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T H E M A R 0 0 IN T1GE R
paign and did not refer one single time to his opponent.
He placed the campaign for the exalted office of Presi
dent on the lofty plane upon which is should always he
kept by those who aspire to that great office. ,
The result of the election demonstrated some definite
attitudes of the people of the Nation. The result showed
clearly that the people are against the modification or
the nullification of the Eighteenth Amendment. The foes
of prohibition misinterpreted the clamor of a noiseless,
lawless and wet crowd that was against the Volstead Act
as being the voice of the American people. The wet ele
ment of the Nation forgot that in one hundred and forty-
eight years that only eighteen Amendments have been
placed in our Constitution of the United States, and that
the American way of doing things is to think a problem
through before it is placed in our Constitution.
The election showed that the voters of the nation are
against the Federal government going into business in
competition with private business. This salient idea was
clearly demonstrated on the question as to whether the
government should develop and control water power
or whether it should be left to be operated by private
concerns. The voters of the country in a decisive man
ner showed by their vote that they are against the gov
ernment in business as well as business groups in gov
ernment. Private initiative and free competition are
the fundamental basis of the growth of our present ec
onomic order.
The election showed that in the South race prejudice
and religious bigotry are still controlling and pernicious
influences. Race prejudice was a big factor in the cam
paign of the South. There may be some who attribute
the breaking of the solid South to an advanced and en
lightened public opinion of the South, but I disagree.
The breaking of the solid South by the carrying of cer
tain states by Hoover was due to two influences: namely,
the forces of prohibition and race prejudice. The South
does not propose to remain in the Republican fold, but
it does propose to return to its first love—the Democratic
party. The Democratic party is the party of the South,
which stands for the oppression and political enslavement
of the Negro. The Democratic party’s religion and God
is so-called “White Supremacy.”
We should not rejoice too much over what has oc
curred in the South. Ours should be a policy of watch
ful waiting as to the final outcome. Neither of the maj
or parties loves or cares too much about the Negroes. In
fact, there is not going to be any appreciable change seen
in the Republican party in its position toward us. The
black man must form a political bloc in this country if
he hopes to receive a decent treatment in our system of
party control.
When it came to our choice between the two candidates
we preferred Hoover. His election shall insure the con
tinual encouragement and support of big units of business
as long as these units of business are legitimate in their
dealing with the people. This policy of rendering gov
ernmental encouragement and support to business means
for the country prosperity. There can be no prosperity
and happiness of the United States that does not benefit
directly and indirectly all of her citizens. Some will en
joy a better living standard than others, but that is due
largely to the inequalities in our economic system.
Negroes must cease to think of themselves as a separate
and isolated group from the American people. We are
Americans and then Negroes. My country and then my
race is the proper conception for all citizens to have.
The farm problem of the West should concern us as cit
izens, and we should not be too much concerned about
thinking too much in the equation of black. There can
be no industrial depression in the U. S. that does not im
pair our economic structure, for it is so sensitive that the
entire structure is impaired when the least of friction
arises in any part of the country. We are a united people
and not separate units in the nation. We are a compos
ite people.
Black men should prepare for the struggle of complete
emancipation under the present political system. We
must and shall fight for complete civic equality, the right
for an equal opportunity for achievement in this life.
The goal of Democracy in the United States is for
every boy or girl, regardless of race or creed or condi
tion, to bave an equal chance to succeed in life.
IS LIFE SACRED?
Nelson Thomas Archer, ’29
There are many answers to this great question, and
every answer always creates new interest, and causes
every individual to re-think himself about his existence.
Men throughout the ages have advanced their thoughts
on this question, but the Quakers have interested me
more than any other group of people or individuals in
their ideas concerning the sacredness of life.
The Quakers, in facing this issue, have framed their
uncompromising idealism. “I will not destroy any
life. Under no circumstances, even when my own exis
tence is at stake, or a woman’s honor or a child’s life is
concerned. In personal relations 1 will never so oppose
evil as to run any risk of ending the physical existence
of anybody. My enemies may be ruthless beyond reach
of the immediate persuasion of reason and good will;
they may burn our cities, rape our women, mutilate our
children; but I will not kill.” Personality is sacred and
my hands shall not violate it.”
Thus have some Christians spoken and no one can
lightly scorn their spirit; because they have held to it as
we have so vividly read in stories about them during
slavery. But this is not the only way in which a Christ
ian can speak. I, too count personality sacred, and so
might many other Christians; but the most important
thing that is to be remembered is that personality and
physical existence are not identical.
Personality is God’s most sacred gift to man, and when
God said He made man in His own image,He did not
mean that He gave to man a physical likeness unto Him,
but He endowed man with a personality like unto Jesus,
who came from God. My personality is what I am: it is
my soul, and to gain the applause of men or the whole
world and lose it, would defeat the purpose of life. But
any day I must be ready to surrender my physical exis
tence for another’s welfare and for ideals that make us
men. Any day the exigency may arise where, with no
depreciation whatsoever of my estimate of personality’s
absolute, I may, for a woman’s safety or a child’s life,
have to strip some man’s physical existence from him.
If I do, thank God, I can trust Him in the world unseen,
that his abiding personality may be washed of its guilty
stain. Thus, nothing is worth more than personality, but
many things are worth more than physical existence.