and statute-bouk, every court in the civilized world and in the l'nited States agree that every human being has the legal as well as moral right to kill those who attack and try to kill him. Then the question for The Age to decide, is whether Negroes are human beings. To call our vicw "socialistic" is to call the courts "socialistic," and displays an amazing ignorance both of Socialism and of human nature,

Before we leave this question, it is proper to consider the near and remote consequences of the radical view, The dye says that unruly tongues will alienate public sympathy from the oppresser. Good God! Isn't it high time to ask of what value is that kind of sympathy which is ready to be alienated as soon as Negroes ocase to be "niggers" and insist on being men? Is that the sort of sympathy on which The Age has thrived? Then we will have none of it.

And, as to the remoter consequences : neither we nor The ridge has a lease on the future. We can but prophesy. But intelligent people reach the unknown via the known, and prophesy the future from the known past and present. And we do know that no race or group of people past or present ever won to the status of manhood among men hy yielding up that right which even a singed cat will not yield up the riglt to defend their lives. If The Age knows of any instance to the contrary in the history of the past seven thousand years, let it mention that instancc. But The Age may ask :

"What will self defense accomplish?" Let i1s see first what the absence of self-defense accomplishes. In its news account of the St. Louis massacre, the consterdam News shows that whenever the white mobs found a group of Negroes organized and armied, they burned back:

while The Aye itself had this significant and pathetic sentence:

Since the massacre, which will go down in history alongside the atrocities committed in Brussels and Rheims, a delegation of Negroes has held a conference with Governor Lowden at Springfield, but the outcome of this meeting will not bring back the lives of those rcho, for no valid reason, were struck doton and murdered in cold blood.

Taking the two things together the answer seems clear enough. When murder is cheap murder is indulged in recklessly; when it is likely to be costly it is not so readily indulged in. Will The Age venture to deny this? No? Then we sny, let Negroe's help to make murder costly, for hy so doing they will aid the officers of the city, state and nation in instilling respect for law and order into the minds of the worst and lowest clements of our American cities. And we go further: We say that it is not alone the brutality of the whites--it is also the cowardice of Negroes and the lickspittle leadership of the last two decades which, like The Age, told us to "take it all lying down”-it is this which has been the main reason for our "bein' so aisily lynched," as Mr. Dooley puts it.

Whatever The Age may say, Negroes will fight back as they are already fighting back. And they will be more highly regarded.--as are the Irish--because of fighting back.

We are aiming at the white man's respect----not at his sympathy. We cannot win that respect by any conspicuous and contemptible cowardice; the only kind of sympathy which we may win by that is the kind of sympathy which men feel for a well-kicked dog which cringes while they kick it.

"Rights are to be won ly those who are ready and willing to fight, if necessary, to have those rights respected."

Who sity's

this? Theodore Roosevelt. So does l'resident Wilson. So does the U. S. Government. That is why. we went to war with Germany. Our country always acts upon the best and highest principle and we Negroes have just begun to see that our country is quite right. Therefore, we are willing to follow its glorious example. That is all,

The Negro and the Labor Unions There are two kinds of labor unionism; the A. F. of L. kind and the other kind. So far, the Negro has been taught to think that all unionismi was like the unionism of the American Federation of Labor, and because of this ignorance, his attitude toward organized labor has been that of the scalı. For this no member of the A. F. of L. can blame the Negro. The policy of that organization toward the Negro has been damınable. It has kept him out of work and out of the unions as long as it could; and when it could no longer do this it has taken him in, t.ricked him, and discriminated against him.

On the other hand, the big capitalists who pay low wages (from the son of Abraham Lincoln in the Pullman Co. to Julius Rosenwald of the Sears Roebuck Co.) have been rather friendly to the Negro. They have given their money to help him build Y. M. C. A.'s and schools of a certain type. They have given him community help in Northern cities and have expended charity on him-and on the newspapers and parsons who taught him. Small wonder, then, that the Negro people are anti-union.

Labor unions werc created by white working men that they might bring the pressure of many to bear upon

the greedy employer and make him give higher wages and better living conditions to the laborer. When they, in

turn, become so grecily that they keep out the majority of working people, by high dues and initiation fees, they no longer represent the interests of thic laboring class. They stand in the way of this class's advancement--and they must go. They must leave the way clear for the 20th century type of unionism which says: "To leave a single worker out is to leave something for the boss to use against tis. Therefore we must organize in One Big Union of all the working-class." This is the type of unionism which organized, in 1911, 18,000 white and 14,000 black timber workers in Louisiana. This is the I. W. W. type of mionism, and the employers use their newspapers to make the public believe that it stands for anarchy, violence, law-breaking and atheism, because they know that if it succeeds it will break them.

This type of unionism wants Negrocs--not because its promoters love Negrocs—but because they realize that they cannot win if any of the working class is left out; and after winning they cannot go back on them because they could be used as scabs to break the unions.

The A. F. of L., which claims a part of the responsibility for the East St. Louis outrage, is playing with fire. The American Negro may join hands with the American capitalist and scab them out of existence. And the editor of The Voice calls upon Negroes to do this. We have stood the American Federation of Labor just about long enough. Join hands with the capitalists and scab them out of existence not in the name of scabbery, but in the name of a real organization of labor. Form your own unions (the A. C. E. is already in the field) and make a truce with your capitalist enemy until you get rid of this traitor to the cause of labor. Offer your labor to capitalism if it will agree to protect you in your right to laborand see that it does. Then get rid of the A. F. of L.

The writer has been a member of a party which stood for the rights of labor and the principle of Industrial Unionism (the 20th century kind). He understands the labor conditions of the country and desires to see the working man win out. But his first duty, here as everywhere, is to the Negro race. And he refuses to put ahead of his race's rights il collection of diddering jackasses which can publicly palliate such atrocities as that of East St. Louis and publicly assume, as Gompers did, responsibility for it. Therefore, he issues the advice to the workers of his race to "can the A, F, of 1.." Since the A. F. of L...chooses to pruit Race before (lass, let its return the complimient.

Lynching: 143 Cause and Cure Last week we hac occasion to comment on the resignntion of Mr. John R. Shillarly from the secretaryship of the N. A. A. C. L'. Mr. Shillady's statement accompany. ing his resignation contains these significant words :

"I am less contident than heretofore of the speedly sticcess of the association's full program and of the probahility of overcoming within a reasonable period the forces opposed to Negro muality ly the means and methods whicli nre within the association's power to employ."

That the N. A..1.C, P, is not likely to affect the lynchings in this land can be seen with half an eye by any one who will note that Governor J. A. Burnquist of Minnesota "is also president of the St. l'aul branch of the association and one of the staunch supporters of its work"; that the Minnesota lynching of last week was one of the niront cynically brutal that has occurred North or South in the last ten years, and that the association has offered