POLITICAL.
The “grandfather” clause of the Arkansas Constitution reads as follows:
“Section 4a. No person shall be registered as an elector of this State, or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma; but no person who was on January 1, 1866, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal descendant of such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote because of his inability to so read and write sections of such Constitution.
“Precinct election inspectors having in charge the registration of electors shall enforce the provisions of this section at the time of registration, provided registration be required. Should registration be dispensed with the provisions of this section shall be enforced by the precinct election officers when electors apply for ballots to vote.”
This amendment has been voted upon and the votes canvassed, but an official count has not been announced, and probably will not be until just before the general election in November.
The Hon. J. C. Napier will replace the Hon. W. T. Vernon, of Kansas, as Register of the United States Treasury. The Chattanooga Times gives the following reasons for the change:
“It appears now that Vernon has outlived his usefulness, since he could not help the administration to stem the insurgent wave that recently swept over the Sunflower State, and that his reappointment was contingent on his success in that campaign. It is learned from that day he was marked for retirement.
“Tennessee Republican politicians readily recognized the opportunity to make a master stroke and impression on the Negro vote in Tennessee, by recognizing one of their race with an important office.
“Napier for eight years was a member of the Republican State Committee, but the white members fell out with him at the recent state convention when it was believed that he had agreed to use his influence with the Negroes in favor of Patterson. Since he was deposed the committee has been without Negro membership, and this sop is held out to pacify the rebellious Negroes all over the state.”
Senator Cummins, of Iowa, will introduce a bill into Congress for direct primaries in selecting candidates for President and Vice-President. He says:
“To me the injustice is plain of permitting the 4,000 Republicans of Mississippi to cast 20 votes in the convention, while Iowa, with 300,000 Republicans, can cast only 26. It it right that Georgia, with only 30,000 Republican voters, should have exactly the same number of delegates as Iowa, with ten times that number of Republican votes? Every one recognizes that the Republican party—such as it is in the far Southern States—is composed almost wholly of Federal officeholders and those who want Federal office. It has been demonstrated time and time again that the delegates to Republican national conventions from these states are absolutely venal and that they uniformly vote with the administration forces, which purchase them by means of postoffices and collectorships.”
The United Colored Democracy of the State of New York has been organized for the coming campaign. They demand a colored regiment in the New York National Guard, and also colored policemen and firemen.
J. C. Manning and the Progressive Republicans in Alabama are fighting Mr. Washington’s political influence in that state.
The newly elected Governor of South Caroline, Blease, made his fight on a platform opposing Negro education and prohibition.
The Negroes of South Carolina gained complete control of the State Republican Convention.
The Hon. P. B. S. Pinchback, once Reconstruction Governor of Louisiana, has been appointed to the Internal Revenue Service in Cincinnati, O.
The Colored Independent Political League has decided to support the Democratic ticket in Ohio, New York and New Jersey; the Republican tickets in Delaware and West Virginia, and to favor Senator Bulkeley, of Connecticut, and oppose Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts. Local Independent organizations are at work in New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Utah and Missouri.
The National Executive Committee of the Socialist party have appointed Lena Morrell Lewis and George A. Goebel a committee of two to investigate the condition of the Negro in America.
Suit has been brought in the United States Circuit Court to compel the city of Annapolis, Md., to register colored voters. Annapolis by city ordinance has attempted to nullify the Fifteenth Amendment.
The Democratic platform in Missouri says:
“The Democratic party when it came into power in 1871, took over the Lincoln Institute and made it a normal school for the higher education of the Negro teachers, and it has always made liberal appropriations for that purpose and for the education of the Negro school children of the State. It never has and will not discriminate against the Negro, either by criminal laws or on the question of their rights of franchise, and it deplores the action of the present chief executive of this State in seeking to make political capital by creating race antagonism.”
R. S. Rutledge so resents this plank that he has withdrawn from the race for nomination as United States Senator.
The colored people of Cleveland, O., have received twenty-three appointments to minor offices to reward their support of Mayor Baehr, who defeated Tom Johnson. Beside these officials the colored people have a member of the Legislature and a member of the City Council.
The Negroes of Atlanta prepared an elaborate program on the occasion of Theodore Roosevelt’s speech to them.
The Republicans have nominated Thomas Briar, a colored man, to run for Congress in the Fourth District of South Carolina.
In the twelve counties of the Eighth Congressional District of Georgia there were only 392 colored men registered as voters. Even these, however, very nearly held the balance of power in the last Congressional election.
A press dispatch from Panama says:
“It became known to-day that Mendoza sent a messenger asking Colonel Goethals to call at the Presidential palace. The army man, by messenger, asked if he was wished personally or in his official capacity. Several other notes were passed back and forth, Goethals finally going.
“When he reached the palace, Mendoza refused to see him. It is said that the snub was caused by Colonel Goethals drawing the color line in the first place, Mendoza being a Negro.”
EDUCATION.
Miss Alice Byington has left Hampton Institute $260,750.
New Orleans has four Negro schools with white teachers and ten with Negro teachers. It has been decided to place Negro teachers in the new Thomy Lafon School Annex.
Tuskegee has received about $400,000 from the Dolger bequest.
A Negro industrial school is talked of in Pueblo, Col.
White Sawyer, a Missouri Negro, has lost the suit in which he attempted to compel the school trustees to transport his children. There is only one colored school in his township and that is six miles from his home.
An industrial school is to be founded in Nicodemus, Kansas, a colored colony planted at the time of the exodus.
A. B. Johnson, of Mississippi, states that in his own county with less than 7,000 Negroes of school age over 5,000 have never been to school.
Effort is being made in Washington, D. C., to remove R. C. Bruce, the colored superintendent, for alleged incompetency.
In a talk to white Atlanta ministers a colored preacher asked that influence be used to improve public school facilities for the Negroes. He said the Negro school children of Atlanta number 10,000 and he declared 5,081 of the number are out of school. “The Negroes of this city pay $10,000 for education of their children,” he stated, “that the whites get free.”
The city of Chattanooga has refused to take steps toward establishing a Negro normal school. It is much needed.
H. T. Kealing, formerly editor of the African M. E. Review, has been elected president of Western University, at Quindaro, Kansas.
There are a large number of applicants for the position of president of the Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute at Frankfort.
The colored Baptist Women’s Convention has voted $15,000 to the National Training School for Girls in the District of Columbia.
The Negroes of Georgia have raised $25,000 as a memorial offering at the quarterly centennial of Morris Brown College.
The white boys of the Doolittle Public School of Chicago have tried to get rid of the Negro pupils. The result has been a good deal of fighting.
THE CHURCH.
A colored institute in memory of Bishop Dudley has been dedicated at Louisville, Ky.
The convention of the Episcopal Church has authorized suffragan bishops. This will allow the segregation of colored people under bishops who will act as assistants to the regular bishops and have no vote in the convention. The colored people asked for missionary bishops who would vote in the convention. Such bishops are to be permitted only in case the bishop and convention consent.
There is considerable interest in Southern white churches over missionary and educational work among Negroes. The subject was discussed at a recent Bible institute in the University of Tennessee and the Atlanta Constitution has had several editorials.
Bishop John Wesley Smith of the African Zion Church is dead.
Bishop T. N. Morrison, of the Episcopal Church, says:
“I would impress upon those interested in missionary work my belief that there is more of a field for good and advantageous work among the Negroes of the United States than among the people of foreign countries and I will urge that missionaries’ work begin at home.”
The twenty-sixth annual meeting of the Episcopal Church workers among colored people was held this year in the city of Cleveland, O.
SOCIAL UPLIFT.
A congress, which promises to be one of the most influential of our time, is to be held in London July 26-29, 1911, in the central building of the University of London. The list of those who have extended to it their moral support is most imposing. Among the supporters, who hail from no less than fifty countries, are over twenty-five presidents of Parliaments, the majority of the members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and of the delegates to the Second Hague Conference, twelve British governors and eight British premiers, over forty colonial bishops, some hundred and thirty professors of international law, the leading anthropologists and sociologists, the officers and the majority of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and other distinguished personages. The list of the writers of papers includes eminent representatives of over twenty civilizations, and every paper referring to a particular people is prepared by some one of high standing belonging to it.
The Rhode Island Union of Colored Women numbers 12 clubs—one in Pawtucket, three in Newport and eight in Providence. Each of these clubs is doing excellent work in its own way, striving to solve the problems nearest home. But while the local club has its particular function, the demands of the union upon each individual organization is equally great. The work is divided into four general departments—parents, village improvement, hero and race library. One or two members from each club is represented in each department.
The Associated Charities of Lexington, Ky., are giving talks to colored people on consumption.
Mr. Booker T. Washington while in Europe received much social attention. In an interview in the Morning Post he said that the race problem in the South is becoming more and more reassuring. On landing in America Mr. Washington announced that the Negroes in the United States were better off than the poor classes in Europe.
A Carnegie Library for Negroes will be built in Montgomery, Ala.
The need of a reformatory for Negro youth is being agitated in Georgia.
Colored state fairs are being held this fall in Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia and other states.
Governor Hadley, of Missouri, has appointed a Negro tuberculosis commission consisting of six Negro physicians and one lady.
That powerful Negro empires of great size and some culture existed in the Sudan before the white races entered Africa is the conviction of a French scientist, M. Zeltner, who reports in La Nature on the results of his archæological investigations in the basins of the rivers Niger and Senegal.
Within a triangle formed by the towns of Timbuctoo, Kayes and Bamako he located fifty-two archæological deposits consisting of ruins of unknown cities. M. Zeltner’s most interesting finds were made in caves on the upper Senegal. Here an abundance of runic signs and drawings were found traced on rocks. They were similar in character to those discovered in South African caverns. The writings have some resemblance to those signs found on ancient ruins further eastward in the Sahara desert, and are believed by M. Zeltner to be related to the present Tuareg alphabet.
The discoveries made have yet to be thoroughly studied. M. Zeltner thinks that the archæological exploration of the African continent is yet in its infancy and will doubtless yield surprising results in establishing the advanced state of development attained by the black races in early times.—N. Y. Sun.
ORGANIZATIONS AND MEETINGS.
Clark University has held an interesting conference on the East and Africa.
The subjects discussed were Turkey, Persia, Bulgaria, Arabia, Egypt and Africa. Among the speakers were: Dr. A. T. Chamberlain, on “The Contributions of the Negro to Human Civilization;” G. W. Ellis, F. R. G. S., on Liberia; the Rev. L. P. Clinton, on West Africa; Professor Frederic Starr, on the Congo, and E. A. Forbes, on French Africa. Messrs. Ellis and Clinton are colored.
Colored people in Ohio and Maryland have held celebrations commemorating the issuance of Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
At the Appalachian Exposition, which is being held in Knoxville, the Negroes have a special exhibit and are conducting a series of celebrations.
During the summer the following colored organizations have held annual meetings: National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, at Louisville, Ky.; National Association of Colored Physicians and Surgeons, at Washington, D. C.; National Colored Baptist Association, at New Orleans, La.; the Niagara Movement, at Sea Isle City, N. J.; the Independent Political League, at Atlantic City, N. J.; the Negro Business League, in New York City; the Colored Elks, at Washington, D. C., and the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, at Baltimore. It is estimated that nearly 12,000 people attended these various conventions.
ECONOMIC.
Baltimore is aroused over the fact that the Negroes are buying property on McCulloh Street. They are proposing to pass an ordinance which provides that, within a section specified, it shall not be lawful for any white person to move into or begin to occupy any house as a residence in any street in which a majority of the bona fide residents are Negroes; and, on the other hand, that it shall not be lawful hereafter for any Negro to move into, or begin to occupy, as a residence, any house in a street in which the majority of bona fide residents are already white people. There is further provision that it shall be unlawful hereafter for any person to open, or cause to be opened, any new streets to be used for residences, without first declaring in the application for a permit to build whether the houses are to be built for and occupied by whites or Negroes, and the building inspector is to issue a permit accordingly.
It is to be noticed that this ordinance does not interfere with any residence heretofore acquired. The invasion of Negro property owners is put down as a reason for the failure of Baltimore to grow faster in population.
A similar question has arisen in Kansas City, Kan., where the Mercantile Club proposes to cut off threatened Negro invasion by having the state buy the property for parks and boulevards.
In Richmond, Va., a colored syndicate is about to buy property near a park. This is said to be viewed with alarm at the city hall and the city is urged to buy it.
In St. Louis a new Civic Realty Company is seeking to organize public opinion and social ostracism against persons who sell property to Negroes.
The Baltimore News has sent a correspondent through the South to see how the Negro ghettos are arranged there.
Most of the cities say that “public opinion” keeps the Negro population segregated and intimate that mob violence is ready to enforce this opinion together with social ostracism for the white seller of the property. In Alabama disfranchisement is said to keep colored folks “in their places.”
An ordinance for the physical separation of white and black residents is being urged in Atlanta. Negroes are not to live in white settlements “except as servants or tenants in the rear.”
The Central Labor Union of New Orleans, La., has written a letter refuting the statement that increased pay of Negro laborers has decreased their efficiency.
J. H. Grant has a $20,000 Negro shoe store in Memphis, Tenn., and is trying to establish a chain of such stores in various Southern cities.
It is charged that the Barbers’ State Board of Examiners of Missouri refused to license colored schools for training barbers.
The advice given the Negro to go South in the Negro Business League has given rise to much comment. G. W. Crawford, in the Evening Post, strongly combats the idea. “The Negro question in all its troublesome aspects must be nationalized,” he says.
BROWNSVILLE.
Attention has been called to the fact that the 25th Infantry, which has recently been so warmly commended for work in putting out the forest fires, was the same regiment some of whose members were dismissed without a trial for alleged but unproven crimes at Brownsville, Tex.
SCIENCE.
A paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science and quoted in Current Literature has an excellent statement of the physical status of the Negro, placing him high among the races of the world. The paper concludes that in many points the Negro is more highly specialized than the less pigmented races of mankind, while in others he is more primitive. It says that all earlier human races were probably colored.
A Negro physician of Stanford, Ky., has patented a car-coupling device.
Professor Wilder, of Cornell, reports the case of a white man with an intelligent brain of about one-half the average weight. This is further evidence that mere brain weight is no indication of mentality.
ART.
Carl Diton has sailed for Europe to study the piano.
Clarence White, the violinist, is giving a series of concerts throughout the country.
Mr. Joseph Douglass is making his regular concert tour.
Theodore Cable, of Harvard University, has been admitted to one of the college musical societies as a performer upon the violin.
Denver is planning a theatre for colored people. One is in operation in Washington, D. C. There are scores of moving-picture shows opened recently for colored patronage in the border states.
New York is becoming an art center for colored people, especially in music and acting. It is the headquarters of Bert Williams, Cole & Johnson and Will Marion Cook. One of the latest and most interesting developments is the Clef Club Orchestra of one hundred and thirty musicians, under James Reese Europe.