ON THE SEA
“Of The People, By The People, For The People.”
On U. S. Ships, Colored men deserve
More than to cook or meals to serve;
And some are worthy of better fates
Than be only stewards and gunners’ mates.
Miss “Annapolis-Stevens” should never forget
Foreign nations are looking in shocking regret
At her vamping white boys, for caresses to get
In this School where one Colored has studied but yet.
—Harrison.
In regard to the Colored men who took part in Naval strifes on the high seas, it has been estimated that at least ten thousand of them served in the Navy during the World War. While they were not allowed to advance in the Navy in proportion to their advancement in the Army, nevertheless, Colored college graduates and students, fully knowing such facts, put aside for the time being their educational ambitions and careers, entered the Navy and patriotically as well as unselfishly served in the menial positions of stewards, cooks and mess boys. And judging from the sleek full cheeks and plump round bodies of the officers and sailors aboard the vessels, those Colored boys, who were broad-minded and big-hearted enough to put down college pride and take up in its place national patriotism, went into galley and mess rooms and used the same kind of brain power in wrestling with pots and pans, foods and dishes as they had so brilliantly used in tussling with slippery mathematical, historical and linguistic problems when in their college class-rooms.
And who but God has an accurate record of the noble deeds humbly performed by many of those entrapped and unrescued Colored firemen and stokers who to the very last possible moment kept up the motor powers of their vessels in trying to outspeed and outdodge the death dealing submarine torpedoes? Those swift snakelike missives were always aimed and usually struck at either the life-giving lungs (fire rooms) or the pulsating hearts (engine rooms) of their objects. And it was in those vital organs of several great sea-ploughing vessels where many feverishly working, loyally dying and unsung Colored heroes went down to forever sleep in the dark deep chambers of “Father Neptune.”
THE STEVEDORES
While their duties, not being on the battle fields nor firing lines, called forth no spectacular incidents, citations for bravery or award of medals, nevertheless, the work of the stevedores was as important and valuable as the efforts of any other division in the World War. And their giant strengths and swiftness of movements in loading and unloading supply transports on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean played a very very clever part in helping the world to finally get a Zbyszko “toe-hold” a Stecher “scissors-hold” and a Lewis “strangle-hold” upon Germany and gradually forcing her shoulders backward and flat upon the universal mat of democracy.
(For some of the facts and figures used in writing-up the actual military and naval actions of the different wars that have been recorded on the foregoing pages, the writer is reverently grateful to his deceased Father, who as a runaway slave served through the Civil War, and other veterans of the Civil, Spanish-American and World Wars. But for the remainder and majority of such war data herein used, the author is fully indebted to The National Benefit Life Insurance Company, through the generous courtesies of its President, Mr. R. H. Rutherford, Washington, D.C., whose personal permission the writer secured to use such data in this book.)
HIGHEST COLORED OFFICERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY
A Brunette General
Through all the wars these States have gone,
A million Colored their parts have borne,
But never a General has one been made:
Yet, Lafayette’s France have them so paid,
For character there out-points darkest shade.