E 185 .3 C28 1 AMERICA AN ADDRESS Delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 16th October 1007 BY ANDREW CARNEGIE, Esq., LL.D. INVERNESS: R?ht. Curruthers & Sorts. (Courier Office. AN ADDRESS Delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 16th October 1907 BY ANDREW CARNEGIE, Esq., LL.D. INVERNESS: Robt. Carruthers & Sons, Courier Office. LOAN STACK INVERNESS : PRINTED BY ROUT. CARRUTHERS & SONS, COURIER OFFICE. .3 The Negro in America. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION, So many and varied have been the subjects treated by my predecessors in your long history, that one has some difficulty in selecting a theme. I escape this, however, by breaking fresh ground in bringing to your attention " The Negro in America." No racial movement in the world to-day is more interesting ; few, if any, are more important. We here deal with ten millions of people double the population of Scotland recently not men but slaves, the very last slaves held by a member of our English- speaking race, who were not only suddenly made free men, but also entrusted with the ballot. Proud is the boast, " Slaves cannot breathe in Britain ! If their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free. They touch our country, and their shackles fall." But where the poet-liberator stops, his part finisht, the stateman s work only begins. The shackles fall, but the citizen fails to emerge. How is the slave to gain self-control, wisdom s root, when all his days he has been controlled by others? "Arise and walk" was once said to the lame, but a miracle-worker was required to effect this instant cure. It is the 6 necessarily slow development of the slave into the citizen which I propose to lay before you to-night. In one respect the problem is unique. The negro is called upon to rise in the scale from slavery to citizenship in the presence of a civilization represen tative of the highest, his shortcomings, backslidings, failures, cannot but be numerous and discouraging, and the contrasts between whites and blacks in many respects such as to produce the belief in the minds of their former masters that the end striven for is unattainable. Once a slave, always a slave, so far as the negro race is concerned, is their natural conclusion. The first cargo of slaves, twenty in number, was landed at Jamestown, Va., August 1619, only a few years after the original Colonists settled at Jamestown, and one year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. When the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, there were already five hundred and two thousand slaves in the country. The Constitution, however, forbade their importation, and it was natural increase almost alone, therefore, which produced in the hundred years, 1790 to 1890, a ten-fold increase, to seven millions and a-half. The last slaves were smuggled in against the law as late as 1858. Boston had become the chief port for the slave trade, but experience proved that the warmer South, not the icy North, was to be the negro s home. They rapidly gravitated southward, and found their place in the cotton fields. Virginia, under the influence of Jefferson, was the first to prohibit the importation of slaves. Slavery was abolish t by State after State in the North, and it became common for people of the best element in the border States, represented by Washing ton and his circle, to manumit their slaves. Needless to say, good men and women treated them well, and were often repaid by loyal and even intense devotion, but, if it were to continue, the relationship demanded that it be unlawful to teach slaves to read. Educa tion is moral dynamite which invariably explodes into rebellion. This is one of the penalties that we of the English-speaking race have to pay for our well-meant attempts to govern what are called subject races. In teaching our history, we supply them with the most deadly explosives, sure some day to burst and rend the teacher. We " teach bloody instructions which return to plague the inven tors," unless we be wise, and from time to time grant the liberties we ourselves extol and enjoy. Intelli gence forces equal rights ; hence the unrest in Egypt, India, the Philippines, and other countries under foreign tutelage is, in one sense, a wholesome sign as proving that the awakening masses are stirred to action and demand recognition as fellow-citizens, thus showing that our teaching, and especially our example, have had their inevitable and, let us never forget, their salutary effect. Let it never be said that our race teaches men how to remain slaves, but always how they can become freemen not that they should forget their own country, but how they can repeat, like ourselves, with throbbing heart, " Breathes there a man with soul so dead, "Who never to himself hath said, * This is my own, my native land. " Only so can the mother of nations be proud of her children, or America some day be proud of the Philippines to which she has just given a Legislature. It is, at first thought, remarkable that the negro in America has been so long-suffering. There never was a negro conspiracy nor a united revolt. Never were national troops needed to repress serious outbreak. But let it be remembered that the Southerner, the master, knew better than to teach them as we now teach subject races. It was unlawful to teach the slave to read. Ignorance is the only possible foundation upon which dominion over others can rest. When I talked to the natives of India who had been educated in your schools there, and heard from them how Washington, Cromwell, Sidney, Pym, Hampden and others were revered, I was proud that our race develops men, not slaves. As Burke said " We view the establishment of the colonies on principles of liberty, as that which is to render this kingdom venerable in future ages " a nobler triumph than all Britain s armies and fleets ever give. This is true glory. 9 The North would probably have acquiesced in the constitutional recognition of slavery in the original slave States so long as each citizen felt that his own State was free from the guilt and curse, and it might have died peacefully as with you in the West Indies thru compensation. You may remember that Lincoln earnestly favored this policy. When he met the Vice-President and other Confederate officials at City Point, he took a sheet of paper and said " Gentlemen, let me write here at the top Emancipation, and you may fill the rest of the sheet with your conditions." Imagine what would have been saved had the southern leaders been prepared to give up the accursed system the hundreds of thousands of human lives sacrificed, the enmities aroused, thousands of millions of dollars wasted. So it is with brutal war which always decides, not who is right, but only who is strong. Population from North and South began to pour into the western territories. Were these to be u slave " or " free ?" This was the issue ; hence sprang the irrepressible conflict. The South claimed the right to hold slaves anywhere upon common territory. The North determined that not one foot of territory beyond the old States, where the Constitution recognized slavery, should be trodden by a slave. The same spirit that stirred Britain and compelled the abolition of slavery in the AVest Indies 10 animated the North. Slavery became the accursed thing, " the sum of all villainies," and, in addition to that, it was not good Americanism. Many runaway slaves crost the border, pursued by officers, who in some cases were accompanied by trained dogs. Slaves also past over the border rivers sometimes on the ice. The pursuers were not accorded enthusiastic welcome in the North, and little of the assistance which the law required was given in the chase. The South then forced a fugitive slave law thru Congress. The rival parties, Free-Soil Northerners and Slave- holding Southerners, encountered each other in the Territories, and very soon the whole country was at fever heat. When the North was required by law to assist in capturing men flying from slavery and return them to it, there was an end to all discussion. Human slavery at last became a moral question. Was the Republic to be a Free or Slave Power ? an issue only to be decided by the most gigantic contest of modern times. Into this the slaves were drawn. Lincoln with a stroke of the pen emancipated them, and thus the last vestige of slavery vanisht from the civilized world. The rebellion was crush t, and so far all was well, but as the colored people were the only loyalists thruout the South (with certain notable white excep tions), and had served surprizingly well in the Army, the rash step was taken of instantly conferring the suffrage 11 upon them. It was a choice of evils. Only thru negroes was the general government enabled to maintain its sovereignty and ensure loyal Congressional representa tives, thus securing Constitutional Government over the South. The white people of the South, intensely loyal to their States as against the Government, were infuriated by the ascendency of their former slaves. No situation could be imagined more certain than this to drive further apart the two races, and to embitter the feelings of the Southern whites against the colored allies of their conquerors. Such was the condition in America at the close of the war, some forty odd years ago. Here we have between four and five millions of slaves, formerly held in dense ignorance, unable to read or write, without churches, schools, or property of any kind, and yet called upon to perform the duties of citizenship, their former masters surrounding them incensed at their elevation. How were the negroes recently slaves to be made fit as citizens ? a problem that might appal the bravest. Yet this was the one fundamental requirement, for without improvement of the black race no satisfactory solution was possible. After a period of fifty years we are to-night to enquire whether the American negro has proved his capacity to develop and improve : this I propose to answer by citing facts. 12 The first question the ethnologist will naturally ask is : Has he proved himself able to live in contact with civilization, and increase as a freeman, or does he slowly die out like the American Indian, Maori or Hawaiian ? The Census answers that the total num ber of negroes in America In 1880 was 6,580,793, In 1900, 8,840,789. Increase in twenty years, 2,259,996, equal to 34*3 per cent, almost double the rate of increase of the United Kingdom, and within three per cent, of the increase of America, white and black combined. The negro race numbers to-day about ten millions. It does not increase as fast as the white in America because there is no black immigration ; taking only native whites and blacks, their relative increase must be about equal. There is no trace of decline here, but a surprizingly rapid rate of increase, one of the surest proofs of a virile race calculated to survive in the struggle for existence. The first test, therefore, we may consider successfully met. Now for the second : Scotland s proud position among nations rests chiefly upon the realization of the famous declaration of John Knox, " I will never rest until there is a Public School in every Parish in Scot land," which finally led to the noble enactment which proclaims that, "no father, of what estate or condition that ever he may be, use his children at his own fantasie, sepecially in their childhood, but all must be compelled 13 to bring up their children in learning and virtue." You will agree with me, I am sure, that the second test of capacity to reach the standard of citizenship is the passion for education, the desire to be able to read, write and cypher. Before the war this broad avenue to all progress was closed to the slave. Let us see whether he has taken advantage of the door that opened after slavery was abolisht. The censuses of 1870 and 1900, thirty years apart, compare as follows as to illiteracy of the negro males of voting age : Total Number. Illiterate. Per cent. 1870 1,032,475 862,243 83 5 1900 2,060,302 976,610 47 4 Thus in thirty years illiteracy has fallen 43 per cent. At same rate of progress, it is to-day (1907) not one- half as great as in 1870. Of the first 1,032,000 of people in 1870, 862,000 were illiterate. The second 1,028,000 of 1900 added only 114,000, nearly eight illiterates in the 1870 males of voting age to one illiterate in the second million increase up to 1900. We have an instructive census table showing illiterates in the colored population of ten years of age and over for 1880 and 1900 : Total Illiterates Per cent. 1880 4,601,207 3,220,878 70 1900 *6, 415, 581 2,853,194 44 5 a decrease in illiteracy of thirty-six per cent, in twenty years. * Indians included, some 345,000. 14 While illiteracy among the negroes is being rapidly reduced, we must not forget an equally encouraging reduction among the poor whites, a class that was much to be pitied during the reign of slavery, with the contempt for honest labor that followed slavery as its shadow. The slave master performed no labor, and was as a rule above trade, a territorial magnate fashioned after that class in Britain. The poor white aimed at that standard and hence declined to learn handicrafts. A small piece of ground, usually rented, sufficed to keep him alive, and everything approach ing manual labor was work for slaves. Illiteracy prevailed to an enormous extent. The census of 1900, however, showed that the South had reduced the percentage of native white males who could not read and write to sixteen per cent. In considering the Southern problem, we must never forget that the " poor whites " are an element complicating the situation, the attitude of this class to the black being intensely hostile far beyond that of the educated whites. There was no public school system in any Southern State before the war ; now there is no State without one, embracing negro as well as white schools. Since 1880, negro churches have contributed for negro education $9,549,700, almost Two Millions Sterling, to supplement deficiences of the State systems. 15 The colored Church is chiefly composed of Methodists and Baptists, and is a great force among the negroes, exercizing commanding influence. Let all doubters of the future of the negro race remember that it has 23,462 church organisations and has built 23,770 churches, with a seating capacity of six millions eight hundred thousand. It has 2,673,977 communicants out of ten millions population ; few adult negroes are outside of the Church. Their Church property is valued at $26,626,448 over Five and One-Half Millions sterling. It may be doubted whether even Scotland s percentage of communicants reaches that of the whole negro race. Many of the foremost leaders of the negro people are to be found among their churchmen. They have been especially fortunate in their Bishops who are elected, not appointed, and are active, progressive men. In 1860, negro schools were unknown, it being unlawful to teach the slave. In the year 1900, 1,096,734 colored youths attended public school, and 17,138 attended higher schools of learning. The warfare against ignorance goes on apace among both whites and blacks. For twenty years after the war progress in providing negro schools by the States was very slow, but since 1880 there has been spent by the States in their support, $105,807,930 about Twenty-five Millions Sterling. In addition to this, all over the South the negro is providing additional 16 school buildings and extending the term for keeping them open each year beyond that fixt by the States, the additional cost thereof being defrayed by the negroes. The strong religious tendency which characterizes the negro finds vent in Young Men s Christian Associations. Three men are employed by the National Committee, who devote themselves ex clusively to their foundation and control. Thirty- seven associations already exist in the principal cities. Twenty-three paid secretaries give their entire time to the work, which is extending rapidly. In seven States Delaware, Arkansas, South Caro lina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana the Cost of Negro Common Schools in 1900 was - $1,345,859. Whereas Negroes contributed - 1,496,036. " Excepting a few city systems, it can be said that apparently negroes in the South contributed to their schools in 1899, $3,762,617 out of a total cost of $4,675,504, leaving but $912,887 to be paid by the whites." There are now in the country 136 Colleges and " Industrial Schools " exclusively for the education of negroes, apart from the Public Schools. It will be many years before this immense and sparsely populated region known as The South can 17 boast that Knox s scheme is completed ; but at the present rate of progress this century apparently will not close upon a " Parish " minus its public school. Such is the gratifying evidence that the negro race shares with the Scotch the passion for education. We now come to the third vital test of a race, only less important than the other two. We have seen that the negro is rapidly becoming a reading and writing man ; permit me to give some facts proving that he is also becoming a saving man. Surely no better proof can be given of his desire and ability to rise and become a respectable member of society than the production of a bank-book with a good balance, or, better still, the title to a farm or a home free of debt. The saving man is par excellence the model citizen peaceable, sober, industrious and frugal. The magic of property works wonders indeed, and pray remember once more that only forty-three years ago he, a slave, the property of a master, found himself suddenly and without warning his own master, face to fp e with duties to which he was wholly a stra r er self-support, self-direction and self-control. ^e care of wife and children, wage- earning anr 1 O ne expenditure of wages, the duties of citizenship, including the right of voting, all thrust upon him who had been until that hour possest of nothing, not even of himself, without home, school, church, or any of the elements of civilized 18 life. The horse or cow fed in its stall and worked on the estate had scarcely less to do with providing for itself than the general field slave. Only the few house hold servants and craftsmen were of a much higher class. Has the negro shown the ambition and the ability to save and own his home or his farm ? Does he take to the land, and is he making a successful farmer and landlord ? These are vital points bearing upon his future. Let us examine the record. In 1.900 no less than 746,717 farms, 38,233,933 acres, 59,741 square miles, just the area of England and Wales, or double that of Scotland, were owned or tenanted by negroes, who forty years previously owned nothing. These embraced, in the Southern Central States, 27*2 per cent, of all the farms; in the South Atlantic States, 30 per cent.; in the Southern States Florida 33 per cent., Georgia 39*9 per cent., Alabama 42 per cent., Louisiana 50 2 per cent., and Mississippi 55 per cent. The negro has more farms than the whites in the last two States, but it must be remembered that the average size of negro farms is very much less than those of the whites. The figures just quoted include farms owned or tenanted by negroes, i.e., they were either land lords or farmers. When we come to farms in the hands of owners we find that in the twelve Southern States negro landlords in 1900 owned 173,352 farms, and the aggregate wealth of negroes was estimated at $300,000,000. 19 The race that owned not an acre of land forty years ago is now possessor as landlords of an area larger than Belgium and Holland combined, and rapidly increasing. The negroes have the land hunger, one of the best qualities, and they are entering freely into the landlord class, a statement which perhaps may be calculated to arouse your sympathy in Scotland, but when the owner is land lord, factor, farmer, and worker all combined, and really does a hard day s work, dividends appear. The white American landlord, factor, farmer and worker, all in one, is the backbone of the body politic, always conservative as against revolutionary projects, but moving ahead with the times, intelli gent, fair-minded, exceedingly well-behaved, a kindly neighbor and model citizen. They exceed five millions in number. The negro landlord may be trusted to develop into the likeness of his white compeer and draw his race upward after him in due time. Virginia is the foremost Southern State. She has one hundred counties. In thirty-three counties eighty per cent, of the negro farmers own and manage their land ; in fifty, seventy per cent, do so ; and only nineteen counties have more white than negro farmers. In 1 898, negroes in Virginia owned 978,118 acres ; in 1903, 1,304,471 acres, a gain by negro landlords in five years of 326,353 acres. 20 The total business capital of negroes in Virginia in 1889 was $5,691,137 ; in 1899, $8,784,637. Seventy-nine per cent, of them had less than $2500 each (500), so that a great number use their own funds. Georgia is one of the most prosperous of the Southern States. Land owned by negroes Acres. Value. 1900 1,075,073 $4,274,549 1901 1,141,135 4,656,042 showing 70,000 acres added in one year. The assest value (the actual value being double) of all property owned by negroes in the State was In 1900 $14,118,720 1901 15,629,181 an increase of a Million and a Half of Dollars, or nearly eleven per cent., in one year. The negro has often been described as lazy and indolent, yet the census shows that in the South 84 1 per cent, of colored males and 40*7 per cent, of females over 10 years are engaged in gainful occupations, while of the white population of the country the percentage is 79*5, and only 16 per cent, of females. The negro is chiefly employed in agriculture. The census of 1900 shows 1,344,125 agricultural laborers and 757,822 farmers, planters and overseers. The impression of laziness probably arises from climate. 21 The negro does not, nor does any race, work as hard in the sunny south as in colder climates. There is another point not to be lost sight of how a man works as a slave or servant for a master does not prove how lie will work as a freeman for himself. The negro agriculturists, as has been seen, are rapidly becoming landlords. Those residing in cities show similar ambition to acquire real estate. Jackson, Mississippi, for instance, is owned to the extent of one-seventh by negroes, who have Two and a Half Millions of Dollars worth of taxable property. A state ment is given for Richmond, Va., showing that there as elsewhere negroes are engaged in every occupation and profession ten Lawyers, thirty Ministers, three Dentists, ten Physicians, two Photographers, School Masters, Real Estate Dealers, Merchant Tailors, Jewelers, thirty-five Dressmakers, four Savings Banks, four Newspapers (Weekly), four Restaurant-keepers, sixteen Stenographers. Every field of human activity is represented. The first Physician in Richmond to use a motor-car was a negro. The resources of the First Colored People s Bank are reported at $555,288 (115,000). There are thirty-two negro banks in the country. Building and Loan Associa tions and Insurance Companies are not overlook t ; several have been organized and are being success fully conducted by negroes in various cities. There are in the United States 1734 Negro Physicians and 22 Surgeons, and 125 Drug Stores owned by negroes. Not only are all professions filled by negroes ; the Patent Office in Washington shows four hundred inventions patented by them. The desire to own a home is one of the most encouraging of all traits in the masses of a nation. In 1865 the negroes were without homes of their own. In 1900, thirty-five years later, there were 372,414 owners of homes, and of these 225,156 were free of encumbrance. Home is the cradle of the virtues. Man is not quite up to the standard until he can say proudly to himself " This is my own, my precious home," and if he be able to add " and all paid for," so much the better. He has given the best proof possible of his good citizenship. This is our bulwark in America against revolutionary or socialistic ideas. So many millions own their homes that they control political action. The right of private property is sacred. In dividualism rules in the Republic. The negro has not overlookt the Press as an essential element of modern progress. Several attempts were made to establish newspapers previous to 1847. In later years, however, many have become successful. The newspaper directory for 1905 gives 140 publica tions of every class publisht by negroes, but it is said to be incomplete. There are six negro magazines, two of these quarterly, denominational publications, four 23 being monthly and undenominational. Most of the newspapers are devoted to local affairs and of little general interest, but some twenty-five publisht by negroes in different sections of the country are said to be really creditable to the profession of Journalism. The negro has not failed to make his appearance in literature. Booker Washington s " Up from Slavery " needs no comment. Professor DuBois s " The Souls of Black Folk " has attracted much attention. Charles "W. Chesnutt s several books, bearing upon the color line are notable. Dunday, the negro poet, is extensively read. Thomas Fortune, editor of the New York Age, the most successful negro editor, has written two in teresting books, " The Negro in Politics," and " Black and White," has also publisht a volume of poems and has been prominent in all efforts to elevate his race^ Dunbar, the poet, called the Burns of his race, who has recently passed away, was brought to the attention of the public by Howells. A new negro poet who has recently claimed recognition is Mr Braithwaite. Mr Tanner, the negro artist, has recently won the Gold Medal at Paris, and is now re presented in the Luxembourg. A negro student at Harvard University this year won the Rhodes Scholarship against fifty-six white competitors. It is true that many of these and other con spicuous negroes have white blood in their veins, but as they remain negroes and labor for and with their 24 people, this makes no difference whatever. We are ourselves fortunately a very mixed race. The point is not what the mixture but what the product is ; and so in estimating the negro race and its probable future we must take it as it is. The presence of white blood is one of the elements of the case, Benjamin Banneker, the astronomer, and friend of Jefferson, was a pure negro. So is J. G. Groves, the negro " Potato King " of to-day, so-called from his having grown in the State of Kansas 72,150 bushels of that indispensable article, an average of 245 bushels to the acre, which is claimed to break all records. He is one of the coming negro millionaires, and was born of negro parents in slavery. He already owns five farms. Alfred Smith, the "Cotton King" of Georgia, is another typical instance of negro ability ; when Sherman marched thru Georgia he was a hotel porter, and had managed to save $2000 (400). He emigrated early to Oklahoma and took up a " claim," and began taking premiums for the best cotton. In 1900 he received first prize at the World s Fair. Another millionaire in embryo. Mr Jackson is another. He has a reputation all over Georgia. He has for the past ten years brought the first bale of cotton to market, owns two thousand acres, employs one hundred men, and has forty- six mules and horses. Another negro, Mr Johnson, of Virginia, is one of the most successful exporters of 25 walnut. At present he has three properties. He also is making a fortune rapidly. Mr Montgomery, a slave until emancipated by Lincoln, was offered a bayou in Mississippi by the Railroad Co. provided he succeeded in founding a negro town, as white people could not live there. He succeeded, and is now at the head of about tw r o thousand people, president of a bank, and his town is attracting attention. He is no ordinary man, having been elected to the State Con stitutional Convention. (See "World s Work" for June.) These and other examples show that, like other races that have risen, our own included, the negro is capable of producing at intervals the exceptional man who stimulates his fellows. The race that produces leaders is safe and certain to develop. If a race bring forth at intervals a Wallace and a Bruce, a Kriox and a Buchanan, a Burns and a Scott, a Hume and an Adam Smith, a Carlyle and a Mill, a Watt and a Nielson, the result must be an advanced people. Every leader compels a following, which improves his race. Even the humbler men in the South whom I have mentioned as developing natural resources^ and making money in so doing, are in a sense also leaders among their people, and raise the standard of life in greater or less degree of those about them. While the North has been for five years, and is still, enjoying the longest and greatest uninteirupted 26 period of material prosperity ever known, and has had several shorter periods of similar character since the war, the South has only rallied from its lethargy within the past few years. It is now partaking of the boom, and prices of land, city lots, and all kinds of property have advanced ; a scarcity of labor exists, and Committees are being formed to induce organized immigration from Europe fco Southern ports. Italian colonies are being planted in various localities. Wealth is often under-rated in both countries. It is upon the foundation of material prosperity that the South is now building more churches and school- houses, industrial and medical colleges, and the people spending more upon education. Without this new wealth there would be less surplus to apply to the higher ends. The dress of the people, and the homes and modes of life are changing rapidly for the better thru the entire South. Philanthropists laboring among the negroes concur in testifying that nothing stirs their ambition and drives them to honest, unre mitting labour, and to educate themselves, like the magical touch of property, something they can call their own. It may be doubted whether there be any guarantee for the production of desirable citizens, equal to the possession of their own sweet little homes. A man thus most surely gives a bond to fate, and makes assurance of good citizenship doubly sure. 27 Permit me to give you a few figures showing the rapid growth of the South. Before the war there was not a yard of cotton cloth manufactured there. Last year there were added 794,034 spindles and 9871 looms in her cotton factories. Most surprizing fact of all, there were more yards of cloth woven in the South in 1906 than in the North, altho pro duction in the North also slightly increased. This manufacture, hitherto mostly concentrated in the New England States, is being rapidly extended in the South where the cotton is grown. Now that labor is be coming honorable since slavery died, the poor whites are flocking to the cotton mills and various other factories now being establisht, and proving them selves capable operatives. Testimony has just been given that one-third more labor is required in the cotton mills, but the white element, partly immigrants, may be depended upon soon to supply this. Last year there were more than three thousand miles of railway built in the Southern States, and eighty-four million tons of coal mined. The yearly cotton crop exceeds eleven millions of bales. In 1850 it was only two and a quarter millions. It must be steadily increased to meet the world s needs. In short, the hitherto impoverisht South is sharing the unprece dented boom which has prevailed in the North for some years. The question used sometimes to be asked in former days what could be done with the 28 negro ? The question to-day is, how more of them and of other Avorkers can be obtained. The negro has become of immense economic value and is indis pensable where he is. Touching the good qualities of the negro, he has much to his credit. During the civil war his devotion to good masters and mistresses was touching. They were left at home while their masters, almost to a man, joined the Southern army. It was the excep tion when slaves upon an estate were cruelly treated, and the relations between white and black were surprizingly free from bitterness. This does not mean that the slaves did not hail Lincoln s proclama tion with joy, but it does prove that as a class the American negro is of happy disposition, placable, affectionate, singularly free from promptings to com mit secret crimes, most grateful and responsive to kindness. There is nothing of the plotting assassin in him. We are staggered now and then by assaults of the lowest and most brutal negroes upon white women in the less settled States. It is stated that in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, which have large negro populations, there are neither rapes nor lynch- in gs. Every case of this kind is given widest publicity, and naturally arouses the strongest passions. These outrages are committed in lonely districts where policemen are unknown. There may be neither 29 Provost, Judge, Court, Jail, nor Officer of the Law within a clay s journey. The guilty fiend is captured by the residents, tried, and hung to the nearest tree. Every man and woman is aroused and mad for instant and sweeping punishment. Some times there are officials near who insist upon the wretch being imprisoned and duly tried months hence, but the maddened friends of the outraged victim are in no mood for parleying, and he is hung instanter. It is easy for those thousands of miles away, surrounded by all the machinery ready to punish crime, to preach patience with and obedience to all forms of the law s delay, but were we present, and the victim in the hands of the incensed neighbors, it may be doubted whether we could preserve the judicial spirit needed to preach patience. "Judge" Lynch is rarely, if ever, accused of punishing the innocent un due haste or excessive " efficiency" is his fault. The number who suffer, not from injustice but undue haste, is not great. As the population becomes denser and the negroes better educated, these brutal attacks may be expected to cease. They are steadily de creasing. In 1885, 181 assaults were made ; in 1906 only 72, less than half, altho population had increased about one-third. It is this crime only and the excessive publicity it invariably attracts that creates the false impression that the negro as a class is lawless, while the contrary is true. 30 The remaining vital negro political question is that of the suffrage. The National Constitution pro vides that no State shall discriminate on account of color. Many of the Southern States now require ability to read and write, which applies to whites as well as blacks. The best people, both North and South, approve this educational test. One good effect is that it gives illiterates, both white and black, a strong inducement to educate them selves. One cannot fail to sympathize with the educated element in communities mostly composed of illiterates, who outvote the intelligent. A few illiterates in an electoral district of the North, or here in Britain, matters little, but where these are in the majority it is an entirely different matter. The solution of the suffrage question probably lies thru this educational test. When negroes generally are able to meet this, we may assume that their entrance into political life in due course will not be keenly resented. As Confucius long since told us " There being education, there can be no distinction of classes." Booker Washington s influence is powerfully exerted to keep the negroes from placing suffrage in the front. He contends that good moral character and industrial efficiency, resulting in ownership of property, are the pressing needs and the sure and speedy path to recognition and enfranchisement. A 31 few able negroes are disposed to press for the free and unrestricted vote immediately. We cannot but hope that the wiser policy will prevail. You may be wondering how this transformation from slave to citizen, so far as it has gone, has been accomplish t. The education of the negro began in earnest thru the Freedmen s Bureau, establisht by Act of Congress in 1865, a few years after the war. General Howard, who was placed in command, proved most successful, head and heart being interested in the cause. At the end of five years, when it was thought no longer necessary because of the general interest awakened, its record showed that 4239 schools for colored pupils had been establisht in the South, with 9307 teachers and 247,333 pupils, the Bureau having taught nearly one million black children to read and write ; the cost to the General Government had been Six and a Half Million Dollars. Upon the scene, now appeared one of those rare leaders who seem designed for new and difficult tasks, impossible for ordinary men nothing short of an original holds the key. Such a man was revealed in a young enthusiast who, born of an American Missionary family in Hawaii, became General Arm strong. Shortly after he graduated at Williams College in Massachusetts, came Lincoln s call for volun teers to save the Union. To this young Armstrong 32 promptly responded. He put up a tent in the Public Park at Troy, and asked for recruits to form a company, who soon came to the bright, young would- be captain, and off he went to the front at their head. He writes to his mother " The first day of Ja.nuary is at hand when the slaves shall be free ; then I shall know that I am contending for freedom and for the oppressed. I shall then be willing and less grieved if I fall for such a cause." Here we have the spirit of the Crusader. He soon distinguisht himself, and was promoted to the rank of Major. Tho his com mand had hitherto been over white troops, at his request he was made Colonel of the first negro regiment, and here his genius had scope. He wrote his mother upon taking command "The star of Africa is rising. Her millions now for the first time catch glimpse of a glorious dawn, and their future, in my opinion, rests largely upon the success of the negro troops in this war. Their honour and glory will insure the freedom of their race." The regiment soon made a mark for itself. One officer reported that " Armstrong s soldiers felt toward him a regard that amounted almost to deification." He was soon made a General. When the Freedman s Bureau was created at the close of the war, General Howard gave com mand of the Virginia District to Armstrong, who finally determined to devote his life to the elevation of the negro race. He wrote to his mother " Till 33 now my future has been blind." He soon decided to establish a pioneer school to teach both sexes " manual labor as a moral force," and Hampton Institute ap peared, pioneer of all succeeding negro colleges. Under the slave regime, manual labor had been v held as fit only for slaves, and naturally the enfran chised negroes lookt upon idleness as the only real , reward of life. They had now to learn that useful labor was the duty of man and his title to honor. Armstrong succeeded in interesting a number of excellent people in the North, and, after over coming innumerable obstacles, he finally triumphed. He had rare power of attracting others and en thusing them with his own desire to labor for the negro. Many New England teachers, espe cially women, went to Hampton and led lives of devotion to the holy cause of uplifting the former slave. No less than Fifteen Million of Dollars (Three Millions Stg.) have been contributed by Northern people for this purpose. Among General Armstrong s private papers after his death this paragraph was found, giving what he " would wish known were he suddenly .to die." " In the school the great thing is not to quarrel, and to get rid of workers whose temperaments are unfortunate no matter how much knowledge or culture they may have. Cantankerousness is worse than heterodoxy." 34 He wisht to be buried in the College grave-yard fcmong bis colored students, " where one of them would have been had he died next. No monument 3r fuss whatever over my grave. I wish the sim plest funeral service without sermon or attempt at oratory. Booker Washington, who was a pupil under him and enjoyed his friendship thru life, says he was " the noblest, rarest human being that it has ever been my privilege to meet. I do not hesitate to say that I never met any great man who in my estimation was his equal. The first time I went into his presence as a student, he made the impression upon me as being a perfect man, and I felt there was something about him superhuman, and until he died the more I saw of him the greater he grew/ He is not alone in this estimate. Many who knew Armstrong endorse it. His life, recently publisht, reveals him to us. So far as we can judge, no nobler, more useful, or more self-sacrificing life was ever lived. I think his life would interest you deeply. The students of Hampton, of both sexes, were first taught how to take care of their bodies and how to conduct themselves. A high standard of cleanliness and neatness was establish t and rigidly enforced. Then came instruction in some craft, the women being taught domestic duties. The making of useful sale able articles was the aim, and from these came the 35 funds needed to pay a large part of the cost of educ tion. All work was paid for. Hampton traces twenty-five educational institu tions as its outgrowths. Between six and seve.i thousand of her graduates and ex-students an; scattered thruout the South teaching in various branches, 305 in business or clerical work, and 176 graduates pursuing higher courses. The high standard General Armstrong introduced is fully sustained by his worthy, self-sacrificing successor, Mr Frissell, a Scottish Fraser, and his invaluable wife, equally devoted to the cause. Josiah King, of Pittsburgh, as trustee of the fund of another citizen, Mr A very, who left his fortune for the benefit of the negro race, gave the needed financial assistance which enabled General Armstrong to carry out his project of founding Hampton. I rejoice that Pittsburgh money found a mission so noble, and that I knew in my boyhood both Testator and Trustee. Strange to say, the small farm of 159 acres, bought for the Hampton Institute, bore the captivating name of " Little Scotland." Somewhere not far away there no doubt rests one unknow ton fame of whom it can be said " A kindly Scot lies here." Among the Hampton graduates the most dis- tinguisht is Booker Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, which I had the 36 pleasure of visiting last year for several days upon its quarter-centenary. I was never more deeply imprest. I saw the students of both sexes being taught the various occupations. Applicants must oass examination. The women are first shown their rooms, and instructed for a few days how scrupu lously careful they must be to keep everything in perfect order, and in the performance of daily duties. Extreme attention is paid to personal habits, dress and deportment. Daily bathing and gymnastic ex ercizes are enforced. Each attends to her own room, and is taught cooking, baking, dressmaking, sewing and, generally speaking, all that becomes a young educated woman. The young men are governed with equal care. The result is an assembly of students, as at Hampton, that compare not unfavorably with white students in our Northern Universities. I was escorted thru the Industrial Schools, where all the crafts are taught. Asking one who was learn ing to be a tinsmith how long he had been there, he replied, " Three years, Sir." " How long have you yet to serve?" "Two more, Sir." "You will soon be making your Four Dollars per day." " I expect to make more than that, Sir," was the proud reply. The best tinsmiths make Five Dollars (l Os lOd) per day. He was ambitious, and expected to be first class. Asking the Superintendent if places could be found for all graduates in the crafts, he said that he 37 had five applications for every graduate he could supply. Coachbuilders, masons, bricklayers, tin smiths, blacksmiths and shoemakers are all there, soon to be earning wages very much higher than in Scotland. Plenty of work for them, for the Tuskegee and Hampton graduation certificate means not only a competent mechanic, seamstress or cook, but a self- respecting man or woman. There is no objection to negroes being craftsmen thruout the South because under slavery the clever slaves did all such work, white craftsmen being few. Manual labor was only for slaves. Poor whites were above that degradation. They were poor, but gentlemen at least they were white. A traveling agricultural school, consisting of a large covered wagon, attracted my attention. Such wagons travel the region, giving negroes needed lessons. Here were displayed large photographic specimens of the cotton plant and of maize grown upon soils plowed to different depths. The advan tages of deep plowing were so clearly shown that the most inert farmer could not rest plowing as shallow as before. I was told that such lessons were promptly taken to heart, and that the old cry " thirty acres and a mule " as the height of the negro s ambition is now " thirty acres and two mules," so that " plow deep " can be put in practice. Tuskegee takes deep interest in agriculture, and is rapidly 38 raising standards, thru its experimental farm. Its students make great numbers of all kinds of agri cultural implements and wagons. It is by these and kindred wise adaptations that Tuskegee has become a great educational force in many forms outside as inside her domain. Numerous are her off-shoots thruout the South a fruitful brood. Tuskegee has developed upon lines different from Hampton in one important feature. Here all is the work of negroes, the Principal and Pro fessors, and even the architects are colored. Hamp ton employs white professors, and has a white man in charge. The total number of scholars at Tuskegee, including classes outside, was last year 1948, 1621 being students regularly enrolled. All but about one hundred board and sleep in the grounds. Twenty- three hundred acres of land surrounding are owned by the Institute and cultivated by the students, part being an experimental farm. The endowment fund amounts to $1,263,000, the largest by far of any colored institution. Mrs Mary E. Shaw, a colored woman of New York, has just left all her money to it, $38,000, the largest gift ever made by a colored woman. Thirty-seven different occupations are taught in the " Schools of Agri culture," " Mechanical Industries," and " Industries for Girls"- each of these three departments has separate buildings. An annual negro conference is 39 held, and negro farmers and others come from all parts of the South, so famous have these meetings become. Two days sessions are now required, one for farmers and one for teachers. The choir alone is worth traveling to Tuskegee to hear. The Main Hall is large and vaulted, the stage ample, acoustics fine. The great choir of more than five hundred students sat back of the speakers, who occupied the front of the stage. I was not prepared for such enchanting strains as burst upon us from un seen singers. The music was sacred, and some of the finest gems were sung. I have heard many of the fine choirs of the world, in the Crystal Palace, St James s Hall, Home, Dresden, Paris, New York, and elsewhere; seldom do I miss an oratorio if I can help it, but never in my life did choral music affect me as at Tuskegee. Even the Russian choir in St Petersburg I must rank second. The pure negro voice is unique. The organ fortunately was very small. One felt there was some ground for preferring the human voice for praise, for even the finest organ lacks something when negro voices swell. Booker Washington is the combined Moses and Joshua of his people. i^ot only has he led them to the promised land, but still lives to teach them by example and precept how properly to enjoy it. He is one of these extraordinary men who rise at rare intervals and work miracles. Born a slave, he is to- 40 day the acknowledged leader of his race a modest, gentlemanly man, of pure, simple life and engaging qualities, supremely wise, an orator, organiser and administrator combined. Considering what he was and what he is, and what he has already accomplisht, the point he started from and the commanding posi tion attained, he certainly is one of the most wonder ful men living or who has ever lived. History is to tell of two Washingtons, the white and the black, one the father of his country, the other the leader of his race. I commend to you his autobiography, 11 Up from Slavery," as companion to " The Life of General Armstrong." " There were giants in those days," we are apt to exclaim, and lament their absence in our own age, but this arises from our failure to recognize the gigantic proportions of some of our contemporaries. To-day is a King in disguise, Carlyle tells us. Hence our Kings pass unnoticed until viewed in their proper perspective by one who has the gift to see and reveal the true heroes to the masses. Future ages are to recognize our contemporary, Booker Washington, the slave, as a giant, distinguishing the age he lived in, and General Armstrong, the pioneer, as another who can never be forgotten in the history of the negro race. He will grow as he recedes. These men of our own day are hereafter to be canonized as true heroes of civilization, whose life-work was neither 41 to kill nor maim, but to serve or save their fellows. In the task of elevating the negro, the part played by the Northern people, from the inception of the Hampton School idea to the present day, has been great. Not only have many millions of dollars been contributed, but many earnest men have given, and are still giving their personal services, giving not money only, but themselves to the cause. Among these there is one who deserves special recognition, Kobert C. Ogden, of New York, than whom none was closer to General Armstrong from first to last, and who still serves as Chairman of the Southern Educa tion Board. It is only just that the North should co-operate with the South in the great task, for it is equally responsible for slavery. Lest you separate, holding the view that there remains little more to be accomplisht in the negro problem, let me say that all that has been done, encouraging as it undoubtedly is, yet is trifling com pared with what remains to be done. The advanced few are only the leaders of the vast multitude that are still to be stimulated to move forward. Nor are the leaders themselves, with certain exceptions, all that it is hoped they are yet to become. When you are told of the number owning land or attending schools, or of the millions of Church 42 members, and the amount of wealth and of land possest by the negro, pray remember that they number ten millions, scattered over an area nearly half as great as Europe. The bright spots have been brought to your notice, but these are only small points surrounded by great areas of darkness. True, the stars are shining in the sky thru the darkness, but the sun spreading light over all has not yet arisen, altho there are not wanting convincing proofs that her morning beams begin to gild the mountain tops. All the signs are encouraging, never so much so as to-day. One is quite justified in being sanguine that the result is to be a respectable, educated, intelli gent race of colored citizens, increasing in numbers, possest of all civil rights, and who in return will by honest labor remain notably the chief factor in giving the world among other things its indispensable sup ply of cotton and, to no inconsiderable extent, of the products of cotton, while individual members gifted beyond the mass will worthily fill places in all the professions. Nor will the race fail to be distinguish t from time to time in the future as in the past by the advent of great men, fit successors of Frederick Douglas and Booker Washington. The Republic has its problems, fortunately so, without new problems there would be stagnation ; but, as in the past, so in the future she will surmount 43 all that now exist and any that may come. Our race has never failed so far. One of the most serious of the problems of the Republic in this generation has been that of the negro, now, as I hope I have shown, slowly but surely marching to satisfactory solution. What is to be the final result of the white and black races living together in centuries to come need not concern us. They may remain separate and apart as now or may intermingle. That lies upon the "lap of the gods." That they will henceforth dwell in peace, co-operating more and more as patriotic citizens of the Republic, is, I believe, already assured. I believe also that the negro is to continue to ascend morally, educationally, and financially. I am quite resigned to our own and the negro races occupying the South together, confident that as time passes the two will view each other with increasing regard, and more and more realize that, destined as they are to dwell together, it is advantageous for both that they live in harmony as good neighbors and labor for the best interests of their common country. Meanwhile, my personal experience of the South, small as it is compared with that of many Northern men who have been from the first, and still are, leaders in the work of elevating the negro, leads me to en dorse the opinion of one of the best -known and fore most of these, the Rev. Lyman Abbott, Editor of the 44 " Outlook," who has recently declared that " never in the history of man has a race made such educational and material progress in forty years as the American negro." 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