nd stretch
their fan-like fingers, lifting themselves proudly, lest any lordly leaf
should know the taint of earth.

Out from the isle the serpent hill thrusts its great length around the
bay, shouldering back the waters and the shadows. Ghost rains sweep
down, smearing his rugged sides, yet on he writhes, undulant with pine
and palm, gleaming until his low, sharp head and lambent tongue, grown
gray and pale and silver in the dying day, kisses the molten gold of the
golden sea.

Then comes the moon. Like fireflies nesting in the hand of God gleams
the city, dim-swathed by fairy palms. A long, thin thumb, mist-mighty,
points shadowy to the Spanish Main, while through the fingers foam the
Seven Seas. Above the calm and gold-green moon, beneath the wind-wet
earth; and here, alone, my soul enchained, enchanted!

* * * * *

From such heights of holiness men turn to master the world. All the
pettiness of life drops away and it becomes a great battle before the
Lord. His trumpet,--where does it sound and whither? I go. I saw Montego
Bay at the beginning of the World War. The cry for service as high as
heaven, as wide as human feeling, seemed filling the earth. What were
petty slights, silly insults, paltry problems, beside this call to do
and dare and die? We black folk offered our services to fight. What
happened? Most Americans have forgotten the extraordinary series of
events which worked the feelings of black America to fever heat.

First was the refusal to accept Negro volunteers for the army, except in
the four black regiments already established. While the nation was
combing the country for volunteers for the regular army, it would not
let the American Negro furnish even his proportionate quota of regular
soldiers. This led to some grim bantering among Negroes:

"Why do you want to volunteer?" asked many. "Why should you fight for
this country?"

Before we had chance to reply to this, there came the army draft bill
and the proposal by Vardaman and his ilk to except Negroes. We protested
to Washington in various ways, and while we were insisting that colored
men should be drafted just as other citizens, the bill went through with
two little "jokers."

First, it provided that Negroes should be drafted, but trained in
"separate" units; and, secondly, it somewhat ambiguously permitted men
to be drafted for "labor."

A wave of fear and unrest spread among Negroes and while we were lo