185 LS Is the Negro Making Good? Or, Have Fifty Years of History Vindicated the Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln in Issuing the Emancipation Proclamation ? By CHARLES EDWARD LOCKE, D. D. Author of " Freedom s Next War for Humanity," "Eddyism," etc. Pastor First Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, California. Printed for the Author by THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN CINCINNATI Copyright, 1913, by CHARLES EDWARD LOCKE AUTHOR S NOTE The following discussion was delivered as an address to an enthusiastic audience of sev eral thousand persons in Los Angeles, Cal. Because of multiplied requests, the author has consented to have it appear in this form for general circulation. The author has undis guised and affectionate interest in the colored people and their problems and prospects, and confidently believes that the Negro race is des tined to realize the highest moral and intel lectual and spiritual ideals. The author is under obligation to the secre taries of the Freedmen s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church for urging the publication of this booklet. This great or ganization and similar societies in other de nominations are doing more than all other agencies combined for the education and the elevation of the Negro. 265453 FOREWORD National salvation, like the saving of the individual, depends upon the ability to see and rectify mistakes. Slavery was a mistake. The Emancipation Proclamation began its rectifica tion, but it did not finish it. The doing of that great task falls to-day on the sons of the freedmen, as well as on the former master class. Surely if those who suffered are doing their part, the Nation can not hesitate. This brochure attempts to show that, whatever else may be true, the American Negro at least is doing all that could be expected toward the final emancipation of America. New York City. W. E. B. Du Bois. Is the Negro Making Good ? INTRODUCTION hurrying years are bringing us to an increasing number of centennial and semi centennial celebrations of important events in the formative period of our National life. The first day of January, 1913, is most significant as being the fiftieth anniversary of the issuing of one of the greatest proclamations in all the romantic and thrilling annals of liberty. That providential act not only gave freedom to four millions of black people in America, but it was simultaneous with the freedom of more than fifteen millions of serfs in Russia; and was the initial step which resulted in the manu mission of all slaves within the boundaries of all Christian countries. Since this is one of the great chapters in "the Bible of the race that is being writ," it should not be unprofitable for us to inquire whether the subsequent history of these fifty years has fully vindicated the wisdom of Mr. Lincoln and his contemporaneous patriots. While the avowed purpose of the Civil War 7 MAKING GOOD? was to suppress a rebellion and dethrone the seditious principle of State rights, yet it was confidently expected by many patriots in the North that it would in some way result in the abolition of the slave traffic in America. As the war progressed, Mr. Lincoln was repeatedly importuned to take the initiative and use his prerogative in declaring freedom to the Negro. He wisely kept his own coun sels and waited for the leadings of the God of nations. When, in September, 1862, he was urged by a company of Chicago clergymen to precipitate his action, he replied: "I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that, if it is possible that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed that He would reveal it to me; for it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter." President Lincoln had secretly registered a vow that when the Confederate army was driven out of Maryland he would then issue a proclamation of emancipation to the Negro. When that event occurred, he called his Cabinet together and said to them, as he sub mitted a draft of the Proclamation to them : "Now I am going to fulfill the promise I made to myself and my God. I have got you to gether to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for myself." 8 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? "Of One Blood" Athens was like an emerald in a setting of alabaster when Paul stood upon the flinty plat form of Mars Hill and made his incomparable appeal to the Areopagites. True, no Church was established in Athens as at Philippi and Corinth, yet an epoch was turned in the ro mantic history of Greece. The surges of a fretted paganism dashed against the rock upon which the fearless apostle delivered his chal lenge, but the restless waves reached that day their highest tide. The recession of Hellenism had begun; Solon and Plato ebbing into his tory; Moses and Paul carried by the flood of progress into places of imperishable power. Among the startling propositions of the ser mon which resulted in the awakening of Dio- nysius and Damaris was the statement, "God hath made of one blood all nations of men" a matter much disputed before and since that eventful day, but manifestly a doctrine of Holy Scripture. Malachi speaks for a large com pany: "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?" With malicious persistence efforts have been put forth by materialism to invalidate Scripture by endeavoring to disprove and im pugn the teachings of the Bible. But as in numberless instances the Bible has anticipated 9 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? science, so in this case. Because of striking physical likenesses, and analogies in language, the mental unity of men, and the manner in which the peoples of the earth are grouped, there is to-day a careful scientific deduction that man is not autochthonic, but that all the races of men have sprung from a central origin. For this position, Agassiz and Hugh Miller earnestly contended; and Cuvier, the eminent French ethnologist and founder of comparative anatomy, says: "We are fully warranted in concluding, both from comparison of man with inferior animals, and by comparing man with himself, that the great family of mankind loudly proclaims a descent from one common origin." Certain ambitious authors and avaricious publishers are issuing books to-day in which a stupid attempt is made to show that the Negro is a beast, and not created in the image of God ; that his place in the world is merely as a serving animal ; and that Cain s great sin consisted in joining himself in marriage to a Negress. An improvident writer declares he spent $20,000 and fifteen years in producing such a book. It is, indeed, another instance of the mountain in travail. It is not heat and hot air that are needed, but light and truth. It affects to be a production harmonious with and based upon the Scripture, but it is with lamentable ignorance. 10 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? The poet of the Psalms sings, "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God !" Quaint Zephaniah prophesies, "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daugh ter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offer ing." Moses married an Ethiopian woman, and the Apostle Philip led the black premier from the realm of Queen Candace into the light, and baptized him in the name of Jesus Christ. All such attacks upon the Negro race are not only mischievous anachronisms, but they are unjustified and wicked characteriza tions. Slavery Introduced The Negro was brought to America by the "cupidity of commerce" against his will. Si multaneously with the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock, a Dutch trading vessel, in 1619, arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, with a small cargo of black slaves. Cotton culture having commenced the same year, slavery rapidly extended. Some time since, in passing up the James River, I was remarkably impressed with the fact that, in its hurried rush to the sea, the impetuous stream is grind ing away at the banks so successfully that already much of the site of Jamestown has been swept out of existence. A strange irony of fate as if the genius of liberty were seek ing for the effacement of even the desecrated ii IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? soil on which mediaeval tyranny pressed its defiling footsteps, and sought to establish itself in this land of freedom. In 1776 there were in this country 300,000 slaves. When our National life began the feeling was strong against slavery. In 1787, when the ordinance excluded slavery from the Northwest Territory, some of the Southern States were even more enthusiastic than the Northern. In 1790 there were slaves in every Northern State except Massachusetts. In 1800 the number of slaves had reached 900,000. One by one the States in the North abolished slavery by gradual emancipation. In the South, however, because of the invention of the cotton gin, slavery became so increasingly profitable that there was some discussion con cerning reopening the slave trade with Africa. In 1860 there were in the United States 4,000.- ooo black people in bondage. To-day the Negro population is about 10,000,000. To us to-day it seems incredible that it > is scarcely more than a generation since Wen dell Phillips found the following advertise ment in a newspaper published in the United States : "FoR SALE : A plantation a library, ^ chiefly theological books; twenty-seven Negroes, some of them very prime ; two mules, one horse, and an old wagon." 12 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? ; Steps were taken toward the abolition of slavery as early as 1775. About this time the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was organized, and it continued in existence until the manu mission., Washington, Jefferson, and Madison opposed slavery, and in 1790 a memorial was sent to Congress, signed by Benjamin Frank lin, asking that "Means be devised for re moving the inconsistency of slavery." In 1820 the Missouri Compromise was effected. On January 31, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison pub lished the first number of The Liberator, and sounded the tocsin, "Slavery a sin against God a crime against humanity." In 1844 the already great Methodist Epis copal Church split upon this inevitable rock, the Church of the North inditing with tears and prayers the memorable denunciation of slavery by its illustrious founder as "the sum of all villainies." The Free-soil party was organized in 1848, and it sounded its battle-cry all over the land, "Free speech, free press, free soil, and free men;" and later, in 1856, when it nominated an impetuous Californian as its standard bearer, it added "Fremont" to its stirring motto. In 1857 there came the Dred Scott decision by the United States Supreme Court, which aroused the righteous indignation of the entire North. The Republican party was or ganized in 1856. Abraham Lincoln was elected IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? President in 1860. The Emancipation Procla mation was issued January i, 1863. The Abolitionists It is inspiring to note how a group of men began to appear in widely separated parts of the country who were vehemently and un- qttenchably opposed to slavery. They were maligned and persecuted and wounded and ostracized, and some were killed, but still with unalterable purpose they persisted in a power ful propaganda against the evil. The most fiery and pardonably immoderate of these was William Lloyd Garrison, a young Quaker. In 1829 he started a weekly paper in Baltimore, in which he advocated immediate emancipation as "the duty of the master and the right of the slave." He was soon con victed of libel against the owner of an inter state slave-ship. After forty-nine days in jail, he went to New England, and in 1831, in Boston, established The Liberator, the publi cation of which he continued until 1865, when it was considered to have fulfilled its mission. He is said to have been the most violently despised man in the two hemispheres. He was constantly threatened with assassination, but he never faltered. He said : "I will be as harsh as truth, and as un compromising as justice. On this subject I 14 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm ; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen ; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." When Congress declared that it was pre vented by the National Constitution from pass ing laws against the African slave trade, this fearless prophet denounced the Constitution, in the words of Isaiah, as "A covenant with death and an agreement with hell !" He and his compeers refused to vote for Federal of ficers, lest by so doing they might seem to acknowledge the Constitution, and one Fourth of July they daringly burned in effigy this historic document. When, in 1836, the Meth odist General Conference favored not allowing the testimony of a Negro against a white per son, he denounced that assembly as "a syna gogue of Satan" and "a cage of unclean birds." In 1835 Garrison was mobbed in Boston by "Five hundred gentlemen in broadcloth be cause in his paper he was damaging their Southern trade." These same "gentlemen" de stroyed his printing press and scattered his 15 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? types in the streets. But that day an ex traordinary event occurred. As the young sol dier and student, Saul of Tarsus, got his vision of duty as he stood by and held the clothes of the men who persecuted the first Christian martyr, so on that day in Boston a young lawyer looked out of his law-office window and saw the persecutors dragging William Lloyd Garrison along the streets by the hair. This young man had in his veins the bluest blood of New England, but his manly heart stoutly resented the unmanly and shameful manner in which Garrison was treated. He did not sym pathize with the reformer, but he believed in fair play in the land of the free. That day, with a heavy heart and with some new glimpses of duty, he returned to his home. His little invalid wife patiently awaited the coming of her handsome, gallant husband. As she sat in her cozy corner and he recounted to her the tragic scenes of the day, she tenderly, but with tones that were confident with heavenly wisdom, putting her arms about him, said : "Wendell, you must take up the cause of the slave!" The voice of his wife was to him like the voice of God calling him to duty ; and Wendell Phillips did take up the cause of the slave, and became the most renowned and persuasive orator of his time a veritable 16 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Apostle Paul of Freedom. His stirring speeches were powerful in their persuasive logic. He did not resort to sarcasm and in vective, but with finished and dignified speech he addressed the conscience and intelligence of this Nation. Only occasionally did he em ploy caustic utterance, as for instance, when, during one of his great speeches, he was dis turbed by some callow youth who continually interrupted him, he stopped and, pointing to them, said, "Rotten before you are ripe." A Martyr for Freedom Time would fail me to tell in this con nection of Elijah P. Lovejoy, a clergyman and journalist, who, like a Peter the Hermit, aroused all the Middle West with his fiery rebuke of slavery, and at last died as a martyr at the hands of a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, November 7, 1837, at thirty-five years of age ; and of his brother, Owen Lovejoy, who took up the ardent labors of his fallen brother, and was afterward a member of Congress from Illinois (1857-1864). Then, there was Gerrit Smith and Charles Sumner and Gilbert Haven and the eloquent black orator, Fred Douglass, who was born a slave, and his sable sister, Sojourner Truth. On one occasion, when Douglass was speaking with discouraged tones to a great audience, 17 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? and expressed the fear that slavery might not be overthrown, Sojourner Truth, who sat on the platform, cried out : "O Frederick, is God dead?" O no, God was not dead ; and the cries of the suffering, and the rich blood of the martyrs, and the sobbing prayers of the faith ful all went straight up to the throne of the Eternal, and were to be answered when the fullness of time would come and a tyrannical Pharaoh would be willing to let the people go. John Brown, of Ossawatomie Then, there was the unique and eccentric John Brown, who made his stand, first in Kansas, in 1856, then at Harper s Ferry on the night of October 16. 1859. He who was the John the Baptist of freedom and who, on his way to his cruel but ecstatic martyrdom, stopped and kissed the beautiful baby of a grateful Negro mother. If the dome of John Brown s brain had been as lofty as his heart s sympathies were deep, there would have been another issue to his contention and his sacri fice. On October 30, 1856, at Ossawatomie, Kan sas, John Brown made his first stand for free dom and initiated a struggle which precipi tated the Civil War and emancipated the slaves. That little battle, in which there were 18 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? four hundred invaders from Missouri and only forty-two Free State defenders, was one of the victorious defeats of the history of freedom. Like the undaunted struggle of the "embattled farmers" at Concord bridge, so at Ossawatomie another shot was fired which was heard around the world. John Brown said: "Providence has made me an actor and slavery an outlaw. A price is on my head, and what is life to me? I have a commission direct from Almighty God to act against slavery. Do not allow any one to say I acted from revenge. What I do, I do because of human liberty, because I regard it necessary." Then, on October 16, 1859, there came the raid on the arsenal at Harper s Ferry, John Brown confidently believing that as soon as he would make a stand for the Negro, and furnish guns and ammunition, the slaves would flock to his standards ; and they could easily fight their way to freedom, as did Spar- tacus and his fellow slaves in Rome long ago. Fred Douglass once said : "Judged by it self alone, the raid on Harper s Ferry was a great crime ; but it can not be judged alone. The cry that went up from the startled and terrified inhabitants of Harper s Ferry was but an echo of that other cry which began two centuries before the man-hunter first set foot in the quiet African villages. The raid at 19 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Harper s Ferry was contracted for when the first slave-ship landed on these shores." John Brown was a great man and a fearless and sublime hero. His death was as heroic as Socrates; and his speech in the courtroom at his trial, as Col. T. W. Higginson once said, is worthy of being placed beside Lincoln s Gettysburg address. From boulevards overlooking Both Nyanza, The statued bronze shall glitter in the sun, With rugged lettering : "John Brown, of Kansas He dared begin; he lost, but losing won." The minister who officiated at the funeral of John Brown, in company with William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, was socially ostracized and compelled to resign his Church. But time is a just retributor, and in his old age, "Dr. Young, of Groton, Mass.," won great distinction and honor because of that event. A Modern Deborah In a Connecticut parsonage a baby girl was born June 14, 1811, who was destined to play an important part in the controversy against slavery. The atmosphere of that home of thir teen children was favorable to strong opposi tion to the crime of the century. The father was a tower of strength, a stalwart defender of righteousness, and an invincible and elo- 20 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? quent advocate of freedom. The mother, a beautiful and intellectual woman, died when the little girl was only four years old; so the child spent much time in the company of her father, and strongly imbibed from him his un yielding convictions against the curse of slavery and his affectionate interest in the black man. When she was twenty-one years of age her father removed to what was then the far western city of Cincinnati ; and later she be came the wife of a cultured clergyman. In Ohio this sensitive young woman became familiar with the evil of slavery at short range. Over in Kentucky she saw a Negro child sold, and torn away from the arms of the fainting, moaning mother. Once a slave woman, with her child in her arms, fleeing for safety, had come across the angry, swollen river from Kentucky into Ohio, leaping from cake to cake of floating ice. Then, in 1850, there was passed the atro cious Fugitive Slave law, giving to slave holders additional facilities in recovering their runaway slaves. All of these things deeply stirred the heart of this devout and patriotic young woman, who as the years hurried found herself surrounded with her own family of children and faithfully fulfilling all the many happy obligations of the true wife and mother. 21 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? More than once she had expressed a desire to write something which would make the "whole Nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is," and in this she was sympathetically encouraged by her husband, who knew her brilliant qualifications. At length, one Sunday morning during the service of the holy communion, as she wor shipped in her usual place at church, there flashed upon her like a vision the picture of the death of Uncle Tom, a saintly old slave, and she seemed to hear the cries for help which came from the suffering Negroes, whose backs were bleeding under the blows of the cruel slave-whip. She burst into tears ; and that afternoon, shutting herself in her room, she wrote a little story with a lead pencil on coarse, brown wrapping paper. Then, with her baby on her knee, she gathered her chil dren together that same evening and read the story to them. One of her two little boys sobbed out, "O mamma, slavery is the most cruel thing in the world !" The multiplied duties of her home caused her to lay the story aside, and she soon forgot it ; until, at length, her husband discovered it. and she found him in tears over the brown wrapping paper. He earnestly advised her to make what she had written the climax of a serial story. And so she arranged to furnish the story 22 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? to The National Bra, an anti-slavery paper, pub lished in Washington. It was begun in June, 1851, and was to continue three months. She was to furnish her manuscript in installments, but the story developed under the spell of her genius and was not finished until April of the following year. An Epoch-making Story As a serial story it attracted so much at tention that there was a strong demand to have it appear in book form. Accordingly, in March, 1852, "Uncle Tom s Cabin" was issued, and within a year over 300,000 copies were sold. Its circulation rapidly increased in this country, and over one million copies were sold in England. It was translated in all into twenty different languages, there being twelve different translations in the German alone. When the Italian translation appeared, the pope prohibited its sale Infallible pope, ah me! And before 1856 it was dramatized in twenty different forms and acted in every cap ital in Europe and in all of the free States of America. People read "Uncle Tom s Cabin" and sobbed and prayed, and cursed slavery. Many a man jumped to his feet and earnestly de nounced the evil and registered a solemn vow that he would aid in its overthrow. 23 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? It was one of the first real guns that was fired against slavery, and it was fired by a woman. Presses were kept busy running night and day. It moved adults to tears, and it en tranced children and stirred them to patriot ism. Many boys read the story early in the fifties and, ten years later, quickly and gladly enlisted to fight for the overthrow of slavery. When some visitors, knowing how much occupied Mrs. Stowe must have been with her multiplied domestic cares because of her family of children, and the duties incident to a min ister s wife, said to her, "How could you do it?" she reverently replied, "God wrote it!" And why may we not all believe that God wrote it? The tearful tale passed far beyond her original thought. She did not know, when one installment was sent, just what would be continued in the next ; and so, under the min istry of divine grace, this godly woman was used as a gracious channel by which God gave to the world the most powerful, epoch-making- story of the century. How Freedom Found the Negro Freedom found the Negro utterly depend ent, in a desolated land, without skill, prop erty, or education. It also found him with distorted moral standards. What could he 24 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? know of honesty and purity when he was ac customed to family ties being cruelly snapped asunder to suit the whims of heartless mas ters; and when the beauty and strength of his race were compelled to disregard all laws of modesty, purity, and marriage in order to propagate profitable chattels for their owner? Of course, the Negro had false ideas of free dom, and learned to his sorrow to stop sing ing" : Farewell, hard work wid nebber any pay ; I se gwine up North, where de white folks say It s white wheat bread and a dollar a day. Look away ! Look away ! Freedom also found the Negro, through no fault of his, with a great deal of Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins. If the Negro had not been emancipated, it was just a question of the cal endar until the blood of the conquerors, which had been pitilessly mingled with his gentler nature, would manifest its historic character. The Anglo-Saxon is an empire-builder, an in trepid and imperious and assertive defender of his individuality. The future of American history would have seen the development of some resistless Toussaint L Overture who would have led in a revolution beside which the story of Haiti s insurrection would have been child s play. This Afro-American is to day demanding his rights he is patient and submissive, but he has numberless friends, 25 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? and let it be hoped that he will secure his equities, not by a revolution of blood, but by humane and Christlike evolution. Some Good Slave-holders In a discussion like this it is not only deservedly just, but an inexpressible pleasure, to pay tribute to the many good men and true who, though slave-holders, were upright and considerate in all their dealings with their slaves. So much was this the case that many persons of the South were righteously indig nant when "Uncle Tom s Cabin" was pub lished, and denied the truth of the chief state ments of Mrs. Stowe s tragic tale until in controvertible evidence was presented in sup port of the main facts in that epoch-making story. In many Southern homes the slaves were devotedly loved and sheltered, and when freedom was granted, many begged their old masters to retain them, even on the old con ditions. At St. Louis Cemetery, in New Or leans, I saw that in not a few of the richly carved marble tombs some faithful slaves had found a final resting place side by side with the master and his family. In that exquisitely pathetic little story of James Lane Allen, one reads with moistened eyes of the "two gentlemen of Kentucky." Black Peter s ardent devotion was no purer than the undisguised affection of the cultured 26 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Kentuckian for his servant. "No one ever saw in their intercourse aught but the finest cour tesy, the most delicate consideration. To be near them was to be exorcised of evil pas sions." This gentleman of Kentucky was typical of a large and honored class. He pos sessed "Southern sympathies, a man educated not beyond the ideas of his generation, con vinced that slavery was an evil, yet seeing no present way of removing it, he had of all things been a model master. Often in those dark days his face, anxious and sad, was to be seen amid the throngs that surrounded the blocks on which slaves were sold at auction ; and more than one poor slave he had bought to save him from separation from his family afterward riding far and near to find him a home on one of the neighboring farms." In this connection it must not be forgotten that many a worthy eulogium has been pro nounced upon the faithful Negro nurses who helped to nurture the magnificent Southern citizen. One of these gentlemen, a business man of worth and distinction, in referring to his Negro "Mammy," said recently : "Yes. You can not understand the love I bore for her. To her I told my troubles. When my father died, she comforted me. When I got married and came home with my bride, old Mammy was standing in the door in a black and white dress so clean and 2? IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? starched it would stand alone. She kissed my wife s hand, but she kissed my face. When the baby was born, she ordered me to step lightly, for Missus was asleep. My wife died. But when she was buried, Mammy leaned on my arm and walked to the funeral. When it was over and I came from my room, she was holding" the baby. She died not long ago in my house and in my arms. You can not understand how I feel even yet." When the friends of a certain centurion would persuade Jesus that the brave captain was deserving of His tender attention, they said of him, "He is worthy for whom He should do this!" The black citizen of the Republic has proven during the years of his emancipation that he is worthy of all that this generation can do to aid him in acquiring the position to which he is justly entitled. The Negro s Progress His progress justifies the hopes and prophe cies of his liberators and friends. Congress man White, a colored representative from North Carolina, in a speech in Washington, reminded the Nation that the Negro is not what he was forty years ago. Illiteracy has decreased forty-five per cent. There are now 3,000 lawyers and as many physicians. His race now owns 200,000 homes and farms, cov ering an area of 38,000,000 acres, to the value 28 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? of $750,000,000, and personal property to the amount of many millions of dollars. They are operating as cash tenants nearly 300,000 farms. This black statesman declared, "There is plenty of room at the top, and the colored man is climbing." The Negro has much power of invention. Already nearly one thousand patents have been granted to Negroes. The first Negro who applied for a patent was a slave. He was refused, but it was afterwards issued in the name of his owner. The first machine for pegging shoes was patented by a Negro; and the fourteenth patent issued by the Patent Office after it began to number them was taken out by a Negro. The Negro has already made notable achievements in music. He has a musical soul, and the folk-music of the old plantations and the recent eminent careers of Samuel Cole ridge-Taylor, Will Marion Cook, and J. Rosa mund Johnson justify the prophecy that America s greatest musician may yet be a col ored man ; and the elevator boy, Paul Law rence Dunbar, has encouraged lyric lovers to look toward the colored people for some of the world s greatest poets. Like the witty Irishman, the Negro has a fine sense of humor. I was stopping for a few days, some years ago, at the Gait House, in Louisville, Kentucky. My attention was 29 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? attracted to a bright, handsome colored boy who took the hats of the guests as they en tered the dining room. He possessed the re markable facility of being able to return to each man his own hat without asking any questions. One day a dignified judge, who was holding court in Louisville, said to the boy, "How did you know that that was my hat?" And the boy answered, "I did not know, sir, dat dat was your hat; I just know, sir, dat dat was de hat you gave me when you went into de dining room !" Did you ever hear the colored man s reason "why Adam sinned?" Adam neber had no "mammy" For to take him on her knee And to tell him what was right, And show him things he d Ought to see; I know down in my heart He d a let dat apple be, But Adam neber had no dear old "mammy/ Adam neber had no childhood, Playin round de cabin do He neber had no pickaninny life; He started in a great, big, Grown-up man, and What is mo He neber had no right kind ob a wife. The romantic achievements of the most ex traordinary colored woman of our time, Miss 30 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Edmonia Lewis, reveals the latent possibilities of this long-oppressed people. Miss Lewis s masterpieces in sculpture and painting have won for her a permanent place with Harriet Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and W. W. Story. Her father was a Negro servant in the family of a rich man in Albany, New York, and her mother was of Negro and Indian parentage. W. O. Tanner has won notable distinction as a painter in two continents. The Negro possesses an unusual gift of oratory. Within recent years Roscoe Conk- ling Bruce won the medal in a debating con test between Harvard and Yale, and was recognized by Harvard as her most gifted orator. This brilliant young Negro is the son of the late Ex-United States Senator Blanch K. Bruce. William Pickens, an Arkansas Negro, has also won the prize for oratory at Yale. There is no man in this country, white or black, who is more widely known and admired than Professor Booker T. Wash ington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute. He is honored as a scholar, an orator, an educator, and a man of unusual sagacity and level-headedness one of the brightest hopes of the Negro race to-day. He was born a slave. There are scores of names prominent in Church and State which dislodge every argu ment against educational development of the 31 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? black man. Among these should be mentioned Frederick Douglass, Senator Bruce (of Missis sippi), John M. Langston, Henry Highland Garnett, Marshall W. Taylor, Drs. R. E. Jones, J. E. Price, J. W. E. Bowen, I. Garland Penn, Prof. Du Bois, and Bishops Robinson, Turner, Gaines, Campbell, and Clinton. Those choice words of Dr. Channing, writ ten long since, have not been forgotten : "We are holding in bondage one of the best races of the human family. The Negro is among the mildest and gentlest of men, singularly susceptible of improvement, affectionate, easily touched, and hence more open to religious im provement than the white man. He carries with him, more than we, the genius of a meek, long-suffering virtue." Legislation could make the Negro free, but only education can make him a citizen. A Patriot The Negro has been a worthy factor in all the patriotic struggles of this Republic. He fought bravely in the war of the Revolution, and most nobly did he respond to General Jackson s appeal in the War of 1812. General Packenham s fine army of invasion, as it re treated forlorn and disastrously defeated, had reason to remember the ferocious righting qualities of the Negro. After that historic and phenomenal victory at Chalmette, General 32 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Jackson, addressing his dusky warriors, said : "I expected much from you, but you have sur passed my hopes. The President of the United States shall be informed of your conduct, and the voice of the representatives of the Amer ican Nation shall applaud your valor as your general now praises your ardor." In the Mexican War again the Negro was conspicu ous ; and in the greatest Civil War in the world s history this black patriot fought, 186,- 017 strong, in 249 battles. Wherever responsi bilities were imposed upon him, he was a valuable ally and a veritable black knight of the flag. The Governor of Massachusetts organized the 54th Regiment out of Negro volunteers. He then went over to Harvard College and invited a noble young man to become its colonel. At first he declined, and later ac cepted the trust. The regiment was assigned to duty near the Confederate stronghold of Fort W r agner. At length the order was re ceived to storm the fortification. The gallant young colonel called his men before him, fully explained the perilous and well-nigh impossible task; and as he gallantly led the charge, he shouted to his men, "We shall take that fort or die there !" As one man that regiment fol lowed their brave commander. Up, up they went, their eyes gleaming with courage and anticipated victory. In a moment they would 33 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? turn the guns upon a retreating garrison, when suddenly there came a terrific volcanic erup tion from the artillery of the fort, and the indomitable white colonel and the impetuous black regiment were all dead on the parapets of the fort. O, it was a merciless slaughter of consecrated heroes ! And there to-day, in honorable sepulcher on the slopes of the hill, awaiting the bugle of the judgment morning, lies the dust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, surrounded by the men who with him won fadeless immortality in that victorious defeat at Fort Wagner. When Emerson heard the story, he wrote : So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When duty whispers low, "Thou must," The youth replies, "I can !" And Saint Gaudens has achieved his great est masterpiece in his immortal bas-relief which has made a corner of Boston Commons an imperishable shrine of American heroism. Disfranchised The enactment of certain laws practically disfranchises the Negro in many of the South ern States. The shamelessness of this un- American legislation is only equaled by the attempt at justification made by Southern writers. It is claimed that the reason for the 34 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? disfranchisement is that certain unscrupulous whites have manipulated the ignorant colored vote. Would it not be more in harmony with the traditional Southern chivalry to visit the punishment upon the guilty, unscrupulous white politician upon the sinner than upon those who are sinned against? It is a familiar problem, which was settled in ethics long ago, that "two wrongs never make a right," and this conclusion is as unalterably fixed as that two parallel lines can never meet. A Georgian told, in my hearing, how in his town on election days hundreds of Negroes are employed on plantations or public works several miles from the voting places, with the understanding that the train will get them home before the balloting ceased. As if in good faith, an early start is always made, but when a few miles from the city the engine always breaks down and the train load of black citizens is delayed until after six o clock, when the polls close. With sides shaking with laughter this "Georgia cracker," as he called himself, repeated, much to the amusement of those who sympathized with him, "Yes, of course it is strange, but the engine always breaks down !" In response to this incident, a young man from North Carolina explained that in his State there was a law that all defaced ballots should be thrown out in the final count, and 35 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? that those who presided at the polls in his city furnished to the Negro voters a defaced ballot, which the colored man unwittingly de posited, only to be deprived of his rights as a citizen. Among the colored people of the South are already some brilliant legal minds; and as the Negro s head is developed in harmony with his tender heart and his giant body, he will con tend logically and successfully for the rights which a domineering class are ruthlessly tak ing away from him. Social Equality The most vexatious element in this entire race problem seems to be the ghost of social equality, which bobs up serenely and is downed, only to reappear as imperturbable as before. That, however, is an issue by itself, and a wholly personal one. Social equality is no more a matter of legislation than in tellectual equality. To accord to the Negro his political, educational, and religious privi leges does not necessarily involve the question of social relationships. We do not consider a man our social equal because he is white, neither should we be compelled to reject a cultured man as our social equal because he is black. Social equality in all classes and coteries depends upon taste, culture, affinity, and environment. If either the Negro or the 36 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? white man prefers to accord to his own race superiority and priority, that is his privilege so long 1 as he does not interfere with the rights accorded to others by the Constitution. Mr. Lincoln said, referring to the Declaration of Independence: "I think that the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men. But they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say that all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They denned, with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal equal, with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If the aristocracy of New Orleans crowds Tulane Hall to listen to Professor Booker T. Washington tell of his theories and his demon strations concerning his colored brethren, and applauds the cultured orator to the echo, and yet declines to receive this colored gentleman into their homes, who shall deny to them the right to choose who shall be the recipients of their cordial hospitality? If, when he was governor, Theodore Roose velt, when five of the leading hotels of Albany refused to admit as a guest Mr. Burleigh, the famous colored baritone of St. George s Church, New York City, who had gone to the capital to sing at a musicale; if the governor, 37 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? when hearing of what he considered a gross indignity, cared to invite the talented singer to be his guest at the executive mansion ; and if, when President, Roosevelt chose to en tertain the foremost representative of ten mil lions of American citizens at a luncheon at the White House table ; and if even fastidious President Arthur invited Mrs. Bruce, the wife of the colored senator from Mississippi, to as sist at one of his New Year receptions, and she stood in the receiving line, graceful, mod est, and intellectual, it must be confessed that these are all matters of taste and preference, and it inheres in the right of each American to choose his friends without interference on the part of any who may not agree with him. This whole social controversy has been en larged out of all proportion by the persistent projecting into it of a subject that is not ger mane. To render to the Negro his Constitu tional rights does not and should not mean intermarriage and many other grotesque and impossible hobgoblins of miscegenation. A fair chance and fair play for every Amer ican citizen, white or colored, is all that is demanded. Roosevelt, when President, acted bravely and promptly, and was supported by millions of citizens, when he wrote concern ing the appointment of Dr. Crum, an edu cated and upright colored physician, to a fed eral office in Charleston, S. C. : "I can not 38 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? consent to take the position that the door of hope the door of opportunity is shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the ground of race or color. Such an attitude would, according" to my convictions, be funda mentally wrong. It seems to me that it is a good thing, from every viewpoint, to let the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree the qualities of good citizenship the qualities which in a white man we feel are entitled to reward then he will not be cut off from all hope of similar reward." Doubtless there is great sympathy to-day in all sections of our country with Professor Booker T. Washington in his timely utterance before the Brooklyn Academy of Science: "Concerning my own race, I believe we shall make our most enduring progress by laying the foundations carefully, patiently, in the ownership of the soil, the exercise of habits of economy, the saving of money, the secur ing of the most complete education of hand and head and heart and the cultivation of Christian virtues. I can not believe, I will not believe, that a country that invites into its midst every type of European, from the highest to the very dregs of the earth, and gives them shelter, protection, and highest encouragement, will refuse to accord the same protection and encouragement to her black citizen." 39 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? In New York, Professor Washington, in addressing an audience of colored people, said : "Eschew cheap jewelry. Quit taking five- dollar buggy rides on six dollars a week. Do n t put a five-dollar hat on a five-cent head. Get a bank account. Get a home of your own. Get some property. Get a start in the world in some way. What good is it to you Northern Negroes that you live in cities with paved streets, if you don t own anything? Do n t be satisfied with the shadows of civili zation; get some of the substance for your self. Just as soon as you do, you will be recognized and encouraged, whether you are in the North or the South." The late General John B. Gordon, of the Confederate army, who was a lover of colored people, used to tell this story. One day during the war General Robt. E. Lee met a Negro soldier, and said to him, "Where do you be long, Sam?" "O, I se one of your soldiers, General !" he replied. "Have you been shot, or taken prisoner?" "No, sar," the Negro an swered. "Well, I don t understand that," said Lee, "for all my soldiers have been wounded or captured." The Negro rolled his eyes, and said, "O, I se always back where de generals are !" And the Negro belongs with the leaders, and as he is becoming educated he is more 40 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? and more being recognized among the men of masterful minds. Racial Prejudice That man is no friend of this Republic who tries to arouse racial and sectional preju dices and antagonisms ; and whoever seeks profit and notoriety by endeavoring to per petuate differences which were settled in the chivalric struggles of the Civil War is a dan gerous highwayman, and instead of having his bad logic and dangerous theories exploited, should be summarily suppressed. In reply to the ravings of such a mercenary literary guerilla and demagogue in an issue of the Saturday Evening Post, Professor W. E. Burg- hardt Du Bois, a distinguished and cultured colored professor, formerly of Atlanta, now of New York, in a subsequent number of the Post makes this caustic, concise, truthful, and logical reply: "The thing that is worrying the South and the Nation is that, in spite of a tremendous handicap, past and present, there is slowly, steadily arising in this land a group of intelli gent, thrifty, aspiring black men who demand and propose to have all the rights of American citizens. How is this righteous demand going to be met? is the question of the hour and the greatest question before the American people. IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? The South sends three answers to this mighty question. These are not its only answers, but they are the shrillest and most insistent : Till- man, the political answer ; Vardaman, the eco nomic answer; and Dixon, the social answer. Taxation without representation is democ racy. swears Tillman, and stands ready by force or fraud to tear up the very foundations of the Republic rather than let an intelligent black man vote. Train niggers to be serfs and servants ! shouts Vardaman, and stands ready to degrade labor and nullify the thirteenth amendment rather than allow any Negro to be more than his bootblack. And finally comes Thomas Dixon, shrieking: There s a black man who thinks himself a man, and is a man ; kill him before he marries your daughter ! Fiddlesticks ! Shame on a sane Nation for listening respectfully to such combinations of treason, brutality, and bosh ! The Negro race is one of the great human races. American Negroes can not be colonized in Africa. All American citizens can be free and equal with out danger to the Republic. "In physical build the Negro is the equal of any and the superior of most human races ; their primitive culture is the equal of that of any people Germanic, Celtic, or Semitic; their higher culture has been shown in their contact with other nations, just as in the case of the German, who remained barbarians until Rome 42 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? taught them. So in Egypt, Ethiopia, the Sou dan, and North Africa, Negro blood has given abundant evidence of the highest possibilities. If it be objected that these were not pure Negroes, it can be answered, Where are the "pure" Germans or the "pure" Anglo-Saxons or the "pure" Americans? All civilized races are mixed. Again and again the beginnings of great civilizations have started on African soil, and their failure in the last one thousand years has been due to the same shameful Christian slave trade that planted the Negro problem in America. Even in European civilization black blood has been prominent from the day of the fabled Negro brother of Parsifal to the day of Poushkin the Russian poet, Dumas, Browning, and Coleridge-Taylor. In America the industrial, mechanical, and intellectual de velopment of the land owes an inextinguishable debt to Negroes, as shown by the careers of black laborers, black soldiers, and black sailors, not to mention Bannecker, the almanac maker ; Douglass, the abolitionist; Dunbar, the poet, and our legacy of music and fairy tale. "The Jews are not assimilated, because they have the power to protect their daugh ters. And when Negroes have in law and public opinion similar power to guard their families from lecherous whites, there will be far less amalgamation than to-day. If promi nent Southerners, from Thomas Jefferson 43 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? down to some leaders of to-day, had found our black daughters as unattractive as Mr. Dixon alleges, there would not be two million mulattoes in the land as unanswerable wit nesses to the truth." If the colored man would come into his own in America, let him emulate the white man s virtues, but avoid all his vices, and take Jesus Christ as his ideal. Did you see what old Uncle Calhoun Web ster said: "When I sees a man a-goin home wid a gallon o whisky and a half-pound o meat, that s temperance lecture enough for me an I sees it ebery day. An I knows dat everyt ing in dat man s house am on de same scale a gallon o misery to ebery half-pound o comfort?" The Crime of Lynching In order to touch the entire field of the discussion which this address is expected to provoke, there should be some reference to the cursed crime of lynching. The viewpoint of a typical Southerner was presented by John Temple Graves, editor of the Atlanta Evening News, at Chautauqua, in August, 1903, in a characteristic address. He declared that Southern chivalry had glorified woman, and assumed that lynching was an expression of the Southern fixed purpose to defend woman- 44 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? hood. He said: "Lynching is a crime. It is anarchy. It is riot. It is a stab at the law. It is deplorable appalling. But it is here. It is here to stay. Place here as the premise and postulate of your reasoning that lynching will never hereafter be discontinued in this Republic until the crime which provokes it is destroyed. This is a fact, not a theory. It is not as it ought to be, but it is as it is, and as it surely will be." He not only speaks apologetically, but approvingly, of "the mob as the highest, strongest, and most potential bulwark between the women of the South and such a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and practically annihilate the Negro race." The best answer to these incendiary utterances is this statement from an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution, by Mr. Graves s cul tured neighbor, Mr. Clark Howells. He says : "The time when the lynching of a certain breed of brutes could be winked at, because of the satisfaction that punishment came to him quickly and to the uttermost, has given way to a time when the greater peril to society is the mob itself that does the work of venge ance. Against the growth of that evil the best sense of the Nation needs to combine and enforce an adequate protection." Nor is it true, as is assumed by Graves and others, that lynching is for a "particular offense." In a study of reliable statistics, I 45 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? have found that in a certain year there were thirty lynchings for murder, nine on account of race prejudice, two for incendiarism, one for slapping a child, two for miscegenation, one for passing counterfeit money, three for attacking white men-, two for no cause, one for giving testimony, etc. In all there are nearly forty different offenses for which lynch ing has been the cruel and barbarous punish ment. And, even if one should be disposed to palliate the crime of lynching when resorted to as a protection of a Nation s precious womanhood, this means of merited punishment should be abandoned and denounced because it is impossible to confine lynching to one of fense.. It develops the spirit of vengeance, which leads to all the diabolism of the anarch istic mob. What was invented as a defense for Southern women must now be abandoned for their surer protection. As Justice Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court, said in July, 1903, "Every man who takes part in the burning or lynching of Negroes is a murderer, and should be so considered in the eyes of the law." The murderer is no friend of law and order and society, and lynching must be sup pressed for our veritable self-preservation as a Nation; and Governor Blease, of South Caro lina, is not a safe guide when he blatantly and shamefully advocates it. IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Deportation Chimerical Wholly chimerical is the suggestion that there should be a separation of the races, and perhaps a deportation to Africa or somewhere else. The Negro is as necessary to the South as the South is necessary to him ; and as the Negro is elevated by education and religion, he will become more and more indispensable to the North as well as to the South. Con cerning this suggestion, Professor Du Bois says: "To transport ten million human beings from America to Africa, provide for the dis posal of their property here, and a proper be ginning there, would cost at least $1,000,000,- ooo. There is no place in Africa open to colonization on such a scale ; and if there were, how long would we be there before some body s swaggering battleships would benevo lently annex our gold mines? Moreover, we will not go to Africa; we are Americans, and right here in America we propose to fight out our destiny. I was born here, my father was born here, and my forefathers were honest, hard-working Americans two hundred years before the Dixons were dime-novelists. If Mr. Dixon is allowed the protection of the flag he fought against, surely I may claim the pro tection of that same flag which my fathers gave their blood to preserve in every war of the Republic." 47 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? The Negro will never go back to Africa! He is here to stay, and without immigration from other lands, notwithstanding the lament able ravages of the ills of freedom, he is hold ing his own in the increase of numbers with his white neighbors. The Negro has as much right to America as the white man, and he will stay here. One Negro met another and said to him, " Rastus, Fse goin to die !" "O, no !" said his friend. "Yes, sir, Fse goin to die!" he re peated. "How do you know you are goin to die ?" "Why, de doctor says so, and he knows what he s givin* me !" In all this "Back to Africa" nonsense the colored man knows what these quack doctors are trying to give him. Education / Nor must it be concluded that the entire South is opposed to the education of the Negro. While the public schools of New Orleans re fuse to carry the Negro children beyond the sixth grade, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has committed itself to the higher edu cation of the Negro by the establishing of Paine Institute at Augusta, Georgia. A cultured white woman of the South, whose parents and grandparents were slave holders, has recently written, "Whatever the height of our own moral superiority, it must IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? in God s eyes just measure the depth of our debt to the weaker race." After referring to certain shortcomings in the Negro character, she says: "Such matters should burden no one with a sense of the Negro s depravity. They spring from an undeveloped mental and moral consciousness. A few generations of reasonable patience and the Negro will have passed this trying point." These are golden words, and help to fulfill the claim of the silver- tongued Grady that the best friends the Negro has are in the South. The God of nations has indissolubly bound together the black man and the white man ; the future and the happiness and the power of each is involved, by a presiding Providence, in the well-being of the other. As Jesus Christ fell beneath the weight of His cross on His way to Calvary, a Cyrenian, in all probability a Negro, was seized and "On him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus." Our age has laid a heavy burden upon a great portion of God s children, and it is certain that humanity s King will not be unmindful of their cries and woes. He reigns to answer their prayers, and to reward their devotion to Him in the hours of His unutterable passion. He has come into His Kingdom "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy bur dens, and to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke." The Resurrection Christ, 49 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? as He hears and fulfills the petitions of His suf fering children, will not forget the soul-longing of that black mother who, when seeking to have her son admitted into one of the Meth odist schools of the South, said, in pleading tones, "I se nobody, I nebber expects to be nobody, but I wants my boy to be somebody !" Essentially Religious The Negro is essentially religious the re ligious side of him is all sides of him. There are now over 3,700,000 Negro Church mem bers, who are shepherded by 35,200 ordained preachers in 35,000 church buildings. In the 35,000 Sunday schools there are 1750,000 scholars, taught by 210,000 Negro teachers. These Churches give one-half million dollars annually to education, and are sustaining nearly 200 colleges, academies, and industrial schools. They are supporting over 100 foreign missionary stations at an annual expenditure of $50,000. Professor Washington says he was once traveling through the black belt of the South, when he came to a little Negro cabin, around which many colored children were playing. Stepping up to a woman who stood in the door, he said to her, "Are any of these your children?" "Yes, sar!" she replied. 50 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? "How many children have you?" "Sixteen, sar !" Seeing a baby in her arms, he further in quired, "What is the baby s name?" "Judas Iscariot!" the mother replied. "O, my!" Mr. Washington answered, "did you not know that Judas Iscariot was the worst man in the Bible?" "O yes, sar," she confidently replied, "I knows all about dat, sar. De Scripture says it would have been better for Judas Iscariot if he had never been born and dat s just de way with dis baby !" Fellow citizens, this Nation has a God- given trust. We must solve the problem which the presence of our Negro citizens im poses upon us. We of this age have inherited this great obligation, but the God of the races will help us to find that solution which will be for the honor of the white man and for the advantage of the black man ! Unpardonable and unjust discrimination is made against the Negro throughout the North in his practical exclusion from the skilled me chanical trades on account of the color of his skin. If this is not corrected by trades unions it will not be many years until the Negroes will form their own labor unions, and there will be sharp competitions in this country be tween white and black skilled workmen. If the Negro is treated fairly he will always be IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? the friend of the white man. The Golden Rule, which is always color blind, can remove this stubborn obstacle in the way of the Negro s progress. Doing What Can Not Be Done Dr. Washington Gladden, in his "Recollec tions," says: "If the main thing to be done for the Negro is to keep him in ignorance and subjection, that is a task which requires no great amount of art nothing but hard hearts and brutal wills. There is physical force enough in the Nation to hold him down for a while ; how long that dominion would last I will not try to tell. The civilization built on that basis will fall, and great will be the fall of it. "The moral law admonishes us not to make our fellow-man our tool, our tributary. Thou shalt treat humanity it is Kant s great say ing ever as an end, never as a means to thine own selfish end. Disobey that law, and the consequence falls. "The stronger race that tries to treat the weaker not as an end, but as a means to its own selfish ends, plucks swift judgment from the skies upon its own head. On such a race there will surely fall the mildew of moral decay, the pestilence of social corruption, the blight of its civilization. This is not Northern fanaticism. It is a truth which has been ut- 52 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? tered more than once, with the emphasis of conviction, by strong men in the South. " The best Southern people/ says Presi dent Alderman, of the University of Virginia, are too wise not to know that posterity will judge them according to the wisdom they use in this great concern. They are too just not to know that there is but one thing to do with a human being, and that is to give him a chance/ Dr. Gladden quotes also the wise and noble words of President Kilgo, of Trinity College, North Carolina, on behalf of the Negro: "He lifts his dusky face to the face of his superior, and asks why he may not be given the right to grow as well as dogs and horses and cows. For a superior race to hold down an inferior one that the superior race may have the service of the inferior was the social doctrine of medievalism." With a considerable show of wisdom we say that the Negro, like the white man, must work out his own salvation ; but we should co-operate with him in his colossal task. It is not fair to the Negro, nor is it any credit to the white man, that the National Bar As sociation has decided not to admit Negro law yers; that some politicians degenerate into miserable demagogues in their treatment of the Negro ; and that some so-called Christ ans treat the Negro as if he had no soul. Every man who is working out his own salvation 53 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? has a right to a helping hand from his more successful brethren. I acknowledge that is a herculean under taking, but we must remember that General Armstrong, of Hampton, the tried and true friend of the Negro youth, used to say, "Do ing what can not be done is the glory of liv ing." Circumstances of civilization may have made the Negroes a backward race, but the brilliant present and the still more brilliant future will demonstrate that they are not a deficient people. An increasingly favorable en vironment will show that the black man has normal capabilities equal to other more highly favored races. The Negro is Awakening When Wendell Phillips saw upon the seal of a Southern State a Negro sleeping upon a bale of cotton, he asked, "And what will the people do when the Negro wakens up?" The Negro is awakening he is rubbing his eyes ; let the white man not be asleep ! It is safe to predict that this awakening Hercules, if he is fairly treated, will never be a menace to this Republic he will prove him self a friend tried and true to the flag, under whose soft folds he was nursed into freedom. And perhaps in some unpropitious future day, when foreign foes or domestic traitors shall assault the strongholds of American liberty 54 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? and our citadels of security shall be tottering before a mighty, malicious giant, there will march up from the bayous and savannahs of the Southland a multitudinous army of black patriots whose chivalry and devotion may save our Nation in the hour of its great peril and emergency. The Negro naturally possesses to some de gree all the qualities of true manliness. He has show r n himself an orator of fervid and im passioned eloquence. He is a lover of music, and has sung the chivalry of the South to sleep with his lullabys and has enchanted the world with his mellifluous melodies. He has been true to the sacred trusts im posed upon him. Henry W. Grady, Georgia s most eloquent and distinguished citizen, told thrillingly of the Negro s fidelity, declaring that there is not an instance on record of a single black man violating his master s trust during that long civil conflict when the South ern men were at the front fighting for their convictions, and had left their wives and daughters and property in the care of their trusted servants ; and referring to his mother, from whom he had to be separated, he said, "I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin, or guard at her chamber door, put a black man s loyalty between her and danger." Although our people are lamentably slow 55 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD?. in giving to the colored man his just recog nition, and guilty in some directions of crim inal neglect, yet America, according to Sir Harry Johnston, of Great Britain, who has been for years an administrator over Negro affairs in Africa, is the best place on the globe for the black man. We must not forget, as Dr. J. W. E. Bowen eloquently says, that the Negro has passed only fifty milestones since "he walked out from slavery with the chains broken, but not off, clanking about and clinging to his manly limbs, his wife under one arm, his child under the other, with empty hands, but with a buoy ancy of heart and a lightness of tread and a freedom from revenge that made the world stop and wonder, and with faith in his God and his own destiny, he went to work, built himself a house, bought a farm, erected a bank, invested in stock, and through the schoolhouse and the power of the gospel erected a family altar, and is now making home, the fallen sister of heaven, his paradise for the rearing of his children and the joy of his heart." His Faith in God The Negro has indeed a strong intuitive religious nature, which is already reaching the highest Christian altitudes. Their religion helped to make them tractable and contented 56 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? in all the ordeals and tortures of slavery, and is helping to make them patient in the tardy realizations of freedom. A slave mother, who was forced to go before daybreak each morning to work in the swamps, would leave some breakfast for her two little boys, who were still sleeping on the straw in a corner. She would be gone all day, and before she returned at night the tired, lonesome little fellows would curl themselves up in the straw and go to sleep. When she returned she would cook a supper and, awak ing the boys, they would have their only meal together. Then the mother would kneel in prayer with her arms about her little boys; and she would pray for the overthrow of the infamous institution of slavery, that her two boys might be freemen, and have a chance to make a character in the world; and as she prayed, her mother-tears would fall like rain upon the upturned faces of her two sons. God heard that mother s prayer and one of her boys, as a Christian minister, graphically described this tender scene. When Sumter was fired upon, somebody threatened to tear down the Stars and Stripes, which floated above a newspaper office in Richmond. The old Negro janitor endangered his life when night came on by ascending to the flagstaff and rescuing the holy symbol of liberty. He took it home, and his resourceful 57 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? wife hid it away in a bedtick in their little spare room ; and many a time during the long war they would go where it was and on their knees implore High Heaven to give victory to the flag and save the land from sedition and disruption. Dar s a white man knockin at de cabin do ! Don you let de white man in ! He lookin mighty weary an he lookin mighty pore, Don you let de white man in! He lookin mighty hungry, an de bacon gettin low, De meal am gettin sca cer, an de yams don grow; How we gwine to get a libin dis yer nigga don know ! Don you let de white man in ! Jus* step up to de do an tell him go away, Don you let de white man in! He lookin mighty weary, an I know he want to stay, Don* you let de white man in ! Wha dat de white man muttah ? He s a Lincum soger man? He jus* scape from de rebels, an dey cotch him if dey can? Jes hurry up dar, Dinah! Get de bacon in de pan! Come in, Lincum soger ! Come in ! Make de hoe-cake ready ! Make de fiah burn up high ! Come in, Lincum soger ! Come in ! Fo de rebels take you back dis yer nigga shuah he ll die! Come in, Lincum soger ! Come in ! De houn s on yo track? I can tu n dem from de do ! Jus pull off you shoes; I fool de pesky houn s bef o ! I can lead de dawgs away dey won t come back no mo ! Come in, Lincum soger ! Come in ! 58 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Jus clim up in de loft n pull de ladder f roo de hole ! Lay low, Lincum soger ! Lay low ! Put de trap-do down n keep as quiet as a mole, Lay low, Lincum soger ! Lay low ! Now, Dinah ! fool de rebels ; say you dribe de man away, Hut keep dem here a-jawin jus as long as dey will stay. My Lawd! I must be runnin ! Don yo heah de houn s bay? Pray ha d, Lincum soger! Pray ha d! ***** Now, praise de bressed Lawd ! for de soger man am save! Come down, Lincum soger ! Come down ! Dis nigga made a straight line for de wi ches "Black hole cave." Come down, Lincum soger ! Come down ! I pull off yo shoes an I drap m down de hole, Den rub my feet wid sas fras, an clim up on de knoll, An sit down dere an larf, an mak my eye-balls roll. Yah-ya! Lincum soger, yah-ya! De houn s came a-bayin an dey run up to de cave; Yah-ya ! Lincum soger, yah-ya ! De rebels came a-ridin , an dey cuss an sw ar an rave ; Yah-ya ! Lincum soger, yah-ya ! I tole dem you jump in, an dat yo goin down dare yit, Cayse de black hole cave, dey say, am "a bottomless pit." My! how de cap n cuss an rave! I thought he have a fit! Yah-ya ! Lincum soger, yah-ya ! Make de hoe-cake ready! Make de nah bu n up high! Praise de Lawd, Lincum soger ! Praise de Lawd ! Fo de rebels take you back dis yer nigga shuah he die! Praise de Lawd, Lincum soger ! Praise de Lawd ! 59 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? Befo sun-up I will lead you to de Lincum soger camp; But we mus be movin airly f o ts a right sma t tramp. Eat a h a ty meal, young soger, for de night am cole an damp. He p yo se f, Lincum soger ! He p yo se f ! R. S. TRAIN. Negro Heroism A few weeks ago, in Los Angeles, when the St. George Hotel was destroyed by fire, and the elevator boy in fright forsook his post, Julius Malone, the house engineer, a respect able colored man, rushed to the elevator and, notwithstanding the warnings of the officers, he ran the elevator up to the top floor and brought safely down fifteen frantic, shrieking persons. On the descent he saw a woman with a child standing helplessly on the fifth floor, and although the elevator shaft was now a mass of flames, he insisted upon endeavoring to rescue them. But the elevator was stalled between the second and third floors because the motor gave out. Before he could extricate himself he was mortally burned, and died a little later in an emergency hospital, and was honorably interred yonder in Evergreen Cem etery. And does Julius Malone, a Southern Negro, not occupy a hero s grave? Was it not a Christlike deed? And will he not wear for ever a hero s crown and wield a hero s scepter? 60 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? "I ll Hit It Hard!" A patriotic young man, reared in poverty and struggle, made a trip down the Mississippi River as a deck-hand on a flatboat. When he reached the Southern metropolis he then, for the first time, heard the voice of an auc tioneer as he offered human beings for sale. Looking easily over the heads of those about him, he could see the auction block; and when he saw a beautiful young Negro girl torn away from her mother and handed over to a bestial-looking human brute who had the money to buy her as his own, the young man, with his blood flowing in fiery torrents through his veins, withdrew from the crowd and, lift ing his big hand to heaven, he vehemently took a solemn oath : "If I ever have a chance to hit that thing, I 11 hit it hard ; by the Eter nal !" Let no man honestly register a vow before High Heaven unless he is in earnest. God heard that oath, and immediately began to prepare and use that indignant youth from the Middle West. The way was opened before him he began practicing law and in a few years he was an acknowledged statesman. At length they were looking for a man to clearly define the paramount issues before the Repub lic. He was called to New York, and his memorable utterances at Cooper Institute re^ 61 IS THE NEGRO MAKING GOOD? vealed to the Nation that a new prophet had arisen to lead the children of liberty into the Promised Land. Soon he was the standard bearer of a new party. And one glad day he made bare his strong arm to fulfill the vow of his youth, and in the fear of the Lord he dealt a deadly blow ; he "hit it hard ;" so "hard" that the shackles fell from four millions of human beings ; so "hard" that an institution conceived in hell and fostered by devils tottered from its crumbling foundations and sank into irre trievable oblivion. The recoil of that masterful blow resulted in his own annihilation, and a broken-hearted and bewildered Nation sobbed at his bier; but Abraham Lincoln must live forever as the apotheosis of American manhood. O, there is still much to do! God would emancipate all souls that are enslaved by avarice, selfishness, vice, and strong drink. The call of duty and opportunity is heard. Let us answer quickly and obey promptly, and God will work other miracles of liberty in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 62 U.C. BERKE EY I IBRARIES