The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 20, 1925, Page 8

ARE NEGROES COWARDS? » OR IS GENERAL ROBERT LEE BULLARD A LIAR? ENERAL ROBERT L. BULLARD, who was commander of the Sec- ond Army of the American expedition- ary forces in France, has written a book which reveals with clumsy bru- tality an old and sore secret of the American army. The secret is one that ought to be blazoned now in every town and vil- lage—and especially every “black belt” of the United States. The se- cret is that the commanders and offi- cers generally of the United States army in France practically made war against the American Negro troops under their command; that the white officers committed every possible bru- tality against the Negro soldiers, sac- rificed them heartlessly at every op- portunity, led them into traps for the purpose of discrediting the Ne- groes, and, in short, deliberately handled their black soldiers for the purpose of preserving the traditional lie of Negro “inferiority.” It might have been expected that Gen. Robert Lee Bullard would be exactly the fool to let the cat out of the bag. wr is Bullard? The records show that he was born in Alabama in the first year of the American Civil War of 1861. His name tells us that his fond parents christ- ened him after the chief butcher of the Southern slave oligarchy—Gen. Robert E. Lee. And his present book, which has just been completed in serial publication in the Chicago Tri- bune, (copyrighted by Doubleday, Page & Co.), shows us that Bullard is one of those swashbuckling mili- tarists for whom the old slave oli- garchy still stands as a living ideal. But the book and other evidence, and memories of Negro soldiers, show that Bullard, the militarist of the old South, was not out of his element in etthiecAmerican army of 1918. In fact, sothe..ettitude.of. the-dominant class of this country today is similar to the at- titude of the slave oligarchy of the 60’s as far as the Negro is concerned. The fact is that the Negro masses are a hated enemy to the American bourgeoisie, and nowhere is it better shown than in the U. 8. army. General Bullard had in his com- mand the 92nd division, consisting of 27,000 Negro conscripts for “democ- racy.” His hatred of the Negro caus- ed him first to use every device to discredit his own black troops, and then to proclaim to the world that they were “cowards.” The general shows his own highly civilized and humane character in queer ways. He boasts like an under- developed child of the medals he re- ceived on his own manly breast, and his great military sagacity which caused him time after time to “de- cide” to do many brilliant things just before Gen. Pershing commanded him to do exactly the thing he had already decided to do. : Confesses to Crime of Murdering Prisoners. F efergoe speaking like a phonograph of the “barbarous, brutal Ger- mans,” the general exposes himself in a passage that must go down ih history as a virtual confession of one of the most beastly crimes known to military annals—the murder of pris- oners of war. The peculiar psycho- pathic “southern” mind of the gener- al makes him resort to the expedient of attributing the direct murder of the German prisoners to “niggers”— that is to the French African troops— for “niggers” always, of course, are the embodiment of cruelty. But he fs himself so full of the delight of blood- lust that he boasts of the whispered ramors that his own American 3rd corps “loaned the Moroccans some German prisoners,” after explaining that the Moroccan troops “were in the habit of giving no quarter in bat- tle.” American Negroes are Cowards, Says General. YS ebriverg having in the Spanish-Ame- rican War “raised and command- ed a volunteer Negro regiment whose conduct had added to my reputation Ke Washington Blivd., Chicago, III. as a soldier,” says the modest gen- eral, he was particularly interested when he was put in charge of the 92nd (Negro) division in the world war. “Having passed a pleasant boy- hood and having had this satisfactory experience in my earlier life with Negroes, I found myself with most kindly feelings toward them and my interest was stirred now in France by finding this Negro division in my new army. I felt some doubt, how- ever, for the success in war of a Ne- gro command as great as a division.” It seems that nearly all of the offi- cers of the division were white and of the regular army. And then there were some Negro officers who, much to the chagrin of the white gentie- men, had slipped thru the lines of dis- crimination. The white officers of course, were determined that no damned niggers should be on the same plane with them, but the army regulations required that all officers should be treated as such. The gen- eral writes that he “remembered how our government seemed to expect the same of them (the Negroes) as of the white men, or at least placed them in positions that so indicated; how politics had consistently forced for. them the same treatment as white men when they were very different; how they themselves insisted upon such treatment; how surely, notwith- standing all this, if the same treat- ment were given black as white, it would cause trouble for him who should deal it out; how, finally, the politics of our country had forced the formation of this Negro division contrary to experience.” The general proceeds to explain: “All this constructive equality I re- garded as an injustice; it is not real.” So the general inquired into the mat- ter, and of course, he “found that in the battle of the Meuse-Argonne a part of the. 92nd division, beside the French in battle, had twice run away from the front of the enemy, causing the French, for their own safety, to request the relief of the Negro division from the fighting line.” The general says that 30 Negro officers were involyed in “this run- ning away.” Five Negro officers, writes he, who were “the clearest cases and supposed leaders of the movement—only five, had been select- ed for trial by the law officers of the 2nd army.” “A court martial, composed of officers from another, a white division,” had been selected to try the Negro officers, and “one Ne- gro officer had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.” But, of course, no one but a south- ern gentleman like the good General Robert Lee Bullard could understand niggers, and the kindly fellow step- ped in and twisted the military regu- lations to let the poor Negro escape death. eileen natin naiipltaaatadiet tanner nian meant itinerant tte ineeoctetataetyg tet Lies About Negroes ULLARD then plunges into his orgy of slander against the Negro as such, saying: ei “They are really inferior soldiers. There is no denying it. Their Negro officers have an inadequate idea of what is expected of soldiers, and theif white officers are too few to leaven the lump.” He quotes his diary as saying that the 92nd division “after more than a month in the trenches, cannot yet make a raid. It fafled again on one today, Poor Negroes! They are hopelessly inferior.” “The ee en nen nen nEeSnnnenSennnnnnnInnn TS ne Eun i NEGRO EX-SERVICE MEN! All Negroes who served In the war: Write to us. YOU know about the treatment.of the Negro soldiers by the officers In the American army and the U. 8. government, Crowed? Did you get a square deal? Are Negroes cowards, as Gen. Robert Lee Bullard says, or is General Bullard a liar? Did you want to fight for the landlords and bosses? What did.you get out of fighting for them? Write your facts and opinions to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. “these vigorous black men” of having raped French women, and is sure that the Negro man “is far more offensive Tell us what Were you Jim- Negroes ment. like were a great disappoint- -’ “The French had had experience with their Negro troops in their front line trenches against the enemy. The Negro, it seems, cannot stand bombardment - »..” “The poor 92nd Negroes wast- ed time and dawdled where they did attack and in some places where they should have attacked, never budged at all. It seems to be as much the fault of the general as of the Ne- groes. -" “Two days ago and again yesterday the 92nd division would not fight, couldn’t be made to attack in any effective sense. The general who commands them fight.” And then it appears that when the armistice came, the white officers were very much afraid of what the Negro soldiers were going to do to the poor, helpless white women of France. All the superstitious vitu- peration of the feeble-minded south- ern village Negro-hater was poured out by the general in the effort to get the French to hate and fear the Ame- rican Negro troops. He pompously notified General Foch that “no man could be responsible for the acts of these Negroes toward French women, and that he had better send this di- vision home at once.” Bullard accuses can’t make them to white women than a white man is.” (Are all men offensive to women, general? you are!) The genefal closes this series of Negro-baiting in the Chicago Tribune (republican organ!) with the admoni- tion that “it will always be so with Negroes wherever they are in contact with whites. . . If you need com- bat soldiers, and especially if you need them in a hurry, don’t put your time upon Negroes.” While reading this stuff, we can't help thinking about some past his- tory, and about some present news from all quarters of the world. We remember the struggles of the Ne- groes for their freedom in America— something like forty heroic slave re- volts against desperate odds in this country before the American Civil War, and again of the undeniable but often obscured fact of the heroic role that was played by the black troops in turning the tide of battle and sav- ing this American capitalist republic from General Bullard’s ancestors of the slave oligarchy in 1865. We re member how the puny New York weakling, playing “cowboy” in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt, was saved by Negro troops after the white troops could not stand the fire; and how this fact was covered up in order to make Roosevelt an artificial hero for the benefit ef the Morgan bank which needed him in public office. Indeed, what a gentleman Ww* are suddenly reminded of the flood of renewed Negro baiting which the capitalist society has turn- ed loose since the world war. It is increasing, not diminishing. We are thinking of the twentyseven mem- By Robert Minor dence district in the United States, thousands of black men have been muttering ever since the world war: “The next time we fight; it'll be for ourselves.” The secret which Gen. Bullard is not telling is well known to many Negro veterans of the war. The truth is that when these Negro troopers “never budged at all,” it was not due to any cowardice, but to a stirring of a certain kind of courage greater than any that could ever be known to the sallow-souled white general from Alabama-—the courage which is be- ginning to stir in a hundred million blatk breasts—the courage to resent and fight against the treatment as “inferiors” which was being dealt out by Bullard and his white officer pup- pets. In times of peace when General Bullard sits in quiet safety in his offi- cers’ club with his mint julep, the average southern Negro goes every hour of day and night im danger greater than Bullard faced in France. | No, general, these Negroes were not afraid. They had only begun to learn. When they get started fighting, you among others may wish they were cowards. The World and the Dark Races. ND now we look at the news of the world of today. The darker races of the world are on the rise. They constitute the majority of the population of the world—black men, yellow men of China, brown men of India, these men of color are more than half of the population of the whole world. Thruout the world the capitalist class dogma of “race in- feriority” is being assaulted by the countless millions who are suppressed in colonial bondage. Even at this mo- ment the telegraph is clicking the news that the swarthy “greasers”— the heroic Mexican workers and peas- ants—have forced even Calles to throw back into’ the teeth. of Calvin Coolidge the insolent assertion of American imperialist domination over the “inferior” people of Mexico. China! Listen to the yellow men’s guns, General Robert Lee Bullard! Listen! Are yellow men “hopelessly inferior’? Are they afraid to fight! Lor, to the guns in Africa, Gen- eral Bullard! Is Abd-el-Krim also “incapable of being an officer”? It is true that the Rifflans are not con- sidered Negroes, but Berbers, and therefore technically “white” in spite of their dark skin. But watch Africa, General Robert Lee Bullard, and you will soon see black Africa join dark Asia in the general rise of the “in- ferior” races. At present the French imperialists depend on black Senega- lese troops to fight their fellow-Afri- cans of the Riff, but sooner or later, these black men will learn—and turn to help fight for Africa for the Afri- It is a good thing that Genera} Bul- lard published that book. It will help to put to shame those Negroes who are to this day pretending to main- tain the lie of the possibility of Ne- groes obtaining a certain degree of “equality” under the Wall Street gov- ernment of the United States. It will help to jolt the black American semi-slave into a consciousness as to which side he is on in the struggle of the working class and the colonial rat sa Peoples against capital- ism. * The Negro at home and abroad is destined to be a great soldier in the freeing of the world from capitalist We are not concerned for. the Ne gro to be a “brave” soldier in the armies of the enemies of his class the freedom of the oppressed of earth, he will show Gen. Robert Bullard what courage is. Every sub you get during Red Week of Juno 15 to 21 is a sub to “make another, Communist.” FSFE