Is not this eloquent of the value of American opinion on the American Negro as given in the American press? And the question suggested is, whether such statements are published in ignorance or ill-will? In either case it is equally damnatory. In December 1907 Professor R. R. Wright, Jr., an eminent Negro sociologist, published in McGirt's Magazine an article on "The Newspapers and the Negro", showing how the Negro is being "done" by headlines and other newspaper devices. The Horizon, at that time the most brilliant Negro periodical, dealt with the subject in its issue for April 1908. Under the caption, "The Color Line in the Press Dispatches", it quoted approvingly these words of a Socialist paper—The Appeal to Reason—"The hand that fakes the Associated Press is the hand that rules the world." European readers who are acquainted with the occasional diversions of Reuter's Hong Kong and Shanghai correspondents will appreciate the point. The Horizon was constrained to refer to the matter again in its August issue. In both instances specific cases were cited and proof given. Since that time the need of some formal protest has been growing in the minds of all those thinking Negroes who are not compelled to "crook the pregnant hinges of the Knee"; and it has grown largely because the practices complained of have grown to alarming proportions. The newspapers of this country have many crimes to answer for. They feature our criminals in bold head lines: our substantial men when noticed at all are relegated to the agate type division. Their methods, whether they obtain through set purpose or through carelessness, constantly appeal to the putrid passion of race hatred. They cause rapine to break loose by nurturing rancor. They help create untold sorrow. They are week-kneed and apologizing when the hour is bloody. But how can such a protest be effectively put? Though Truth come hot on the heels of Falsehood it could not quite undo its devil's work. And the detractors of the weak and helpless are well aware of this. But Truth in the Negro's case is not even unleashed. Truth, in fact, is chained up and well guarded, and it is this terrible task of setting Truth free that the Negro must essay in the very teeth of the American press. It is not an easy task to voice an adequate protest, for it needs the widest publicity. And since prejudice will oppose, it needs prestige also. Any such effort must feel itself feeble, and yet it must be made. Transcriber's Note: Apparent typographical errors have been changed. Bold denoted by equals signs.