University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER VIII.

Before ending this volume, I have
deemed it wise and fitting to sum up in
the following chapter all that I have attempted
to say in the previous chapters,
and to speak at the same time a little
more definitely about the Negro's future
and his relation to the white race.

All attempts to settle the question of
the Negro in the South by his removal
from this country have so far failed,
and I think that they are likely to fail.
The next census will probably show that
we have about ten millions of Negroes
in the United States. About eight millions
of these are in the Southern States.
We have almost a nation within a nation.
The Negro population within the
United States lacks but two millions of
being as large as the whole population
of Mexico. It is nearly twice as large
as the population of the Dominion of
Canada. It is equal to the combined

population of Switzerland, Greece, Honduras,
Nicaragua, Cuba, Uruguay, Santo
Domingo, Paraguay, and Costa Rica.
When we consider, in connection with
these facts, that the race has doubled
itself since its freedom, and is still increasing,
it hardly seems possible for any
one to consider seriously any scheme of
emigration from America as a method
of solution of our vexed race problem.
At most, even if the government were
to provide the means, but a few hundred
thousand could be transported each year.
The yearly increase in population would
more than overbalance the number transplanted.
Even if it did not, the time required
to get rid of the Negro by this
method would perhaps be fifty or seventy-five
years. The idea is chimerical.

Some have advised that the Negro
leave the South and take up his residence
in the Northern States. I question
whether this would leave him any
better off than he is in the South, when

all things are considered. It has been
my privilege to study the condition of
our people in nearly every part of
America; and I say, without hesitation,
that, with some exceptional cases, the
Negro is at his best in the Southern
States. While he enjoys certain privileges
in the North that he does not have
in the South, when it comes to the
matter of securing property, enjoying
business opportunities and employment,
the South presents a far better opportunity
than the North. Few coloured
men from the South are as yet able to
stand up against the severe and increasing
competition that exists in the North,
to say nothing of the unfriendly influence
of labour organisations, which in
some way prevents black men in the
North, as a rule, from securing employment
in skilled labour occupations.

Another point of great danger for the
coloured man who goes North is in the
matter of morals, owing to the numerous

temptations by which he finds himself
surrounded. He has more ways in
which he can spend money than in the
South, but fewer avenues of employment
are open to him. The fact that at
the North the Negro is confined to almost
one line of employment often tends
to discourage and demoralise the strongest
who go from the South, and to make
them an easy prey to temptation. A
few years ago I made an examination
into the condition of a settlement of
Negroes who left the South and went
to Kansas about twenty years ago,
when there was a good deal of excitement
in the South concerning emigration
to the West. This settlement, I
found, was much below the standard of
that of a similar number of our people
in the South. The only conclusion,
therefore, it seems to me, which any one
can reach, is that the Negroes, as a
mass, are to remain in the Southern
States. As a race, they do not want to
leave the South, and the Southern white
people do not want them to leave. We
must therefore find some basis of settlement
that will be constitutional, just,
manly, that will be fair to both races in
the South and to the whole country.
This cannot be done in a day, a year, or
any short period of time. We can, it
seems to me, with the present light, decide
upon a reasonably safe method
of solving the problem, and turn our
strength and effort in that direction.
In doing this, I would not have the
Negro deprived of any privilege guaranteed
to him by the Constitution of the
United States. It is not best for the
Negro that he relinquish any of his
constitutional rights. It is not best for
the Southern white man that he should.

In order that we may, without loss of
time or effort, concentrate our forces in
a wise direction, I suggest what seems
to me and many others the wisest policy
to be pursued. I have reached these

conclusions by reason of my own observations
and experience, after eighteen
years of direct contact with the leading
and influential coloured and white men
in most parts of our country. But I
wish first to mention some elements of
danger in the present situation, which
all who desire the permanent welfare of
both races in the South should carefully
consider.

First.

• There is danger that a certain
  class of impatient extremists among
  the Negroes, who have little knowledge
  of the actual conditions in the South,
  may do the entire race injury by attempting
  to advise their brethren in the
  South to resort to armed resistance or
  the use of the torch, in order to secure
  justice. All intelligent and well-considered
  discussion of any important question
  or condemnation of any wrong, both
  in the North and the South, from the
  public platform and through the press,
  is to be commended and encouraged;
  

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  but ill-considered, incendiary utterances
  from black men in the North will tend
  to add to the burdens of our people in
  the South rather than relieve them.

Second.

• Another danger in the
  South, which should be guarded against,
  is that the whole white South, including
  the wide, conservative, law-abiding element,
  may find itself represented before
  the bar of public opinion by the mob, or
  lawless element, which gives expression
  to its feelings and tendency in a manner
  that advertises the South throughout
  the world. Too often those who have
  no sympathy with such disregard of law
  are either silent or fail to speak in a
  sufficiently emphatic manner to offset,
  in any large degree, the unfortunate
  reputation which the lawless have too
  often made for many portions of the
  South.

Third.

• No race or people ever got
  upon its feet without severe and constant
  struggle, often in the face of the
  

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  greatest discouragement. While passing
  through the present trying period
  of its history, there is danger that a
  large and valuable element of the Negro
  race may become discouraged in the effort
  to better its condition. Every possible
  influence should be exerted to prevent
  this.

Fourth.

• There is a possibility that
  harm may be done to the South and to
  the Negro by exaggerated newspaper
  articles which are written near the scene
  or in the midst of specially aggravating
  occurrences. Often these reports are
  written by newspaper men, who give the
  impression that there is a race conflict
  throughout the South, and that all Southern
  white people are opposed to the
  Negro's progress, overlooking the fact
  that, while in some sections there is
  trouble, in most parts of the South there
  is, nevertheless, a very large measure of
  peace, good will, and mutual helpfulness.
  In this same relation much can be done
  

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  to retard the progress of the Negro by
  a certain class of Southern white people,
  who, in the midst of excitement, speak
  or write in a manner that gives the impression
  that all Negroes are lawless,
  untrustworthy, and shiftless. As an example,
  a Southern writer said not long
  ago, in a communication to the New
  York Independent: "Even in small towns
  the husband cannot venture to leave his
  wife alone for an hour at night. At no
  time, in no place, is the white woman
  safe from insults and assaults of these
  creatures." These statements, I presume,
  represented the feelings and the
  conditions that existed at the time they
  were written in one community or
  county in the South. But thousands of
  Southern white men and women would
  be ready to testify that this is not the
  condition throughout the South, nor
  throughout any one State.

Fifth.

• Under the next head I would
  mention that, owing to the lack of School
  

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  opportunities for the Negro in the rural
  districts of the South, there is danger
  that ignorance and idleness may increase
  to the extent of giving the Negro
  race a reputation for crime, and that
  immorality may eat its way into the
  moral fibre of the race, so as to retard
  its progress for many years. In judging
  the Negro in this regard, we must not
  be too harsh. We must remember that
  it has only been within the last thirty-four
  years that the black father and
  mother have had the responsibility, and
  consequently the experience, of training
  their own children. That they have
  not reached perfection in one generation,
  with the obstacles that the parents
  have been compelled to overcome, is
  not to be wondered at.

Sixth.

• As a final source of danger
  to be guarded against, I would mention
  my fear that some of the white people
  of the South may be led to feel that the
  way to settle the race problem is to
  

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  repress the aspirations of the Negro by
  legislation of a kind that confers certain
  legal or political privileges upon an
  ignorant and poor white man and withholds
  the same privileges from a black
  man in the same condition. Such
  legislation injures and retards the progress
  of both races. It is an injustice to
  the poor white man, because it takes
  from him incentive to secure education
  and property as prerequisites for voting.
  He feels that, because he is a white
  man, regardless of his possessions, a
  way will be found for him to vote. I
  would label all such measures, "Laws
  to keep the poor white man in ignorance
  and poverty."

As the Talladega News Reporter,
a Democratic newspaper of Alabama,
recently said: "But it is a weak cry
when the white man asks odds on intelligence
over the Negro. When nature
has already so handicapped the African
in the race for knowledge, the cry of the

boasted Anglo-Saxon for still further
odds seems babyish. What wonder that
the world looks on in surprise, if not
disgust. It cannot help but say, if our
contention be true that the Negro is an
inferior race, that the odds ought to be
on the other side, if any are to be given.
And why not? No, the thing to do—
the only thing that will stand the test
of time—is to do right, exactly right,
let come what will. And that right
thing, as it seems to me, is to place
a fair educational qualification before
every citizen,—one that is self-testing,
and not dependent on the wishes of
weak men, letting all who pass the test
stand in the proud ranks of American
voters, whose votes shall be counted as
cast, and whose sovereign will shall be
maintained as law by all the powers
that be. Nothing short of this will
do. Every exemption, on whatsoever
ground, is an outrage that can only rob
some legitimate voter of his rights."

Such laws as have been made—as an
example, in Mississippi—with the "understanding"
clause hold out a temptation
for the election officer to perjure
and degrade himself by too often deciding
that the ignorant white man does
understand the Constitution when it is
read to him and that the ignorant black
man does not. By such a law the State
not only commits a wrong against its
black citizens; it injures the morals of
its white citizens by conferring such a
power upon any white man who may
happen to be a judge of elections.

Such laws are hurtful, again, because
they keep alive in the heart of the black
man the feeling that the white man
means to oppress him. The only safe
way out is to set a high standard as a
test of citizenship, and require blacks
and whites alike to come up to it.
When this is done, both will have a
higher respect for the election laws and
those who make them. I do not believe

that, with his centuries of advantage
over the Negro in the opportunity to
acquire property and education as prerequisites
for voting, the average white
man in the South desires that any
special law be passed to give him advantage
over the Negro, who has had
only a little more than thirty years in
which to prepare himself for citizenship.
In this relation another point of danger
is that the Negro has been made to feel
that it is his duty to oppose continually
the Southern white man in politics, even
in matters where no principle is involved,
and that he is only loyal to his own race
and acting in a manly way when he is
opposing him. Such a policy has proved
most hurtful to both races. Where it
is a matter of principle, where a question
of right or wrong is involved, I
would advise the Negro to stand by
principle at all hazards. A Southern
white man has no respect for or confidence
in a Negro who acts merely for
policy's sake; but there are many cases
—and the number is growing—where
the Negro has nothing to gain and
much to lose by opposing the Southern
white man in many matters that relate
to government.

Under these six heads I believe I
have stated some of the main points
which all high-minded white men and
black men, North and South, will agree
need our most earnest and thoughtful
consideration, if we would hasten, and
not hinder, the progress of our country.

As to the policy that should be pursued
in a larger sense,—on this subject
I claim to possess no superior wisdom
or unusual insight. I may be wrong;
I may be in some degree right.

In the future, more than in the past,
we want to impress upon the Negro the
importance of identifying himself more
closely with the interests of the South,
—the importance of making himself
part of the South and at home in it.

Heretofore, for reasons which were
natural and for which no one is especially
to blame, the coloured people have
been too much like a foreign nation
residing in the midst of another nation.
If William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell
Phillips, and George L. Stearns were
alive to-day, I feel sure that each one
of them would advise the Negroes to
identify their interests as far as possible
with those of the Southern white man,
always with the understanding that this
should be done where no question of
right and wrong is involved. In no
other way, it seems to me, can we get a
foundation for peace and progress. He
who advises against this policy will advise
the Negro to do that which no people
in history who have succeeded have
done. The white man, North or South,
who advises the Negro against it advises
him to do that which he himself
has not done. The bed-rock upon
which every individual rests his chances
of success in life is securing the friendship,
the confidence, the respect, of his
next-door neighbour of the little community
in which he lives. Almost the
whole problem of the Negro in the
South rests itself upon the fact as to
whether the Negro can make himself of
such indispensable service to his neighbour
and the community that no one can
fill his place better in the body politic.
There is at present no other safe course
for the black man to pursue. If the
Negro in the South has a friend in his
white neighbour and a still larger number
of friends in his community, he has
a protection and a guarantee of his
rights that will be more potent and
more lasting than any our Federal Congress
or any outside power can confer.

In a recent editorial the London
Times, in discussing affairs in the Transvaal,
South Africa, where Englishmen
have been denied certain privileges by
the Boers, says: "England is too sagacious

not to prefer a gradual reform
from within, even should it be less
rapid than most of us might wish, to
the most sweeping redress of grievances
imposed from without. Our object is to
obtain fair play for the outlanders, but
the best way to do it is to enable them
to help themselves." This policy, I
think, is equally safe when applied to
conditions in the South. The foreigner
who comes to America, as soon as possible,
identifies himself in business, education,
politics, and sympathy with the
community in which he settles. As I
have said, we have a conspicuous example
of this in the case of the Jews.
Also, the Negro in Cuba has practically
settled the race question there, because
he has made himself a part of Cuba in
thought and action.

What I have tried to indicate cannot
be accomplished by any sudden revolution
of methods, but it does seem that
the tendency more and more should be

in this direction. If a practical example
is wanted in the direction that I favour,
I will mention one. The North sends
thousands of dollars into the South each
year, for the education of the Negro.
The teachers in most of the academic
schools of the South are supported by
the North, or Northern men and women
of the highest Christian culture and most
unselfish devotion. The Negro owes
them a debt of gratitude which can never
be paid. The various missionary societies
in the North have done a work
which, in a large degree, has been the
salvation of the South; and the result
will appear in future generations more
than in this. We have now reached the
point in the South where, I believe, great
good could be accomplished by changing
the attitude of the white people toward
the Negro and of the Negro toward the
whites, if a few white teachers of high
character would take an active interest
in the work of these high schools. Can
this be done? Yes. The medical school
connected with Shaw University at
Raleigh, North Carolina, has from the
first had as instructors and professors,
almost exclusively, Southern white doctors,
who reside in Raleigh; and they
have given the highest satisfaction.
This gives the people of Raleigh the
feeling that this is their school, and not
something located in, but not a part of,
the South. In Augusta, Georgia, the
Payne Institute, one of the best colleges
for our people, is officered and taught
almost wholly by Southern white men
and women. The Presbyterian Theological
School at Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
has all Southern white men as instructors.
Some time ago, at the Calhoun
School in Alabama, one of the leading
white men in the county was given an
important position in the school. Since
then the feeling of the white people in
the county has greatly changed toward
the school.

We must admit the stern fact that at
present the Negro, through no choice
of his own, is living among another race
which is far ahead of him in education,
property, experience, and favourable condition;
further, that the Negro's present
condition makes him dependent
upon the white people for most of the
things necessary to sustain life, as well
as for his common school education.
In all history, those who have possessed
the property and intelligence have exercised
the greatest control in government,
regardless of colour, race, or geographical
location. This being the case,
how can the black man in the South improve
his present condition? And does
the Southern white man want him to
improve it?

The Negro in the South has it within
his power, if he properly utilises the
forces at hand, to make of himself such
a valuable factor in the life of the South
that he will not have to seek privileges,

they will be freely conferred upon him.
To bring this about, the Negro must
begin at the bottom and lay a sure
foundation, and not be lured by any
temptation into trying to rise on a false
foundation. While the Negro is laying
this foundation he will need help, sympathy,
and simple justice. Progress by
any other method will be but temporary
and superficial, and the latter end
of it will be worse than the beginning.
American slavery was a great curse
to both races, and I would be the last
to apologise for it; but, in the presence
of God, I believe that slavery laid the
foundation for the solution of the problem
that is now before us in the South.
During slavery the Negro was taught
every trade, every industry, that constitutes
the foundation for making a living.
Now, if on this foundation—laid in
rather a crude way, it is true, but a
foundation, nevertheless—we can gradually
build and improve, the future for
us is bright. Let me be more specific.
Agriculture is, or has been, the basic
industry of nearly every race or nation
that has succeeded. The Negro got
a knowledge of this during slavery.
Hence, in a large measure, he is in
possession of this industry in the South
to-day. The Negro can buy land in
the South, as a rule, wherever the white
man can buy it, and at very low
prices. Now, since the bulk of our
people already have a foundation in agriculture,
they are at their best when
living in the country, engaged in agricultural
pursuits. Plainly, then, the best
thing, the logical thing, is to turn the
larger part of our strength in a direction
that will make the Negro among
the most skilled agricultural people in
the world. The man who has learned
to do something better than any one
else, has learned to do a common thing
in an uncommon manner, is the man
who has a power and influence that no
adverse circumstances can take from him.
The Negro who can make himself so
conspicuous as a successful farmer, a
large tax-payer, a wise helper of his fellow-men,
as to be placed in a position of
trust and honour, whether the position
be political or otherwise, by natural selection,
is a hundred-fold more secure in
that position than one placed there by
mere outside force or pressure. I know
a Negro, Hon. Isaiah T. Montgomery,
in Mississippi, who is mayor of a
town. It is true that this town, at
present, is composed almost wholly of
Negroes. Mr. Montgomery is mayor of
this town because his genius, thrift, and
foresight have created the town; and he
is held and supported in his office by a
charter, granted by the State of Mississippi,
and by the vote and public sentiment
of the community in which he
lives.

Let us help the Negro by every
means possible to acquire such an education

in farming, dairying, stock-raising,
horticulture, etc., as will enable him
to become a model in these respects
and place him near the top in these industries,
and the race problem would
in a large part be settled, or at least
stripped of many of its most perplexing
elements. This policy would also tend
to keep the Negro in the country and
smaller towns, where he succeeds best,
and stop the influx into the large cities,
where he does not succeed so well.
The race, like the individual, that produces
something of superior worth that
has a common human interest, makes a
permanent place for itself, and is bound
to be recognised.

At a county fair in the South not
long ago I saw a Negro awarded the
first prize by a jury of white men, over
white competitors, for the production
of the best specimen of Indian corn.
Every white man at this fair seemed to
be pleased and proud of the achievement

of this Negro, because it was apparent
that he had done something that
would add to the wealth and comfort of
the people of both races in that county.
At the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute in Alabama we have a
department devoted to training men
in the science of agriculture; but what
we are doing is small when compared
with what should be done at Tuskegee
and at other educational centres. In a
material sense the South is still an undeveloped
country. While race prejudice
is strongly exhibited in many directions,
in the matter of business, of
commercial and industrial development,
there is very little obstacle in the
Negro's way. A Negro who produces
or has for sale something that the community
wants finds customers among
white people as well as black people.
A Negro can borrow money at the bank
with equal security as readily as a white
man can. A bank in Birmingham,
Alabama, that has now existed ten
years, is officered and controlled wholly
by Negroes. This bank has white borrowers
and white depositors. A graduate
of the Tuskegee Institute keeps a
well-appointed grocery store in Tuskegee,
and he tells me that he sells about
as many goods to the one race as to the
other. What I have said of the opening
that awaits the Negro in the direction
of agriculture is almost equally
true of mechanics, manufacturing, and
all the domestic arts. The field is before
him and right about him. Will he
occupy it? Will he "cast down his
bucket where he is"? Will his friends
North and South encourage him and
prepare him to occupy it? Every city
in the South, for example, would give
support to a first-class architect or
house-builder or contractor of our race.
The architect and contractor would not
only receive support, but, through his
example, numbers of young coloured
men would learn such trades as carpentry,
brick-masonry, plastering, painting,
etc., and the race would be put into a
position to hold on to many of the industries
which it is now in danger of
losing, because in too many cases brains,
skill, and dignity are not imparted to
the common occupations of life that are
about his very door. Any individual
or race that does not fit itself to occupy
in the best manner the field or service
that is right about it will sooner or later
be asked to move on, and let some one
else occupy it.

But it is asked, Would you confine
the Negro to agriculture, mechanics,
and domestic arts, etc.? Not at all; but
along the lines that I have mentioned
is where the stress should be laid just
now and for many years to come. We
will need and must have many teachers
and ministers, some doctors and lawyers
and statesmen; but these professional
men will have a constituency or a foundation

from which to draw support just
in proportion as the race prospers along
the economic lines that I have mentioned.
During the first fifty or one
hundred years of the life of any people
are not the economic occupations always
given the greater attention? This
is not only the historic, but, I think, the
common-sense view. If this generation
will lay the material foundation, it will
be the quickest and surest way for the
succeeding generation to succeed in the
cultivation of the fine arts, and to surround
itself even with some of the
luxuries of life, if desired. What the
race now most needs, in my opinion, is
a whole army of men and women well
trained to lead and at the same time
infuse themselves into agriculture, mechanics,
domestic employment, and
business. As to the mental training
that these educated leaders should be
equipped with, I should say, Give them
all the mental training and culture that
the circumstances of individuals will
allow,—the more, the better. No race
can permanently succeed until its mind
is awakened and strengthened by the
ripest thought. But I would constantly
have it kept in the thoughts of those
who are educated in books that a large
proportion of those who are educated
should be so trained in hand that they
can bring this mental strength and
knowledge to bear upon the physical
conditions in the South which I have
tried to emphasise.

Frederick Douglass, of sainted memory,
once, in addressing his race, used
these words: "We are to prove that we
can better our own condition. One
way to do this is to accumulate property.
This may sound to you like a
new gospel. You have been accustomed
to hear that money is the root
of all evil, etc. On the other hand,
property—money, if you please—will
purchase for us the only condition by

which any people can rise to the dignity
of genuine manhood; for without property
there can be no leisure, without
leisure there can be no thought, without
thought there can be no invention,
without invention there can be no
progress."

The Negro should be taught that
material development is not an end,
but simply a means to an end. As
Professor W. E. B. DuBois puts it,
" The idea should not be simply to make
men carpenters, but to make carpenters
men." The Negro has a highly religious
temperament; but what he needs
more and more is to be convinced of
the importance of weaving his religion
and morality into the practical affairs
of daily life. Equally as much does he
need to be taught to put so much intelligence
into his labour that he will see
dignity and beauty in the occupation,
and love it for its own sake. The Negro
needs to be taught that more of the

religion that manifests itself in his happiness
in the prayer-meeting should be
made practical in the performance of
his daily task. The man who owns a
home and is in the possession of the
elements by which he is sure of making
a daily living has a great aid to a moral
and religious life. What bearing will
all this have upon the Negro's place
in the South as a citizen and in the
enjoyment of the privileges which our
government confers?

To state in detail just what place the
black man will occupy in the South as
a citizen, when he has developed in the
direction named, is beyond the wisdom
of any one. Much will depend upon
the sense of justice which can be kept
alive in the breast of the American people.
Almost as much will depend upon
the good sense of the Negro himself.
That question, I confess, does not give
me the most concern just now. The
important and pressing question is, Will

the Negro with his own help and that
of his friends take advantage of the opportunities
that now surround him?
When he has done this, I believe that,
speaking of his future in general terms,
he will be treated with justice, will be
given the protection of the law, and will
be given the recognition in a large
measure which his usefulness and ability
warrant. If, fifty years ago, any one had
predicted that the Negro would have
received the recognition and honour
which individuals have already received,
he would have been laughed at as an
idle dreamer. Time, patience, and constant
achievement are great factors in
the rise of a race.

I do not believe that the world ever
takes a race seriously, in its desire to
enter into the control of the government
of a nation in any large degree,
until a large number of individuals,
members of that race, have demonstrated,
beyond question, their ability to

control and develop individual business
enterprises. When a number of Negroes
rise to the point where they own and
operate the most successful farms, are
among the largest tax-payers in their
county, are moral and intelligent, I do
not believe that in many portions of the
South such men need long be denied
the right of saying by their votes how
they prefer their property to be taxed
and in choosing those who are to make
and administer the laws.

In a certain town in the South, recently,
I was on the street in company
with the most prominent Negro in the
town. While we were together, the
mayor of the town sought out the black
man, and said, "Next week we are going
to vote on the question of issuing bonds
to secure water-works for this town; you
must be sure to vote on the day of election."
The mayor did not suggest
whether he must vote "yes" or "no";
he knew from the very fact that this

Negro man owned nearly a block of the
most valuable property in the town that
he would cast a safe, wise vote on this
important proposition. This white man
knew that, because of this Negro's property
interests in the city, he would cast
his vote in the way he thought would
benefit every white and black citizen in
the town, and not be controlled by influences
a thousand miles away. But a
short time ago I read letters from nearly
every prominent white man in Birmingham,
Alabama, asking that the Rev.
W. R. Pettiford, a Negro, be appointed to
a certain important federal office. What
is the explanation of this? Mr. Pettiford
for nine years has been the president
of the Negro bank in Birmingham
to which I have alluded. During these
nine years these white citizens have
had the opportunity of seeing that Mr.
Pettiford could manage successfully a
private business, and that he had proven
himself a conservative, thoughtful citizen;
and they were willing to trust
him in a public office. Such individual
examples will have to be multiplied
until they become the rule rather
than the exception. While we are multiplying
these examples, the Negro must
keep a strong and courageous heart.
He cannot improve his condition by
any short-cut course or by artificial
methods. Above all, he must not be
deluded into the temptation of believing
that his condition can be permanently
improved by a mere battledore
and shuttlecock of words or by any
process of mere mental gymnastics or
oratory alone. What is desired, along
with a logical defence of his cause, are
deeds, results,—multiplied results,—in
the direction of building himself up, so
as to leave no doubt in the minds of any
one of his ability to succeed.

An important question often asked is,
Does the white man in the South want
the Negro to improve his present condition?

I say, "Yes." From the Montgomery
(Alabama) Daily Advertiser I
clip the following in reference to the
closing of a coloured school in a town
in Alabama:—

I quote this report, not because it is
the exception, but because such marks

of interest in the education of the
Negro on the part of the Southern
white people can be seen almost every
day in the local papers. Why should
white people, by their presence, words,
and many other things, encourage the
black man to get education, if they do
not desire him to improve his condition?

The Payne Institute in Augusta,
Georgia, an excellent institution, to
which I have already referred, is supported
almost wholly by the Southern
white Methodist church. The Southern
white Presbyterians support a theological
school at Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
for Negroes. For a number of years
the Southern white Baptists have contributed
toward Negro education. Other
denominations have done the same. If
these people do not want the Negro educated
to a high standard, there is no
reason why they should act the hypocrite
in these matters.

As barbarous as some of the lynchings

in the South have been, Southern
white men here and there, as well as
newspapers, have spoken out strongly
against lynching. I quote from the
address of the Rev. Mr. Vance, of
Nashville, Tennessee, delivered before
the National Sunday School Union
in Atlanta, not long since, as an example:
—

"And yet, as I stand here to-night,
a Southerner speaking for my section,
and addressing an audience from all
sections, there is one foul blot upon the
fair fame of the South, at the bare mention
of which the heart turns sick and
the cheek is crimsoned with shame. I
want to lift my voice to-night in loud
and long and indignant protest against
the awful horror of mob violence, which
the other day reached the climax of its
madness and infamy in a deed as black
and brutal and barbarous as can be
found in the annals of human crime.

"I have a right to speak on the subject,

and I propose to be heard. The
time has come for every lover of the
South to set the might of an angered
and resolute manhood against the
shame and peril of the lynch demon.
These people, whose fiendish glee
taunts their victim as his flesh crackles
in the flames, do not represent the
South. I have not a syllable of apology
for the sickening crime they meant
to avenge. But it is high time we were
learning that lawlessness is no remedy
for crime. For one, I dare to believe
that the people of my section are able
to cope with crime, however treacherous
and defiant, through their courts of
justice; and I plead for the masterful
sway of a righteous and exalted public
sentiment that shall class lynch law in
the category with crime."

It is a notable and praiseworthy fact
that no Negro educated in any of our
larger institutions of learning in the
South has been charged with any of the

recent crimes connected with assaults
upon females.

If we go on making progress in the
directions that I have tried to indicate,
more and more the South will be
drawn to one course. As I have already
said, it is not for the best interests of the
white race of the South that the Negro
be deprived of any privilege guaranteed
him by the Constitution of the United
States. This would put upon the
South a burden under which no government
could stand and prosper. Every
article in our federal Constitution was
placed there with a view of stimulating
and encouraging the highest type of
citizenship. To permanently tax the
Negro without giving him the right
to vote as fast as he qualifies himself
in education and property for voting
would work the alienation of the affections
of the Negro from the States in
which he lives, and would be the reversal
of the fundamental principles of

government for which our States have
stood. In other ways than this the injury
would be as great to the white
man as to the Negro. Taxation without
the hope of becoming a voter would
take away from one-third the citizens of
the Gulf States their interest in government
and their stimulant to become taxpayers
or to secure education, and thus
be able and willing to bear their share
of the cost of education and government,
which now weighs so heavily upon the
white tax-payers of the South. The
more the Negro is stimulated and encouraged,
the sooner will he be able to
bear a larger share of the burdens of
the South. We have recently had before
us an example, in the case of
Spain, of a government that left a large
portion of its citizens in ignorance, and
neglected their highest interests.

As I have said elsewhere, there is
no escape through law of man or God
from the inevitable:—

"Nearly sixteen millions of hands
will aid you in pulling the load upward
or they will pull against you the
load downward. We shall constitute
one-third and more of the ignorance
and crime of the South or one-third its
intelligence and progress. We shall
contribute one-third to the business and
industrial prosperity of the South or we
shall prove a veritable body of death,
stagnating, depressing, retarding, every
effort to advance the body politic."

My own feeling is that the South will
gradually reach the point where it will
see the wisdom and the justice of enacting
an educational or property qualification,
or both, for voting, that shall be
made to apply honestly to both races.
The industrial development of the
Negro in connection with education

and Christian character will help to
hasten this end. When this is done,
we shall have a foundation, in my opinion,
upon which to build a government
that is honest and that will be in a high
degree satisfactory to both races.

I do not suffer myself to take too
optimistic a view of the conditions in
the South. The problem is a large and
serious one, and will require the patient
help, sympathy, and advice of our most
patriotic citizens, North and South, for
years to come. But I believe that, if
the principles which I have tried to
indicate are followed, a solution of the
question will come. So long as the
Negro is permitted to get education,
acquire property, and secure employment,
and is treated with respect in the
business or commercial world,—as is
now true in the greater part of the
South,—I shall have the greatest faith
in his working out his own destiny in
our Southern States. The education

and preparing for citizenship of nearly
eight millions of people is a tremendous
task, and every lover of humanity should
count it a privilege to help in the solution
of a great problem for which our
whole country is responsible.