themselves so as not to bring reproach upon the Negroes as a whole, of whom they were in a sort representative. Their criminal outrage will tend to make people forget the good work done by other Negro soldiers. After the rigid investigation which the War Department has ordered, the men found guilty should receive the severest punishment. As for the general army policy affecting colored troops, we are glad to see that Secretary Baker appears to intend no change in his recent orders.

We ourselves cannot forget that while the question of whether the Post’s editor would get a diplomatic appointment (like some other editors) was under consideration during the first year of Woodrow Wilson’s first administration, the Post pretended to believe that the President didn’t know of the segregation practiced in the government departments. The N.A.A.C.P., whose letter sent out at the time is now before us, pretended to the same effect.

After viewing these expressions of frightful friendliness in our own times, we have reached the conclusion that the time has come when we should insist on being our own best friends. We may make mistakes, of course, but we ought to be allowed to make our own mistakes—as other people are allowed to do. If friendship is to mean compulsory compromise foisted on us by kindly white people, or by cultured Negroes whose ideal is the imitation of the urbane acquiescence of these white friends, then we had better learn to look a gift horse in the mouth whenever we get the chance. —November, 1917.

Shillady Resigns

Mr. John R. Shillady, ex-secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., states in his letter of resignation that “I am less confident than heretofore of the speedy success of the association’s full program and of the probability of overcoming within a reasonable period the forces opposed to Negro equality by the means and methods which are within the association’s power to employ.” In this one sentence Mr. Shillady, the worker on the inside, puts in suave and serenely diplomatic phrase the truth which people on the outside have long ago perceived, namely, that the N.A.A.C.P. makes a joke of itself when it affects to think that lynching and the other evils which beset the Negro in the South can be abolished by simple publicity. The great weakness of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has been and is that, whereas it aims to secure certain results by affecting the minds of white people and making them friendly to it, it has no control over these minds and has absolutely no answer to the question, “What steps do you propose to take if 

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