A PROTEST AND A PLEA.
An Open Letter to the Editor of the Kentucky
State Journal.
The following editorial is clipped from the Kentucky State
•Journal of Thursday, November 15, 1917:
"VICKSBURG'S SENTIMENTS.
We do not approve the action of the Vicksburger*
who made a negro army officer shed his regimentals
and shake the dust of the town from his feet, but we
do wonder what, between heaven and earth induced a
negro officer to go to Vicksburg in his regimentals ex¬
pecting the 'hospitable reception' which he says he
did not receive.
Were we a 'culled gen'man' wearing a military
uniform we should go to Detroit or Minneapolis for a
holiday, or good old Boston, or even New York, rather
than seek the city of Vicksburg as one in which to sun
ourselves in the habiliments of honor and glory. It
would be better sport and better strategy.
The Vicksburgers were wrong, very. But they
were Vieksburgian to the heart and as the 'off'sah'
must have known Vicksburg and its sentiments and
its methods of expressing the same why, why, did he
go to Vicksburg in his uniform and attitudinize,
rather .than to go to some city in which he would have
been appreciated and accorded due courtesy?"
Frankfort, Kv., November 15, 1917.
Editor of the Kentucky State Journal:
The undersigned colored citizens, who are constant, inter¬
ested and loyal readers of your valued columns, and who recog¬
nize and regard the Kentucky State Journal as one of the real¬
ly great newspapers of the Southland, wish to enter courteous
yet earnest, and emphatic protest against an editorial to be
found in your today's publication. We refer to your comment
upon the unfortunate incident which occurred recently at
Vicksburg, ]\Iissis?sippi, at which time a colored officer lately
commissioned to go forth to fight for the flag of this our com¬
mon country, was maltreatad, stripped of his uniform, and
forced to leave under the cover of darkness.
We agree with you most heartily in your expression of dis¬
approval of the treatment accorded him by some thoughtless
citizens of Vicksburg,' but we beg to dissent from your opinion
of the inadvisability of his going there.
Our information is that the young man did not go to
Vicksburg either for "sport" or "strategy," as intimated in your
editorial, but for the purpose of taking farewell leave of loved
ones, before being called to offer up his life upon the gory bat¬
tle-fields of France, and thereby help to "make the world safe
for democracy.7'
To us it seems unkind and ungenerous to offer the pre¬
sumption that he had travelled such a long distance for a "holi¬
day" 01* to "sun himself in the habiliments of honor and
glory."
Surely the privilege should be given to this young man—
as to every other soldier—to say good-bye to those near and
dear to him, before making his perilous journey across the
waters, possibly never to return. And the fact that he was pos¬
sessed of a black face and wore the uniform of an officer in the
United States army should be no bar to his undisturbed exer-
cise of this privilege. It should be remembered that
"Fleecy locks and dark complexion
Should not forfeit Nature's claim;
Skins may differ—but affection
Dwells in black and white the same."
We wish to further enter our most sincere protest against
your allusion, in the spirit of ridicule, to a "culled gen'man,"
and an "off'sah," regarding same as extremely unkind and un¬
timely. He who offers his services at this time to his country
should not be treated in the spirit of jest. We are being con¬
fronted today with the most unusual and alarming conditions
in all the annals of human history. The spirit of "man's in¬
humanity to man" has engulfed practically all Christendom,
and the world is literally on fire. Across the great divide an
holocaust of war is raging with unabating fury. Arrayed
against us is an enemy that is aggressive, vigilant, powerful,
resourceful^ ■vindictive, unscrupulous, mendacious and brutal.
With France heroically fighting the fight of desperation, Russia
rent asunder by internal broils ajid dissensions, England con¬
fronted with the gravest crisis since the war began, Italy re¬
treating in dismay before the enemy, our own soldiers falling
early victims to German bullets, and the fact staring us in the
face that America must win this war, surely this is the time for
the most sober thought and the most serious utterance.
God forbid that in this hour of national peril and threat¬
ened disaster there should be anything uttered, written or done
to chill the spirit of patriotism swelling in the breast of any
loyal American, be he black or white. This is the hour of all
others when ,the passions and prejudices which have divided
us should be obliterated, and when we should stand together as
one against our common danger. In this crisis in our Ameri¬
can history, we should forget our creeds, classes, colors and con¬
ditions, and stand out for Americanism—unsullied, untram-
meled, and undismayed. At this time when we are threatened
with the mailed fist, we should uphold the arms of our Presi¬
dent.
»
The American Negro asks for nothing but fair play, and a
chance to prove his loyalty to his country and the old flag.
To paraphrase an expression of our late lamented leader, Dr.
Washington, the races should stand ''socially as distinct as the
fingers, but united patriotically as the hand itself."
The patriotism of the Negro has been attested upon the
battle-fields of our country from historic Bunker Hill to bloody
Carrazal.
In this present crisis, we stand ready, as ever before, to
lay our lives cheerfully upon the altars of our nation's honor.
Already eighty-three thousand Negroes have been conscripted,
and are now at training camps preparing for the call to the red
fields of carnage. When this awful war is over, a few of them
will return, after having rendered heroic, self-sacrificing ser¬
vice. More of them will return, bearing in their bodies un¬
healed wounds, incurable diseases, maimed for life. The
greater part of them will "sleep their last sleep," in unknown
sunken graves, "somewhere in France."
Shall we not, then, cheer them ere they depart, and have
them feel that the flag for which they are *o fight, bleed and die
is their Shibboleth and protection? Should we not have them
feel that the uniform they wear is to be to them not an object
of ridicule or destruction, but a badge of honor?
Are they to understand that the uniform of the United
States army is to be respected in all or only in certain part* of
our country?
Are citizens, offering their lives to their country, to be in¬
sulted, mistreated, and outraged, because of their color?
Have loyalty and service no weight when coming Iron:
Negroes, even in this crisis in the history of our country?
Do the upright, thoughtful, just, and Christian men and
women of America endorse, sanction and condone such out¬
rages upon a class of citizens than whom there is none more
patient, loyal and patriotic?
Shall we not have these black soldiers know that when they
lay down their lives for their country on battle-fields far away
that a grateful Nation will enshrine them in perpetual memory,
even though they are of dusky hue and of a lowly race?
Yours for our common country, united and victorious.
E. E. Underwood,
L. R. Diggs,
C. W. Anderson,
Thos. Iv. Robb,
James Morton,
J. Todd Simpson,
Rev. W. T. Silvey,
Henry Brown.
G. P. Russell,
H. IT. Jackson.
Louis D. Smith,
John Ecton,
John Shelton, Sr.,
George Wiiittaker
John H. Guy,
Samuel Guy,
AY. \V. Wilson,
Tiios L. Brooks.
H. B. Rosby.
D. E. Reid,
B. F. Sayre,
James A. Ray.
Rev. C. AA\ Allison.
P. AA\ AA'illiams.
AY. II. Mayo,
I). 0. Robinson,
Louis I). AYilliams.
George AY. Martin.
Steven Conda,
James C. Brown.
John MoCann, Sr.,
James B. Clay,