Indeed, it would be well now for us to establish friendly relations and correspondence with our brothers at home. For we don’t know enough about them to be able to do them any good at THIS peace congress (even if we were graciously granted seats there); but fifty years from now—WHO KNOWS?
“They Shall Not Pass!”
When heroic France was holding the Kaiser’s legions at bay her inflexible resolution found expression in the phrase, “Ils ne passeront pas!”—they shall not pass! The white statesmen who run our government in Washington seem to have adopted the poilu’s watchword in a less worthy cause. The seventy-odd Negro “delegates” to the Peace Congress who have got themselves “elected” at mass-meetings and concerts for the purpose of going to France are not going—unless they can walk, swim, or fly. For the government will not issue passports for them.
Of course, the government is not telling them so in plain English. That wouldn’t be like our government. It merely makes them wait while their money melts away. Day after day and week after week, they wearily wend their way to the official Circumlocution Office where they receive a reply considered sufficient for their child-minds: “Not yet.”
It is many weeks since Madam Walker, Mr. Trotter, Judge Harrison and other lesser lights were elected, but “They shall not pass!” says the government with the backing of Emmett Scott. THE VOICE holds no brief for these people: in fact it has taken the trouble to tell them more than once how silly their project was. But it is not out of order to inquire why the government will not let them go, and to find an answer to that question.
The government will not let them go to France, because the government’s conscience is not clear. And the government ordered that ludicrous lackey, Mr. R. R. Moton, to go—for the same reason. In fact, the creation of sinecures for Mr. Scott and the other barnacles is due largely to an uneasy conscience. How would it look to have Negroes telling all Europe that the land which is to make the world “safe for democracy” is rotten with race-prejudice; Jim-crows Negro officers on ships coming over from France and on trains run under government control; condones lynching by silent acquiescence and refuses to let its Negro heroes vote as citizens in that part of the country in which nine-tenths of them live. This wouldn’t do at all.
Therefore: They shall not pass! And if, finally, the government, nettled by such criticisms, should lift the ban when the Peace Congress is practically over, the Negroes of America may be sure that those permitted to go will be carefully hand-picked.
But what is the matter with America as a land for pioneer work in planting democracy? Are these Negro emigrés afraid to face the white men here in the Republican Party or any other and raise Hades until the Constitution is enforced? Is cowardice the real reason for their running to France to uncork their mouths? It looks very much like it. Ladies and gentlemen: don’t run. The fight is here, and here you will be compelled to face it, or report to us the reason why.