Feb. 13, 1909
EAGER TO SPOT A MARKET INDICATOR? TRY THE "STEERAGE INDEX": Consider the White Star liner Canopic, which is scheduled to pull away from the Hoosac docks in Charlestown at 4 p.m. today and head to the Azores, Naples and Genoa. Of note to the Globe is that the ship has only 126 passengers in steerage, leaving the U.S. The meaning?
This emphasizes the fact that the Italians and Portuguese, who have been leaving here in large numbers, are now satisfied that the period of depression is past, and they are remaining in this country instead of returning to their old homes.
There you have it: the STEERAGE INDEX.
[A hundred years later, the economy still drives the comings and goings.]
THE NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION HAS YET TO BE FORMULATED, BUT THE NAACP'S BIRTH IS DULY NOTED: A story in today's Boston Globe -- on page 14, under the headline of "To Discuss the Negroes" -- describes a get-together that is now viewed as the beginning of the NAACP. The group chose Lincoln's 100th birthday as an appropriate time to call for a national "Lincoln conference on the negro question." The article says:
The question is put in the call, "How far has the nation lived up to the obligation imposed upon it by the emancipation proclamation?" It deprecates "the spread of lawless attacks upon the negro , north, south and west," and says, "silence under these conditions means tacit approval."
[For a look at the entire document, go here.]
Sixty people signed the pact, seven of whom were African American. The article lists some of the signers, including Jane Addams, Ida Wells, W.E.B. DuBois. One signer not mentioned in the list at the end of the article was Hamilton Holt.
Actually he was one of a number of journalists who signed the document but whose names were not listed in the article. Among them were William Dean Howells, Lincoln Steffens, Charles Edward Russell, Stannard Baker, and Oswald Garrison Villard.
Labels: immigration, ocean travel, race
posted by Frank Herron @ 5:42 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
"Sixty people signed the pact, seven of whom were African American."
No, Frank, not "African American." You are trying to refer to descendants of slaves -- i.e., people referred to as Negroes in the story and later as "blacks" (a translation of the Spanish "negros"). We must AVOID the use of the term, "African American," because it is ambiguous. The fact is that there are some "African Americans" (and millions of Africans, especially in the south) whose skin is whiter than Bill Clinton's pasty thighs! And there are millions of Africans (especially along the north coast) who are not "black," but are descended from Arabs.
Just as we should not refer to American Indians as "native Americans" (because EVERYONE born in the U.S. is a "native American" -- and because a large majority of the Indians themselves WANT to be called "Indians"), so we should not refer to descendants of slaves in America as "African Americans."
Political correctness, be damned! As long as you have this blog, Frank, I will keep trying to help you escape from your prison (New England liberal looniness).
John
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