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THE MAROON TIGER
Page Nine
UR. W. E. B. DuBOIS TELLS ATLANTA
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ABOUT
JOURNEY AROUND WORLD
Back from a seven months journey around the
world, i n the course of which he revisited
many of the principal capitals of Europe, spent
five and a half months in intensive study of life in
Germany, saw Russia again after a lapse of eight
years, and for the first time saw the people of
the Orient and the Pacific Islands in their native
environment, Dr. W. B. E. DuBois, professor of
sociology in Atlanta University, Tuesday, Feb. 9,
told the assembled students and faculties of the
University system something of his travels and of
his observations.
The world to him seemed to be more concern
ed than ever before in the great economic prob
lems that face human beings everywhere. While
he found conditions more upset than he had ever
before experienced them, the chief thought that
remained with him at his journey’s end was the
astonishing beauty of the world, not alone the rich
beauties of nature, of seas, mountains, islands,
but the magnificent achievements of man in the
building of his temples, and the fabrication of
his other works of art.
In England and France, which Dr. DuBois first
visited, he found democracy facing a new and dif
ficult task—that of not only adjusting itself to
the constantly changing economic situation, which
affects every human life but of making work and
wages, income and expense, a subject of direct
governmental action; and also of being very defi
nitely concerned with the problem of preserving
the peace of the world, even if it had to fight to
do so. In this latter paradoxical situation, he said,
England and France are faced with the neces
sity of building ever increasing armaments, and
are being loaded, as a result, with heavier and
heavier taxes.
Germany, to which Dr. DuBois returned for a
third time, was to him a completely changed
place. A central government exists which in ef
fect says to the people: “We know what the Ger
man people need, and what they want. We are go
ing to do these things for Germany in your name
and by the authority you have given us.” Through
the use of the radio, he said, it is possible for the
leader of the German people to speak directly to
nearly all of the seventy million Germans every
day, or every hour, if desired, and to tell them re
peatedly what they should know, what they are
to think, and the answers to any questions.
Phenomena of present-day Germany that im
pressed Dr. DuBois were the great popular cele
brations and immense demonstrations of armed
force, by which the Nazi seek to justify them
selves in the eyes of the German people; the un
paralleled housing program for people of the low
er and middle classes; the construction of new
roads everywhere, which may not be needed ex
cept for the movement of troops and cannon; the
national vocational guidance program, by which
each youth is advised by a counselor as to the
chances of work in certain fields; the compulsory
work program, and reduction of unemployment to
a minimum and, finally, as a result of this high
ly industralized social program, the decline of the
universities, which were once Germany’s greatest
glory.
Ten days in Russia, en route from Germany to
Asia, gave Dr. DuBois a second opportunity to ob
serve the far-reaching social and industrial ex
periment that Soviet Russia is conducting. Most
astonishing in Moscow was the absence of private
retail trade. Only state stores are doing business.
This symbolized to Dr. DuBois the belief of the
soviet government that business and industry are
the direct concern of the state, and that, in fact,
government is business and industry. It was his
opinion that the Russian experiment is succeed
ing and that, without doubt, the mass of the peo
ple of Russia are better off than they ever were,
even though, he added, they were never very well
off.
In Manchukuo, Dr. DuBois found the attempt of
the Japanese to govern an allien population suc
ceeding better than the similar attempts of West
ern nations which he has observed. This is be
cause the Japanese recognize no racial difference,
he said. Natives of Manchukuo, under Japanese
rule, are employed as policemen, and are function
ing elsewhere in the government.
The first impression of Asia, Dr. DuBois re
ported, was the amazing size and power of this
great colored population, which in China, India,
Japan, and the islands of the Pacific number some
eight hundred million persons, and constitutes by
far the majority of the people of the world. Here
not only did he see the physical center of the
future of mankind, but here he found “a civiliz
ation that has some sort of eternity”. Many of
the arts and inventions of the Western world,
such as printing, paper-making, the compass, and
many other accomplishments were developed by
the Chinese much earlier, he recalled.
Two things especially impressed him on his vis-