ments were all sterling organizations dating their foundation back
to the days immediately following the Civil war. Their record was and is
an enviable one. It is no reflection on them that they were not chosen
for overseas duty. The country needed a dependable force on the Mexican
border, in Hawaii, the Philippines, and in different garrisons at home.

A number of good white Regular Army regiments were kept on this side for
the same reasons; not however, overlooking or minimizing the fact not to
the honor of the nation in its final resolve, that there has always been
fostered a spirit in the counsels and orders of the Department of War,
as in all the other great government departments, to restrain rather
than to encourage the patriotic and civic zeal of their faithful and
qualified Negro aids and servants. That is to say, to draw before them
a certain imaginary line; beyond and over which the personal ambitions
of members of the race; smarting for honorable renown and promotion;
predicated on service and achievement, they were not permitted to go. A
virtual "Dead Line"; its parent and wet nurse being that strange thing
known as American Prejudice, unknown of anywhere else on earth, which
was at once a crime against its marked and selected victims, and a
burden of shame which still clings to it; upon the otherwise great
nation, that it has condoned and still remains silent in its presence.

Negro National Guard organizations had grown since the Spanish-American
war, but they still were far from being numerous in 1917. The ones
accepted by the war department were the Eighth Illinois Infantry, a
regiment manned and officered entirely by Negroes, the 15th New York
Infantry all Negroes with five Negro officers, all the senior officers
being white; the Ninth Ohio, a battalion manned and officered by
Negroes; the 1st Separate Battalion of the District of Columbia, an
infantry organization manned and officered by Negroes; and Negro
companies from the states of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and
Tennessee. Massachusetts also had a company known as the 101st
Headquarters company and Military Police. The Eighth Illinois became the
370th Infantry in the United States army; the 15th New York became the
369th Infantry; the Ninth Ohio battalion and the companies from
Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Tennessee, as well as the
District of Columbia battalion, were all consolidated into the 372nd
Infantry.

When the above