The gazette (Cleveland, Ohio), January 1, 1927 reprint of The Haldeman-Julius Weekly, Girard, Kansas:
Thomas Paine and the “Negro”
ONE OF OUR EARLIEST FRIENDS
WHO IS THE LEAST KNOWN AND RECOGNIZED OF THEM ALL
The Race Greatly Indebted to Paine His Advice Eighty-Eight Years Before Lincoln’s Emancipation—“Religion” and Slavery—Darrow’s Statement.
We have long known that Thomas Paine is one of the most unappreciated figures in history; with a dishonesty, a deliberate malice of mendacity, possible only to religious fanaticism, the true record of Paine, the Revolutionary hero and liberal thinker and idealist of lofty purpose, has been suppressed; few know or read the books and the historic documents in which the life of the real Paine is shown.
And it was not only as a patriot and a free thinker that Thomas Paine proved his admirable character. He was the friend of just principles, whatever the issue. Among other ideas that he advocated, and which had to wait years for their fulfillment, was that of freedom for the Negro.
It is a Negro, Chas. A. Starks (1724 Highland, Kansas City, Mo.) who writes the following appreciation of Paine, which he regrets is not more fully realized and shared by the members of his race:
“An editor of a lately published volume of Paine’s works observes that ‘the Negro race, not merely in America but the world over, is greatly indebted to Thomas Paine, although a very few Negroes are acquainted with this fact.
Had Paine’s advice been heeded (eighty-eight years before Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation), the American Civil War, with its toll of a half million lives, might have been averted.’
Every word of this is true, and the fact that we know but little about such a great character, and one who especially devoted his intellectual labors in our cause, is a reflection on our claim to gratitude.
The chief cause, however, of our lack of information about Thomas Paine, is the criminal neglect of him in American histories. Add to this the anti-truth propaganda of the church, which attempts to show Paine as a rabid infidel or atheist when in fact he was the very opposite, a faithful deist.
But nothing but our blind conservatism, our trust in the white religionist, who would enslave us even now if he could, has kept us from turning aside and by a little research and investigation learn the truth about our ancient as well as modern friends.
“I often wonder when we will become courageous and intelligent enough to detach ourselves from a religion which apologized for slavery by claiming it to be divine, and which now includes race segregation as the eleventh commandment.
We must begin to read liberal literature with avidity! The Haldeman-Julius publications cover a wide field in this direction. Sinclair Lewis, along with others, should be able to startle us, along with the world, into considering life on a much broader basis than the customary.
Clarence Darrow, who so recently gave us of his legal genius, also told us we had ‘too much religion’; and I might add, not enough of the common sense of Thomas Paine.”
In paraphrasing Darrow, Mr. Starks loses the characteristically sharp, humorous expression of the former’s remark about the Negroes. What Darrow said was that the Negroes “are too bloomin’ pious.”
There is no doubt that the excessive religious zeal of the Negroes has been a great obstacle to their intellectual, cultural and social development. A strong dose of the common sense and liberalism of Thomas Paine would in truth be very useful to the Negro race; and as Paine was one of the earliest friends of the Negro, when the latter was friendless and worse, it surely would be no more than friendly to consider his ideas.
What Mr. Starks says about the relation of the Church to slavery can be given a broader application: no oppressed class, no group whose interests are outraged and whose cause is unpopular, should be supporters of the Church and religion; for the Church’s record is predominantly on the side of established prejudices, interests and classes.
And, on the other hand, the skeptics are more apt to be just and liberal on other questions than simply that of religion.
The Negroes should get busy in great numbers and read Thomas Paine; and, as Mr. Starks urges, they should read more liberal literature of all kinds. It is only free minds that can hope to deserve freedom and progress.