History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest by Edward A Jones - HTML preview

Not one of the employees under Mr. Roberts gives a bond, though they handle mil ions every day. But the Treasurer's office is one which every responsible employee has been weighed carefully. Its clerks have been in service many years and have proved worthy of confidence.

HOWELLS DISCOVERS A NEGRO POET.

Mr. Paul Lawrence Dunbar has been until recently an elevator-boy in Dayton, Ohio. While engaged in the ups and downs of life in that capacity he has cultivated his poetical talents so successfully that his verse has found frequent admission into leading magazines. At last a little collection of these verses reached Wil iam Dean Howells, and Mr. Dunbar's star at once became ascendant. He is said to be a full-blooded Negro, the son of slave-parents, and his best work is in the dialect of his race. A volume of his poems is soon to be published by Dodd, Mead & Co. and in an introduction to it Mr. Howells writes as follows:

"What struck me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Il inois. They had felt as I felt, that however gifted his race had proven itself in music, in oratory, in several other arts, here was the first instance of an American Negro who had evinced innate literature. In my criticism of his book I had alleged Dumas in France, and had forgotten to allege the far greater Pushkin in Russia; but these were both mulattoes who might have been supposed to derive their qualities from white blood vastly more artistic than ours, and who were the creatures of an environment more favorable to their literary development. So far as I could remember, Paul Dunbar was the only man of pure African blood and American civilization to feel the Negro life esthetically and express it lyrically. It seemed to me that this had come to its most modern consciousness in him, and that his bril iant and unique achievement was to have studied the American Negro objectively, and to have represented him as he found him to be, with humor, with sympathy, and yet with what the reader must instinctively feel to be entire truthfulness. I said that a race which had come to this effect in any member of it had attained civilization in him, and I permitted myself the imaginative prophecy that the hostilities and the prejudices which had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts; that these were to be the final proof that God had made of one blood all nations of men. I thought his merits positive and not comparative; and I held that if his black poems had been written by a white man I should not have found them less admirable. I accepted them as an evidence of the essential unity of the human race, which does not think or feel black in one and white in another, but humanly in all."

The Bookman says of Mr. Dunbar:

"It is safe to assert that accepted as an Anglo-Saxon poet, he would have received little or no consideration in a hurried weighing of the mass of contemporary verse."

"But Mr. Dunbar, as his pleasing, manly, and not unrefined face shows, is a poet of the African race; and this novel and suggestive fact at once placed his work upon a peculiar footing of interest, of study, and of appreciative welcome. So regarded, it is a most remarkable and hopeful production."

[Il ustration: PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR, THE NEGRO POET.]

We reproduce here one of Dunbar's dialect poems entitled WHEN DE CO'N PONE'S HOT.

Dey is times in life when Nature

Seems to slip a cog an' go

Jes' a-rattlin' down creation,

Lak an ocean's overflow;

When de worl' jes' stahts a-spinnin'

Lak a picaninny's top,

An' you' cup o' joy is brimmin'

'Twel it seems about to slop.

An' you feel jes' lak a racah

Dat is trainin' fu' to trot--

When you' mammy ses de blessin'

An' de co'n pone's hot.

When you set down at de table,

Kin' o' weary lak an' sad,

'An' you'se jest a little tiahed,

An' purhaps a little mad--

How you' gloom tu'ns into gladness,

How you' joy drives out de doubt

When de oven do' is opened

An' de smell comes po'in' out;

Why, de 'lectric light o' Heaven

Seems to settle on de spot,

When yo' mammy ses de blessin'

An' de co'n pone's hot.

When de cabbage pot is steamin'

An' de bacon good an' fat,

When de chittlin's is a-sputter'n'

So's to show yo' whah dey's at;

Take away you sody biscuit,

Take away yo' cake an' pie.

Fu' de glory time is comin',

An' it's proachin' very nigh,

An' you' want to jump an' hollah,

Do you know you'd bettah not,

When you mammy ses de blessin'

An' de co'n pone's hot?

I have heerd o' lots o' sermons,

An' I've heerd o' lots o' prayers;

An' I've listened to some singin'

Dat has tuck me up de stairs

Of de Glory Lan' an' set me

Jes' below de Mahster's th'one,

An' have lef my haht a singin'

In a happy aftah-tone.

But dem wu's so sweetly murmured

Seem to tech de softes' spot,

When my mammy ses de blessin'.

An de co'n pone's hot.

--Taken from the Literary Digest.

DISFRANCHISEMENT OF COLORED VOTERS.

While the Northern and Western portions of the United States were paying tributes to the valor of the Negro soldiers who fought for the flag in Cuba, the most intense feeling ever witnessed, was brewing in some sections of the South-notably in the North Carolina Legislature against the rights and privileges of Negro citizenship, which culminated in the passage of a "Jim Crow" car law, and an act to amend the Constitution so as to disfranchise the colored voters. It was noticeable, however, that although the "Jim Crow Car" law got through that body in triumph, yet the "Jim Crow Bed" law, which made it a felony for whites and colored to cohabit together DID NOT PASS.

[Il ustration: FILIPINO LADY OF MANILA.]

The Washington Post, which cannot be rated as generally partial to the colored citizens of the Union, and which is especially vicious in its attacks on the colored soldiers, has the following to say as to the proposed North Carolina amendment, which is so well said that we insert the same in full as an indication to our people that justice is not yet dead--though seemingly tardy:

SUFFRAGE IN NORTH CAROLINA.

(Washington Post, Feb. 20, 1899.)

The amendment to the Constitution of North Carolina, which has for its object the limitation of the suffrage in the State, appears to have been modeled on the new Louisiana laws and operate a gross oppression and injustice. It is easy to see that the amendment is not intended to disfranchise the ignorant, but to stop short with the Negro; to deny to the il iterate black man the right of access to the ballot box and yet to leave the way wide open to the equally il iterate whites. In our opinion the policy thus indicated is both dangerous and unjust. We expressed the same opinion in connection with the Louisiana laws, and we see no reason to amend our views in the case of North Carolina.

The proposed arrangement is wicked. It wil not bear the test of intelligent and impartial examination. We believe in this case, as in that of Louisiana, that the Federal Constitution has been violated, and we hope that the people of North Carolina wil repudiate the blunder at the polls.

We realize with sorrow and apprehension that there are elements at the South enlisted in the work of disfranchising the Negro for purposes of mere party profit. It has been so in Louisiana, where laws were enacted under which penniless and il iterate Negroes cannot vote, while the ignorant and vicious classes of whites are enabled to retain and exercise the franchise. So far as we are concerned--and we believe that the best element of the South in every State wil sustain our proposition-we hold that, as between the ignorant of the two races, the Negroes are preferable. They are conservative; they are good citizens; they take no stock in social schisms and vagaries; they do not consort with anarchists; they cannot be made the tools and agents of incendiaries; they constitute the solid, worthy, estimable yeomanry of the South. Their influence in government would be infinitely more wholesome than the influence of the white sansculotte, the riff-raff, the idlers, the rowdies, and the outlaws. As between the Negro, no matter how il iterate he may be, and the "poor white," the property-holders of the South prefer the former. Excepting a few impudent, half-educated, and pestiferous pretenders, the Negro masses of the South are honest, well-meaning, industrious, and safe citizens.

They are in sympathy with the superior race; they find protection and encouragement with the old slave-holding class; if left alone, they would furnish the bone and sinew of a secure and progressive civilization. To disfranchise this class and leave the degraded whites in possession of the ballot would, as we see the matter, be a blunder, if not a crime.

The question has yet to be submitted to a popular vote. We hope it wil be decided in the negative. Both the Louisiana Senators are on record as proclaiming the unconstitutionality of the law. Both are eminent lawyers, and both devoted absolutely to the welfare of the South. We can only hope, for the sake of a people whom we admire and love, that this iniquitous legislation may be overruled in North Carolina as in Louisiana.

CHAPTER IX.

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE PHILIPPINOS.

WHO AGUINALDO IS.

Emilio Aguinaldo was born March 22, 1869, at Cavite, Viejo.

When twenty-five years old he was elected Mayor of Cavite.

On August 21, 1896, Aguinaldo became leader of the insurgents. The revolution started on that day.

He fought four battles with the Spaniards and was victorious in all.

He lost but ten men, to the Spaniards 125.

On December 24, 1897, a peace was established between Aguinaldo and the Spanish.

Aguinaldo received $400,000, but the rest of the conditions of peace were never carried out.

In June last Aguinaldo issued a proclamation, expressing a desire for the establishment of a native administration in the Philippines under an American protectorate.

In an interview with a World correspondent at that time he expressed himself as grateful to Americans.

In July he issued a proclamation fixing the 12th day of that month for the declaration of the independence of the Philippines.

In November Aguinaldo defied General Otis, refusing to release his Spanish prisoners.

The Cabinet on December 2 cabled General Otis to demand the release of the prisoners.

[Il ustration: EMILIO AGUINALDO, MILITARY DICTATOR OF THE FILIPINOS.]

AGUINALDO THE MAN.

In his features, face and skull Aguinaldo looks more like a European than a Malay.

He is what would be called a handsome man, and might be compared with many young men in the province of Andalusia, Spain. If there be truth in phrenology he is a man above the common. Friends and enemies agree that he is intelligent, ambitious, far-sighted, brave, self-controlled, honest, moral, vindictive, and at times cruel. He possesses the quality which friends call wisdom and enemies call craft. According to those who like him he is courteous, polished, thoughtful and dignified; according to those who dislike him he is insincere, pretentious, vain and arrogant. Both admit him to be genial, generous, self-sacrificing, popular and capable in the administration of affairs. If the opinion of his foes be accepted he is one of the greatest Malays on the page of history. If the opinion of his friends be taken as the criterion he is one of the great men of history irrespective of race.--The Review of Reviews.

FACTS FROM FELIPE AGONCILLO'S LETTER IN LESLIE'S MAGAZINE.

Sixty per cent, of the inhabitants can read and write.

The women in education are on a plane with the men.

Each town of 5,000 inhabitants has two schools for children of both sexes. The towns of 10,000 inhabitants have three schools. There are technical training schools in Manila, Iloilo, and Bacoler. "In these schools are taught cabinet work, silversmithing, lock-smithing, lithography, carpentering, machinery, decorating, sculpture, political economy, commercial law, book-keeping, and commercial correspondence, French and English; and there is one superior college for painting, sculpture and engraving. There is also a college of commercial exports in Manila, and a nautical school, as well as a superior school of agriculture. Ten model farms and a meteorological observatory are conducted in other provinces, together with a service of geological studies, a botanical garden and a museum, a laboratory and military academy and a school of telegraphy."

Manila has a girl's school (La Ascuncion) of elementary and superior branches, directed by French, English and Spanish mothers, which teaches French, English literature, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, topography, physics, geology, universal history, geography, designing, music, dress-making and needle-work. The capital has besides a municipal school of primary instruction and the following colleges: Santa Ysabel, Santa Catolina, La Concordia, Santa Rosa de la Looban, a hospital of San Jose, and an Asylum of St. Vincent de Paul, all of which are places of instruction for children. There are other elementary schools in the State of Camannis, in Pasig, in Vigan and Jaro.

The entire conduct of the civilization of the Philippines as well as local authorities are in the hands of the Philipinos themselves. They also had charge of the public offices of the government during the last century.

There is a medical school and a school for mid-wives.

"Al the young people and especially the boys, belonging to well-to-do families residing in the other islands go to Manila to study the arts and learn a profession. Among the natives to be ignorant and uneducated, is a shameful condition of degradation."

"The sons of the rich families began to go to Spain in 1854" to be educated.

[Il ustration: FELIPE AGONCILLO Emissary of the Filipinos to the United States.]

When the Spaniards first went to the islands "they found the Philipinos enlightened and advanced in civilization." "They had foundries for casting iron and brass, for making guns and powder.

They had their special writing with two alphabets, and used paper imported from China and Japan." This was in the early part of the sixteenth century. The Spanish government took the part of the natives against the imposition of exhorbitant taxes, and the tortures of the inquisition by the early settlers.

The highest civilization exists in the island of Luzon but in some of the remote islands the people are not more than "enlightened." The population embraced in Anguinaldo's dominion is 10,000,000, scattered over a territory in area approaching 200,000 square miles. The Americans up to this time have conquered only about 143 square miles of this territory.

What takes place in the South concerning the treatment of Negroes is known in the Philippines. The Philipino government on the 27th of February, 1899, issued from Hong Kong the following decree warning the Philipino people as follows:

"Manila has witnessed the most horrible outrages, the confiscation of the properties and savings of the people at the point of the bayonet, the shooting of the defenseless, accompanied by odious acts of abomination repugnant barbarism and social hatred, worse than the doings in the Carolinas."

They are told of America's treatment of the black population, and are made to feel that it is better to die fighting than become subject to a nation where, as they are made to believe, the colored man is lynched and burned alive indiscriminately. The outrages in this country is giving America a bad name among the savage people of the world, and they seem to prefer savagery to American civilization, such as is meted out to her dark-skinned people.

CHAPTER X.

RESUME.

Should the question be asked "how did the American Negroes act in the Spanish-American war?" the foregoing brief account of their conduct would furnish a satisfactory answer to any fair mind. In testimony of their valiant conduct we have the evidence first, of competent eye witnesses; second, of men of the white race; and third, not only white race, but men of the Southern white race, in America, whose antipathy to the Negro "with a gun" is well known, it being related of the great George Washington, who, withal, was a slave owner, but mild in his views as to the harshness of that system--that on his dying bed he called out to his good wife: "Martha, Martha, let me charge you, dear, never to trust a 'nigger' with a gun." Again we have the testimony of men high in authority, competent to judge, and whose evidence ought to be received. Such men as General Joseph Wheeler, Colonel Roosevelt, General Miles, President McKinley. If on the testimony of such witnesses as these we have not "established our case," there must be something wrong with the jury. A good case has been established, however, for the colored soldier, out of the mouth of many witnesses.

The colored troopers just did so well that praise could not be withheld from them even by those whose education and training had bred in them prejudice against Negroes. It can no longer be doubted that the Negro soldier wil fight. In fact such has been their record in past wars that no scruples should have been entertained on this point, but the (late) war was a fresh test, the result of which should be enough to convince the most incredulous "Doubting Thomases."

[Il ustration: CONVENT AT CAVITE, WHERE AGUINALDO WAS PROCLAIMED

PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC (JUNE, 1898).]

The greater portion of the American people have confidence in the Negro soldier. This confidence is not misplaced--the American government can, in the South, organize an army of Negro soldiers that wil defy the combined forces of any nation of Europe. The Negro can fight in any climate, and does not succumb to the hardships of camp life. He makes a model soldier and is well nigh invincible.

The Negro race has a right to be proud of the achievements of the colored troopers in the late Spanish-American war. They were the representatives of the whole race in that conflict; had they failed it would have been a calamity charged up to the whole race. The race's enemies would have used it with great effect. They did not fail, but did their duty nobly--a thousand hurrahs for the colored troopers of the Spanish-American war!!

In considering their successful achievements, however, it is well to remember that there were some things the Negro had to forget while facing Spanish bullets. The Negro soldier in bracing himself for that conflict must needs forget the cruelties that daily go on against his brethren under that same flag he faces death to defend; he must forget that when he returns to his own land he wil be met not as a citizen, but as a serf in that part of it, at least, where the majority of his people live; he must forget that if he wishes to visit his aged parents who may perhaps live in some of the Southern States, he must go in a "Jim Crow" car; and if he wants a meal on the way, he could only get it in the kitchen, as to insist on having it in the dining room with other travelers, would subject him to mob violence; he must forget that the flag he fought to defend in Cuba does not protect him nor his family at home; he must forget the murder of Frazier B. Baker, who was shot down in cold blood, together with his infant babe in its mother's arms, and the mother and another child wounded, at Lake City, S.C., for no other offense than attempting to perform the duties of Postmaster at that place--a position given him by President McKinley; he must forget also the shooting of Loftin, the colored Postmaster at Hagansvil e, Ga., who was guilty of no crime, but being a Negro and holding, at that place, the Postoffice, a position given him by the government; he must forget the Wilmington MASSACRE in which some forty or fifty colored people were shot down by men who had organized to take the government of the city in charge by force of the Winchester--where two lawyers and a half dozen or more colored men of business, together with such of their white friends as were thought necessary to get rid of, were banished from the city by a mob, and their lives threatened in the event of their return--all because they were in the way as Republican voters-"talked too much" or did not halt when so ordered by some members of the mob; they must forget the three hundred Negroes who were the victims of mob violence in the United States during the year 1898; they must forget that the government they fought for in Cuba is powerless to correct these evils, and does not correct them.

WHY THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PROTECT ITS COLORED CITIZENS.

Is due to the peculiar and complicated construction of the laws relating to STATES RIGHTS. The power to punish for crimes against citizens of the different States is given by construction of the Constitution of the United States to the courts of the several States.

The Federal authorities have no jurisdiction unless the State has passed some law abridging the rights of citizens, or the State government through its authorized agents is unable to protect its citizens, and has called on the national government for aid to that end, or some United States official is molested in the discharge of his duty. Under this subtle construction of the Constitution a citizen who lives in a State whose public opinion is hostile becomes a victim of whatever prejudice prevails, and, although the laws may in the letter, afford ample protection, yet those who are to execute them rarely do so in the face of a hostile public sentiment; and thus the Negroes who live in hostile communities become the victims of public sentiment. Juries may be drawn, and trials may be had, but the juries are usually white, and are also influenced in their verdicts by that sentiment which declares that "this is a white man's government," and a mistrial follows. In many instances the juries are wil ing to do justice, but they can feel the pressure from the outside, and in some instance the jurors chosen to try the cases were members of the mob, as in the case of the coroner's jury at Lake City.

It is the duty of a State Governor, when he finds public sentiment dominating the courts and obstructing justice, to interfere, and in case he cannot succeed with the sheriff and posse comitatus, then to invoke National aid. But this step has never yet been taken by any Governor of the States in the interest of Negro citizenship. Some of the State Governors have made some demonstration by way of threats of enforcing the law against those who organize mobs and take the law into their own hands; and some of the mob murderers have been brought to trial, which in most cases, has resulted in an acquittal for the reason that juries have as aforestated, chosen to obey public sentiment, which is not in favor of punishing white men for lynching Negroes, rather than obey the law; and cases against the election laws and for molesting United States officials have to be tried in the district where these offences occur, and the juries being in sympathy with the criminals, usually acquit, or there is a mistrial because they cannot all agree.

THAT MOBOCRACY IS SUPREME in many parts of the Union is no longer a mooted question. It is a fact; and one that forebodes serious consequences, not only to the Negro but to any class of citizens who may happen to come into disfavor with some other class.

[Il ustration: CHURCH OF SAN SEBASTIANO, MANILLA.]

WHAT THE NEGRO SHOULD do under such circumstances must be left to the discretion of the individuals concerned. Some advise emigration, but that is impracticable, en masse, unless some suitable place could be found where any considerable number might go, and not fare worse.

The colored people wil eventually leave those places where they are maltreated, but "whether it is better to suffer the il s we now bear than flee to those we know not of," is the question. The prevailing sentiment among the masses seems to be to remain for the present, where they are, and through wise action, and appeals to the Court of Enlightened Christian Sentiment, try to disarm the mob. There is no doubt a class of white citizens who regret such occurrences, and from their natural horror of bloodshed, and looking to the welfare and reputation of the communities in which such outrages occur, and feeling that withal the Negro makes a good domestic and farm hand, wil , and do counsel against mob violence. In many places where mobs have occurred such white citizens have been invaluable aids in saving the lives of Negroes from mob violence; and trusting that these friends wil increase and keep up their good work the Negro has seldom ever left the scene of mob violence in any considerable numbers, the home ties being strong, and he instinctively loves the scene of his birth. He loves the white men who were boys with him, whose faces he has smiled in from infancy, and he would rather not sever those friendly ties. A touching incident is related in reference to a colored man in a certain town where a mob was murdering Negroes right and left, who came to the door of his place of business, and seeing the face of a young white man whom he had known from his youth, asked protection home to his wife and five children; the reply came with an oath, "Get back into that house or I wil put a bullet into you." The day before this these two men had been "good friends," had "exchanged cigars"-but the orders of the mob were stronger in this instance than the ties of long years of close friendship. Another instance, though, wil show how the mob could not control the ties of friendship of the white for the black. It was the case of a colored man who was blacklisted by a mob in a certain city, and fled to the home of a neighboring white friend who kept him in his own house for several days until escape was possible, and in the meantime, summoned his white neighbors to guard the black man's family-threatening to shoot down the first member of the mob who should enter the gate, because, as he said, "you have no right to frighten that woman and her children to death." Such acts as this assures to the Negroes in places where feeling runs against them that perhaps they may be fortunate enough to escape the violence of this terrible race hatred that is now running riot in this country. In this connection it is well to remark that kindness wil win in the long run with the Negro Race, and make them the white man's friend. Georgia and those States where Negroes are being burned are sowing to the wind and wil ere long reap the whirlwind in the matter of race hatred. Criminal assaults were not characteristic of the Negro in the days of slavery, because as a rule there was friendship between master and slave-the slave was too fond of his master's family but to do otherwise than protect it; but the situation is changed-instead of kindness the Negro sees nothing but rebuff on every hand; he feels himself a hated and despised race without country or protection anywhere, and the brute-spirit rises in those, who, by their make-up and training, cannot keep it down-then follows murder, outrage, rape. It is true that only a few do these things, but those few are the natural products of the Southern system of oppression and the wonder is, when the question is viewed philosophically, that there are so few. The conclusion here reached is that Georgia wil not get rid of her brutes by burning them and taking the charred embers home as relics, but rather by treating her Negro population with more kindness and showing them that there is some hope for Negro citizenship in that State. The Negroes know that white men have been known to rape colored girls, but that never has there been a suggestion of lynching or burning for that, and they feel despondent, for they know the courts are useless in such cases, and this jug-handle enforcement of lynch law is breeding its own bad fruits on the Negro race as well as making more brutal the whites. My advice, then, to our white friends is to try kindness as a remedy for rape in the South, and I am convinced of the force of this remedy from what I know of the occurrence of assaults and murders in those States where the Negroes are made to feel that they are citizens and are at home.

WHAT COURAGE! WHAT AN EXAMPLE OF FAITHFULNESS TO DUTY

Did the colored troopers exhibit in forgetting all these shortcomings to themselves and race of their own government when they made those daring charges on San Juan and El Caney!! They were possessed with large hearts and sublime courage. How they fought under such circumstances, none but a divine tongue can answer. It was a miracle, and was performed, no doubt, that good might come to the race in the shape of the testimonials given them as appears heretofore in this book. Their deeds must live in history as an honor to the Negro Race.

Let them be taught to the children. Let it be said that the Negro soldier did his duty under the flag, whether that flag protects him or not. The white soldier fought under no such sad reflections--he did not, after a hard-fought battle, lie in the trenches at night and dream of his aged mother and father being run out of their little home into the wintry blasts by a mob who sought to "string them up" for circulating literature relating to the party of Wm. McKinley--the President of the United States--this was the colored soldiers' dream, but he swore to protect the flag and he did it. The colored soldier has been faithful to his trust; let others be the same. If Negroes who have other trusts to perform, do their duty as well as the colored soldiers, th