use the present administration may be powerless in the matter,
afraid to touch it, fearing a live wire or something of that kind,
should OUR duty in the premises, TOWARD OUR OWN, be influenced
thereby?

"I wonder--is the time not NOW--right now, to commence an attack
upon this intrenched scandal--this dirty, HUMILIATING AMERICANISM?

"No other nation on earth, Christian or pagan, treats its
defenders, its soldiery, so meanly, so shabbily, as does this, her
black defenders; but whether the nation is more to blame, than we,
who so long have submitted without a murmur, is a question. 'The
trouble' shouted Cassius to Brutus, 'is not in our stars, that we
are Underlings, BUT IN OURSELVES.'

"Shall we, responding to the initiative furnished by CAPTAIN ROOTS,
commence an organized assault upon this national vice against the
soldiers of our race? Is this the time, readers of The Defender? Is
this the time, brothers and editors of the contemporary press?

R.S. ABBOTT."

Following in the footsteps of Captain Roots; apparently obsessed by the
same vision and spirit, Mr. Willis O. Tyler, eminent Los Angeles race
representative, attorney and Harvard graduate, also makes a plea for
justice for Negro troops in the regular army, also for Negro officers,
and proposes reforms and legislation for utilizing the present force of
Negro officers, and creating enlarged opportunities for others. Says
Mr. Tyler:

"Officers in the regular army for the most part, are graduates of
West Point. They are commissioned second lieutenants at graduation.
No Negro has graduated from West Point in the past twenty-nine
years, and none has entered there in 32 years. Col. Charles Young
graduated in 1889, twenty-nine years ago,--he entered in 1884.
Henry W. Holloway entered in 1886, but attended only that year. In
all, only twelve Negroes have ever attended West Point and only
three have graduated. Of the three graduates, the first, Henry O.
Flipper (1877) was afterwards discharged.

"The second, John H. Alexander (1887) died in 1894. The third and
last graduate, Charles Young (1889) has but recently been returned
to active duty. We understand he has attained the rank of Colonel.
The Negroes of the United States, to the number of twelve millions,
have only one West Poi