MISCELLANY PRINTED MATTER General, 1911-19 The Wreck of the Monroe. By E. Elliot Durant Dedicated to the colored men who displayed such heroism on the sinking of the S.S. Monroe, off Cape Charles, on the coast of Virginia, on Jan. 30th, 1914. THE WRECK OF THE "MONROE" It was a dark and foggy night, The wind blew icily cold, When the Monroe ploughed the southern seas Steered by her seaman bold; No sound was heard on the spacious deck, Save the faithful watch dog's cry, Or the measured tread of the colored boy Who toiled, neath the mist-clad sky. But stay! Whence comes that awful shock, That staggers the noble craft She shivers in the wintry waves And falters in her path: Oh! list to the hundred cries and more. That rent the foggy air; The Monroe is wreck'd and must go down To Neptune's salt sea lair. Ah me! go mark you tragic scene, Heart rending to behold; In the hour of death all, all are one, And form one common fold. Aye, all must live or all must die As the Lord of fate decrees; But come great God thy children save From the wrath of the yawning seas. The mother clasps her clinging bairn To her nude pellucid breast. The maiden seeks her lover's arms As the Cushat seeks its nest: The brother clasps his sisters arms, The husband seeks his wife; But the colored boys devise all means To save each precious life. You maiden in her dishabille Distracted now by fear: With staring eyes and parting lips, And matted unkempt hair, Seeks vainly 'mong the weeping crowd Some sympathetic friend, But, aye, she finds in the hour of death That friend forgets each friend. Alone she stands by the broken mast, A piteous sight to see: A drooping bud on a broken stalk, A prey to the angry sea, The salt tears from her great blue eyes Form icicles on her cheeks, And her peerless bosom heaving like Some quaking mountain peak. Aye, see! At last she finds-a friend, A son of the Negro race, Who takes his own life-saving belt And girds it round her waist; Then holds her fast in his brawny arms And bears her to the boat; In gratitude she lifts her head And kisses his sable throat. He smiles and falls 'neath the salt blue waves As the hapless ship goes down, And the laughing billows ripple o'er The craft of great renown, In his village home some dusky maid Pines for her darling swain, Who'll ne'er come the home in sunset glow Aye, ne'er come home again.. You scoff at the Negro's woolly hair You laugh at his full red lips, But give him the deathless praise he's won As you think of the cup he sips. Jim-crowed and lynched from day to day, Despised by the great white race, He's toiling yet up the dark steep path Of fame, to make his place. Come, let us raise in granite pure, A monument to the brave--- The brave true clacks of the Monroe's crew Who found a watery grave. They died a grand heroic deeth, As only a God can die! God grant they'll find a cozy spot In the realms beyond the sky. Mary C. Terrell - Map of Central & Southern Europe. AMERICA EUROPE ASIA AFRICA AUSTRALASIA COOKS TOURS AROUND & ABOUT THE WORLD THOS. COOK & SON, Ltd. General Foreign Passenger Agents, Pennsylvania Railroad. IN CO-OPERATION WITH WAGONS-LITS CO. HEAD OFFICE: BERKELEY STREET, LONDON, W.I. (704/5/30. G.) 15,000. CO-OPERATIVE FORUM BUREAU By REV. HAROLD MARSHALL (From Ford Hall Folks, October 17, 1915.) The rapid growth of the Sunday Forum Movement during the last year or two has resulted in an imperative demand for suggestion and guidance in the selection of Forum speakers and a call for speakers who can meet two exacting tests, ---the intellectual requirements of a wide accurate knowledge of the subject under discussion and the moral test of proved devotion to the commonweal. Ford Hall has set a standard in each of these particulars that challenges every Forum to do and be its best. The duplication of effort and the confusion of results, as each new Forum endeavored to secure individually the right kind of speakers, led to the organization of a committee composed of some of those most vitally interested in the success of the Forum movement, which attempted to relieve this situation. This committee consisted of Harold Marshall, the founder of the Melrose Community Meetings, as chairman; Mabel B. Ury, secretary; George W. Coleman and Mary C. Crawford of Ford Hall, Prof. John Graham Brooks, Prof. Charles Zueblin and Rev. Elmer S. Forbes, social service secretary of the American Unitarian Association. A year and a half ago, it established the Cooperative Forum Bureau, which has more than justified its existence and has learned by experience how to help most effectively. The problem which has always confronted every new Forum has become the problem of the Bureau,---how to get popular and effective speakers for a limited amount of money, and at the same time put them in places where their personal message and individual viewpoint will serve most effectively the common cause of democracy. Especially, therefore, the Bureau is a clearing house, and as its name indicates, organized for service. It has endeavored to meet the growing need of the situation and four ways: First, by putting the experience of those who have conducted successful Forums add the service of those undertaking the development of new movements. Second, by suggesting speakers best fitted to discuss special problems or meet local needs. Third, by fully utilizing the time of speakers through the co-ordination of related dates in contiguous communities. Fourth, by enabling forums to secure effective speakers from abroad and from other portions of the United States, when in this vicinity. The year's work has not only proved to the executive committee that the Forum Bureau fills a necessary place in the development of the Forum movement, but has also clearly defined the ways in which, through the Bureau, Forum committees on the one hand and speakers on the other must co-operate to secure the best results. During the first year, in response to the requests of individuals and committees, open dates were filled in the programs of more than twenty Forums, utilizing the services of more than fifty different speakers. Necessarily the work done from week to week or from date to date was time consuming, and opportunities were constantly lost to secure the best results, because application was not made until too near the time of the proposed engagement. For the second year, therefore, the Bureau began active correspondence with speakers and Forums many months in advance. The response from those who were asked to serve the forums as speakers has been generous and hearty. Numbers of leaders of social thoughts and community service have made most generous allotment of time and self-sacrificing concessions in the matter of remuneration. Among those who have placed time and service at our disposal are: Stewart Anderson, Mary Antin, Henry A. Atkinson, Kate Barnard, Earl Barnes, Samuel Z. Batten, John Graham Brooks, Stanton Coit, Geo. W. Coleman, Thomas Dreier, Daniel Evans, Elmer S. Forbes, Geo. B. Gallup, Guy D. Gold, Alice H. Grady, Edward Hartman, Rabbi Harris, Woods Hutchinson, Charles Levermore, Rabbi Levi, Harold Marshall, H. C. Metcalf, Fred A. Moore, Dr. Herbert Nichols, Frank O'Hara, Levi am. Powers, Wm. H. Ramsey, S. K. Ratcliffe, W. Rauschenbusch, Rustom Rustomjee, Margaret Slattery, C. E. Skinner, John Spargo, Charles Stetzle, Mary Church Terrell, Angie B. Tillinghast, R. C. Valentine, Nicholas Van der Pyl, Harry F. Ward, Rabbi Wise, Peter Witt, Chas. Zueblin. On the other hand, with equal confidence in the committee, twenty Forums in Greater Boston, holding from six to twenty-six meetings each, placed their entire program in our hands, and nearly as many more submitted individual dates. The results will be several hundred meetings, at which the best possible speakers will meet the best possible audiences with vital and immediately helpful interpretations of the gospel of democracy. In addition, there is a constantly multiplying demand from the many new Forums in other parts of the country that assistance be rendered them also in securing the same class of speakers that have made the Ford Hall Meetings a national standard of Forum efficiency. From Maryland, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, California, Oregon, and from a number of Canadian cities have come request for advice and assistance. There was a new impetus given the Forum movement by the Conference at Sagamore in the summer of 1914, which resulted in an unusual increase in the number of Forums organized during the year following. The second Conference, held last April at the close of the Ford Hall season, showed an advance in the work that could not have been expected in a single year. The growth in opportunity of service for the Co-operative Forum Bureau, after an existence of only one complete season, is correspondingly great. Already the committee is facing the fact that the present Bureau, like Ford Hall itself, is only a beginning; that we must grow as the movement grows, and that when the Forum takes its place, as it surely will, as a nation-wide expression of democracy, we must develop a correspondingly inclusive machinery, through which local Forums everywhere may be helped to the fullest of community service. A SHORT STORY IN THREE CHAPTERS "THE SPAN OF LIFE" January, 1916. Denver, Colorado These were their first suits. The day they wore them first is memorable because of the rank religious disavowals they made. This is the way it is: At the close of the Sunday School Service just before the church hour they saw Wesley Person baptized by immersion. It was their first sight of such a ceremony. They followed me, dripping with water to the parsonage, near by and burst in on me as I hastily dressed for the 11 o'clock service. With eyes snapping with indignation over my outrageous conduct, Theodore, the younger, exclaimed: "Papa, what did you fo' Wesley down in that water for?" I explained baptism as best I could. "Well, you shan't ever baptize me and get my new suit all wet up!" After the church service I lingered to say a word here and there. I found Marion, the older, at the parsonage door waiting for me when I came. I saw he was angry. "What is it? I said. "I am not going to love Jesus and I am not going to work!" he burst out. "Why?" "Because mamma spanked me for leaving the key in the door." To be obedient, to love Jesus and to work, constituted about all the religious tenets they had been taught to hold up to this time. The next year they were called on to begin learning the bitterness of the color line. Neither I, with all my years of experience, no Theodore, in his childish innocence, could foresee how relentlessly that color line as he approached his twenty-first birthday would cut to the center of his soul and mine, when he, smitten with death, would not be allowed the pitiful chance to fight for his life in an anti-tubercular sanitarium simply because he belonged to "the colored" race. Time moves rapidly after the days of kilts and "Buster Brown suits. KINDERGARTEN DAYS The first years of their life were spent on the campus of Fisk University. White and colored were so mixed there they had never heard of distinctions till we moved to Louisville, KY., in their fifth and seventh years - they to enter the public schools and I to teach in the high schools. Not long afterwards they came home from school one day greatly published. "Papa, are we colored folks?" They were seeing their first street fights between the white and colored children, and they were hearing things about colored folk. Later on there was more definite teaching about prayer. "Papa do you mean I have to pray for white boys, too?" That was Theodore. He could not see why he should pray for boys who called him "nigger" and threw rocks at him. When they came in the eighth grade my little colored boys were no longer in existence except in feature and color. In thought, action, purpose and ambition they had become white boys. All the books they read were about white boys - fine boys, too. All the girls they read about had blue eyes, golden hair and rosebud lips. All the history they studied never told anything worth remembering and calculated to inspire except about white people. The only pictures of colored children they saw were the "Gold Dust Twins," and all that kind of fine art which those artists so love to hold up and ridicule. Those artists are not to be blamed, of course, for they evidently never saw any colored children whose young faces showed character and bright hopes for all the blessed conditions of life. So my boys of their own accord in mind and thought were white. The week before Thanksgiving Day, Theodore's teacher assigned for the subject of his essay to be brought in. "THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OUR FOREFATHERS." When he had written all he knew, he came to me with this request: "Papa, will you give me some points about the manners and customs of our forefathers?" "Certainly, son; our forefathers in summer time went bare-footed, worked the plantations, wore copperas pants, and our mothers wore bandannas around their heads." I can hear still the snort of disgust which cut short my enumeration of valuable points. "You know that I mean our Pilgrim Fathers." Yes, I knew. I knew that my boys, in character, intelligence, hopes, and in all commendable boyhood things were white except in the privilege to make the most of themselves without having to fight proscription every inch of the way in life. At last they came into the high school and began to talk college, and the days were but few till I saw them off on the train for college, with all their gay life and hopes for the future. For years it had been just we three, and the days that followed were lonely ones for me. But I looked four years ahead to the commencement season of 1916, hoping to get my boys back with finished education and consequent college culture. Last spring I brought Theodore home and was told that he was in the incipient stage of tuberculosis. The blow was so staggering it well nigh benumbed my sense, but for a while I was reassured, so rapidly did he respond to the heroic measures taken. But in the early fall he began losing ground, and by November I was told that his only hope lay in getting in a good antitubercular sanitarium in a favorable climate. Denver was recommended. I found upon inquiry that all the sanitariums of Denver closed their doors against colored people. Saranac, New York, was tried in vain. Through a friend, Colorado Springs was canvassed and no reply of any kind seemed forthcoming. I wrote the head physician of the Denver City Hospital to rent a private ward. "No," came by telegram. In utter despair, December 11th, I sent my boy on to Denver to Dr. Westbrook to get him in a colored family for such benefit as could be had under such a situation in a favorable climate. After he was gone word came from a friend in Colorado Springs saying St. Francis, a Catholic hospital, would take my son. At the end of the first week in January, 1916, a telegram came telling me my boy had come near to death in a violent hemorrhage. I came on to him as fast as steam could bring me. He rallied, and at this date is about and doing well. Examination by one of Denver's tubercular experts told me to take the boy back to Kentucky meant certain death, but there is yet some hope of recovery if I should take my son down into New Mexico or Arizona. I wrote Dr. Shirtless Sanitarium at Albuquerque, N.M.; St. Vincent, the Catholic sanitarium at Santa Fe, N.M., and the Tucson, Arizona, sanitarium. From Albuquerque came the set reply, "We do not take colored patients." The reply was the same from Tucson. From St. Vincent, the Catholic sanitarium at Santa Fe, "We will take your son in the hospital." In our sorrowful quest -- in the unspeakable agony and heartbreak of it all, hunting for a place where my boy, smitten with death, might make a last stand and have the chance to make a fight for his life, we brought along with us the culture of Fist University, Hartford Seminary, and the University of Indiana, but we had to bring along the fact that we are colored, and no matter what else we had, nor how previously a boy on the threshold of a useful and most promising manhood was smitten, that "colored" was enough to put us with all except the Catholics in a hospital beyond the pale of common humanity. A black bear, a hound dog, a chimpanzee are creatures also that suffer and die with tuberculosis. Had these applied at these sanitariums could they have been more ruthlessly and with less compunction shut out? A Santa Fe hospital is secured, but the boy is suffering from the altitude of Denver, and Santa Fe is higher than Denver; but after a week or ten days more we must move on from Denver southward, still hunting a suitable place. The expense is enormous. My salary is all I have with which to support my boy, and that stops all the time I am away on a leave of absence; but I cannot take him back to Louisville and I will not leave him without being provided with the care and security of sanitarium provisions. I will fight to the last ditch, and, if I must, go clear down to the gates with him, that being the eternal limit set as the distance one mortal may go with another. HARTFORD SEMINARY, HARTFORD, CONN,. DECEMBER, 1919 CHAPTER II. [picture caption: FIRST YEARS IN THE GRADES In spite of all efforts I failed utterly to find anywhere a refuge, save that found in Denver at the first. During January and a part of February I remained there with the sick boy until the lack of money forced me to return to my school work in Louisville. And now after three years, memories of those six weeks make for me the dearest possession of a lifetime. From their baby hood both boys and I were close together and away out there on the plains of Colorado with the younger son, so previously stricken, so far from home and with the shadow of death always present there came to us a new bond. To the last day of his life he never grew sick in bed. We went about the streets of Denver together when zero weather did not forbid, as it did most of the time, and in our boarding place we spent days and nights together in a new and dear companionship. During that time there was marked improvement over the conditions at the time of my arrival. He was full of hope always, and it was his spirit that rallied mine and often kept me from "sinking down," and sent me home at last with hope in my heart. During those six weeks, as well as in many weeks before and afterward, I agonized and prayed much. I sent out from Denver the first part of this story with notices of the publication of a small book of verse and asked subscriptions for it to help raise money for our fight. Many subscriptions came for the book and letters full of deep sympathy and ineffable kindness of spirit. In that hour with the best grounds for it, those letters saved me much bitterness of soul and temptation for unutterable hatred. Any parent will at least understand that temptation if he will just imagine himself in a burning building, with the firemen rushing up ladders to save the imprisoned inmates, but should find a ladder refused him because of his race. In the last analysis, fatherhood is just fatherhood all over this world. The circulars sent out brought me not only letters but a flood of Christian Science literature. I had never closely examined that religious belief before and in ignorance of it had entertained but scant respect for its claims. When I had gone through it, I knew from the first that it was a mental impossibility for me ever to become an unqualified believer in Christian Science but the investigations changed my whole attitude toward it and that together with something else which came in a letter with a new suggestion was destined to color my whole life afterwards. All the essential tenets of Christian Science in its reliance upon prayer and the power of Christ in divine healing did not seem to me a faith different from the one I had already. I never have believed that the individual Christian as a rule nor the Christian Church, has ever fully come into possession of all that is available through Christ in healing, but I knew I never divest myself from belief in the use of our scientific discoveries and all other evidently God-given material things placed in the world by Him for restoration and healing nor separate them in God's providence from any other more direct manner of healing which He is able to use and verily which I believe He does use. at this time there came to me a letter from Rev. Philip H. Clifford, pastor of a Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn. His letter in its expression of deep sympathy was like that of many other which came to me. Somewhere the notice of the new book and effort being made to save my boy's life had fallen into his hands. He sent with his expression of sympathy and price for the book, a suggestion of an effort to establish and endow an Anti-Tubercular Sanitarium to which colored people could go for treatment, but I had at that time not passed sufficiently through the fire to be willing to undertake so hard and discouraging a task as I knew that to be. I put the letter aside and turned my attention more to possible help through Christian Science. I wrote a number of people who wrote to me and asked them to take up Theodore's case and pray with me for him. I took the matter up with him, suggested that we should go to some of the Christian Science services and that he should read the literature. He consented but was not very enthusiastic about it and I could not ardently press on him a greater spirit in the matter than I had myself. My heart violently revolted at hiring a practicioner, as one Scientist advised me to do. The fairness of the price concerned for service had nothing to do with the objection. The idea itself whether justly or unjustly brought to mind too vividly the would-be ministrations of Simon of Samaria when he saw Philip healing. I went over again and again the New Testament records of the Christ healing and that of His immediate followers before and after his crucifixion. I went over the Old Testament vows. After I left the boy and went back to my work in Louisville, Ky., I passed through great agony of spirit. I reread Mr. Cliffords letter and thought more about his suggestion. Finally I came to a place where I would have embraced any religion in the world that did not leave Jesus Christ out and undertake any effort in His name if by doing so I could save my boy. It was then that I made my vow: "If thou wilt give me the restoration of my boy I will give the rest of my life to work for the establishment and maintenance of an Anti-Tubercular Sanitarium for colored people." As far as I could understand myself and as far as will power could go I threw myself unreservedly in God's hand in the matter. In spite of myself there would follow fluctuations of hope and fear according to reports that came to me from Denver. But finally I came into peace and felt a deep assurance that my prayer had been granted. This assurance soon afterwards was greatly strengthened by a letter from the physician in Denver. "I am glad to tell you," he said, "that there is a great change in Theodore. One lung is apparently entirely healed over and the other is fast healing. The only great anxiety now is the heart trouble, due to the altitude of Denver." A letter from Theodore came that even more quickened the heartbeat with hope. This item read: "I am doing fine. I attended a swell function of Denver colored society last night, given by the professional men of Denver. The music went mightily to my feet and I danced a number of times, till Doc came around and told me that was all he would allow." This was Theodore come back surely -- the high school boy once more -- ever a leader in its gay society and the most graceful dancer of them all. It was April. I took the cars and went to Iraquois Park and there from its heights on one of the four-mile driveways, encircling the hill at three points from the base to Top Drive, I saw below Kentucky stretching away for eastward with rolling blue grass meadows, cultivated fields and the lordly Ohio encircling in a horseshoe bend the state's metropolis. The feathered tribes were fairly screaming their joys with the mocking birds repeating all their different notes in song. Amid the wide spread of all the heavenly green of the new spring the redbud trees and dogwood blossoms filled the woods with mingled gleams of white and scarlet. Everything stimulated to sublime faith to resurrection of life. It was all there that day in my soul and the heart-cry -- "God bless Denver." Cheery letters still come from the boy and finally a plan for going to work, the old eagerness for moving on reasserting itself. Late in May he wrote saying, "Dr. Westbrook is sick unto death and all hope for recovery given up. Before he went to the hospital he placed me under the care of Dr. Catlin." What a reversal in letters. Five months before Dr. Westbrook had written me in the same manner about Theodore. Early in June Dr. Catlin wrote me saying: "Your son is no immediate danger from tuberculosis but the condition of the heart is such there must be no longer delay in moving him from Denver." There is no need of the use of space to write of the next move for money enough and search for any other place. It was the first movement right over. The first week in July found us in Los Angeles, California, to make the last stand. The summer passed by rapidly. We spent much of the time out doors, the bond ever growing stronger between us, and both of us held on to hope -- hope at least for that recovery that comes to many tubercular sufferers, which enables them in that dry climate to live on for years and work enough to earn a living. I had come to the place where I would be glad to accept any phase of recovery. August 22nd was the last day I could remain and get home in time to meet the Superintendent's appointed day with principals for reorganization of schools and take two days in Chicago as I passed with the older son as I planned. My train was due to leave Los Angeles at 8 A.M. Theodore did not get up for breakfast with me. I think he did not wish to see the getting ready to go. At the last moment I went into his room, knelt down by his bed, put my arm under his pillow and gathered him up to my face -- just the gathering up of the little boy once more -- only there was not the responsive impulse of the little boy throwing his arms around my neck as of old. We both knew that it was more than likely that it was the very last moment we would ever have together in this world and at such a time there is little place for words. He held himself impassable and would not even open his eyes to see me start. When I arose to go, with his eyes still closed, evenly he said, "Good bye papa." He saw me for the last time when I was in the room with him before breakfast. CHAPTER III. [Picture caption: THE EIGHTH GRADE.] [Picture caption: HIGH SCHOOL.] The autumn came and passed. No place can surpass Kentucky in autumnal beauty. Only the sick boy out by the Pacific kept me from reveling in all the glory of the blue grass region. Cheery and hopeful letters came frequently from him -- one in November telling of a glorious picnic excursion to Riverside, California. "A Perfect day," he wrote. Ten days before Christmas a beautiful Christmas card and a few short lines came with a promise to write again in the next few days, but instead a friend watching over him sent me a letter telling of repeated heart attacks that filled me with alarm. The next day after that letter came I read in the Sunday school Times an account of a wonderful experience related by Rev. Clarence Usher, telling of his flight from Van in Armenia before the murderous army of the Turks, his wife dead, the most of the members of his Church scattered and slain by the wayside and he himself sick unto death. In his last extremity he turned to God for divine healing. He told of his faith in the faith of Christ to bring divine healing and how he was immediately healed and rescued with his remaining children. This was something of a new angle to faith in an approach to God. I cut out the article and mailed it to my son, imploring him to cast his all on the faith of Christ to save him. I was sure now nothing else could. December 28th in Los Angeles, Theodore came in and remained til the guests were gone. When he went to bed, Mr. Russell sent me a night message. "If Theodore should suddenly slip away what should I do?" Tuesday, January 2nd, the telegram was left on my desk in Dunbar School. When I came down stairs and read it, I rushed to the nearest telegraph station and wired, "I will leave for Los Angeles tomorrow," and Wednesday morning I left Louisville for my flight across the continent. When I started I knew full well it was now a race with death. I telegraphed the older son at work in Chicago to meet me at the Dearborn Street Station for the half-hour stop I had there. Before I passed through the gates to my train I went to the telegraph window and wired. "I am on the California Limited, coming Theodore." In his student days he had run out of Chicago to Los Angeles, California, working on a dining car. I knew he would know all about the apparently endless plains, the desolate stretches of the desert and the mighty Rockies I must cross before I got to him but he would also know that I was on the fastest passenger train in the work coming. At noon Friday, when it are time to take the medicine used to stimulate the heart action, and which in amount had to be carefully measured, he said to Mrs. Russell, "Let us count the drops together," and when it was taken, "Now you may tilt my chair back and I will go to sleep." She did so and be closed his eyes never to open them again. For twenty minutes he slept so peacefully Mrs. Russell did not know when he passed out. Saturday afternoon at four o' clock my train rolled into the Santa Fe Station at Los Angeles, never having stopped for an hour since I had left Louisville, Ky., Wednesday morning. Through all the dreadful journey there had been a lightning of the heart and the senses but a desperate holding on to hope. When a messenger met me at the depot and told me the truth the inborn stress of strong feeling and emotion, over which to keep command I have all my life to fight mightily, temporarily died a sudden death. I felt no great sense of pain nor sorrow nor any other keen sensibility. The one thought that possessed me was, "The fight is over and I have lost." When I reached the house I took up the business matters with the undertaker who had been waiting to know my plans. When these things were all settled I went in to see Theodore. With twenty-four hours to prepare for my arrival all the evidence of a sick room had been removed. Theodore was dressed in his best black suit, with a white tie and collar immaculate. He was lying on a couch with a beautiful flower-worked spread thrown over him. One corner was thrown back and the left arm was brought from under the spread across his breast far enough for the hand to point downward. His head was slightly turned to the right. About the room there was vases of cut flowers. Outside the January day had only bright sunshine and soft air like Kentucky's early June. White shades and carefully drawn curtains filled the room with subdued light. The embalmer had removed the emaciation of the face and Theodore was just lying there sleeping as I had seem him a thousand times before. There was a sense present that went back to his baby days -- to move quietly so as not to wake him up. The faint odor of formaldehyde was the only suggestion of a death chamber. He had spoken of death but twice. A few weeks before he had told Mrs. Russell that he wanted his remains cremated and that he did not want any fuss made over him. Before I came to the room I had agreed with the undertaker for cremation. I wished to do everything he wanted done. When I came into the room and saw him, the idea of cremation filled me with horror. That wish I had to deny. A week before Rev. Kinchen had called and talked with him about death. He said, "I wish to live. I have had some ambition to do something in the world. I have it now. Even if I cannot fully recover, I wish to get well enough to work and repay my father for his devotion to me. But if I must yield to death, that matter is all settled." His wish for a simple service was carried out. Miss Rogers sang, "The End of a Perfect Day," a song he liked. Rev. Kinchen read the scripture selected and Rev. Lichner offered prayer. Rev. Kinchen spoke a brief word of his acquaintance with the boy, of his brave spirit, of his views of life and his attitude towards it. Miss Rogers sang, "We Shall See Him Face to Face," and then we passed out to Green Dale. On one occasion the disciples of Christ asked Him where was the Kingdom of Heaven. The reply was, "The Kingdom of heaven is within you." There is another Kingdom often spoken of and if any one wishes to know its whereabouts, take the first definition and substitute "Satan" for "Heaven." When I got back to Louisville, the reaction came and the floods broke loose, and in two months time that port into which men often sail with bodies wrecked in health and in spirit, for me was not far off. A friend in Worcester, Mass., had ordered "Unit" sent to me from Kansas City and I had read the publication eagerly. One day the Y. M. C. A. secretary handed the magazine to me with other mail. I gave the magazine back to him and told him I never wished to see it again. Those were days without much prayer and of insidious voices. The query ever present was, "What is faith?" Down through the ages came the definition, "Faith is the substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen." Further back than that came another definition. Julius Caesar in his commentaries on the Gaullic War relates how he once saved his army from defeat by trapping his enemy in ambush. The enemy seeing the Roman camp deserted with all baggage left behind, in their greed for spoil threw away their armor and weapons in their rush on the Roman camp, only to have the Romans spring from ambush and cut them utterly to pieces. Aside from the plausibility of his ruse, Caesar adds, "Men easily believe those things to be true which they wish to be true." In those dark days the question arose over and over, "From whence came the great peace and that deep assurance in those months lying behind?" There were times when the explanation of Julius Caesar outweighed the declaration of faith by the Hebrews. But in all that time there were two visions which would not be dismissed. In November, 1915, when the first letter came stating no sanitarium in Denver would admit a colored person, I gave the letter to Theodore to read. We had just come in from a walk. The exhaustion from that and the disappointment from the letter brought on the most violent paroxism of coughing he had hitherto. When it was over, without a word he lifted his face to mine in mute appeal, as if to the only mortal source he had left for help. The anguish of that face could not be wiped from memory nor could the other peaceful face which I saw last in that room at Los Angeles. Both plead for other young people who would be stricken as he was. In time I got up to fight for his life once more. This time in the name of a sanitarium for colored people. With that resolution came not a cessation from sorrow but peace once more, once more belief in the reality of that assurance on which I had once so relied. I came to believe that an Anti-Tubercular Sanitarium for colored people was the answer to the prayer for the boys life. With that came the feeling that the boy is not dead and is pleased with the effort. A number of friends advised me not to undertake it, that the task is too difficult and that I could not succeed. With a full appreciation of all the hard situations now present and of those lying ahead I have started the work and in every hour of discouragement I call to mind a refrain of one of our most beautiful Negro Spirituals, "Done made my vow to the Lord, and I never will turn back. Goin' to hold out to the end, to see what the end will be." I believe the end will be an adequate sanitarium. Everybody knows we have none and everybody knows we need it. In spite of all the demands of 1919 there are a few at least who will help this cause now. Others when the sanitarium comes into existence will help but no help will ever come that will be as significant as the help given now when the movement is in its life or death stages. I have written this story relating the most private and personal and sacred experiences of a life-time only because I believed here and there it would appeal to the heart of the compassionate. While I have come to feel a greater desire to save the many who will be stricken with tuberculosis, (for I cannot hope to get a sanitarium established soon enough to serve those now already mitten, there being but little chance for those not reached in the incipient stage), above all else it is the boy himself that is the motive power moving me on. "I have had ambition to do something in the world, but if I must yield to death that matter is settled," he told Rev. Kinchen. It was his to yield to death and it is mine to make good his ambition and report it to him by and by. In Louisville during their early boyhood both boys were exceedingly proud of their father and often boasted to their playmates of Prof. G. M. McClellan, teacher of Latin and English in Central High School. Comparatively few of our children in the schools have professional parents. Those who do are often quick to arrogate distinction to themselves because of it, absolutely blind to the greater glory of those parents who are themselves without education and with a poor wage that strive as ardently and with great sacrifice to educate their children as do the professionals. When my two were older they quit their boasting but expressed their pride in another way even more embarrassing. When they went away to school their vacations were spent at work in Chicago. I went there to see them. The colored Y. M. C. A. was their stopping place. Here the students of all colleges of the south working in Chicago congregate. Those two youngsters of mine when I came up were bound to show me off. I suffered the parade and heard their voice of pride, "I want you to meet my father." Personally I did not share their so great opinion of their father, by the worthless father on earth is glad to have his boys proud of him even though he knows there is nothing to be proud about. In my lifetime I have been in many a railroad station and through every state in the Union but give. I have been in our finest depots and our worst. Once a supercillious ticket seller in Mississippi ordered me to go outdoors and on the ground to get my ticket through the window, the place for "niggers" to get tickets he told me. There was not even the customary room set aside for colored passengers in that little station. But with all such experience there is something alike in the coming and going of trains, hurrying to and fro of passengers and with all phases of it I am perfectly familiar. I do not know where heaven is, nor do I have the remotest idea what it is like but I take pleasure in building up a scene for myself. I know that some day I shall take a train for the Eternal City to turn on my reports of service and I wish the Sanitarium to head the list. I know when my train pulls into that city it will be all different from anything I ever knew before, that I will not know which way to turn, where the bureau of information is nor what sort of directions to ask for but I hope there will be many of the friends gone ahead who will come to the depot to meet my train. Of them all the very first face I want to see will be the boy's face radiating with the same eager, nervous energy I so well know. I shall wish him to pilot me through the crowd and straight up to the palace of the King, and I hope to hear once more the same boyish voice full of pride and with better reason for it than ever before, say to the King, "I want you to meet my father." G. M. McCLELLAN. THEODORE [ca. 1915] Delta Sigma Theta Sorority OUR OATH I will strive to reach the highest educational, moral and spiritual efficiency which I can possibly attain. I will never lower my aims for any temporary benefit which might be gained. I will endeavor to preserve my health, for, however great one's mental and moral strength may be, physical weakness prevents the accomplishment of much that otherwise might be done. I will close my ears and seal my lips to slanderous gossip. I will labor to ennoble the ideals and purify the atmosphere of the home. I will always protest against the double standard of morals. I will take an active interest in the welfare of my country, using my influence toward the protection of the unfortunate and weak and for the repeal of those depriving human beings of their privileges and rights. I will never belittle my race, but encourage all to hold it in honor and esteem. I will not shrink from undertaking what seems wise and good, because I labor under the double handicap of race and sex; but, striving to preserve a calm mind with a courageous and cheerful spirit, barring bitterness from my heart, I will struggle all the more earnestly to reach the goal. Mary C. Terrell (Honorary Member) Alpha Chapter Beta Chapter Howard Wilberforce University University Washington Wilberforce D.C. Ohio A DESCRIPTIVE EXHIBITION OF FOUR PROPHETICAL HORSES and of what they are emblematic: and also of their riders and their riders' mission. The advice given in this book if properly adhered to will destroy war and rumors of wars, earthquakes, drought, famines, pestilences, sicknesses, diseases, accidents, funeral processions and even death ; for God created man to live, not to die. Compliments of RH Terrell 63D Congress 1st Session SENATE Document No. 12 The CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA As Amended to May 1, 1913 Washington Government Printing Office Memorial and Prayer To the Governor and both branches of the Legislature of the State of Alabama By Colored Citizens of the State of Alabama Under the Name of "The Negro Betterment League of the State of Alabama" Montgomery, Alabama, January 1919 THE NEGRO BETTERMENT LEAGUE OF ALABAMA. To His Honor, the Governor, and Both Branches of the Legislature of the State of Alabama: Honored Sirs: Greetings. Being identified with, as part and parcel of the Negro race in the State of Alabama, and knowing their condition and needs, as well as their strivings and longings, and knowing your great desire to put on the statute books those laws that shall be helpful to all classes of citizens, we beg to place before your honorable body the suggestions in this prayer. Though deplorable errors have been made here and there by members of our race, we have strived as representatives to do and have at all times urged our race to their best in the work of developing the possibilities of our great commonwealth. When called upon in any cause for our state or nation, we have stood and now stand ready to do our part as we are able. In the great world war in every field of endeavor we were proud to show our country that we are not slackers and can be depended upon in any crises. Now that the war is over and peace is established, we are ready to aid in the great work of readjustment and reconstruction We can render aid in such a needed development in proportion as we have intelligence, civic opportunity, protection and encouragement. The war has brought about conditions that have promoted restlessness and discontent on the part of our race already dissatisfied over the uncertainty of life, the poor provisions for their improvement and their limited opportunities. The Negroes are not unwilling to remain in the South, and we think they should largely remain in the South, where large acreage can be had upon which they can engage in agricultural pursuits for which a large percentage of them are adapted. But unless consideration for their proper development and for their protection and for suitable opportunities for their children is given them in this section, they feel compelled to seek safety for their live sand opportunities for their children in sections that will furnish such environments. Knowing their hearts, their strivings and their desires, we are most respectfully and prayerfully asking your consideration of the following prayer and petition: 1. There is great need of a larger activity in educational affairs among our people in order to reduce our illiteracy and to make our people better fitted for citizenship. Statistics show that in the State of Alabama there are approximately two hundred thousand Negroes over ten years of age that can neither read nor white, and that less than $2.00 is paid annually for the education of each Negro child. Scientific agriculture and teacher training for the Negro population of our State receive very small consideration. We therefore ask that the compulsory educational law be enforced for Negro children, that agricultural instructions and teacher training be provided and a larger provision be made for the education of Negro children by increased appropriations for teachers' salary, better schools and adequate equipment in the common schools. In order that we may be ready for any call by our State or nation to serve as soldiers, we call attention to the matter of military training for Negro youth. 2. The accommodation of common carriers, especially railroads with their waiting rooms for Negro passengers in the State of Alabama, furnishes such miserable accommodation that the discrimination against them is openly apparent. The cards and waiting rooms set aside for Negro passengers are not only uncomfortable, but are so unclean as to become dangerous to health, which indirectly reaches all other citizens. We ask that these common carriers give the Negro passengers just such accommodations for first-class fares as are given to other passengers who pay the same fare. 3. The records show that from 1885 to 1918, 3,785 persons have been lynched in the United States, and that while others have suffered illegal execution, more than 95 per cent of those lynched were Negroes. This large number of murders by mobs has created and is now creating a tremendous spirit of unrest among the Negroes in our State, and largely influenced by the feeling of insecurity for their lives, they are gradually leaving this section. Nothing less than legislation that will give proper protections for their lives will stay this gradual tide of emigration. We therefore ask that in order that the declaration of our distinguished President Wilson against lynching be carried out, that a law strengthening the position of the present administration in its prosecution of lynchers, be enacted. We believe that a law providing that the nearest of kin to the one lynched in the state shall receive $10,000 from the county in which the lynching takes place, and that the sheriff and his assistants who allow prisoners to be lynched in their county shal lbe removed from office and that certain punishment shall await those convicted of lynching, will have solutary effect upon this awful practice against our people and against the dignity of the law. 4. Realizing the dreadful effect of the liquor traffic upon the people of our race, we ask on their behalf and for their salvation that the Federal amendment to abolish the use of liquor in the United States be endorsed by the present legislature. 5. We ask for the impartial enforcement of the constitutional provision for the franchise, so that full privilege to vote shall be given to members of the Negro race who are qualified under the constitutional provision. The discretionary requirements demanded of Negroes by the registrars often make it impossible for many Negroes, though well qualified, to register. Germans, Italians, French and others register on their own recognizance without being recommended. We ask for the same for the Negro. 6. We ask that the wages and living conditions be placed as largely as possible under a commission composed of one member of the legislature or citizens representing both races, who shall be empowered to investigate and make recommendations for the legislature for proper regulation. The committee representing the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and the Negro Betterment League is composed of the following: Respectfully Submitted, W. A. Tutt, President A. K. Hawkins J. A. Bray, Secretary J. B. Carter Oscar W. Adams J. H. Kelly W. L. Boyd W. H. Mixon J. F. Fitzpatrick E. W. Williams John W. Goodgame T. W. Coffee W. J. Turner R. M. Davis R. N. Hall W. H. Hollaway R. T. Poll[??]d [?]. P. S. L. Hut[?h??gs] L. J. Green Bishop Alstark P. A. Callahan J. D. Maddox S. B. [??n?] M. D. T. V. McBoo M. D. E. S. Smith. C. S. Reddic [*Do Not Destroy Page 67*] The Woman's Congress of Missions of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition "Crown Him Lord of All" San Francisco, June 6-13, 1915 He tellingly described how Mormons employed the church's phraseology to explain the most objectionable forms of Mormon doctrine, and characterized this as one of the most dangerous practices. Dare we ignore Mormonism? Today, between Virginia and Maine there are two hundred and sixty-five Mormon Missionaries. There are over two thousand young men and women at their own expense each giving three years' time to the work of proselyting. Mormonism is not a converting faith, but it is a proselyting religion. It conclusively proves that "man is an incurably religious animal!" Dr. Francis' sense of justice and of fair play made a profound impression and a most earnest spirit of cooperation was evinced as he said, "The biggest thing we have ever done is to change the thinking of continents." Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, of Washington, D.C., said in part: "There will be an Armageddon in the United States, and it will be the conflict between the evils of race prejudice, and justice and fair play. White people generally know little of the conditions and evils of the convict police system as exercised against the negro. The exaggeration of the vices of the colored man, and a pernicious system of criticism of his more favorable aspects persistently undermine a fair judgment." Mrs. Terrell begged that the colored man of America might have a chance, an opportunity to earn an honest living, and that his children might have more schools and more industrial training. "Present the fact," she 67 Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.