justment of social, political and industrial conditions will be made,
not only in Europe and Africa but in America. If there was ever a time in
the Negro's history when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership,
it is now when tens of thousands of black Africans and black Americans
have demonstrated on scores of bloodstained battlefields in France that
heroism can wear a sable hue and be clothed in ebony; when the American
Negro proved his patriotism and loyalty by subscribing to the Liberty
Loan, the War Chest, War Savings Stamps and by Red Cross service, and when
by reason of his helping to lay low the Prussian menace to civilization,
he has established his title clear to recognition and respectful
consideration.

At a time, when the humanitarian plums will be handed out at the Peace
Table at Versailles, at a time when the small and weak nations of Europe
will have their day in court, at a time when the oppressed and suppressed
peoples of Europe, Palestine and Armenia will have their innings, now is
the time for the Negro to make his appeal, present his plea and submit his
case.

Twenty years ago we did not fully realize that the treatment and
consideration that an individual, a race or a nation received, is
determined by the estimate in which the world holds the individual or
race, and that this estimate is largely determined by the estimate in
which the individual or race holds itself. And at this golden moment and
rare opportunity, we need far-sighted pilots, wise guides, who can seize
and utilize the civic, political, economic and industrial opportunities,
which may present themselves.

We have had too many leaders who have pursued the Fabian policy of
watchful waiting, who have been the creatures of circumstance, who have
been the sport of chance, who have been determined by their environment,
and who have been dependent upon the turn or course that events would
take.

We need a Scipio Africanus, who saw with an eagle eye that Rome must carry
the war into Africa and forthwith proceeded to take the initiative, made
himself the compeller of circumstances, himself determined the course that
events would take, and made himself the master of Rome's fate and the
architect of her destiny.

In the past we have been dependent upon what our Anglo-Saxon friends have
thought of us and have blindly worshipped the hand-picked leaders our
Anglo-Saxon godfathers have set up for us, to bow down to. The time has
now arr