Chapter C: H. Duell, (3)

The Liberian government takes charge of all persons landing as emigrants and looks after their comfort preparatory to their settling; but if one prefers he may secure board in the best of families at a cheap rate until settled. As the government gives each settler from fifteen to twenty-five acres of land, and allows him to choose his own plot, it takes a little time to settle. He must locate and survey his land and build his hut. All new-comers build the hut, as it is cheap and quickly built. From fifteen to fifty dollars will put up a good thatch hut which will answer all purposes for at least three years. The land cleared, coffee, ginger, sugar-cane, edoes, cassada, oranges, limes, plums, bread-fruit, pawpaws, can be planted. It takes three years for coffee to yield; five to six for oranges, limes, bread-fruit, etc. Edoes, cassadas and such bread-stuffs yield in three or four months, and ginger and sugar-cane once a year. From these two commodities an income at once is had. All of the above fruits and products are obtainable from neighbors while yours are maturing. This is the condition of the farmer. But should you go out as a professional or business man you have a wide field and little competition. Any educated person will find ready employment by individuals or the government and a remuneration in keeping with the vocation. Citizenship is the result of a deed to your land and this is obtained at your option; and citizenship means an election to any office save that of President and Vice-President. It requires a residence of five years to be elected to one of these offices. Attorney Wright, Professor Stevens, Rev. Frazier and others filled national positions before they had been citizens five years. The government needs strong men to assist in running the Republic, and such, if loyal, are always welcomed. The merchant of Liberia receives the greatest profit of any merchant on the face of the globe--not less than one hundred per cent on the purchasing price--and a hundred and fifty per cent on the selling price. Rent is cheap, taxes low, and duties moderate, so that everything is in favor of the merchant.

The scientist finds the widest field imaginable--silver, gold, precious stones, herbs, coal, iron and such articles are as plentiful as the leaves on the trees--they never fall. All that is needed is a scientific eye to see these things.

The zoologist could make a fortune in one year catching insects and shipping them to colleges in America, England, Germany and France.

Why so many of our young people, educated and refined, will don white aprons and stand behind chairs and watch other people eat is a problem, if there is one, that needs to be solved. Many of our educated girls, when they can work on people's heads and feet, and present a card with some big word on it, as "chiropodist," which means foot-cleaner, are perfectly satisfied. All of this must be done, but it does not require a knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, German, and all the sciences to do this successfully; yet it is the highest ambition of many of our young people, while Africa invites them to higher walks.

In America cotton is the staple in many of the Southern states. The farmer plants and grows this staple to obtain clothing and the necessaries of life, and, if possible, lay by a dollar for a rainy day. In Liberia coffee holds the same relation to the farmer as cotton in America; yet it is planted like the peach tree or apple tree. It takes about five years to yield, but when it begins to yield it increases yearly, costing about five cents a pound to clean, hull and ship to market, giving a clear profit of from two to five cents on the pound, while there is no real profit in cotton growing. Liberia would yield cotton as prolifically as Arkansas or Mississippi, if cultivated. The Englishmen are turning their attention to cotton growing in West Africa.

Cassadas takes the place of the American sweet potato, but is much easier produced, as the greatest cost is the labor of planting. It produces without cultivation, and, as there is no frost in West Africa, once planted it will produce for twenty years. It is a root as is the sweet potato.

The upland rice of West Africa grows anywhere and everywhere it chances to fall upon the ground. Very little attention is given to cultivation, yet it could be made an export which would yield the farmer a most valuable income. Corn grows as prolifically in Africa as in the bottoms of Georgia and Alabama. Planting is the hardest task.

The palm tree grows as the pine in Georgia or North Carolina, and the nut which it produces is as large as, or larger than, a horse chestnut. These nuts contain an oil that answers all the purposes of bacon, lard and butter in America. The greatest task is to have a boy climb the tree and cut them down. This oil fries your fish, seasons your greens, shortens your bread and answers all the purposes of lard or butter.

There are hogs, cows, sheep and goats in West Africa, but no meat can be cured, therefore all bacon is shipped from abroad.

Rubber farms are much more profitable than turpentine farms, for the reason that it costs so much less to produce rubber and the profit is so much greater. Rubber is produced at from fifteen to twenty cents per pound and sold at from seventy-five cents to one dollar per pound. While all of these products are used on the ground, with a few exceptions, yet all of them are profitable commodities for export.

We have presented this array of facts to sustain our position that the Negro will be benefited by returning home to Africa as fast as he is self-reliant and independent. But he must be a man; boys cannot stand the hardships of pioneer life.

TOPIC XXXIII.

THE NEGRO AND EDUCATION.

BY MRS. LENA MASON.

MRS. LENA MASON.

Mrs. Lena Mason, the Evangelist, was born in Quincy, Ill.,
May 8th, 1864. Her parents, Relda and Vaughn Doolin, were
devout Christians, and they brought up their daughter Lena,
as far as they knew how, in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord, so that Lena became a Christian at a very early
age. She attended the Douglass High School of Hannibal, Mo.
She also attended Professor Knott's School in Chicago. She
married March 9th, 1883, to George Mason. Of this union six
children were the result--four boys and two girls; of these
only one, Bertha May, survives.

At the age of 23 Mrs. Mason entered the ministry, preaching
for the first three years to white people exclusively, and
later preaching to mixed congregations. She now belongs to
the Colored Conference. Mrs. Mason has preached in nearly
every state in the Union, and the preachers are few who can
excel her in preaching. She has, since she has been
preaching, been instrumental in the conversion of 1,617
souls. Her five months' work in colored and white churches
in Minneapolis will never be forgotten by those who were
greatly benefited by her services. Mrs. Mason possesses
considerable ability as a poet, and has written several
poems and songs that do not suffer by comparison with poems
by the best poets. Mrs. Mason is powerful in argument and
picture painting. Rev. C. L. Leonard, pastor of the Central
German M. E. Church, in speaking of Mrs. Mason, says: "I
desire to express my highest appreciation of Mrs. Mason's
church and effective evangelical work in my church and in
many others. Mrs. Mason is now making a tour of the South,
and by her lectures and sermons is doing a work among the
colored people that will bear good fruit in the future. One
only needs to hear Mrs. Mason lecture and preach to
understand how it is that one never tires listening to her."

1. Said once a noble ruler,
Thomas Jefferson by name,
"All men are created equal.
All men are born the same."
God made the Negro equal
To any race above the grave,
Although once made a captive
And sold to man a slave.

2. Of all the crimes recorded
Our histories do not tell
Of a single crime more brutal,
Or e'en a parallel.
It was said by men of wisdom (?)
"No knowledge shall they have,
For if you educate a Negro
You unfit him for a slave."

3. Fred Douglass' young mistress,
Moved by a power divine,
Determined she would let the rays
Of knowledge on him shine,
But her husband said, "'Twill never do,
'Twill his way to freedom pave,
For if you educate a Negro
You unfit him for a slave."

4. But there is no mortal being
Who can the wheels of progress stay;
An all-wise God intended
He should see the light of day.
God drew back the sable curtains
That shut out wisdom's rays,
He did give unto him knowledge
And unfit him for a slave.

5. But God's works were not completed,
For he had made decree,
Since all men are born equal,
Then all men shall be free.
He removed the yoke of bondage,
And unto him freedom gave;
He did educate the Negro
And unfit him for a slave.

6. When the Negro gained his freedom
Of body and of soul,
He caught the wheels of progress,
Gave them another roll.
He was held near three long centuries
In slavery's dismal cave,
But now he is educated
And unfitted for a slave.

7. He's able to fill any place
On this terrestrial ball,
All the way from country teacher
To the legislative hall.
He has proved himself a hero,
A soldier true and brave,
And now he's educated
And unfit to be a slave.

8. We have lawyers and we've doctors,
Teachers and preachers brave,
And a host of noble women,
Who have safely crossed the wave.
We are pressing on and upward,
And for education crave,
For it's written now in history,
We shall never more be slaves.

TOPIC XXXIV.

A NEGRO IN IT.

BY MRS. LENA MASON.

1. In the last civil war,
The white folks, they began it,
But before it could close,
The Negro had to be in it.

2. At the battle of San Juan hill,
The rough-riders they began it;
But before victory could be won
The Negro had to be in it.

3. The Negro shot the Spaniard from the tree,
And never did regret it;
The rough-riders would have been dead to-day
Had the Negro not been in it.

4. To Buffalo, McKinley went,
To welcome people in it;
The prayer was prayed, the speech made,
The Negro, he was in it.

5. September sixth, in Music Hall,
With thousands, thousands in it,
McKinley fell, from the assassin's ball,
And the Negro, he got in it.

6. He knocked the murderer to the floor,
He struck his nose, the blood did flow;
He held him fast, all nearby saw,
When for the right, the Negro in it.

7. J. B. Parker is his name,
He from the state of Georgia came;
He worked in Buffalo, for his bread,
And there he saw McKinley dead.

8. They bought his clothes for souvenirs,
And may they ever tell it,
That when the President was shot
A brave Negro was in it.

9. He saved him from the third ball,
That would have taken life with it;
He held the foreigner fast and tight,
The Negro sure was in it.

10. McKinley now in heaven rests,
Where he will ne'er regret it;
And well he knows, that in all his joys
There was a Negro in it.

11. White man, stop lynching and burning
This black race, trying to thin it,
For if you go to heaven or hell
You will find some Negroes in it.

12. Parker knocked the assassin down,
And to beat him, he began it;
In order to save the President's life,
Yes, the Negro truly was in it.

13. You may try to shut the Negro out,
The courts, they have begun it;
But when we meet at the judgment bar
God will tell you the Negro is in it.

14. Pay them to swear a lie in court,
Both whites and blacks will do it;
Truth will shine, to the end of time,
And you will find the Negro in it.

TOPIC XXXV.

THE NEGRO'S ADVERSITIES HELP HIM.

BY PROF. JOSEPH D. BIBB, A. M.

PROF. JOSEPH D. BIBB, A. M.

Prof. Joseph D. Bibb comes from the city of Montgomery,
Ala., of excellent parents. His early life was spent among
pleasant surroundings and he received his primary education
at the Swain Public School of that city. While quite young
he entered Fisk University, where he was prominent because
of his splendid scholarship and original ideas. Being
impressed with the idea that Negroes were the natural and
best teachers for the Negro youth, he left that institution
and entered Livingstone College at Salisbury, N. C., at the
head of which was the justly celebrated Dr. J. C. Price.
Here he received the degree of A. B. in 1886.

He was not contented with his academic attainment, but
completed the courses of law and theology, and has
constantly applied himself to the fulfillment of his high
ideal.

After graduating he spent his first year as instructor in
the State Normal at Montgomery, ten years as principal of
the public school, in which he received his training, and
two years as professor of Hebrew and Bible history at Morris
Brown College, Atlanta, Ga. Neither of these nor the minor
fields of usefulness satisfied his ideal, and it was not
until he entered the active ministry that he felt that
satisfaction that comes with fitness. He is now laboring
acceptably as a minister in the A. M. E. Church and is
recognized as one of its most scholarly divines.

The world needs men who will use all of their cultivated
powers to bless and to lift up their fellowmen, who will
dedicate themselves to their fullest energies and their
energies to their people. Such a man is the subject of our
sketch.

In this hour when the sun is just beginning to climb the horizon of a new day in the life of the Negro race, there is an imperative need for close observation and serious, earnest thought. We cannot content ourselves with appearances. We cannot trust the decision reached mainly through our emotional nature. We must bring the whole personal conscious man into our meditation in order that we may see and comprehend that hand of God laid in love upon the Negro of this country.

All problems in a nation's life must be unraveled and solved by that nation. It may take advantage of foreign influences and examples, incorporate and utilize them, but the real work must be done by the nation itself. The same principle obtains in problems affecting individual life or the life of a race. To adjust the Negro in harmonious relationship to American civilization is a question that depends for solution not so much upon the nation as upon the thought and life of the race itself. The Negro seen through the refractory medium of fear and prejudice is regarded as an unhealthy member, yet it is evident that he is a vital member and cannot be removed by the surgeon's scalpel. It is necessary, therefore, that this unhealthy member should be toned up to harmony with the great organism of which he is a part.

"No cross, no crown," is a trite saying, yet it has lost nothing of the beauty of strength of originality, but, rather, it has grown to be the sustaining, inspiring motto of all men as they plod up the hill of life. Great souls do not whine and fret in adversity. The men and women who lay the foundation of great institutions that bless mankind, that fling rainbows on the black bosom of the tempest, do not tremble and falter because of the clouds and mountain peaks, but onward and upward they go until the victory is won. The church came up by the way of the cross. If you would know the path of civilization, look for the great battlefields in the world's history. The greatest battles of reform in church and state have been fought, and the right has conquered. The Negro to-day reaches his hand out and plucks the best fruitage of the highest and grandest age known to man. Even liberty, a plant that grows luxuriantly only when watered with human blood, and rooted in the hearts and affections of a free people, is within the very grasp of the American Negro.

The history of the free American Negro is one continuous and unbroken chain of success. I shall lay the proof of the statement before you as we advance. Did you ever consider the agencies at work for the amelioration of the condition of the Negro in this country? Here and there counter-forces may appear to hinder the too rapid advance of the Negro, but such is the inevitable law of growth. Life is conditioned upon its ability to absorb and assimilate the good and reject and expel the bad. What are these counter-forces, these hostile external relations? Do they tend to destroy the equilibrium of the race, or, rather, do they conduce to its stability and strength? The answer is obvious. The Negro is being sharpened and fashioned here under Providence into a better and nobler manhood. He is suffering no more than all infant races suffered. Slavery and oppression is the school in which races are trained for the enjoyment of the fullest life. God has a purpose in thus dealing with the Negro. The power of his individuality, his highly developed religious nature, his disposition to linger in peace in whatever condition he finds himself; his preserving a truly magnanimous spirit in the very face of an unwarranted and violent opposition, foretell his future history. He is contributing his part toward the industrial development of the South and the religious elevation of the nation. Many of his redeeming qualities are often regarded as evidences of puerility and barbarism.

Character cannot be built in a day, neither in an individual nor in a race, but the Negro is old enough now to be an American citizen. He has reached the years of maturity; his character is formed, and what is good for the most advanced citizen is good for him. He demands equal and exact justice; he will content himself with nothing less. There are divine purposes in each life, in each race and nation. How well these purposes are subserved is left with the individual, the race or the nation.

Afflictions are a wholesome discipline, and the people who would survive the wreck of nations must fight their way up under the inexorable law of God, through trials, through tribulations, through persecution and through blood. I do not wish in any way to condemn the agitation of the hour in the name of justice, and civil political liberty, but rather to urge it in a reasonable way. Agitation, says Wendell Phillips, is the method that puts the school by the side of the ballot box. Agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace and secures progress. Every step she gains is gained forever. Muskets are the weapons of animals. "Agitation is the atmosphere of brains." Sir Robert Peel defines it as the marshaling of the conscience of a nation to mold its law. Injustice cannot stand before exposure and argument and the force of public opinion. No sharper weapon of defense will be required against the wrongs which afflict the South." No race can rise higher than its ideal. To teach the Negro that the evils of his environments will crush him forever, that a servant is and must be servile in disposition and in general habit of mind; that hair and skin and the shape of the head stamp him an inferior, is a doctrine of creation without God in it.

No, let him know and feel that he is a man with the great ever-expanding capacity of a man, and that a step beyond him is Deity. Let him see himself mirrored in Hamlet's sublime outbursts of admiration: "What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in reform, how express and admirable; in action how like an angel in apprehension how like a god." Let him know that he has and will yet realize in his racial life the loftiest ideal of civilization. The Negro has profited immeasurably by the lessons, stern and severe--taught him in this country.

Yet these adverse forces are but ministers of Heaven, awakening his sleeping energies and accelerating his motion towards racial unity and organization. They are stern, at times, inhuman teachers, but so long as the Negro considers himself inferior, so long as a barber discriminates against his father and brother, so long as a waiter feels himself disgraced if he waits upon one of his own race, and the washer-woman if she washes for her sisters, so long as we loathe to serve only our own kith and kin these rough and severe teachers are absolutely indispensable.

The power that permanently lifts a people is within that people, so also the forces that degrade them. You cannot change public opinion by drifting with its current. You cannot present yourself in a slavish attitude and then demand a free man's portion. In that attitude you are neither feared nor loved, but tolerated. You are regarded an excrescent growth on the body of civil society. But it cannot always be thus.

How can this race fail? In this day a million new homes, comfortable homes of cultured black men, are built above the ruins of the slave's log cabin of yesterday. Wilberforce and Morris Brown, Tuskegee, Biddle and Livingstone, each gallantly manned by black men, and thousands of schools dotting the South--all immortalizing Christian philanthropy--are sending forth annually torch-bearers of truth to light the paths the race must pursue in the great civilization of to-day. How well these advantages will subserve his progress, his interest--depend upon the confidence and faith which they will inspire in him toward himself. Responsibility alone educates. Skill comes by constant practice. Any reason alleged that the Negro is not yet prepared for the leadership of his people, whether in the church or institutions of learning or in politics, or whether in any of the various avenues of business or of life, weakens the character of the race, and augments and quickens the prejudice of the enemy both within and without the race.

Our rightful leaders may be comparatively inexperienced, but experience is not acquired by inactivity. It took the Civil War to make Grant. The Northern missionary at the time when it tried the souls of men following in the wake of battle came to break the long night of ignorance that had settled down upon the Negro; but they have done their duty and gone to their reward. God bless them. The Negro is now prepared to take care of himself. Let the child crawl, he will learn to walk. Lift up the men and women of your own race. Let some great, towering example of Negro manhood and thrift and virtue and wisdom point the youth to the pole star of redemption. Trust the Negro now, and the future will take care of itself.

I repeat, if this and coming generations are taught to believe the crushing and slanderous dictum of natural inferiority, what hope is there for the salvation of the race, for a man can rise no higher than his ideal? These great, honest, sincere souls in the race, who show their love as do fathers to their children, rebuke because they love. Moses, the great leader of and lawgiver to the Israelites--a people who gave to the world its noblest song, its widest proverbs, its sweetest music--throws down the Table of the Ten Commandments in righteous indignation when he found them worshiping idols, but the next day his heart, gushing forth love for his people, he found his way in prayer to God, seeking forgiveness for his idolatrous people. This was but an expression of his burning zeal for the safety and progress of his people. So do I regard the scathing criticism given within the race by its own men. All other criticisms are questionable. But grant that the negro likes the idea, worships the idea of white supremacy, with its institutions and customs, vitalized apparently with the energy of violent opposition to his moral and industrial development; I cannot believe that he will always be thus.

Necessity is not merely the mother of invention, but the soul of the law of progress--the genius of civilization. It is here in the closing period of the Nineteenth Century effulgent with the light of all the historic past and marvelous achievements that the Negro must stand or fall. Here in the wilderness where peaks of cultivated mountain-tops in the near distance invite him onward and upward; here under the full ordered sun of the brightest day the world has seen he must work out his salvation with fear and trembling.

TOPIC XXXVI.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO AND HIS POSSIBILITIES.

BY GEO. L. KNOX.

GEORGE L. KNOX.

The subject of this sketch, George L. Knox, was born in
Wilson County, Tenn., September 16, 1841. He was a slave,
spending his early life on the farm and in following the
vocation of shoemaker, which he learned while serving a
master.

In 1862 he joined the Union forces in the Civil War; after
the termination of that terrible crisis he went to
Indianapolis, where he learned the tonsorial art. He did not
stay any great while in that city, but went to Greenfield,
Ind., not many miles away, where he concluded to make his
home. He established himself in business in a small way, and
by dint of persistency, thrift and integrity, such as has
marked his course ever since, he, in a few years, succeeded
in gaining a competence. He took an active part in politics
as a Republican, of which party he has been an unswerving
member up to this time. He won great respect for himself and
family among the whites, and the older Greenfieldians never
visit Indianapolis without dropping in to see George, as
they so familiarly call him.

In 1895 he moved to Indianapolis and finally became the sole
proprietor of the Bates House barber shop, said to be the
most elegant shop in the country. He is a member of the M.
E. Church, which has greatly honored him by sending him as a
delegate-at-large to the general conference in New York in
1888, and to Omaha, Neb., in 1892. He has filled numerous
offices in the local church.

He has been very active and prominent in Republican councils
in his new home. Has served as delegate-at-large to the
National Convention that met in Minneapolis, Minn., 1892,
where Benjamin Harrison was nominated for the Presidency. He
was selected as an Alternate Delegate-at-large to St. Louis,
Mo., in 1896, when President McKinley was nominated. His
voice has been heard all over the state in advocacy of the
principles of his party.

In 1892 he look charge of the Freeman and since that time he
has given the publication considerable attention, the
results of which are shown by its very large and very wide
circulation. The active management of this well-known paper
is in charge of his son, Elwood C., who is rapidly
developing as a man of business and affairs.

History has, since time begun, shown the rise, decline and fall of empires, nations, races and individuals. It is but fair to say that the fate of the Negro has been cast along these lines that were as fixed as the stars in their courses. There have been exceptions to the laws of civil and political change. We have read with joy the triumph of the black man of ancient times, his power in battle, his eminence in letters, his skill in science, his genius as an agriculturist, his patience as a herdsman. In the great cycles of changes, it stands to reason that the wheel of civil and political fortune will again revolve in the Negro's favor.

The history of the black man's past in no wise serves to usurp the functions of present duties. Notwithstanding the fact that there are lowering clouds and muttering thunders, yet there is every indication of a day, to express it boldly, that is coming that will outshine the glittering sun.

'Tis not much that the American Negro asks in this racial warfare; his aid has always been scant and rare; he has been thrown on his own resources, buffeted about until he has become hidebound, as it were, to those circumstances which have been so hurtful to the progress of other nations.

Slavery, while a curse, has been a redeeming institution to the American Negro.

It was that purgatorial step between African slavery and American wealth. It was a necessary evil to prepare us for this most advanced civilization of the world. Since that refining period, the Negro has proven that he has the elements that make him a fit part of this great country. There are those among us who have reached fame in nearly all of the avenues of life. I take this as an index to the total possibilities of the race. The masses, however, are to be reached. The abilities of the few will not answer for the sins of the many. Crispus Attucks, whose blood stained Boston Commons, the black soldiers of the wars of our country down to that memorable engagement at El Caney, will stand for Negro patriotism. Professors Washington, Councill and thousands of others who are holding up the torch of learning will stand for Negro intellect and citizenship, but behind all of these stand the Negro masses that are not sufficiently quickened. These must be prodded up, that they reach the front ranks of the procession. It is but justice to the Negroes, however, to say that the doors of opportunity do not swing wide for them. It ought to be otherwise, and I believe it will be otherwise when a better understanding exists between the races as to their aims and objects. The white man is quick to judge the Negroes by those he meets in his every-day life. Unfortunately, these are too much in evidence, giving color to the charge that all Negroes look alike. The better Negro is not, as a rule, seen; his works, as a rule, are not known; his refinement, his morals and industry are not advertised--hence a wrong notion as to the bent and intent of the race is noised abroad. Prejudice is not confined to one side alone; both races show it to a hurtful extent.

Hon. Robert Allen, one of the most noted criminal lawyers of Texas, said to a jury: "While it is true that we all have some trace of race prejudice against the Negro, which makes it hard for us to do him justice, I can not see why it is so; I know it should not be so. If the Negro owes us something, we also owe the Negro something. It is a mutual debt of gratitude that we owe each other. We as a race are inclined to think that the white man is against us naturally. It is true to a great extent, but we have reasons for thinking that the white man thinks more of the law-abiding, intelligent, taxpaying Negroes than he does of that set that turn up on election day, looking for something. It may be that the white man is jealous of the Negro's success, but I rather think that it is a mistaken notion. It is not toward the better class that he hurls his hatred, but against that class that the Negro himself is learning to fear. Until the colored man changes his position and conditions it will be useless for him to look for that consideration and respect that is accorded his more fortunate brother and fellow-citizen. The Negro must not conceive the idea that he has no friends among those now in supremacy; neither must he entertain the belief that fortune will come to him without effort on his part, or that citizenship will receive the proper recognition without improvement in his morals and political attitude. These are the days of newer and greater things in every conceivable direction. The Negroes are taking but a small part in their creation, glory and profit. If there are men among us who can be the means of bringing better conditions to the great Negro masses, and who can weed out the slow, dull, plodding process of evolution, they should not be denied the opportunity. The masses seem to be hedged about by a wall of indifference. Negroes have such little respect for their own kind that the thing is becoming proverbial. Now they pretend otherwise in self-defense.

You think of some little device for testing race love; try it--it will do the rest. The white people have found that nothing is to be feared of colored people when it comes to helping racial cause. The individual who is loudest in defense of his race generally gets the most generous cursing from Negroes. Newspapers are often held in abomination by Negroes. A Negro editor would be mobbed if he told the truth about Negroes; they say, let the white people do it. Negroes who engage in business of any kind are usually criticised most severely by Negroes who are incapable of engaging in any kind of business for themselves. They are always full of suggestions as to how Mr. "A" and Mr. "B" should conduct or run their business; still they have nothing substantial to offer. Criticisms coming from such a source simply amount to nothing. It is about time for all of us to stop going out of our way, and making occasion, where none exists, to blackguard the Negro, and instead encourage him to industry and correct living and increase our efforts to make him a steadier laborer and better citizen. It is hardly fair to place the whole race under a common condemnation because of the slothfulness and lawlessness of some of its members; it would hardly be fair even if this percentage were larger than it is, and it is hardly worthy of a people to continue nagging at, and seeking to arouse further prejudice against its own race. No man can reach the elevated plane of good character and worth who drags behind him a great load of little and mean dislikes for his fellowman. The possibilities of higher professional standing of colored men and women depend upon the unity and determination of the colored people to push their professional and business men to the front. I appeal to you as a race to cultivate race pride, not race prejudice. Stand up like men and women and cultivate unity and protect and defend each other's interest. Let the elevation of one be the joy of the other, instead of pulling down those who are trying to elevate themselves and the race. The possibilities of colored professional men will be great to the extent that the colored people will allow their greatness. Their destiny is with the colored race. This world is not a place of peace and unmixed happiness. There has always been a struggle of individuals and races for existence and mastery.

It is beginning to dawn on the Negroes generally, that if they would be saved, they must save themselves. The idea that they were to enter at once into all the walks of American life without violent protest has been dissipated through the actual occurrences of the last four decades. It would be too long a story to rehearse the reasons for the seeming undiminished prejudices.

In the interest of truth, the exact truth, we feel free to say, however, that the reasons are not to be charged altogether to one race. There is much that can yet be done on the Negro's side that would tend to put a better face on the matter. There has been undergoing a gradual change in the minds of the thoughtful of both races concerning education and politics as it concerns the Negroes, which has, indeed, upset the first calculations of many, but which, after all, has a tendency to broaden the foundation on which racial progress must rest. The Booker T. Washington theory of education has come to stay; not because he advocates it; not because rich men are sustaining his school, but because he has an institution that meets the requirements, the demands of the day. It is a pity, but true, that the race as a rule has entertained inflated notions about the matter of education. It rather looked forward to an education that vied with the whites, with their centuries of leisure and their myriad routes for employment. Education that unfits the individual to grapple with his surroundings, his environments, is a misfit. The masses of any race do not hope to be educated as its classes do. Those who oppose Mr. Washington's theory advance the argument, but those intimately acquainted with the race must admit that the Negro parent slaves himself to make a fine lady or gentleman out of the daughter or son, whereas the poor white parents hope and endeavor to turn out breadwinners, notwithstanding they have no color conditions to overcome. The lady and gentleman idea, doubtless, was born of the slavery period, when the so-called "great" received flattering attention from master and slave. The desire to be the recipient of such attention, or to have it bestowed on their kind, was the result of association and infantile minds, which have not as yet left the will free to have the children taught to feel that the conditions must determine the education. Happily, we may say that the notion of turning out ladies and gentlemen instead of women and man is on the wane. The trades, the fields, the shops are, as they should now be, given greater consideration. Mr. Washington eternally dwells on the theory of doing something, producing something, and especially do we recommend the field, with its thousand-avenued opportunities. Competition in the products of the field is fair. The school prepares the farmer as well as it does the classic. A company of Negroes, equipped to make a wagon throughout, will at least make living wages, even should the article be sold for a few dollars less in order to make it go. Material is always the smaller item of expense. The public will not question the nationality of the makers. Reputation for good work is always understood to be a condition.

Other enterprises, with a small output of capital, would insure wages if no more. Do Negroes receive fair wages generally? If the Negroes have dreamed that they were to move unscathed in the industrial procession as they found it existing when they obtained their freedom, they have long ere this been rudely awakened. It is not always prejudice with shop owners and proprietors that prevent them from employing Negroes; it is that general mass prejudice that puts an emphatic veto on any such intentions. It resolves itself into a business proposition with him. The store owner allows no philanthropy in his business. He is dictated to by that course which insures him the greatest prosperity. He may not be wholly free from prejudices, but it is not that which determines his actions, it is the prejudice of the masses. He will not sacrifice his existence by opposing it. It is a mistake to wail at the class who is at the mercy of the masses. It is more than probable that they would do different if free to do so.

The question is often asked, can the Negroes work out their own salvation? Will they do it? The answer is: they have it to do or reap the very bitter consequences. The wardship idea is not the part of the American institution as it concerns them. Competition, deadly competition, is the pass word. The white man gives no quarter nor takes any; nothing but sheer force, absorption, extinction, annihilation, or what not in the commercial, industrial competitive sense. Nothing is longer conceded; no special place for the white man, for the black man, but for the man with the greatest pull. White barbers, white waiters, white coachmen, are no longer "curios;" they are persistent in their efforts to establish themselves, having no regard for peculiar races with peculiar occupations. It means that the Negroes must hustle and rustle, create avenues, open new vistas, announce new projects, and thus avoid alms-seeking and poor houses in the end.

Politics has played an undue part in perpetuating prejudices. It has contributed much in the way of wealth to many of the race. It has honored thousands by places of trust, honor and profit; it has been the means of developing the latent abilities of the village Hampdens, Pitts, Gladstones, Websters, Clays and Calhouns. It has been the means of demonstrating fealty to party, and to country. For this a glorious apostrophe is due those who have proven no cravens at any stage of the race's career. If there were but that picture on which to look, the occasion of this very lecture would not be necessary. The triumphs in political, civil, church, scholastic, and army life have been attested by such men as Douglass, Bruce, Washington, Langston, Revels, Walters, Turner, Derrick, Grant, Pinchback, Councill, Lyons, Cheatham, White and Dancy, not to speak of a host of younger men of journalistic careers, that, according to opportunity, compare favorably with those of greater reputations. But beyond all of this stands that grim complement in the way of civil depression, political stagnation, if not utter palsy. The courts have rendered their functions to the mobs in some localities, and all but anarchy sits enthroned. The white man has been held to blame altogether for the reversed picture. It is not quite the case. Slavery left a legacy of hate when it gave away to freedom. The older Negro, better groomed in the art of preserving peace, did not forget the depth from which he sprang. He was ever pouring oil on the troubled water, trying to bring peace out of confusion; as a consequence that period immediately subsequent to the war period was eventful, as it concerned the prospective peace of the races and general prosperity. It is the new Negro, the latter day product, who knows nothing but freedom, freedom modified by native propensities, idleness and a groveling disposition, that is causing the trouble. He does not understand the philosophy of the situation, and cares less--like the Andalusian, his mule, his guitar, and it ends right there. This strenuous American life demands work of every individual in some form; it revolts at the idler.

Disfranchisements owe their rise as much to the indolence and vice of too large a class of Negroes as they do to prejudice on the part of the whites. No respectable class of men, white or black, is going to be governed by a hoodlum element whose bellies are the main objects of their existence. The Indianapolis _Journal_, one of the most influential northern dailies, is right when it says that Booker T. Washington will not be disfranchised; it means further that his class will not be disturbed.

It will concern us but little as to what this country may do to the whites to spur them up to their duties, providing that is their object. The whites are not on trial; it is the Negroes. If the disfranchisements are the means of creating better Negroes they will have builded better than they knew. If they reduce hoodlumism, creating Washingtons, we will not be concerned about the hoodlums of other races. The decline and fall of disfranchisement are the two last acts of the great political drama. The Negroes have it in their power to hasten or prolong the day. What will they do with it? Our lives are measured by that which we are and that which we do. The two elements most essential to a successful life, are character and achievement. Character is the excellence of spirit. It consists not in external deeds, but in the thought, feeling and purpose enshrined in our character. In the sight of God and in the eyes of our own spirit it depends not so much upon the words we speak or the things we do, but the thoughts we think and the feelings we cherish are the purity, power and integrity of our spiritual nature. The first and best object of life is character; what we do may command the admiration of mankind, but to be is better than to do. The measure of our spiritual excellency lies within us. It is in the heart rather than the deed. Beauty, purity and generosity may appear in the external act, while the motive prompting it may be mean, ignoble and selfish. Sweet truth, purity and noble traits of character may be enshrined within the soul and the life be so modest that they may not manifest themselves to the public gaze.

When asked why Antipater was not dressed in purple, Alexander, replying, said: "These men wear their purple on the outside, while Antipater is royal within." It is the soul throbbing with a generous feeling and a noble impulse. The soul is loyal to the claims of truth and virtue. So you can see it is better to be loyal from within than to make a display from the outside. If our race expects to meet the possibilities we must learn what it takes to make true characters. It is not the exhibit from the outside, it is what we are, as we are judged from our actions, by the fruits we bring forth.

Character is the cultivated power; shun the examples of the world. How many persons ever made a careful analysis of their own character or labored to develop the good and suppress the evil? The first object of life is character, but an object no less important is achievement. Character is power, but power is of no use only when it is applied. A cistern of water may contain a latent force enough to do the work of a thousand men or overturn mountains, but only when its latent powers are developed into the form of steam and applied to the arm of iron for the accomplishment of a purpose is it of any good to the world. A man of moral force must apply his power to become a blessing to mankind. Character must go forth into the deed if it accomplishes that whereunto it was sent. Public sentiment is beginning to measure a man, not so much by his culture as what he can do with his culture. It demands efficiency as well as scholastic acquirement. We must understand that the demands are different now from what they were in times gone by. A man must accomplish something if he expects to meet the possibilities that await him and his race. I do not object to education; I rather love education; but how must a man be educated? His feet, his eyes, his hands, his head, must all be educated; and when he is thus educated he is prepared to meet the emergencies that await his race. As a race, thus educated, we can not be hindered from taking position in life as American citizens. We often say that everything is against us, and it seems so; but while this seems the case we must be doing something individually and as a race. The conditions of successful achievements are a correct idea of intelligence, persistence and courageous labor. First we must have purpose in life or, in other words, an object in view. A life that is aimless is a sad spectacle, not so bad perhaps as a ruined life, but not much more admirable. The Hindoos believe that the destiny of mankind was lost in the personality by absorption in the Brahma, and most persons are so aimless in life and so devoid of any higher or nobler purpose that they lose their individuality in the great Brahma of society. A man is an individual, not a mere unit in a mass; a personality, not a mere member of a body politic. Did you ever think what a fearful lack of that which is noble in humanity is contained in the world? It ignores that which is highest and best in human nature--man's freedom and power of self-organization and self-determining influence in the masses of men. We are too apt to fall in the same line or take on the same personalities of those around us for the emancipation from bondage of social errors, evils, spiritual freedom and individual aims. To float with the current is easy; a chip can do that, but a man ought to be able to stem the tide when necessary. Put manhood, womanhood into the world as a spiritual force to mold, purify and elevate. Go forth into an active life with a noble purpose, and attaining it achievement will be of the highest success. The greater issue of the day and the demands of the hour have not been made fundamental in our homes; the duties of the home have not been pressed on the youth until they stand out erect in the possession of a sterling womanhood and manhood, respecting and respected in whatever sphere they find their vocation. Character--character, resting upon the foundation of integrity, has not been as it ought the burning theme of every day's instruction, until it becomes the very soul of every boy and girl. Without character a man had better be as dumb as a fish and as ignorant as a snail. Intelligence, skill, industry, economy, endurance, courage and power will be so many elements of destruction unless character shall dominate the life and be expressed in the actions. My hands and yours have a work to do; my head and yours have a duty to perform. Here is the only solution for the Negro problem. It may not be out of place for me to here emphasize the need of our working in harmony with our environments. Our destiny is American in place and American in spirit. It is nonsense to talk of emigration of the masses. We endured slavery 243 years and stayed here, and we shall still be here when lynch law shall have spent its force, and with us shall be our white brother.

It is the dictate of wisdom to develop friendship, to teach unity, to rivet the ties of fraternal love. It is the policy of annihilation to deepen the chasm between the races. God forbid the day when the white educators of the land shall no longer be willing to spend and be spent for the moral and intellectual uplift of our masses. Let us be done with sowing the seed of bitterness; we can only reap the whirlwind of destruction. Because an inflamed sentiment drove black miners from Pana, Illinois, every community is not repellent. Because a man rose in the Christian Endeavor meetings in Detroit and tried to cast bad reflections on our race, every Christian Endeavorer is not our enemy. We shall be wise when we find our friends of whatever locality, of whatever faith, of whatever rank, or of whatever race, and pour into their open bosoms the full measure of our confidence. So shall we hasten the day of our final disenthrallment There is one thing the Negro must be proud of before he can reach the height and possibilities that await him, he must learn to be proud of his race and color. No race can be successful until it does these things. I would not change my color, because I am proud of it. If there is any one thing that will clog the wheels of our material progress, it is the fact that some of us try to overreach ourselves. We should not become dazzled at the splendor and magnificence of those who have had hundreds of years to make this country what it is to-day. No man is a success who has not a fixed sign post, an aim in life to attain unto. A man should get that amount of education that will best fit him for the performance and attainment of his object in life. Too much Greek will do you no good with a white apron on. I do not say that you should not study Greek if you intend to fill a chair in some institution of learning. I do not say that you should not read medicine if you intend to become a physician, or law if you desire to follow the profession. If we watch our chances, and take timely advantage of the opportunities offered us, our race will greatly improve and we will be wage workers, skilled artisans, and eventually land owners and a wealthy class of citizens of this country. I advise you to learn trades; learn to become mechanics. We have the ability and capacity to reach the highest point, and even to go further in the march of progress than has been made by any people.

TOPIC XXXVII.

IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM THE AWFUL TRAGEDY.