Booker Washington arose. It was, of course, just the moment for him. The multitude, shaken out of its usual Symphony concert calm, quivered with an excitement that was not suppressed. A dozen times it had sprung to its feet to cheer and wave and hurrah, as one person. When this man of culture and voice and power, as well as dark skin, began with the biblical poetic touch in his first words, and quickly uttered the names of Andrew and of Stearns, feeling began to mount. You could see tears glisten in the eyes of the soldiers and civilians on the platform. When the orator turned to the colored soldiers on the platform, to the color bearer of Fort Wagner, who smiling bore still the flag he never lowered, even when wounded, and said: ‘To you, to the scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honored this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander is not dead. Though Boston erected no monument, and history recorded no story, in you and the loyal race you represent, Robert Gould Shaw would have a monument which time could not wear away,’ then came the climax of the emotion of the day and the hour. It was Roger Wolcott as well as the Governor of Massachusetts, the individual representative of the people’s sympathy, as well as the chief magistrate, who had sprung first to his feet and cried, ‘Three cheers to Booker T. Washington.’”

One incident, however, I note that the newspapers do not describe fully. Most of my readers will perhaps know that Sergeant William H. Carney, of New Bedford, Mass., was the brave colored officer who at the battle of Fort Wagner, was the color bearer and held on to the American flag. Notwithstanding the fact that a large proportion of his regiment was slain, he escaped in some miraculous manner and exclaimed, after the battle was over, “The old flag never touched the ground.”

Before I made this address I had never met Sergeant Carney. Sergeant Carney, however, together with a remnant of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, was present on a front seat, and he held in his hand the same flag which he had held on to safely during the battle of Fort Wagner. When I turned to address the colored regiment and referred to Sergeant Carney, he rose as if by instinct with the flag in his hands. It has been my privilege to witness a good many satisfactory and rather sensational demonstrations in connection with several of my public addresses, but in dramatic effect I have never seen nor experienced anything that equaled the impression made on the audience when Sergeant Carney arose. For a good many minutes the audience seemed to entirely lose control of itself and patriotic feeling was at a high pitch.

In November, 1897, the Tuskegee Institute received its first recognition from a member of the President’s cabinet, in the way of a visit from Hon. James A. Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. A year previous to the visit of Secretary Wilson, I began making efforts, in connection with friends of the institution, to raise money enough to erect a building to be devoted wholly to the teaching of agriculture, horticulture, dairying, fruit-gardening, market gardening, etc. About $10,000 was secured for the erection of this building. Secretary Wilson, whom I had met in the West some months before, promised me that he would try to be present at the formal opening of this building, and he kept his promise. Secretary Wilson was accompanied from Washington by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, the agent of the John F. Slater Fund, and was met at Tuskegee by Gov. Joseph F. Johnston and a large crowd of colored and white citizens. In addition to the persons named there were present, Ex-Gov. Northern, of Georgia, and the State Superintendent of Education of Georgia, Major Glenn. The occasion was widely published throughout the country and did much to place the work of the school prominently before the people. The opening of this building marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the Tuskegee Institute as since that time we have emphasized the teaching of agriculture to our students. During the earlier years of the school we found it difficult to get students to take much interest in our farm work. They wanted to go into the mechanical trades instead.

After the opening of this agricultural building and the securing of Mr. Geo. W. Carver, a thoroughly educated man in all matters pertaining to agriculture, the Agricultural Department has been put upon such a high plane that the students no longer look upon agriculture as a drudgery, and many of our best students are anxious to enter the Agricultural Department. We have demands from all parts of the South for men who have finished our courses in agriculture, dairying, etc., in fact, the demands are far greater than we can supply. I often wonder why it is, there being such excellent openings in these directions, that so few of our young men are willing to prepare themselves for these valuable and responsible positions.

I shall not occupy much more of the reader’s time in detailing accounts of my various speechmaking tours; were I to do so, a good part of this volume would be occupied in a description of them. Nearly one-half of my time is spent away from Tuskegee addressing audiences of various kinds in different parts of the country; sometimes in the South, other times in the Middle or Eastern States, and going as far West in many cases as Denver and Omaha. There is never a day that I do not receive a number of invitations urging me to go to some section of the country to make an address. When I am away from Tuskegee the portion of the time that is not spent in making addresses in behalf of Tuskegee is spent in seeing individuals. The latter work I consider very important and far-reaching.

During the winter of 1898 a State Constitutional Convention assembled in New Orleans, La., for the purpose of passing a law which would result in disfranchising a large proportion of the Negro voters. Some portion of the Convention were very anxious to pass a law that would result in the disfranchising of the Negro voters without disfranchising any portion of the white voters. The passing of any such law seemed to me so manifestly unjust that I addressed an open letter to the Convention, which read as follows:

“To the Louisiana State Constitutional Convention:

“In addressing you this letter I know that I am running the risk of appearing to meddle with something that does not concern me. But since I know that nothing but love for our beautiful southland, which I hold as near my heart as any of you can, and a sincere love for every black man and white man within her borders, is the only thing actuating me to write, I am willing to be misjudged, if need be, if I can accomplish a little good.

“But I do not believe that you, gentlemen of the Convention, will misinterpret my motives. What I say will, I believe, be considered in the same earnest spirit in which I write.

“I am no politician; on the other hand, I have always advised my race to give attention to acquiring property, intelligence and character, as the necessary bases of good citizenship, rather than to mere political agitation. But the question upon which I write is out of the region of ordinary politics; it affects the civilization of two races, not for to-day alone, but for a very long time to come; it is up in the region of duty of man to man, of Christian to Christian.

“Since the war, no State has had such an opportunity to settle for all time the race question, so far as it concerns politics, as is now given in Louisiana. Will your Convention set an example to the world in this respect? Will Louisiana take such high and just ground in respect to the Negro that no one can doubt that the South is as good a friend to the Negro as he possesses elsewhere? In all this, gentlemen of the Convention, I am not pleading for the Negro alone, but for the morals, the higher life of the white man as well. For the more I study this question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much a question as to what the white man will do with the Negro, as to what the Negro will do with the white man’s civilization.

“The Negro agrees with you that it is necessary to the salvation of the South that restriction be put upon the ballot. I know that you have two serious problems before you; ignorant and corrupt government on the one hand, and on the other a way to restrict the ballot so that control will be in the hands of the intelligent, without regard to race. With the sincerest sympathy with you in your efforts to find a way out of the difficulty, I want to suggest that no State in the South can make a law that will provide an opportunity or temptation for an ignorant white man to vote, and withhold the same opportunity from an ignorant colored man, without injuring both men. No State can make a law that can thus be executed, without dwarfing for all time the morals of the white man in the South. Any law controlling the ballot, that is not absolutely just and fair to both races, will work more permanent injury to the whites than to the blacks.

“The Negro does not object to an education or property test, but let the law be so clear that no one clothed with State authority will be tempted to perjure and degrade himself, by putting one interpretation upon it for the white man and another for the black man. Study the history of the South, and you will find that where there has been the most dishonesty in the matter of voting, there you will find to-day the lowest moral condition of both races. First, there was the temptation to act wrongly with the Negro’s ballot. From this it was an easy step to dishonesty with the white man’s ballot, to the carrying of concealed weapons, to the murder of a Negro, and then to the murder of a white man and then to lynching. I entreat you not to pass such a law as will prove an eternal millstone about the neck of your children.

“No man can have respect for government and officers of the law when he knows, deep down in his heart, that the exercise of the franchise is tainted with fraud.

“The road that the South has been compelled to travel during the last thirty years has been strewn with thorns and thistles. It has been as one groping through the long darkness into the light. The time is not very far distant when the world will begin to appreciate the real character of the burden that was imposed upon the South when 4,500,000 ex-slaves, ignorant and impoverished, were given the franchise. No people had before been given such a problem to solve. History had blazed no path through the wilderness that could be followed. For thirty years we have wandered in the wilderness. We are beginning to get out. But there is but one road out, and all makeshifts, expedients, ‘profit and loss calculations,’ but lead into the swamps, quicksands, quagmires and jungles. There is a highway that will lead both races out into the pure, beautiful sunshine, where there will be nothing to hide and nothing to explain, where both races can grow strong and true and useful in every fibre of their being. I believe that your convention will find this highway; that it will enact a fundamental law which will be absolutely just and fair to white and black alike.

“I beg of you, further, that in the degree that you close the ballot box against the ignorant, that you open the school house. More than one-half of the people of your State are Negroes. No State can long prosper when a large percentage of its citizenship is in ignorance and poverty, and has no interest in government. I beg of you that you do not treat us as an alien people. We are not aliens. You know us; you know that we have cleared your forests, tilled your fields, nursed your children and protected your families. There is an attachment between us that few understand. While I do not presume to advise you, yet it is in my heart to say that if your convention would do something that would prevent, for all time, strained relations between the two races, and would permanently settle the matter of political relations in one State in the South, at least, let the very best educational opportunities be provided for both races; and add to this the enactment of an election law that shall be incapable of unjust discrimination, at the same time providing that in proportion as the ignorant secure education, property and character, they will be given the right of citizenship. Any other course will take from one-half of your citizens interest in the State, and hope and ambition to become intelligent producers and tax-payers—to become useful and virtuous citizens. Any other course will tie the white citizens of Louisiana to a body of death.

“The Negroes are not unmindful of the fact that the white people of your State pay the greater portion of the school taxes, and that the poverty of the State prevents it from doing all that it desires for public education; yet, I believe you will agree with me, that ignorance is more costly to the State than education; that it will cost Louisiana more not to educate the Negroes than it will to educate them. In connection with a generous provision for public schools, I believe that nothing will so help my own people in your State as provision at some institution for the highest academic and normal training in connection with thorough training in agriculture, mechanics and domestic economy. The fact is, that 90 per cent. of our people depend upon the common occupations for their living, and outside of the cities, 85 per cent. depend upon agriculture for support. Notwithstanding this, our people have been educated since the war in everything else but the very things that most of them live by. First-class training in agriculture, horticulture, dairying, stock raising, the mechanical arts and domestic economy, will make us intelligent producers, and not only help us to contribute our proportion as taxpayers, but will result in retaining much money in the State that now goes out for that which can be produced in the State. An institution that will give this training of the hand, along with the highest mental culture, will soon convince our people that their salvation is in

the ownership of property, industrial and business development, rather than mere political agitation.

“The highest test of civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up. Surely no people ever had a greater chance to exhibit the highest Christian fortitude and magnanimity than is now presented to the people of Louisiana. It requires little wisdom or statesmanship to repress, to crush out, to retard the hopes and aspirations of a people, but the highest and most profound statesmanship is shown in guiding and stimulating a people so that every fibre in the body, mind and soul shall be made to contribute in the highest degree to the usefulness and nobility of the State. It is along this line that I pray God the thoughts and activities of your Convention be guided.”

This letter was sent out through the Associated Press widely through the country. The leading papers of New Orleans as well as many parts of the South indorsed my position editorially. The law that was finally passed by the Convention, while not as bad as when first presented to the Convention, was not by any means the law that should have been enacted. In June of the same year I delivered the annual address before the Regents of the University of New York, at Albany, and was the guest while in that city of the Hon. Mr. McElroy, brother-in-law to the late President Chester A. Arthur. It was the original plan to have this address in the Senate Chamber, but the audience was so large that the plan was changed, and the meeting was held in one of the large churches in the city.

CHAPTER XV.

CUBAN EDUCATION AND THE CHICAGO PEACE JUBILEE ADDRESS.

Perhaps no single agency has been more potent during the last ten years in assisting the Negro to better his condition than the John F. Slater Fund, to which I have already referred. The trustees of this fund are among the most successful and generous business men in the country, and they are using the fund very largely as a means of pointing the proper direction of the education of the Negro. During 1898 the Slater Fund trustees made an appropriation which was to be used in enabling Mrs. Washington and myself to go into all of the Southern cities and deliver lectures to our people, especially in the large cities, speaking to them plainly about their present material, financial, physical, educational and moral needs, and trying to point out a way by which they could improve. We spent a portion of the summer of 1898 in going into cities in North and South Carolina. Meetings were held in Greensboro, Wilmington, Columbia and Charleston, and everywhere we spoke the houses were packed full. We spoke four or five times in Charleston, and the audience rooms were crowded at every meeting with representatives of both races. We have the satisfaction of feeling that these meetings accomplished a great deal of good, and everywhere we were overwhelmed with thanks from the people for our words. The newspapers gave us all the space we desired and helped not only through their news columns, but were generous in their editorial mention.

When the Spanish-American war closed there was great rejoicing throughout the country and many cities vied with each other in their effort to celebrate the return of peace on a scale that would command the attention of the whole country. The city of Chicago, however, seemed to have been the most successful in these celebrations. Chicago was fortunate in securing the President of the United States, together with nearly all the members of his cabinet and various foreign ministers and other important officials. This gave the celebration in Chicago a national importance such as attached to the celebration of no other city which held one.

I was asked by President William R. Harper, of the University of Chicago, chairman of the committee on invitations, to deliver one of the addresses in Chicago. I accepted the invitation and delivered, in fact, two addresses during the Jubilee week in Chicago. The principal address which I delivered on this occasion was on Sunday evening, October 16. The meeting was held in the Chicago Auditorium, and was the largest audience that I have ever addressed in any part of the country. Besides speaking in the main auditorium, I addressed, on the same evening, two overflow audiences held in different portions of the city. It is said there were 16,000 people in the Auditorium, and it seems to me there were at least 16,000 on the outside trying to get into the building. In fact, without the aid of a policeman, it was impossible for any one to get anywhere near the entrance. The meeting was attended by President William McKinley, the members of his cabinet, foreign ministers and a large number

of army and navy officers, many of whom had distinguished themselves during the Spanish-American war. The speakers, besides myself, on Sunday evening, were, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Father Thomas P. Hodnett and Dr. John H. Barrows.

The speech which I delivered on Sunday evening was as follows:

“Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

“On an important occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to Him to pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these memorable words fell from his lips: ‘And Mary hath chosen the better part.’ This was the supreme test in the case of an individual. It is the highest test in the case of a race or nation. Let us apply the test to the American Negro.

“In the life of our Republic, when he has had the opportunity to choose, has it been the better or worse part? When in the childhood of this nation the Negro was asked to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as did the aborigines, he chose the better part, that which perpetuated the race.

“When in 1776 the Negro was asked to decide between British oppression and American independence, we find him choosing the better part and Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed his blood on State street, Boston, that the white American might enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained in slavery.

“When in 1814 at New Orleans, the test of patriotism came again, we find the Negro choosing the better part, and Gen. Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no heart was more loyal and no arm more strong and useful in defense of righteousness.

“When the long and memorable struggle came between union and separation, when he knew that victory on one hand meant freedom, and defeat on the other his continued enslavement, with a full knowledge of the portentous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and temptation came to burn the home and massacre wife and children during the absence of the master in battle, and thus insure his liberty, we find him choosing the better part, and for four long years protecting and supporting the helpless, defenceless ones entrusted to his care.

“When in 1863 the cause of the union seemed to quiver in the balance, and there was doubt and distrust, the Negro was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Hudson and Fort Pillow testifies most eloquently again that the Negro chose the better part.

“When a few months ago the safety and honor of the republic were threatened by a foreign foe, when the wail and anguish of the oppressed from a distant isle reached his ears, we find the Negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that discriminated against him in his own country, again choosing the better part—the part of honor and humanity. And if you would know how he deported himself in the field at Santiago, apply for an answer to Shafter and Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the Negro faced death and laid down his life in defense of honor and humanity, and when you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American war—heard it from the lips of Northern soldiers, and Southern soldiers, from ex-abolitionists and ex-masters—then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country.

“In the midst of all the complaints of suffering in the camp and field, suffering from fever and hunger, where is the official or citizen that has heard a word of complaint from the lips of a black soldier? The only request that has come from the Negro soldier has been that he might be permitted to replace the white soldier when heat and malaria began to decimate the ranks of the white regiment, and to occupy at the same time the post of greatest danger.

“This country has been most fortunate in her victories. She has twice measured arms with England and has won. She has met the spirit of rebellion within her borders and was victorious. She has met the proud Spaniard and he lays prostrate at her feet. All this is well, it is magnificent. But there remains one other victory for Americans to win—a victory as far-reaching and important as any that has occupied our army and navy. We have succeeded in every conflict, except the effort to conquer ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices. We can celebrate the era of peace in no more effectual way than by a firm resolve on the part of the Northern men and Southern men, black men and white men, that the trenches that we together dug around Santiago shall be the eternal burial place of all that which separates us in our business and civil relations. Let us be as generous in peace as we have been brave in battle. Until we thus conquer ourselves, I make no empty statement when I say that we shall have a cancer gnawing at the heart of the republic that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or within.

“In this presence and on this auspicious occasion, I want to present the deep gratitude of nearly ten millions of my people to our wise, patient and brave Chief Executive for the generous manner in which my race has been recognized during this conflict. A recognition that has done more to blot out sectional and racial lines than any event since the dawn of our freedom.

“I know how vain and impotent is all abstract talk on this subject. In your efforts to ‘rise on stepping stones of your dead selves,’ we of the black race shall not leave you unaided. We shall make the task easier for you by acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy, intelligence and character, by each making himself of individual worth in his own community. We shall aid you in this as we did a few days ago at El Caney and Santiago, when we helped you to hasten the peace we here celebrate. You know us; you are not afraid of us. When the crucial test comes, you are not ashamed of us. We have never betrayed or deceived you. You know that as it has been, so it will be. Whether in war or in peace, whether in slavery or in freedom, we have always been loyal to the Stars and Stripes.”

I shall not attempt to burden the reader with newspaper comments on this address, but shall content myself with giving a description that appeared at the time in the Chicago Times Herald.

“Booker T. Washington’s address at the Jubilee Thanksgiving services at the Auditorium contained one of the most eloquent tributes ever paid to the loyalty and valor of the colored race, and at the same time, was one of the most powerful appeals for justice to a race which has always chosen the better part.

“The speaker, who is the recognized leader of the colored race, reviewed the history of his people from the childhood of the nation to the present day. He pictured the Negro choosing slavery rather than extinction; recalled Crispus Attucks, shedding his blood at the beginning of the American revolution that white Americans might be free, while black Americans remained in slavery; rehearsed the conduct of the Negroes with Jackson at New Orleans; drew a vivid and pathetic picture of the Southern slaves protecting and supporting the families of their masters while the latter were fighting to perpetuate black slavery; recounted the bravery of colored troops at Port Hudson and Forts Wagner and Pillow, and praised the heroism of the black regiments that stormed El Caney and Santiago to give freedom to the enslaved people of Cuba, forgetting for the time being the unjust discrimination that law and custom make against them in their own country.

“In all of these things the speaker declared that his race had chosen the better part. And then he made his eloquent appeal to the consciences of white Americans: ‘When you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American war, heard it from the lips of Northern soldier and Southern soldier, from ex-abolitionists and ex-masters, then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country, should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country.’

“When Americans conquer race prejudice, the speaker declared, they will have won a victory greater than can be obtained through the achievements of arms. He likened the effect of race discrimination, especially in the Southern States, to a cancer gnawing at the heart of the republic, ‘as dangerous as an attack from an army within or without.’

“This is not a threat, but a warning, and one to which the white race should give heed. The only solution of the ‘Negro problem’ which will remove all menace to the tranquillity and interest of the country, is a universal recognition of the Negro’s civil rights. When law and custom cease to degrade him and place obstacles in the way of his advancement; when we cease by unjust discrimination to fill his heart with despair and hatred, but instead, give him hope and aid in his efforts to fully emancipate himself, he will solve the problem now fraught with vexation and danger.

“The race is fortunate in having a Booker T. Washington and other comparatively great men as living evidence of what education and the development of natural faculties have accomplished for the colored man, as well as what can be accomplished in the future.

“Only through the defeat of race prejudice can the colored man hope to acquire his full proportions as a citizen. And in conquering race prejudice, the white race will achieve a greater victory than both races won in the late war. They will be choosing the better part.”

The portion of the speech which seemed to raise the wildest and most sensational enthusiasm was the part where I thanked the President for his recognition of the Negro in his appointments during the Spanish-American war. The President occupied a seat in a box to the right of the platform. When I addressed the President I turned toward him, and as I closed the sentence thanking him for his generosity the whole audience arose and cheered for some time. The cheering continued with waving of hats, handkerchieves and canes until the President himself arose in his box and bowed to me two or three times. This kindled anew the enthusiasm and the demonstration was almost beyond description.

I shall not go into all the details relating to the attention which was shown me during this three days’ visit to Chicago. I would say that from the Mayor of the city down every official connected with the Peace Jubilee seemed to give me the greatest attention and completely put me at my ease on every occasion. I was given a position on the President’s stand during the review of the parade and dined twice with the President’s party.

My address was reported in all portions of the country through the associated press dispatches. One portion of it seemed to have been misunderstood, however, by the Southern press and some of the Southern newspapers took exception to some things that I said and criticised me rather strongly for what seemed to them a reflection upon the South. These criticisms continued for several weeks, when I received a letter from the editor of the Age-Herald, published in Birmingham, Alabama, asking me if I would say just what I meant to say in my address, and I replied in the following letter, which seemed to put an end to all criticism on the part of the Southern press and to satisfy the South:

“To the Editor of the ‘Age-Herald:’

“Replying to your communication of recent date regarding my Chicago speech, I would say that I have made no change whatever in my attitude towards the South or in my idea of the elevation of the colored man. I have always made it a rule to say nothing before a Northern audience that I would not say before a Southern audience. I do not think it necessary to go into any extended explanation of what my position is, for if my seventeen years of work here in the heart of the South is not a sufficient explanation I do not see how mere words can explain. Each year more and more confirms me in the wisdom of what I have advocated and tried to do.

“In Chicago, at the Peace Jubilee, in discussing the relations of the races, I made practically the same plea that I did in Nashville this summer at the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor, where I spoke almost wholly to a Southern white audience. In Chicago I made the same plea that I did in a portion of my address at the opening of the Atlanta Exposition, for the blotting out of race prejudice in ‘commercial and civil relations.’ What is termed social recognition is a question I never discuss. As I said in my Atlanta address, ‘The wisest among my race understand that the agitations of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.’

God knows that both—we, of the black race and the white race—have enough problems pressing upon us for solution without obtruding a social question, out of which nothing but harm would come.

“In my addresses I very seldom refer to the question of prejudice, because I realize that it is something to be lived down, not talked down, but at that great meeting which marked, in a large measure, the end of all sectional feeling, I thought it an opportune time to ask for the blotting out of racial prejudice as far as possible in ‘business and civil relations.’

“In a portion of my address which was not sent out by the Associated Press, I made the request that the Negro be given every opportunity in proportion as he makes himself worthy. At Chicago I did not refer wholly to the South or to the Southern white people. All who are acquainted with the subject will agree that prejudice exists in the North as well as in the South. I naturally laid emphasis upon the South because, as we all know, that, owing to the large proportion of blacks to whites in the South, it is in the South mainly that the problem is to be worked out. Whenever I discuss the question of race prejudice I never do so solely in the interest of the Negro; I always take higher ground. If a black man hates a white man it narrows and degrades his soul. If a white man hates a black man it narrows and degrades his soul.

“Both races will grow stronger in morals and prosper in business just in proportion as in every manly way they cultivate the confidence and friendship of each other. Outbreaks of race feelings and strained relations not only injure business, but retard the moral and religious growth of both races, and it is the duty among the intelligent of both races to cultivate patience and moderation.

“Each day convinces me that the salvation of the Negro in this country will be in his cultivation of habits of thrift, economy, honesty, the acquiring of education, Christian character, property and industrial skill.”

I have always made it a rule never to say anything in an address in the North that I would not say in the South. I have no sympathy with any policy which would leave one to suppose that he can help matters in the South by merely abusing the Southern white man. What the South wants is help and not abuse. Of course, when individuals, communities or states in the South do a wrong thing they should be criticised, but it should be done in a dignified, generous manner. Mere abuse of a man because he is white or because he is black amounts to nothing and ends in harm. I have said more than once, and I here repeat it, that I can sympathize as much with a white man as with a black man; I can sympathize as much with a Southern white man as with a Northern white man. I do not propose that my nature shall be lowered by my yielding to the temptation to hate a man because he is white or because he happens to live in the South. The Negro who hates a white man is usually little and narrow. The white man who hates a Negro is usually little and narrow. Both races will grow strong, useful and generous in proportion as they learn to love each other instead of hating each other. The Negro race, of all races in the world, should be the last to cultivate the habit of hating an individual on account of his race. He will gain more by being generous than by being narrow. If I can do anything to assist a member of the white race I feel just as happy as if I had done something to assist a member of the Negro race. I think I have learned that the best way to lift one’s self up is to help some one else.

While writing upon this subject, it is a pleasure for me to add that in all my contact with the white people of the South, I have never received a single personal insult. The white people in and near Tuskegee, to an especial degree, seem to count it a privilege to show me all the respect within their power, and often go out of their way to do this.

Not very long ago, I was making a journey between Dallas, Texas, and Houston. In some way it became known in advance that I was on the train. At nearly every station at which the train stopped, numbers of white people, including in most cases the officials of the town, came aboard and introduced themselves and thanked me heartily for the work that I was trying to do for the South.

On another occasion, in Georgia, I found in a Pullman two ladies from Boston whom I knew well. These ladies being ignorant of the customs of the South, insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some hesitation I consented. One of them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served to the three of us. When I found that supper had been ordered, I tried to excuse myself, but the ladies insisted that I must eat with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to myself: “I am in for it now, sure.”

At last the meal being over, I went into the smoking-room, where most of the men by that time were. In the meantime, however, it had become known in some way throughout the car who I was. When I went into the smoking-room nearly every man came up and introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the whole South.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE VISIT OF PRESIDENT WM. McKINLEY TO TUSKEGEE.

Soon after starting the Tuskegee Institute I earnestly desired to have the President of the United States visit it. The chance of securing such a visit seemed to be so unattainable that I dared not mention it to my nearest friend; still, I resolved that such a visit should be made. The more I thought of it, the more I became convinced that there was but one way to secure the attention and the interest of the President of the United States, and that was by making the institution so useful to the country that the attention of the President would necessarily be attracted to it. From the first day that the school was opened, I tried to impress upon teachers and students the fact that by reason of our former condition of servitude, and prejudice against our color, we must try to perform every duty entrusted to us, not only as well, but better than any one else, so as to receive proper consideration. To-day this is the spirit which pervades the entire school. We strive to have our students understand that no possible prejudice can explain away the influence of a Negro living in a nicely painted house, with well-kept flower yards, gardens, farm, poultry and live stock and who is at the same time a large tax-payer in his county.

After nearly eighteen years of work and struggle, I was more than ever determined to secure a visit from the highest official of my country, not only that he and the members of his cabinet might see what ex-slaves had accomplished in the way of building an institution of learning, but also for the sake of the encouragement that such a recognition from the Nation’s Chief Executive would give the whole Negro race in America.

In October, 1898, I saw it mentioned in several newspapers that President McKinley was likely to visit the Atlanta Peace Jubilee, in December. I went at once to Washington, and was not there a great while before I found my way to the White House. There was quite a crowd of people in the various reception rooms, many of whom had been waiting some time for an audience with the President. The size of the crowd somewhat discouraged me, and I concluded that my chances of seeing the President were very slim. I at once sought the Secretary to the President, Mr. J. Addison Porter, and very frankly told him my errand. Mr. Porter kindly sent my card in to the President, and, in a few minutes, Mr. McKinley permitted me to see him. After a most interesting conversation, regarding the condition of the colored people in the South, in which he manifested his interest in their development, the President told me that, in case he saw his way clear to go to Atlanta, in December, he would try hard to go to Tuskegee, which is a hundred and forty miles beyond Atlanta. At that time he did not make his promise final, but asked me to see him later.

By the middle of the following month, the President had definitely promised to attend the Peace Jubilee at Atlanta, Ga., December 14 and 15. I went again to see the President. This time Mr. Charles W. Hare, a white citizen of Tuskegee, accompanied me, and assisted in showing the President the importance of making such a visit. While the question was being discussed with cabinet officers, one of the oldest and most influential white citizens of Atlanta, one who had been a large slave-holder and who is now an active Democrat, stepped into the room. The President asked this gentleman’s opinion of the wisdom of his making this visit, and as to his going one hundred and forty miles out of the way to visit such an institution. This Atlanta citizen replied that it was the thing to do. The reply was made without hesitation. Between my two visits, that active and most constant friend of the Negro race, Dr. J. L. M. Curry, agent of the Peabody and Slater Funds, hearing of my desire to have a visit from the President, made a personal call upon Mr. McKinley without my knowledge, and urged him to make the visit. I will not prolong the story, except to add that before the day of my last visit was over, the President definitely decided to spend the greater part of the day of December 16 in visiting the Tuskegee Institute. In connection with this visit I had to call upon the President three or four times at the White House, and at all times I found him kind, patient and most cordial, apparently forgetful of the differences in our history. The time of my last visit was but a few days after the election riots of that year in North and South Carolina, when the colored people throughout the country were feeling gloomy and discouraged. I observed by the tenor of the President’s remarks that he felt keenly and seriously for the race. Notwithstanding a large number of people were waiting to see him, he detained me some twenty minutes, discussing the condition and needs of my race in the South. When I told him that I thought a visit from the President of the United States at that time to a Negro institution would do more than almost anything else to encourage the race and show to the world in what esteem he held the race, he replied that he was determined to show