this amendment is in the interest of everlasting world peace and the security of the law-abiding citizen in his home and property and possessions, everywhere.

Mr. Chairman, we wish to thank you for this hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. Those gentlemen who are here, who have come in with regard to the disposition of the German-African colonies, we will hear. The first name on the list given me is that of Dr. Joe T. Thomas, of Cleveland, Ohio.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOE T. THOMAS, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, as a representative of the National Race Congress of America, I feel greatly honored by you allowing me to discuss with you, in whose hands rests the destiny of our Nation, the disposition of the German colonies in Africa.

I shall not touch German East nor German Southwest Africa, but I am here asking you to throw the strong arm of Uncle Sam around Kamerun, for I know our Government is the best prepared Nation to assume mandatory over this particular territory of 191,000 square miles and 4,500,000 natives.

The American Negro proved, as he has, that he is 100 per cent American in this world's war. He did his duty, fought, bled, and died for our country. He owes a duty to his African brothers in Africa. America, the light of civilization, can by assuming mandatory over Kamerun land, open a new world for the educated American Negro, under the direction of trained white American statesmen. soldiers, and diplomats.

We can start with, enforce national prohibition over the African mandatory, which will give us a sober territory of black wards. whose territory we need never to annex, nor whose subjects need we ever to accept as citizens of these United States. Ten or fifteen thousand American negroes could be recruited to police this mandatory and the trained American negro officers just out of the trenches can be utilized there under higher white officers.

Ten thousand American teachers under our civil service could be sent there to teach and instill American civilization in their minds. Then the American white and black man can work to make the prin ciples of our Government paramount in that country of 200,000,000 blacks, which will ultimately give us commercial supremacy in Af rica and open a new world for our merchants, manufacturers. farmers, and laborers.

These blacks will wear our cotton goods and thousands of mills will spring up all over our country to manufacture goods to meet the wants of these people, which will cause every available acre of cotton land in the South to be utilized to produce that staple, and this will cause labor in the field, mine, and factory to continue to be paid a high wage, causing living conditions among the poor in our country to advance to a higher state of perfection.

We have not touched the treasures hidden in the hills nor the caoutchouc oozing from the trees of the Kamerun. We will have a free port to this vast, rich, undeveloped country. With our trained American blacks we can capture the trade for our flag and country

and more speedily become the king of commerce, the mistress of the seas, the guardian of liberty and justice, and the defender of democ

racy.

Therefore, gentlemen of this committee, I ask to have the treaty of the peace conference amended to this end, to strike out the name of France as mandatory over the Camerom lands, and have the name of the United States of America inserted as mandatory over this particular African territory.

France has under her now over 50,000,000 Africans, and more colonies than her strength can properly manage. Now, after the great toll taken from her in men and money, she should not be burdened with other African possessions, which she will not be able to civilize and Christianize. I believe France would be grateful if our country would help in this great humanitarian work, and I know the United States would get the thanks and the sanction of all the civilized nations of the world if we took the mandatory over this African colony.

STATEMENT OF MR. W. H. JERNAGIN, OF WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. JERNAGIN. Mr. Chairman, the National Race Congress of America in addressing you believes that it is voicing the sentiments of the 15,000,000 of negroes of this country, and many of the darker races of the world.

The race congress desires that the natives of Africa shall have the right to participate in the government as fast as their development permits in conformity with the principle that the government exists for the natives, and not the natives for the government. They shall at once be allowed to participate in local and tribal government according to ancient usage, and this participation shall gradually extend, as education and experience proceeds, to the higher offices of state, to the end that, in time, Africa be ruled by consent of the Africans; and we believe that it can best be done under the protection of the United States. We desire that no particular religion shall be imposed and no particular form of human culture. There shall be liberty of conscience. The uplift of the natives shall take into consideration their present condition and shall allow the utmost scope to racial genius, social inheritance and individual bent so long as these are not contrary to the best established principles of civilization.

We further ask it because the civilized negroes of the world want better conditions, not only in Africa but in every country and everywhere, and hence it is their desire that wherever persons of African descent are civilized and able to meet the tests of surrounding culture, they shall be accorded the same rights as their fellow citizens; they shall not be denied on account of race or color a voice in their own government, justice before the courts and economic and social equality according to ability and desert.

We desire that this great league of nations, this covenant, may secure protection of life and property and the guarantee of national and international labor legislation shall cover the native workers as well as whites; they shall have equitable representation in all the international institutions of the league of nations, and the partici

pation of the blacks themselves in every domain of endeavor shall be encouraged in accordance with the declared object of article 19 of the league of nations, to wit: "The well-being and the development of these people constitute a sacred mission of civilization and it is proper in establishing the league of nations to incorporate therein pledges for the accomplishment of this mission."

Whenever it is proven that African natives are not receiving just treatment at the hands of any State, or that any State deliberately excludes its civilized citizens or subjects of Negro descent from its body politic and cultural, it shall be the duty of the league of nations to bring the matter to the attention of the civilized world.

Hence, we are making this prayer to you, gentlemen, because we feel that you are trying to do the very best you can for the uplift of humanity throughout the entire world; and we come to you, as representatives, because we know of the unrest throughout the world. There were many of the weaker peoples and darker races that met us while in Paris, and we know their sentiments, and believe if you will take under consideration these things it will bring about a greater satisfaction everywhere where it lies in the power of this committee to urge protection of the people of this country that is not receiving the protection; and these colonies-the colored people of America-is very much interested in these colonies, and they are willing to cooperate in the development of these colonies, and we believe that if the United States will become a protectorate for this particular colony, what better condition is going to exist.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES SUMNER WILLIAMS, OF INDIANAPOLIS, IND.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Committee on Foreign Relations, as the president of the International Association for the Freedom of Africans, their descendants and kindred. I am grateful to you for this opportunity to present for your consideration some things that we think might make clearer our national position on the rights of weaker peoples and give added illustration to our determination to see even-handed justice accorded all, weak and strong.

It is our wish to see the treaty, with the covenant of the league of nations, strengthened, and in this spirit I have come.

I might, before going further, Mr. Chairman, say that these three organizations which are represented here never met before meeting in this auditorium; and, strange to say, all of them voice the same sentiments. If we are correctly advised, article 22 of the covenant of the league of nations, embodied in the treaty, says those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the State which formerly governed them, and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world. there should be applied to them the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples forms a sacred trust of civilization. and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this covenant.

It is again stated that the best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be in

trusted to advanced nations, who by reason of their resources and experience, etc., can best undertake this responsibility and who are willing to accept it. But we submit that some form of the principle of self-determination should apply even to these backward peoples of Africa, even if many of them are not prepared to signify what nation should become their trustee. Surely their more enlightened kindred in America, Haiti, Liberia, San Domingo, Brazil, and Abyssinia could and would assist them in securing a mandatory that would assist in the development of the country by the development of its peoples and not their exploitation.

We submit that a backward people can only gain actual knowledge of government by experience. The development of the Philippines and Cuba are shining examples of what might occur if America would consent to act as a trustee for these African colonies. The United States has the advantage of a large number of Americans of color, and this would make it easy for this Government, through sympathetic agencies, to aid the peoples of Africa to self-government on the highways of civilization.

If you feel that America can not act if selected, some way might be provided to induce France, that is noted for the full and equal opportunities that it gives to all under its domain. Ratify this treaty with the construction that you approve of the tutelage of such peoples by an advanced Nation which by resources and experience can best undertake the responsibility. Save the natives of the former German colonies from the supervision of the Union of South Africa, which Government, considering its attitude toward natives on their own soil, is not, in the opinion of our association, qualified by experience or resources to undertake this sacred trust of civilization. We beg you to consider, first, that Africa, the ancient home of the blacks, is now divided largely among other nations, and unless this treaty is ratified in a way that will give them some place besides the equatorial hotbeds to live and build for themselves and their descendants, while other continents may live free and independent, the world can not be safe for democracy. In our judgment, to award the German colony in Africa to any government as an integral part of them does not square with the view of self-determination, while to award it to the United States outrages the very principle of democracy for which so many of our sons died across the sea. This would put the responsibility for the maintenance of law and order and the suppression of riots and other forms of lawlessness directly upon the participating nations in the league.

Now, Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons why we ask so strongly that some safeguard be made is that we know that we are living now in an age when a spirit of anti-Americanism is sweeping the country. Many would have the Americans believe to-day that the people of America are moved not by an American spirit but by the spirit of greed and selfishness, and that is the cause of unrest; but I assure you that that is not the cause of it, because the unrest is from an un-American source and is a new imposition upon the race. When I was myself striving to get a passport I came to this city, and I was anxious to find the bureau of citizenship, and I inquired the way of a man at the depot, and he said to. me, "What do you people hope for now that the war is over?" I said, "We hope for what all

Americans hope for." He said, "If there should come an altercation between you and me, or between any American Negro and a white foreign foe, to which side would the American white rally?" I said, "I presume that the American white would rally, like all true Americans, to the assistance of Americans." Now, I never thought until afterwards he could not have been an American white man, but he must have been an anti-American agent, and it is now the sincere belief of many intelligent leaders that there is to-day a strong antiAmerican propaganda to move the American prejudiced white man in this country to new impositions upon the Negro, and to heap humiliations upon him and to make his lot embarrassing and humiliating, and against this his very nature speaks out, not in terms of anarchy or violence but to the lawmakers, appealing that in justice his wrongs may be righted and that the tree of democracy might shelter and feed all of its children.

We have been informed that in this article 23 it is proposed that the members of the league of nations to be formed shall undertake to secure just treatment of the native inhabitants of territories under their control. We wish that to include all reference to race or color.

Lastly, we ask that race minorities in all the allied and associated nations be granted, by special provisions, equal rights and oppor

tunities.

Mr. Chairman, we have come, after our loyalty to the flag and to the Government in every war in which this country has been plunged, from Bunker Hill to the last struggle on the plains of Flanders, we have come now, proud of the fact that we are Americans, and are seeking to participate in the democracy that our brawn and our brain have helped to found in this great land.

We wish that certain provisions shall be included in this treaty so that at least the American Negro will be as safe in America as a foreign foe who travels in our land. We come asking not for pity or mercy, in the language of Joseph Benson Foraker, of Ohio, we come not for pity nor mercy, in the language of that distinguished American, but come asking for just consideration and for the rights of American citizens, not because we are Negroes but because we are Americans through and through.

We thank you on behalf of the International Association for the Freedom of Africans, their kindred and descendants.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. J. A. Lankford.

STATEMENT OF MR. J. A. LANKFORD, MEMBER OF THE EXECU TIVE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL RACE CONGRESS, INDIANAPOLIS, IND.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I think enough has been said along this line. I do not think I care either to add or detract. I simply rise to ask you to make these petitions a part of the record, and we thank you for the same.

The CHAIRMAN. We shall make them a part of the record, of

course.

I want to put in, in connection with the Shantung evidence, two statements by Mr. William E. Macklin, who has been for 24 years in charge of the school at Nanking, China, in regard to the opinion and morphine traffic.