respect of the race by
collating and publishing the creditable achievements of our people,
furnishing a periodical compendium of history and placing the Negro in
his most favorable light before the critics of the world. The truly
representative Negro journal reflects the sober judgment of the race
upon topics of general interest. It largely fixes our status as
thinkers and philosophers of the times. The rights of no people can be
ruthlessly invaded whose press is fearless, pure, upright, and
patriotic. No people can forever be denounced as ignorant, vicious,
and shiftless who support a press that is intelligent, moral, and
thrifty.

Let it be remembered here, however, that the picture has its somber
tints. Negro journalism, speaking generally, is not a paying
investment. The fault does not lie wholly with either the public or
the publisher. As a mass we are not a reading people and the bulk of
us neither know nor appreciate the value of the work that the race
paper is doing. Some of us take and pay for Caucasian journals for
their news features--which is eminently fitting and proper--but the
Negro journal should not be made to suffer in the unequal competition,
for the latter fills a want which the former cannot or does not reach.
One dollar to the race paper is often worth as much as ten to the
wealthy corporation behind our great metropolitan dailies. It is not
alone our illiterates who fail to support our journals. The educated
classes are not as loyal to the cause as their means, learning,
political interest and race pride suggest that they should be. True,
it frequently happens that our papers fall into the hands of
characterless adventurers who are "anything for a dollar," and it is
felt that the best method of rebuking their self-constituted and
erratic leadership is to treat them with silent contempt. To this no
thinker can offer a reasonable objection. A journal that does not
represent the highest impulses of a community does not deserve
support. The personal organ, the scandalmonging sheet, the political
and social blackmailer, the confidence-destroying campaign dodger, and
the subsidized traitor to racial manhood are all under a ban, and
should have no place in the homes of self-respecting Negroes. In this
category should also be classed the colorless journal, that smirks in
the recesses of cowardice. We should be faithful, however, to those
that are honest and straightforward. We should strengthen their arm