Black Inaugural

The January midday sun poured down on Monrovia's Matilda Newport Square, named for Liberia's Joan of Arc. Sweat trickled down 20,000 Liberian backs, stood in heavy drops on the foreheads of notables who were clustered in the shade of a palm-leaf booth. Five little girls in white-frilled ginghams held wreaths emblazoned with the names of Liberia's five counties. Six brass bands blared hard and the Liberian National Choir waited its turn. The tiny African Republic, founded for freed slaves from the U.S., was ready for the inaugural of its 17th President.

At noon, dapper, coal-black President-elect William Vacarat Shadrach Tubman took over from President Roosevelt's onetime host and guest, Edwin J. Barclay (TIME, June 7). Then the new President knelt to ask the blessing of God upon his people. His lazy drawl poured out over the multitude, reminding all that Liberia had been founded under God and on Christian principles.*

Last week President Tubman took his first important official step: his Government declared war on Germany and Japan.

* Liberia's elected rulers have sometimes acted on other principles. In 1930, a League of Nations Commission accused former (1928) Vice President Allen N. Yancey of conniving with other Liberian officials to pawn hundreds of native laborers into near-slavery. Tubman was Yancey's legal adviser.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.