BY J. M. HENDERSON
As a rule the first news of various happenings is presented in the papers hastily. People want the news and read what is presented as news quickly and pass it along without much thought. This is about all of the attention that a large part of news items are worth but there are constantly taking place events that bear such important relations to questions of great interest that it is essential for the student of events to have the aid of a monthly review.
Alexander’s Magazine will meet an existing need if it takes up important events and questions of vital and present day interest and gives to its readers the outcome of calm, deliberate, and critical thought. The weekly paper has its place, but the race now needs strong monthly journals.
Such men as Judge Straker and many of his class who are seldom heard from of late years would find in a strong monthly publication a means of saying many very valuable things to the race. The earnest men and women now at the zenith of activity would not hesitate to speak through a calm monthly periodical.
The white people who desire to learn something of the Colored citizens beyond what can be seen on the surface or gleaned from the hurried reports of daily happenings would find in a well edited monthly a great aid.
Such a periodical should become a powerful advocate of the welfare of the race. It should review the sayings of the weekly papers of the race and present the rational conclusions that are to be drawn from scattered news that has been hurriedly presented.
A Conference in the South End House, Boston
BY JOHN DANIELS
On the evening of April 27 there was held at the South End House, 20 Union Park street, Boston, an important conference on the position of the Negro in the city. Present were Butler R. Wilson, Esq., Charles Alexander, Hon. William H. Dupree, Dr. L. M. Holmes, Rev. Henry J. Callis, Mrs. Olivia Ward Bush and Mrs. Joseph Lee, R. A. Woods, Prof. T. N. Carver, Rev. Charles N. Field, W. I. Cole, John Daniels, F. W. Leace, Mr. and Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Woods and Miss Mary W. Ovington.
The program consisted of a number of short reports on special topics, and afterwards a general discussion. Mr. Cole, secretary of the South End House association and head of the Men’s Residence, where the conference was held, announced, in calling the meeting to order, that it seemed advisable to certain people interested in the situation of the Negro in Boston to call together a number of those well acquainted with the subject for the purpose of finding out the true situation and to determine whether it called for special effort, and if so, how this effort should be directed.