Having no mother country with which to divide his sympathies, the old flag would receive the Colored soldier’s loyal support. Can this be truthfully said of any other distinct class of adopted citizens? I think not. Suppose this country was forced to declare war against Germany or Italy, could we expect the undivided support of the German Americans or the naturalized Italians? Not at all. We would be at the mercy of either of these great powers, because they could have their spies and emissaries in our rear at every movement. This would not be the case with the Colored Americans, who know only America, and whose allegiance need not be questioned. The Colored American will be found fighting in the ranks of the loyalists to sustain our present system of government intact when the great conflict shall come, which now seems threatening, and which came near being inaugurated at Chicago in the spring of 1894, between those who are loyal to our present economic system of government, and the extreme socialists, who are mostly of foreign birth, and therefore less in sympathy with our institutions and established mode of government.
The Colored American will always be found voting and fighting on the side of the white American aristocratic classes, the classes that have made our common country what it is to-day--the best government on the face of the globe, and who are striving to keep it in the lead of all other civilized governments.
There are several questions of great magnitude agitating the minds of the American people to-day, questions which have been before them for the last few years; and which will have to be met and settled, in my opinion, at no very distant day, and in that final settlement, whether in a war of ballots or bullets, the Colored Americans will wield an important power, and will have an opportunity to make themselves masters of the situation.
When the social question, or the struggle between labor and capital, between law and order, between American and encroaching foreign ideas, shall present themselves for settlement, the Colored Americans, being most loyal to everything that is American, and especially to those things which conduce to law and order and good government, can and will always be found battling against the anarchist and the revolutionist of any character. On account of their unwavering loyalty to America and its established institutions, the Colored Americans will in such struggles, in all probability, hold the key to the situation, or the casting influence, and if rightly and wisely used, they will hold the balance of power in this country.