars when- the trains stopped at the station. I .have seen well-to-do men and women, of both races leave the PuUman cars with its modern dinerr attached and go out and . supply themselves, and , their friends with this old lady’s tastefully made up lunches. J Another woman of color liv ing in> i Columbia, Missouri, re cently gave the world another j ,iij ,trill >0 \Si new v4deftn; She had learned cooking, especially baking, but saw no exceptional opportuni ty in the usual application of the trade- After studying her situation and the environment in which she had to live, she hit upon the scheme of popu larizing her savorous sweet po tato biscuits, beaten whiter than all others by an invention of her-own; and the people of both races made a well beaten path to her home to enjoy these delicious biscuits. In this way she has made herself and her relatives independent. This is the way fortunes are made, but Negroes, who are conscientiously doing their best to rise in the economic '■phere, do not follow the no ble examples of those who had le|ss opportunity than we hav6* today. We spend much time in slavish imitation, but our white friends strike out along new lines. Almost all of the large fortunes in America have bpen made in this way. John D. Rockefeller did not set out in life to imitate Van derbilt. Rockefeller saw his op portunity in developing the oil industry. Schwab had better1 sense than to imitate Rocke feller, for that task was alreadyt Well done, and he consolidated' the steel interests. Henry Ford kpew better than to take up what Schwab had exploited,, for there appeared a still larg er possibility for industrial achievement in giving the world the facility of cheap transportation in the low priced car i Radical Negroes^ however, object to holding lip to the youth such examples as these, for onW a few of 'such a large number can thus succeed. The radicals say that .these men re cured. What the: Negro need!, they say, is not capitalism but socialism or communism. Iii; other words you can revolution ize the social and economic or der so as to place all people alike on the same level and at? the same time miraculously' retain the initiative and inven tion which have developed the wealth of the country. It would be a most happy situation to be in such an ideal environment, and no sane man would oppose the coming of such a millennium; but history shows that such a golden age can never be reached by the imperfect human beings with whom we have to work. i What these radicals say does not amount to any more than the usual clamor in the past for revolution. Their ideas have been tried out in the cycles of government. The despotic lyings claiming the rule by di vine right were overthrown bjK the leaders of an aristocracy, who claimed that they ’repre sented the best in the State*, and wfyen the aristocracy *4# generated into an oligarchy* which exploited and oppressed the people, the masses rose up against them and ; established democracy, the government of the people. Democracy, how ever, like anything else, has its imperfections, and in it devel ops the usual element of decay, for a government of all of the people, by all the. people, and for all the people is an impos sibility France, therefore, did not long remain radically demo cratic when it was passing through these very cycles of government during the French, Revolution, Napoleon availed himself of the opportunity i to; establish there a greater des potism than it had ever had* under kings and queens. Rus-{ sia is violently democratic to-y day, but persons are seeing! there new evidences of another tendency. ; ; ' The inevitable rise of. Certain men to power is due to the weakness of mankind. All men are not equal. In every gropp : you will find a superman, ana ,^-i i Hy i.ri> i UJ : >U Ms weaker associates. You can not make some men free be-, rkuse immediately ; they will ^ell their freedom as the No* frees have done tp the Repub lican machine. Yon can not dually apportion the wealth of the country among its, citizens and expect each one to his share,'and you can notja i limit for the amount of wealth each member of society shall accumulate and expect (neri of the ability to develop and promote s'dch interests to show the same enterprise which they have under individ ual control. The idea that all men are created free and equal is ad nonsense. We know that all men are subject some re morfotonous would commit suicide, for a change* Races are very much * alike, but individuals in races differ. What the Negroes need to do is to produce their share of exceptional individuals that these may help those fit* down.-.. T" y,r The problems of the Negro may not be solved so easily by revolution as you may thfnk. Tn the first placd, property val ues -Would be shattered and we would have to fall Bkck largely natural resources for the on deveopiftent of which* there night not be aitThimediate de mand Tn the free-for-all battae of life, following such an Up heaval, the Negroes would have good a. chance as others; as but if the Negroes did hbt pro duce their share of super-men who, according to the d^cle ef revolutions, finally get control, the race would come to be re garded as iriferioiV to othdrs and would have. an inferior sta tus.' ' ^ gets what if deserves. _ can not expect To "solve jdl rf their problems at.once, Duf if! they, too, continue to struggle against obstacles, they will eventually find some way to Sur mount them, If the Negroes permit foreigners to lifapover iph them by establishing and controlling businesses * Which Negroes support, such Negroes ought to starve. If Negroes have n° influence in politics be cause they misuse their politi cal power through politicians and bosses, they deserve to be eliminated from the personnel of the government. If they per mit themselves to be lynched without; organizing and work ing to overthrow such a reign of terror, they deserve siifch a fate- Every race gStS what it deserves. J ‘ ' IMPORTANT Dr. J. A. Savage, of Frank linton, N. C., President of Al bion Academy, ^rhere the . Ca tawba School of Methods meets in August- has notified us that he will cut the board bill this vear\frbm $4-00 tb $3.50. He believes' the scarcity of funds warrants this. He also hopes this will stimulate a large at tendance. Dr. Savage made this sug gestion of his own accord and we thank him for his fine co operation. We are going to join in with the above , suggestion by re ducing the registration fee from $2.00 to $1.56. This will ’oe a saying of $1.00 oh the ex pense of the delegate, i There are some who are go ing to think the times are too hard to attend the Convention tjhis year! That’s in yohrmihd. Pull yourself together and qome. You’ll feel better. Not