to the democratic principles underlying this government. In a word, they knew that it would be more difficult for them to carry out their programme with the Negro educated. And these are the reasons why twenty years ago, it was regarded as unwise and dangerous to give the Negro any higher education above the three R's and a training in the trades. And most of the leaders of the Negro race were asleep at the switch twenty years ago. They eagerly swallowed the sugar-coated and chocolate-coated pills. They took the medicine which their Anglo-Saxon friends offered because it was honeyed and sugared with a few fat jobs and contributions to churches and schools. And while they slept, as Samson slept on the lap of Delilah, they were shorn of their political and civil locks, and awoke one bright morning to find that their strength was gone. It was a rude awakening that they experienced in the summer of 1917, when the edict went forth that all American citizens, black as well as white men, were subject to the selective draft. It was a rude awakening that they experienced, when they discovered that their sons must cross the ocean and give their lives to bring a freedom to war-ridden Europe, which was denied their race in this country. It was a rude awakening that they experienced when they realized that they who only experienced partial citizenship in this country were called upon to make the same sacrifice in blood and treasure as their fairer-skinned brothers, who had experienced the full blessings of citizenship. A Baptist preacher whom I met in St. Louis a year ago voiced the thought of the entire colored race when he said, "Ferris, what a mighty big price we have to pay for a little freedom." It was a rude awakening, when Hog Island was calling for riveters and the Remington Company at Eddystone for machinists, and yet would turn down colored men who were capable. It was a rude awakening, when colored men and women who passed the Civil Service in Washington, D. C., during war times and were certified, were turned down because of their color. It was a rude awakening, when colored soldiers could fight and die side by side with white soldiers in France, and yet couldn't visit the same service camps in America. And it was a still ruder awakening, when the Y. M. C. A. carried color prejudice to France where it had never existed before and attempted to jim-crow and segregate the very colored soldiers who were fighting to save France and to make the world safe for democracy.