In a class of sixty-one graduates of the Medical School at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, the Holmes' Gold Medal for the highest average in all subjects throughout the entire course and the McGill Medical Society Senior Prize were awarded to a colored man, R. H. Malone, of Antigua, West Indies. A Negro student, A. L. Jackson, of Englewood, New Jersey, was chosen in December as Class Day Orator for the commencement exercises at Harvard in June, 1914. This is the third time that a colored man has been chosen class orator for a Harvard commencement. Roscoe Conkling Bruce, now assistant superintendent of public schools, Washington, D. C., and Clement C. Morgan, a colored lawyer of Boston, have had this distinction. Isaac Fisher, Editor of The Negro Farmer, Tuskegee, Alabama, won the following three prizes in the year 1913: First prize of $100 offered by the St. Louis Post Dispatch for "The Ten Best Reasons Why Persons Should Come to Missouri." First prize of $50 offered by the Wales Visible Adding Machine Company of Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, for the best essay on "What do you see in an adding machine? An analysis of the commercial uses to which adding machines may be put." "The Criterion of Fashion," a woman's magazine of New York City, offered prizes for the best essays on the subject, "A criticism of the criterion of fashion." Mr. Fisher won the third prize of $10. The Negro in Politics Under a Southern Administration March 5, the members of the National Colored Democratic League held a meeting in Washington, discussed plans for the next four years, elected officers, adopted a constitution and appointed a Steering Committee. A new political organization known as the Colored Progressive Democrats of the United States of America, was formed at Washington in October. At the closing session of the National Independent Political League held at Boston in September, a memorial to President Wilson was prepared. It set forth the faith of the League in the personal word of Mr. Wilson before election that he would "execute justice with liberality, etc.," and stating that if he did not intervene to stop color segregation in the federal departments at the Nation's capital he would dishonor his own word. The memorial further declared that refusal to appoint colored men to office and a continuance of color segregation at Washington would constitute perfidy by the Democratic party whose national committee had regularly campaigned for the colored vote. A copy of the "Address to the Country" calling for good faith by the Administration with the colored voters whose support was sought by the Party at the presidential election, was also sent. All Americans were called upon to oppose the injustice to colored people by the denial of civil rights in the North. Federal segregation, disfranchisement in the South and lynching. All colored, Americans were urged to resist color oppression. The change from a Republican to a Democratic National Aaministration caused many Negroes to lose political positions. The more important of these were: Henry W. Furniss, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Port au Prince, Haiti; Fred R. Moore, United States Minister and Consul General to Liberia; James C. Napier, Register of the Treasury; William H. Lewis, Assistant Attorney General; Ralph W. Tyler, Auditor of the Navy; Whitfield McKinley, Collector of Customs at the Port of Georgetown, District of Columbia; John N. W. Alexander, Registrar Land (ffice, Montgomery, Alabama; John E. Bush, Receiver of Public Moneys at Little Rock, Arkansas; George H. Jackson, United States Consul at Cognac, France; James W. Johnson, United States Consul at Corinto, Nicaragua; Joseph Lee, Collector of Internal Revenue for Florida; General Robert Smalls, Collector of Customs at Beaufort, South Carolina. The principal appointments of colored persons under the present national Democratic Administration have been as follows: Dr. G. W. Buckner, of Evansville, Indiana, United States Minister and Consul General to the Republic of Liberia; Judge Robert E. Terrell of the Municipal Court of the District of Columbia, to succeed himself. Lynchings in 1913 Still Show a Municipal Politics Colored city councilmen in a number of cities were elected: Benjamin McCowan and Joseph Young, at Harrodsburg, Kentucky; H. Corren, at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky; and H. B. Colerane, at Winchester, Kentucky; John O. Hopkins was elected a member of the City Council at Wilmington, Deleware; Dr. B. H. Stillyard, at Wheeling, West Virginia; S. P. Harris is a member of the City Council at Nashville, Tennessee. Harry S. Cummings is a member of the Baltimore City Council. Robert R. R. Jackson, a colored man, was elected a member of the Illinois Legislature from the Second Ward of Chicago. Dr. George E. Cannon, one of the leading colored physicians of Jersey City, was nominated for assemblyman on the Progressive ticket from Hudson County, receiving 340 of 553 Progressive votes cast in the primary. Dr. Cannon was a delegate to the National Progressive Convention, in Chicago, August, 1912, and was the New Jersey representative on the Credentials Committee. If proposed changes in the selection of delegates to the National Republican Convention as recommended by the Republican National Committee are carried out the influence of the Negro in further national conventions of this party will be greatly reduced. The quota of delegates from Southern States is to be decreased from 33 to 16 per cent of the total delegates in the convention. Instead of 247 delegates twelve Southern States will have 164 delegates. In the 1916 National Convention of the party, "Each State shall be entitled in such convention to four delegates-at-large, one delegate-at-large for each representative in Congress at large from any State; one delegate from each Congressional District; an additional delegate from each Congressional District in which the vote either for Republican presidential electors in 1912, or for the Republican candidate for Congress in 1914, shall have been not less than 7,500, and that for each delegate chosen, an alternate delegate shall be chosen in the same manner and at the same time to act in the absence of the delegate." Under this rule these States would lose delegates: Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 3; Florida, 4; Georgia, 10; Illinois, 2; Lynchings in 1913 Still Show a Tendency to Decrease During the year 1913 the number of lynchings as reported by the Chicago Tribune were, 48; by the Department of Records and Research at Tuskegee Institute, 52; by the Publicity Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 79. Last year the number of lynchings reported by the Tribune were 64. Of the fifty-two put to death, according to the records of the Tuskegee Institute Research Department, fifty-one were colored and one was white. The crimes for which these persons were lynched were: Murder, 10; rape, 5; attempted rape, 5; accused of killing officers of the law, 4; cause unknown, 4; shooting an officer, 3; murderous assault, 3; accused of murder, 3; attacking white persons, 3; killing white persons in disputes over trades, 2; frightening women and children, 2; attempted murder, 2; horse-stealing, 1; disorderliness, 2; general lawlessness, 1; supposed burglary, 1; insulting remarks, 1. The number of lynchings by States were: Alabama, 2; Arkansas, 1; Georgia, 10; Florida, 4; Kentucky, 3; Louisiana, 6; Mississippi, 9; Missouri, 1; Montana, 1; North Carolina, 1; North Dakota, 1; Oklahoma, 4; South Carolina, 2; Tennessee, 2; Texas, 5. Segregation of the Races in Southern Cities Atlanta, Georgia, passed a segregation law in June. In Augusta, Georgia, a segregation ordinance was introduced in the city council. The Augusta Chronicle and many prominent white citizens opposed the passage of the law. W. J. White, Jr., editor of The Georgia Baptist, the leading colored paper in the city, wrote an open letter to the mayor, deprecating the enactment of such a law and declaring it was unnecessary. He claimed that instead of diminishing it would increase and intensify the feeling and friction between the races for the following reasons: It is a generally accepted fact that the relations between the races in this city are as amicable, if not more amicable, than in any city in the South. Augusta is essentially a "home city." That is to say, a much larger proportion of its citizens and their forbears were born in Augusta or in its immediate vicinity, than at a distance. Its colored people and its white people have, to a remarkable degree, been friends for generations past. There has not been, there is not now, there will never be, any disposition on the part of colored people to move into any section of the city, or into any residential section in which they will be personae non gratae, and to pass a law decreeing that they shall not do something which they have never done and which they have no thought of doing, would seem, it appears to us, to be bordering perilously close to that line, invisible, yet firm, which separates tolerance from intolerance, and right from wrong. To pass such a law would be an incentive in some cases for the perpetuation of injustices not now possible, in that a feeling of pow er on the one hand, and of resentment on the other, would be engen at Wheeling, West Virginia; S. P. Harris is a member of the City Council at Nashville, Tennessee. Harry S. Cummings is a member of the Baltimore City Council. Robert R. R. Jackson, a colored man, was elected a member of the Illinois Legislature from the Second Ward of Chicago. Dr. George E. Cannon, one of the leading colored physicians of Jersey City, was nominated for assemblyman on the Progressive ticket from Hudson County, receiving 340 of 553 Progressive votes cast in the primary. Dr. Cannon was a delegate to the National Progressive Convention, in Chicago, August, 1912, and was the New Jersey representative on the Credentials Committee. If proposed changes in the selection of delegates to the National Republican Convention as recommended by the Republican National Committee are carried out the influence of the Negro in further national conventions of this party will be greatly reduced. The quota of delegates from Southern States is to be decreased from 33 to 16 per cent of the total delegates in the convention. Instead of 247 delegates twelve Southern States will have 164 delegates. In the 1916 National Convention of the party, "Each State shall be entitled in such convention to four delegates-at-large, one delegate-at-large for each representative in Congress at large from any State; one delegate from each Congressional District; an additional delegate from each Congressional District in which the vote either for Republican presidential electors in 1912, or for the Republican candidate for Congress in 1914, shall have been not less than 7,500, and that for each delegate chosen, an alternate delegate shall be chosen in the same manner and at the same time to act in the absence of the delegate." Under this rule these States would lose delegates: Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 3; Florida, 4; Georgia, 10; Illinois, 2; Lynchings in 1913 Still Show a Tendency to Decrease During the year 1913 the number of lynchings as reported by the Chicago Tribune were, 48; by the Department of Records and Research at Tuskegee Institute, 52; by the Publicity Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 79. Last year the number of lynchings reported by the Tribune were 64. Of the fifty-two put to death, according to the records of the |