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BOOK REVIEWS
The American Negro in the World War. By Emmett J. Scott, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War. The Negro Historical Publishing Company, Washington, D.C., 1919.
Mr. Scott's account of the Negro in the World War is one of a number of works presenting the achievements of the Negroes during the great upheaval. Kelly Miller, W. Allison Sweeney and others have preceded him in publishing volumes in this same field. The account written by Kelly Miller is apparently of dubious authorship. It is but a common-place popular sketch of the war supplemented by one or two essays bearing the stamp of controversial writing peculiar to Kelly Miller. W. Allison Sweeney's work undertakes to make a more continuous historical sketch of the achievements from year to year while at the same time guided by the topical plan. At times the author is lofty in his treatment and equally as often trivial. To say that Miller's and Sweeney's works are not scientific does not exactly cover the ground. They do not well measure up to the standard of the average popular history.
Mr. Scott's history is far from being a definitive one, as the purpose of the author was rather to popularize the achievements of the Negro soldiers. In addition to giving the current historical comment accessible in newspapers and magazines, Mr. Scott has incorporated into his work a large number of official documents accessible only to some one, who like himself, was connected with the War Department during the conflict. It has another value, moreover, in that it well sets forth the reaction of an intelligent federal official of color on the thousands of events daily transpiring around him.
The author undertakes to connect the Negro with the fundamental cause of the war in that race prejudice was its source. He shows how fortunate it was to have Negro troops as the first of the national guard to be adequately equipped for immediate service and to occupy the post of honor in guarding the White House and the national capital, by order of the President of the United States. His own appointment and his work as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of War as an official recognition of the Negroes' interest in the war are made the nucleus around which the facts of the work are organized. How the Negroes figured in the national army, how Negro soldiers and officers were trained, and how they were treated in the camps all bring to light information for which the public has long been waiting. After giving passing mention to the black soldiers in the armies of the European nations the author directs his attention to the Negro regiments overseas. Special chapters are devoted to the achievements of the 367th, 368th, 370th, 371st and 372d regiments. The behavior of the Negroes in battle is sketched in the chapter entitled the Negro as a Fighter.
While dealing primarily with actual war, the author has been careful to give adequate space to agencies which helped to make the war possible. The valuable service rendered by the Negroes in the Service of Supply constitutes one of the most interesting chapters of the book. Whereas these Negroes were actually conscripted to labor in spite of the declaration of the War Department to the contrary, they accepted their lot with the spirit of loyalty and performed one of the great tasks of the war in getting supplies to Europe and furnishing the army with them in France. Negro labor in war times, Negro women in war work, the loyalty of the Negro civilians, and the social welfare agencies are also treated. Finally the author takes up an important question: Did the Negro get a square deal? In a position to know the many problems confronting the Negroes drawn into the army, Mr. Scott has brought forward in this final chapter adequate evidence to prove that the Negro did not get a square deal.
The Heart of a Woman. By Georgia Douglas Johnson, with an introduction by William Stanley Braithwaite. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1918. Pp. 62.
In these days of vers libre and the deliberate straining for poetic effect these lyrics of Mrs. Johnson bring with them a certain sense of relief and freshness. Also the utter absence of the material theme makes an appeal. We are all weary of the war note and are glad to return to the softer pipings of old time themes—love, friendship, longing, despair—all of which are set forth in The Heart of a Woman.
The book has artistry, but it is its sincerity which gives it its value. Here are the little sharp experiences of life mirrored poignantly, sometimes feverishly, always truly. Each lyric is an instantaneous photograph of one of the many moments in existence which affect one briefly perhaps, but indelibly. Mr. Braithwaite says in his introduction that this author engages "life at its most reserved sources whether the form or substance through which it articulates be nature, or the seasons, touch of hands or lips, love, desire or any of the emotional abstractions which sweep like fire or wind or cooling water through the blood." The ability to give a faithful and recognizable portrayal of these sources, is Mrs. Johnson's distinction.
In this work, Mrs. Johnson, although a woman of color, is dealing with life as it is regardless of the part that she may play in the great drama. Here she is a woman of that imagination that characterizes any literary person choosing this field as a means of directing the thought of the world. Several of her poems bearing on the Negro race have appeared in the Crisis. In these efforts she manifests the radical tendencies characteristic of every thinking Negro of a developed mind and sings beautifully not in the tone of the lamentations of the prophets of old but, while portraying the trials and tribulations besetting a despised and rejected people, she sings the song of hope. In reading her works the inevitable impression is that it does not yet appear what she will be. Adhering to her task with the devotion hitherto manifested, there is no reason why she should not in the near future take rank among the best writers of the world.
J. R. Fauset
A History of Suffrage in the United States. By Kirk and Porter, Ph.D. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. Pp. 265. Price $1.25.
Knowing that few citizens realize the restrictions on suffrage during the early years of the republic and the difficulty with which the right of franchise has been extended during the last half century, the author has undertaken a scientific study in this field. How the franchise was at first limited to persons owning considerable property, and how some of the most popular statesmen of that day endeavored to keep it thus restricted, and how this aristocratic test gradually ceased, constitute the interesting portion of the book. The author's aim, however, is to "present a panoramic picture of the whole United States and to carry the reader rapidly on from decade to decade without getting lost in the detailed history."
The author himself raises the question as to whether he has placed undue stress on the Civil War and the Reconstruction periods; "but the intention," says he, "was to pick out of Civil War history the events and circumstances that had to do directly with suffrage and to lay them before the reader who is not necessarily familiar with that history. This decision to emphasize these two periods was determined to some extent by the fact that the study of suffrage during the colonial period has been covered by C. F. Bishop's History of Elections in the American Colonies and A. V. McKinley's Suffrage Franchise in the Colonies. One of the aims of the book is to clear up the problems of suffrage so far as the Negro is concerned.
Taking up the question of the extension of suffrage to Negroes upon the passing of the property qualifications, the author gives some valuable information, showing the restriction of Negro suffrage culminating with their disfranchisement in Pennsylvania but falls into the attitude of a biased writer in making such remarks as "New York was not a State that suffered greatly from the presence of the Negro" to account for its action on the question. Again on page 87 he says: "Up to about this time the Negroes had not been a serious problem." No large group of Negroes have ever made a State suffer, but communities living up to the expensive requirements of race prejudice have paid high costs for which the Negroes have not been responsible. Because of this bias the writer betrays throughout his treatment his feeling that Negro suffrage was justly restricted, when white persons not better qualified were permitted to vote.
After briefly discussing the extension of the franchise to aliens and the beginnings of woman suffrage the author directs his attention to the question as it developed during the Civil War and the Reconstruction. Into this he brings so many impertinent matters concerning reconstruction that he almost wanders afield. In the discussion, however, he makes clear his position that Congress in its plan for reconstruction had no right to require the seceded States to make provision for Negro suffrage. As these States, moreover, were not qualified for representation in Congress they could not be for ratification of an amendment. It is not surprising then that the author blamed the Negro for his own recent disfranchisement. He says: "The Negro must have failed to make himself an intelligent dominant political factor in the South or such constitutions as have been renewed here would be utterly impossible." The author has evidently ignored the forces making history.
A Social History of the American Family. By Arthur W. Calhoun, Ph.D. Volumes II and III. The Arthur A. Clark Company, Cleveland, Ohio.
This work, the first volume of which with these two completes the treatise, appeared in 1917 when it was reviewed in this publication. The second volume covers the period from our independence through the Civil War. Carrying forward this treatment the author considers marriage and fecundity in the new nation, the unsettling of foundations, the emancipation of childhood, the social subordination of woman, the emergence of woman, the family and the home, sex morals in the opening continent, the struggle for the west, the new industrial order, the reign of self indulgence, Negro sex and family relations in the ante-bellum South, racial associations in the old South, the white family in the old South, and the effects of the Civil War.
Discussing Negro sex the author says (II, 243): "If the blacks were gross and bestial, so would our race be under a like bondage; so it is now when driven by capitalism to the lower levels of misery. The allegedly superior morality of the master race or class is not an inherent trait but merely a function of economic ease and ethical tradition." He then discusses slave breeding, which was so degrading as to force sexual relations between healthy Negroes and even that of orphan white girls with Negroes to produce desirable looking offspring for purposes of concubinage. Such a case happened in Virginia near the end of the eighteenth century. After long litigation she and her children were declared free. Under these conditions sexual relations among Negroes became loose. The attachment of husband to wife was not strong and ties of blood were often ignored in sexual relations. There appears, on the other hand, much evidence that a high sense of morality obtained among the Negroes. Women of color would not yield to the lust of their masters, and the forced separation by sale of the wife from the husband caused heartaches and sometimes suicide.
Racial associations of the slaves with their masters' children, the author contends, was generally harmful in that white children learned from the most degraded class of the population. Yet the fact that the whites often admitted the blacks to great intimacy indicates that there must have been many whites who did not believe it. Slaves thus associated soon learned the ways of their master's family, but white children remaining and even sleeping promiscuously among slaves early formed the habit of fornication. The extent to which this custom prevailed is well established by numerous instances of the concubinage of white men with women of color, the offspring of which served for the same purpose as an article of commerce for similar use throughout the South. In this respect the author has not brought out anything new.
Continuing the discussion further he says (II, 305): "Southerners maintained heatedly that at all events the virtue of the southern woman was unspotted." "Doubtless," says he, "their contention was largely warranted but it could not be maintained absolutely." To prove the assertion he quotes Neilson, who during the six years he spent in the United States prior to 1830 found in Virginia a case of a Negro with whom a planter's daughter had not only fallen in love but had actually seduced him. In North Carolina a white woman drank some of her Negro's blood that she might swear that she had Negro blood in her and marry him. They reared a family. The author quotes also from Reverend Mr. Rankin, who "could refer you to several instances of slaves actually seducing the daughters of their masters! Such seductions sometimes happened even in the most respectable slaveholding families." The author agrees with Pickett, however, that most white women in the South were pure, and questions Bennett's remark that perhaps ladies are not immaculate, as may be inferred from the occasional quadroon aspect of their progeny. He gives some weight, however, to this remark of a southerner (II, 305-306): "It is impossible that we should not always have a class of free colored people, because of the fundamental law partris sequitur ventrum. There must always be women among the lower class of whites, so poor that their favors can be purchased by slaves. "The Richmond Enquirer of 1855," says the author, "contains the news of a woman's winning freedom for herself and five children by proving that her mother was a white woman." While Lyell found scarcely any instances of mulattoes born of a black father and a white mother, Olmsted, another traveler who observed that white men sometimes married rich colored girls, heard of a case of a colored man who married a white girl.
In the third and last volume, covering the period since 1865, the author treats the white family in the new South, miscegenation, the Negro family since emancipation, the new basis of American life, the revolution in the woman's world, the woman in the modern American family, the career of the child, the passing of patriarchism and familiarism, the precarious hour, the trend as to marriage, race sterility and race suicide, divorce, the attitude of the church, the family, and the social revolution. The author finds that during the past half century the American family possesses unity, due to the fact that the period itself is marked by intrinsic oneness as the expression of an economic epoch, the transition to urban industrialism. If any exception to this statement be made it would insist on a subdivision with the line falling within the decade of the eighties when the country was passing beyond the direct influences of the war and modern industrialism was well under way.
Taking up the Negro family since the Civil War, the author shows how difficult it was to uproot the immorality implanted by slavery but notes the steady progress of the mores of the freedmen despite their poverty. Colored women continued the prey of white men and it was difficult to raise a higher standard. There appeared few cases of the miscegenation of the white women with black men but here and there it would recur. "Stephen Powers, who passed through the South shortly after the War, tells of applying for lodging at a lordly mansion in South Carolina and being repelled by the mistress. At the next house he learned the cause of her irritation—her only daughter had just given birth to a Negro babe. After making diligent inquiry he failed to find another such instance in high life, but in South Carolina districts where the black population was densest and the poor whites most degraded 'these unnatural unions were more frequent than anywhere else' (III, 29). In every case, however, he says it was a woman of the lowest class, generally a sand-hiller, who, deprived of her support by the war, took up with a likely 'nigger' in order to save her children from famine." "He found six such marriages in South Carolina," says Calhoun, "but never more than one in any other State." The author has not exhausted this phase of the family, for the reviewer might add that he knew of four cases of concubinage of white women and black men in Buckingham County, Virginia, during the eighties.
On the whole progress toward the elimination of miscegenation by interracial respect and good will to furnish a barrier is seen as in the cases of Oberlin and Berea, where coeducation of the races did not lead to intermarriage. The author refers to the efforts of some States outside of the South attempting to check miscegenation by statute, but shows the folly of such legislation in proving that in general where intermarriage of the races is still permitted very little occurs. Referring to the statutes of the States prohibiting marriage between the whites and the blacks (III, 38), he says: "The necessity for such legislation calls in question the supposed antipathy between the races, unless the intention is merely to guard against the aberrancy of atypical individuals." "The laws," says he, "are of dubious justice and clearly work hardships in certain cases."
The work on the whole is interesting and valuable although the author sometimes goes astray in paying too much attention to biased writers like W. H. Thomas and H. W. Odum who have taken it upon themselves to vilify and slander the Negro race.
NOTES
To facilitate the study of Negro history in clubs and schools, Dr. C. G. Woodson has prepared an illustrated text-book entitled The Negro in our History. It has been sent to the publishers and is expected from the press the first of the year. The book has a topical arrangement but the matter is so organized as to show the evolution of the Negro in America from the introduction of slavery in 1619 to the present day. The topics are: The Negro in Africa, The Enslavement of the Negro, Slavery in its Mild Form, The Negro and the Rights of Man, The Reaction, Economic Slavery, The Free Negro, Abolition, Colonization, Slavery and the Constitution, The Negro in the Civil War, The Reconstruction, Finding a way of Escape, Achievements in Freedom, The Negro in the World War, and The Negro and Social Justice.
The aim of the author is to meet the long felt need of a book of fundamental facts with references and suggestions for more intensive study. While it is adapted for use in the senior high school and freshman college classes, it will serve as a guide for persons prosecuting the study more seriously.
Just as soon as this book has come from the press the Association will send to all Negro schools of secondary and college grade a field agent to interest them in the effort to inculcate in the mind of the youth of African blood an appreciation of what their race has thought and felt and done. The cooperation of all persons taking seriously the effort to publish the records of the Negro that the race may not become a negligible factor in the thought of the world, is earnestly solicited. Any suggestions as to how this work may be more successfully prosecuted and as to extending it into inviting fields, will be appreciated.
Dr. W. E. B. DuBois and his coworkers are preparing a History of the Negro in the World War to be published about October.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND BIENNIAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY
The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History held its second biennial meeting in Washington, D. C., on the 17th and 18th of June. An effort was made to bring together for a conference all persons interested in the study of Negro life and history and especially to reach those who are giving instruction in these fields. Accordingly there were present persons from all walks of life, some coming even from distant points. The Association was honored by the presence of Dr. J. Stanley Durkee and Dr. H. B. Learned.
In the absence of Dr. Robert E. Park, President of the Association, Dr. J. E. Moorland, Secretary-Treasurer, presided. The first session was an interesting one. Mr. C. H. Tobias delivered an instructive address on "Negro Welfare Work during the World War." The address covered in outline the efforts and achievements of all such agencies as the Knights of Columbus, Red Cross, Young Women's Christian Association, Young Men's Christian Association, and the Salvation Army, with reference to their special bearing on the comfort of the Negroes during the war. The speaker undertook to give the merits and demerits in each case to enlighten the public as to what was done for and what against the Negro soldiers by these social welfare agencies.
Mr. Monroe N. Work then read an interesting and valuable paper on the "Negro and Public Opinion in the South since the Civil War." The purpose of the paper was to set forth the varying attitude of the whites toward the Negro as evidenced by the thought of the community expressed in the records from decade to decade. Exactly why these changes in public opinion were brought about constituted the most interesting part of this address, for it treated not necessarily of present day conditions but undertook to account for them in the past.
Dr. H. B. Learned, a member of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia, was then introduced to the Association. He confined his remarks to a discussion of the thoughts of the preceding speakers impressing him most and especially to that of illiteracy. He gave some valuable information as to the intellectual development of soldiers drafted during the recent war and said much to throw light on the conditions of those sections from which they came. He made an appeal for an increasing interest in the illiterates of both races and emphasized how difficult it is for men to live for the greatest good of themselves and their fellows without adequate enlightenment in things fundamental. His address was scholarly and timely and deeply impressed his hearers.
The meeting of the Executive Council of the Association was held at two o'clock of the same day. Matters of much importance were considered. Among these may be mentioned the decision to employ a field agent for the extension of the work, the change of the meeting from biennial to annual, and the plans for increasing the income of the Association. It was decided to recommend Mr. William G. Willcox and Mr. Emmett J. Scott for membership in the Executive Council.
The evening session of the first day was held at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. A large and respectable audience was present. The speakers of the occasion were Mr. Archibald H. Grimke and Emmett J. Scott. Mr. Grimke delivered an address on "The Negro and Social Justice," Beginning with the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Grimke founded the rights of the Negro in the doctrines advanced by the statesmen and philosophers of that time and then supported these claims by the liberal provisions in the Constitution and its amendments. How the United States Government has failed to live up to the standard of the real democracy, although professing to promote the cause of the same, was the main feature of this address. It was on the whole an interesting discourse and it was well received.
Mr. Emmett J. Scott, the second speaker of the evening, undertook to answer the question: "Did the Negro get a Square Deal?" In this discussion he briefly reviewed the working of the War Department and other branches of the government having to do with the war, bringing out in each case exactly what the attitude of the respective branch of the government was toward the Negro as evidenced by the disposition of complaints of discrimination set before the heads of those departments. The address brought out the two important points: that Mr. Scott, as Special Assistant to the Secretary of War, had been untiring in his efforts to secure for the Negro the proper recognition of his rights, but because of rampant race prejudice these rights were generally disregarded by the public functionaries with exception of the War Department, where the Secretary did do so much to eliminate such discrimination that they were decidedly reduced in that department. It showed also that after all and in spite of the various explanations made for delay and grievances which were not redressed that the Negro soldiers did not get a square deal.
Dr. C. V. Roman, Field Secretary attached to the surgeon general's office to lecture in the cantonments on social hygiene, discussed full American citizenship as an ultimate goal of the Negro. To explain his attitude he made his remarks strictly historical, contrasting the discouraging aspect of things in 1857 with the much more encouraging situation eight years later in 1865 when the Negro emerged as a free man. He too brought forth facts to show that while the attitude of the majority of the people of this country toward the Negro has been unfavorable, it has on the whole been hopeful in that the condition of the Negro has grown better rather than worse.
The morning session of Wednesday, the second day of the meeting, was to be opened by an address by Mr. Charles H. Wesley, but owing to the unavoidable absence of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, it was decided to have Mr. Wesley address the evening session at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. Dr. J. E. Moorland then spoke of "What the Negro Got out of the War." He did not take the attitude of those desiring to criticize the government because of its shortcomings nor did he express disappointment over the fact that the Negro's participation in the war was not considered sufficient to remove all discrimination on their return home. He referred rather to the lessons of thrift, economy, coöperation, and social uplift, which given renewed impetus by our experiences during this war, will set to work among the Negro people forces which augur for success.
The Association was then addressed by Mr. Ezra Roberts, head of the academic department of Tuskegee Institute, Dr. James H. Dillard and Dr. J. Stanley Durkee. Mr. Roberts spoke briefly of his systematic effort to teach Negro history at Tuskegee, discussing the plans, purposes and means to the end. He referred to the dearth of text-book material adequately to cover the field and gave the books which he used for source material. His address was very illuminating and tended to open to the seeker of truth a neglected field. He was followed by Mr. James H. Dillard, who discussed the same subject, emphasizing the necessity to study Africa also as a background. Mr. Dillard spoke of his interest in the work of the Association and pledged his support of the effort to extend the work. Dr. J. Stanley Durkee, President of Harvard University, mentioned also the need for a study of the Negro in antiquity to bring to light the beautiful romances of African history which does so much credit to the Negro race. He believed also that more attention should be given to the study of social problems and an equipment of the youth for social service and spoke briefly of his plans to take up such work in the reconstruction of Howard University.
At the close of the morning session the business meeting set for two o'clock was immediately held to avoid the intensive heat which the members would have to endure to return at that hour of the day. The new business coming before the Association was presented. After hearing the reports the following new officers were reëlected:
Dr. R. E. Park, President,
Dr. J. E. Moorland, Secretary-Treasurer,
Dr. C. G. Woodson, Director.
The following were chosen members of the Executive Council:
Dr. R. E. Park, Dr. J. E. Moorland and Dr. C. G. Woodson were chosen as trustees of the Association. Dr. John R. Hawkins, Dr. J. E. Moorland and Mr. L. Hollingsworth Wood were appointed members of the Business Committee.
The reports of the Director and Secretary-Treasurer follow.
The Report of the Director
The period covered by the last two years has been the most successful in the history of the Association. It has not yet solved all of its difficult problems and is far from being above want, but the progress it has made during the last two years indicates that the ultimate accomplishment of its purposes is assured. The edition of the Journal of Negro History has reached 4,000. The current circulation, however, is a little less, but the numbers remaining on hand are gradually absorbed by the book trade. Our subscription list shows 1648 subscribers. About 600 copies are sold at news stands and 500 are brought out at the end of the year in bound form. Because of the value of the Journal Of Negro History in this form as a source book, the demand has recently been so great that it is necessary to reprint all numbers hitherto published.
The achievements of the Association have been various. There has been among the people an increasing interest in the study of Negro life and history as a result of the extension of the circulation of the Journal of Negro History and the Negro reading public has been considerably enlarged. This publication is now read by serious thinkers throughout the world and research students find it a valuable aid. The people as a whole are now ready to hear the facts in the case of the Negro. They desire to know exactly what the race has done to be entitled to the consideration given other elements of our population.
To supply this need the Director has supplemented the work of the Journal Of Negro History by reprinting and circulating a number of valuable dissertations and by publishing several books among which are Slavery in Kentucky, The Royal Adventurers into Africa, and A Century of Negro Migration. In the near future the Association will publish for Mr. Justice Riddell, of the Ontario Supreme Court, a monograph on The Slave in Upper Canada. The Director has written an illustrated text-book on Negro History which will be published within a few months. These efforts indicate that the Association will soon develop into a nucleus of workers known throughout the world as publishers of authoritative and scientific books bearing on Negro life and history.
It is highly gratifying that it is becoming less difficult to find funds to support the work of the Association. A number of persons who made contributions from the very beginning have recently increased their donations. Among these are Mr. Moorfield Storey and the Phelps Stokes Fund. From other sources there have been obtained several substantial contributions such as $100 from Mr. Frank Trumbull, $100 from Mr. William G. Willcox, $200 from Mr. Morton D. Hull, $250 from Mr. Jams J. Storrow, and $400 from Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge, the amount which Mr. Julius Rosenwald has from the beginning annually contributed.
The Director has endeavored so to increase these contributions as to secure an endowment making the Association a foundation for a serious scientific study of Negro life and history. Unfortunately, however, philanthropists have not seemed disposed to invest large sums in such an enterprise. The reply to such an appeal is, that while this work is of great value, they have no assurance that should the present promoters find it necessary to retire therefrom, that the work would go on in the way it has been established and maintained. These philanthropists have in mind the dearth of scholarship in this field. When our colleges and universities, therefore, will have developed a serious student body primarily interested in applying science to the solution of the race problem, these gentlemen will consider this appeal more sympathetically.
Financial Statement of the Secretary-treasurer
Washington, D. C., June 16, 1919.
The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Incorporated.
Gentlemen: I hereby submit to you a report of the amount of money received and expended by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Incorporated, from June 30, 1917, to June 16, 1919, inclusive:
Respectfully submitted,(Signed) J. E. Moorland,
Secretary-Treasurer.Washington, D. C., June 16, 1919.
Dr. C. G. Woodson, Director, Association for the study of Negro Life and History, 1216 You Street, N.W., City.
Dear Sir:
In accordance with your request, I have audited the books of the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and find them correct for the period from July 6, 1917, to June 16, 1919.
Respectfully,(Signed) C. E. Lucas,Auditor.
The constitution as amended at the business session follows.
