[Illustration: CONVENT AT CAVITË, WHERE AGUINALDO WAS PROCLAIMED PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC (JUNE, 1898).]
The greater portion of the American people have confidence in the Negro soldier. This confidence is not misplaced--the American government can, in the South, organize an army of Negro soldiers that will defy the combined forces of any nation of Europe. The Negro can fight in any climate, and does not succumb to the hardships of camp life. He makes a model soldier and is well nigh invincible.
The Negro race has a right to be proud of the achievements of the colored troopers in the late Spanish-American war. They were the representatives of the whole race in that conflict; had they failed it would have been a calamity charged up to the whole race. The race's enemies would have used it with great effect. They did not fail, but did their duty nobly--a thousand hurrahs for the colored troopers of the Spanish-American war!
In considering their successful achievements, however, it is well to remember that there were some things the Negro had to forget while facing Spanish bullets. The Negro soldier in bracing himself for that conflict must needs forget the cruelties that daily go on against his brethren under that same flag he faces death to defend; he must forget that when he returns to his own land he will be met not as a citizen, but as a serf in that part of it, at least, where the majority of his people live; he must forget that if he wishes to visit his aged parents who may perhaps live in some of the Southern States, he must go in a "Jim Crow" car; and if he wants a meal on the way, he could only get it in the kitchen, as to insist on having it in the dining room with other travelers, would subject him to mob violence; he must forget that the flag he fought to defend in Cuba does not protect him nor his family at home; he must forget the murder of Frazier B. Baker, who was shot down in cold blood, together with his infant babe in its mother's arms, and the mother and another child wounded, at Lake City, S.C, for no other offense than attempting to perform the duties of Postmaster at that place--a position given him by President McKinley; he must forget also the shooting of Loftin, the colored Postmaster at Hagansville, Ga., who was guilty of no crime, but being a Negro and holding, at that place, the Postoffice, a position given him by the government; he must forget the Wilmington MASSACRE in which some forty or fifty colored people were shot down by men who had organized to take the government of the city in charge by force of the Winchester--where two lawyers and a half dozen or more colored men of business, together with such of their white friends as were thought necessary to get rid of, were banished from the city by a mob, and their lives threatened in the event of their return--all because they were in the way as Republican voters-"talked too much" or did not halt when so ordered by some members of the mob; they must forget the three hundred Negroes who were the victims of mob violence in the United States during the year 1898; they must forget that the government they fought for in Cuba is powerless to correct these evils, and does not correct them.
WHY THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PROTECT ITS COLORED CITIZENS.
Is due to the peculiar and complicated construction of the laws relating to STATES RIGHTS. The power to punish for crimes against citizens of the different States is given by construction of the Constitution of the United States to the courts of the several States. The Federal authorities have no jurisdiction unless the State has passed some law abridging the rights of citizens, or the State government through its authorized agents is unable to protect its citizens, and has called on the national government for aid to that end, or some United States official is molested in the discharge of his duty. Under this subtle construction of the Constitution a citizen who lives in a State whose public opinion is hostile becomes a victim of whatever prejudice prevails, and, although the laws may in the letter, afford ample protection, yet those who are to execute them rarely do so in the face of a hostile public sentiment; and thus the Negroes who live in hostile communities become the victims of public sentiment. Juries may be drawn, and trials may be had, but the juries are usually white, and are also influenced in their verdicts by that sentiment which declares that "this is a white man's government," and a mistrial follows. In many instances the juries are willing to do justice, but they can feel the pressure from the outside, and in some instance the jurors chosen to try the cases were members of the mob, as in the case of the coroner's jury at Lake City.
It is the duty of a State Governor, when he finds public sentiment dominating the courts and obstructing justice, to interfere, and in case he cannot succeed with the sheriff and posse comitatus, then to invoke National aid. But this step has never yet been taken by any Governor of the States in the interest of Negro citizenship. Some of the State Governors have made some demonstration by way of threats of enforcing the law against those who organize mobs and take the law into their own hands; and some of the mob murderers have been brought to trial, which in most cases, has resulted in an acquittal for the reason that juries have as aforestated, chosen to obey public sentiment, which is not in favor of punishing white men for lynching Negroes, rather than obey the law; and cases against the election laws and for molesting United States officials have to be tried in the district where these offences occur, and the juries being in sympathy with the criminals, usually acquit, or there is a mistrial because they cannot all agree.
THAT MOBOCRACY IS SUPREME in many parts of the Union is no longer a mooted question. It is a fact; and one that forebodes serious consequences, not only to the Negro but to any class of citizens who may happen to come into disfavor with some other class.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN SEBASTIANO, MANILLA.]