where they treat them as gentlemen and not as second class citizens.  They enjoy exactly the same privileges as white men, and quite a number of colored people have fine positions in business in Berlin and other German cities.

     “Why then fight the Germans?  Only for the benefit of the Wall
     street robbers and to protect the millions they have loaned the
     English, French and Italians?

“You have never seen Germany, so you are fools if you allow yourselves to hate us.  Come over and see for yourselves.  To carry a gun in this service is not an honor but a shame.  Throw it away and come over to the German lines.  You will find friends who will help you along.”

Negro officers of the division told Dr. Moton this propaganda had no effect.  He said the Negroes, especially those from the South, were anxious to return home, most of them imbued with the ambition to become useful, law-abiding citizens.  Some, however, were apprehensive that they might not be received in a spirit of co-operation and racial good will.  This anxiety arose mainly from accounts of increased lynchings and persistent rumors that the Ku Klux Clan was being revived in order, so the rumor ran, “to keep the Negro soldier in his place.”

After voicing his disbelief in these rumors, Dr. Moton said: 

“The result of this working together in these war activities brought the whites and Negroes into a more helpful relationship.  It is the earnest desire of all Negroes that these helpful cooperating relationships shall continue.”

In conversation with a morale officer the writer was told that the principal problem with the Negroes, especially after the selective draft, was in classifying them fairly and properly.  Some were in every way healthy but unfit for soldiers.  Others were of splendid intelligence and manifestly it was unjust to condemn them to the ranks when so many had excellent qualities for non-commissioned and commissioned grades.  The Service of Supply solved the problem so far as the ignorant were concerned; all could serve in that branch.

The officer stated that the trouble with the War Department and with too many other people, is the tendency to treat Negroes as a homogeneous whole, which cannot be done.  Some are densely ignorant and some are highly intelligent and well educated.  In this officer’s opinion, there is as much difference between different types of Negroes as there is between the educated white people and the uneducated mountaineers and poor whites of the South; or between the best whites of this and other countries and the totally ignorant peasants from the most oppressed nations of Europe.

In the early stages of the war, there was a great scarcity of non-commissioned officers—­sergeants and corporals, those generals in embryo, upon whom so much depends in waging successful war.  It was a great mistake in the opinion of this informant, and he stated that the view was shared by many other officers, to take men from white units to act as non-commissioned officers in Negro regiments, when there were available so many intelligent, capable Negroes serving in the ranks, who understood their people and would have delighted in filling the non-commissioned grades.  He also thought the same criticism applied to selections for commissioned grades.