rs" nor
"pacifists" among the Negroes. Hon. Emmett J. Scott, Special Assistant
to the Secretary of War, said that the war department had heard of only
two colored "conscientious objectors". When those two were
cross-examined it was revealed that they had misinterpreted their
motives and that their objections proceeded from a source very remote
from their consciences.

Pacifists and conscientious objectors came principally from the class
who held religious scruples against war or the taking up of arms. The
law permitted these to enter a special so-called non-combatant
classification.

It is a well known fact that Negro religionists are members of the
church militant, so they could not be included in the self-declared
conscientious pacifistic sects.

Neither was the Negro represented in that class known as draft resisters
or draft evaders. A very good reason exists in the fact that opposition
to the draft came from a class which did not admit the Negro to
membership. Practically all draft resistance was traceable to the
activities of radicals, whose fantastic dreams enchanted and seduced the
ignorant and artless folk who came under their influence.

The resisters were all poor whites led by professional agitators.
Negroes had no such organizations nor leaders.

The part played by the Negro in the great world drama upon which the
curtain has fallen, was not approached in sublime devotion by that
displayed by any other class of America's heterogeneous mixture of tribe
and race, hailing from all the ends of the earth, that composes its
great and wonderful population. Blind in a sense; unreasoning as a child
in the sacredness and consecration of his fealty; clamoring with the
fervor of an ancient crusader; his eye on heaven, his steps turned
towards the Holy Sepulchre, for a chance to go; a time and place to die,
HIS was a distinct and marked patriotism; quite alone in "splendid
isolation" but shining like the sun; unstreaked with doubt; unmixed with
cavil or question, which, finally given reign on many a spot of strife
in "Sunny France"; the Stars and Stripes above him; a prayer in his
heart; a song upon his lips, spelt death, but death glorious; where he
fell--HOLY GROUND!

"The fittest place where man can DIE Is where he dies for man!"

A product of slavery, ushered into a sphere of civil and political
activity, clouded and challenged by the sullen resentment of his former
masters; his soul still embittered b