The SPHINX | Spring February 1943 | Volume 30 | Number 1 194303001

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Eulogy To From Page 7 belief. I think that it was Emerson who said, "Thou canst not say that thou art body alone, nor canst thou say that thou art soul alone, nor canst thou saythat thou are body and soul. Nothing worth proving can he proven or disproved." Kahlil Gibran, the Asyri.au, tells this interesting story. As nearly as I can recall, he says something like this. "The eye, the ear, the nose, and the hands .were in the valley one day and the eye said, "I see a mountain." The ear strained itself to listen and the ear said, "I hear no mountain.!' The nose sniffed about in the breezes and said, "I smell no mountain." The hands groped about in the darkness and said, "I feel no mountain." Then the ear, the nose, and the hands gol together and said, "The eye must he crazy, there is no mountain." But the eye merely chuckled and looked off in the Other direction at the grandeur of the mountains beyond." In all of my incoherent blun lenng here to night 1 have been trying to say one thing. Weep not for our absent brothers ; "There is no d e a t h ; the leaves may fall— The flowers may fade and pass away, They only wait through the wintry hours The coming of the May." That of them which was laid away into the COUCh of earth itself to make a couch for us, belongs to the world. There it has always been and there it shall ever remain,—but it shall change. With the first showers of spring, it shall change under the warm rays oi the sun to golden grain, richly tinted flowers, the mighty forests and green grass that carpet the earth. It shall become a part of the rains and the snows, that nourish new life. It shall become a part of the winds that blowdown from the hills and up from the valleys. Things do not die, they merely change their forms that things might live. Life is an eternal circle. "All rivers run into the sea, but the sea is not full for the waters return again into the source whence they arose," and so all life flows through the portals of death, but the portals of death are not full, for the life returns again unto the source from which it arose. The personalities, the s o d s , we knew as our brothers are of God and there they have gone t o lose themselves in a oneness with Him and there to grow in richness and in beauty.

SPHINX

India's Fight From Page 10 fullness and enthusiasm in the war effort of the United Nations. Millions of darker peoples are thus forced to wonder if logic is dead. Free bun for India is not only a military need, but a moral need to lift the fighting spirits of all who want to believe in freedom for all." H O W A B O U T IT? By Langston Hughes The President's Four Freedoms Appeal to me. I would like to see those Freedoms

Come to be. If you believe In the Four Freedoms, too, Then share 'em with me— Don't keep 'em all for you. Show me that you mean Democracy, please— Cause from Bombay to Georgia I'm beat to my knees. You can't lock up Nehru, Club Roland Hayes, Then make fine speeches \bout Freedom's way. 1 ks like by now You ought to know There's no chance to beat Hitlcr By protecting Jim Crow.

Freedom's not just T o be won Over There It means Freedom at home, too— N o w - r i g h t here! -•

Contribution Of From Page 11 been opened and other doors arc ajar. There has been enlightened appreciation of the Negro's problem by the government. There are 680,000 Negro farm operators in the United States. with 95 percent of them living in the Southern states. During the last 5 years the Federal F a r m Security Administration has made <>0,-140 loans to Negro fanners. These loans total some $50,0(10,000. Negro farm operators represent 21 percent of the farm operators in the 17 Southern states and they have received 20.9 percent of the Farm Security loans in that area. In 1937 the United States Government started a slum clearance program, to provide decent homes for poor people. Of the 121,500 homes now contracted for 40,600 are or will he occupied by Negro tenants. Thus, although Negroes are approximately onetenth of the population, the Government is assigning to them about onethird of the new homes. Today Negroes own church property valued at nearly 200 million dollars.

February, 1943 There are more than 60 secret fraternal organizations of national membership among Negroes in this country. Today there a r e approximately 100 universities and colleges devoted exclusively to Negro education in -this country. In 1916 there were 1,643 students in Negro colleges. by 1941 the number had grown to 40,000. The story of Dr. George W. Carver, who died last week, should make white America aware of the great possibilities of the Negro race. During the Civil W a r raiders kidnapped Dr. Carver, who was then an infant, and his mother. Their owner found the infant and ransomed him by giving a horse to his captors in exchange. His mother was never heard oi again. By incredible hardships he managed to secure an education. He was invited by Booker T. Washington to a place on the faculty of Tuskegee. He found no laboratory when he arrived, but lie created one. From it he has taught the entire South and has done more to liberate the South from the onecrop system than any living man. Of his work Dr. Carver s a y s : "I went into my laboratory and said, 'Dear Creator, tell me what the universe was made for?' The Creator answered, 'You want to know too much. Ask for something more your : size.' Then I asked, 'Dear Creator, tell me what man was made for?' The Creator replied, 'You are still asking too much. If in your asking you will cut down on the extent you will improve the intent and content.' So I asked, 'Dear Creator, will you tell me what the peanut was made for?' 'That's better,' said the Creator. 'What do you want to know about the peanut?' 'Well, dear Creator, can I make milk out of the peanut?' 'What kind of milk do vim want, good Jersey milk or just boarding house milk?' And 1 answered, "Good Jersey milk.' And then the Creator taught me how to take the peanut apart and put it together again, and out of the process I have made the peanut yield printer's ink, soaps, butter, shampoo, creosote, vinegar, instant coffee, rubberoid compounds, dyes, salad oils and wood stains." We have built our monuments in America to the men of war. But when these shafts of granite have crumbled back to dust, and the names for which they stood have been forgotten, the monument which Dr. George W . Carver has erected by his scientific discoveries will still stand secure in the grateful hearts of Americans. T u r n to Page 26


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