In the second place, the effectiveness and potentiality of the Negro vote in the North and West depends upon an absolute and courageous disregard of traditions. There are times when party fealty may be both proper and commendable. There is to be sure a great deal of hypocrisy and humbuggery in our political parties, yet back of these they do stand for certain great and vital principles. When the latter are put to the test our fealty may properly be demanded, but under normal conditions, when stress and strife of class and selfish interests, invidious discriminations and outrageous injustice prevail, the only safe and prudent course for the individual or class of individuals to pursue is absolute independence of parties and uncompromising devotion to the paramount interest. When we cannot act advantageously, we may act punitively, so that the public servant may know that if he ignores or hypocritically juggles with our interests, he will be held to a strict accountability. If on the eve of an election the party or the individual candidate attempts to cajole by a statement of principles or policy which is ignored after a successful contest, reprisal should be swift and terrible as soon as the opportunity permits.
In the third place, the Negro vote of the North and West needs, if it does not at present lack, intelligent, honest, straightforward, and unselfish leadership. Until it has this, its potentiality will be _nil_.
To impute dishonesty or insincerity to those who from time to time act in the role of leaders of the Negro voters would be unpardonably reprehensible. Men generally act according to their light and it is not an uncommon observation that the average public man gets his light through the medium of a self-interested reflector. Amid the competitions and conflicts, the struggle for place and temporary power and emoluments which characterize all phases of modern life and especially political life in the United States, the calm, clear-eyed, far-seeing man is rare. Yet men of unusual foresight, of clear perception of the fundamental and vital issues with the tact and ability to gain an advantage and an uncompromising determination to hold what has been gained—such is the type of men needed to make the Negro vote potent. The leadership which boasts of its capacity to keep silent under terrible wrongs is not calculated to carry the race far on the road towards real and permanent betterment.