Chapter XXX: Victory--Peace (2)

On, on, precipitate, headlong came Germany with diabolic efficiency, thrusting viciously at the heart of France. Running amuck through St. Quentin and Arras, Soissons fell and Laon. Rheims surrounded, astride the Marne, France awaited her invader. Joffre at the gate! Foch in charge of the defence! On came the Germans! They crushed his left! They pulverized his right! He dispatched his courier to headquarters with the famous message: "I shall attack with my centre. Send up the Moroccans!" These black troops, thrown in at the first Marne, with the British to their left, pushed the German right over the stream. Continuing their action, the colonials won on the Ourcq, and the Germans evacuated Upper Alsace. Before their terrific attack, with the British steadily pressing beside them, General Von Stein admitted his defeat by the white and black allies. Paris was saved and Foch discovered to the allied world. How the hearts of black Americans thrilled as slowly the news filtered through to them of what the black colonials had done to hold the field for France! It was then that they took it into their hearts that if the United States were ever called upon to participate in this struggle, they would not be denied a place of glory equal to that which their African brethren had achieved.

But there was no time for resolve. The cataclysm involved in the threatened overthrow of English law and orderly procedure throughout the world caused the American Negro to tremble. Always conservative, if there be anything to conserve, the Negro appreciated that English law, when properly interpreted, meant freedom and life and hope eternal to him. He was unwilling to take any chances with a German substitute. The overthrow of English law he looked upon as the impending crack of doom. On came the Germans toward Calais and the Straits of Dover! On to Zeebrugge! On to Ostend! To Ypres! In her supreme desperation, England looked about the world for a force to stay the invader until she could prepare to meet the full force of the attack. She cared not whether aid be white or black, or brown or yellow. She called for help, or else Ypres should fall. Black men of Africa, brown men of India, white and red men of Canada, and yellow men of the Far East heard her call. And while America lifted not a finger, the American Negro lifted up his heart to God and prayed that Anglo-Saxon justice, rigid and cold, so often denied him, should not perish in triumph of the Hun, who knew no law save his own lust and super-arrogation.

Aboard the "Lusitania" there were no known men of color. But there were Caucasian women and children aboard. At what moral disadvantage did Germany put herself with the black millions of America when she riotously celebrated the horrible death her submarines had meted out to these weak and helpless mortals. The "Belgian Prince," first of the vessels torpedoed without warning after President Wilson's manifesto on the subject, had one lone black survivor to tell the tale of horror. He told it to his black brethren and they chafed under the diplomatic restraint, which relieved itself by polite letter writing.

Germany threatened the Panama Canal by disruption in Mexico and Haiti. The Mole St. Nicholas gave command of the canal to anyone of the great powers who might seize it. German influence was at work in Port au Prince. There occurred a riot involving both French and German Legations. The President of Haiti was assassinated. The United States marines stepped in and took over the situation. The American Negro heart went out to little Haiti. Hoping for the best, he feared the worst.

In the midst of this situation, Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico. Overnight Negro regiments of regular army and of national guard received word to go to the border. Black troopers of the 10th Cavalry were reported near Casas Grandes on March 17. The 24th Infantry, colored, set out for Mexico, and another Negro command was sent to Columbus on March 22. Through storm and dust and desert of alkali and cacti, the Negro troopers, led by Colonel Brown, came to Aguascalientes. They had passed through a terrible experience that must have daunted all save those who refuse to accept defeat. Hunger and thirst and mirage and exposure must all be overcome. Because of hardships many cavalrymen deserted on May 1, after three months' service in action. But every Negro trooper with Colonel Brown held on and defeated the Villistas in every skirmish.

On a day in June, 1916, a troop from the 10th Cavalry approached the Mexican town of Carrizal. They were forbidden to enter the town for purposes of refreshment. Captain Boyd resolved to make the entry regardless of any regulations the Mexicans might seek to enforce. He was called upon by General Gomez to advance for a parley. As he advanced with his troopers, Mexicans spread out in a wide circle around them. Gomez, himself, trained the machine gun which opened fire. The parley was a mere sham and decoy. Captain Boyd with Lieutenant Adair and eleven soldiers were killed. The rest of the troopers fell on the Mexicans, seized their gun, turned it upon them, and brought to death scores of their number, including Gomez himself. Seventeen black Americans were interned in Chihuahua, but were released eight days after upon demand by the American government. Captain Morey reported that his men faced death with a song on their lips. The lesson which the Mexicans learned by turning a machine gun on Negro troopers was of such force that no trouble has arisen since in this section of the southern republic. The Negro fell face forward in the scorching sand for his honor's sake, and for the honor of all America. He knew that his real enemy was not the Mexican, but the German who had furnished Mexico the means and the will to create disturbance on this side of the Atlantic.

It was not until April, 1917, that President Wilson proclaimed in Congress a state of war existing between the United States of America and the Imperial German Government. At the call for volunteers, Negro regiments of guard, who had served in Mexico, were found at war strength and ready to double themselves overnight. These guard regiments represented the cosmopolitan Negro populations of New York, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore and the State of Ohio. Everywhere the Negro dropped the mattock, left the ploughshare, poised himself at erect stature, passionately saluted Old Glory, answered "Here am I!"--counted fours, and away! Pro-German cried: "White man's war!" Propagandist yelled: "Cannon fodder!" Reactionary declared: "It must not be." The Negro burst the gate and entered the arena of combat in spite of all opposition to his service in honorable capacity under the United States government.

The honesty of his purpose was discredited. The Anglo-Saxon mind could not conceive any more than could the German why a man downtrodden as the Negro should rush to arms, save as a baser means of eking out a livelihood better than his civilian state. The Anglo-Saxon little dreamed that the Negro approached the war not only to uphold his cherished tradition, but also with definite ideas of honor, recognition and equality as its outcome. Or rather the Anglo-Saxon was too busy with his own affairs to ascertain the reason why.

His loyalty impugned by those who did not wish to see him uniformed, his fidelity the subject of bitter sarcasm, his trustworthiness disputed, the Negro for once kept his own counsel. German agents were in his midst. They came to his table. They mingled with him in all social intercourse. They brought forward business propositions to seek to make the interests of Negro and German one. Southerners, noting this unaccustomed intimacy of black and white, announced that the Negro had gone over to the enemy. But the Negro kept his own counsel. He called upon the nation to investigate him. And when his loyalty was found untarnished, he called upon the nation to investigate itself. It was through the influence of Robert R. Moton, of Tuskegee, that, after careful investigation, President Wilson put the stain of pro-Germanism where it properly belonged. Said the President:

MY FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:

I take the liberty of addressing you upon a subject which so
vitally affects the honour of the nation and the very character and
integrity of our institutions that I trust you will think me
justified in speaking very plainly about it.

I allude to the mob spirit which has recently here and there very
frequently shown its head amongst us, not in any single region, but
in many and widely separated parts of the country. There have been
many lynchings, and every one of them has been a blow at the heart
of ordered law and humane justice. No man who loves America, no man
who really cares for her fame and honour and character, or who is
truly loyal to her institutions, can justify mob actions while the
courts of justice are open and the governments of the states and
the nation are ready and able to do their duty. We are at this very
moment fighting lawless passion. Germany has outlawed herself among
the nations because she has disregarded the sacred obligations of
law and has made lynchers of her armies. Lynchers emulate her
disgraceful example. I, for my part, am anxious to see every
community in America rise above that level, with pride and fixed
resolution which no man or act of men can afford to despise.

We proudly claim to be the champions of democracy. If we really
are, in deed and in truth, let us see to it that we do not
discredit our own. I say plainly that every American who takes part
in the action of a mob or gives it any sort of countenance is no
true son of this great democracy, but its betrayer, and does more
to discredit her by that single disloyalty to her standards of law
and of right than the words of her statesmen or the sacrifices of
her heroic boys in the trenches can do to make suffering peoples
believe her to be their saviour. How shall we commend democracy to
the acceptance of other peoples, if we disgrace our own by proving
that it is, after all, no protection to the weak? Every mob
contributes to German lies about the United States what her most
gifted liars cannot improve upon by way of calumny. They can at
least say that such things cannot happen in Germany, except in
times of revolution, when law is swept away.

I, therefore, very earnestly and solemnly beg that the Governors of
all the States, the law officers of every community, and, above
all, the men and women of every community in the United States, all
who revere America and wish to keep her name without stain or
reproach, will co-operate--not passively merely, but actively and
watchfully,--to make an end of this disgraceful evil. It cannot
live where the community does not countenance it.

I have called upon the nation to put its great energy into this
war, and it has responded--responded with a spirit and a genius for
action that has thrilled the world. I now call upon it, upon its
men and women everywhere, to see that its laws are kept inviolate,
its fame untarnished. Let us show our utter contempt for the things
that have made this war hideous among the wars of history by
showing how those who love liberty and right and justice and are
willing to lay down their lives for them upon foreign fields, stand
ready also to illustrate to all mankind their loyalty to the things
at home which they wish to see established everywhere as a blessing
and protection to the peoples who have never known the privileges
of liberty and self-government. I can never accept any man as a
champion of liberty, either for ourselves or for the world, who
does not reverence and obey the laws of our own beloved land, whose
laws we ourselves have made. He has adopted the standard of the
enemies of his country, whom he affects to despise.

WOODROW WILSON.

The Negro braced himself, dismissed the German coldly from his household and forbade the pro-German enter. From afar off the enemy propagandist could resort but to derision and ridicule. What an attempt at laughter he made when Haiti entered the side of the Allies! How he pretended to be choking with the ridiculousness of the thing when Liberia offered her services! He flouted the idea of Negro expertness in handling weapons of modern warfare. He ridiculed the idea of Negro discretion in ideas of likely foreign origin. He questioned the potency of the Negro's native talent to meet the European situation. It was the black man's patriotic fervor, ardent in response to the call of Old Glory, zealous with passionate love of fireside and homeland, poignant with the throbbing and thrilling reaction of public-spirited emotion toward France--which overcame all.

The South asked three questions:

First--Shall Negroes and whites of the South both remain in America while the North conducts the war? Second--Shall Negroes of the South remain at home while the flower of southern chivalry, drafted for service, is far away across the sea, annihilated in battle? Third--Shall white men of the South be left at home while southern Negroes are drafted and go abroad to do distinguished service? These questions were resolved into the conclusion that southern Negroes and southern whites both must be drafted and sent against the German foe. There was no alternative.

It was altogether becoming and proper that a man whose race has suffered as the American Negro suffers today, should point the way to this goal of recognition, honor and equality which the Negro knew but as a tradition of those days following the Civil War when Grant administered the affairs of the triumphant party of freedom.

One of those New Yorkers of Hebraic origin, whose Semitic qualities are of the highest ethical type, made the play for partial equality, for partial recognition, for partial honor for the Negro. Joel Spingarn suggested and propagated the idea of a military training camp for Negroes, where they might receive instruction in all branches of military service, be commissioned up to the grade of captain and receive the recognition, honor and equality due to such military rank as they might qualify for. In addressing Negro America, he said:

"It is of highest importance that the educated colored men of this
country should be given opportunities for leadership. You must
cease to remain in the background in every field of national
activity, and must come forward to assume your right places as
leaders of American life. All of you cannot be leaders, but those
who have the capacity for leadership must be given the opportunity
to test and display it."

Mr. Spingarn never realized what forces he would set in motion by mere presentation of this proposition. He merely pointed out the gate. The young Negro brushed aside the opponents among his own race of this policy of segregation. He disregarded the moral principle which had actuated the older Negroes of the Interior Department in refusing to accept segregation, and seized the opportunity to produce some sort of change and readjustment. He must go up. He could go no lower than the policies of previous generations had brought him.

Directly to the President of all the United States he went. "Give us a lift!" he cried, "We want to fight!" To the Secretary of War he shouted most unceremoniously: "Give us place!" "But," was the indirect reply, "we have not the facilities at present. For instance, we have no bedding for the men whom you might muster." It was a young Negro Harvard graduate, Thomas Montgomery Gregory, of New Jersey, who advanced before Secretary Baker. "No bedding, Mr. Secretary? We will sleep on the floor--on the ground--anywhere--give us a lift!"

The Anglo-Saxon mind is subject to orderly reactions. The Secretary of War was taken aback. He realized that the young Negroes had not approached him to sell their labor. He gleaned that it was not for the purpose of barter and exchange they had come forward. Nor had they come with dreams of political advantage and social eclat, nor with vague glimmerings of spirituality. He was not ready to answer. He dismissed the audience with a little more than the usual ceremony. One of the older Negroes of the group, whose uncanny insight had often appeared beyond the orbit of average intelligence, ventured this suggestion: "He will put it up to Pershing."

And so the word got abroad that it would be left to Pershing as to how the Negro should be disposed of. It would be left to John J. Pershing, who in his earlier days had been instructor in a Negro college under the American Missionary Association. It would be left to the man who in 1892 had been a First Lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry in connection with the Sioux campaign in the Dakotas; who had been with the 10th Cavalry in the Santiago campaign in 1898; who had led Negro troops in the Philippines in 1899 till 1903, commanding operations in Mindanao against the Moros; and who had been in command of the Negro troops sent into Mexico in pursuit of Villa in March, 1916. It would be left to the man whose whole life had been spent in close contact with darker races.

To this day the Negro does not know who was directly responsible for the organization of the camp such as Spingarn proposed. It is probable that the honor belongs as much to Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts as to any one else. These black soldiers of Colonel Hayward's 15th New York Regiment, already in France with other regiments of Negro troopers of the national guard, were thrown across No Man's Land on a cold and foggy night as a lookout, far in advance of the sleeping command of thousands of white and colored American troops. The Hun planned their capture for the purpose of psycho-analytic research. It was Roberts who detected their stealthy approach. He called to Johnson. In the twinkling of an eye, the two were surrounded by German troopers. The Negroes faced certain death, but they had lost all claim to honor, recognition or equality, if they did not take with them to eternity at least one German each. Surrounded they resolved to fight it out with shot and gun. Too, too slow! Around them the Germans swarmed like bees. Bayonets then! Too, too close! Aye, butts! Wounded and winded, with knives, skulls, feet, teeth and nails, prehensile toe and larkheel, Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts defeated ten times their number of Germans and held the field of honor. This was a great self-revelation to the Negro of his powers of more than rudimentary culture, and a mighty incentive from the guard to the soldiery of the 92nd Division.

It settled forever, in the mind of the Negro, what Pershing would say as to the advisability of training Negroes to deliver their best service for their country. That general's report electrified the entire nation. Said Pershing:

"Reports in hand show a notable instance of bravery and devotion shown by two soldiers of an American colored regiment operating in a French sector. Before daylight on May 15, Private Henry Johnson and Private Roberts, while on sentry duty at some distance from one another, were attacked by a German raiding party, estimated at twenty men, who advanced in two groups, attacking at once flank and rear.

"Both men fought bravely hand-to-hand encounters, one resorting to the use of a bolo knife after his rifle jammed and further fighting with bayonet and butt became impossible. There is evidence that at least one, and probably a second, German was severely cut. A third is known to have been shot.

"Attention is drawn to the fact that the colored sentries were first attacked and continued fighting after receiving wounds, and despite the use of grenades by a superior force. They should be given credit for preventing, by their bravery, the capture of any of our men."

Whether this citation arrived May 19, 1917, by design or by accident, it served the purpose of dissolving completely all opposition to the idea of training Negroes to halt the Hun. Immediately thereafter the War Department created a training camp for educated Negroes at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.

THE CRISIS OF THE WORLD.

Des Moines Camp was organized in June, 1917, to train Negroes to the military point where other military men must recognize them, honor them and receive them on the plane of equality due their rank. The camp was designed to develop Negroid snap and vigor to the maximum of military efficiency. For this purpose, as at all other camps, there was created the background of the mother's urge, and the sister's urge, and the sweetheart's urge, the Y.M.C.A. spirit, the college fraternity spirit, and, in addition, the spirit of the elevation of a Negroid order.

The change which came over the men was indicated by their music. Their first group singing of a Sunday consisted of Negro spirituals in spondaic and trochaic verse, and phrased in many minors. The vigor of blood produced by methodical training soon permitted of vocalization only in iambics. "Over There," "The Long, Long Trail," "Sons of America," were songs they sung of hope and not of sorrow. They connoted the Negro's reaction to the cosmic urge.

Over 1200 men took advantage of the experience of the trip to Fort Des Moines for training. Theirs was the 17th Provisional R.O.T.C., but the first of national proportions. Its quota was drawn from every section of the United States. The immediate destiny of the men selected for commission from this camp would be the training of colored draftees of African descent.

Mr. Baker, the Secretary of War, in late summer, referring to the Des Moines Camp, said:

"The work at Des Moines is progressing remarkably well, and the
reports I have from it are very good. The spirit of the men is
fine, and apparently this camp is going to do a great deal of good,
both to the country and to the men involved."

Colonel C.C. Ballou, of the War College, in charge of the work at Des Moines, said on August 19, in a Sunday interview:

"The colored race constitutes more than ten per cent. of our
population, and has, since the Civil War, furnished more than its
quota of fighting men of the regular army. At home or on foreign
soil the ranks of colored regiments are always full, while the
white regiments have with difficulty been maintained at peace
strength. To question the valor of the colored soldier is to betray
ignorance of history. This is the first opportunity in his history
to prove on an adequate scale his fitness or unfitness for command
and leadership. At Fort Des Moines, Iowa, on June 16, 1917, there
assembled the largest body of educated Negroes ever brought
together for a single purpose. The candidates who survive are men
of marked intelligence and ability. Let any man who doubts the
colored men's patriotism go to Fort Des Moines and see men who have
given up professions, business and homes in order to learn to
defend their country and merit a more considerate judgment of their
race. Let any man who doubts the colored man's fidelity and loyalty
come to Fort Des Moines and revise his opinions on what he will
there learn of the spirit that has stood unswervingly behind the
commanding officer in every decision that he has been called upon
to make, even though that decision involved sore disappointment and
shattering of hopes. These men have been started out on correct
lines and will have no false ideas to unlearn."

Hardly any one in America, black or white, believed that 700 Negroes would be commissioned in the army of the United States to receive positions of honor not only beside her other troops, but on the field of battle with the flower of French and English between veteran soldiery. Everything possible to prevent, somehow or other, seemed to arise. The men were put through the bitterest drill in the hottest sun, under the most scorching orders the English language might devise. They represented every section of the United States. Not once did they break. The acid test came, when, already pricked by the numerous situations which arose to flout them, East St. Louis broke forth in the most savage pogrom Anglo-Saxon culture has ever revealed.

While 1200 Negroes, training for leadership, were undergoing the terrific process of forced attrition, their nerves turned raw by army usage, East St. Louis burst forth. Tidings reached Des Moines that the Illinois militia, called in to break up a race riot at East St. Louis, had joined the rioters and slaughtered the Negro population of the community. White women had joined in these attacks, dragging out of their houses colored women, girls and children, stoning and clubbing them to death. Aged Negro mammies, afraid to come out of their homes, had been burned to death by the mob which set fire to them. Black men had been thrown into Cahokia Creek and stormed with bricks each time they rose to the surface until drowned. A crowd of whites had torn a colored woman's baby from her arms, thrown it into the fire of a blazing dwelling, held the mother from its rescue until she, herself, was shot nigh unto death, and then allowed her to plunge into the fire to rescue her little one. Nor was this all.

But out there in camp, isolated from the usual social life, July 2 and 3 and 4, Independence Day, was indeed a test of nerve, already tried and sore and raw, for the young Negroes in training. Why should men train to fight for a country that permitted such barbarous atrocities against their race with impunity. In savage Memphis charred remains of Negroes burned at the stake before a gala mob of 15,000, were thrown from an automobile in the Negro quarter of that city! And the Negroes at Des Moines held on. It has not been recorded in history that there was here proposed any hostile demonstration, or that vengeance and ruthless retaliation was planned. Wise counsel prevailed, and the Negroes at Des Moines held on.

For three months they held on without audible murmur. Negroes from civilian life, from the national guard, from the regular army, destined for every branch of the military service, defied any propaganda, by whomever invented, to break their morale. For three months they held on. And then word came they would not be graduated. A number, in disgust, left the camp. But the great bulk of them, although at the last moment learning that they could be assigned to no military branch save infantry, remained in camp for another month and were finally commissioned as officers in the national army. It was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1917 that they received their commissions forwarded from the President of the United States. The hour and day and month a year later became famous not only in their history, but in the history of the civilized world.

They were given a grade neither high nor low. The rank of captain was granted to men who were to serve in France and England. The former country proudly made the Negro a general when he merited promotion; the latter was committed to the policy of white officers for colonial troops. In assigning rank as high as the grade of captain, America took the middle ground. In view of the international situation, she could hardly be expected to do more. She had granted partial recognition, partial honor, partial equality. It was for the Negro to gain the rest.

Seven hundred American Negroes commissioned! A baker's dozen of captains, six hundred odd lieutenants, and five hundred who dropped by the way. German propaganda had taken contrary suggestion and forced the Negro to this point of moral advantage. Plunder, arson, lynching and burning at the stake were employed against him to break his morale or incite him against America. But he held on. Seven hundred of the "sub-species, dark of skin, wooly of hair, long of head, with dilated nostrils, thick lips, thicker cranium, flat feet, prehensile great toe and larkheel" had passed every physical, mental, moral and social test and were commissioned in the American army. Doubt existed in the minds of every American citizen, including the Negro officers themselves, that they would ever see service overseas.

Assigned to various camps, the problem of recognition by white soldiers of colored officers immediately was raised, and promptly settled. In only a few cases did open clashes occur. In far more cases was the Negro received with full merited honors of his status, and in some sections on the basis of complete equality. The Negro of a northern locality, accustomed to all immunities and privileges of his home, experienced great difficulty when first assigned to camps near Baltimore, Washington, Houston or Norfolk. He would have passed through this state of his development well enough, settling his difficulties himself as they arose, had not some evil genius prompted the commanding officer of the division in which he was finally to be assembled to issue Bulletin 35, which follows:

"It should be well known to all colored officers and men that no
useful purpose is served by such acts as will cause the 'color
question' to be raised. It is not a question of legal rights, but a
question of policy, and any policy that tends to bring about a
conflict of the races, with its resulting animosities, is
prejudicial to the military interest of the colored race.

"To avoid such conflicts the Division Commander has repeatedly
urged that all colored members of his command and especially the
officers and non-commissioned officers, should refrain from going
where their presence will be resented. In spite of this injunction,
one of the Sergeants of the Medical Department has recently
precipitated the precise trouble that should be avoided, and then
called on the Division Commander to take sides in a row that should
never have occurred had the Sergeant placed the general good above
his personal pleasure and convenience. The Sergeant entered a
theater, as he undoubtedly has a legal right to do, and
precipitated trouble by making it possible to allege race
discrimination in the seat which he was given. He is strictly
within his legal rights in this matter, and the theater manager is
legally wrong. Nevertheless, the Sergeant is guilty of the greater
wrong in doing ANYTHING, no matter how legally correct, that will
provoke race animosity.

"The Division Commander repeats that the success of the Division,
with all that success implies, is dependent upon the good will of
the public. That public is nine-tenths white. White men made the
Division, and they can break it just as easily if it becomes a
trouble maker.

"All concerned are again enjoined to place the general interest of
the Division above personal pride and gratification. Avoid every
situation that can give rise to racial ill-will. Attend quietly and
faithfully to your duties, and don't go where your presence is not
desired.

"This will be read to all organizations of the 92nd Division.

"By command of Major-General Ballou:

"ALLEN J. GREER,
"Lieutenant-Colonel, General Staff,
"Chief of Staff.

"Official:
"EDW. J. TURGEON,
"Captain, Assistant Adjutant,
"Acting Adjutant."

It was an altogether modern type of Negro that informed the commanding general quietly, but firmly, that he had seriously impaired his usefulness by the tone of his bulletin; that he had proposed a principle which did not bode good for the future of white people of the world when seven-tenths of the world's population was of darker hue. It is to General Ballou's credit that he admitted the question to debate, listened to reason, and capitulated.

But a certain type of southern statesmanship was not amenable to reason. Despite the wishes of the President of the United States, there were published in the "Congressional Record" articles describing the peril involved in arming and training any black peoples for modern warfare. What measure of offense these articles gave to Morocco, to India, to Latin America, to Japan, to China, to Africa, loyally supporting all the cause of France and England, can only be judged by the rebuke which President Wilson gave when his chance came.

It was in the Spring of 1918 when Germany struck through the British forces in Picardy. Then came the allies' "Hurry up!" call. The enemy opened a tremendous drive against the British front, bombarding, storming and attacking along fifty miles from Croiselles to La Fere. On the first day, 16,000 British prisoners were taken. The shelling might be heard across the Channel in Dover. The German penetrated to the third British line, taking 25,000 more prisoners. William Hohenzollern, himself, directed the drive from his headquarters at Spa. Peronne, Ham and Chauny fell. Vast stores and war material was lost, including tanks. At the Lotos club dinner, Lord Reading gave voice to a message from Lloyd George urging the United States to rush men to fill the gap. Albert fell. The real need of England and France became a question of reserves. John J. Pershing, drawing no color line, offered the whole American army.

Germany separated France from her ally. Apprized of America's preparations, she sought to destroy both France and England before the new enemy might hold place. Acceleration of all fighting forces to overseas service became the imperative duty. Not a moment was to be lost. The American Expeditionary Force must be expeditious. Casting about to find those ready to answer the call, America could not deny the preparedness of her 92nd Division of colored troopers.

On Germany came! On to Montdidier! To Amiens! To Hazebrouck! To Paris! Montdidier gone! "Hurry! Hurry!" cried Clemenceau. "Hurry! Hurry!" pleaded the aged Premier. He could no longer study the possible effects of any action of his office upon the future. His concern was the very present need. He wanted men, regardless of what adjustments their presence might upset in future world relationships.

So came a day when the Negro troopers could no longer be gainsaid. "Give me these men!" cried Joffre. "I am ready for the 92nd," announced Pershing. "We submit that they are men without honor, and of inferior American status," warned some Americans. "We shall test them," was Foch's laconic reply. "But they are black men with but 35 ounces of brain--a sub-species of mankind," America warned again.

And all France cried: "Send us men--men without fear of mortal danger--men of intrepid heart--men of audacity--men of fortitude--men of resolution--men of unquestioning, unreasoning, undying courage--men of elan--men of morale! Send Jew or Gentile--white men, yellow men, brown men, black men--it matters not! Send us men who can halt the Hun!"

So early in May of 1918 went up to sea, partly under their own officers, 90,000 and more American Negroes, registered as of African descent, and drafted to do battle in France. It was sub-species against super-man, broad head against long head, flat nose against sharp nose, thick cranium against Hun helmet. It was this unprecedented synthetic group of black men sailing the sea of darkness on a mission concerning the vital interests of Englishmen and Americans who had misused them for centuries, and concerning beloved France, which laid the real claim for honor and recognition and equality for the American Negro.

The American Negro, as he bade his black comrades "Good-bye! Good luck! God bless you! Take keer o' yo' self!" felt in his heart that all America ought to forget her prejudices. He felt that if she did not do so, she was indeed only fit to be characterized as narrow-minded, mean-spirited, illiberal and warped--entirely unfit for the position of leadership in democratization of the world.

So taken up with this idea was the entire Negro race that an editorial appearing in the "Crisis," the leading Negro magazine, from the pen of the Negro scholar, W.E.B. Dubois, came as a dash of cold water from an upper window. This article set the whole race agog. There was nothing in it about America's forgetting her prejudices, the idea which filled the Negro heart and soul and mind. It was entitled "Close Ranks!" and read as follows:

"This is the crisis of the world. For all the long years to come
men will point to the year 1918 as the great Day of Decision, the
day when the world decided whether it would submit to military
despotism and an endless armed peace--if peace it could be
called--or whether they would put down the menace of German
militarism and inaugurate the United States of the World.

"We of the colored race have no ordinary interest in the outcome.
That which the German power represents today spells death to the
aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom
and democracy. Let us not hesitate. Let us, while this war lasts,
forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to
shoulder with our own white fellow-citizens and the allied nations
that are fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but
we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills."
While many questioned his motive, all accepted his advice.

While the grievance was not forgotten, it was not allowed to jeopardize the success of the issue to weaken the black man's allegiance. Every mother's son and father's daughter remained loyal under stress and strain which would have caused the white man to curse and die.

THE FIELD OF ACTION.

Regiments of Negro stevedores, earlier in the year, had been drafted and sent overseas. These men were drawn from a specific locality, and did not represent the entire nation. They were in command of white officers. They had been destined for the Service of Supply, a service which America performed so marvelously well that it is difficult to tell, if not here, where her chief glory lies.

Black stevedores from Alabama, and Louisiana, and Mississippi, Virginia and the Carolinas, numbering far more than the entire black forces of the 92nd Division, packed and unpacked the American Expeditionary Force in a manner never attempted since Noah loaded the Ark. Rear Admiral Wilson and General McClure cited several regiments for exceptionally efficient work. The "Leviathan," formerly the German steamship "Vaterland," was unloaded and coaled, in competition with other white and black stevedore regiments, by Company A, 301st Stevedores, young American Negroes, in fifty-six hours, a world record.

What a cheer went up from the black stevedores of the far South when there landed in their midst a mighty band of black infantry, nearly 100,000 strong who, in a few short months had learned the use of powder and shot, of sword and broadsword, of bayonet and bludgeon, of trench knife and battle-ax. Cold steel or blackjack, smooth bore or sawed-off, machine gun or automatic, were all the same to them. It was a great experience for stevedore and infantryman. And the stevedore's heart leaped to his throat as he saw the black officers of the 92nd Division maneuver and march away the men under their command.

The black stevedore wondered why America had brought him so far under white officers to behold such a sight. He beheld black quartermasters, ranking and outranking captains, furnishing their men with provision and supply. The handling of purveyance and cutlery on a huge scale by black commissioned officers was a revelation to the black stevedore of the far South who had never seen such a sight in all his days.

The stevedore beheld arrive Negro signal men, monitors of their troops and of a million whites behind them, death watch to the German enemy, destined to be sentinels and patrolmen of No Man's Land. He saw pass by black American scouts and spies and lookouts and pioneers headed for the frontiers of France to gain an immortal halo of glory.

The stevedore found in his midst elegantly groomed, but speechless Negroes whom, his friends whispered to him, belonged to the United States Intelligence Department. They had come, so the wide-mouthed stevedore was told, to pit their 35 ounces of brain against the German's 45 ounces, and to prove that the Hun back brain is surplus overweight and should be reduced to Negro proportions. They had come to furnish General Pershing information, news, tidings and dispatch, embassy and bulletin, report and rumor. And the stevedore wondered if General Pershing would expect these Negro men to report to him information with precision and correctitude.

It was the Negro band, fresh from America, which gave the stevedore his greatest delight. Preceding the black troops everywhere, it produced a potpourri of full and semi-scores, melodies and plantation arias, that came as a refreshing novelty to weary English hearts and to the souls of jaded France.

But there were no Negro "big gun" men. The stevedore wondered if the black boys of the 92nd Division would have to get into the fight with Germany, depending upon the kind of barrage which some of the men whom he knew in America might lay down for him. True, the Negro artilleryman had been left behind in America. At Camp Taylor he was spurned and rejected. But he refused to accept rebuff. He won his way into the heart of commanding officer and subaltern, gained his training, made a superior record, witnessed the outpouring of the entire white soldiery of the camp to present arms and salute him as he went away to service, and arrived in France in breathless haste in time to lay down a perfect barrage for his black comrades as they advanced through the terrific fighting in the Argonne and the Marbache. Long will stevedore tradition recite the story of how these black "big gun men" came by.

The black stevedore represented a section of the United States. That section was thoroughly well represented. There was work done better than it ever had been done before. But, on the other hand, the 92nd Division had been drawn from every possible corner of the United States where a quota might be raised. It was the 92nd Division especially, however great might be the deeds of local regiments of guard, that would decide the great ultimate question. Regiments of Negro guard troops from New York, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore, and the State of Ohio, and Negro pioneers from the mountain regions of the Carolinas, might cover their respective localities with the surpassing glory of their achievements. And every regiment of them did. But the real issue was wrapped up in the great 92nd Division, the Negro national army commanded in large measure by Negro officers, which stepped into the international arena on that fateful day in June, 1918.

They landed when the German had spent his third offensive and was at the gates of Paris. Almost the first news which they received after they had settled on foreign soil was that Paris, the magic city which they had come so far to see, was destined to fall into the hands of the German. Albeit Chateau Thierry, the turning point of the decisive struggle of 1918, was only achieved when, for the war, a total of more than a million black men of four continents had been annihilated, the 92nd Division was eager for the fray--was anxious to tread the field of action for the sake of honor, and recognition and equality. It was at Chateau Thierry, on a day soon after the arrival of the 92nd Division in France, that Foch, the eminent generalissimo, but then an almost unknown quantity, again gave voice to laconicism: "The offensive shall begin and shall continue. Bring up the colonials!" America was thrown into battle holding honored position beside Gouraud's invincible Africanders. The Hun was halted in his tracks, thrown back across the second Marne, and hunted like a wolf over the Hindenburg line and into his native lair.

Soissons, Rheims, Verdun, St. Dizier and Chemin des Dames, all saw Negro troops of the United States in violent action. In the Marbache, at Belie Farm, and in the Bois de Tege d'Or, the Negro guard regiments and the Negro 92nd Division went over and at the Hun.

At Voivrette Farm and in the Bois de Frehaut, other troops of this same division smote German super-man hip and thigh. In Voivrette Woods and in the Bois de Cheminot, at Moulon Brook and Seilie Bridge and Epley the 92nd Division again victoriously contested the field of honor, against the best soldiers Prussia might afford. From July until November, their brothers of the Negro guard regiments, of Negro pioneers and Negro casuals were within earshot of the murderous rumble of contending artillery. By November 8 every command in the Negro American division, including the units of guard, had more than once or twice been at the front or over the top and at them.

Ralph W. Tyler, of Ohio, a Negro on the staff of General Pershing, representing the Bureau of Public Information, says of Hill 304:

"I have learned that Hill 304, which the French so valiantly held,
and which suffered such a fierce bombardment from the Germans that
there is not a single foot of it but what is plowed up by shells,
and whose sides, even today, are literally covered with the corpses
of French soldiers who still lie where they fell, was later as
valiantly held by the colored soldiers from the United States, who
fought with all the heroism and endurance the best tradition of the
army had chronicled. The colored soldiers who held that bloody and
ever historical Hill 304 had the odds against them, but like
Tennyson's immortal 'Six Hundred,' they fought bravely and well,
firm in the belief 'it was not theirs to reason why--it was theirs
to do and die.' And like the patriots they were, they did DO, and
this war's history will so record."

The Prussian, at last, sought safety in flight. Britisher, Frenchman, Italian, Portuguese, Canadian, black and white American were at his heels. Italy created a debacle in Austria. And then, wonderful news came through of what was happening in the Near East.

It had been impossible for the Negroes of America to come to France and preserve the nicely calculated adjustments which England had set up through the years. The East Indian, the Arabian, the Egyptian could not but observe, and observing, fail to understand why American Negroes could be entrusted in command of troops, if they were not given the same recognition and honor and equality. Quietly England prepared them all. Under General Allenby and dark-skinned officers of the East, the black Caucasians and the brown Caucasians and the yellow Caucasians fell upon the Turk, until, regardless of his German master, he cried aloud for terms. The horde of dark-skinned captors of Turkey, under the British supreme command, threatened and attacked Bulgaria, who quickly succumbed. So came the Turkish armistice, and the Bulgarian armistice and the Austrian armistice.

The Prussian fled from the field of battle. He was not swift enough. Brought to bay, he cried for mercy. All of the Negro American force was to be hurled at him in the greatest stronghold of the world, Metz. He pleaded with the American President for armistice, and was referred to Marshal Foch. It was the great war hero, with the Hohenzollern house of cards tumbled about him, who decided that for three days, until November 11, fighting must continue, and that in those last hours the Germans must feel at the hands of all the allies the severest punishment that could be meted within a limited time. Britishers, Frenchmen, men of all allied nations sought the honor. The American Negro could not be denied. Although regiments of Negro guard and of the 92nd Division had but recently been in action for a period of from three to five weeks, they craved the honor of being out in front at the stern and bitter end. It was practically the entire Negro fighting force of America which, under its own officers, went over the top at daybreak on the final morning of the great four years' struggle, side by side with white men of various nationalities, who, like them, were ready and most fit for sacrifice or service. In the last hours, when life seemed sweeter than all creation, there thousands of black men of all regiments overseas fell in search of the coveted honor of being nearest Berlin as the thunderous crash and din ceased, to roll no more. Hours before the order came for the supreme and final sacrifice, Negro signal men had caught from the air the message which indicated what was to be their special honor. There was not a man to desert or seek asylum elsewhere. All went over the top together!

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the order came to cease firing. The 92nd Division of Negro troops stood at Thann and before Metz, in advance of the progress of troops of all America. The ground which they trod had not been occupied by other than German troops in 40 years. It was the field of honor, and recognition and equality, and must be theirs of necessity. Nature had ruthlessly perfected this type of black native-born American for the high duties of a soldier. The war was over. Allies and Americans said to him:

"As brothers we moved together--as brothers--to the dawn that
advanced--to the stars that fled--rendering thanks to God in the
highest, that He, having hid His face through one long night behind
thick clouds of war, once again will ascend above us in the vision
of perpetual peace."

The Negro felt that, as the ancient Romans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in themselves not to relent, after a generation or two, before the grandeur of Hannibal, so he will not ever be the mere son of a peri.

The Negro knew that he could do one thing as well as the best of men--a greater thing than Milton or Marlowe or Charlemagne ever did--he could die grandly the death. Face forward on the flats of Flanders, in Picardy and Lorraine he died grandly, to make the world safe for democracy. For we of America must remember, in all our getting on and up in the world, that, as a psychological weapon, the bristling bayonet was incomplete until a stalwart, desperate black Negro American citizen got behind it to fight, not for his gain, but for the uplift of the masses of humanity.

The war was over. It was still a small voice within that told the Negro hosts: "As this hath been no white man's war, neither shall it be a white man's peace."

THE AFTERMATH.

But yesterday the nation tried to think of the Negro as a southern problem, the solution of which belonged to statesmanship of the South. Often we have endeavored to think of him as a national problem, and have tried to persuade the national government to take in hand matters of widespread national interest wherein he was involved. But now we must of necessity think of the Negro as an international problem, ramifications of which are bound up in the roots of aspiration and kindred feeling and powerful potentiality of Frenchman and Britisher, of Asiatic and Slav, and of the great bodies of darker peoples of all the world.

As the Negro becomes an international problem, no single section of a country can be entrusted with the administration of matters pertaining to him. Such administration may be assigned by international conclave to a particular country as its national problem, but the proper channels of administration of international policy will be up from sectional caucus, through national agency to the international parliament, and down from such parliament or league, through national agencies to the section involved. And, furthermore, sectional caucus, unless it would fail in policies of its advocacy, and suffer modification by the Congress or parliament of its central governmental administration, must henceforth regard the Negro not as an aggregate all in a mass, but as a synthesis, composed of gradations from lowest to superior. This is the new concept which the war of 1918 has forced upon America, in spite of the bias of 1914.

Civilization left the parting of the ways when Woodrow Wilson's rallying cry for world democratization led America into the war. It decided to seek the path of Peace not along the lines of permitted autocracy, but of firmly and thoroughly well administered democracy. In administering democratic government, Negro regiments, graded from private to superior officer, came first as an academic proposition, and, finally, as an actuality. They came four hundred thousand strong. No group of that number can longer be considered as a mere accumulation of black men. One hundred thousand Negroes of the 92nd Division and regiments of guard have been commanded on the field of action by black headmen, with white headlight. They have taken their objectives with speed and control and the management of both of these elements of transfused morale has been in the hands of colored college men or their military equals.