In the February issue of the Crisis its editor begins a brief editorial on “Leadership,” with the touching reminder that “Many a good cause has been killed by suspected leadership.” How strikingly do these words bring back to us Negroes those dark days of 1918! At that time the editor of the Crisis was offering certain unique formulas of leadership that somehow didn’t “take.” His “Close Ranks” editorial and the subsequent slump in the stock of his leadership have again illustrated the truth long since expressed in Latin: “Descensus Averni facilis; sed revocare gradus,—hoc opus est,” which, being translated, might mean that, while it’s as easy as eggs for a leader to fall off the fence, it is devilishly difficult to boost him up again. In September, 1918, one could boldly say, “The Crisis says, first your Country, then your Rights!” Today, when the Negro people everywhere are responding to Mr. Michael Coulsen’s sentiment that “it’s Race, not Country, first,” we find the “leader” of 1918 in the position described by Lowell in these words: “A moultin’ fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye’d snicker, Thinkin’ he warn’t a suckemstance.”
How fast time flies!
But the gist of Dr. Du Bois’s editorial is the moral downfall of another great leader. “Woodrow Wilson, in following a great ideal of world unity, forgot all his pledges to the German people, forgot all his large words to Russia, did not hesitate to betray Gompers and his unions, and never at any single moment meant to include in his democracy twelve million of his fellow Americans, whom he categorically promised `more than mere grudging justice,’ and then allowed 350 of them to be lynched during his Presidency. Under such leadership what cause could succeed?” He notes that out of the World War, with the Allies triumphant, have come Britain’s brutal domination of the seas, her conquest of Persia, Arabia and Egypt, and her tremendous tyranny imposed on two-thirds of Africa.
But we saw these things, as early as 1917, to be the necessary consequences of the Allies’ success, when the editor of the Crisis was telling his race: “You are not fighting simply for Europe; you are fighting for the world.” Was Dr. Du Bois so blind then that he couldn’t see them? And if he was, is he any less blind today? In 1918 the lynchings were still going on while Dr. Du Bois was solemnly advising us to “forget our grievances.” Any one who insisted then on putting such grievances as lynchings, disfranchisement and segregation in the fore-ground was described by the Crisis’ editor as seeking “to turn his country’s tragic predicament to his own personal gain.” At that time he either believed or pretended to believe every one of the empty words that flowed from Woodrow Wilson’s lips, and on the basis of this belief he was willing to act as a brilliant bellwether to the rest of the flock. Unfortunately, the flock refused to follow the lost leader.
“If the blind lead the blind they will both fall into the ditch.” But in this case those being led were not quite so blind as those who wanted to lead them by way of captaincies in the army. Which was why some captaincies were not forthcoming. The test of vision in a leader is the ability to foresee the immediate future, the necessary consequences of a course of conduct and the dependable sentiments of those whom he assumes to lead. In all these things Dr. Du Bois has failed; and neither his ungrateful attack on Emmett Scott nor his belated discovery of Wilsonian hypocrisy will, we fear, enable him to climb back into the saddle of race leadership. This is a pity, because he has rendered good service in his day. But that day is past. The magazine which he edits still remains as a splendid example of Negro journalism. But the personal primacy of its editor has departed, never to return. Other times, other men; other men, other manners.
Even the Negro people are now insisting that their leaders shall in thought and moral stamina keep ahead of, and not behind, them,
“It takes a mind like Willum’s [fact!] ez big as all outdoors
To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours.”
The people’s spiritual appetite has changed and they are no longer enamoured of “brilliant” leaders, whose chorus is:
“A marciful Providence fashioned us holler