Wf)t §>outj)mt QSBorfttnan
Published monthly by
The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute
Contents for May 1918
THE "BUFFALOES" HONORED 211
GOVERNOR WHITMAN'S ADDRESS 212
PATRIOTISM AND THE INDIANS 213
DIED IN THE SERVICE 214
WINNING HIS SPURS 214
FARMERS' WAR-TIME SLOGANS 216
"AS THY SOUL PROSPERETH" . . JAMES E. GREGG . 217
THE NEGRO AND DEMOCRACY . . MONROE N. WORK 219
RACE RELATIONS : Press Comments ........ 223
THE RED CROSS AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE, Illustrated
ALMIRA F. HOLMES . 225
A TRIP IN THE PHILIPPINES, Illustrated . ' HENRY FLURY . . 227
MANUAL TRAINING IN RURAL SCHOOLS, Illustrated
JOHN H. JINKS . 233
THE THREE CROSSES lyman abbott . 241
NEGRO MUSIC OF THE PRESENT R. NATHANIEL DETT . 243
THE NEGRO'S OPPORTUNITY .... KELLY MILLER . 248
HAMPTON WAR NOTES 249
HAMPTON INCIDENTS ... .252
GRADUATES AND EX-STUDENTS 255
INDIAN PATRIOTISM 256
The Southern Workman was founded by Samuel Chapman Armstrong in 1872, and is a monthly
magazine devoted to the interests of undeveloped races.
It contains reports from Negro and Indian populations, with pictures of reservation and plantation
life, as well as information concerning Hampton graduates and ex-students who, since 1868, have taught
more than 275,000 children in the South and West. It also provides a forum for the discussion of ethnologi¬
cal. sociological, and educational problems in all parts of the world.
Contributions : The editors do not hold themselves responsible for the opinions expressed in con "
tributed articles. Their aim is simply to place before their readers articles by men and women of ability
without regard to the opinions held.
Editorial. Staff
Helen W. Ludlow Wm. Anthony Aery
Jane E. Davis Sydney D. Frissell
Wm. L. Brown W. T. B. Williams
Terms : One dollar a year in advance; ten cents a copy
Change of Address : Persons making a change ef address should send the old as well as the new
address to
THE SOUTHERN WORKMAN, Hampton, Virginia
Entered as second-class matter August 13, 1908, in the Post Office at Hampton, Virginia, under
. _ the Act ef July 16,1S9U
THE NEGRO'S OPPORTUNITY
BY KELLY MILLER
Dean of Howard University
EIGHTY thousand Negro soldiers have been enlisted in the
World War and seven hundred Negroes have been commis¬
sioned as officers whose function is to adjust harmoniously the
race's relation to the pending struggle.
The improved attitude of the white race towards the Negro
is apparent in two affirmative decisions rendered by the Supreme
Court of the United States with unanimous concurrence.
The Negro will emerge from this world war with a double
portion of privilege and opportunity.
Every Negro should be loyal and patriotic, although there
are injustices and discriminations which try our souls. If we
overcome, these trials and tribulations will work out a more
exceeding weight of advantage. But if we allow them to over¬
come us, woeful will be our lot indeed. To stand sulkily by in
plaintive aloofness, because of just grievances would be the
same kind of folly as to refuse to help extinguish a conflagration
which threatens the destruction of one's native city because he
has a complaint against the fire department. Let us help
put out the conflagration which threatens the world, and then
make the world our lasting debtor. We must stand shoulder to
shoulder with our white fellow-citizens to fight for the freedom
of the world, outside of our own national circle; and then we
must hold them to the moralconsistency of maintaining a just and
equitable regime inside of that circle. Democracy, like charity,
should begin at home or at least it should prevail there. Let us
fight to the finish to the effect that no nation shall hereafter dare
attempt to make an international treaty a scrap of paper. It
must therefore follow then, as corollary, that no nation will
henceforth allow its own constitution, which is an intra-national
treaty, to be made a scrap of paper.
The tide of democracy is sweeping through the world like
a mighty river. The race problem and other social ills are but
as marshes, backwaters, stagnant pools, estuaries, which have
been shut off from free circulation with the main current. But
the freshet of freedom is now overflowing its bed and purifying
all the stagnant waters in its onward sweep to the ocean of
human liberty and brotherhood. Fortunate indeed are we to be
borne forward upon its beneficent bosom at such a time as this.