The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Page 79

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER 79

tion of Negroes, with 2,514 public schools, 147 of
them at high-school level, five State-supported col-
leges, and a total public expenditure during 1928
to 1929 of $5,179,688 for Negro education. Prior
to the above law one John Chavis, a full-blooded
Negro, after being graduated from Princeton, re-
turned to North Carolina and conducted a private
school for white students, which included among its
pupils two sons of the chief justice of the State
and a boy who later became governor of North
Carolina.)

Henry Berry, speaking in the Virginia House
of Delegates in 1832, described the situation in the
South at that time in these words: “We have, as
far as possible, closed every avenue by which light
may enter their [the slaves’] minds. If we could
extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work
would be complete: they would then be on a level
with the beasts of the field, and we would be safe.
I am not certain that we would not do it if we could
find out the process, and that on the plea of
necessity.”

IV.

From the black depths of a heartless slavery
the Civil War suddenly threw the Negro into a
terrifying freedom. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proc-
lamation gave nominal freedom to four million black
people; but no edict, however well meant, could in
itself transform a great mass of human beings long
held in ignorance and dependence into self-support-
ing and competent citizens. When the Negro was
freed, he was not given property or tools; he had
no means of making a livelihood other than per-
forming for wages the services he had previously
rendered in return for food and keep. Slowly and
painfully therefore he had to win every kind of
real independence: education, economic status, re-
sponsibility, self-development.

In the grim struggle which the Negro has had
to make the only thing that could buoy up his
spirits was the fact that nominally he at least had

freedom.
V.

Buffeted about by many adverse winds, the
Negro is slowly climbing from the abysmal depths
of slavery, peonage, disfranchisement, economic
dependence, systematic discrimination against him,
and boycott to an appreciable position in the eco-
nomic, professional, and social world. He is little
by little adding his contributions to this complex
twentieth-century Western civilization of which we
boast. In a recent survey of cities, corporations
employing large numbers of Negroes made the fol-

lowing report concerning their efficiency and de-
pendability in the skilled and unskilled trades. In
Detroit, of corporations employing 20,000 Negroes
in skilled and semiskilled work, eleven firms re-
ported them more efficient than whites, sixty-eight
as of the same efficiency, and twenty-four said they
were less efficient. As to their regularity and de-
pendability, seven of these firms reported Negroes
more regular, sixty-eight as of the same regularity,
and thirty-three as less regular than whites. Of 137
companies questioned by the Chicago Commission
on Race Relations, 118 reported that Negro labor
had proved satisfactory; nineteen, that it had not-
Of firms questioned in Minneapolis, forty said that
Negro labor was regular and dependable, 430 said
that it was at least as efficient as white labor, and
only thirteen reported Negroes as less efficient or
dependable.

The United States Patent Office records more
than fifteen hundred patent rights issued to Negroes.
Among these is a machine for lasting shoes, invented
by J.C. Matzeliger. This machine, which adjusts
the shoe, arranges the leather over the sole, and
drives in the nails, has revolutionized shoemaking
and made possible the establishment of mass produc-
tion of factory-made shoes. G. W. Carver of Tus-
kegee, Ala., has produced 165 uses and by-products
of the lowly peanut as well as a number of other
devices for using and improving plants and herbs.

(To ve concluded.) R.O.L. L.

BOOK TABLE.

(By the Eprtor.)

The Truth Which Makes Us Free. By Jartin S. Som-
mer. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo.
106 pages; fine cloth binding. Price, 60 cts.

A concise, clear, interesting presentation of Christian
doctrine. The author has happily expressed the content
of the book in his foreword: “This book contains God’s
direction for the life which pleases Him and thus frees us
from error, delusion, and perplexity.” It is a book that
would be most suitable to present to adults at the time
of their confirmation.

Sing! A Song Service Featuring Hymns by Great Lu-
theran Hymn-writers for Congregation, Choir, and
Children’s Chorus. Concordia Publishing House,
St. Louis, Mo. Price: Single copies, 5 cts.; 100,
$2.00, plus postage.

National Music Week has been observed in our country
for several years past, beginning with the first Sunday
in May. Here is a song service that could well be used
in our churches in observance of National Musie Week.
In arrangement it is similar to the song services published
last year and the year prior. The beauty of this service
is this, that it brings near to us the fact that we Lutherans
have in our chorales veritable gems of sacred music.