FOOTNOTES:
[1] History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America. Samuel Wilberforce.
[2] History of Education in North Carolina.—United States Bureau of Education.
[3] Semi-Centenary Discourses.—Rev. William T. Catto.
[4] Rise of the Baptists.—R. B. Semple.
[5] Slavery and Anti-Slavery.—Wm. Goodell.
SECOND PAPER.
WHAT PROGRESS DID THE AMERICAN WHITE MAN MAKE, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ALONG THE LINE OF CONCEDING TO THE NEGRO HIS RELIGIOUS, POLITICAL, AND CIVIL RIGHTS?
BY REV. J. M. COX, D. D.
JAMES MONROE COX.
James Monroe Cox was born in Chambers County, Alabama, February 26, 1860. While he was yet a boy his parents moved to Atlanta, Ga., and in the public schools of that city he received his first educational training. Having a desire to go to college and receive the best training possible for life's work, he entered Clark University. He took high rank in his studies, completing the classical course in 1884, and graduated from Gammon Theological Seminary in 1886, being the first student to receive the degree of B. D. from that institution. The year following his graduation from Gammon he was appointed teacher of ancient languages in Philander Smith College, Little Rock, Ark. In the fall of 1887 he was married to Miss Hattie W. Robinson, a young woman of culture and refinement, who after graduating from Clark University in 1885, taught two years in the public schools of Macon, Ga. They have five interesting children, and their married life has been singularly happy and helpful. After a professorship of eleven years in Philander Smith College he was appointed president of the institution. As president he has served for five years, and under his administration the school has had a strong, healthy growth, until now it numbers almost five hundred students. A much-needed addition to the main building has been completed at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars, the faculty has been increased, and through the efforts of the students he has raised some money, which forms the nucleus of a fund for a trades school. He is a member of the Little Rock conference of the M. E. Church, and has twice represented his brethren as delegate to the General Conference,—at Omaha, Neb., in 1892 and at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1896. His influence over the young people committed to his care is great, and he is striving to send out strong, well-rounded, Christian characters, and thus erect monuments more enduring than granite or marble. Last year Gammon honored him with the degree of D. D.
The very language of our subject assumes that the Negro is entitled to religious, political and civil rights, and limits our task to showing the extent these rights have been conceded to him by the American white man. In considering this, as well as other subjects that concern the race, it is well to bear in mind the fact that men make conditions and conditions also make men. The truth of this statement is strikingly demonstrated in the reactionary influence which slavery had upon the American white man. The chains that bound the Negro and made him a chattel, also fettered the mind and soul of the white man and caused him to become narrow and selfish. Lincoln's proclamation gave freedom alike to slave and master, and now the progress made by each along all lines of human development will depend upon the extent he leaves behind slavery conditions and thinks on purer and higher things. Living in the past, meditating upon the time when he was owner of men and women, the white man must still be a slaveholder. If he can not hold in subjugation human beings, he will arrogate unto himself the rights of others and use them to further his own selfish ends. The Negro also must get away from slavery conditions, if he hopes ever to be a man in the truest sense of the word and have accorded him the rights of a man. Time and growth are determining factors in what is known as the Negro problem. The white man must grow out of, and above, his prejudice, learn to measure men by their manly and Christian virtues rather than by the color of their skin and the texture of their hair. The Negro must devote himself to character-making, wealth-getting, and to the faithful performance of all duties that belong to him as a man and a citizen, for, he may only hope to receive his rights to the extent that he impresses the white man that he is worthy and deserving of them. We repeat, it will take time to accomplish these things, but when they are accomplished, rights which now the white man withholds, and which it seems he will never concede, will, like Virgil's golden branch, follow of their own accord. Viewing the subject in the light of the above stated facts, we believe that much progress was made by the American white man in the nineteenth century along the line of conceding to the Negro his religious, political, and civil rights.
In fact, the progress made in this direction stands without a parallel in the annals of history. It surpasses the most sanguine expectation of the Negro's friends, and even of the Negro himself. Although the white man is not entirely rid of his prejudice in religion and the color line is written over the entrance to many of his temples of worship, yet he recognizes the Negro as a man and a brother and accords to him religious rights and privileges. The Negro worships God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and the laws of the land protect him in this worship. He is a potent factor in all religious and reformatory movements and works side by side with his brother in white for the overthrow of vice and sin and for the hastening of the time when man and nations shall live and act in harmony with the principles of the Christian religion. He sits in the councils of the leading denominations of the country and assists in making their laws and determining their polity. He is accorded a place on the programs of the different young people's gatherings and is listened to with the same attention which other speakers receive. He bears fraternal greetings from his to white denominations, and is courteously received and royally entertained. In international assemblies and ecumenical conferences he enjoys every right and receives the same attention that others enjoy and receive.
But this progress is further evidenced by the profound interest manifested by the white man in the Negro's religious and moral development and by the strong pleas on the part of the nation's best and ablest men for the complete obliteration of the color line in religion and for dealing with the Negro as with any other man. Millions of dollars have been given for the building of churches and schools and hundreds of noble men and women have toiled and suffered that the Negro might be elevated. The bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, representing two and a half million members, said in their address to the General Conference, at Omaha, in 1892: "We have always affirmed them (the Negroes) to be our brothers of the same blood and stock of all the races which compose one common humanity. As such, we have claimed for them the same rights and privileges which belong to all other branches of the common family."
His political rights. He, who but yesterday was a slave, is now a citizen, clothed with the elective franchise. This is marvelous, and all the more so, because the ballot is a wonderful force. It is the ground element of our American civilization. In its exercise the poor man counts as much as the rich, the ignorant as much as the learned, and the black as much as the white. Indeed, the free and untrammeled use of the ballot makes its possessor a veritable sovereign and gives him power over men and their possessions. Opinion is divided as to the wisdom of giving the Negro citizenship at the time it was given him. We think no mistake was made. It came at the time the Negro needed it most. It was the weapon with which he defended himself when he had but few friends. The Negro has not been a failure in politics. The very leaders who urge our young men to let alone politics, will, on the other hand, point out Bruce, Douglass, Pinchback and others as the most worthy and conspicuous characters of the race. That a reaction has set in, and the Negro is being deprived of the ballot, should occasion no alarm and little surprise.
The grandfather clause in the different state constitutions will serve as a check to the white man's progress along educational lines, but a spur to urge us on. These seeming setbacks in the concession of political rights I count as progress, and place it to the white man's credit.
The decision of the Supreme Court at Washington against the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 has had its effect, and to-day we find the Negro more discriminated against in his civil than in any other class of rights. Then, too, the social bugbear has had much to do with this discrimination. However, progress has been made. It has been slow, of course, because of the channel (public opinion) through which it has been compelled to come. In many sections of the country the Negro enjoys the most of his civil rights. He is admitted to the hotels, theaters, and other public places, and on public conveyances he is furnished fair accommodations. We believe in the ultimate triumph of right. Let us be patient. There is a disposition on the part of the better class of white people to do the fair and just thing by the Negro. This class will continue to increase, and some day the Negro will enjoy all of his rights, and our fair country will indeed be the land of the free, as well as the home of the brave.
TOPIC XIX.
THE NEGRO AS A LABORER.
BY N. W. HARLLEE.
N. W. HARLLEE, A. M., A. B.
The subject of this sketch was born a slave in Robeson county, near Lumberton, North Carolina, July 15th, 1852. His father was a Methodist preacher who exhorted the plantation slaves, and was noted as "a natural mathematician." His mother was deeply religious.
Mr. Harllee is a self-made man, for he taught himself to read and write after being taught to spell about a third through Webster's blue-back spelling book, and with this small beginning he laid the foundation for a collegiate education and for the active work of life.
In 1881 he was elected register of deeds in Richmond county, N. C., where he had taught school for a number of years, and in 1882 was appointed United States postal clerk on the Carolina Central Railway and transferred to Charlotte, Columbia and Augusta Railway, which position he held till 1885. In 1879 he was graduated at the Biddle University, Charlotte, N. C., with honors. In 1885 he went to Texas and engaged in the profession of teaching, and served for a number of years as principal of the Grammar School No. 2 of Dallas, Texas. Afterward he was promoted to the principalship of the Colored High School of the Dallas City Public Schools, which position he now holds.
Professor Harllee has taken an active part in the educational work of his state, and has served as president and secretary of the Teachers' State Association of the state of Texas; he has also held the position of Superintendent of the Colored Department of the Texas State Fair for eight years, and still holds that position. He is a practical staff reporter on the Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Tex.
Mr. Harllee was married to Miss Florence Belle Coleman of Dallas, Tex., 1891, and has three children, Lucretia, Chauncey Depew and Norman W., Jr.
He is author of "Harllee's Tree of History," a new and graphic method of teaching history; also Harllee's "Simplified Long Division," a new graphic method of teaching long division; also Harllee's "Diagram System of Geography."
He has for a number of years advocated the establishment of a State University for the youth of Texas, and is also working with the Rev. W. Lomas and D. Rowens to establish an industrial school for his people at Dallas.
He is also chairman of the Y. M. C. A. board of education of Dallas, and along with Messrs. Rice, Darrell, Polk, Weems and Anderson is conducting a successful Y. M. C. A. night school for all ages and sexes.
For two hundred and fifty years the American Negro has been a drawer of water and a hewer of wood. He felled the trees and turned the forest into fields of cotton and corn; he drained the swamps and turned them into fields of rice; he graded the highways and made them possible for railroad transit and traffic. In summer he was to the white man, his owner, an umbrella; in winter, to the same owner, he was his winter wood, and always a ready servant with hand and brawn, as bread and meat and shelter.
The question of labor is one of bread and meat. To the bread-winner it means much; to the unemployed it often lends a charm for crime; for after all, the unemployed needs food, clothing, medicine, a shelter and employment alike for body and mind.
But the subject of labor is not a new one, and, indeed, it has been made a question of many complex phases introduced by prejudice from white trade unions. Also, climate makes an important factor, hence the different sections of our country employ to a large extent different kinds of labor, suited to the prevailing industries, thrift and enterprises.
We may consider at once the two general classes of labor, the crude and the skilled. For generations the black man, as a crude laborer, raised "King Cotton" in the cottonfields of the South. He has had no competition as a crude laborer; he still holds a trust on the fleecy staple; his right there is none to dispute.
But to-day a new and brighter era opens before us. We are to manufacture cotton as well as raise it. We are to advance and keep pace with the mental training of our children and provide employment for them in every avenue. As the Turk weaves his carpet and darns his shawl and as the Chinese prepares his silk, so the black youth must be trained to change cotton into cloth.
Trained hands and trained minds are inseparable companions. If we educate our boys and girls, we create in them a desire, we thrust upon them a stimulus which pushes them out into the active world, and, if only with polished brain and soft hands, they wander from place to place seeking the shady side of active, stern reality.
Since we, by educating our boys and girls, create new appetites, new desires, new activities, we set in motion new forces; then we ought the more to create new enterprises, open new avenues, establish new business or improve the old so as to meet the new relations, the awakened appetites, the growing activities and the employment of the new forces in the culture of cotton and the establishment of cotton mills.
We commit a crime by creating appetites and then failing to appease them.
The education of our children should no longer be a mere theory, but a matter of real practical nature, such as will benefit the bread-winner, the home-seeker, the higher citizenship, the welfare of the greatest number.
While I favor the higher education of the youth of the nation, I also think the youth ought to learn trades, to wear the overalls at the forge, at the work-bench, to adjust the machinery in the work-shop and the factory. I would have the youth able to design and build a house as well as to live in one, to raise potatoes as well as to eat them, to produce as well as consume. For many years the great majority of the youth must be common laborers, whatever their education, whatever their social condition or station; then it follows as the day follows the night that they should be educated with the trend of the mind and in connection with environment.
In the days of slavery many of our young men and women were trained along certain lines; the young men such as skilled carpenters, blacksmiths, stone masons, bricklayers, and the like, and the young women were trained in dressmaking and the like, and these boys and girls grew up having a kind of monopoly in their respective lines, although controlled by their owners. But for a quarter of a century very little attention has been paid to trade learning in many sections of the South.
This condition confronts us to-day; however, it is claimed that it is no fault of the children that they do not learn trades, and it is further urged by many parents that the blame does not lie at their hands; but that it is the fault of the times, of conditions and circumstances; and still others claim that the trade unions are the main cause. Many claim that, if their children are trained along certain lines, they will be debarred by the opposition of the trade unions. But these excuses seem too trivial. The opposition of the labor organizations should urge greater activity in superior trade learning in every pursuit, so that when the white striker walks out of the shops the black man, skilled, trusted and tried, should walk in and demonstrate his ability to do better and more work than the outgoing striker.
We are to take no steps backward in industrial and intellectual progress in the opening days in the dawn of the new century. A thinking people is a prosperous people. We are to be measured by what we can accomplish, not by the color of the skin, the texture of the hair, the color of the eye or the contour of the head. But we are to be measured as skilled farmers, mechanics, printers, artists and scholars.
This age demands substantial progress in every department of industry, in the home, at the fireside, in the shop and on the farm. To labor with skill, to facilitate and hasten its benign results with trained hands and cultivated brain, must ever be the fiery incentive of our people, in order that they may keep abreast of the times in all practical operations as skilled laborers, and, as such, vindicate their usefulness as citizens.
As laborers and citizens, the black face must stand for integrity in the community, the emblem of sterling worth, the black diamond intrinsic in value.
The time has come when one person ceases to employ another because he is of color, but he employs the one who can give more than value received. The race needs to bring the hand and the head nearer together.
The boy who has completed a college education should, in the course of time, raise more corn to the acre, if he be a farmer, than his uneducated father; for his knowledge of geology should better fit him to know the condition and nature of the soil; if a mechanic, his knowledge of geometry and of physics should enable him to be an adept.
The question of labor during the last few years has become, in many respects, intensely sectional. North of Mason and Dixon's line, the color of the skin has to do with the employment of the colored man along certain lines of skilled labor. While this is true in the South, the prejudice is not so rank as in the North, except where the colored laborer comes in contact with the Yankee or the foreigner.
SECOND PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A LABORER.
BY PROF. R. G. ROBINSON, B. L.
PROF. R. G. ROBINSON.
Prof. R. G. Robinson, B. L., the subject of our sketch, was born in Hamilton, Bermuda Islands, B. W. I., February 16, 1873. In pursuit of education he came to the United States at the early age of eleven, going directly to New Hampshire. In the fall of '85 he entered Dow Academy in Franconia, N. H. By economy and thrift he maintained himself in this institution for eight years, graduating in 1893, second in his class. During this course he was several times elected president of the Autonomation Literary Society. His conduct and standing was very tersely stated by one of his professors, when he said that "he was courteous and obliging under all circumstances, clear and logical in his deductions and conscientious as a Christian."
He immediately entered Dartmouth College in the class of '97. During his college course he was prominent in athletics, at the same time holding a good position in his class. Despite the fact he was one of the two colored men in a class of a hundred and twenty-eight, yet at the close of Freshman year he was unanimously elected class auditor for the ensuing year. He was a charter member of the Ruskin Society, a society for the cultivation of the histrionic art in Dartmouth College. In 1897 Dartmouth gave him the degree of Bachelor of Letters. Says President Tucker of Dartmouth: "He is a man of clear and earnest purpose, possessing tact and good executive ability."
After graduation he was elected to the chair of English language and literature in the Tuskegee Institute, but resigned at the close of the year and was elected principal of one of the city schools of Montgomery, Ala., which position he held until elected by the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Educational Society as principal of the La Grange Academy, La Grange, Ga.
In 1899 he was married to Lily Belle, the daughter of Wm. Hill, the wealthy truck gardener of Montgomery. Mrs. Robinson is a graduate of the A. & M. College at Normal, Alabama. They have a son, Mason Francis.
Prof. Robinson has a brother who is a member of the Boston Bar. He graduated from Dow Academy in Franconia, N. H., in 1893; attended Oberlin College and received the degree of LL. B. from Boston University. In 1898 he was a member of the Boston Common Council.
So artful is nature that she does not permit man to break one of her laws for his pleasure without a sacrifice on his part; that for every action there is a corresponding reaction; and so the laws of compensation hold good in the dealings of man with man, races with races, and nations with nations. Slavery, as ignominious as it was, had a dual effect. The master race, forming what might be termed a landed aristocracy, looked upon manual labor as degrading; while it of necessity became the natural sphere of the weaker. Thus the spirit of work became engrafted into the very being of the Negro. This is the path all races have trod.
The basis of the South's industrial system was Negro labor; and although the Emancipation Proclamation changed the whole structure from a base of slave labor to that of free labor, nevertheless the Negro remained virtually in the same position, but with enlarged opportunities. This was a legacy greater than the ballot, for it is vastly more important to a man to be able to earn an honest living than to be privileged to cast a ballot, and doubly so if the element of doubt as to its being counted enters into the privilege. It was a cruel change from that of an irresponsible creature to that of a man clothed with the responsibility of self-support and of American citizenship—a change that would have staggered any race, but the Negro has acted nobly his part.
To say that the Negro is a valuable citizen, and a necessity in the development of the South, is to put it mildly. It can best be appreciated when we remember that since the war the Negro has earned seventy-five billions of dollars, and out of this vast amount he has saved the pitiful sum of five hundred millions; thus contributing to the wealth of the South seventy-four billions and a half of dollars. It is estimated that four-fifths of the labor done in the South is done by the Negro. The theory advanced by those who claim themselves to be immunes from that dreaded disease of Negrophobia is, that the industrial education of the Negro will inevitably inspire a similar movement for the industrial training of the poor whites, and the resultant competition means a further complication of the race problem, which will only be solved by the ultimate separation of the races. This theory is as unique as it is original, and bids fair to revolutionize the laws of economics. But to the contrary the laws of trade and labor are as imperious as all the enactments of necessity. The South is fast regaining her lost treasures and bids fair to become not only an agricultural section, but with her wonderful oil and mineral resources to be the rival of the North. Coupled with her wonderful resources is the free Negro labor, which is the cheapest in the world outside of Asia, and will not only be in demand but will ultimately enter into all industries, driving all before it. It is a certainty that capital will inevitably seek and secure the cheapest labor. Besides cheapness, other qualifications have made, and will continue to make, him indispensable to the South's development and make him far superior to the foreign element for which a few seem to clamor.
Coming out of slavery ignorant, irresponsible, no name, no home, no "mule," there is no better way to measure the influence of Christian education than by the increased ability to earn, to save and to wisely invest money. The spirit of home-getting and the eagerness for education are very hopeful signs. We proudly quote from a lengthy editorial in a recent issue of the Atlanta Constitution: "The building up of wealth follows a sharpening of intellect. If the untutored colored man of the past quarter of a century could amass nearly a half a billion of dollars, why may not the educated Negro, during the next quarter of a century, quadruple the amount?"
As a skilled laborer it will take time for the race to make a mark, because here he will meet with sharper competition. This is the opportunity of the industrial school. The lack of sufficient numbers of skilled colored mechanics and because of the existence of prejudice, the employer shows timidity in attempting to supplant white labor with Negro labor. This fear will decrease as the supply increases. We indorse industrial training for the masses, but as efficient as it is, it is not sufficient. The tendency of these schools is to make the training of the hand of primary importance and that of the brain secondary. This might suffice for a while, but in this age of progress, of invention, when the genius of the age seems to have directed all its power to the invention of labor-saving machines, the demand for brainy mechanics is increasing so rapidly that the industrial school of to-day will wake up to-morrow only to find itself behind the times.
The Northern section of our country, with its large manufacturing interests and the constant demand for skilled labor, has encouraged the combining of labor into trades unions as a means of protection against the encroachments of capital. Because of the social side of these organizations the Negro has been debarred, with some exceptions. The unions will operate against him just as long as the interests of the unions are not in jeopardy and the supply of skilled colored mechanics is insufficient. But in the South, where Negro labor is plenty and agriculture is the chief occupation, the Negro will always have a practical monopoly, and his opportunities in all the trades in the North, as well as in the South, will increase in proportion as he becomes an educated, thrifty, law-abiding land-owner. The time has come when the Negro can no longer afford to play upon the sympathies of his friends, but as a man among men he must be pre-eminently fitted for his place; fitted in intellect, in the knowledge of his craft and in sobriety.
As a common laborer the Negro in his ignorance has had to battle against great odds. Too often his employer, who built the courts, run them and owns them, but who made the Negro shoulder the expense, feeling that he has the right of way and in his eagerness to get something for nothing, has forced the Negro through necessity to do the very thing for which he condemns him. Despite these great odds, industry and uprightness in any man, be he white or black, makes him a valuable member of any community.
THIRD PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A LABORER.
BY MISS LENA T. JACKSON.
LENA TERRELL JACKSON, M. A.
Lena Terrell Jackson was born December 25, 1865, in Gallatin, Sumner County, Tenn. Her father died in her early childhood; hence the responsibility of her support and education fell upon her mother.
This mother determined to give her daughter the advantage of a good education. Accordingly at the age of seven years the daughter was placed in a private school and remained there until the autumn of 1876, when, having finished the course of study in the private school, she was entered as a pupil in the Belle View City School and remained there three consecutive years.
She completed the course of study in the Nashville City Schools in June, 1879. In September, 1879, she entered the Middle Preparatory Class of Fisk University and remained at Fisk six years, graduating from the Collegiate Department in 1885.
During the six years spent at Fisk she taught school during the summer months in the rural districts and with the money thus earned helped to support her mother and maintain herself in school. She also assisted her mother in her family work after school hours.
After graduation, in 1885, she was elected as a teacher in the Nashville Public Schools, having resigned two similar positions, the one at Birmingham, Ala., and the other at Chattanooga, Tenn., to accept the Nashville appointment.
In 1894 she was assigned to the Junior Grade in the colored High School and two years later to the Chair of Latin in the High School, which position she is still filling.
Following out the principles of economy that are so thoroughly inculcated in the minds of Fisk students, her first thought after completing her course of study was turned towards the acquisition of real estate and the purchase of a home for her mother, who through so many struggles and sacrifices had made it possible for her to obtain a college education.
Her hopes in this direction have been realized to some extent; and she has secured not only a home, but considerable other real estate.
The wide scope of this subject, and the limited time given for research, together with the absence of statistics, make it impossible at this time to present more than a brief sketch. I propose to continue my research and investigation and at some later date to present the subject in a very much enlarged form, giving the condition of the Negro as a laborer in all the leading cities of the United States. In the present sketch mention will be made of only a few cities.
The Southern cities, with their stately residences and business houses that were constructed in ante-bellum days, bear emphatic testimony to the skill of the Negro in the mechanic arts. All of the labor of the South at that time was done almost exclusively by the Negro. Plantation owners trained their own blacksmiths, wheelwrights, painters and carpenters. The Negro was seen as a foreman on many Southern plantations during ante-bellum days. Education has greatly improved his ability to labor, and to-day in every vocation he is found as a laborer, competing successfully with other laborers. Notwithstanding the fact that prejudice and labor organizations are arrayed against him, the character of his work is such, and his disposition as a laborer such, that his services will always be in great demand.
Negro laborers are given employment on large buildings alongside of white laborers, and generally give entire satisfaction. In the city of Nashville, Tenn., during the present year, in the construction of the Polk Flats, two Negro laborers were employed with a number of white laborers; a strong pressure was brought to bear upon the foreman to displace the two Negro laborers and fill their places with white men. The request was promptly denied. This is conclusive proof that had the character of the Negroes' work not been eminently satisfactory the reverse would have been the result.
The Negro is found in all the occupations that are characteristic of a progressive people, namely, barbers, blacksmiths, brick and stone masons, carpenters, coachmen, domestic servants, firemen, farm laborers, mail carriers, merchants (grocers), millers, shoemakers and repairers, waiters, nurses, seamstresses, housewives, washerwomen and milliners.
Trades and Industries.—As stone and brick masons the wages range from $2 to $3 per day. Huntsville, Ala., has a brickyard that is owned and controlled by Negroes. This firm secures the contract for a large number of houses in Huntsville and the adjoining towns.
There is a town in the northern part of Virginia in which the entire brickmaking business is in the hands of a colored man, a freedman, who bought his own and his family's freedom, purchased his master's estate, and eventually hired his master to work for him. He owns a thousand acres or more of land and considerable town property. In his brickyard he hires about fifteen hands, mostly boys from sixteen to twenty years of age, and runs five or six months a year, making from 200,000 to 300,000 brick. Probably over one-half the brick houses of the place are built of brick made in his establishment, and he has repeatedly driven white competitors out of business.
As firemen the Negro has shown himself courageous and faithful to his trust. During a great fire in Nashville, Tenn., a few years ago, it was conceded by all that the progress of a disastrous fire was checked and much valuable property saved by the heroic efforts of the colored fire company. Unfortunately, however, the captain of the company and two of his comrades were sacrificed. In all the large cities colored fire companies are to be found, and in every case they are making a good record.
In some sections of Texas and Mississippi Negro plantation owners are often found.
Just after the close of the war the highest ambition of the Negro was the ministry. But there has been a remarkable change in that direction and Negroes are now found in all the professions. The Negro physician has made an enviable record. One of the leading surgeons in the West is a colored physician. He is the founder of a large hospital in a western town, and is also surgeon-in-chief of one of the largest hospitals in the country. The Negro has also gained some distinction at the bar. A large number of Negroes are teachers, and an increasing number of these are young women.
Clerical Work.—Negroes are given employment as clerks in the government service at Washington, D. C. There is a large number of railway-mail clerks, with salaries ranging from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a year. Nashville, Tenn., has three mail clerks who have held their respective routes for more than ten years.
Common Laborers.—This class includes porters, janitors, teamsters, laborers in foundries and factories. The usual wages paid for this class of work is $1 a day.
The barbering and restaurant businesses, toward which the Negro naturally turned just after emancipation, for which their training as home servants seemed especially to fit them, are not so largely followed now owing to the fact that the best talent of the race have entered the professions. Yet, however, in some places the Negro restaurant keeper does a thriving business. In Chicago, Illinois, there were two fine up to date restaurants which did a good business. One of these employed white help exclusively.
The Negro blacksmiths and wheelwrights do a good business, sometimes taking in from $5 to $8 a day.
As shoemakers and repairers, and furniture repairers and silversmiths, the Negro is successful, and is kept busy. In painting there is a colored contractor in Nashville who does business on a large scale. He is proprietor of his own shop, employs a large number of men, and secures the contract for a large number of fine dwellings. His patronage is confined mostly to white people.
Nashville has a steam laundry owned and operated entirely by colored men, and it has a large white patronage. In the rural districts most of the Negroes devote themselves to farming, either working on the farms of others or are themselves proprietors of farms.
Domestic Service.—In this field of labor both men and women are found. The average wages paid the men is $15 a month and board. The women receive from $5 to $12 a month, according to age and work. In addition to their wages they also receive lodging, cast-off clothes, and are trained in matters of household economy and taste. At present there is considerable dissatisfaction and discussion over the state of domestic service. Many Negroes often look upon menial labor as degrading and only enter it from utter necessity, and then as a temporary make-shift. This state of affairs is annoying to employers who find an increasing number of careless and impudent young people who neglect their work, and in some cases show vicious tendencies.
The low schedule for such work is due to two causes: One is, that from custom many Southern families hire help for which they cannot afford to pay much; another reason is that they do not consider the service rendered worth any more. This may not be the open conscious thought of the better elements of such laborers, but it is the unconscious tendency of the present situation, which makes one species of honorable and necessary labor difficult to buy or sell without loss of self-respect on one side or the other.
Day Service.—A large number of single women and housewives work out regularly in families, or take washing into their homes; and, like house servants, are paid by the week, or if they work by the day from 30 to 50 cents a day. This absence of mothers from home not only occasions a neglect of their household duties but also of their children, especially of girls. Aside from house servants and washerwomen, many of the women are seamstresses and readily find employment in white families. Some do a remunerative business in their own homes. The Negro woman is especially successful as a trained nurse, and a considerable number of the brightest and most intelligent among the young women are entering upon that calling. Conclusion.—The closing years of the nineteenth century indicate remarkable advancement on the part of the Negro in all industrial lines; but the twentieth century will doubtless furnish opportunities which will enable him to carry these beginnings to their legitimate fruition.
TOPIC XX.
THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.
BY REV. WILLIAM E. PARTEE, D. D.
WILLIAM E. PARTEE, D. D.
Rev. William E. Partee, D. D., was born at Concord, N. C., of Christian parents in the year 1860 and at an early age placed in the common schools of his native town. He was left an orphan at the age of ten, but by determination and the help of friends he gained an education. When but sixteen years of age he taught a country school. He was graduated from the collegiate and theological departments of Biddle University and was licensed to preach in 1883 and ordained in 1884 by the Presbytery of Catawba and entered upon his life work by serving as pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church at Concord, N. C., for more than three years, among his early playmates and companions.
In the year 1887 he took charge of a mission church and school at Gainesville, Fla., serving acceptably in that work for more than four years and standing faithfully by his people during that memorable epidemic of yellow fever in 1888. In 1892 he was called to the pastorate of Laura Street Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville, Fla., which position he occupied for nearly seven years. During two years of that time he was also principal of one of the city graded schools. In 1896 he was sent as commissioner from the Presbytery of East Florida to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Saratoga.
In 1898 he resigned from his work in Jacksonville to take charge of the First Presbyterian Church of Richmond, Va. Thus he has been engaged for many years in the active work of the ministry, always doing earnest and faithful work and held in high esteem by the people of every community in which he has labored.
He was married in 1886 to Miss Edith I. Smith, of Lynchburg, Va., who proved a worthy and efficient helper in his work, and uncomplainingly shared with him the trials and vicissitudes which fall to the preacher's lot in life for fourteen years. Then the Master called her to rest from her labors.
To form a correct estimate of the Negro as a Christian we must take into account the "depths from which he came."
Back of his forty years of freedom lie more than two hundred years of bondage, in which he was forced to obey the will of another absolutely and kept in ignorance. All real manhood was repressed and every ambition curbed. Though under the control of the Christian Church and people of the South, and living on the farms and in the homes and families of their masters, mingling in their lives and their society, and subject to their moulding influence, yet, as a rule, the moral principles and qualities necessary to a religious life were not taught him, neither was he encouraged to cultivate them.
There was no lawful marriage, no true home, but husband and wife were the property of a master who used or abused either as he chose; their children grew up under the same conditions and were encouraged or forced into unchastity, lying, stealing and betraying of one another under the teaching that there was no moral wrong to them since they were the property of another who was responsible for their acts. There could be no growth in morals, and there can be no true religion without morals. To say the least they came out of bondage with a dwarfed moral nature, and to this day suffer more or less from the effects of it. The carnality of slavery has not yet ceased to bear fruit, as we all know. Ever and anon it shows itself in those horrible acts which the newspapers report in full.
It takes long and weary years to root out of a race or nation evils that have become fixed in its nature. But while there is much to be deplored as to laxity in morals among the masses there has been constant and steady improvement in this regard. It is no doubt true that any race, kept in bondage under similar conditions, and for the same length of time as the Negro was, would come out of it in no better condition, and would, perhaps, show no better record in forty years than this race has shown, and especially so if that bondage were preceded by heathenism.
Dr. Haygood has said, "The hope of the African race in this country is largely in its pulpit. No people can rise above their religion; no people's religion can rise above the doctrines preached and lived by their ministry."
The Negro began almost unaided and alone in this particular. As to their religion they were very largely left to themselves during slavery. Their ministers were ignorant and unlettered. Many of them were pious, but many were ungodly and unscrupulous. So theirs was a religion largely without the Bible. It consisted of bits of Scripture here and there, of glowing imaginations, of dreams and of superstitions; yet it was the best they knew.
Then many years of freedom had passed by before fully equipped ministers could be provided them. During those years faithful servants of God, unlettered, did their best to be the true religious leaders of the people (all honor to them), but they necessarily came short in many respects and could not carry the people up to the higher plane of religious life.
With these things before our minds we say that the race has shown a remarkable growth in the essentials of true Christian manhood. Their notions may, in some things, be crude; their conceptions of truth may be realistic; they may be more emotional than ethical; they may show many imperfections in their religious development; nevertheless is it true that their religion is their most striking formative characteristic. So susceptible are they that no other influence has had so much to do in shaping their better character, and what they are to become in their future development will be largely determined by their religion.
While in their church and social life there are some elements of evil and superstition, some of which are the inheritance of past ages in the fatherland, while others have been developed in this country by the conditions of life during the years of slavery, still any fairminded person who takes the pains to correctly inform himself will acknowledge that these are being gradually but surely eradicated.
As a Christian he commends himself in his faith and devotion. Though his religion may sometimes be defective in its practical application to the principles of right conduct and living, God, heaven, hell and the judgment day are realities to him. He believes the truths of the Bible to be real, and thus he is sound in the faith so far as he understands it, and that is more than can be said of many who are better informed than he. What a rare thing to find one an infidel! Where can you find a people more susceptible to religious teaching?
The emotional nature is highly developed, and they are quick to respond to whatever appeals to their sympathies and affections. Emotion has its place in religion and is not to be ignored, but to be properly used and controlled and directed. To move any one we must first reach the feelings; if these can be aroused they may develop into a conviction that the subject of them should adopt a given course of action, and he accordingly does so. I am not sure after all that we should seek to repress such to any great extent. It may be a point in his favor, for since he is easily and powerfully impressed by strong appeals, he is the more readily brought under the influence of the wise teacher or leader. It is true in some cases that mere physical excitement is mistaken for being "filled with the spirit," and thus some swing to the extreme in this direction. It is noticeable, however, that this is being rapidly outgrown and more self-control is being practiced. After all it does seem that being easily moved and swayed may furnish the lever by which the wise and prudent may begin to lift them to the higher ground of religious life. No doubt in most cases there is deep down beneath the easily overwrought feelings a true religious disposition, with much spirituality and divine energy.
Benevolence is rightly regarded as an important matter in Christian living. In proportion to his means the Negro excels in this. Hundreds of churches, and many schools and colleges have been built out of their poverty. To sum up and place on record their gifts for the extension of Christ's kingdom would perhaps show to the world an unequalled record of self-sacrifice and devotion to a cause. Show that a cause is a worthy one and they are ready to give according to their ability to help that cause. To give help to ministers of the gospel and other Christian workers is not only regarded as a duty but as an honor and a pleasure. On the whole they are kind at heart, generous to the distressed, obliging and considerate. Love to friends and forgiveness of enemies are marked characteristics.
The statement has been often made that loose notions as to morals are held. To some extent this may be true. Let us bear in mind that the large majority are poor and are common laborers, and more than half the race are illiterate. Compare them with this class of any race in this or any other country and I dare say they will suffer but little by the comparison. Some have made much of the fact that in many places whole families by necessity live in one or two-room cabins. While this is unfortunate and to be regretted, it is nevertheless true that you can find even in such conditions in the majority of instances that purity and virtue are as much respected as among those who live in roomy homes where every privacy is afforded. They are not any worse, certainly, and, perhaps, are better in this respect than the multitudes of other races who live in the cellars and attics of crowded tenements in our great cities.
Let us not make the mistake of including all in one general class, and that the worst, but while acknowledging that there is great room for improvement, let us recognize in the vast mass of multitude who, in education, morals and religion, are the equals of any people.
The correspondence between the profession of the heart and the outward life is often not what it should be, but is not that true also of many Christians of any race? There are Christians of highest education who enjoy abundant and varied opportunities of enlightenment and culture who fail to show in all their outward life what they profess in their heart to be. Some do fall into the error of trying to separate between the religion of the heart and that of the life, but generally they are learning the better way. Where so large a percentage of the people cannot read and write, how can you expect of them the highest degree of moral and religious life? Taking into account the disadvantages and limitations under which they labor, you rather wonder that they have reached so high as they have in Christian living. We must consider the past history of the race, its present disadvantages, environment and opportunity, if we would justly estimate its Christianity. We must base our judgment upon the developed Negro if we would be fair. Education helps us to be better Christians just as it helps others and, and as we get more knowledge of Bible truths such as education can give us we will be better Christians. Educated ministers are fast displacing the uneducated, and those whose moral and Christian character fall below the standard are being crowded out, and schools and colleges are sending out every year hundreds of educated Christian men and women who raise the standard of right living in any community where their lot is cast.
The material prosperity of the Negro may be placed in evidence as to his Christianity. With all the odds against them and starting up from absolute poverty, the race now owns farms, homes, schools, churches, bank accounts and personal property amounting to five hundred and fifty million dollars. It is remarkable that this has been acquired in forty years. God's word teaches that nations prosper in material things as they get close to God.
Thus looking upon the brighter side we are led to commend in many things the Christianity of the Negro race and to believe that as a people higher ground is aimed at. Though yet a long way off from perfection, yet ever onward and upward are they tending.
SECOND PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.
BY REV. L. B. ELLERSON, A. B., A. M.
REV. L. B. ELLERSON.
Rev. L. B. Ellerson, A. M., was born at Cheraw, S. C., in 1869. Mr. Ellerson's father having died when the son was but an infant, Mr. Ellerson was left to be reared under the fostering care of his mother alone. He spent his youthful days in the public schools of his native town until he was sixteen years old. At that time he was happily converted to Christ and received the impressions that he was called to the gospel ministry. At the same time he united with the Presbyterian Church. In 1886, Mr. Ellerson entered Biddle University at Charlotte, N. C., to pursue such a course as would prepare him for the ministry. He remained at Biddle University until 1893, when he graduated from the classical course with honor, taking the Philosophical Oration. In '92 Mr. Ellerson was the successful contestant for the medal given by the Alumni to the Junior Class. During his course at Biddle, Mr. Ellerson spent his summer vacations, teaching in the district schools of North and South Carolina. In June, 1893, Mr. Ellerson was employed to do missionary work near Asheville, N. C. He continued in this work until September, 1893, at which time he entered the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, N. J., for the purpose of completing his course for the ministry. During the first two years of his course of Theology at Princeton he continued to come South in summer and engage in teaching during vacations. He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1896. He and two others being the only colored students in a class of sixty-nine young men. Besides keeping up the studies of the last year, Mr. Ellerson supplied the pulpit of Dwight's Chapel at Englewood, New Jersey. Here he remained until September, 1896, when he came to South Carolina and was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry by the Fairfield Presbytery, the same Presbytery having licensed him the preceding year.
During Rev. Ellerson's course at Princeton he was at one time engaged to supply the pulpit of Siloam Presbyterian Church at Elizabeth, N. J. At another time he was employed to assist the Rev. H. G. Miller, pastor of Mt. Taber Presbyterian Church, in New York City, during the illness of the pastor. Upon his ordination by Fairfield Presbytery in 1896, Rev. Ellerson was placed in charge of the church and school work at Manning, S. C. Here he worked very successfully preaching and teaching until November, 1898, when he was called to the pastorate of Berean Presbyterian Church at Beaufort, S. C. At the same time he was made principal of Harbison Institute. Rev. Ellerson labored with a marked degree of success on the Beaufort field from November, 1898 to April, 1901, when he was urged to accept a call from the Laura Street Presbyterian Church at Jacksonville, Fla., where he is at present prosecuting the work of his church with success. For a young man of his age, Rev. Ellerson evidently stands high in the estimation of his fellow Presbyters. This is evinced by the fact that he has already filled some of the highest offices in the gift of his brethren. In 1898 he was unanimously chosen moderator of Fairfield Presbytery at Camden, S. C. In 1899 he was made the choice of Atlantic Synod for moderator at Columbia, S. C., and in 1900 he was unanimously elected to represent the Presbytery of Atlantic in the General Assembly which met in St. Louis, Mo.
He has filled each of these offices with credit and ability. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by Biddle University, his Alma Mater in 1900.
If it is true that man is naturally a religious being, then it is pre-eminently true in the case of the Negro. If the Negro is anything at all he is religious. It matters not in what walk of life you find him or what may be his personal or individual character, it is a very rare case indeed when you find a Negro who indulges in doubt as to the existence of a supreme being or the existence of a future state of rewards and punishments. With him these are fixed points of belief. But as much as may be justly said regarding the Negro's natural piety, it must be observed and admitted by all who know the Negro best that his religion is very much defective in its practical application to the principles of right conduct and living. And this, we perceive, is the main point at issue, for when we discuss the Negro as a Christian we must of necessity feel called upon to distinguish between his native piety and his applied Christianity. We wish it understood, too, that the general observations made here refer to the masses of Negroes rather than to the individual.
We unhesitatingly affirm that individuals of our race have risen to as true and as high a Christian status as has mankind anywhere. And although we know and confess that the masses of our race have not yet come up to the genuine standard of the New Testament Christianity—even in apprehension—yet it must be observed that their religion contains many features that are highly commendable. Chief among these features are, first, his simple, child-like, unwavering faith in God. Nor can this condition be wholly attributed to ignorance or thoughtlessness, as some might hold; for, indeed, we have produced some men of as rare ability as move among the human throng; yet it is almost as difficult to find an atheist, an agnostic, or an infidel of any sort among us as it is to find a "needle in a haystack." The Negro believes in the God of the Bible.
Second. Because the Negro is naturally emotional he is usually earnest and fervent in the exercise of his religious worship, as far as that goes. He likes the strong, passionate appeal which for the time being, at least, tickles him into laughter or moves him to tears and sweeps him off his feet in its flight. The earnestness and fervency are all right but too often these run to the extreme and so constitute by far too large a portion of his Christianity.
Third. Again, the Negro's religion is characterized by benevolence. I believe that history has no record of a people who, out of their want and poverty, have given so much to benevolent causes as have the Negroes in this country. Is it not wonderful to reckon the millions of dollars that have been given by us for erecting and maintaining church edifices, schools and other benevolent institutions since emancipation? It is perfectly safe to affirm that no people have exceeded us along this line. But with all of these good things that can be justly said to the credit of our religion, the fair-minded must still admit that when we come to the daily application of the principles and practices of Bible Christianity we are lacking. If this be true, there is a cause. What is it? We believe that the cause was stated in part when we referred to the natural emotional element in our makeup. That element too often causes us to run off with the sentiment, having left the substance behind. Another cause, and, perhaps the main one, is to be found doubtless in the same way in which we find the causes of defects in our race along other lines, i. e., from defective leadership and instruction along this particular line. We would be understood. The crying need of our race to-day is and has been a competent ministry to lead and instruct the masses in the application of the principles of right life and conduct from the standpoint of Bible Christianity. To-day the church, especially in our race, is the center of both our social and Christian life. Like priests, like people. All honor to the pioneers who did their best in their circumstances and who served well their day and generation. But this is another age; this, a brighter day—one that demands improvement along all lines, and especially in the pulpit of my race. The pew is advancing, hence the pulpit had better push on. The key to the situation, then, is nothing more nor less than a more consecrated and intelligent Christian ministry for our race throughout the length and breadth of this land. And we are hopeful; for the "signs of the times" portend the coming of better things. Already bright streaks of gray high up upon the eastern horizon herald the dawn of a new and brighter day. Every branch of the Christian church in our race is putting forth strenuous efforts to supply the pulpits of the race with competent ministers. Let this glorious day be hastened and soon Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God.
THIRD PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.
BY REV. WALTER H. BROOKS, D. D.
REV. WALTER H. BROOKS, D. D.
Rev. Walter H. Brooks, D. D., has a very unusual and interesting history. He was born a slave in Richmond, Va., August 30, 1851, his parents belonging to different masters. In 1859 his mother's master died, and arrangements were made to sell her and her six children, she being allowed to select a purchaser if she could find one. Through a white friend his father bought Dr. Brooks' mother, together with two of the youngest children. Walter H. Brooks and an elder brother were bought by a large tobacco manufacturing firm in Richmond. In 1861 the breaking out of the war affected the tobacco trade, and many of the tobacconists were obliged to sell or hire out their slaves. Walter and his brother David were hired by their mother, who, each quarter of the year, managed to pay the amount agreed upon. For the next three years both of the boys worked, thereby aiding their mother in paying their hire. After the war Walter H. Brooks, for a short time, attended a primary school in Richmond, taught by a young lady from the North.
In October, 1866, he had received one year's instruction when he went to Lincoln University, Chester County, Pa. He remained there seven years, graduating in 1872, and then entered a theological class for one year. During the second year of his seminary life he was converted and became an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He expected to become a Presbyterian preacher, but in 1873 his ideas having made him a subject to baptism, he joined the First African Baptist Church of Richmond, Va.
For a short time he was a clerk in the postoffice at Richmond, Va., but in 1874, having resigned his position, he entered the service of the American Baptist Publication Society in the State of Virginia. Having been ordained in December, 1876, in April, 1877, he accepted the pastorship of the Second Baptist Church of Richmond, Va., where he succeeded in paying off the entire debt of the church. In June, 1880, he was sent as a delegate for the Virginia Baptist State Convention to the Baptist General Association in session at Petersburg, and he was the first Colored delegate received by that body. In September, 1880, he resigned the charge of the church and went to New Orleans, La., to commence work in the American Baptist Publication Society's employ, but his wife's failing health caused him to return to Virginia in 1882.
In November, 1882, he was called to the pastorship of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church of Washington, D. C., where he has been ever since.
Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tenn., and State University, Louisville, Ky., both honored him with the title of Doctor of Divinity; while his alma mater, in June, 1883, conferred upon him the degree of M. A.
Recently he was elected a trustee of the United Society of Christian Endeavor, to represent the Colored Baptists of the world.
Dr. Brooks has distinguished himself as a temperance advocate, and for a number of years has been the Chaplain of the Anti-Saloon League of the District of Columbia.
His article, printed some years since in the "National Baptist" of Philadelphia, Pa., on "George Liele, the Black Apostle," and his more recent paper on the "Beginnings of Negro Churches in America," have won for him many praises.
For twenty-eight years Dr. Brooks has been in public life, and his power as a speaker still gives him a commanding influence in the pulpit and on the platform.
Dr. Brooks married Miss Eva Holmes, of the family of Rev. James H. Holmes, of Richmond, Va., and this union resulted in the birth of ten children—eight of whom are living, four boys and four girls—the oldest born being 27 years of age, the youngest four years.
The Christian religion is eminently adapted to the wants of humanity. It has always had a charm for lowly and oppressed peoples. It was, therefore, the one thing, above all others, which gave comfort and hope to the American Negro during the night of his long bondage.
The story of the enslavement and marvelous deliverance of God's ancient people; of Daniel, the prophet, and the Hebrew youths, whom God protected and honored in the house of their bondage; the psalms of David, the sweet singer of Israel; the inspired narratives of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God; the Biblical account of the faith, sufferings and triumphs of the apostles; and the manifold promises of God, made to all who served Him in truth, and patiently wait for their fulfillment, could not fail in influencing the conduct and life of America's Negro slaves. It was in circumstances like these the Christian Negro, many years ago, sang out his hopes, his sorrows, and his soul-yearnings in melodies peculiarly his own, whose plaintive strains have been echoing around the globe for a generation and more.
The balm of Gilead was never so soothing to the wounds of an Israelite as the Gospel of Jesus Christ was, in the dark days of slavery, to the oppressed and sorrowing soul of the unfortunate Negro. It is not surprising, therefore, that at least one-fourth of the entire Negro population of the country was devout Christians forty years ago, while the entire Negro population was nominally believers in the living and true God, and in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
Whether the Negro Christian has lost some of his old-time love for Christ, and his zeal for the sanctuary, is, in the minds of some, an open question. We, however, believe that the Savior and the sanctuary are dearer to the Negro than ever. Indeed, so far as the census, which was taken by the United States in 1890, proves anything as to the matter of religion, the Negro is the most religious citizen of the country. Here is an extract from that report: "The Negro population of the country, exclusive of Indian territory and Alaska, according to the census of 1890, is 7,470,040. As the churches report 2,673,197 Negro communicants, exclusive of Indian territory and Alaska, it follows that one person in every 2.79 of the Negro population is a communicant. Excluding Indian Territory and Alaska, the total population is 62,622,250, and the total of communicants 20,568,679. The proportion here is 1 communicant in every 3.04 of the population. In other words, while all denominations have 328.46 communicants in every 1,000 of the total population, the colored organizations reported have 357.86 communicants in every 1,000 of the Negro population." According to this showing, more than a third of the entire Negro population of the country was enrolled as active members of the churches, ten years ago. At the same time, less than a third of the white population was connected with the churches of the land.
It remains to be seen whether the census of the United States, which is now in process of completion, will show any change in the relative strength of the Negro and white churches of the country.
It is certain that the Negro Christian is displaying commendable zeal in erecting spacious houses of worship; in acquiring school property; in giving the Gospel to the heathen in Africa, and in other parts of the world; in raising funds for the cause of education, and in providing himself with a religious literature of his own making.
In the quality of his religion, we dare say, there is room for improvement. But the changes mostly needed for his highest good are intellectual, material, social, commercial and political in nature, rather than religious.
The Negro Christian is as a rule as good as he knows how to be. He often errs, not knowing the Scriptures. He sometimes plunges headlong into the ditch of shame, because his spiritual adviser and instructor is a "blind leader of the blind."
Christian schools, however, are giving us better leaders every year, and the time is hastening when the Negro Christian of America shall be respected and loved because of his intelligence, his Christian piety, his zeal for God's cause, his manly bearing, his general worth as a moral and material contributor to the well being, both of the state and of the country which claim him as a citizen, and because of his excellent spirit and gentlemanly deportment.
FOURTH PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.
BY REV. H. H. PROCTOR.
REV. HENRY H. PROCTOR, B. A.
Henry Hugh Proctor was born near Fayetteville, Tennessee, December 8, 1868. After completing the public school course of his native town he studied in Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., from which school he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, June, 1891. That fall he entered the Divinity School of Yale University, graduating three years later. He was assigned by the faculty to the post of honor among the chosen orators of the class. He at once entered upon the pastorate of the First Congregational Church of Atlanta, Ga.
Mr. Proctor has lectured extensively in many parts of the country, his best-known lecture being "The Black Man's Burden." He has been active in preventing legislation in Georgia adverse to the colored race, especially measures designed to restrict the franchise and cut down public school facilities of the Negro. He is correspondent for a number of Northern periodicals, and extracts from his sermons are published weekly in the "Atlanta Constitution," the leading daily of the South. At his recent seventh anniversary as pastor many letters of congratulation came from all parts of the country, one being from Principal Booker T. Washington, whose esteem and friendship he enjoys.
In the historic development of Christianity race and religion have had a reciprocal relation. Conversion has involved a mutual conquest. The religion has modified the race, and the race has modified the religion. Every race that has embraced Christianity has, by developing that element of truth for which it has affinity, brought to the system its own peculiar contribution.
In the Semitic race, the high priest of humanity, Christianity, was born. "Salvation is of the Jews." Israel's code of ethics was the highest known to antiquity. It was but natural that the Hebrew should leave upon the new-born system the impress of his genius for ethics.
Hellenism may be regarded as the complement and contrast of Hebraism. Hebraism revealed the transcendence of Jehovah. Hellenism declared the divinity of man. The Greek, pre-eminent, in philosophy as a pagan, became, as a Christian, pre-eminent in theology. He blended the complemental conceptions of divinity and humanity. If the contribution of the Hebrew was ethical, that of the Greek was theological.
The Latin mind, practical rather than speculative, political rather than theological, established the Civitas Dei where once stood the Civitas Roma. This ecclesiastical masterpiece of human wisdom "may still exist in undiminished vigor," says Macaulay, "when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." Truly the Church of Rome has left upon Christianity an ineffaceable political impress.
The Teutonic mind—fresh, vigorous, even childlike in its simplicity and love of reality, accustomed to enjoy the freedom peculiar to lands where the national will is the highest law—would not brook the inflexible dogmatism of the Greek nor the iron ecclesiasticism of the Roman. The Teuton loved liberty in religion as well as in other things, and asserted his right to stand before his God for himself. The free spirit revealed in Christianity through Luther can never die. "Christianity as an authoritative letter is Roman; as a free spirit it is Teutonic."
The Saxon, pre-eminent in capacity for developing ideas, has so assimilated Christianity as to become its noblest representative. Enterprise and energy, vigor and thrift, striking characteristics of this great race, are becoming part and parcel of our Christianity. This is the missionary age, and it is the enterprising Saxon, unchecked and undaunted by sword, flame or flood, that is encircling the globe with a girdle of divine light.
And yet our Christianity is not complete. Notwithstanding its moral stamina, its philosophic basis and its organic solidarity, its free spirit and its robust energy, do we not feel there is something lacking still? Does not our Christianity lack in its gentler virtues? To what nation shall we look for the desideratum? Shall it not be to the vast unknown continent? If the Jew has modified our religion by his ethics, the Greek by his philosophy, the Roman by his polity, the Teuton by his love of liberty, and the Saxon by his enterprise, shall not the African, by his characteristic qualities of heart, bring a new and peculiar contribution to Christianity?
The Negro is nothing if not religious. His religion touches his heart and moves him to action. The result of his peculiarly partial contact with Christianity in America is but an earnest of what his full contribution may be confidently expected to be. The African's mission in the past has been that of service. "Servant of all" is his title. He has hewn the wood and drawn the water of others with a fidelity that is wonderful and a patience that is marvelous. As an example of patient fidelity to humble duty he stands without a peer.
His conduct in the late war, which resulted in his freedom, was as rare a bit of magnanimity as the world ever saw. The helpless ones of his oppressor in his power, he nobly stayed his hand from vengeance. And at last, when he held up his hands that his bonds might be removed, his emancipator found them scarred with toil unrequited, but free from the blood of man save that shed in open, honorable battle.
His religious songs are indicative of his real character. These songs embodied and expressed the only public utterance of a people who had suffered two and a half centuries of unatoned insult, yet in them all there has not been found a trace of ill will. History presents no parallel to this. David, oppressed by his foes, called down fire, smoke and burning wind to consume his enemies from the face of the earth. But no such malediction as that ever fell from the lips of the typical American slave; oppressed, like the Man of Sorrows, he opened not his mouth.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom" was more than a character of fiction. He was a real representative of the Christian slave. Recall that scene between Cassy and Uncle Tom. Unsuccessful in her attempts to urge him to kill their inhuman master, Cassy determines to do it herself. With flashing eyes, her blood boiling with indignation long suppressed, the much-abused Creole woman exclaims: "His time's come. I'll have his heart's blood!" "No, no, no," says Uncle Tom; "No, ye poor lost soul, that ye must not do! Our Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he poured out for us when we was his enemies. The good Lord help us to follow his steps and love our enemies." Uncle Tom's words are not unworthy of immortality.
"Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood."
Humility, fidelity, patience, large-heartedness, love—this is Africa's contribution to Christianity. If the contribution of the Saxon is Pauline, that of the African is Johanine. Paul, with his consuming energy, carrying the Gospel to the uttermost parts, stands for the white man; John, the man of love, leaning on his Master's bosom, is typical of the black. The white man and the black are contrasts, not contraries; complementary opposites, not irreconcilable opponents.
The Jew has given us ethics; the Greek, philosophy; the Roman, law; the Teuton, liberty. These the Saxon combines. But the African—"latest called of nations, called to the crown of thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony"—the African, I say, has the deep, gushing wealth of love which is yet to move the great heart of humanity.
FIFTH PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.
BY REV. S. KERR.
REV. S. KERR.
To give anything like a true sketch of Mr. Kerr's life and labors both in and out of the ministry would fill a good-sized volume rather than a page of this book, as his life has been replete with thrilling, romantic incidents. The Rev. Mr. Kerr graduated with honors, having received the degree of A. B. from Rawden College, Leeds, England. He returned at once to the West Indies, where he labored three years.
In 1859 he did extensive missionary work in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where, in 1860, he accepted the appointment of Registrar of Births and Deaths. In 1863 he accepted the appointment of Assistant Master of the Government Schools at Grand Turk, and was afterwards appointed Head Master. In 1864 he filled the dual role of Inspector of Schools and missionary, and he passed unscathed through the great hurricane of 1866 which devastated the whole colony, destroyed all the schools and public buildings, as well as 2,500 dwelling houses, including Mr. Kerr's personal property. In 1867 he was sent as missionary to Hayti, where, as everywhere, he did good work. In 1873 he was appointed professor in the National Lyceum College for boys and young ladies, where he did effective and extensive missionary work in Cape Hatien, Grande Riviere and Dondon, and maintained considerable influence with the Haytien officials and authorities.
In 1880 he was advanced to the Priesthood of the Episcopal Church of America, by the Rt. Rev. J. Th. Holly, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of Hayti. In 1882 he was delegated to represent the Episcopal Church in the United States, and to collect funds for the building of the same in Hayti. On landing in New York, his reception by Bishop Horatio Potter was cordial in the extreme—the same by Bishops Littlejohn, of Long Island; T. A. Starkey, of Northern New Jersey; T. M. Clark, of Warwick, R. I.; M. A. De Wolf Howe, Central Pennsylvania; William C. Doane, Albany; Alfred Lee, Primate, Delaware; W. B. Stevens, Pennsylvania; H. A. Neely, of Maine; A. C. Coxe, Western New York. He occupied the pulpits of the leading Episcopal Churches in New York—Old Trinity, Grace Church, St. Chrysostom's, St. Paul's, St. Philip's and others. The leading churches in Brooklyn, Yonkers, Newport, R. I., Newark, N. J., Orange, N. J., Syracuse, Saratoga Springs, Utica, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Newburg, Poughkeepsie, Sing Sing, Barrytown, Tarrytown, Philadelphia, Germantown, Ashebourne, Reading, Cheltenham and many others.
In 1883 be was sent to Jamaica, W. I., and the following year he was appointed by the Provincial Synod (under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel—London. Eng.) Rector of the Panama Railroad Church and Arch-deacon of the Church of England Mission, and Chaplain to the Panama Canal Company. In 1889 he made an extensive missionary tour through Central America, where he performed religious services at the opening of the Nicaragua Canal, coming in touch with several Indian tribes, and gaining considerable knowledge of their manners and customs in their crude condition.
In 1890 he returned to the West Indies and was transferred to the Diocese of Florida and made Rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Key West, where he has a large parish and congregation and where he is highly esteemed by all classes, white and colored.
My purpose in writing upon this subject is to investigate God's disciplinary and retributive economy in races and nations, with a hope of arriving at some clear conclusion concerning the Negro as a Christian.
First, it may be just and proper to view the races of mankind in respect to growth and mastery. The principles of growth and mastery in a race, a nation, or a people, are the same all over the globe. The same great agencies needed for one quarter of the globe, and in one period of time, are needed for all quarters of the globe, for all people and for all time, and consequently needed for this American nation.
The children of Africa in America are in no way different from any other people in respect to Christianity. Many of the differences of races are accidental and oftentimes become obliterated by circumstances, position and religion.
Go back to a period in the history of England, when its rude inhabitants lived in caves and huts, when they fed on bark and roots, when their dress was the skins of animals. Then look at the eminent Englishman of the present day—cultivated, graceful, refined, Christianized. When we remember that his distant ancestors were wild and bloody savages, and that it took centuries to change his forefathers from rudeness and brutality into enlightened, civilized Christians, there is no room to doubt the susceptibility of the Negro to Christianity.
The same great general laws of growth continue unchangeable. The Almighty neither alters nor diminishes these laws for the convenience of a people, of whatever race they may be. The Negro race is equally susceptible of growth in Christianity as in civilization.
At once the question arises—Is the Negro race doomed to destruction? Or, does it possess those qualities which will enable it to reach a high degree of moral and Christian civilization? To the first of these questions I reply that the Negro race is by no means doomed to destruction. It is now over five hundred years since the breath of the civilized world touched powerfully, for the first time, the mighty masses of the pagan world in America, in Africa and the isles of the sea, and we see everywhere that the weak heathen tribes of the earth have gone down before the civilized world; tribe and nation have dispersed before its presence. The Iroquois, the Pequods, the brave Mohawks, the once refined Aztecs and others have gone, nevermore to be ranked among the tribes of men. In the scattered islands of the Pacific seas, like the stars of the heavens, the sad fact remains that from many of them their populations have departed like the morning cloud. They did not retain God in their knowledge. Just the reverse with the Negro. Destructive elements, wave after wave, have swept over his head, yet he has stood unimpaired.
Even this falls short of the full reality of the Negro as a Christian, for civilization at numerous places has displaced ancestral heathenism, and the standard of the cross, uplifted on the banks of its great river, showing that the heralds of the cross have begun the glorious conquests of their glorious King. Vital Christian power has become the property of the Negro. Does God despise the weak? No, the Providence of God intervenes for the training and preservation of such people.
But has the Negro race any of those qualities which emanate from Christianity? Let us see. The flexibility of the Negro character is universally admitted. The race is possessed of a nature more easily moulded than that of any other class of men. Unlike the Indian, the Negro yields to circumstances and flows with the current of events, hence afflictions, however terrible, have failed to crush him; his facile nature wards them off, or else through the inspiration of hope their influence is neutralized. These peculiarities of the Negro character render him susceptible to imitation. Burke tells us that "imitation is the second passion belonging to society, and this passion arises from much the same cause as sympathy." This is one of the strongest links of society. It forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. Indeed, civilization is carried down from generation to generation, or handed over from a superior to an inferior, by means of imitation. A people devoid of imitation is incapable of progress or advancement, and must retrograde. If it remains stagnant, it must of necessity bring its own decay. The quality of imitation has been the grand preservative of the Negro in all lands. Indeed, the Negro is a superior man to-day to what he was three centuries ago.
I feel fortified in the principles I have advanced by the opinions of great, scrutinizing thinkers. In his treatise on Emancipation, written in 1880, Dr. Channing says: "The Negro is one of the best races of the human family; he is among the mildest and gentlest of men; he is singularly susceptible to improvement." Kinmont declares in his "Lecture on Man" that "The sweet graces of the Christian religion appears almost too tropical and tender plants to grow in the soil of the Caucasian mind; they require a character of the human nature of which you can see the rude lineaments in the Ethiopian, to be implanted in and grow naturally and beautifully withal." Adamson, the traveler who visited Senegal in 1754, said: "The Negroes are sociable, humane, obliging and hospitable, and they have generally preserved an estimable simplicity of domestic manners. They are distinguished by their tenderness for their parents, and great respect for the aged—a patriarchal virtue which, in our day, is too little known." Dr. Raleigh, also, at a great meeting in London, said: "There is in these people a hitherto undiscovered mine of love, the development of which will be for the amazing welfare of the world. * * * Greece gave us beauty; Rome gave us power; the Anglo-Saxon unites and mingles these, but in the African people there is the great gushing wealth of love, which will develop wonders for the world."
I feel that the Almighty, who is interested in all the great problems of civilization, is interested in the Negro problem. He has carried the Negro through the wilderness of disasters, and at last put him in a large open place of liberty. There is not the shadow of a doubt that this work which God has begun, and is carrying on, is for the mental and spiritual elevation of the Negro.
TOPIC XXI.
DOES THE NORTH AFFORD TO THE NEGRO BETTER OPPORTUNITIES OF MAKING A LIVING THAN THE SOUTH?
BY REV. J. H. ANDERSON.
REV. J. H. ANDERSON, D. D.
Rev. J. H. Anderson was born June 30, 1848, in Frederick, Md. Dr. Anderson is what is called a self-made man, he having attended school only six months in his life and studied a short time under a private tutor. By hard, persistent efforts and close application to books, Dr. Anderson has risen to a point in scholarship and prominence that only a few college Negroes have reached. He is noted as a pulpit orator and platform speaker. He has attained to some prominence as a writer and takes front rank as a preacher in his denomination. For his scholarly attainments and usefulness as a minister of the gospel, Livingstone College conferred upon him, in 1896, the degree of doctor of divinity. Dr. Anderson was one of those heroic liberty-loving souls who went to the battlefield in the Civil War to fight for their and their race's freedom.
Colonization is a condition of cosmopolitan society as it is of races. As "birds of a feather flock together," so the different races in the American civilization form settlements or colonies, as far as possible. The truthfulness of this statement is seen in the thickly-settled German, Irish, Jewish and Italian communities in the North. Their race affinities produce natural and social relations promotive of their varied interests. The Negro's civil and social privileges are more restricted in the South than in the North, owing to which fact the Negroes of the South are more united than the Negroes of the North. In the North a few individuals may rise to intellectual, professional, business and mechanical distinctions, but from general employment in the skilled industries, business enterprises and political preferment he is debarred, and, being cheaply and conveniently accommodated in almost every respect by the whites, he is not under the same necessity as the Southern Negro to establish and operate business enterprises. It is rather inconvenient to establish and maintain Negro business enterprises and schools in the North, for the reason that there are no thickly settled communities. A Negro lawyer, doctor, dressmaker, music teacher, hair dresser and mechanic do well in some instances, because they receive patronage from the whites. It is not so much the prejudice of the whites nor the indifference of the Negro as it is the peculiar conditions of the North that prevent the Negro from enjoying the business enterprises and founding race institutions. The few new institutions and even churches in the North are largely sustained by donations from the whites. Renting houses and purchasing property and living in the North are commensurate with the large scale and competition along all lines of industry, and social life is so active that the most rigid economy and business tact are essential to success in any kind of business in the North.
The Negro who embarks in business in the North has not only to compete with his own people, but with the shrewd Yankee, who seeks to monopolize all interests that have money in them. The Negro of the North for the most part appears to be content with his superior civil and social privileges. He breathes the air with more perfect liberty, enjoys life free from violence, is vindicated and redressed at law and recognized in his citizen rights, and, like the Pharisee, thanks God that he is not like the ex-slave of the South, and this is the height of his ambition. Three-fourths of the freeholding and tax-paying Negroes in the North are from the South, and Southern Negro labor is preferred in the North as in the South. Waiters, domestic servants, janitors, teamsters, laundry men and coachmen from the South can find employment in the North. Any industrious Southern Negro can find common labor to do in the North.
Before the formation of labor unions and federations in the North, the Negro skilled laborer found employment, but after deciding to exclude the Negro from membership these unions became an effective dictating power to employ when Negroes applied to them for work.
The tax-payers in many Northern sections favor mixed schools because it is less expensive to have them. They would not be justified in maintaining separate schools for the few Negro pupils. Of course, race favoritism, competition and prejudice, combine to exclude Negro teachers, and yet a few Negro teachers are employed to teach in the mixed schools. That Negro children, procuring their education by Negro teachers in the Negro schools, can better appreciate race efficiency and dignity there can be no question. The Northern Negro is ill fitted for living in the South, it being difficult for him to adapt himself to the conditions of the South, yet it is quite easy for the Southern Negro to adapt himself to the North where full and free expression is equally accorded to all, and where no legal discriminations are made and where the social question is left for adjustment by the parties nearest concerned. In the North the Negro has the opportunity of advocating the interests of his Southern brother in a way that would not be tolerated in the South, and thus the Northern Negro can assist in the formation of a proper sentiment in his favor. The Northern Negro is, therefore, a necessity to the Southern Negroes, and vice versa. The Negro's destiny is to be worked out in the South because he has greater numerical strength and superior advantages in the South, notwithstanding the civil, social and legal restrictions upon him. The lesson of self-dependence and self-effort is forced upon the Southern Negro as not upon the Northern Negro.
When the Southern Negro was emancipated, his first thought was education, and, adhering steadfastly to this idea, he has made a progressive education since his emancipation that has astounded the civilized world. No school-loving race can be kept down or back. Brought here a heathen, the Negro soon exchanged fetichism for Christianity, and, having been trained in the school of servile labor for centuries, he learned how to labor so that when his emancipation came he was prepared to strike out on lines of self development, and he has made in thirty-six years a progress in the acquisition of wealth that is without a parallel in history.
The prejudices of the whites against the Negro have rather helped him, in that they have stimulated him to make greater efforts to reach the independence of the white man.
Having lived in both sections of our country, I am prepared to say that the Negro can do better towards working out his destiny in the South than in the North.
SECOND PAPER.
DOES THE NORTH AFFORD TO THE NEGRO BETTER OPPORTUNITIES OF MAKING A LIVING THAN THE SOUTH?
BY PROF. W. H. COUNCILL.
PROF. W. H. COUNCILL, PH. D.
W. H. Councill was born in Fayetteville, N. C., in 1848, and was carried to Alabama by the traders in 1857, through the famous Richmond Slave Pen. In Alabama he worked in the fields with the other slaves. He is a self-made man, having had only few school advantages. He attended one of the first schools opened by kind Northern friends at Stevenson, Ala., in 1865. Here he remained about three years, and this is the basis of his education. He has been a close and earnest student ever since, often spending much of the night in study. He has accumulated quite an excellent library, and the best books of the best masters are his constant companions, as well as a large supply of the best current literature. By private instruction and almost incessant study, he gained a fair knowledge of some of the languages, higher mathematics, and the sciences. He was Enrolling Clerk of the Alabama House of Representatives in 1872-4. He was appointed by President Grant Receiver of the Land Office for the Northern District of Alabama in 1875. He was founder and editor of the "Huntsville Herald" from 1877 to 1884. He founded the great educational institution, Normal, of which he is president, and has been for a quarter of a century. He read law and was admitted to the Supreme Court of Alabama in 1883. But he has never left the profession of teaching, although flattering political positions have been held out to him. He has occupied high positions in church and other religious, temperance, and charitable organizations, and has no mean standing as a public speaker.
Prof. Councill has traveled quite extensively in Europe, and was warmly received and entertained by the Hon. W. E. Gladstone and His Majesty, King Leopold, of Belgium.
And thus by earnest toil, self-denial, hard study, he has made himself, built up one of the largest institutions in the South, and educated scores of young people at his own expense.
Prof. Councill is proud to be known as a friend to Africa. He is co-operating with Bishop Turner in the redemption and civilization of that continent. Normal, under Prof. Councill, is educating native Africans for this purpose. He has received the degree of Ph. D. from Morris Brown College.
Prof. Councill is author of "The Lamp of Wisdom." He writes extensively for the leading magazines and newspapers of the country.
A comparison of the opportunities which different sections hold out to any class of our fellow citizens should not be regarded as hostile criticism. No man, no country suffers by the truth.
We cannot answer this question by yes or no. The North affords the better opportunities in some things, while in others the South gives the Negro the better opportunity for making a living. If we are correct in putting a broad and educated mind as the foundation for every useful superstructure, we are forced to admit that the opportunity for laying this foundation is better in the North, where a century of thought on popular education has developed the finest public school system in the world. While this brings the Northern Negro in contact with the great Anglo-Saxon mind, and fits him for making a living and for business in that atmosphere, he has to undergo a kind of mental acclimatization before he can effectively and usefully enter into work in the South, where the atmosphere at every turn is different from that in the North. For twenty-five years I have been brought in direct contact with Negroes reared or educated in the North, and I do not recall one who did not have to un-Northernize himself in many respects before he could harmonize to usefulness in the South. It is to the credit of our Northern brethren that they are thus willing to sacrifice a part of their individualism in order to serve their race in the South. In my long experience I have not met a quarter dozen who have not cheerfully put aside their selfishness for the common good of their associates and their work. Indeed, I have found my Northern brethren more willing and helpful in this regard, perhaps, than Southern Negroes, who are more self-assertive and persistent in their make-up, a spirit imbibed from the general character of independence and domineering found in the South. But the Southern Negro, reared in harmony with Southern institutions, having assimilated prejudices and counter-prejudices, can use to greater advantage his small amount of education and training.
In a country where competition is sharp, as in this country, and where any kind of excitement is resorted to in order to give advantage to the competitors, the minority race, especially in inferior circumstances, must suffer along lines of battle for bread in which, the masses engage. Thus it is, while the Northern Negro enjoys high privileges of an intellectual character among the classes, he is bumped, shunned, and pushed to the rear among the quarreling, scrambling masses.
There are scattered far and wide a few Negroes in the North who are doing well in business. They get the patronage of their white neighbors. There are few communities in the North where the Negro population is strong enough to support a Negro in business, if the race lines were drawn in business. I think the voluntary collections of like tribes and races of men, as Italians, Jews, Chinese, Poles, Norwegians, Swedes, and the like, in settlements in our large cities and some country districts, show clearly the gregarious disposition of like peoples; and from time out of mind each tribe, clan or race, has depended upon itself for patronage and support. In order for the Negro to succeed in any considerable degree in business in the North, it would be necessary to increase the Negro population in that section. As I have intimated above, there are few fields for operation in the North for Negroes, regardless of their ability to succeed, for there are few cases where Negro patronage is not limited to the Negro population. While occasionally a few Negroes may get patronage from the other clans and tribes it is nevertheless true that as a general rule the aim is to keep the trade in the family, as it were. Every whip of tribal differentiation and prejudice is applied to enforce a rigid observance of this general rule. I think that we may logically conclude that the opportunity for that training and education which could make the Northern Negro immediately useful to the mass of the race, and the opportunity to gather material wealth, are not ideal in the North.
Ninety-two per cent of the Negro population reside in the South, where slavery left them. Under normal conditions there should be ninety-two per cent of Negro wealth, thrift and energy in the South. The opportunity to accumulate wealth and the accumulation are different. The Southern Negro is a wealth producer. He does four-fifths of the agricultural labor of the South and thereby adds four-fifths to the wealth of the South derived from agriculture, the leading Southern industry. If the whole of the billion dollars to the credit of the Negro race were placed to the credit of the Southern Negro alone, it would be less than half of what he should have saved since the war. The Negroes of the South handle more money than New England did one hundred years ago, and yet New England would be glad to place her barrels of gold and silver at nominal interest—so rich has she grown, although in the chilly winds of the Northeast.
The opportunities for the Southern Negro are as good for material gain as are enjoyed by any other people in this country. The census of 1890 shows two hundred and twenty-four occupations followed by the wage-earners of the United States. The Negroes are represented in every one of these occupations—grouped under five heads: Professional, Agriculture, trade and transportation, manufactures and personal service. The Southern Negro, while not in all of them, occupies in the South the vantage ground in those that bring the most independence in living. We must not forget that agriculture is what we might call the staple industry of the South.
I am indebted to Hon. Judson W. Lyons, register of the United States Treasury, for the following statistics, showing the wonderful influence of Negro labor in the commercial industries of the world: More cotton is exported from the United States than any other article. In the last ten years, 30,000,000,000 pounds of cotton, valued at $225,000,000 have been exported. The United States produces more cotton than all the balance of the world. The cotton manufactories of Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy depend upon our cotton exports. Ten years ago, $354,000,000 were invested in cotton manufactories, employing 221,585 operatives, who received for wages $67,489,000 per annum. The South produced from 1880 to 1890, 620,000,000 bushels of corn, 78,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 97,000,000 bushels of oats. The Negro performed four-fifths of the labor of the South, as we have seen. Therefore, his share in the average annual production in the last ten years would be 6,988,000 bales of cotton, valued at $209,640,000. In the last ten years the Negro's part of the production of corn, wheat, oats and cotton was $431,320,000 per annum. The entire cotton acreage of the South would form an area of 40,000 square miles. Negro labor cultivates 32,000 square miles of this space.
Fifty-seven per cent of the Negro race are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and 31 per cent are engaged in personal service. Therefore, 88 per cent of the wage-earners of the race in the South are engaged in these two pursuits, or, in other words, 88 per cent of the wage-earners of the race have opportunity for profitable employment.
Where the masses of the Negroes are found and can get paying work, as they can in the South, there we must expect the greatest prosperity among Negroes. Our expectation is highly gratified in this case in the South. No doubt if the ninety-two per cent Negro population were to exchange places with the eight per cent, the opportunities now held out in the South would be transferred to the North. Our opportunities over those enjoyed by our Northern brethren are the creatures of accidents rather than of our meritorious invention.
The opportunities to win character and wealth afforded the Negroes of the South by agriculture and domestic service are probably better than are enjoyed by any other class of people in the world. The field is broad and ripe and the Negro must now see and seize these opportunities or they will pass from the race forever. No peasant population ever had more favorable environments. The Negro does not only do four-fifths of the agricultural labor of the South, but he has the opportunity to own four-fifths of the land he cultivates. This opportunity is not enjoyed by any other peasant class in the world. As I see it, the greatest success for the Negro race in America lies in the farm. There he meets the least resistance and obtains the greatest sustenance. There color prejudice is almost unknown, while everywhere in the mechanic arts, prejudice is bitter, competition is sharp, and the chances for success are small. This is a matter which the Negro must seriously consider now, or weep over his procrastination. The drift to the cities to exchange the free, honest, healthful, plenteous conditions of farm life for the miserable slums, sin, and squalor of city life must be checked. Our boys and girls must be educated for the farm.
It would be hard to find a people better suited for domestic and personal service than the Negro. In all the elements which are necessary for personal and domestic service, the Negro cannot be excelled. He is not treacherous. He forms no plots and schemes to entrap his master. He resorts to no violent incendiary measures of avenging himself against his master, but he humbly and tamely submits to the conditions, ever looking for betterment through superhuman agencies. If the South would only look this matter squarely in the face, it would admit that it has the best service on earth, and would vote liberal appropriations for the development of Negro education of every character.
It may seem to persons not informed incredible, but it is no less a fact that where racial prejudice runs highest in the South and the demarcation between the races is most distinct along social lines, there the Negro is most prosperous, and, strange to say, advances most rapidly in material wealth. Self-help, self-dependence, faith in self, seem to spur to success as nothing else does. The drug store is the creature of Anglo-Saxon prejudice in denying Negroes accommodations at the soda-water fountains run by white men. In a score of channels the Negro is pushed on to success by Anglo-Saxon discrimination. What seems a curse is in reality a blessing to the race. Anglo-Saxon prejudice forces the Negro to take advantage of his great opportunity to get rich.
TOPIC XXII.
WHAT IS THE NEGRO TEACHER DOING IN THE MATTER OF UPLIFTING HIS RACE?
BY PROF. A. ST. GEORGE RICHARDSON.
PROF. ARTHUR ST. GEORGE RICHARDSON.
Far out in mid-Atlantic ocean about 700 miles east of New York lies the group of sunny isles known as the Bermudas. On one of these beautiful coral formations called St. Georges was born, July 5, 1863, the subject of this writing. Arthur was sent to Canada in 1878 to attend the public schools of St. Johns, N. B. Being an apt pupil he soon finished the curriculum of studies of the grammar schools and in 1880 entered the high school from which in three years' time he was graduated.
Not considering his education complete at this point, Arthur matriculated at the University of New Brunswick at Fredericton, in the fall of the same year, being the first and only colored young man to enter this institution of higher learning. As in the high school so now in college young Arthur distinguished himself among his classmates by winning a scholarship and at times leading his class in Greek. He was graduated from the university with honors in classics, June, 1886.
He was then elected principal of the Wilberforce Collegiate Institute at Chatham, Ont., where he served one year, increasing the attendance, and greatly improving the work of the school. The following year, 1887, he returned to his native home and visited his parents from whom he had been separated nine years. The next year after his return to Canada he was invited by Bishop W. J. Gaines to come to Georgia and assume the principalship of Morris Brown College in Atlanta. After much hesitancy, Mr. Richardson accepted the invitation and took charge of Morris Brown College when it was a school of small proportions and modest pretensions. Here Professor Richardson served ten successive years, each year adding something to the fame and increasing popularity of the school.
In 1898 he was offered the Presidency of Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Fla., by Bishop W. J. Gaines, who felt that the educational work in Florida then needed just such a person as Professor Richardson had proven himself to be in Georgia. Resigning his position in Atlanta he came to Florida and at once set to work to restore Edward Waters College to the confidence of the people. In a year's time the school was again assuming the flourishing condition that it once had.
The great fire of Jacksonville, May 3, 1901, caused him to lose all his possessions in the destruction of the college buildings, nevertheless he has held on unflinchingly to the work and at great sacrifice and loss has kept the school together, and is now serving his fourth year at the head of this institution.
An examination into the earliest records of history will reveal a fact that is not observant to the casual reader—that man, as an individual, has ever been groping in darkness, seeking hither and thither to find a ray of light that would safely guide him and lead him through the mystic vale of doubt and uncertainty—be a "light to his pathway, a lantern to his feet."
To this end he has lent all his energies and directed all his forces. Long and tedious have been the ways and the journeys, yet onward and upward has he continued to travel, through storm and tempest, amid trials and vexations, until finally, after many centuries of progressive endeavor and honorable achievements, he has reached the loftiest pinnacle of fame, and there, on its rugged summit, has inscribed in letters of gold the result of his many conquests in literature, science and art, in religion, philosophy and commerce.
We use the generic term man as embracing all the various descendants of the sons of Noah. For each race-variety has in its turn played its part in producing the high degree of civilization that it is now our heritage and privilege to enjoy. Each has been an important factor in the development of some element that is essentially its own.
In thus reviewing the early history of the world we also find that the peoples who sat in darkness were brought to the light only through the agency of the teachers of the times in which they lived. Who made Egypt renowned? Were they not her great teachers, whose pupils came from far and near to learn, as it were, the foundation steps of our great civilization? Who in China is better known to the world than the great teacher Confucius? Who gave to Greece her renown for philosophy and art? Was it not Aristotle and Plato? Mention Rome, and the names of Quintilian and Cicero are recalled to our minds as the foremost educators. The Israelites had their prophets to instruct them, until the Great Teacher came to earth to enlighten all mankind. What was best and noblest in the systems of the famous teachers before the advent of Christ was crystallized into the method adopted by the Son of Man. He came to elevate the whole man, to shed light into his whole being—his mind, his body, and his soul.
Many and various have been the devices of mortal man to imitate the plan of the Master; and yet, after centuries of earnest endeavor, we have but recently begun to recognize the fact that complete success in the education of man lies in the secret of training the whole man—mind, body and soul.
Passing over the long period of scholastic apathy in European history, we come to a more recent epoch of intellectual awakening in the founding of great universities and stately colleges. These several institutions, through the instructions given by their most eminent teachers, have of themselves made the respective places of their establishment famous in both hemispheres.
Between the periods of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in America, educational interests seemed to be centered mainly in the cultivation of the intellect as the only part of man that required special training.
The abolition of slavery and the consequent endeavor to enlighten the freedmen gave rise to a new phase of educational activity. This new ideal was the training of the body and the soul along with that of the mind. This system naturally reduced the length of time usually devoted to mind culture in proportion as time was required for the training of the hand and the cultivation of the moral side of man.
Foremost among the early teachers to inaugurate this system were Mrs. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mrs. Sarah J. Early, and Bishop John M. Brown. As a result of their efforts in this direction we have Wilberforce University, the first school by Negro teachers to follow the plan of the Great Teacher. Since the establishment of Wilberforce in the North, many similar institutions have been founded in order to give the "brother in black" an opportunity to show to the world what the Negro teacher is doing and can do towards uplifting his race.
It is a difficult matter to estimate the good that a true teacher can do, be he of whatever race-variety. But to calculate on the noble work of the majority of the self-sacrificing and virtuous Negro teachers is a task beyond the ability of man. Bishop Daniel A. Payne, the apostle of an educated ministry, is known throughout the country for the noble work he did in teaching the people at large as well as his immediate pupils both how to live and how to die. Almost every educated Negro preacher has at some period of his scholastic career served in the capacity of a teacher, and therefore, after his advent to the gospel, ministry has continued to instruct the people under the same principles of teaching.
To be a teacher in the strict sense of the word requires the possession of certain qualities of mind and soul, and the power to exercise these qualities in such a manner as to awaken in the mind of another thoughts similar to those of the person assuming to teach, and thereby causing the mental activity on the part of the learner to become knowledge and power. We, therefore, hold that the Negro teacher has acted along the method here described, and has thus been the means of enlightening the masses of the colored people that lay claim to any degree of education whatever. What the Negro teacher has accomplished has been done not from a selfish motive or a mercenary point of view, but primarily because he has endeavored to do his part toward elevating the race with which he is identified. If it is true that the salvation of the Negro lies in his being educated, then to the Negro teacher must be attributed the greater portion of his salvation.
Again, the majority of the Negro teachers are Christian men and women of high moral character, and as such are shining lights in the community in which they may be engaged in teaching. The good they thus do is not confined to the school or class-room, but permeates every sphere of society, ennobling and enriching the thoughts and minds of all with whom they may have dealings, both by their chaste conversation and by their upright and godly lives. The Negro teacher, therefore, wields an influence for good, not only by precept, but what is considered far better, also by example. Furthermore, the Negro teacher in the day school invariably becomes a teacher in the Sunday-school of the town where he happens to be living. And here again he exerts a power for good, confirming and strengthening the teachings of the past week.
Aside from his professional duties, the Negro teacher is often called upon to decide on matters of grave importance. In many cases he is the attorney for individuals who are unable to secure the services of a competent lawyer. In this capacity he often acts as justice of the peace, as well as a peacemaker, thereby allaying strife and contention. From early morn till late at night the Negro teacher is besieged by questions of every sort and kind, which he must satisfactorily answer to the benefit of the inquirer, be he farmer or blacksmith, preacher or vagrant. In fact, the Negro teacher in the rural districts answers the purposes of a bureau of information.
Such is the lot of the average Negro teacher. That there are exceptions need not here be stated. From what he has done on a small scale may be inferred what is being done on a larger basis of operation by the best and most renowned of the Negro teachers.
In nearly every Southern state of the Union may be found some one or two famous educators and teachers of Negro descent. Prof. Jno. R. Hawkins of North Carolina, Commissioner of Education of the A. M. E. Church, has established Kittrell College. Prof. J. C. Price gave us Livingston College in North Carolina. Prof. E. A. Johnson of Virginia has written a worthy history of the Negro race, now in use as a text-book in many public schools. In South Carolina we find results of the great work in science by Prof. J. W. Hoffman. Georgia is proud of Prof. R. R. Wright, President of the State Industrial College at Savannah, orator and historian; also Prof. W. H. Crogman, scholar and author. In Florida the names of Prof. T. de S. Tucker, Prof. T. V. Gibbs, and Prof. T. W. Talley stand high as eminent scholars and professional teachers. Alabama is rich in having the foremost men of the race as her great teachers—Prof. B. T. Washington, founder and principal of Tuskegee Institute, and Prof. W. H. Councill, President of the State Normal and Industrial College at Normal. And thus we might mention each state and her eminent Negro teachers; but it is not necessary; the above suffices our purpose. And yet we would not conclude without referring to the noble work of Prof. W. S. Scarborough, of Wilberforce, Ohio. He has gone a step beyond the ordinary and given us a Greek text-book that has been adopted in many schools. Moreover, his contributions to the leading magazines and periodicals are eagerly sought and read by the best scholars of the day, without reference to race.
With this accumulated force of intelligence, radiating its numerous beams of light in every section of the land, one need not seek far to find an answer to the query: "What is the Negro teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race?"
As we endeavored to show in the beginning that it was through the instrumentality of their teachers that many countries acquired fame and gave to posterity a name honorable and glorious, so now the Negro teacher in his weak strength is laying the foundation for successive generations to build upon—a foundation more durable than stone or granite, more valuable than rubies or diamonds—the cultivation of the morals, the training of the hand, and the enlightenment of the mind. With an informed mind, a skillful hand, and an upright conduct, there is no reason why the Negro should not take his place upon the stage of action; play well his part in the drama of life, and meritoriously receive the plaudits of the gazing nations of the world.
SECOND PAPER.
WHAT IS THE NEGRO TEACHER DOING IN THE MATTER OF UPLIFTING HIS RACE?
BY PROF. E. L. BLACKSHEAR.
PROF. E. L. BLACKSHEAR.
Prof. E. L. Blackshear was born in Montgomery. Ala., in 1862. He was educated in the negro public schools of Montgomery. So rapid had been his progress that he graduated from Tabor College at the age of eighteen.
Prof. Blackshear is now principal of Prairie View State Normal School and Industrial College of Texas.
The following is the testimony of Prof. Blackshear concerning his grandmother. These words give us a glimpse of the bright side of slave life, and of the ideal "mammy" of the ante-bellum Southern plantation home.
"My grandmother was a remarkable woman. She idolized my mother, the only child that slavery had allowed her to keep. When grandma was sold from Georgia to Alabama, the humanity of her Georgia owners caused them to sell mother and child to the same people.
"My grandmother, although ignorant, had a profound belief in education. But if she knew absolutely nothing of the world of letters, she had something as good, perhaps better—a warm, honest, loving heart and Christian principles. She had genuine hatred for dirt and disorder, a regard, amounting to a fearful reverence, for white people of 'quality,' and a great and ill-disguised contempt for common, shiftless, 'darkies,' and low-bred whites. She was the best type of the faithful and efficient slave. But it was as a cook that 'Grandma's' reputation was known in two States. To my youthful imagination she was a magician; things she cooked for the white folks seemed so good to me. I think now of the batter-cakes, the light rolls, the syllabub, the sally-lunn, the ship-ships and the wafers grandma made. The light-bread she made is made no more. It is a lost art, an art that died with grandma."
When the Negroes were set free the first aim of thousands was to learn to read and write. Gray-haired veterans of the plantations sat side by side in the day schools as well as in the night schools with the smallest pickaninnies. And all seemed eager to learn the mysterious arts of the schoolroom. The school-book, in the eyes of the unlettered slave, was a sort of fetich to which he attributed the power of the white man. The young slave could follow his master to the door of the schoolhouse, but thus far and no farther. The mysterious rites and ceremonies which went on within were forbidden him. Human nature has ever been curious to know that the knowledge of which is prohibited, and so the slave had a great curiosity to master the printed page and to be admitted to the privileges of the schoolroom. It was not surprising that the whole race tried to go to school, and it need not surprise us if, in the enthusiasm for book-learning, from which the race had been so strictly debarred, too much stress may have been placed on mere book learning and too much confidence placed in the formal processes of the schoolroom. But, better even this exaggerated enthusiasm than indifference to all education of the schoolroom. The race would soon learn that the blue-back Webster's Speller was not the magic wand that would turn all troubles and difficulties into success and prosperity; that the ability to spell B-a-Ba, k-e-r-ker, baker, would buy no bread of the baker; while the power to read, "Do we go up by it!" with painful praiseworthy effort, would help the ex-slave but little as he strove to "go up by" the dangers ahead of him.
But they went to school, all of them at first, or all that could possibly do so, either by day or by night. It is not recorded that the chickens of that time had rest, but it must be that they did, for verily, in the first mad rush of letters, even chickens must have been forgotten by a race whose predilection for them has furnished the point for many a joke, as well as the occasion for painful if not indignant regret on the part of those whose fowls may have been abstracted. And it is a hopeful sign for the future of the Negro that while his first wild enthusiasm for the school-house has been moderated, his real desire for educational improvement continues strong and steady. He will go to school—the public school—when he can, and the higher institutions for his race are all filled to their capacity and are expanding. Will not this thirst for knowledge on the part of a so lately savage race bear good fruit both for the Negro and for humanity?
But who were to teach these black fanatics, seeking initiation for the first time, in the long and gloomy history of their race, into the mysteries, elusinian, of a modern, and, to them, totally foreign cult? A faithful band of Christian missionary white women gave answer by coming in the face of an inevitable social ostracism to light the torch of thought in a region hitherto unblessed by a single ray of education's light. The first Negro schools were taught by these white ladies at Charleston, at Atlanta, at Montgomery, at New Orleans, at Austin, and at the other great centers of the South's Negro population. The success of the first labors of this devoted band led to the foundation of permanent institutions for the elementary and later for the normal and collegiate instruction of the Negro youth. At Nashville, at Atlanta, at Raleigh, at Memphis, and at New Orleans institutions were founded which have become great schools and have contributed beyond measure to the process of civilizing the Negro as a mass—a process confessedly still far from completion. Complicated and annoying as the race problem assuredly is and will be for years to come at the South, it would be far worse—much farther away from even a hopeful degree of solution—but for the work done by the missionary colleges.
The missionary schools, of which Fisk, Atlanta, Straight, Roger Williams and Central Tennessee may be taken as types, furnished the first Negro school teachers and the Negro owes to these schools, founded and maintained in the spirit of the purest Christian philanthropy, a debt he can never repay in either kind or equivalence. The nearest like payment he can make is to imitate the beautiful, pure, devoted, lives of the missionary teachers. Too much cannot be said in praise of their labors. Perhaps if only the missionary Christian teachers had come and the political missionaries had remained at home, all might have been better.
But the missionary schools could reach but few. How was the great mass of the colored population to be educated? This was the question, and it was a most serious one. But the answer came not from the federal government, as some expected—that source from which so many had looked to get the mythical "mule" and the legendary "forty acres"—it came from the South, from the wasted resources of the former master. History furnishes no precedent as it affords no parallel to the action of the ex-slaveholders—a dominant race—in entering at once—before any opportunity had been afforded for recuperation from the losses of the Civil War—on the expensive work of giving a public school system to their former slaves—now technically, at least, their political equals. And nothing can be gained by the Negro in refusing gratitude to the South for this most magnanimous act and policy. An instance of this unselfish policy of the South in its attitude toward Negro education is seen in the history of Texas, the most liberal as well as the most progressive of the Southern commonwealths. The Constitutional Convention of 1876, which of course was Democratic, framed the present state constitution of Texas, and in it absolutely equal provision is made for both the elementary and the higher education of the Negro youth of Texas. And it is to the credit of Texas as an enlightened state as well as fortunate for her Negro population, that in the distribution of the magnificent school fund of the state, no discrimination is made between the races.
The Negro public schools are doing a great work for the elevation of the colored people. In a silent, unobtrusive way, these schools are leavening the thought and life of the race. The status and progress of the Negro are too commonly gauged by the deeds of the loafing and criminal element. The honest, law-abiding Negro who has a home, is getting a little property, has a small bank account, and is educating his children to useful citizenship, attracts little or no attention. But a race that has in a generation since chattel slavery gotten property worth by reliable estimate upward of $400,000,000 has been doing something. All of such a race are not either lazy, vicious, or immoral. The public school is doing effective work for the Negroes of the South in awakening in them a desire for better ways of living and higher ideals of conduct. Much remains to be done but that already accomplished is an earnest of better work yet to be done.
The Negro public school teacher has been more than a mere schoolkeeper. No class of educators in any race has done more, all things considered. The colored teacher has been a herald of civilization to the youth of his people. His superior culture and character have acted as a powerful stimulus to the easily roused imagination of the colored youth, and the black boy feels, in the presence of the black "professah," to him the embodiment of learning, that he too can become "something." At first he does not know what that something is, but he determines to be "somebody" and to make a place and a standing for himself in the world. In this way the colored school teacher is leading his race "up from slavery;" that is from the slavery of ignorance and superstition, of intellectual and moral inertia, of aimlessness and shiftlessness, into the freedom of intelligence, of energy, ambition and industry. Lincoln removed the formal yoke of a legal bondage, but the colored teacher is helping his race to get free a second time from a bondage just as galling—the bondage of intellectual and moral blindness and of industrial independence. Booker T. Washington is such a teacher—a teacher, indeed, and the leader of a race. And what Mr. Washington, himself a product of the missionary schools, is doing in a large way as the teacher and leader of the entire Negro race in America, hundreds, yea, thousands, of colored teachers in city and village, in the malarial river bottoms and among the pine-clad hills, are doing in a local but no less effective, though less comprehensive way. These colored men and women, many of whom are people of genuine culture and character, are giving their lives to the upbuilding of a race. And it is for them a labor of love.
These teachers teach by example as well as by precept. Their homes are models in neatness and refinement that are readily imitated by the other colored people of the community. It is to the credit of the colored teacher that he is, with rare exceptions, a model in his moral conduct and home life, and sets a high standard for his race, which they invariably—some of them—seek to follow. The colored teacher, too, has always been conservative and has been the wise adviser of his people. Himself dependent on the sentiment of the best white people of the community, he has usually won the confidence and respect of the white people, and they in turn have given him their moral support in the work of improving the minds, morals, and habits of the Negro youth of the community. In this way it is throughout the entire South—the best white people of the community by maintaining public schools for the Negro youth and by co-operation with the colored teacher, and often by personal interest in the work of both teacher and pupil, are actually aiding most effectively if not really directing the educational development of the colored race.
It is also greatly to the credit of the colored teacher in the South that he has not gotten above his race or tried to leave them, but has remained at his post and in his place doing the duty Providence has assigned and content to leave results to God and the future.
THIRD PAPER.
WHAT IS THE NEGRO TEACHER DOING IN THE MATTER OF UPLIFTING HIS RACE?
BY T. W. TALLEY.
PROF. THOMAS WASHINGTON TALLEY.
Thomas Washington Talley is a native of Bedford County, Tenn. His boyhood was spent upon his father's farm where he imbibed a love for nature. Some of the experiments made by him, as a child, with some of the lower animals, have proven most valuable aids in answering scientific problems encountered in later years.
In 1883 he entered the preparatory department of Fisk University, and after three years of study was admitted to college.
He began teaching in the public schools of his native state at the age of twelve. By teaching during his summer vacations, and by obtaining state scholarships through competitive examinations, he secured the larger portion of the means necessary for his support in college. He graduated from the classical course of Fisk University in 1890, receiving the degree of A. B. From 1890 to 1891 he was a member of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, who raised funds for the building of the Fisk Theological Seminary. In this company it was his duty aside from singing, to present the needs of the school. This he did with much eloquence and his appeals were always answered by liberal contributions.
In 1892 he received the degree A. M. from his alma mater for special work done in Natural Philosophy, Latin and German.
On October 1, 1896, he matriculated in the Graduate Department of Central Tennessee College (now Walden University), having spent the two preceding summers in resident work along the lines indicated by his courses of study in the institution. He selected courses leading to the degree of Doctor of Science.
He has been chiefly engaged in educational work and has held the following positions: Instructor in Mathematics and Music, Alcorn A. & M. College, Westside, Miss., two years; Professor of Natural Sciences, five years, and Vice-President two years in the State N. & I. College, Tallahassee, Fla. He at present occupies the chair of Natural Philosophy and General, Analytical and Industrial Chemistry in the Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.
He is a member of the American Ornithologists Union, the Michigan Ornithological Club, a Vice-president of the Florida Audubon Society, and a Fellow of the American Negro Academy. He is considered an authority in Biology and Chemistry.
As soon as the clouds of the Civil War had cleared from our country and the Negro had become a free man, the question immediately presented itself as to how he could be made worthy of citizenship and capable of exercising the rights and privileges of free government.
Free government exists through intelligence and integrity in citizens. The whole system of slavery in which the Negro had been schooled was such as to leave him without either intelligence or integrity. It rather taught him that deception was a better way to recognition than decency; and that whatever supplied his wants, regardless of its nature, was the means to be used. As the Negro stepped forth from the darkness of bondage into the light of freedom, the eye of his mind accustomed to the blackest and lowest was not ready to exercise the function thus suddenly thrust upon it. It was blinded and needed treatment that it might be so reconstructed as to guide and lead aright in this new atmosphere to which it had suddenly gained admission. The Negro came from slavery in want of training, and training is requisite to citizenship.
A man, to be trained symmetrically, must be trained mentally, morally and physically. Although this symmetrical training is much a result of personal effort, the effort must be directed by an intelligent, interested teaching. It is to such teaching that the Negro school teacher has directed and is directing his efforts.
The first schools established distinctively for Negroes in our country were supported and taught by philanthropic white people of the North. At the date of the founding of these schools there were practically no Negro teachers, but in these institutions, fostered by consecrated white men and women, Negro boys and girls began to receive training through which they developed into the first teachers of the race.
These schools, begun by philanthropy (although at first they did primary work) have developed into the Negro colleges, normal schools and industrial schools of the South. These schools of higher learning are still manned largely by white men and women. Thus the work of the Negro teacher is almost entirely limited to a few state colleges and to the public schools of the Southern cities and of the country districts. The especial point of excellence which characterizes the work of the Negro teacher is its interestedness. Whatever may be the sentiment in other sections, in the South—the real home of the Negro—every Negro's standing is gauged by the standing of the whole race in case of those who are most kindly disposed to him, while those who are illy disposed judge all by the lowest of the race. There is little or no recognition of individual merit except in so far as it meets the approval of his Southern white neighbor. Such being the case, the Negro teacher, realizing that their own elevation comes only through and in so far as the whole race is elevated, have a double stimulus for zealously doing their best work; first their love for the race which naturally springs up between those of the same blood and of the same descent, and second a selfish reason—their personal elevation, which only comes through the elevation of the whole race. Such interested teaching is not without its effect. Illiteracy is disappearing from day to day. A consultation of the latest census reports, and a contrasting of them with those previously taken, will show that the Negro has wiped out some of his illiteracy and is increasing in wealth, intelligence, etc.—yes, in all that which will finally force his recognition as a full-fledged American citizen without any "ifs," except that he be as any other man in possessions, in mind, and in character.
The Negro teachers are more and more studying the needs of their race and are shaping their work to meet the demands of the times. The Negro race formerly sang, and still sings, with much fervor of spirit: "You may have all this world; Give me Jesus." In the days of its ignorance, the Negro race observed this beautiful song in letter, but not in spirit. The Negro teachers have caught the spirit and are beginning to spread it among the ignorant masses. These teachers go into the Sunday schools and there teach the race to keep the spirit, "You may have all this world; Give me Jesus." They teach them that Christ is far above and is to be preferred to the whole world, but they also teach them that which is equally good, and that is, getting a hold on a portion of the goods of this world is a splendid preparation for getting a hold upon the things which lead up to heaven. In other words, the Negro teachers have become the great preachers of wealth getting, not because they would have the race carnally-minded, but because they know that no race of paupers can ever amount to anything or enjoy the full rights of citizens.
To the end of replenishing the empty treasury of the race the Negro teachers are encouraging their fellows to gain a skillful use of the hand. Many of them are enthusiastic to the extent that they would see every Negro school in the land teaching skill in the trades and in the tilling of soil. In this movement for the education of the hand the Negro teacher is meeting with encouragement on all sides. Such an education cannot fail to work great benefit for the race, and help to give it standing. Given an intelligent Negro mass, masters of the trades and of science of agriculture, there need be no fear for the Negro's future. The only mistake which it seems that the Negro teachers may possibly make at this time is, that having pictured in their minds the benefit of having a mass skilled in industry, and noting the present popularity of industrial training, they may lose sight of the fact that the skilled hand must be backed by and rest upon a mind trained to logical thinking. Industrial training does much indeed toward mental training, but by no means does it, nor can it, do all. There is quite a tendency at present aside from industrial training to limit the mental training of the race to the "3 r's," viz., reading, writing and arithmetic. The highest industrial attainment is not possible with such a limitation. The making, the repairing and the manipulation of machinery calls for a knowledge of natural philosophy and higher mathematics. The masterly tilling of the soil demands one learned in chemistry and botany—botany, which we know is not even a stranger to Latin. So we might go through every industry and point out that its perfection is conditioned on the highest mental training. Let the Negro teacher, while loving industrial training for his race, not learn to despise that which appears on the surface to be merely a mental gymnastic, but which, when examined more carefully, proves to be that only which furnishes a condition for the best and the highest even in that which he may most love.
Since social conditions in the South are such as to necessitate a system of separate schools for whites and Negroes, and since this necessitates the establishment of a large number of extra schools, it inevitably results in the shortening of school terms and the cutting down of the salaries of teachers. I have found some Negro country schools in Alabama paying the teachers from twelve to fifteen dollars per month, and the length of the school term was only four months. In these cases I did not find the teachers worrying over the small salary, but they were working to have the Negro patrons, from their own scanty purses, lengthen the school term. In not a few cases the Negro teachers observed were thus lengthening out the school term from one to two months every year.
The Negro teacher is also here and there founding institutions of higher learning. He is getting a hold on the churches, the state, benevolent societies, and individuals, and is causing them to contribute money and goods to educational centers which are to prove most potent levers in lifting the race to a higher level.
The fact that at present a large number of the states of the Union are basing suffrage upon an educational qualification enhances the value of the literary work to be done by the Negro teacher. In some states in the South the educational qualification is avowedly adopted by the whites to eliminate the Negro from the body politic. The Negro teachers are not sleeping over the interests of their race in this matter. They are working quietly, but earnestly. Most of them have the resolution which I heard expressed during the past summer by a Negro country school teacher, viz.: "I intend that all my pupils shall learn to read, write, and have the qualifications for voting if nothing more."
This, then, is what the Negro teacher is doing in the matter of uplifting his race: he is giving to it literary training, teaching it to skillfully use the hand, and encouraging it to accumulate property. He is lengthening school terms and founding institutions of learning. He is entering into the inner life of his people; and is implanting ideas and ideals there which will make them strong and respected by all the races of mankind.
FOURTH PAPER.
WHAT IS THE NEGRO TEACHER DOING IN THE MATTER OF UPLIFTING HIS RACE?
BY PROF. H. L. WALKER.
PROF. H. L. WALKER, A. B.
Prof. H. L. Walker was born near the city of Augusta, Ga., in the year of 1859. His parents, Wesley and Adline Walker, were the property of slave owners to whom they rendered allegiance until 1864 and 1865, when Sherman took his triumphal march through Georgia and the Carolinas. At the fall of the Confederacy young Henry went with his parents to Wilmington, N. C., where they spent about a year, during which time young Henry for the first time saw the inside of a school, taught by those pioneering teachers from the North. At the close of this year the family left Wilmington and went to Augusta, Ga., which city has been the scene of our subject's boyhood and the basis of his literary career. The public schools of Augusta were completed by 1874 and upon the recommendation of all of his teachers young "Henry," as he was familiarly called, was matriculated at the Atlanta University, one of the most noted of Negro colleges in the South. In this institution he studied for eight years, coming out in 1882 with the class honor and the degree of A. B. His parents died during his early boyhood, even before he had entered the Atlanta University, so that in his efforts to complete his collegiate career he had to rely largely upon his own resources, and the very kind assistance of his foster parents, and other friends whose protege he was.
Prepared for his life work, he left school in June, 1882, and was immediately elected principal of the Mitchell Street Graded School, Atlanta, Ga., his examination papers being the best offered for this position. In the following month—July—he was also elected President of the Georgia State Teachers' Association for Colored Teachers, of which body more will be said later. As a student at College our subject was studious, popular with professors and students, and acquired that assiduity and strict adherence to business that has since characterized all his subsequent life. In the profession of teaching he continued to rise higher and higher each year, holding positions of trust and honor under each of the State's superintendents of education down to the present incumbent. For eighteen years he has held sway in the public school of the city of Augusta, during which time Mr. Walker has officered the Second Ward Grammar School, the famous Ware High School and at present the First Ward High School, which position he still fills with dignity and credit to himself and race. As Peabody expert, Mr. Walker, by appointment of the successive State superintendents of education, has occupied the lecture platform in all parts of the State, with the best lecturers, white and Colored, that money could command, and they have all cheerfully conceded his ripe ability to master and handle successfully such subjects as have been assigned him from year to year. As a practical school man and well-informed scholar, Mr. Walker is always at home. As a Peabody lecturer he has often been pronounced one of the best in the State. Every Summer his services are in demand in various parts of the State. For ten years Mr. Walker was the honored President of the Georgia State Teachers' Association, Colored, and no man has since filled that honored chair whose administration has in any way rivaled the success of Mr. Walker. During his ten years the association was built up as it has never been since. The intelligence of the State—white and Colored—came together in these annual meetings and made this gathering of educators and leaders the most representative body in the State.
Mr. Walker is easy of address and modest in all things, never contending for honors. Several years ago, at its annual exercises, his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of A. M. as a deserved tribute and recognition of the literary work he has accomplished. As a polished orator Mr. Walker has been heard with profit and delight in all parts of the State. Some of his addresses before the State Teachers' Association are considered real gems of literature.
After a lapse of some thirty-eight years, or a little better than a generation, we are asking the question, "What is the Negro Teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race?" In so brief a period of years it would seem to savor of arrogance to ask a question so seemingly fraught with significance, so inopportune and, too, about a people so recently freed from bondage that they have not yet had the time to grow a generation of teachers. It took England more than a generation to grow an Arnold at Rugby. It took France more than several generations to produce a Guizot, and Pestalozzi, whose reputation as a teacher widens with the universe, is the product of years of experimental accumulations of Swiss ingenuity. And yet it may be pardonable arrogance on our part to say that at this first milestone in our educational career we pause here long enough to take an inventory of what the Negro teacher has done and is still doing in the matter of uplifting his people. In the pioneering or experimental period of Negro education there were no Negro teachers, but it is safe to say that as early as 1875 a few Negroes, daring to rush in where angels would fear to tread, began the profession of school teaching. It is from this date that we may safely begin to reckon the services of the Negro teachers as a class. I make bold to lay down the proposition that wherever God has ordained intellect that intellect is capable of the highest development; for mental ability is a divine endowment. The intellect may be the possession of an Indian, a Mongolian, an Arab, a Negro, a Hindoo or a Caucasian. Textures may differ, but all mental organisms are the same in color, fiber, and mode of operation and development. It must then follow that the proper training of the intellect must produce the same results upon all races when properly applied. That training which has made the Mongolian, or the German, or the Caucasian race great and powerful will of necessity, under similar conditions, produce like results in the Negro race. Let us now see what the facts show. It is largely through the instrumentality of our schools that Negroes have been taught to place a higher and a proper valuation upon their citizenship, and the importance of the ballot when it is wielded for the maintenance and perpetuation of good government. As a class of citizens Negroes are peaceable and law-abiding, and must not be reckoned with the migratory hordes of anarchists, nihilists, and the wreckers of law and order that infest our Eastern and Western shores. In our schools, too, Negroes have learned that it is theirs to petition respectfully for the enjoyment of their rights, and the redress of grievances so often unjustly imposed upon them. In the last two decades the influence of the schools, colleges and industrial institutions and seminaries of all kinds has wrought wonderful changes in the home life of the Negro race. Purer homes now abound; intemperance is giving way to sobriety and economy; love and order have driven out hate and confusion; the golden rule and the Bible are taken as the measurement of conduct; and, where-ever Negro communities are found, cozy little cottages, and often palatial homes with thoughtful and convenient appointments, have taken the place of the very many little one-room huts in which all the whole range of domestic life was wont to be performed. In these new homes a better and more intelligent class of children is being reared to fit in the scheme of our advancing civilization. These are very hopeful signs of a better generation and a brighter day for the American Negro.
Our Negro teachers and leaders have instilled into the race a desire for the accumulation of property and wealth, and the keeping of bank accounts. "Put money in thy purse," "Put money in thy purse." This advice from Shakespeare is ripening in the minds of all thoughtful Negroes, and the results are being universally manifested. In the United States the valuation of Negro property runs far into the millions. In the state of Georgia alone Negroes are paying taxes on $15,629,811 worth of property; of this amount $1,000,000 represents the increase of a single year—1900 to 1901.
In the domain of literature and the varied professions the education of the Negro has furnished us as lawyers, Hon. D. Augustus Straker, Detroit, Michigan; Hon. R. B. Elliott, late of Columbia, South Carolina; Hon. Jno. R. Lynch, Washington, D. C., paymaster United States Army; Hon. J. W. Lyons, Augusta, Georgia, register Treasury, Washington, D. C.; Hon. H. M. Porter, Augusta, Georgia, lawyer at the bar.
As statesmen Negro education has produced Hon. Frederick Douglass, "The old man eloquent," late of Washington, D. C.; Hon. B. C. Bruce, ex-registrar Treasury, late of Washington, D. C.; Hon. Geo. W. Murray, ex-member Congress, Columbia, D. C.; Hon. Geo. H. White, ex-member Congress, North Carolina.
As poets, Mrs. Frances E. N. Harper and Paul Lawrence Dunbar are samples of a splendid class.
As musicians it might suffice to say that Blind Tom, Black Patti and Madam Selika are only samples of a large class.
Negro education has furnished us pulpits better filled with intelligent men, devout and pious; and with modern churches that are in harmony with the Christian demands of the age. In the Ecumenical Conference recently held in London, the Negro clergy represented there were from all parts of the civilized world, and the high tribute paid to their ability and ecclesiastical character was the comment of all the English papers. Our bishops and eminent pulpit divines are largely young men, the product of our Negro schools. Dr. C. T. Walker, now of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, New York, and the foremost pulpit orator in all the Baptist ranks, perhaps, is a native of Georgia soil, and a product of our Georgia schools. But I must not prolong this account with a long list of bishops, D. D's., LL. D's., M. D's., diplomats, artists, painters, mechanics, inventors, and successful business men, who are the product of Negro education, but before closing this humble effort it is but proper that we should make mention of some of the men who are universally regarded as masters in the profession of teaching, and who in themselves are great benefactors of the Negro race. The following educators have wrought much in the matter of elevating their race in all the essentials of right-living. The most conspicuous figure just now in the firmament of Negro educators is President Booker T. Washington, who has at his command both the hand and the heart of the American people. The far-reaching influences of his work at Tuskegee, Alabama, where, perhaps, more than 1,300 Negro youths are taught all the useful and honorable methods of labor, are too well understood to merit further comment here. President J. H. Lewis, president of Wilberforce University, Ohio, has and is still doing a work that will tell on ages and tell for God in the matter of developing Negro ability along the lines of higher intellectual manhood. Prof. R. R. Wright, president of the State Industrial College, Savannah, Georgia, is a pioneer in the work of uplifting the Negro youth, and his excellent work recently begun at the state college is already teeming with fruit. Miss Lucy C. Laney is a woman of rare and well-developed intellectual attainments. The Haines Normal and Industrial School, with all of its influence for good, will ever be an imperishable monument to her memory. Her reputation as a woman of ability and culture is universal. Prof. W. H. Council, of Alabama, is hardly second to President B. T. Washington in his noble work in Alabama of uplifting Negro youth.
In professors, W. S. Scarborough, who holds the chair of Latin and Greek in Wilberforce University, Ohio; Prof. W. H. Crogman, chair of Latin and Greek, Clark University, Atlanta, Georgia; Prof. Kelly Miller, chair of mathematics, Howard University, Washington, D. C.; Prof. J. W. Gilbert, chair of Latin and Greek, Paine College, Augusta, Georgia; and Prof. W. E. B. DuBois, chair of science and economics, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia, we have the ripest examples of high-class scholarship. These men, steeped in the love and sciences of all ages and people, have won respect and recognition in all the institutions, and among all educators of world-wide reputation, both European and American. They are only samples of a large class of educated Negroes who have given a very high literary tone to Negro intelligence. In an account like this, which necessarily must be brief, it must not be expected that we could elaborate into details about any one of the features above mentioned. In mentioning them thus briefly it is only our purpose to call attention to the great work now being accomplished by the Negro teachers.
In closing these brief lines it might be well to consider several charges made against the educated Negro. It is charged that education teaches Negroes how to commit crime, etc. Because some educated Negroes commit crime and do wrong that is no more of an argument against the education of the Negro race than it would be an argument against the education of the Caucasian race, because some educated white men commit crime and do wrong. If a man has indigestion from eating the wrong kind of food that ought not to be taken as an argument against eating. Educated Negroes as a class are among our best American citizens.
Again, there are still some "back numbers" belonging to the old school of thought who still charge a lack of ability on the part of Negro scholars to absorb and assimilate the same amount of intelligence that the Caucasian race does.
In our humble school career in the state of Georgia we have sat on the same seat with the boys and girls of the Caucasian race, and, often, in the recitation room, under the same professor in the higher classics and sciences, we have shared the same book with them, and yet at the time of reckoning term standing we have seen those white professors give the members of these mixed classes their class rating in their various subjects, and the average percentage of Caucasian and Negro pupils in all these subjects would be a matter of significant comment.
In many instances like these, both in the North and South, the ability of our Negro scholars is so forcibly demonstrated; and what the Negro teachers may yet do for their race and for civilization will be left as a rich inheritance for the enjoyment of an advancing civilization. Of all teachers it may be said that he who shapes a soul and fits it for an eternal habitation in the blissful Beyond has erected for himself a monument that eclipses in grandeur and architectural beauty all the conceptions of a Solomon, though Solomon was the wisest of men.
TOPIC XXIII.
IS THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE ELEVATION OF THE NEGRO?
BY DR. D. W. ONLEY.
DR. D. WATSON ONLEY.
Dr. D. Watson Onley, the eldest child of John E. and Mary J. R. Onley (nee Wheele), was born in Newark, N. J. When but two years old his parents moved to Brooklyn, N. Y. He was early taught to read and write by his mother, afterward he was sent to the Raymond Street public school, Prof. Chas. A. Dorsey, principal. Here he showed a capable mind, by his easy mastery of all the subjects assigned him, and by his standing among his fellows.
At the age of thirteen, by force of circumstances, his progress in school was checked, his parents having changed residence, going to Florida, transferred him to entirely new scenes, environments and conditions. After attending school in Jacksonville, Fla., for three years, he entered the college preparatory course of Atlanta University.
In 1876, returning North, he entered and took a collegiate course in Lincoln University, after which he took two years' technical course in Boston, Mass.
In 1880 he married an accomplished young lady of one of the first families of Charleston, S. C., Miss Ella L. Drayton. Two charming and accomplished daughters of this happy union are Charlotte E. and Mary M., the elder one a graduate of the Normal school at Washington, D. C., and a teacher in its public school. The younger daughter is at present a pupil in Normal School.
In 1885 he returned to Jacksonville, Fla., began business as architect and builder. After three years of prosperous business, he launched upon the world the first steam saw and planing mill, owned and operated entirely by colored men to manufacture lumber in all its forms for house building. The plant grew rapidly, increasing in facilities and continued prosperous until by the hand of an incendiary it was swept by fire. The State Normal and Industrial College of the State needing a practical and efficient man to take charge of their technical department, solicited his services, where he taught all branches of architectural and mechanical drawing, manual training, uses and care of wood-working machinery and steam engine.
Not being thoroughly satisfied with his surrounding conditions, he struck out for a new line of work, that of dentistry, which, after three years of hard study, struggle and sacrifice, with the cares and responsibilities of a family upon him all the while, he finished at Howard University, dental department, and immediately opened an office in Washington, D. C. where he enjoys a lucrative practice. His life has been a busy one, and his success only represents what many have accomplished who have on hand a good stock of push.
In answer to this question I would say that the press next to the school has done more for the intellectual advancement, hence, elevation, of the Negro, than anything else. When I say press, I mean specifically the Negro press, which is an integral part of the American press of the country. It is his positive mouthpiece, effective when other audiences are denied him. Before Negro newspapers, the Negro had nothing to set forth his claims and true status. The race consequently speaks through the press to plead its cause.
Reviewing the history and growth of the Negro press of this country since it was launched by John B. Russwurm in New York City, March 30, 1827, to the present, comparing style of form, character of matter, increase of circulation, widespread and universal interest, the great host of contemporaries that have joined in making a vast throng of channels through which we can advocate our cause without fear of having it misrepresented or smoothed over, but bringing forth our opinions to truly enlighten the world. The general support given speaks volumes for the good it has done in elevating the Negro.
In conducting the Negro newspaper of to-day as compared with fifteen years ago there is a marked change. The success then in maintaining and increasing the circulation depended largely in appealing to the vanities of the subscribers in parading their name in print, calling attention to many things of no consequence to the public, less to themselves; but to-day in a very large degree that is changed; it has become distasteful, which is a very healthful sign along the lines of improvement of taste.
While it is true the majority of Negroes care little but for local news, doings of their own race, care but little for the news of the great wide world, it must be conceded a step far in the right direction if they can be interested at all. The Negro press, like all others, had to begin at the bottom and grow, not patterned particularly after any other paper, but fashioned to suit the tastes, conditions and interests of its customers. It is the privilege of the editor, not only to shape public opinion, pointing out the policy that alone will conserve to our best and lasting interest, but to develop the tastes, and so elevate the race which he serves. Through the press the editor sees that the interests, as far as our freedom and rights are concerned, are in no wise abridged, circumscribed or destroyed. In a large measure this has been one of the great benefits to the race; through the medium of the press we have been awakened to our condition, and our rights, and we jealously guard and clamor for their enjoyment and recognition. Although dark clouds of prejudice and lawlessness obscure our pathway, yet we are surely though slowly moving on in the pathway already blazed before us.
In the hands of the Negro, the press has been an educator to the whites as well as to the Negro, reflecting his manhood and capacity; this, too, has elevated the Negro's appreciation of manhood and appreciable standing among men.
Before Negro newspapers we were unknown in history, art and science. Like the Negro exhibits at all the great fairs, they have served to open the eyes of the blind, and to remove an ignorant prejudice which was against us.
To-day we find the leading journals of this country clipping and editorially commenting upon topics discussed and articles appearing originally in Negro newspapers, and more than this, find the Negro newspapers for sale on the principal stands where newspapers are to be had, indicating the demand. In this city it would be hard not to find the "Colored American" and "Washington Bee" at the newsdealer's. "Yes, we keep them," I have heard to the query about the above papers; "they are good sellers." Now what is true in this city is no doubt true in other places where the local papers have secured recognition from their standing and worth.
The Negro newspaper has taken such a stand that its columns are read by white patrons, many of whom take pride and interest in noting the advancement of their brother in black.
Many newspapers published by whites have taken advantage of this condition, and the Negro's interest in the press, and have set aside columns devoted to his individual interest; have procured competent Negro reporters to gather all facts and doings of the race of special interest to it, and are published daily.
This has increased the circulation by thousands of new subscribers who eagerly seek to know just what is going on among them. The causes of non-support of the Negro press is no argument that the press has not been elevating, nor any argument against its possibilities. This is largely a condition due to poverty, illiteracy and inferiority of paper, but time will bring about a change. In the hands of the Negro the press has been a success. Failure in management and poor financial profit have been to one and all engaged in the pursuit, yet the net result shows success, not failure; and its success demonstrates the possibilities of the race, notwithstanding the lack of encouragement.
SECOND PAPER.
IS THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE ELEVATION OF THE NEGRO?
BY WALTER N. WALLACE.
WALTER N. WALLACE.
Walter N. Wallace, the organizer of the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company, of Boston, Mass., publishers of the "Colored American Magazine" and many other race publications, was born at Boydton, Mecklenburg County, Va., in 1874.
His mother was Nannie J. Ellerson, who has the distinction of being one of the first graduates of the Hampton Normal School. Mr. Wallace is the oldest grandchild of that institution. His father Merritt Wallace was also a student of Hampton, and after leaving that school he settled in Boydton, in educational work, where he became one of the most prominent and energetic citizens of his community. He was at one time Deputy Treasurer and Commissioner of Revenue for the county.
At nine years of age Mr. W. Wallace was sent to school in Richmond, where he completed the grammar course, then spending two years preliminary training at the High, before entering the State College (Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institution, at Petersburg), where he spent another two years. While at this college he was prominent in athletics and a member of the institute band.
Later, determining upon the study of medicine, he entered the Leonard Medical College, where he spent two years in theory, then turning his face northwards he came to Boston in 1896, where he secured a position as prescription clerk in a prominent drug store, there becoming more practically acquainted with medicines.
In May, 1901, he launched his pet scheme, the "Colored American Magazine," and under his editorial care there is now no question of its future, as it has passed far beyond the experimental stage, and is now an assurity.
The confidence which has been displayed by him and his associates in the belief "that a man is what he makes himself," is wonderful, for they have, through strenuous effort, brought the magazine up to an actual circulation of over twenty thousand copies per month, with a steady increase each month, besides publishing many Race books, which are the equal of any in merit and mechanical makeup.
Personally, Mr. Wallace is of a kind and modest disposition and hardly realizes that he has accomplished within such a short while a thorough new departure in Negro journalism. If ever persuaded to forget for a moment, and be drawn from his business cares, you will find him a pleasant entertainer, both in music and conversation, for beneath his seeming austere countenance there lies an urbane streak of humor, piquant with wit and pleasant cynicisms, much to be enjoyed.
In its entirety, yes. The power of the press is indisputable. To the Negro youth of the land it should be put, as a beneficent educator, next to our schools. In its pages they should be able to read the good being accomplished by our prominent race-men in this glorious fight now on; this will cultivate a desire to emulate them. They will read of the bad being daily done and will learn to abhor such dastardly actions. With such a mission to perform our newspapers should contain the essence of truth and good and sensible instructions; for its power of assimilating bad influences is equal to the good which would accrue.
The Negro journal is an important factor, because it is a source through which the younger generation should and must become acquainted with the good accomplished by members of the race, with the possible exception of a favored few whom the ordinary press seems to think is all that is worth speaking of. Important because the rank and file is utterly ignored and positively unnoticed by the American white press (except as an example of the demonstrative inability to be an intelligent and thrifty citizen), and from which they pick from day to day the lowest as a type of Negro capabilities.
In order to fully explain the position taken in this matter we will be compelled to deviate from the main question.
To rightly diagnose the cause, for the seemingly apathetic manner in which the race appreciates its journals we must place the blame upon the right parties.
A few hundred dollars, a set of type and a press do not make a newspaper. A man with an education does not always make an editor. Many of our editors grow discouraged over their failure to arouse a support to their journals, blaming the race for non-appreciation, when the fault lies with themselves. Do they give their readers news? If a local sheet, they deal in stale generalities. If a general sheet, they confine themselves to locals of no general interest.
Let our journals arise, procure competent help, give the news, regardless of class, as the newspaper is for the masses. Make a business of the paper, run it on strict business plan, have good printing, be careful with proofs, avoid all mistakes as nearly as possible; study their patrons' tastes and cater to them, for it is not dealing fairly to require the masses to purchase for race pride when they should receive the worth of their money.
Petty animosities should not fill their pages with vituperation, which is shocking to refined sensibilities; neither should the reading public be forced to search for original matter with a microscope. He should ever be on the alert to champion the Negro's cause and never wholly sink his originality within the narrow confines of party bounds. Stand up for truth, and censure wherein, in his wide judgment, he feels it necessary so to do. Never let his paper travel in a rut, plenty of room for expenditure of gray matter.
We have many Negro journals which should be a source of pride to the race at large, others, we are sorry to say, do not deserve support and should make room for those which do.
A press association should be formed and the happenings sent from one to the other and used in brief by out-of-town journals and be fully detailed by local journals. More unity is needed and is a thing to be encouraged and maintained. Our journals depend too much upon chance MSS. than upon active reporters for their news.
Much could be said of the many sacrifices and labors of many of our editors, but we believe that the most good can be accomplished by fewer and better newspapers, than with "quantity without quality."
In our article we place great stress upon truth; we believe the goal for which all the Negro journals are laboring is to find "the means for the best good of the race," and way waste energy in useless toil?
THIRD PAPER.
IS THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE ELEVATION OF THE NEGRO?
BY RICHARD W. THOMPSON.
RICHARD W. THOMPSON.
Richard W. Thompson stands in the front rank of those who are making history for the Negro race in this century. A native of Kentucky, he has spent most of his life in Indiana and was educated in the common and high schools of Indianapolis. His career of thirty-five years is quite an interesting one, abounding in well-directed efforts that have done much to give character and dignity to the Afro-American youth of the land. At an early age he evinced a remarkable aptitude for public affairs, and at school showed proficiency of the highest order in such studies as political economy, civil government, history, literature. He was especially happy in the art of English composition, his papers on current problems attracting wide attention in his home community. Losing his father when very young, he was largely dependent upon his own exertions for a livelihood and throughout his school days worked at a variety of pursuits.
In 1879 he became associated with Messrs Bagby & Co., in the publication of The Indianapolis Leader, the first journalistic venture launched in the Hoosier State, and later on mastered the trade of printing. Taking as naturally to newspaper work as "a duck to water," he made himself an indispensable quantity on the Leader staff and at seventeen, was city editor. At the same time in connection with his school duties, he kept books for Dr. F. M. Ferree, secretary of the Marion County Board of Health. When The Indianapolis World was launched in 1883, Mr. Thompson took charge of the city department and at different times during the palmy days of that sheet, held nearly every position on it from work at the case to foreman of the mechanical department and managing editor. He was the first managing editor of The Indianapolis Freeman, in which position he was a marked success. Later, as editor of the Washington Colored American, he won national fame as an accomplished journalist, a graceful, versatile and forcible writer and a clear and courageous thinker upon all questions that affect the Negro's social, political and industrial development. He leads rather than follows popular sentiment, and at no time while the editorial tripod was in his hands did he take a stand upon any issue that failed to meet the hearty endorsement of the race and which was not accepted as the expression of the best thought and principle of our people. In argument his style is logical and conservative. As a spicy paragrapher, originator of attractive news features, and as a keen observer of popular tastes, he has few equals and no superiors in the army of Afro-American journalists. He has done special work for prominent papers of both races, and furnished much "copy" for private individuals, always giving complete satisfaction.
Mr. Thompson has been fortunate in the matter of official recognition. At the age of fifteen he served as page in the Indiana Legislature, being the first colored boy so appointed. After attaining his majority he became a clerk in the Marion County Auditor's office, and in 1888 he led a class of seventy-five in a civil service examination, earning an appointment as letter carrier. He came to Washington in 1894 and was appointed clerk in the counting division of the Government Printing Office, enjoying the distinction of being the first colored man to be assigned to a clerical position in that department. Mr. Thompson is now connected with the United States Census Bureau and is regarded as a faithful and efficient assistant.
Busy as Mr. Thompson must necessarily be, he has time to aid in promoting race movements and organizations, being an active spirit in the National Afro-American Council, the Pen and Pencil Club, and St. Luke's P. E. Church. He is now serving his third term as President of the Second Baptist Lyceum, a cosmopolitan debating forum that has won a national reputation.
The question is both pertinent and timely. In the past two decades the necessity for the preacher, the teacher, the lawyer, and the doctor has not been open to dispute. Every father and mother, no matter what their social standing or their worldly means, have striven honestly, faithfully and persistently to enroll their favorite boy in the ranks of one or the other of these callings, as if they were the only open highways toward distinction, or the goal denominated "success."
In contemplating the professions which make for racial grandeur, racial opportunities, and protection from assault, many of us forget the importance of the Negro press as a factor in the elevation of the masses. It is not too much to say, in this connection, that of the primary levers to which the race must look for support, none contribute more toward endurance, permanency, and virility than the press. We have the pulpit, the schoolhouse, the field of politics, and the arena of business. Each has its bearing in the development of a larger life and a more perfect manhood for the Afro-American; but, conceding all due respect to the noble men and women who stand in the vanguard of each of these missions, no one of them is more potent or far reaching in its effect than the press. From the pulpit comes the precepts that direct moral and religious thought; the schoolhouse stands for a broader intellectual culture; the field of politics gives us our practical experience in the science of government, affording us an opportunity for actual participation in the shaping of legislation and in giving vitality to public policies. The press, however, occupies a most unique position with reference to all of them. It is the fulcrum upon which all these activities must depend for useful service. The press is the concentrated voice of the masses; the mouthpiece of the age; the universal censor—directed by popular opinion—from whose verdict there is no appeal. The press is the medium through which the great work of the church is disseminated over land and sea, and gives to the world the sweetening influence that the spoken word offers only to a single parish. It magnifies the labors of educational leaders and is itself an indispensable adjunct to the growth of intelligence. In the political field the press has long been recognized as an institution more powerful than any individual, and from the post of messenger or handmaiden of the people—a mere purveyor of current happenings—it has come to be the master mind in the economy of nations. To the business world it is a "guide, counselor and friend," and correctly analyzes the ingredients that bring material prosperity to the civic organization, of which all of us are a part. That distinguished autocrat of autocrats, Napoleon, once exclaimed, with a bitterness born of impending destruction: "Hostile newspapers are more to be feared than bayonets." And why not? It holds in its grasp the power of life and death, success and failure, happiness and misery.
These facts amply justify the assertion that the Negro newspaper is an all-important factor in the elevation of the race. Caucasian journals, while general in their news features, too often lack breadth in their opinion department, when the race question is a burning issue, just as religious denominations, the trades and political parties require "class" papers for the exploitation of their particular lines of thought, the Negro has found that only through his own "class organ" can he obtain a sturdy defense of his character, the record of his laudable achievements, and the advocacy of his rights as a man and a citizen. So the Negro journal came, and it is here to stay. The Negro journal had its origin in the direst necessity, and that necessity was never more apparent than at the opening of the twentieth century when the Declaration of Independence seems not broad enough to include the colored American, when the Constitution of the United States is perverted from the sacred intent of its framers and the spirit of disfranchisement is rampant throughout the land.
This demand for a Negro journal was first met between 1827 and 1834 by unpretentious sheets in and about New York City. But it was not until 1847 that race journalism became a positive factor, when that intrepid spirit, Frederick Douglass, launched "The North Star." This great man built up a circulation upon two continents and wielded an influence not exceeded by any subsequent race venture. That paper blazed a wide path, and in its path followed enterprise after enterprise, developing the sentiment for liberty and keeping in touch with the newer requirements of the hour. No reliable census of the many race journals has been kept. They have sprung from every state and section, but their span of life in most cases has been so brief and sporadic that only rough estimates have been attempted. To-day, perhaps, three hundred are in existence, a few taking high rank in literary quality—others struggling desperately for maintenance. The majority are printed at a positive loss, as regards dollars and cents. It is doubtful if any of the survivors are supported exclusively from revenues derived from subscriptions and advertising. It is a stinging indictment of our much-lauded "race pride" that the greater proportion of our Negro journalists are compelled to depend for a living upon teaching, preaching, law, medicine, office-holding, or upon some outside business investment. In character and make-up, these papers are as widely varied as the localities and environments from which they spring. Many are crude specimens of the "art preservative," dealing heavily in "boiler plate"—to use a professional term—and very lightly in original matter. A few have taken steps out of the beaten path and are giving striking evidence of what the resourceful and energetic Negro journalist could do under circumstances more encouraging. Our editors are, for the most part, men of strong personality, with standing and influence in their respective "bailiwicks." Without notable exception they speak for manhood, for race elevation, and for material development in every avenue of industry.
How many of us have paused and candidly considered just what Negro journalism is doing for the uplift of the masses? Notwithstanding the hard fact that the editorial work of many writers is done late at night, after protracted hours of labor in other fields; and notwithstanding that where a journalist is able to give his entire time to the business, he is often sole solicitor, clerk, compositor, pressman, collector, office boy, and editorial staff combined—despite all these disadvantages, the beneficent effect of the Negro press is felt all over the land. The dozens of able men and women who are engaged in this noble work, most of them doing so at a tremendous sacrifice, are true patriots, bearing burdens from which the timid shrink, leading cheerily where none but the brave dare follow, contending with malicious opposers, every inch of ground, this sturdy band struggles on year after year, hoping patiently for the "joy that cometh in the morning." Through their efforts Negro writers have been given a fair hearing, and, while the Caucasian journal is giving space to the police court episodes of our lower orders, the alert Negro sentinel finds in the church, the schoolroom, the inventor's studio, the author's desk, and in honorable political or social station, a most fertile field for his operations. Negro newspapers have aroused in us the commercial and industrial spirit, and are giving employment to hundreds of young colored men and women as bookkeepers, stenographers and canvassers. They are lending practical aid in solving the race's labor problem by yearly instructing and providing employment to printers, book-binders, pressmen and other artisans. They are building up a market for Negro labor, and neutralizing to a great extent the baleful influence of the trades unions' hostility. The Negro editor has increased the self-respect of the race by collating and publishing the creditable achievements of our people, furnishing a periodical compendium of history and placing the Negro in his most favorable light before the critics of the world. The truly representative Negro journal reflects the sober judgment of the race upon topics of general interest. It largely fixes our status as thinkers and philosophers of the times. The rights of no people can be ruthlessly invaded whose press is fearless, pure, upright, and patriotic. No people can forever be denounced as ignorant, vicious, and shiftless who support a press that is intelligent, moral, and thrifty.
Let it be remembered here, however, that the picture has its somber tints. Negro journalism, speaking generally, is not a paying investment. The fault does not lie wholly with either the public or the publisher. As a mass we are not a reading people and the bulk of us neither know nor appreciate the value of the work that the race paper is doing. Some of us take and pay for Caucasian journals for their news features—which is eminently fitting and proper—but the Negro journal should not be made to suffer in the unequal competition, for the latter fills a want which the former cannot or does not reach. One dollar to the race paper is often worth as much as ten to the wealthy corporation behind our great metropolitan dailies. It is not alone our illiterates who fail to support our journals. The educated classes are not as loyal to the cause as their means, learning, political interest and race pride suggest that they should be. True, it frequently happens that our papers fall into the hands of characterless adventurers who are "anything for a dollar," and it is felt that the best method of rebuking their self-constituted and erratic leadership is to treat them with silent contempt. To this no thinker can offer a reasonable objection. A journal that does not represent the highest impulses of a community does not deserve support. The personal organ, the scandalmonging sheet, the political and social blackmailer, the confidence-destroying campaign dodger, and the subsidized traitor to racial manhood are all under a ban, and should have no place in the homes of self-respecting Negroes. In this category should also be classed the colorless journal, that smirks in the recesses of cowardice. We should be faithful, however, to those that are honest and straightforward. We should strengthen their arms by our moral and financial resources. Booker T. Washington aptly points out how difficult it is for a needy man to resist the temptation of the bribe-giver, and tells pathetically of the uphill work of making a Christian out of a hungry mortal. Support the right kind of editors and the result will be a press that is progressive, healthful, and fearless—an institution of which all may justly be proud.
Is the ideal race journal attainable? I say, Yes—when the two elements necessary to the transaction—the public and the publisher—are able to meet on a common ground, in the spirit of co-operation and fair dealing. The chasm between the journalist and his rightful constituency must be bridged by mutual confidence and mutual sympathy, or neither can reap the great benefits that lie in concentration of forces.
The ideal journal is that one which places racial weal above private gain—which exalts patriotism above pelf. It is controlled by men big enough and broad enough to eschew petty personalities and to avoid cheap sensationalism. It is piloted by men who breathe the atmosphere of freedom, whose inspiration is not drawn from the committee rooms of political parties, and whose course is not dictated by scheming politicians. It is the antithesis of sycophancy. The ideal journal is backed up by men who are far-sighted enough to perceive that success through trickery is short lived, and that character is the only foundation upon which an enduring structure can be built. It is conducted by men who know by experience that genuine worth will ultimately be appreciated, and that refined taste, sound judgment, and a saving sense of proportion will produce a newspaper that may stand as a model to posterity.
Journals of this type, sincere, earnest, and consistent—and in the future their names will be legion—are without question the key-stone in the arch of those forces which make for the permanent elevation of the Negro people. Such journals are prime factors in the race problem.
TOPIC XXIV.
ARE OTHER THAN BAPTIST AND METHODIST CHURCHES ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT NEGRO?
BY REV. GEORGE F. BRAGG, JR.,
REV. GEORGE F. BRAGG, JR.
George Freeman Bragg, Junior, Priest and Rector, was born in Warrenton, N. C., January 25, 1863. Shortly after his birth his parents, George F. and Mary Bragg, removed to Petersburg, Va. It was in this latter place that their son was reared and educated; remaining there until ordained to the Episcopal Ministry, he left to take charge of his first work in Norfolk, Va. Mr. Bragg was educated, first, in the Episcopal Parochial School, then in the St. Stephen's Normal School, and in the Bishop Payne Divinity School, all of Petersburg, Va. His education, however, was supplemented by private tuition by a master in languages, under whom he studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew and philosophy. In 1881 he was appointed a page in the Virginia Legislature, and a little later, by the Speaker, promoted as the postmaster of that body. In 1882, though not of age, he founded and edited the "Virginia Lancet," the first Colored weekly published in the "Black Belt" of Virginia. This newspaper he conducted for some four or five years, and on January 12, 1887, in St. Stephen's Church, Petersburg, Va., he was ordained Deacon by Bishop Whittle of Virginia. He immediately left for Norfolk, Va., where he began his ministry at the head of the little Episcopal Mission of that city. He remained in Norfolk for nearly five years, and during that time formally organized Grace Church, secured the lot, built a new church and rectory and improved the old school building. A very large day Industrial School was carried on by Mr. Bragg in connection with his work. While here, in June, 1887, Governor Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, appointed him one of the State's Trustees of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, where he served for four years, resigning only because of leaving the State.
In December, 1888, he was advanced to the priesthood by Bishop Whittle in St. Luke's Church, Norfolk, Va. In the Fall of 1891 he accepted an invitation to become the Rector of St. James' Church, Baltimore, Md. The church, although one of the oldest of the connection, had been very much run down. During a ministry there of ten years, he has wrought remarkable improvement. He has increased the communicant list from sixty-three to nearly two hundred, and advanced the church well-nigh to complete self-support. The old church, which was in a Jewish neighborhood, has been sold during the present year, and a handsome brick structure erected in another section of the city. Mr. Bragg, during his residence in Baltimore, has founded a splendid charitable institution, the Maryland Home for Friendless Colored Children, and two young men have been sent into the ministry of the church directly through his efforts. For many years the Rev. Mr. Bragg was Secretary of the Annual Conference of Episcopal Church Workers among the Colored people. And in addition to his many other arduous labors he has found time to edit the "Afro-American Ledger," a weekly of this city, the "Church Advocate," and the "Maryland Home," monthly publications.
Mr. Bragg is a well known figure in all public movements for race amelioration, and is a veteran newspaper man, having been Secretary of the National Press Convention for four years, beginning with the presidency of the late Rev. Dr. W. J. Simmons.
At first the asking of this question is a most natural one, seeing that the great body of Negroes are attached to either one of the above churches, and it would seem at a first glance that these religious organizations are pre-eminently suited to the Negro race. But, we hope to show that not only are other churches adapted to the "present Negro," but one of these other churches meets the Negro's need better than either one of those above mentioned. Of course it is hardly necessary for me to state that our showing is conceived in the very best spirit, and with the fullness of Christian love towards our Baptist and Methodist brethren. Did I not believe that the church of which I am a member is best suited for the Negro, I would at once renounce attachment thereto and embrace most lovingly the one which I thought more efficiently equipped to minister to the complexed and diversified needs of my race. On account of a multitude of reasons, not necessary to state here, Negroes naturally drifted into that form of Christianity presented by the Baptist and Methodist churches. With the innate feeling and strong tendency to warmth, fervor, animation and excitement, it is not at all surprising that people so strongly emotional should gravitate in that direction. Whatever may be my own criticisms with respect to the defects in these two systems, which render them inferior to the church of which I am a member, and therefore less suitable to the needs of the race, I much prefer stating my side of the question and leaving my readers free to draw their own conclusions. That portion of the Universal Church, known in this country as the Episcopal Church, to my mind, is better suited and equipped for the amelioration of the condition of the Negro than any other.
The Negro is specially fond of "regularity" in religious as well as political affairs. In this respect the Episcopal Church comes to him not as something new but as the living exponent of the old-time religion and the old church which has actually descended to him, through all the ages past from the very hands of Christ down to this present time. It has historic continuity and claims none less than the Blessed Master as its founder. She is not founded upon the Bible, for she gave to the world this blessed book. Her sons inspired of God wrote it. And the claim of historic continuity can be established and proven in the ordinary way that we attest other historical facts. The church, then, that Jesus Christ founded and concerning which He said the "Gates of hell should not prevail against it," must of necessity be "adapted to the present Negro."
The Negro needs the faith once delivered to the saints, not in shreds or left to pick it out for himself, but the whole faith. This the Episcopal Church offers him. A complete faith, naturally, is to be found in a comprehensive church. The Episcopal Church is most comprehensive. She believes more in turning in than in turning out. Men are not brought into the fold to be "turned out" for every little thing, but they are brought in to be built up, established and rooted and grounded in Him. The church, then, is adapted to the present Negro because she gives him not opinions and theories, but the living faith of the ages and a living Christ as potential to-day as when He trod this earth clothed in flesh. And this church is most comprehensive, taking in all sorts and conditions of men, and by grace dispensed through sacraments, ordained by Christ Himself, seeks to bring to the fullness of stature as realized in Jesus Christ.
The Episcopal Church is pre-eminently adapted to the present Negro, for the present Negro is most eager to learn, and, above all other religious bodies, she is a teaching church. More Scripture is read at one Episcopal service than is ofttimes read in a month in the services of other churches. She has a liturgy which is the sum total of all that is good and grand in the ages past, and the constant and almost imperceptible influence of her most excellent system of public worship, as indicated in the Book of Common Prayer, silently but effectively issues, in moulding and mellowing good Christian character. She teaches not only through the prayer book, but by the yearly round of feast, festival and fast, of which, like a great panorama the acts and incidents in the life of her Lord are constantly set forth before those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. More than that, she teaches through symbolism. Many persons, and a considerable number of Negroes are here included, are endowed with but little brain. But they have eyes, and what they take in with their eyes help to rivet and fasten in their memories what they seize upon with what brain they possess. Our children begin to take in the surrounding objects with their eyes long before their minds are sufficiently developed to act, and the same is true in the present matter. The Episcopal Church, therefore, is especially adapted to the present Negro because she is adequately and sufficiently equipped to touch him at that portion of his being which will respond in unison with what she has to offer for his improvement. Her service addresses itself to his natural senses, as well as to his mental powers, however strong or weak they may be.
The Episcopal Church is adapted to the Negro because her worship is hearty, beautiful, uplifting and inspiring, though simple and easy, furnishing the greatest opportunity for active participation therein by the ignorant as well as the learned. The worship of the Episcopal Church harmonizes most beautifully with the strong religious fervor of the Negro, and as a vehicle for offering up those intense longings and aspirations of his heart, is without an equal.
The Episcopal Church is adapted to the Negro because she believes so persistently and thoroughly in "a change of heart." Of all religious bodies not one lays such emphasis on the absolute necessity of "a change of heart" as does the Episcopal Church. Stamped upon every page of her divine liturgy, and permeating the beautiful prayers of her offices, and inwrought in her hymnology, is this deep and firm recognition and teaching with respect to a change of heart. All her sacraments, disciplinary offices, instructions and the like, are with the design of helping her children, through the aid of the Divine Spirit, in proving the genuineness of their change of heart by a conspicuous, powerful and beautiful change of life.
The Episcopal Church is adapted to the Negro because she offers a government that is congenial and pleasant to his sunshiny nature, and which, while it amply protects him in the enjoyment of all the blessed privileges of religious culture, saves him the disaster and confusion of a democracy, which, when realized, is but another name for anarchy and confusion.
The government of the Episcopal Church is jointly shared by her clergymen and laymen, and the stability and security of its government is firmly attested by the past ages of experience and notable achievements.
In conclusion the Episcopal Church is the church for the Negro, because she is both willing and able to supply his every need, and under her loving nurture and constant training in the end will graduate him into a well-rounded Christian man of symmetrical character and beauty.
SECOND PAPER.
ARE OTHER THAN BAPTIST AND METHODIST CHURCHES ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT NEGRO?
BY REV. JOHN W. WHITTAKER.
REV. JOHN W. WHITTAKER.
Rev. John W. Whittaker, A. M., a prominent Congregational pastor, was a poor boy who made his way up through many hardships. He was born at Atlanta, Ga., December 23, 1860. Of his father he knows very little. His mother was a devoted Christian whose life greatly influenced his character. When old enough, he was put to work to help support the family. While an office boy at Atlanta he met a young man, Lewis G. Watts, a thorough Christian and fond of reading, who cultivated Mr. Whittaker's friendship and took a great interest in him. Whenever with Mr. Whittaker he questioned him in arithmetic, grammar and the news of the day.
In this way a desire for an education was awakened in Mr. Whittaker. He decided to go to school. He began his education in the summer of 1876 in a country school in a suburb of Atlanta. From here he went to the Starr's Grammar School. His examination revealed the fact that he had considerable general information, but it was so unsystematic that it was very difficult to tell to what grade he belonged. He was, however, classified as a senior with conditions and was graduated with honor at the close of the school year. Then he matriculated in Atlanta University, where he studied seven years, completing the college course in 1884. He studied theology at the Hartford Seminary, graduating in 1887.
During these years of study Mr. Whittaker partly supported himself by teaching in the summer and working out of school hours, which was an immense drain upon his strength, and once he broke down under it. Through the kindness of friends he was enabled to spend two summers in the North farming. This change, he feels, was the saving of his life. June 1, 1887, at Springfield, Mass., where he held his first charge, he was ordained. In 1888 he was married to Miss Anna J. Connover, of Hartford, Conn.
Mr. Whittaker educated himself to labor for his people in the South. He was not content to remain in the North. After a very successful year at Springfield, he resigned to accept a call to the Knowles Street Congregational Church of Nashville, Tenn. For three years he was chaplain of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. For seven years and four months he was pastor of the First Congregational Church of New Orleans, La., and three years he had charge of the First Congregational Church of Savannah, Ga. Recently he has been recalled to Tuskegee to be the Financial Secretary of the Tuskegee Institute.
Mr. Whittaker is a preacher of force and power. In every place he pastored he was remarkably successful. He has often been honored by his church with positions of trust and responsibility. He was one of the Louisiana Commissioners of the Negro Department for the Atlanta and Cotton States Exposition.
It would seem from the immense following of these churches that this question would require a negative answer, but it is only in appearance and can be accounted for.
In the days of slavery the Methodist and Baptist churches predominated in the South. The great mass of the slaves attended these churches with their masters and there they were converted and became members. They were thoroughly indoctrinated in the teachings of these churches. At the same time, there were other denominations existing among the slaves: Catholic, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian. In some portions of the United States, where these denominations were in the lead, they have a very large Negro following, whose attachment to these religious sects is so strong that they could be satisfied in no other. They belong to these denominations by birth and training. All that is sacred and dear to them is wrapped up in the history of these bodies. At the present time, it is a fact that the Negro is found in every religious denomination known among men. So it can not be said with truth that no other than Baptist and Methodist churches are adapted to the Negro. The needs of the Negro, from a religious point of view, demand all sects.
How does it come about then that the Baptist and Methodist so largely predominate to-day? These denominations, just after the War of the Rebellion, required no educational qualification for the ministry; and missions were opened by them everywhere an opening was to be found, and every man, learned or ignorant, who felt himself called to preach, was licensed and sent forth to preach in his way and to build up churches. These men were for the most part ignorant and superstitious, with very vague ideas of religion. Their chief object was to draw the people and every other consideration was sacrificed to that end. They pandered to the ignorant and superstitious notions of the Negro, ridiculed intelligence, and prejudiced their followers against it. They had no thought of progress, but taught the people to be satisfied with what their fathers before them did and had; not to believe in this Bible religion which has sprung up since the war; to prefer the old-time preacher who, without any learning, gets up and opens his mouth and lets God fill it with words to utter.
Back of all this there was one ever present motive—the pastor's support, the running expenses of the church, and the keeping up of a house of worship. All this had to be collected from the congregation. Hence the preacher's position hung upon his getting and holding a congregation. In the Methodist Church, a clergyman's advancement depends chiefly upon his ability to increase his membership and to raise money. Therefore, every Baptist and Methodist pastor felt the very great necessity there was upon him of getting as great a crowd as possible and gathering all the finance he could from it. This many did, regardless of the method employed.
Thus it was that these two denominations got hold of the masses and preoccupied the field.
The other denominations went to work in an entirely different way. They did not seek in the first place the spread of their sects, but the elevation of the Negro. They realized that the Negro needed to be developed into strong, self-reliant, and independent characters; that the masses were not moved by duty and did not appreciate the obligation of duty. They are a prey to their feelings, which sway them to the right hand and to the left. They live on their feelings. So engrossed are they in their feelings that they neglect duties and ignore obligations. That is why the religion of so many is such sad rubbish. God gave man reason to rule over his actions. But it was plain that, in the great mass of the Negro, reason is yet a child, ruled over by its playmates—the feelings, passions, and appetites. This is not the kind of foundation upon which to build a true religious life.
Therefore, these denominations went to work to educate the Negro. They put the emphasis on education. Schools instead of churches were established. Their theory was that men should not only be converted, but they also should be educated and made intelligent Christians. They did not discount brains, did not consider ignorance in itself a mark of virtue, nor that learning disqualified a disciple of God for the best service of his Lord and Master. In their polity, the school and the church stood side by side. In their view, an example of higher and better things must be set. Men of intelligence, power, thought, and strong characters, filled with the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be raised up from among the people to lead them and to teach them.
They were slow in establishing churches. Whatever churches they set up were pastored by men of learning and character. They were unwilling to stoop to the people, but sought to bring the people up to them. Everything was done according to the custom of the most intelligent and cultured. The preaching was of a high order, yet adapted to the needs of the people. The music was the very best. Thus a model church was set up, suited to the needs of its communicants. As fast as men were trained and prepared for the work of the gospel ministry, they were sent forth to take charge of newly-organized fields. This work went on with considerable opposition, but the influence that went out from these churches and schools was felt in the whole community. They were centers of light and wholesome Christian instruction. They were Mt. Sinais from which the laws of liberty, education, and progress were sent out to the people far and near.
These churches were, in intelligence, far removed from the masses. There was very little effort put forth to reach them. That was not the object now. That work was to come on later. The members of, and the attendance upon, these churches were mainly those who had been sufficiently taught to appreciate them.
The ignorant and prejudiced dubbed these churches high-tone. They said: "Only the educated and well-dressed can go there. The people in that church have no religion. They have only book religion. You must know how to read to go there. Why, you can't shout or say amen. I don't want anything to do with that church. It's too cold for me." Thus there grew up in the minds of the masses generally a prejudice against these denominations. And the fact that these churches were for a long time in the hands of white pastors was used to stir up opposition to them. The clergymen of the Methodists and Baptists made much of it to tear them down and to build up themselves.
Then, again, the members of these educated churches did a great deal to widen the breach by such remarks as this: "We do not want any head handkerchief people in our churches." They often spoke in a way which gave the impression that they felt themselves better than the commonality of their brethren; and whenever visitors came to these churches, the members did not extend them that cordial welcome which makes one feel at home and want to come again. This was often done unconsciously. These members had been apt students, who faithfully copied their instructors. The very atmosphere of these churches was New England, which was cold and formal as compared with our Southern ways. Thus our untrained brethren did not feel at home in their midst.
As time goes on and education becomes more general, these hindrances and difficulties to the progress of the other denominations begin to pass away. The prejudice against them wanes. The Baptist and Methodist are forced to change their tactics; their people begin to clamor for a more intelligent ministry. The churches of the other denominations fell into the hands of young colored men who had been educated and trained to take these places.
The passing of these churches into the hands of the native pastors was the beginning of a new era in our Southern church history. The North had set the standard and carried out its purpose to raise up educated men and women to take up the work. The labor of these churches heretofore was one of education and preparation. Now it becomes one of development and expansion. Up to this time, they cared for the few. Now they are to reach out for the masses. Previously these churches had been in great measure supported by Northern aid, but now they have to deal with all the problems connected with running a church, such as gathering and holding a congregation, securing pastor's support, and all the expense of keeping up and maintaining a house of worship. Hence the necessity is upon them to reach the masses if they expect to exist, not only to save souls, but also that their forces may be strengthened and made more efficient; and they stand to-day as good a chance in this race as do the Methodists or Baptists. Their past work in an educational line in behalf of the Negro in general has given them a lasting hold upon the hearts of the people, who feel that they owe these denominations a debt of gratitude which can never be paid. Most of the Methodist and Baptist leaders of to-day were trained in the schools of these denominations. So they enjoy the best wishes of the communities in which they exist, with very few exceptions. The way is open to them to grow if they will only seize it and use it for all it is worth.
[Note by the Editor.—We assume that the membership of neither the Baptist nor the Methodist churches would claim for a moment that theirs is the only church suitable to the Negro race. But we think it would be unfair to leave the discussion of this topic without correcting an erroneous impression given by the Rev. J. W. Whitaker in the paper above. Perhaps not more than one other church has done more for the education of its Negro ministers and membership than has the Methodist Episcopal Church through its Freedmen's Aid Society and by other methods. This education commenced immediately after the war. We have reason to believe that the Baptist is a close second to the Methodist Church in this matter of educating the Negro. It is possible that some of the Negro Baptist and Methodist Churches that are entirely separated from the white churches of the same denomination may come under the category of especially ignorant ministry and membership; but even these exclusively Negro churches began the work of education soon after emancipation. We suspect that the two churches under criticism as given above preferred not to wait until the freedmen became cultured before attempting to save them.]
THIRD PAPER.
ARE OTHER THAN BAPTIST AND METHODIST CHURCHES ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT NEGRO?
BY REV. O. M. WALLER.
REV. OWEN M. WALLER.
Rev. Owen Meredith Waller, rector of St. Luke's P. E. Church, Washington, D. C.; Associate of Arts of Oxford University, England; Graduate of the General Theological Seminary, New York, was born in Eastville, Va., in 1868. When but five years old his parents settled in Baltimore, where he was sent at an early age to the St. Mary's Academy. In 1881 he went to Oxford, England, where he entered St. John's Classical School, pursuing studies there until 1889, when he returned to New York city. He graduated from the General Episcopal Theological Seminary in 1892, and was ordained to the Deaconate by Bishop Potter, after which he accepted a call as assistant rector to St. Phillip's Church, New York.
He declined the principalship of Hoffman Hall of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., to accept a call to St. Thomas' Church, Philadelphia. Having passed all examinations before reaching the required age to enter the priesthood, it was only after his election to St. Thomas' that he became eligible for advancement.
Bishop Potter arranged for the ordination to take place in the Colonial Church of St. John, Washington, D. C. Here in the presence of the Chief Justice, Cabinet Officers, Senators and other men of national note, Mr. Waller was formally elevated to the priesthood. After a rectorship of three years' successful work in this historic parish, during which its centennial was celebrated, Mr. Waller was elected rector of St. Luke's Church, Washington, D. C., in succession to the Rev. Dr. Crumwell.
In size he is above the medium and of athletic build. He is a perfect type of the physical manhood of his race, graceful in manner and address and is clear and eloquent in his style of oratory.
Success has crowned his work from the beginning. Mr. Waller combines all the essentials necessary of a leader of men along religious lines. He understands humanity. His methods inspire the confidence of men, and they reverence his gospel. He appeals to the intelligence and reason, never to passion and prejudice. He has the faculty of saying much in little, and saying it with directness and force.
Mr. Waller was married in 1893 to Miss Lillian M. Ray, of Brooklyn, N. Y. Three bright boys have blessed this union by their advent into the home.
I have no hesitancy in saying that not only are there other churches adapted to the training of the Negro than the Methodist and Baptist churches, but, in my opinion, some are better suited to the present needs of the Negro, and chief, if not indeed the first, among these is that branch of the Apostolic Catholic Church known as the Protestant Episcopal Church. I advance the following arguments to sustain this statement:
First, the Negro is under a spell of religiosity; a conception of religion that freely recognizes and imbibes its sentiment, but just as frankly rejects its stern practical duties and obligations. The Negro's religion is a poem—a sentiment—indeed, a velvet-lined yoke. He, therefore, stands sadly in need of an influence that will regulate his super-emotional nature, and not one that adds fuel to an existing conflagration that threatens to forever consume the only power in the human being that can ultimately work out his salvation, viz., the human will.
His religiosity needs to be directed to the deep channels of true religion, and there harnessed as a mighty Niagara to produce practical righteousness in daily living. No church is better adapted to this end than the Protestant Episcopal. (a) She seeks after the example of her Master's method to develop the permanent power of the will, rather than the unstable prop of emotionalism. This is evidenced in her majestic liturgies and dignified but helpful services. (b) In doctrine, discipline and worship the Protestant Episcopal Church is the school of mental, moral and spiritual training, that a people but now coming to the light from the darkness and degradation of bondage so terribly need. (c) Again, her ministry, bishops, priests and deacons are her people's leaders; secure in the tenure of their office from factional machinations, they are fearless in the advocacy of righteousness; not with their ears to the ground, but with eyes looking upward, their pulpits speak plainly "Things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." Nothing at this stage does the Negro stand in greater need of than fearless and positive guidance in the "ways of righteousness."
Second: The present Negro needs opportunity and latitude for self-development in a church where he must measure himself with the highest standard of Anglo-evolution. As long as the Negro is content to compare himself, in Negro associations, with himself, he must be satisfied to know only that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another. But, both in the lay membership and in the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Negro coming into contact with the best results of modern forces, not only rises up to higher standards, but is saved from the insidious evils of conceitedness by ever seeing the vistas beyond him. Withal, the doors are open to the Negro, here more truly so than in any church of like prestige and heritage. Two Negroes are on the bench of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Nearly a hundred have been elevated to the diaconate and priesthood, meeting all requirements and thereby teaching the same level as other men. Such a showing cannot be made by any church of like history.
Third: We have been told of late to teach the Negro history, and I add that no lesson will be so potent as identification with a historic church that has come down the centuries to us, in unbroken integrity, from the hands of Christ through the spiritual loins of the Apostles. I advance the following argument to show that the Protestant Episcopal Church will meet this need of the Negro: At Acts 11:42, we read as follows: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers."
It may be readily seen from these words, drawn as they are directly from the scholarly Greek of St. Luke, that the Apostolic Church was distinctly marked by four observances or characteristics:
(a) Their steadfastness in the Apostles' doctrine.
(b) Their steadfastness in the Apostles' fellowship, dealings, doings, ministry or form of government.
(c) Their steadfastness in the breaking of the bread, or the Holy Communion; Holy Baptism being included in the Apostolic doctrine.
(d) Their steadfastness in the Apostles' manner of praying or in the set forms of prayer, at first, for twenty-five years in the Temple and the synagogues of the Jews.
These being the four marks of the church at that time, is there now in existence any church having these selfsame marks? Without any doubt, Christ was the founder of that visible body of Christians, the church in Acts II. Does that church exist to-day? It must, because Christ said: "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it."—Matt. 16:18.
then which is it, and where is it?
The church is certainly a visible body of Christians, not founded by a man or men, but by Jesus Christ. Having a divine founder it is then a divine society, seeking men to save them from the degrading power of sin and everlasting punishment in hell. It is not then, as is so commonly and popularly thought, a human society founded by Luther, 1530; Calvin, 1541; Knox, 1560; Robert Brown, 1582; Roger Williams, 1639; John Wesley, 1739; or Swedenborg, 1783. In brief, the church founded by Jesus Christ is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, as Christ so often described it (Matthew 13:47, 5:19, 13:44); endowed with power from on high transmitted through her unbroken line of the Apostolic ministry, but obedient to her Divine Founder, who is at the right hand of God in heaven.
This church of four distinct marks in the Acts existed before the completion of the New Testament at least some sixty years, and it was the church that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit pronounced the New Testament inspired, and rejected other books claiming to set forth the life of Christ, three hundred years after it was founded. The Old Testament is the document of the Jewish Church, that church having been in existence for a thousand years before its document was completed. Therefore, this church of the Acts cannot be set aside for one claimed to be founded upon the Bible.
For three hundred years then, this Apostolic Church existed with Apostolic doctrine, ministry, sacraments, and prayers before she gave the New Testament to the world with her certificate that it was the Inspired Word of God.
The Protestant Episcopal Church of America as the daughter of the Church of England, has ever possessed, and does now possess and hold more sacred, these four marks that identify her unmistakably with the primitive and Apostolic Church, as a true branch of the same.
First, as to doctrine this church holds and defends the pure teaching of the early church, without taking from or adding to the same. There are few, indeed, who would question this.
The Holy Trinity (John 14:16, 26; Acts 2:33; Gal. 4:6).
The Incarnation of God's Son (Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Matt. 1:23).
The Redemption of Man by Christ Jesus (Matt. 1:21, 20:28; Gal. 1:4).
Regeneration and Holy Baptism (Titus 3:5; Rom. 6:4; Gal. 3:27).
The Holy Communion (Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20).
Confirmation (Acts 8; Heb. 6:2).
The Resurrection of the Dead (Luke 14:14; John 11:23).
The Judgment (Acts 17:31; Heb. 9:27).
Belief in these statements and other fundamental teaching of Holy Scripture is in accord with the mind of the Apostolic Church.
Secondly, as to the unbroken line of bishops, priests and deacons, who have succeeded for more than eighteen centuries other ministers Apostolically ordained, that has been most jealously guarded and maintained by the Episcopal Church.
There may be some who have never given any study to the Apostolic succession of ministers in the church founded by Christ. No one could well doubt the fact or deny the doctrine who had patiently investigated the matter. The New Testament is itself witness to the fact that the Apostles appointed others to do Apostolic work and to be their successors; at least thirty Apostles are mentioned in the New Testament. Among them were Paul, Matthew, Barnabas, Andronicus, Silas, Luke, Titus, whom St. Paul appointed Bishop of Crete, and Timothy, whom he appointed Bishop of Ephesus. There were also at least ten others whose names are recorded, space does not permit us to mention.
Now, if the original twelve could have eighteen successors, certainly they could, and have had a continual line of successors down the centuries. The titles of the three orders of the ministry may, at first, mislead the unlearned.
(1) In the New Testament the highest order was Apostles. The second, "ordained in every city," were Presbyters (Presters or Priests), also called Bishops and the lowest order Deacons.
As the Apostles began to die off, the title "Apostle" was limited to them and to their successors who had probably seen Christ, at the same time the title "Bishop" was set apart to denote the highest order which succeeded the original Apostles. This is stated by Clement of Alexandria in the second, and Jerome in the fourth century. While Theodoret, writing in 440, says: "The same persons were in ancient times called either presbyters or bishops, at which time, those who are now called bishops were called Apostles. In process of time, the name of Apostles was left to those who were sent directly by Christ, and the name of Bishop was confined to those who were anciently called 'Apostles.'" From Palestine the church spread to Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Spain and England, carrying with her the Apostles' doctrine, ministry, sacraments and prayer.
In 597, when Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, sent Augustine to England, he found there the church with the four marks. After awhile the Bishop of Rome, by political methods, gained great influence over the English Church in so much that he was receiving from England greater revenues than the king. When the tremendous revolt against the papacy came about in Europe in the sixteenth century the English people simply ejected the pope's emissaries and with them, Italian influence and corruption from England and the English Church, the church remained essentially the same she had been for centuries.
The word "Reformation" signifies the footing of something into a new shape. It is therefore not the destruction of the old and the substituting of the new, but rather the reshaping, cleansing and revivifying of the old. The melting down of the family silver and the reshaping it on new models is not to acquire new silver. Perhaps it was so distorted by abuse that it required new shaping. This was very much the case with the Church of England.
The reformation in England was effected on very different lines from that on the continent of Europe. Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and others were individuals attracting to themselves multitudes of other individuals and together they establish societies of Christians. The Apostolical churches on the continent did not, as such, participate in the reformation movement. In England the reformation, i. e., the reshaping, restoring and cleansing, was more wisely conducted. The church there had existed since the days of the Apostles. For six hundred years it remained independent of the Roman world power, and it was only after the Norman Conquest that the papal authority became well established in England. When a reformation seemed necessary, it was conducted, not by individuals leaving the national church, but by the whole Church of England. In A. D. 1532 the quarrel of Henry the Eighth with the pope led to the overthrow of the Roman power in England. Henry is not to be credited as a reformer, much less as the founder of any church. He never made any attempt to found a church. When he was born, in 1491, he found the church existing in England, and when he died, in 1547, he left the same church, but cleansed and independent. The ancient church was not changed, and the old religion did not give place to the new. The papacy was opposed to the independence of the national churches for which the Church of England had always contended.
Accordingly, when the power of the pope was broken and thrust out of England, the church was at liberty to restore Apostolic purity and freedom to the nation and the individual.
Parliament prohibited the payment of money to the pope and appealing from English to papal courts. In 1539 the Bible was given to the people to read in their native tongue. The services were read in English instead of Latin. The chalice was given to the laity. The worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary was abolished and praying to departed saints forbidden. These reforms were conducted by the archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons and laity, i. e., by the whole church. The pope was not without his adherents during this period, who opposed these changes most vehemently. But these traitors to the Church of England found they could not stem the tide for an open Bible and pure religion. In 1569 Pope Pius Fifth created the great sin of schism by commanding all in favor of papal power in England to withdraw from the English Church and form an Italian party. In 1685 the Italian Church supplied this party with a bishop. To-day the Italian mission in England is doing all in its power to make headway against the Church of England, but in vain.
We can now come briefly to the Episcopal Church in America. She was established in the American Colonies under the oversight of the Bishop of London. In 1609 the Church of England planted her first church on American shores at Jamestown, Virginia. After the Revolution, the church in this country became the American Episcopal Church, receiving the Apostolic ministry from the ancient Apostolic Church of England. Samuel Seabury of Connecticut, was consecrated at Aberdeen in 1784 and William White of Philadelphia, and Samuel Provoost of New York were consecrated at Lambeth Palace in 1787. These were the first three bishops with jurisdiction, and thus was the Apostolic Succession maintained in the Episcopal Church in unbroken line from the days of the Apostles.
In conclusion, the Protestant Episcopal Church has ever continued steadfast in the sacraments of prayers, and by these four undeniable and unmistakable marks shows that she is a true branch of the same church described in Acts 2.
The question for the Negro now becomes, not which church do I like or prefer, not to which church did my parents belong, but which church did Christ found for me to be trained in.
TOPIC XXV.
THE NEGRO AS A BUSINESS MAN.
An Address Before the National Negro Business League.
BY T. W. JONES.
HON. THEODORE W. JONES.
The Hon. Theodore W. Jones was born during the temporary residence of his parents in the beautiful city of Hamilton, Ontario, September 19, 1853. His parents soon returned to New York, their native State, and there remained until he was twelve years old. In 1865 this family decided to make Illinois their home and settled in Chicago.
Mr. Jones was one of a very large family; his parents were poor and unable to give him even a common school education. Compelled to support himself, at the age of fifteen years he was driving an express wagon. He was an industrious boy, full of pluck and energy. Without money and by his own unaided efforts, step by step, he pressed on and soon built up a most successful express and moving business.
Discouraged by no difficulty, the ambitious young expressman turned his attention toward acquiring an education. He was a diligent student. Through the aid of private tutors and the "midnight oil," he was able, when twenty-five years of age, to enter Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill., where he remained three years. Leaving college, he returned to his business in Chicago and has been exceedingly prosperous.
Mr. Jones is the owner of a large brick storage warehouse, Twenty-ninth Street and Shields Avenue, and other valuable property in this city. In his employ are three lady clerks and about fifty men, all colored.
In 1894, Theodore W. Jones was elected on the Republican ticket to the responsible position of County Commissioner of Cook County, Ill. He ably and well performed the duties of this office.
That he labored earnestly and unselfishly to advance the interests of the colored people we need relate only the following fact: During Mr. Jones' term of office the colored people of Cook County drew $50,000 yearly salary. This was about seven times the amount paid into the county treasury by our race.
He is a valued member of the National Negro Business League. He was present in Boston at the organisation and has organised a branch league in Chicago, known as the Business Men's League of Cook County. This league entertained the National League in Chicago, August 21, 22, 23, 1901.
There has been so much controversy concerning the Negro, so much said and written about his alleged inferiority, such an attempt made to establish relationship between him and the monkey, that even in this new century there exists, in some quarters, grave doubts as to his origin, and a general misapprehension as to his nature, capabilities and purposes. But research into the primeval history of man evinces the fact, beyond the possibility of skepticism, that mankind had only one common origin. We are taught that in the beginning God created man in His own image, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and that man became a living soul. The closest and most thorough analysis of the blood of different races fails to detect the slightest difference in the color, size, shape or quality of its corpuscles. The fact that one people are white, another yellow, another red, another brown, and yet another black has its cause in the workings of a law of nature which we do not fully understand. Sacred history plainly teaches that the Negro is a man like other men and that of one blood God created all nations; hence there can be no racial barrier to a successful business career, in the general constitution of a black man.
What was the business of the Negro in the land of his nativity, or at the time of his emancipation in this country, does not so much interest us now, except as it may help us to appreciate his capacity for business at present.
Life for our forefathers in Africa was very plain and very simple. The multitude was engaged with problems little more difficult than the acquirement of food and drink and rest, raiment not being a necessity; hence their only business, aside from frequent wars with kindred tribes, was to explore a way to the fruit tree, the water brook and the shade, and so their years were principally filled up with the business of merely satisfying those three physical wants—hunger, thirst, and rest.
When human slavery was established in the colonies, those of our race, either fortunate or unfortunate enough to be brought to these shores were instructed mainly in the care of cotton, tobacco and rice crops; and from these few Southern industries we could not turn aside. Slavery deprived the Negro of the little responsibility devolving upon him in his savage state—that of providing food and drink and finding rest. No responsibility was allowed to devolve upon him, other than to perform allotted work, not even the selection of his wife; and when children were born to him, he was not confronted with the problem of how he should provide food and shelter for them, nor wherewith they should be clothed. He and his issue being the property of his master, like swine or cattle, their issue were alike stalled and fed by the owner. With but few exceptions, this was the condition of the Negro when the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued, thirty-eight years ago.
From that eventful day onward, the mighty aspiration of the ex-slave for education and material development has written a new page in the history of the world's progress. Let us now examine the record made, and call to our assistance the statistics of the Government that we may truthfully answer the question, can the Negro succeed as a business man? We are indebted to ex-Congressman George H. White for the information that since the dawn of our freedom the race has reduced its illiteracy at least 45 per cent; that we have written and published nearly 500 books; have edited fully 300 newspapers; have 2,000 lawyers at the bar, a corresponding number of practicing physicians, and 32,000 school teachers. We own 140,000 homes and have real and personal property valued at $920,000,000. The census of 1890 shows that 20,020 persons of African descent were engaged in business, and there were more than 17,000 barbers not included in those figures; and be it remembered that this showing was made more than ten years ago.
It is true that we have produced no skilled master mechanics or great speculators; no commercial princes or merchant kings. These are beyond our immediate reach and reserved for later growth. But we have today, on the floor of this convention, colored men who represent nearly every business enumerated in the census reports—wagon-makers, watch-makers, grocers, druggists, bankers, brokers, bakers, barbers, hotel keepers, caterers, undertakers, builders, contractors, printers, publishers, decorators, manufacturers, tailors, insurance agents, coal dealers, real estate agents, collectors, the proprietor of a brick yard, the owners of a cotton factory, and the president of a coal mine. The number engaged, and the capital invested, may not reach very pretentious figures, but the beginning has been made. Aside from the above, we have produced soldiers whose valor has reached world-wide reputation, poets, artists, teachers and professional men and women of recognized ability. There are hordes of others pursuing the humbler walks of life eager to acquire by education a higher ideal of manliness and womanliness, and to learn the ways of advanced civilization and approved citizenship. These achievements have been wrought by us under the most adverse conditions. We have wearily toiled by day and by night; have made bricks without straw; helped ourselves and taken advantage of small opportunities; though these are days of increasing combinations of capital, growing corporations and gigantic trusts, which greatly lessen the possibilities of individual success. Surely there is in the black man the same capacity for business, the self-same spirit, purpose and aspiration that there is to be found in the white man, and he is as much entitled to the blessings of life, and to share its honors and rewards, as the descendants of other races, notwithstanding Senator Tillman's recent plea for lynching Negroes, and the plaudits and acclaim of a Wisconsin audience.
Despite the fact that the door of nearly every large factory, shop and department store is closed against us, despite the fact that prejudice stalks our business streets with unblushing tread and dominates in all the commercial centers of our common country—yet we are not here today pleading for special legislation in our behalf; we are not here whining to be given a chance; we are not here, even to complain of our hard lot, or to find fault with conditions which we cannot change. This, we conceive, would be a very poor programme to attract the attention of the business world, but we are here, representing hundreds of thousands of dollars, thus demonstrating that we have achieved, at least in a small measure, one of the things which, by common consent, is taken as evidence of progress, ability and worth. We have made money, have saved money, and are succeeding in many profitable business enterprises which require the possession of skill and executive ability to direct and control.
The Jew traces the industrial strides of his people from the first footsore peddler to their present position of affluence in the financial world, and so without reciting further the early struggles and hindrances experienced by our pioneers in business, sufficient is it to say that we have men who should be placed in the class with Nelson Morris, A. M. Rothschild and Mandel Bros. Not that they can compare with these men in the sum total of their wealth; no one expects this. But that they began life without a dollar, have accumulated property and acquired influence, and are today men of public affairs, able to stand, persevere and prevail in the fierce struggles and competitions of business life. These mercantile strides the members of our race are taking in the face of proscription and oppression, in the face of the administration of unjust laws and in the face of disfranchisement and barbarous lynchings, such as no other men ever had to face. In fact we are prospering under conditions which would not only fill other business men with hopelessness and despair, but would surely drive them into bankruptcy.
It is not true that the business patronage of the Negro is confined to his own race, nor is it true that he is a cringer, and solicits patronage among the whites because of the fact that he is a colored man. We have long since learned that we are entitled to no more consideration because we are black than other men are who chance to have red hair, big mouths, or mis-shapen feet. If you will pardon personal mention, I would say that in my business as a furniture mover, few customers, indeed, have I among my own people; nor do I ask to remove any man's goods because of the color of my complexion or the texture of my hair; but because I have put brains into my humble calling and made the business of moving furniture a science. What is true in this instance is true in all others, where progress is made. We are grasping opportunities and compelling adverse circumstances and forces to work together for our profit. Under the wise leadership of Booker T. Washington, we are finding our bearings and casting anchor in the dark and muddy waters of industrial conditions in which we were sent adrift without rudder, compass or means of existence less than thirty-eight years ago.
It is not strange that, as business men, we have made some failures. It is a long way from the depth of the valley to the summit of the mountain; from a barbarian to a master mechanic; from the jungles of Africa to a successful business career, and from the slave cabin to the professor's chair. We have not all outgrown the feeling of dependence instilled in us by more than 250 years of chattel bondage; many of us yet shrink from responsibility, and lack the requisite amount of ambition. We recognize our shortcomings, our peculiar environments and the limitations of our experience and powers. We are beginning to learn that if the Negro is to become more and more a factor in the business world he must take a more active part in all of the trades, competitions, industries and occupations of life. Again, he is learning, slowly perhaps, but surely, that he must outgrow the weakness and confusion resulting from distracted purposes; that he must have one aim, and be one thing all the time. He must stop doing things in a slipshod and half-way manner and become more thorough. He must put the force of a strong character and a determined will power into whatever he undertakes, and he must stop stumbling and falling over impediments, especially of his own placing.
The Negro is, however, affected by nothing now which education and personal endeavor will not in time remove. For example, we take the liberty to refer to our honored President, Booker T. Washington, who about forty-two years ago was born a slave in Virginia. At an early age he began the battle for himself untutored and untrained in all the ways of life. What he has since accomplished is a sufficient answer to those who claim that the Negro is void of any capacity for doing business, and that his offspring has no chance to rise in the world. For twenty years Booker T. Washington has not only been president of a great industrial institution, but has had very largely the acquisition, management, investment and expenditure of its finances. In recent years there has scarcely been a month in which he has not been offered positions in important and influential business enterprises, as well as in the affairs of government. His career is evidence that there is plenty of room at the top for Negro boys who have sense enough to rise to the level of their opportunities. The lack is not so much of opportunities as of men. It is a fact which cannot be gainsaid that success still is, and most likely always will be, a question determined very largely by the individual. For the man or woman who has made thorough preparation and is willing to do hard work a place will always be waiting, irrespective of race or color.
The tone of this convention clearly indicates that the Negro will succeed as a business man in proportion as he learns that manhood and womanhood are qualities of his own making, and that no external force can either give or take them away. It demonstrates that intelligence, punctuality, industry and integrity are the conquering forces in the business and commercial world, as well as in all the affairs of human life. Permit me, in closing, to quote the language of President McKinley addressed to the students at the Tuskegee Institute, "Integrity and industry," he said, "are the best possessions which any man can have, and every man can have them. No man who has them ever gets into the police court or before the grand jury or in the work-house or the chain gang. They are indispensable to success. The merchant requires the clerk whom he employs to have them; the railroad corporation inquires whether the man seeking employment possesses them. Every avenue of human endeavor welcomes them. They are the only keys to open with certainty the door of opportunity to struggling manhood. If you do not already have them, get them."
For our encouragement, reference has been made to a portion of the history of the distinguished President of this convention, and also, for the same purpose, quotation has been made from a speech of the honored President of his country. We thus have before us the example of the former and the precept of the latter—each a leader in his own sphere, the one black and the other white. By following the example of the one and the advice of the other, the Negro will not only succeed as a business man, but the early dawn of the present century will yet witness the best achievements and the loftiest conceptions of a once enslaved race.
SECOND PAPER
THE NEGRO AS A BUSINESS MAN.
BY ANDREW F. HILYER.
ANDREW FRANKLIN HILYER.
The subject of this sketch was born in slavery near Monroe, Walton county, Georgia, August 14, 1858. In the early fifties his maternal grandfather, Overton Johnson, was set free, given some money and sent North. He went to Cincinnati and began a free man's life as a cook and steward in a hotel. In a short time, by strict economy, he had saved some money from his earnings. This, with the money brought from the South, enabled him to open "The Dumas House," well known to the older residents of Cincinnati. In 1862 he sold this business, moved to St. Louis and opened a hotel in that city, where he was at the close of the war. In 1866 he sent for the remainder of his family in the South, consisting of his youngest son and a daughter and her four children, the eldest of whom was Andrew Franklin Hilyer.
About the time of their arrival in St. Louis business reverses threw the now enlarged family upon their own resources, and young Andrew, though but eight years old, was "hired out." He early developed a burning desire for an education, and took advantage of every opportunity that he could find to study and to learn. He soon learned to read. With this key he opened up to his enquiring mind a wide vista of knowledge and saw through many things which before had seemed dark. The family remained in St. Louis two years, but in very poor circumstances. During this period Andrew was able to attend school but little, yet he was so anxious to learn several persons gladly gave him instruction. It was during these struggles that he formed his purposes in life. He solemnly resolved to make a man of himself and to graduate from college.
In 1868 the entire family moved to Omaha, Neb., where their circumstances gradually improved and Andrew was enabled to attend school a part of each year. His mother died in 1871, and the next year he went to Minneapolis, Minn. Here was located the State University, and his opportunity to go to college had now come. To make this possible he learned the trade of a barber and pursued his studies, graduating from the Minneapolis High School in 1878 and from the University of Minnesota in 1882.
He soon came to Washington, entered the service of the Government and took up the study of law and in 1885 graduated from the Howard Law School.
Mr. Hilyer takes an active interest in the progress of his race along all lines, but he has especially urged upon their attention skilled labor and business as very important factors in the progress of the race.
In 1886 he married Miss Mamie E. Nichols, a descendant of one of the older Washington families, who graces a happy home. They have been blessed with two boys, whom they are trying to rear and educate to become good men.
The resistance of the white people to the progress of the colored people is least along the line of business. The colored people themselves have only to develop a larger spirit of race help in business and a magnificent future is just ahead for them.
In addition to little capital and much inexperience the colored merchant has to contend against a hostile public opinion, which seems to resent his efforts to improve his own condition and that of his own race, when he assumes to tear himself away from the mass of his fellow laborers and attempts to keep store like a white man.
Strange enough this hostile feeling is shared in, more by the colored than by the white people, especially along certain lines of business not of a semi-social nature. It is a matter of common complaint by colored business men in those classes of business in which they must compete with white merchants that they do not get their share of the trade of their own race and that their patronage comes very largely from the white race. At present the pathway of the colored man to success in business is very much handicapped by this unfriendly public opinion. His problem is to win the confidence of the public in his ability and purpose to serve them as well as or better than his competitors.
Individuals, here and there, have won this public confidence to a surprising degree and are demonstrating day by day the ability of men and women to do business according to approved business methods. The hostility of the whites is but another manifestation of the general feeling of race prejudice; but the hostility of the masses of their own race can only be attributed to envy and ignorance. For every colored man, woman and child should rejoice in the success or upward step of any colored person, because it is an inspiration and a hope to thousands of others to follow his example. Only the strongest and most progressive few of any race can be successful pioneers. The masses of all races are LED to attempt only what they see persons of their own kind doing. Every community of colored people needs, as a powerful uplifting force, a few captains of industry who will lead his people along the pathway of home-getting and the undertaking of business enterprises. For business will develop their sense of independence and personal responsibility and give strength and symmetry to character. No better service can be performed for the race at this time than to turn the light upon those successful business men and women of the colored race in every community, so that our youth may see them, know them, and take inspiration and courage from their example.
The real leaders of the race are those who lead in doing. It has been said that ninety per cent of all business enterprises among the highly favored white race finally fail in the lifetime of their promoters. The conditions of success in business for the white race are so exacting, uncertain, changeable and inscrutable that only ten per cent retire from the contest victorious. When we recall the fact that the colored people have come so recently from savagery, through the barbarism and debasing effects of American slavery, into the light of the present-day civilization, we should expect them to be slow in getting a footing in the shifting and ever-changing sands of the business world, while in slavery they were deprived of every opportunity to learn anything about the art of business or even to drink in its spirit. It was one of the essential conditions of the slave system that they should be taught to distrust each other; and they learned this lesson well. We must expect that it will take some time to unlearn it. Along with this blighting feeling of distrust the seeds of envy and jealousy were carefully sown. These seeds must have fallen in good soil, for they sprang up and increased wonderfully, and now constitute the thorns and weeds in the pathway of the colored man's success in business.
In view of their economic, educational and political history, we should naturally expect the colored race to make in the first generation of their freedom more progress in education and general culture, more progress in the building of churches and in the acquisition of homes and lands than in the exacting arena of business. At any rate such has been the fact. The entire race is passing through a hard and severe economic struggle. The whole nation is in the throes of a great social distress, on account of the presence of this colored race with physical aspects so different from the main body of the people. The colored people are being put to a severe test. They are being tried as it were by fire. They are face to face and in competition with the most efficient, the most exacting people the world has ever seen. The dross is being driven off. The race is being purified and strengthened for the contests which are to follow. The colored man or woman who would succeed in business must meet not only the competition of his white neighbor with his superior capital and training, but also the blight of distrust and the jealousy and envy of many of his own race. His course is by no means plain sailing. He has foes within his race as well as foes without; enemies in front and enemies in the rear. And yet, in spite of all these adverse conditions a very creditable beginning has already been made in the business world—a beginning that promises well for the future. The business movement among the colored people has not as yet attained great volume, but its foundations have been laid broad and deep. The number of persons engaged in business is quite large, and the classes already invaded by individuals of the colored race cover almost every class of business in which persons of the white race are engaged.
THE CAPITAL OWNED BY NEGROES.
The colored people are rapidly acquiring property. This is a matter of common, every-day observation. The value of property owned by them is no less than five hundred millions of dollars. In Georgia alone, where separate records are kept, their assessed valuation exceeds fifteen millions, one million of which was added in the past year. The assessed valuation is only about forty per cent of the actual value. From all over the country equally encouraging reports are sent out of the steady progress of this people in the acquisition of landed property. Although tens of thousands are shiftless, thousands are saving money. It is being stored up slowly but surely for future use. Much of it is already invested in business. A larger part of this property and money will be turned into business channels as fast as the race, by its patronage and support, evidences its desire to advance this business movement.
THE EXTENT OF THE BUSINESS MOVEMENT AMONG THE NEGROES.
In order to obtain reliable data for a study of the progress of the colored people in the skilled trades, in business, in getting homes and in building churches and other institutions, the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900 sent out the writer in February of that year as an expert agent to visit the chief industrial centers of the South and secure the data for the purpose of making the facts collected, a feature of the Negro exhibit. In every city or town visited the colored people took great pride in showing their successful business establishments; and they all had some to show. In every place a beginning had been made. The writer personally visited, inspected and collected data from one hundred and forty-three business establishments of considerable importance owned and conducted by colored men and women. They range from a grocery store, with stock and fixtures of the value of five hundred dollars, to a bank, which, on the day of my visit, had a cash balance in its vault of $82,000. Only the best business places were visited. There were hundreds of small shops in the cities and towns visited, all of which evidenced the breadth of the business movement of the people.
THE ATLANTA UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE.
The results of this hurried trip corroborates in a remarkable degree the report of the Atlanta University Conference. "The Report of the Negro in Business" was made in 1899. In that year the conference made an investigation of this subject under the direction of Prof. W. E. B. DuBois, professor of sociology in that university. This report is a most valuable contribution to the study of the race problem. Prof. DuBois has shown commendable zeal in studying the race problem, while so many others are content to discuss it. The data for his study were collected principally by the alumni of Atlanta University and are thus entitled to a high degree of credibility.
Reports were received from one thousand nine hundred and six colored men and women in business, showing the kind of business, time in business, and the amount of capital invested. Almost every kind of business carried on by white people was represented, thus evidencing a desire and a reaching out on the part of the Negro that will produce great results in years to come. Only establishments of considerable importance were solicited and reported.
Time in business: Four-fifths had been established five years or more; one-fifth more than twenty years. Sixty-seven more than thirty years. This shows a remarkable longevity in business that is highly gratifying.
Capital invested: Complete returns were not received from all; only 1,736 establishments reported capital. Their aggregate capital was $5,631,137. Prof. DuBois estimated that the total amount invested by American Negroes in business managed by themselves in 1899 was $8,784,000. Compared with the immense sum of money invested in business in the United States, this seems meager enough; but when we consider the poverty of the colored people at the beginning of their freedom, the saving and investment of nearly $9,000,000 in business enterprises conducted by themselves in one generation is a most creditable showing.
By far the larger part of the capital of the colored people is as yet invested in enterprises conducted by white persons. In the city of Washington, where the idea of the advantage to the race in having a number of successful business enterprises has been very much agitated, only about one-fifth of its wealthy colored people have any investments in enterprises conducted by colored men, as shown in the report of the Hampton Conference for 1898. A like proportion will doubtless be found in other cities.
THE CENSUS OF 1890 ON NEGRO BUSINESS.
According to the census of 1890 (the returns from the census of 1900 on this subject not being available at this writing), taken twenty-five years after the war, the colored people had representatives engaged in every business listed in the census schedules. It is true that the number of persons engaged and the capital engaged in some branches of business were not imposing, yet an effort had been made—a start, a beginning had been made in every branch of business carried on in this country. The census of 1890 does not in all cases make a distinction between "proprietor" and occupation. Hence, it is not always easy to pick out the "proprietors." The tables have been gone over very carefully. Only those occupations have been selected about which there can be no doubt that the persons listed are "proprietors." The total number of persons of Negro descent engaged in business in 1890 was 20,020.
It is obvious to any one who has paid even a little attention to it that there has been a considerable increase since 1890, in the number of such business ventures and in the capital employed.
THE NATIONAL NEGRO BUSINESS LEAGUE.
As an evidence that the race is rapidly advancing along business lines, a conference or convention of colored business men was called by Mr. Booker T. Washington to meet in Boston August 23-24, 1900, for the purpose of making a showing of the progress of the race in business and to give encouragement and impetus to the business movement. The success of this convention was a pleasant surprise to many persons. Over two hundred delegates reported in person, and nearly two hundred additional reported by letter. The tone of the reports they brought from their several localities was uniformly hopeful. Most of the delegates present lived outside of New England, some coming from as far south as Florida and Texas, and as far west as Nebraska. A permanent organization was formed, called The National Negro Business League, the purpose of which is to keep its members in touch with one another. Their "Proceedings" were published by Mr. J. R. Hamm of No. 46 Howard street, Boston, in a handsome volume of two hundred and eighty pages, and constitutes one of the most valuable contributions to the study of the progress of the colored people.
This business league held its second annual convention in Chicago in August, 1901. This meeting also was a great success in every way, and received, if possible, more attention and space from the public press than the previous meeting in Boston.
A recent study of the colored business enterprises of Washington, published by the writer, shows that there are in the National capital 1,302 colored "proprietors" in all kinds of business and professions. Their capital exceeds seven hundred thousand dollars, and they transact more than two million dollars worth of business annually, affording employment to 3,030 persons.
Among the more conspicuous examples of successful enterprises conducted by colored men in the United States may be mentioned the following: Thirteen building and loan associations, seven banks, about one hundred life insurance and benefit companies, several mining companies, one street railway company, one iron foundry, one cotton mill, one silk mill, three book and tract publication houses, one of them having a plant valued at $45,000; over two hundred newspapers and three magazines. One of these newspapers has 5,000 subscribers and a plant costing $10,000. One firm of truck gardeners, near Charleston, South Carolina, over 500 acres under cultivation, has been in the business over 30 years and ships several carloads of garden truck to Northern markets every week. The railroad company considers its trade of such importance that it has built a siding to their farm and the cars are loaded directly from their warehouses. This is probably the most extensive individual or partnership business carried on by colored men anywhere in the United States. Noisette Bros. is the name of the firm. Near Kansas City, Kansas, there is a colored man, Mr. J. K. Graves, who owns and cultivates over 400 acres of land. He has been engaged principally in raising potatoes. His crop last year was over 75,000 bushels, which, with the other things raised and sold, was worth about $25,000. Within a radius of thirty-five miles of his farm, he says that there are 312 Negro farmers, horticulturists, gardeners, truckers, potato growers and dealers, most of whom are up to date and have all modern appliances necessary to carry on their business.
Mr. C. C. Leslie, a dealer in fish in Charleston, South Carolina, has $30,000 invested in the business, in nets, boats, ice-houses, real estate, etc., and ships to Northern markets from three to five carloads of fish per week during the busy season.
In Charleston the most prosperous butchers are colored men. In Columbus, Mississippi, there is a colored butcher who owns his abattoir and supplies the best trade of his town with meat. Some of the most prosperous fish, produce and poultry dealers in the markets of Washington are colored men. One firm has been in business continuously over thirty years, the sons succeeding the father in the business. Several have maintained their stands over twenty years.
A pawnbroker in Augusta, Georgia, has $5,000 capital. The largest and best equipped drug store in Anniston, Alabama, is owned by a colored physician. He has a considerable wholesale trade in patent medicines and druggists' sundries.
One of the best equipped ready-made clothing stores in Columbia, South Carolina, is owned by a colored man. He carries a stock of ten thousand dollars.
A stock breeder in Knoxville, Tennessee, is worth $100,000, and has $50,000 invested in blooded horses.
A photographer in St. Paul, Minnesota, does a business of $20,000 a year. Another in New Bedford, Massachusetts, began as an errand boy, learned the photographic art thoroughly, saved his money, bought out the white proprietor, and now conducts the leading studio in that old and aristocratic city.
The caterers of Philadelphia and Baltimore have long been noted for their success in business, although they have lost some ground from white competition during the last few years. There are yet several with capital above $5,000.
The caterer at the great naval banquet at Newport in honor of Admiral Sampson and our navy upon its return from the victories in the war with Spain, where the very unusual task was accomplished of serving one thousand men in a very satisfactory manner, was a colored man.
The foregoing are only a few of the many examples of success that individuals of the colored people have achieved in business. They are cited by way of "a bill of specifications." They show conclusively that, in spite of many adverse conditions, it is possible for a colored person, by perseverance and honesty, to succeed in business.
THIRD PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A BUSINESS MAN.
BY REV. J. H. MORGAN.
REV. J. H. MORGAN.
Rev. J. H. Morgan was born in Philadelphia, Pa., November 15, 1843. His father was Rev. John R. V. Morgan. His mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Harmon. At his mother's death, which occurred when he was fourteen years old, he was adopted into the family of James T. Robinson of Philadelphia. Becoming dissatisfied at some fancied slight, he left without authority, determined to provide for himself, and be his own man. He soon found that the job was not so easily done, as thought about, nevertheless he was determined to win out, so he kept at it, and being of a jovial disposition he soon made friends, and had the happy faculty of keeping them. He started in the business of selling home-made pies and cakes along the wharves. After a short time he gave up this business for that of cabin boy on a passenger boat plying between Philadelphia and Bristol, Pa., making Bristol his home. At the breaking out of the Civil War he was very anxious to enlist as a soldier, but they informed him at Trenton, that it was a white man's war and they were not taking colored men, as their ankles set so near the middle of their feet, that when they said forward march, they would be as likely to go backward as forward, so he hired as a cook in an officers' mess and went to the front with Company C First Regiment N. J. V. six months' men. He was not down there long before he lost all his desire to become a soldier, when the opportunity came for him to enlist. While in Alexandria, Va., he started in to learn the barber trade, and on his return home worked as a journeyman at his trade until he set up in business for himself.
In 1876 he organized a mission at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and being young and enthusiastic, he requested at the next conference to be sent to the mission to build it up. Bishop Payne demurred, but after his persistence in the matter, he consented, saying, "Well I will let you make your own appointment this time, but will be expecting to hear from you before the year is out, asking for a change." So after ordaining him an Elder in Sullivan Street Church, May 12, 1878, he was stationed at Poughkeepsie. There he had some misunderstanding with the people, which caused them to promise to "cut his bread and butter short," which promise he says was the only one that they made, that they faithfully carried out. One day they fed his family on wind pudding, air sauce and balloon trimmings, and right here Bishop D. A. Payne became a prophet, because he heard from him, and his time was short, as in a few days after he received an appointment to Albany, N. Y., and was returned the following year on account of effective service done. At the following conference he was elected as delegate to the General Conference at St. Louis with Rev. W. F. Dickerson, John F. Thomas and C. T. Shaffer. On his return from the conference he was transferred to N. J. Conference and stationed at Princeton, N. J., and with the exception of four years spent in the N. E. Conference, one in the N. Y. Conference, he has remained in the N. J. Conference. Rev. Morgan is the recognized historian of the conference, and was its secretary for a number of years, and was the Vice-President of the first Board of Church Extension. The Reverend is known in his conference under the cognomen of "The Only Morgan"—his description of things and events gaining for him this title. He was made Presiding Elder by Bishop H. M. Turner, and he thus describes his return from the Presiding Eldership to one of the weakest appointments in another conference: "Milton, or some one, says that the devil was nine days falling from heaven to hell; I made the trip in less than twenty minutes." Bishop H. M. Turner's second wife and the subject of this sketch were converted in and became members of the same church at Bristol, Pa. He was considered an exceptionally good superintendent of the Sabbath school before he was a member of the church. It was during the time that he was a local preacher at this church that he learned the lesson of his life. "I had a fair smattering of an education and, being in business, I was always consulted in the affairs of the church."
It becomes more and more evident every day of our existence, as individuals, and as a race, that a grave mistake has been made by those who have heretofore, or may be now, making claim to leadership of making higher education the main and only route to the full development of the race. The higher education is in the order of specials. It is true that we need the artistic structure, but we need first a foundation upon which to rest it. We seem to have started with the idea that the structure has already been laid, which is true as concerns the other man. But we have not laid one foot ourselves, but are endeavoring to build upon another's, and as often as we build and finish the structure, the other man, by virtue of owning the foundation and that upon which it rests, claims and takes all (under the fixed rule that the people who own the land will rule it), and the last state is worse than the first, unless this happens at a time of life when the experience will become a lesson, well learned, and time allotted for a new start along the proper lines. It is, therefore, very evident that the essential thing in the line of individual and race development, is business. Business, we discover, when properly defined, leads in its various ramifications to all roads to success.
Business defined.—"The state of being anxious; anxiety; care. The act of engaging industriously in certain occupations. The act of forming mercantile or financial bargains, more generally an abundance of such acts done by separate individuals."
Crabb thus distinguishes between business, occupation, employment, engagement, and avocation: "Business occupies all of a person's thoughts, as well as his time and powers; occupation and employment occupy only his time and strength; the first is most regular—it is the object of his choice; the second is causal—it depends on the will of another. Engagement is a partial employment; avocation a particular engagement; an engagement prevents us from doing anything else; an avocation calls off or prevents us from doing what we wish. A person who is busy has much to attend to, and attends to it closely; a person who is occupied has a full share of business without any pressure; he is opposed to one who is idle; a person who is employed has the present moment filled up; he is not in a state of inaction; the person who is engaged is not at liberty to be otherwise employed—his time is not his own—he is opposed to one at leisure."
Business, trade, profession, and art are thus discriminated: "The words are synonymous in the sense of a calling, for the purpose of a livelihood; business is general; business, trade and profession are particular; all trade is business, but all business is not trade. Buying and selling of merchandise is inseparable from trade; but the exercise of one's knowledge and experience, for the purpose of gain, constitutes a business; when particular skill is required, it is a profession; and when there is a particular exercise of art, it is an art; every shopkeeper and retail dealer carries on a trade; brokers, manufacturers, bankers, and others, carry on a business; clergymen, medical or military men follow a profession; musicians and painters follow an art."
The distinction between business, office, and duty: "Business is what one prescribes to one's self; office is prescribed by another; duty is prescribed or enjoined by a fixed rule of propriety; mercantile concerns are the business which a man takes upon himself; the management of parish concerns is an office imposed upon him, often much against his inclination; the maintenance of his family is a duty which his conscience enjoins upon him to perform. Business and duty are public or private; office is mostly of a public nature; a minister of state, by virtue of office, has always public business to perform; but men in general have only private business to transact; a minister of religion has always public duties to perform in his ministerial capacity; every other man has personal or relative duties which he is called upon to discharge according to his station."—Crabb: Eng. Synon.
There has been a vast number of theories advanced as regards the solving of the Negro problem. But the idea of business seems to have only a minor place, which, to our mind, should be one of the leading factors. It seems that the race has been educated away from itself. It is not an uncommon thing to see young men who have splendid educational abilities, versed in the languages, with check aprons on, scrubbing marble steps, and doing other menial labor. Their plea is, when questioned along this line, "I cannot get anything else to do." To what advantage then, has the hard earned money of their parents and friends been expended to educate them? Their fathers did as well as, if not better, than they without it, and cannot this man, with the advantage of education, "turn up something"? There is something radically wrong with the plan of education. The old man could plod over the farm in his antiquated way, and earn money enough to keep things going, and educate his son, but when that son's education has been completed, he has not the ability, or business tact, with modern improvements, to build upon the foundation laid by his less cultured father. Let this cultured boy get down to business. For him, here is the route laid down.
Secretary of Agriculture, Hon. Mr. Wilson, in discussing the productive possibilities of the South and the problem of Negro labor, makes the following observations: "The pressing question is, what is the laborer down South who has been growing cotton, and is not getting enough for his product, to do in the future to enable him to live comfortably, not to speak of the improvement of his condition, education, and all that?"
The cotton crop leaves very little that is valuable for domestic animals after the picking is done, thus differing from the corn crop of the Northwestern states. There is a by-product, the cotton seed, that is exceedingly valuable, and much good work is being done by scientists at experiment stations to show how valuable cotton seed is for feeding purposes.
The nitrogen element in cotton-seed is greater than that of any of the grains; it is richer in nitrogenous matter than peas or beans; richer than gluten, meat or oil cake. The Northern feeder and the European feeder have been using this by-product of the cottonfields with great advantage, while the loss of its fertilizing qualities to the South has been very great.
The South has more marked advantages over the North with regard to production. It has heat and moisture, the two great factors of production, and if the cotton grower is to diversify his crops, he must use those natural advantages. The dairy cow and mutton sheep would succeed admirably in the South, but something for them to eat must be provided first. The winters in the South are mild, grasses, grains, legumen can be sown in the fall and grow abundantly in the winter, upon which the dairy cow and mutton sheep may thrive and prosper. From one-fifth to one-fourth of all the fat of the milk on the farms of the United States is lost because people do not thoroughly understand when to churn cream. The churning process is an art, having much science underlying it. But the cotton grower of the South only needs to learn the way, while the man who teaches him can understand the science. Much yet remains to be discovered in the art of breeding animals, but enough is known to indicate to the instructor of the colored cotton grower of the South, who is to be diverted into work of this kind, to enable him to breed his herd intelligently. The South can prepare the spring lamb much earlier than the North can. The Southern land owner understands horse raising. There is always a greater demand for saddle horses than is supplied. The world wants carriage and draft horses, and good roadsters. Early spring chickens—the broilers—can be produced down there because of the milder winters, and milder springs than we have, and the Northern market can be supplied. Should the market be over supplied we can send this product abroad in the refrigerating compartments of steamships.
The colored man is learning the trades at Tuskegee; he is mining coal, and working the manufacture of iron at Birmingham. We quote this gentleman, who is without doubt authority on this special line, and therefore worthy of serious and careful consideration, to support the point we make, that this problem must be worked out along lines, especially along business lines.
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES.
Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philippines are absolutely ours. The Philippines are said to be as large as the New England States, including New York and New Jersey; Hawaii about the size of New England; Porto Rico the size of Connecticut. Hawaii, with a population of 109,000; Porto Rico, 900,000; Philippines, 8,000,000, and very few whites; a climate in which the Anglo Saxon, it is said, cannot stay for any great length of time. And it is rich in all those thing which are desirable by the white man. These acquisitions must be developed by American genius and capital, and as the white American cannot stay there the year round to develop the same, what better agent to do this work than the Afro-American who has been schooled in American ideas and customs and usages. Is not this an opportunity given by Providence to commence business building? The race should cease pleading to be "The Wards of the Nation;" cease waiting for something to turn up, or have somebody to do something for them, but should unite their forces and turn up something for themselves. The people who own the country, if intelligent and thrifty, will rule and run it. What Coleman has done in North Carolina in a business way, could be done in a majority of the states to a greater or less extent. Small factories could be arranged for, where our people could be employed in producing the commodities of life. Some time ago it was said that a large tract of land had been arranged for, backed by a number of Tammany Hall capitalists; factories were to be built to give employment to the settlers, deeds for lots were to be given at a nominal cost. The project was opposed by some of our so-called leaders, because it was backed by Tammany; but it is the very thing needed, no matter who backs it up; it is the business men who run the country; it is they who put the millions to work and keep the mighty dollar in circulation; we must enter the business world and by pluck, tact and thrift, live while we are living, and die when we cannot do otherwise. The man who thanks Almighty God when the news of disaster comes from land or sea that no loss comes to him is not so wise in the sight of God, or man, as he who can thank God that the interest on accrued stock had advanced an hundred fold before the crash came.
TOPIC XXVI.
THE NEGRO AS A FARMER
BY PROF. GEORGE W. CARVER.
PROF. GEORGE W. CARVER, M. AG.
A few years ago there was graduated at the Iowa Agricultural College a young colored man of unusual promise. His name was G. W. Carver, and his specialty the care and production of plants. Not long after graduation he was engaged by Booker T. Washington as a teacher and assistant in his famous industrial school, and to-day the young man is Mr. Washington's most trusted adviser, while his reputation has gone abroad as a scientist and an original investigator of no mean order.
Born during the period of the Civil War, he was separated from his parents when but six weeks old, they having been sold to some distant slaveholders. The infant was puny and ailing, and his master regarded him as worthless. A family named Carver took the babe and his brother, a little older. It was with them the child had a home for nine years. About that time the little black boy developed a remarkable love for plants, and so much knowledge of their structure and life, that he was given the name of "the plant doctor." Mr. and Mrs. Carver were proud of the boy's talents and made much of him, and it was their evident satisfaction in him that aroused the jealousy of their own children, who at last drove the two colored boys away from home. Northward they turned their faces, to the land where white and black have equal chances in life, as they fondly believed. The little "plant doctor," who had picked up the elements of an education, wanted, above all else, to enter some good school. The boys were driven from pillar to post, but, being devotedly attached to each other they held together, until in Kansas they thought best to separate.
During these years, young Carver had tried many kinds of work. At length he found himself at Winterset, Iowa. It was there the wife of a physician encouraged him to go to Indianola where she thought he could enter college and earn his way by doing laundry work. He went there, but didn't get the work, and it was while there that a young lady, a well known Iowa artist, became interested in him. Under the pretext of securing his help in correcting some drawings, she went to the mean quarters he occupied and found him starving to death. There was no work for him, no money. For weeks, he had subsisted upon corn bread and tallow. She then arranged for him to go to the Iowa Agricultural College, where she had influential friends and where she believed he would have a chance.
But, even at the Agricultural College of Iowa the color line was sharply drawn by the students. Persecution and ill-treatment were resorted to. But young Carver said, "I will bear it. I must get an education. Here I can get work and I will suffer anything rather than give up the one chance of my life to obtain a schooling." His old and intimate knowledge of plants stood him in hand, and he was given charge of the greenhouses. True, he was shunned by many, his place at table was with the servants, but he had warm friends and he was, by force of character, winning the good will of all. One day an Indianola lady, who had come to know him before he left that place, went to visit him at his college. Dressed in her best, she accompanied him, though against his protestation, to dinner, taking a seat at the servants' table.
The next time this lady visited the college the colored student sat at the table with the faculty. In the military drill he had taken the highest honors. When he was graduated it was with distinction. He wrote the class poem. He had succeeded in winning and holding friends.
Some time ago he spent several weeks in Washington, D. C., and there the most kindly attention was extended to him by Secretary Wilson, who never fails to recognize merit wherever he may find it.
The name of G. W. Carver is now enrolled on the fellowship list of more than one scientific Institution.
The above subject is by no means an easy one to discuss, as reliable data are fragmentary and widely scattered; yet I am sure that I have been able to collect some interesting and valuable facts and figures bearing upon this important question. There is no doubt that the Negro as a tenant farmer is a failure; this we are forced to admit, but we do so with a justly proud feeling that it is not an inherent race characteristic, but the result of conditions over which we had little or no control. Failure is inevitably and indelibly stamped in the foreheads of any class of average tenant farmers, regardless of race or color.
In American agriculture the Negro has always held, and is yet holding, an important place; in fact, far more, as a rule, than has been accredited to him. Lest our judgment be too harsh in this particular, I have thought it wise to briefly scan the beginning and development of agriculture in the United States. In 1492 the first settlers found the Indians carrying on agriculture in a crude and limited way, by the women; their farm machinery consisting of their fingers, a pointed stick for planting, and the bones of animals and the shell of the clam for a hoe; with nothing more than a squatter's right as a voucher for the ownership of their farms. Prof. McMaster's History of the People of the United States, George K. Holmes, assistant statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture, in his "Progress of Agriculture in the United States," and other high authorities, tell us that the white man came, poor in the materials of wealth, a stranger in a strange land with a strange climate. His tools were but little, if any, improvement on those of the Indians, and agriculture as we know it to-day was an idealistic dream. The plow was an exceedingly crude thing and but little used, the hoe forming the principal implement of industry. After a piece of land had been continuously "cropped" until worn out, it was abandoned, or the cows turned upon it for a while. It is further said that the poor whites, who had formerly been indentured servants, were the most lazy, the most idle, the most shiftless and the most worthless of men. Their huts were scarcely better than Negro cabins, the chimneys were of logs, the chinks being filled with clay. The walls had no plaster, the windows had no glass, and the furniture was such as they themselves made.
The grain was threshed by driving horses over it in the open field. When they ground it they used a rude pestle and mortar, or placed it in the hollow of one stone and beat it with another. Beef or pork, generally salted, salt fish, dried apples, bread made of rye or Indian meal, milk, and a very limited variety of vegetables, constituted the food throughout the year. When night came on his light was derived from a few candles of home manufacture. The farmer and his family wore homespun. If linen was wanted, the flax was sown and weeded, pulled and retted, then broken and swingled, for all of which processes nearly a year was required before the flax was ready for the spinners, bleaching on the grass, and making and wearing. If woolens were wanted, sheep were sheared and the wool was dyed and spun and woven at home.
It was almost invariably true of all the settlers that the use and value of manures was little regarded. The barn was sometimes removed to get it out of the way of heaps of manure, because the owner would not go to the expense of removing the accumulations and putting them upon his fields. Such were the dreary conditions of the farmer's life in colonial days, living all the time very closely upon the margin of subsistence. Those conditions continued for some time after the Republic had been established, and were not measurably ameliorated until the present century had well advanced, until an improved intelligence—the dissemination of information, and the work of the inventor, had begun to take effect.
From the above we see how strikingly similar were the life, methods of agriculture, and the results obtained from the sturdy New Englander, who represented the best blood, bone and sinew of the old world, with its almost prehistoric civilization, to that of the American Negro, whose intellectual star is just beginning to rise above the horizon. Over two centuries and a half ago the Negro found his way as a slave to America, in a little Dutch trading vessel, cheap labor being the chief motive which prompted such a gigantic scheme. The experiment flourished and grew, and at about the close of the eighteenth century six million slaves had been brought to this country. The major part of all the cotton, corn, cane, potatoes, tobacco, and other agricultural products, were planted, cultivated, harvested and prepared for, and, not infrequently, marketed by, the slaves. In fact, they were the agricultural backbone of the South. Since cotton forms the largest, and has been the most important agricultural product in the South, I think a hundred and nine years of its production will prove interesting and valuable: In 1791, 8,889 bales were produced, and the second cotton mill built at Providence, Rhode Island! the first one being built at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1787. From this time on the acreage planted, the output and the number of cotton mills and spindles increased. The estimated area planted in cotton alone in 1852, 6,300,000 acres, and the census report of 1860 showed 1,262 cotton mills and 5,235,727 spindles in the United States, with an output of 4,861,292 bales. Despite the depressing effect of the four years of civil strife, it took only five years to almost completely regain the highest point reached in previous years. In 1889 and 1890 we find in the United States 19,569,000 acres planted, giving an output of 7,311,322 bales, with 905 cotton mills operating 14,088,103 spindles. In 1898-99 the acreage increases to nearly 25,000,000, with an output of 11,189,205 bales, representing a money value of $305,467,041. Such is the history, production and growth of the cotton industry in the United States, and were we to trace the other staple products we would find them none the less interesting, since they were produced largely by Negroes as slaves before the war, and as freedmen after the war. This applies especially to Southern products.
Whatever of truth there is in Mr. Van de Graff's grave apprehensions for the Negro, he with us must admit that the ills of the black tenant farmer are simply the ills of the Southern farmer in a more or less aggravated form. It is also true that the curse of such a system falls the heaviest on the smallest and most ignorant tenant farmer, who is the least capable of self-defense. For years we have been content to let the preachers preach, the lawyers argue, the philosophers predict, the teachers and the doctors practice with scarcely a question as to our priority of right. We have, in the face of the many oppositions which come to every race similarly situated, labored with endurance, patience and forbearance, until the birth of the twentieth century dawns upon us, steadily marching on, with something over $263,000,000 worth of unencumbered property to our credit. Now as to the number owning farms and following agricultural pursuits as a livelihood, we are pleased to submit some figures from the last census report, from Crogman, in his "Progress of a Race," and from other authorities. Beginning with the little District of Columbia, with an aggregate area of 8,489 acres and 269 farms, there are seventeen Negro farmers, five of which own their land in whole or in part. Their farms contain 29 acres, of which 25 are improved. The total value of the land is $23,300, and the appurtenant buildings are worth $390; live stock to the value of $489; and farm incomes for 1899 amounting to $4,244. Ten farms, aggregating 258 acres, are operated by Negroes as cash tenants. The reported values are, land, $114,600; buildings, $9,200; implements and machinery, $1,200; and live stock, $1,383. The total incomes for these farms in 1899 were $10,300. Two farms, together consisting of 21 acres, valued at $149,630, are operated by Negroes as salaried managers. Of the 17 farms operated by Negroes, only 1 contains less than three acres; 7 contain from 3 to 9 acres; 5 from 10 to 19 acres; 2 from 20 to 49 acres; and 2 from 50 to 99 acres, giving an average size for all of 18.1 acres.
In the state of Delaware the farms constitute 85 per cent of the total land surface of the state, which is divided up into 9,687 farms, of which 8,869, or 91.6 per cent, are operated by whites, and 818, or 8.4 per cent, by Negroes. Of the latter class 297 are operated by owners, and 35 by part owners. The value of their farms, including implements, machinery and live stock, together with the value of implements, machinery and live stock on the farms which other Negroes operate as tenants, is $495,187.
In Arizona we find that three Negro farmers operate their farms as salaried managers. Twelve own farms containing 1,511 acres, with farm property valued at $60,422; one leases a 39-acre farm for cash, and has implements and live stock worth $130. The total investment by Negroes in agriculture, exclusive of farms owned by them and leased to others, is, therefore, $60,552, which is a rather encouraging showing for Arizona.
Messrs. Walker and Fitch, graduates of Hampton Institute, in 1896, made a careful canvass of one congressional district in Virginia, and found as follows: Out of a total acreage of 1,944,359 acres, one fifteenth, or 125,597 acres, is owned by the Colored people, roughly estimated at $1,000,000. These figures mean farm owning chiefly, as $79,611 represent the total city property. They also report that in Gloucester county, 25 years from the above date, the Colored people owned less than 100 acres of land. To-day they own 13,000 acres of land free from any encumbrance. Mr. Fitch further adds that he has traveled quite thoroughly through more than ten counties of Virginia, with horse and buggy, during the present year (1896), and that in no county through which he traveled did the Colored people own less than 5,000 acres of land. He found also that much of the improved farming was being done by Colored men, and that the strong public sentiment against moving to cities was having the desired effect.
Again, the statistician reports, in 1890, 12,690,152 homes and farms in the United States, and of this number the Negroes own 234,747 free from all encumbrance, and 29,541 mortgaged; giving the percentage of mortgaged property owned by Negroes as 10.71, while the whole percentage of mortgaged property for the whole country is 38.97. It is further stated that of all the property held by Negroes, 88.58 per cent is owned without encumbrance. Since so much has been accomplished in the Negro's pioneer days of freedom, may we not predict with a considerable degree of assurance that the next decade and a half will far exceed our most sanguine hope? The virgin fertility of our soils, and the vast amount of cheap and unskilled labor, have been a curse rather than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system of cultivation, the destruction of forests, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, together with the great multiplicity of insect and fungus diseases that appear every year, make the Southern agricultural problem one requiring more brains than that of the North, East or West. The advance of civilization has brought, and is constantly bringing, about a more healthy form of competition. The markets are becoming more fastidious, and he who puts such a product upon the market as it demands, controls that market, regardless of color. It is simply a survival of the fittest.
We are also aware that the demands upon agriculture were never so exacting as they are now. All other trades and professions are holding out their inducements to the young men and women who are ready and willing to grapple with life's responsibilities. One says, "Come and I will make you a Gould." Another, a Rockefeller; still another, an Astor—with all the luxuries their names suggest. Too many of our own farmers illy prepare their land, cultivate, harvest and market the scanty and inferior crop, selling the same for less than it cost to produce it. I need not tell you that the above conditions imperatively suggest the proverbial mule, implements more or less primitive, with frequently a vast territory of barren and furrowed hillsides and wasted valleys. Instead of the veritable Klondyke, of which their dreams are made sweet, another mortgage has been added as an unpleasant reminder of the year's hard labor. With this inevitable doom staring them in the face, is it any wonder that so many of the youth of our land flock to the cities with the hope of seeking some occupation other than farming? The above conditions, together with the seemingly higher civilization of the city folk, I claim, are largely responsible for this. But be this as it may, in the light of what has been accomplished, I see for us a very bright star of hope in the education of two-thirds of the brightest and best of our youth in scientific agriculture.
The many excellent schools, colleges, nature study leaflets, farmers' bulletins and reading courses, conferences, convocations, congresses, fairs, and the like, are all powerful educational factors designed to lead the race into higher agricultural activities. The agricultural schools, and higher institutions of that character, are wisely laying much stress upon stock raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape gardening, poultry raising, and every manipulation incident to the successful operation of this great industry. These subjects have been taught almost wholly to young men, but recent experience has taught, not only in this, but in other countries, that many of these studies seem especially suited to women; and many are taking the advantages offered by schools in the matter of learning the technique of poultry raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape gardening, and the related sciences, along with their academy or college work, and as a reward are finding pleasant, profitable and healthful employment. Nature study, with the first principles of agriculture, is compulsory in many of the primary schools, and ere another decade is indelibly placed upon the historical records of the greatest events of the greatest century, it will find us wonderfully in advance in this particular.
Every year we see a perceptible increase in the funds for public education, and magnificent schools and colleges, with better paid professors, springing up here and there, stand out as beacon lights to this new and wonderful epoch. The wisdom of spending these ever-increasing millions upon the youth of our land becomes from year to year a matter of less concern as we seek to give our boys and girls a broader education than that of a pure scientist. It is very encouraging to note the course taken by our young men and women who have gone out from those institutions—the way they have acquired land, built homes, and are devoting their entire time and talent in that direction. I have no fears but what we, in the course of time, will do our part both nobly and well in the matter of feeding a hungry world.
SECOND PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A FARMER.
BY H. A. HUNT.
PROF. HENRY A. HUNT.
Henry A. Hunt was born in Hancock County, Ga., in 1866. He attended the public schools of Sparta, the county seat, until 1882, when he entered Atlanta University and was graduated from the college course in 1890. He also completed the course of instruction given in the Industrial Department of that university. He kept up his expenses, in a measure, by working as a carpenter during his vacations and during his spare hours while in school. He was considered a most promising young man and a thorough scholar by his professors and schoolmates. He became a professing Christian while pursuing his college course. In all of the athletic sports of the university he took an active part and served as captain of the base ball team for several years. He graduated with the highest honors of his class. Through a most flattering recommendation from the Superintendent of the Public Schools of Atlanta, Ga., he was called, in 1891, to the principalship of the Charlotte Graded School, which position he filled acceptably, until he resigned, during the same year, to accept the superintendency of the Industrial Department of Biddle University, Charlotte. N. C. In 1896 he was given, in addition to his industrial work, the superintendency of the Boarding Department of Biddle University. These two positions he is now filling in a most acceptable manner. Mr. Hunt's work and close touch with the young men of the university have been most gratifying. He encourages and takes part with them in all of their sports, being the leading spirit in their athletic association. He is a noble example of the manly man and his influence over the students for straightforward and manly endeavor has been truly helpful. The respect and esteem in which he is held by the graduates and undergraduates are most noteworthy. In August, 1900, Mr. Hunt called together the farmers of Mecklenburg and surrounding counties for the purpose of holding a farmers' conference. A permanent organization was effected, of which he was made president. The influence of these annual conferences is far-reaching and will no doubt result in great good to the farming class of western North Carolina. He was for several years the president of the Queen City Real Estate Company of Charlotte, N. C., an organization designed to help those wishing to obtain homes. He was forced to relinquish this work because of other duties. Mr. Hunt is a strong and courageous young man, he is firm in his convictions and believes the royal road to success is attained through the faithful performance of each day's duties. His sympathies are near to the interests of the working classes. As a college-bred man he urges his people to become skilled artisans and to build up reliable business enterprises and thus become independent. His kindness of heart and plain honest dealing with his fellow-man, along with his intellectual attainment, have won for him a host of friends and made him a popular man with all the people.
While attending Atlanta University, Mr. Hunt met the girl—Miss Florence S. Johnson, of Raleigh, N. C.—who in the year 1893 became his wife and to whom much of whatever success he has attained is attributable. To them there have been three bright and beautiful children born—two girls and a boy.
In a chapter on this subject it may not be out of place to give some little attention to the early history of the Negro as a farmer in America.
Without stopping to discuss the motives of the sea captain who brought over the first load of Negroes to America, or why the Northern colonists discontinued, at a comparatively early date, the use of slave labor, let us note a few things about the Negro in the South.
The fact that they could easily endure the summer sun of the cotton belt; that they learned quickly the simple methods of farming used in the cultivation of cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and tobacco; that they required but little in the way of food, clothing, housing and medical attention, and the further fact that they possessed a peculiarly happy and light-hearted disposition, all tended to make them especially valuable to the Southern planters.
It seems that slave labor was looked upon, at a comparatively early date, as being not only desirable, but absolutely necessary to the growth and development of the Southern colonies.
For several years after the settlement of Georgia no slaves were allowed to be used in that colony, but, finding that the colony seemed to be doomed to failure, the "trustees" permitted the introduction of slaves and the colony began immediately to prosper.
The following lines attributed to George Whitefield—the famous minister—in referring to his plantations in Georgia and South Carolina, give a fair idea of the feelings of the Southern colonists on the subject of slave labor at that time. He speaks thus about his Georgia plantation: "Upward of five thousand pounds have been expended in the undertaking, and yet very little proficiency made in the cultivation of my tract of land, and that entirely owing to the necessity I lay under of making use of white hands. Had a Negro been allowed I should now have had a sufficiency to support a great many orphans, without expending above half the sum which has been laid out." How different are his expressions concerning his South Carolina plantation, where slavery existed: "Blessed be God! This plantation has succeeded; and, though at present I have only eight working hands, yet, in all probability, there will be more raised in one year, and without a quarter of the expense, than had been produced at Bethesda for several years past. This confirms me in the opinion I have entertained for a long time that Georgia never can or will be a flourishing province without Negroes are allowed."
With the invention of the cotton gin slave labor became still more valuable, the South more prosperous, and the planters verily believed that cotton was king and South Carolina the hub of the universe.
But, while it is true that the Negro became an indispensable factor in the material prosperity of the South by his work on the plantations, yet he did not at that time occupy a position that could be dignified with the name of farmer. During the days of slavery the Negro occupied a position more closely akin to that of a farm animal than that of a farmer. Of course there were exceptions but we are speaking now of the masses.
The Negro having been looked upon by his master and schooled to look upon himself and his fellow bondmen as possessing none of the intelligence and virtues essential to success in life, there is little wonder that a comparatively small number of freedmen took advantage of the opportunities offered immediately after the close of the Civil War to become land owners. Indeed, when we take into account the fact that there was a sort of caste feeling among the slaves, with the "field hands" as the "mud sill," and all glad of any opportunity offered to rise above the despised position, the great wonder is that so many were willing to continue an occupation considered so degrading. The fact is, that it was to a very great extent simply a matter of accepting cheerfully the inevitable that held so many of the freedmen to the farms and to farm life.
Among the positive forces that operated in taking the Negro from the farm there was, perhaps, none stronger than the desire to have his children educated—the opportunity for which being very poor in the country districts—many of the very best and most thrifty among them left the farms for the towns and cities.
But whether on the farm or in the city, only a few years of freedom and its attendant responsibilities were necessary to enable the more intelligent ones of the ex-slaves to see the importance of not only knowing something, but owning something as well, if they were to entertain any hopes or aspirations above those of the "field hand," and it was from this class of Negro farm hands that the real Negro farmer came into existence. While there were many who showed decided intelligence, sound judgment and shrewd business sense by the manner in which they managed their affairs, still the great masses had arisen, if at all, only from the position of the master's farm animal in slavery to that of his less cared for farm hand in freedom.
The condition just described represents the state of affairs during the first few years after the war, as indeed it does present conditions, except that the number of those who may be called farmers is constantly increasing and the number of mere farm hands is growing proportionately smaller. We should keep constantly in mind the distinction between the man who tills his own land and the one who works the land of another, the former is the farmer, the latter the farm hand.
The distinction just noted would seem to be entirely justifiable as ownership of the land is the first requisite for the proper interest in, and love for the work being done, to entitle a man to the name of farmer.
In order to properly appreciate the opportunities and advantages of farm life to himself and his children, there must be that love for the farm itself, its rocks, its woods, its hills, its shady rills and its meadows that can come in no other way than through the proud sense of ownership. There must be the feeling of kinship for the very soil itself; the birds, the bees, the flowers must all be held dear to the heart of him who would know nature's choicest secrets and reap rich harvests from her beautiful storehouse.
In no field are the prospects brighter for the negro than in that of agriculture. There are thousands of acres of land in the South and Southwest that may be purchased upon terms so favorable that the land being purchased, may, by proper management, be made to yield sufficient income to meet the payments.
In the combination of a mild climate, cheap land, with easy payments, ready markets and previous training of the Negro, God seems to be offering special inducements for him to come out from the condition of a landless tenant—that may grow into a serfdom worse than slavery—to that of worthy, independent and self-respecting land owners.
There is no field in which he meets so little of the unreasoning and unreasonable prejudice as in farming.
The products of the farm are the necessaries of life and people do not stop to question too closely as to whence they come or by whom produced.
Owing to the growth of manufacturing in the South, especially of cotton goods and the consequent removal of large numbers of the poor whites into the cities and towns, just now would seem to be the high tide of the Negroes' opportunity to become an independent class of citizens; and we should be careful to seize it at its flood, or all the rest of our life's voyage may be bound in shallows and miseries more distressing than those already passed.
The opportunity for buying land, becoming independent and even wealthy, are, indeed, grand, but the fact must ever be kept in mind that the present favorable conditions will not obtain indefinitely. Let the tide of European immigration once turn southward and competition immediately becomes sharper, and the further progress of the Negro decidedly more difficult.
If the Negro would put himself in position to successfully withstand this competition that will inevitably come, let him begin now by purchasing his stronghold—the farm—and fortify himself, or he may awake, when it is too late, to find himself without a home or the means with which to secure it.
Let us note just here one of the most solemn obligations resting upon those who stand as leaders of the Negroes, viz.: The duty of impressing upon the masses the absolute necessity for purchasing land and the great need, yes, the absolute necessity of doing so now.
It is not the purpose of the writer to create the impression that the leaders of our people are neglecting their duty, or that the masses are letting their opportunities for material betterment pass unimproved, but rather to arouse both leaders and followers to the necessity for greater activity in their work. Indeed when all things, favorable and unfavorable, are taken into account, there is much to be thankful for and hopeful over in the present condition of the Negro farmers.
In almost every community in the South there are to be found Negro farmers who are not only making a decent living, but buying land and improving it, building comfortable dwellings, improving the grades of their farm animals, giving liberal support to their schools and churches and bringing up their children in a manner that is altogether creditable and calculated to make of them good citizens.
It is encouraging to note the increased interest on the part of many young men on the subject of farming, as evidenced by the increasing popularity of the agricultural and mechanical colleges, and the lively interest taken by them in the farmers' conferences held in various parts of the South. The number of Negro farmers who read agricultural journals and make intelligent use of the bulletins issued by the agricultural departments of the various states and the United States, is constantly increasing.
Lest there be some doubt as to the truthfulness of the favorable conditions just mentioned, let the figures speak. Since last year the Negroes of the single state of Georgia have purchased 66,000 acres of land and added $380,000 to the value of farm lands. (Prof. W. E. B. DuBois in The Independent, Nov. 21, 1901.)
Indeed it seems that if in one particular line of work more than any other the Negro has won for himself a place in the history of this country's progress that work has been upon the farm. If one section of the country has profited more than another by his toil, that section is the South, whose forests he has felled, whose roads he has built, whose soil he has tilled, whose wealth he has created, and whose prosperity he has made possible. Then let us not be discouraged, but turn our faces to the sunlight of heaven and put forth our very best endeavors, confidently expecting to reap the full rewards for our labors and attain the full measure of manhood as a race in this "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
TOPIC XXVII.
THE NEGRO AS AN INVENTOR.
BY H. E. BAKER.
HENRY E. BAKER.
Henry E. Baker is one of the most useful men in Washington. His life stands out in strong contrast to that of so many of our educated colored men who have come to Washington, obtained positions in the government service, and shriveled up so far as public usefulness is concerned. He is an active member of the Berean Baptist Church, being its treasurer, an office he has held for several years. For ten years he has been secretary, the executive officer of the Industrial Building and Savings Company, and a director of the Capital Savings Bank. His most notable characteristic is his public spirit, having been connected with almost every well-directed movement in this city for the last fifteen years, looking to the betterment of the condition of his race, especially in the matter of opening up business opportunities for them. The estimation in which he is held by those who know him best is attested by the fact that he is almost invariably called to the position of treasurer in every organization of which he is a member. Born just before the War in Columbus, Miss., he attended the public school of his home and also the Columbus Union Academy. He passed the entrance examination at Annapolis, and was admitted into the Naval Academy as cadet midshipman in 1875, where he remained nearly two years. In 1877, he was appointed "copyist" in the United States Patent Office, where he is at present employed, and where he was promoted, through the several intervening grades, to the position of Second Assistant Examiner at $1,600 per annum. He attended the Ben-Hyde Benton School of Technology in this city from 1877 to 1879; entered the law department of Howard University in 1879, graduating in 1881, at the head of his class, and from the post-graduate course in 1883.
He was married in May, 1893, at Lexington, Ky., to Miss Violetta K. Clark, of Detroit, Mich., who graces a cozy home at 2348 Sixth Street, N. W.
It is quite within the mark to say that no class of men of modern times has made so distinct a contribution to what is popularly called "modern civilization" as have the inventors of the world, and it is equally within bounds to say that the American inventor has led all the rest in the practical utility as well as in the scientific perfection of his inventive skill. Within the century just past the inventors of America have done more than was done in all the preceding centuries to multiply the comforts and minimize the burdens of domestic life. What Washington and Grant, Sherman and Sheridan did for the glory of America was done, and more, by Whitney, Morse, Thompson, Howe, Ericsson, Colt, Bell, Corliss, Edison, McCormick, and a host of other Americans, native and naturalized, to promote the progress of American inventive skill, and thus firmly to establish this country in the front rank of the enlightened nations of the world.
The true measure of a nation's worth in the great family of nations is proportionate to that nation's contribution to the welfare and happiness of the whole; and similarly, an individual is measured by the contribution he makes to the well being of the community in which he lives. If inventions therefore have played the important part here assigned to them in the gradual development of our complex national life, it becomes important to know what contribution the American Negro has made to the inventive skill of this country.
Unfortunately for the seeker after this particular information the public records of the United States government offer practically no assistance, since the public records distinguish only as to nations and not as to races. The Englishman and the American may instantly find out how each stands in the list of patentees, but the Irishman and the Negro are kept in the dark—especially the latter.
The official records of the United States Patent Office, with a single exception, give no hint whatever that of the thousands of mechanical inventions for which patents are granted annually by the government, any patent has ever been granted to a Negro. The single exception was the name of Henry Blair of Maryland, to whom the public records refer as "a colored man," stating that he was granted a patent for a corn harvester in 1834 and another patent for a similar invention in 1836.
It is altogether safe to assume that this Henry Blair was a "free person of color," as the language of those days would have phrased it; for the government seemed committed to the theory that "a slave could not take out a patent for his invention." And this dictum gave rise to some rather embarrassing situations on more occasions than one. For instance, in 1857, a Negro slave, living with his master in the state of Mississippi, perfected a valuable invention which his master sought to have protected by a patent. Now, in law, a patent is a contract between the government and the inventor or his assignees. The slave, although the inventor, could not under the law be a party to a contract, and therefore could not secure the patent himself. His master applied for the patent, but was refused on the ground that inasmuch as he was not the inventor and could not be the assignee of a slave, he could not properly make the required oath. The master was not satisfied with this interpretation of the law by the Commissioner of Patents, and at once appealed from the latter's decision to the Secretary of the Interior, who, in 1858, referred the case to the Attorney-General of the United States. This latter official, who was Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, confirmed the decision of the Commissioner of Patent, and neither master nor slave was ever able to get a patent for the slave's invention. This case reported on page 171 of volume 9, of "Opinions of Attorneys-General, United States."
Another instance of a similar character occurred a few years later, in 1862, when a slave belonging to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, invented a propeller for vessels. He constructed an excellent model of his invention, displaying remarkable mechanical skill in wood and metal working. He was not able to get his invention patented, but the merits of his invention were commented upon approvingly by a number of influential Southern newspapers, and his propeller was finally put in use by the Confederate navy. With the barrier of slavery cast aside, a new opportunity was opened to the Negro inventor, and the purpose of this article is to show what use he has made of that opportunity.
It must still be borne in mind that the records of the United States Patent Office do not show whether a patentee is a Negro or a Caucasian, and that to ascertain what the Negro has accomplished in the field of invention other sources of information had to be utilized; and finally, that the very omission from the public records of all data calculated to identify a given invention with the Negro race completely destroys the possibility of arriving at any definite conclusion as to the exact number and character of negro inventions.
Judging from what has been duly authenticated as Negro inventions patented by the United States, it is entirely reasonable to assume that many hundreds of valuable inventions have been patented by Negro inventors for which the race will never receive due credit. This is the more unfortunate since the race now, perhaps, more than ever before, needs the help of every fact in its favor to offset as far as possible the many discreditable things that the daily papers are all too eager to publish against it.
It appears that no systematic effort was ever made by the government to collect information as to the number of inventions by Negroes until January, 1900, when the then Commissioner of Patents, Hon. Charles H. Duell, undertook the task. Previous to that time the United States Patent Office had received numerous requests from all parts of the country for information on that point, and the uniform reply was that the official records of the Patent Office did not show whether an inventor was colored or white, and that the office had no way of obtaining such information.
Notwithstanding this fact, however, an employee of the Patent Office had undertaken to collect a list of such patents, and this list was used in selecting a small exhibit of Negro inventions. First, for the Cotton Centennial at New Orleans, in 1884; again for the World's Fair at Chicago, in 1893; and, lastly, for the Southern Exposition at Atlanta in 1895. But it was reserved for the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900 to make the first definite effort to obtain this information, and at its request the following letter by the Commissioner of Patents was addressed to hundreds of patent lawyers throughout the country, to large manufacturing establishments, to the various newspapers edited by colored men, and to prominent men of the race:
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
United States Patent Office.Washington, D. C., Jan. 26, 1900.
Dear Sir:
This Office is endeavoring to obtain information concerning patents issued to colored inventors, in accordance with a request from the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900, to be used in preparing the "Negro Exhibit."
To aid in this work, you are requested to send to this Office, in the enclosed envelope, which will not require a postage stamp, the names of any colored inventors you can furnish, together with the date of grant, title of invention, and patent number, so that a list without errors can be prepared.
You will confer a special favor by aiding in the preparation of this list by filling in the blank form below, and sending in any replies as promptly as possible. Should you be unable to furnish any data, will you kindly inform us of that fact?
Very respectfully,
C. H. Duell,
Commissioner of Patents.===============================================================================
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The replies to this letter showed that the correspondents personally knew of and could identify by name, date and number more than four hundred patents granted by the United States to colored inventors. The letters also showed that nearly as many more colored inventors had completed their inventions, and had applied to patent lawyers throughout the country for assistance in obtaining patents for their inventions, but finally abandoned the effort through lack of means to prosecute their applications. The list of the patented inventions as furnished mainly by the letters above named is printed below, and shows that, beginning first with agricultural implements and culinary utensils, which circumscribed the character of his earlier employment, the Negro inventor gradually widened the field of his inventive effort until he had well nigh covered the whole range of patentable subjects.
A study of the list will disclose the fact that the Negro inventor has very often, like his white brother, caught the spirit of invention, and not being contented with a single success, has frequently been led to exert his energies along many different lines of inventions.
Elijah McCoy, of Detroit, Mich., heads the list with twenty-eight patents, relating particularly to lubricating appliances for engines both stationary and locomotive, but covering also a large variety of other subjects. The next is Granville T. Woods, of Cincinnati, whose inventions are confined almost exclusively to electricity, and cover a very wide range of devices for the utilitarian application of this wonderful force. Mr. W. B. Purvis, of Philadelphia, comes next with sixteen patents relating especially to paper bag machinery, but including a few other subjects as well. Mr. F. J. Ferrell, of New York, has ten patents on valves adapted for a variety of uses. Then comes ex-Congressman Geo. W. Murray of South Carolina, with eight patents on agricultural implements. Mr. Henry Creamer has seven patents on steam traps, and more than a dozen among the number have patented as many as five different inventions.
Time and space will not admit of any extended notice of many individual patentees, but mention should be made of a few of them.
Granville T. Woods is called the "Black Edison" because of his persistent and successful investigations into the mystery of electricity. Among his inventions may be found valuable improvements in telegraphy, important telephone instruments, a system for telegraphing from moving trains, an electric railway, a phonograph, and an automatic cut-off for an electric circuit. One of his telephone inventions was sold to the American Bell Telephone Company, who is said to have paid Mr. Woods handsomely for his patent. Mr. Ferrell's inventions of valves laid the foundation for a large and highly successful manufacturing and commercial enterprise which he now conducts in the city of New York.
Mr. Elijah McCoy succeeded in placing his lubricators on many of the steam car and steamboat engines in the northwest and also on some of the ocean steamers, and from these he receives a valuable annual royalty.
Mr. Matzeliger, of Massachusetts, is credited with being the pioneer in the art of attaching soles to shoes by machinery; and Mr. Joseph Lee, of Boston, is said to have placed his kneading machine in many of the first-class bakeries and hotels in Boston and New York, from which he receives a substantial royalty.
So far as is known to the writer Miss Miriam E. Benjamin, of Massachusetts, is the only colored woman who has received a patent for an invention, and the principle of her invention, that of a gong signal, has just been adopted in the United States House of Representatives in signalling for the pages to attend upon members who want them for errands. Formerly the pages were signalled by members clapping their hands, and the noise incident to this method was frequently a great disturbance of the House proceedings. The new system just adopted involves merely the pressing of a button on the member's chair, and this rings a small gong while displaying a signal on the back of the chair.
Another invention by a young colored man which has attracted considerable attention is the rapid-fire gun by Mr. Eugene Burkins, of Chicago. This gun has been examined by officers of the War and Navy Departments, and has been pronounced a valuable contribution to the scientific equipments for military and naval warfare.
The following description of Mr. Burkins' gun appeared in Howard's American Magazine some months ago:
"A brief description of the gun is not exactly out of place, although the Scientific American and other technical journals have long since given it to the world. It is an improvement upon all that has yet been done in the way of ordnance, and the principles involved in its construction can be applied to any size of gun, from a one-inch barker to a thirty-six-inch thunderer. The model as it now stands weighs 475 pounds, measures four inches at breech, and is constructed of the finest of gun brass at a cost of $3,500. There is a magazine at the breech in which a large number of heavy shells can be held in reserve, and in the action of the gun these slip down to their places and are fired at the rate of fourteen a minute, an improvement on the Maxim gun of four shots. The gun is elevated upon a revolving turret with electrical connections, enabling the gunner to direct the action of the machine with a touch of his finger. Firing, reloading and ejection of shells are all effected by electricity, and a child could conduct the work of manning the gun as easily as anyone."
These inventions show how completely in error are those who constantly assert that the Negro has made no lasting contribution to the civilization of the age, and they prove conclusively that under favorable environment he is capable of performing his whole duty in the work of mankind whether it be tilling the earth with his hoe or advancing the world by his thought.
LIST OF COLORED INVENTORS IN THE UNITED STATES AS FURNISHED FOR THE PARIS EXPOSITION, 1900.
TOPIC XXVIII.
WHAT THE OMEN?
BY PROF. W. S. SCARBOROUGH.
PROF. WILLIAM S. SCARBOROUGH, A. M., LL. D.
William S. Scarborough, now Vice-President of Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio, and Professor of Greek and Latin in the same institution, was born in Macon, Ga., February 18, 1852. He received his early education in his native city before and during the Civil War. In 1869 he entered Atlanta University where he remained two years in preparation for Yale University, but, instead, entered Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, in 1871, and was graduated from the Department of Philosophy and the Arts with the degree of A. B. in 1875. He spent a part of the following year in Oberlin Theological Seminary in special study of the Semitic languages and Hellenistic Greek.
In 1877 Professor Scarborough was elected as head of the Classical Department in Wilberforce University. In 1881 he published through A. S. Barnes & Co. (New York) a Greek text book—-"First Lessons in Greek"—the first and only Greek book ever written by a Negro. This book was widely used by both the white and colored schools of the country, especially in the North. Professor Scarborough has also written a treatise entitled "The Birds of Aristophanes—a Theory of Interpretation"—aside from numerous tracts and pamphlets, covering a variety of subjects—classical, archaeological, sociological and racial. He has written many papers for various societies to which he belongs. In 1891 he was transferred to the chair of Hellenistic Greek, Payne Theological Seminary. In 1897 he was again re-elected as Professor of Latin and Greek in the University and Vice-President of the same.
He has contributed largely to the press of the country, including the leading magazines. He is one of the editors of the A. M. E. Sunday-school publications, having filled that position for a number of years. He is a member of a number of associations: American Philological, American Dialect, American Social Science, Archaeological Institute of America, American Spelling Reform, American Folk-Lore, American Modern Language, American Political and Social Science, the Egyptian Exploration Fund Association and the American Negro Academy, of which he is First Vice-President. He has several times been one of the orators at the Lincoln League banquet of the State of Ohio. At a conference held by the leaders of the race in the city of Columbus, Ohio, he was elected President of the Afro-American State League designed to further the interests of the Negro throughout the country. Professor Scarborough has traveled extensively in Europe. He was a delegate to the Ecumenical Methodist Conference held in London in 1901, representing the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
We take the following from the "New York Age" of July 18:
"While in Boston Prof. W. S. Scarborough of Wilberforce University was delightfully entertained by the colored graduates of Harvard University and Amherst College at a reception given in his honor at the home of Mr. G. W. Forbes, a graduate of Amherst. Speeches were made by Messrs. Forbes, Morgan, Trotter, Lewis, Williams and others eulogistic of the life and services of the professor in behalf of his race. The professor replied, thanking them for the honor conferred upon him. Next year it will be twenty-five years since Professor Scarborough first became connected with Wilberforce University as its classical professor and he intends to mark the event by publishing a volume of his philological papers. These papers have all been read before the American Philological Association at its various annual sessions. Twenty years ago Professor Scarborough was first elected to membership in this body at Harvard University. This year the association again met at this venerable seat of learning and by way of commemorating the event Professor Scarborough read a paper on Thucydides. It is some of these papers that the professor intends to put into more tangible form for future use."
The all-absorbing question now before the American people seems to be the race question. Our magazines and papers generally—dailies and weeklies as well as monthlies—are deluged as it were with articles on the Negro people—the Negro as a citizen—his status, his future, the sort of education best adapted to his needs as a man and a citizen, and kindred subjects. In fact no phase of the Negro's life fails of discussion at the hands of the most flippant penny-a-liner as well as the gravest thinker. All have theories of some sort and they do not hesitate to express them—whether they are visionary or practical.
If theories alone could have solved this problem, long ere this would race friction have been removed; it would have been a question of the past, but unfortunately for the race, unfortunately for the people at large, many of those who knew least about the subject and who had no remedy for the troubles complained of—have had most to say and they have generally said it in the most reckless way, regardless of facts. Only now and then do we have a calm view of the situation with reasonable suggestions as to the best course to follow.
As we enter upon the twentieth century, it will be well for black and white to get together and understand one another and ascertain as far as possible what is best to do in the light of facts before us.
One thing is certain—the white man does not yet know the Negro. Strange as it may seem, the Northern white man does not know him after many years of close observation, neither does the Southern white man, for all the years gone by in which the Negro has lived in his midst. The observations of both in fact only leave the Negro largely an unknown quantity to either. I have claimed heretofore that there is a life that the white man knows nothing of. It is found in the hovel as well as in the cultured home, in the school and the church. It is a life in the bud-time of race pride and another race prejudice; and it is swelling to the blossoming. What will be the fruit?
To know the race one must do more than occasionally to visit it here and there, must see more than even a close examination of schools and churches, instructed, aided and supported by white philanthropy, will disclose. The toadying, the servile representatives of the race, the politicians, the dependent ones—all must be passed by and the people found. To know the Negro one must be with him and become a part of his life—see what he is doing, and above all, to know what he is thinking.
Go into the schools and churches where there is not a shadow of white influence to check freedom of speech or tinge thought and what do we see and hear? In every case we find those from the oldest to the youngest with some ideas upon the race question and ready to express them. Not so with white children. They are not thinking about the color of their skin or the texture of their hair or their rights and privileges or the deprivation of these rights, the contempt and ostracism following them everywhere; but the Negro child, on the other hand, of every shade of color has these almost constantly in mind, for they are thrust upon him. He can think of little else.
In such schools, in such communities, the field work, the social gathering, the literary society, the routine of school or church or community life, the platform—all are tinctured deeply with these ideas and these are expressed in some form on every possible occasion. All these questions are in a large degree to the race, as far as interest is concerned, at least, the momentous, the ever-present, ever-burning topic.
No youth of the white race feels the weight of any subject agitating the mind of the public as these colored youth feel this one. What is the omen, when boys and girls alike make it a common question, in some form or other for all their daily work? It has been said that the two races are growing apart, that there is as much race prejudice in the one as in the other. In many respects this is true, though the prejudice on the part of the Negro is a thing of natural growth from certain causes, not an inherent quality. The fact that the Negro is rising without anything like adequate recognition—at least other than a patronizing one—is one of these causes. As here and there the Negro comes, to the white man's higher level, among the best he is confronted with that "Ah-you-are-here." Ah, which means more than words can express and he straightway feels his pulses stirred to the defensive counter spirit of "I-am-and-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it?" The result is the two mutually draw back from each other.
Among the middle classes where the level of the whites intellectually and financially is more readily and more rapidly being reached by the greater number of Negroes there is still more prejudice to be found. It is here where the Negro has his fiercest battle ground; it is here where he finds his greatest opposition. It is only following out the idea of the French writer who said, "Mediocrity alone is jealous." The constant desire of this class of white people to rise to the highest level aggravates them upon seeing a Negro reaching out for or obtaining in any way that which they may have or may be seeking, and they "take it out" by greater assumption of superiority especially over those of the race who have reached their own plane of living, and here again is a creation of a counter prejudice.
Growing refinement brings with it to the Negro all that sensitiveness which is accorded to refined people wherever found, and naturally he recoils from rebuffs, insults, and contumely, and holds himself aloof more and more only as business demands contact. He has no growing reason to revere the whites as a mass, and if nations are proverbially ungrateful, what more can be expected of individuals, no matter how much fine theorizing there may be upon the subject of what the Negro owes to the white man.
With this increasing prejudice, for reasons named, there is a growing race pride. This is taking firm root among the young people of the Negro race who are being taught to respect those of their own number who have obtained honor and distinction through merit. The school-boy and school-girl are studying the history of their own race with eagerness. They are finding out that it is not an altogether degraded people from which they have sprung, and with the gathering evidences about them of education, refinement, even wealth, and high character, they see no good reason why they should be despised for mere color or the possession of some imperceptible drops of Negro blood, as in many cases. This is a laudable pride based upon both the past and present and, as we have said, they are more alive to all that pertains to race matters than any other set of young people whom we are able to mention.
What is the omen? Think you that the growing generation will tamely submit to the endless continuance of present and past grievances? Think you that this thoughtfulness of the Negro youth will be without some sort of fruit? Will these not have as much influence upon their ignorant brother masses as have the whites over the ignorant masses of their own color? I repeat, the white man does not thoroughly know the Negro. He does not begin to see all that boils and seethes and ferments in the brains of this growing class. It is well for the nation to learn wisdom from the mouths of babes and sucklings. And when these prattle of race issues it is an omen not to be unheeded.
TOPIC XXIX.
WHY THE NEGRO RACE SURVIVES.
BY PROF. T. DE S. TUCKER.
THOMAS de S. TUCKER.
Thomas de S. Tucker first saw the light of day at Victoria, in Sherbro, Sierra Leone, West Coast of Africa, on the 21st day of July, 1844. His mother was the youngest daughter of James Tucker, hereditary chief of Sherbro. The founder of the family, about two hundred years previous, was an Englishman, from whom the surname is derived.
On the paternal side, Tucker comes of an ancient noble family in the east of France, the de Salieres, of Marseilles. His father, Joseph, although descended from this noble lineage, was an ardent admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose checkered fortunes he followed to the disastrous field of Waterloo.
In accordance with the custom of the country, the wife being deemed of higher social standing than the husband, the son took the maternal surname. Tucker was sent, at a tender age, to a school located in the family territory. Such was his rapid progress that in a few years he had acquired English sufficiently enough to read and write it about as well as the average child of his age in this country.
In the summer of 1856 he came to the United States to complete his education. Having just completed the English course in the public schools of Oberlin, Ohio, he entered college and completed the course in 1865. He then crossed over into Kentucky and opened day and night schools for the education of the newly freed race.
From Kentucky he removed to Louisiana, where the climate was more congenial to his tropical constitution. During his residence of many years in that State he was employed most of the time in the customs service with chances of preferment to higher and more lucrative posts, which he never sought nor cared for. His tastes have always inclined him to the more quiet and private walks of life, where he can promote the welfare of his fellow men, without show and the applause of the giddy crowd.
President Grant once advised him that he intended to offer him the Liberian Mission, but Tucker was so indifferent in the honor that he made no effort to be commissioned.
Anxious to pass away from official duties, he studied law and entered on practice in New Orleans. This profession was so fully in keeping with his tastes he hoped to pursue it the rest of his days. Finding that his legal training practically restricted him only to Louisiana, he removed to Florida and located at Pensacola. He was admitted to practice, and with it he rose rapidly both in knowledge of the common law and in securing a paying clientage. He stood high with the bar, from judge and attorneys to officials. He saw every prospect of realizing the fond dream of his ambition when once again a call of duty to serve God's humble children came in stentorious tones. The State in 1887 had founded a Normal and Industrial School for the training of Colored teachers. A telegram unexpectedly announced that Tucker had been elected by the State Board of Education to take the management of it. He demurred, he objected; but leading Colored men and the Chief Executive importuned and requested his acceptance of the place. By patient perseverance and tact he succeeded in enlisting the hearty good will of all classes to the maintenance of the institution. The history of his work is a part of the educational records. Many men and women of worth and saving influence in their respective communities in Florida owe their training to the devoted consecration to duty of this native of the "Dark Continent." The school itself will ever remain a lasting monument to his tireless, efficient devotion to the welfare of his race.
He retired from the field of his labors at the close of the fourteenth year, carrying with him universal regret for his departure, and the esteem and respect of the whole State and the acclamations of good will, especially of the people of the capital in which the Normal School is located.
It requires no stretch of thought to understand our constant and earnest interest in everything which concerns our environments. Every question and issue of national significance have for us a vital consideration for weal or woe. We scan with greedy eagerness the expressed policy of the statesman, we hang with bated breath on the eloquence of the sentiment moulder, we probe with tremulous care the feelings of the community to find out if we have been pushed to the rear or given a fair chance in the race to a higher life—our final place in American life.
While we are not, and should never be, unmindful of all interests which appertain to others in this vast country of which we form such a necessary part, it is natural and right that our first thought should be of our own welfare.
The position we are to definitely assume and maintain in the distinctive American civilization now in process of formation, is yet concealed in the womb of futurity; we can neither anticipate nor force it against the period of its advent. While we are passing through this slow process of development, it is well at times to take a reckoning of our race powers by way of encouragement to such as may become faint and weary in the combat. All are not strong, all are not determined, all are not forceful. The fiercest courage will now and then lose its force when battling against steady odds. Moreover, our shortcomings, like the shirt of Nessus, are not only with us ever, but they are on constant exhibition to shame, mortify and humiliate us. While it is not sensible to shut our eyes to these painful reminders of the obstacles to our progress, while it is even best to invite a searching scrutiny of them to the end that they may be torn off by heroic methods, if need be, after all an occasional study of our strong parts is a help in the struggle.
DISCARD SELF GRATULATION.
In the attempt to reflect on the staying powers of the race, I have not the remotest idea of pandering to conceit or vanity, to the contrary, I decry any disposition to extol and magnify whatever we are subjectively, and whatever we have achieved. The fierce conflicts we have undergone and the terrible crucible through which the cruel hand of fate promises to pass us, dispel the idea of self gratulation. Life for us in the conflict ahead is all stern and serious. Wounds and scars will for generations yet to come be the decorations for our leaders in thought and action; there is no niche in the edifice consecrated to our present and coming heroes for fulsome, windy flatteries airing their importance to the galleries. Hearts true and stout charged with big emotions to raise and elevate their suffering kind to a higher plane, should be the only thinkers to claim our considerate attention and command our homage.
THEME UNDER CONSIDERATION.
In the theme I have chosen for this paper, I shall endeavor to show that the latent and active attributes of the negro eminently adapt him to be classed among the survivals of the fittest in the family of races. Before proceeding, however, to a formal discussion of the subject, it might not be amiss for a minute or two, to take a running retrospect of the race since its advent into its present civil life.
The three decades which mark the close of our Civil War have perhaps not only written history more broadly in the behalf of humanity in general as interpreted by Christian civilization, than any other similar period, but they have been the most momentous in shaping the national life by moulding and settling policies of a lasting nature. The admission of millions, of what is termed an alien race into the solution of an untried problem of government by the people, rendered that problem still more difficult, hence, wild and extravagant speculations bearing on the future of the Negro and the questionable influence of his changed relations on American life, became the current literature of the country for two decades. Friends spoke in fulsome praise or doubtful measure, according to conviction, while enemies protested in exultant tone that a generation or two hence would suffice to write the Negro's epitaph. But even in that early period of his infancy, had the nation been disposed to study him with other than preconceived, erroneous views, it might have perceived traits which justified the wisdom implied in his changed condition. Thus far, if he has not risen to the dizzy heights to which the hopes of ardent enthusiasts invited him, he has at least, not only belied the gloomy fate of inglorious extinction, but he is going forward with steady strides to realize an honorable destiny in common with the many other people of the Republic.
ORIGIN OF A STRONG RACE.
A strong race, like marked personality, is the product of varied and opposing agencies. As in nature when conflicting elements struggle for the mastery and bear the impress of the strongest, so in the evolution of a forceful people, its character takes on the form of the means that has been most efficacious in moulding it. There is no instance in the authentic annals of the human family where a masterly people has emerged into greatness from the tame school of gentle methods. Trials keen and severe, have first slashed, cut and tortured the entire being in mind and soul to fit it for the new life it is to enjoy in accordance with its destined end. What has ever been thus will always be so.
QUALITIES INDICATING THE NEGRO'S SURVIVAL.
In this law of nature, in the formation of dominant powers, the Negro has no favor to expect. He must pass through the fiery furnace and be shorn of dross to leave the solid matter which is to constitute the framework of his strength. First among the many qualities of survival which distinguish him as an enduring race, is patient endurance and fortitude under affliction. The elastic temperament of the race in the ability to adapt itself to varying conditions, in swaying with the force of the tempest until the fury of it is spent, in seizing with instinct on circumstances that tend to save, is something not only amazing, but marvelous. No oppression however heavy, no ebullition of wrath however fiery, can swerve him from the road he has chosen to attain his purpose as a part of the pulsating life of this nation. From a dogged determination to butt aside forces which contained the elements of his salvation, the Indian has passed into a retreat closed to contact with the active life of the dominant power of the land. On the other hand, the future of the parent race of the American Negro in the dark continent is bright with hope from its ready assimilation of the civilizing agencies of European civilization. In obedience to this self-evident law of survival, Japan has entered on a new existence, while its neighbor, China, the home of a kindred race, bids fair to become the easy prey of Western greed.
STRENGTH, NOT WEAKNESS.
Now this easy swaying to conditions, when his welfare is in hazard, and for which the superficial thinker twits the negro with lack of manliness, is one of the strongest elements of his being. Were he less malleable than he is, less ready to concede where contention can only work him woe, were he wont to resent in wild and reckless fury, real or fancied wrongs, were he too obtuse to perceive and profit by the passing advantage, were he to remove his cause from the bar of reason, and the verdict of a calm judgment he would neither be imbibing the civilization of his native land, nor would he have achieved a tithe of the wonderful progress which is to-day the vindication of his freedom, and at the same time the shame and confusion of those who foretold his ignominious passing away. Patience pure and simple, coupled with, and gracing a quiet heroism, has enabled him to bridge over the earlier days of his trials, and confirm his status in the body politic to the general acceptance of the American people.
THE NEGRO'S WARFARE, MORAL AND MENTAL.
The honor which waits on material contest counts for little to the Negro's advantage. Indeed, if the strife with which he is confronted were to be waged on such an issue, the result could be foretold in advance. His warfare is moral and mental, and by the arts of peace he is to be left a cipher or rise in triumph to honorable destiny. Physical courage which the negro shows largely in common with other races has its trophies blazoned in marble and brass only to crumble beneath the corroding tooth of time. The warfare of mind and heart which ever calls in evidence only the highest courage of man's nature leaves its achievement to immortal fame to grow with the ages till time surrenders it to Eternity.
WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.
By the exercise of this gentle but potent virtue of learning to labor and to wait, we have mined our way into the heart of educational authorities to grant such of our sons and daughters as are competent the privilege of becoming preceptors to the youth of the race. By the nurture of the same virtue, our slender means have tickled the greed of capital to call us away from obscure streets and narrow lanes that we may enjoy a wider range of selection of homes befitting higher tastes and growing ambition. Go, if you will, into the Southern section of our country where the bulk of our race resides, and there you will find by this same sturdy persistence to wait on time for a reward that schools, colleges, churches and business enterprises are being built and maintained. Prejudices which retard our progress are crumbling to pieces.
THE OPTIMISTIC TEMPERAMENT.
The cheerful sunny temperament of the Negro is another of the many sturdy qualities which declare his fitness to withstand the blows of adverse fortune. His long training in the school of mental and moral darkness wherein he had need to cultivate a sanguine temperament to buoy him up, stands proof against dark forebodings and pessimism. The grotesque and the ludicrous find in him a joyous patron. Where others count and bewail their woes, he sees only sunshine. Gloom and sorrow melt away at his approach, while his features are ever radiant with mirth and joy. His head is up and erect with every sense attuned to the bright, and dead to the doleful. He thanks God that the lot apportioned him is fashioned by infallible wisdom, while he munches with contentment the humble crust that honest toil has brought him. Malevolence towards his fellow men is at the most a passing emotion. Wealth and the happiness attendant on it, he neither envies nor mars. He asks a chance to live, no matter how sumptuously others may fare beyond his condition. Such a being is forever beyond the pale of anarchy, and other tendencies which work to the detriment of society. In this portraiture I have drawn no ideal, but the average Negro as he is known of all men.
In peace and in war such a being is an invaluable factor in a nation's well being. As he does not envy the class which fortune has blest with good things of this world, he therefore breeds no feeling of ill will by which he might seek to level conditions, while he is equally ready to assume his share of the dangers consequent on the maintenance of the existing order of affairs.
PATRIOTISM OF THE RACE.
Another marked characteristic of race strength is love of country. The only race in this country which has more than a shadow of excuse to be indifferent to the nation's welfare is the Negro. Not unlike the dog in the fable whose devotion to his master's interest was recognized only after the sacrifice of life in that master's service, the Negro's love for his country in the civil service, on the tented field, and wherever sincere devotion should command the highest commendation, is commonly rewarded with cold indifference, or at least with damnable praise, and yet when driven, as it were, with brutal kicks and cuffs from the service and defense of his country's honor, he hangs on to the outer folds of its flag with a grim determination to maintain its glory as though that duty had been specially entrusted him by heaven. And herein again he shows the instinct of self-preservation, as people who would seek to become an appreciable power in the public affairs of their country, must be alive to every vital interest pertaining to it. To become rooted it must maintain an unyielding grasp. That the Negro is to-day only a passive member in the affairs of government, does not argue that his unflagging patriotism will not finally gain its reward. That he is quietly working now at long range to prepare himself for citizenship, means that he will in due time enter into that rich inheritance. The foaming stream is not the water carrying most matter into the ocean; the deep current which gives no evidence on its surface is the hydraulic force which forms the Delta. And so it is with the latent influence of Negro patriotism. In every essential matter pertaining to national welfare, however keen his grievance, fancied or real, his regard for the honor of the government and the maintenance of its power, induces him to throw his head-gear in air, out-yell the lustiest lung in the crowd and attest his enthusiasm by demoniac courage on the field of battle.
The chief magistrate of the nation is stricken down in the vigor of manhood and in the fullness of power. In the exercise of his great office morally and otherwise, without going out of his way, he might have benefited the race. But although he had no special claim to the Negro's regard, yet his untimely taking off has been lamented by none more sincerely than by our race. In country, in town, in state, in every section, the Negro is broadly American. Nothing that concerns this country is foreign to him, but with all there is to discourage him, what is the outcome of such steady, magnificent devotion to duty? Geologists affirm that the wondrous chasm of Niagara is the creation of trickling drops of water during myriads of ages. In like manner, the fervent, unflagging patriotism of the Negro is slowly but surely crumbling away the granite of American prejudice to give him a permanent place in the national life of this country. A nation, the bulb of which comes of a race whose love of fair play is proverbial and goes with them into every land and clime, will be constrained in the end to recognize and confirm the merit the race is developing as a strong pillar in the edifice of state.
In the heat of that terrific contest at Waterloo where charge after charge of the imperial guard seemed likely to consign the fate of Europe to the absolute sway of the little Corsican, Wellington exclaimed, to such of his staff as still remained around him, "Hot pounding this, gentlemen." But the day was at last won, and the endangered constitutional liberty of Europe leaped forth from the sea of blood, to inspire man with new hope and aspiration. As a race, we are struggling for life. Our hopes and fears are trembling in the balance against might, power, and moss-covered prejudices. A continuous pounding, directed by the impulse of a will to do, dare and succeed, will bring us victory.
But, says the carping critic, if the Negro were less patient, forbearing and more combative, if he risked less for country, and gloried more in deeds of heroism for his personal defense, he would lie truer to his self-preservation. Other races placed in condition quite similar to the Negroes have tried the experiment, and failed. They opposed simple brute force to intelligence, and they went down in the contest either to extinction or to servitude. The Britons gave way to Saxon numbers and tougher sinews, the latter bent the neck to Norman intelligence, bided their time and brought the victor down to an equality of rights and privileges. If the Negro should attempt another way, he would soon be undone.
ADAPTABILITY TO ENVIRONMENTS.
Again the adaptability of the race to environments constitutes one of the means of his endurance. In servitude as in freedom, no conditions have yet been so vigorous that the negro has not been able to adjust himself with ease. Indeed, it is not a figure of speech to assert that wherever he has suffered the most, there he has given the best proof of his vitality. His acquisition of wealth, his possession of material means in general, has been most rapid in parts where he has most obstacles to confront and encounter. He not only laughs at his misfortunes, but turns them to account. When he is ground down beyond the point of greatest resistance, he leaves for new and untried regions, with a radiant hope for a better fate. He goes to the semi-arctic lands of the West, readily becomes domesticated, and so insinuates himself into the hard, prosaic customs of the country that he at once becomes, in so far as he is not debarred from the rules of labor organizations, a sharp competitor with the wage-earner in the strife for bread. His blood has no lazy microbes to dam the current of its movement. Assure him of reasonable compensation, and his brawny arm is bared to the pick and the mattox. His ax and hoe and plow drag out wealth from mine and soil.
ACTIVE EVERYWHERE.
Wherever his lot is cast, there he enters with zest into the live sentiment of the community. No thought born of enterprise within the scope of his comprehension, no undertaking to enhance the common wealth fail to enlist his good will. He will at least talk for it and praise it, even if he has not a cent to invest. However limited by industrial conditions to few and humble ways of acquiring a livelihood, his scanty earnings are on the market to give healthy circulation to the arteries of trade. Merchants welcome him to open doors, and small dealers meet him with graceful smiles knowing he has come to apply the move-on ordinance to the jingling coin in his pocket. In church and school, in the pulpit and on the rostrum, his desire to fall in with the prevailing spirit to promote the betterment of the community, is equally pronounced.
Take as a sample the spirit of the race to absorb elevating influence from the dominant class. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is a race organization which justly challenges the admiration of every one of us no matter of what creed or sect. A race which in about one generation from a condition of base servitude can be so lively to a sense of its spiritual wants and the public weal as to advance enough to create such an organization is no mean factor in any age or country. In the show of this receptive capacity, it declares its eternal fitness to live and thrive under the blaze of the most searching civilization in the history of the world.
Take moreover, the many worthy bodies founded in the last quarter of a century for moral, mental and social elevation. All these have been inspired by the thought that if the race would hold its own, it must emulate the spirit of the country and age in which it lives.
Truly, if our coming to this land was involuntary, the genius of our being has built a home which can only be abandoned at our own will.
THE END.
I am admonished that this paper must come to a close. I am compelled to omit even by mere mention many of the exemplary virtues of the race. I have, however, touched on just enough to furnish the enquiring mind with deductions. Even the pessimist is constrained to admit that, under the circumstances, as a whole, the race has made a remarkable record, and that chiefly, because of the qualities with which he is endowed. Many historic races who have dominated mankind, made less rapid progress than we, at the point we have reached. This remarkable advancement may be ascribed in the main to the superior attributes which give us a flexible and well balanced temperament.
The hardships the race undergoes in this period of development constitute the necessary training school and the virtues which spring thence are intended as much for the betterment of the other race as for our own. We are to soften their stern qualities, while our life is to take on some of the iron of their soul.
That our nature will be largely modified by the necessities of our growth must be an accepted fact, but our merit, worth and fitness in American life will substantially be the product of our qualities as they are to-day. The past gives us assurance of glorious possibilities to come. Just how far and to what extent we are to realize the fruition of our cherished dreams of rising to the full height of honorable manhood vests chiefly with us. God has endowed us with the capacity to suffer and undergo the trials incident to race development. If we can recognize the need for this training, severe though it be, if we do not chafe and fume and fret and get angry because our deliverance has not come, we may well be comforted in the meanwhile that any device of man to deny us a share in the government of a common heritage in this land consecrated by heaven to suffering humanity, will prove a complete failure.
TOPIC XXX.
THE SIGNS OF A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR THE AMERICAN NEGRO.
BY REV. F. J. GRIMKE, D. D.
FRANCIS J. GRIMKE, D. D.
Francis J. Grimke, clergyman, was born near Charleston, S. C., November 4, 1850. Son of Henry and Nancy (Weston) Grimke; attended school in Charleston; entered Lincoln University, Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1866, and graduated in 1870 (A. M., D. D.); graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1878. Ordained pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church the same year. Remained until 1885. Took charge of Lama Street Presbyterian Church 1885-1889. Returned to Fifteenth Street Church, Washington, D. C., in 1889, where he is still. Has published articles in the New York Independent and New York Evangelist. Wrote monographs on "The Negro: His Rights and Wrongs; The Forces For and Against Him." In 1898, "The Lynching of Negroes in the South: Its Causes and Remedy;" "Some Lessons from the Assassination of President William McKinley," 1901; "The Roosevelt-Washington Episode; or, Race Prejudice," 1901. Address, 1526 L Street, Washington, D. C.
Extracts from his sermon on the race problem.
"Some of these days all the skies will be brighter,
Some of these days all the burdens be lighter,
Hearts will be happier, souls will be whiter,
Some of these days.
"Some of these days, in the deserts uprising,
Fountains shall flash while the joybells are ringing,
And the world, with its sweetest of birds, shall go singing,
Some of these days.
"Some of these days: Let us bear with our sorrow,
Faith in the future—its light we may borrow,
There will be joy in the golden to-morrow—
Some of these days."
That is my faith; I am no pessimist on this Negro problem. Terrible as the facts are, cruel and bitter as is this race prejudice, and insurmountable, almost, as are the obstacles which it sets up in our pathway, I see a light ahead, I am hopeful, I look forward to better times. And I want to tell you this morning what the ground of this hope is.
(2.) I am hopeful, because of the progress which the Negro is making in intelligence and in wealth. Think of what our condition was at the close of the war, and of what it is to-day, in these respects. That we are progressing, there can be no doubt; indeed, in view of all the circumstances, our progress has been marvelous.
Take the matter of wealth. Since freedom, hundreds and thousands of our people have become property owners in the South. Many of them are prosperous and successful farmers; thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres of land have come into their possession, hundreds and thousands of them in the cities own their own homes, and are engaged in small but lucrative business enterprises of one kind or another. They are now paying taxes on some three hundred million dollars' worth of property. That is not a very large sum, I admit, considered as the aggregate wealth of a whole race, numbering some seven or eight millions; but whether much or little, it indicates progress, and very considerable progress, and that is the point to which I am directing attention. The acquisitive faculty in the Negro is being developed; his eyes are being opened more and more to the importance of getting wealth; and slowly, but surely, he is getting it.
Educationally, the same is true. Thirty years ago there were but few educational institutions among us, but few professional men—doctors, lawyers, ministers—ministers of intelligence—teachers; but few men and women of education. Now, there are thousands of well-equipped men and women in all the professions, and thousands upon thousands of men and women of education in every part of the country. Not only are there institutions, founded especially for our benefit, crowded with students, but all the great institutions of the land are now open to us, and in all of them, with scarcely an exception, are to be found representatives of our race; and the number in such institutions is steadily increasing. The last report of the Commissioner of Education shows that in the common schools of the sixteen former slave States and the District of Columbia, there are enrolled 1,429,713 pupils, and that in these schools, some twenty-five thousand teachers are employed. It also shows that there are 178 schools for secondary and higher education, with an enrollment of over forty thousand pupils. There are, of course, thousands of our people who are still very ignorant, but that there is vastly more intelligence in the race now than at the close of the war, no one will pretend to deny. The colleges and universities, the high and normal schools, are turning out hundreds of graduates every year. The educational outlook for the race is certainly very encouraging.
In view of these two factors—the growing desire on the part of the Negro for material possessions, the fact that he is actually acquiring property, and his growing intelligence—I see signs of a brighter future for him. These are elements of power that will make themselves felt. You may deprive a poor and ignorant people of their rights, and succeed in keeping them deprived of them, but you can't hope to do that when these conditions are changed; and the point to which I am directing attention here, is that this change is taking place. All that has been done, and is being done to stimulate in the Negro this principle of acquisitiveness, and to increase his thirst for knowledge, is a harbinger of a better day. Every dollar saved, or properly invested; every atom of brain power that is developed, is a John the Baptist in the wilderness, crying, Make straight the pathway of the Negro. In proportion as the race rises in intelligence and wealth, the valleys will be filled and the mountains will be leveled, that now stand in the way of his progress, in the way of the complete recognition of all of his rights. Ignatius Donnelly, in that remarkable book of his, "Doctor Huguet," which some of you, doubtless, have read, would seem to teach the opposite of this. He attempts to show that never mind what the intellectual attainments of the Negro may be—he may be a Doctor Huguet, learned with all the learning of the schools, and cultured with all the culture of the ages—still there is no chance for him, there is no hope of his being recognized. The story as told by him is, at first, quite staggering and terribly depressing. But when we remember that, according to the story, there was but one Doctor Huguet with a black skin, and that he was poor, and that all the rest of his race were poor and ignorant, light breaks in upon the darkness, the awful pall which it casts upon us, is at once lifted. How will it be when instead of one Doctor Huguet there are hundreds and thousands of them, scholarly men and women, cultivated men and women, men and women of wealth, of large resources? It will be very different. If the Negro was indifferent to education; if he was actually getting poorer, then we might lose heart; but, thank God, the very opposite is true. His face is in the right direction. He may not be pressing on as rapidly as he might towards the goal, as rapidly as some of us might wish to see him, but it is a matter for congratulation, that he is not retrograding, nor even standing still, but is moving on. Poor? Yes, but he isn't always going to be poor. Ignorant? Yes, but he isn't always going to be ignorant. The progress that he has already made in these directions shows clearly what the future is to be. Knowledge is power; wealth is power, and that power the Negro is getting. He is not always going to be a mere hewer of wood and a drawer of water; he is not always going to be crude, ignorant. American prejudice is strong, I know; it is full of infernal hate, I know, but in the long run it will be found to be no match for the power which comes from wealth and intelligence.
(3.) I am hopeful because I have faith in the ultimate triumph of right. You remember what Lowell says in his "Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing:"
"Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep
Of everlasting Soul her strength abides,
From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap,
Through Nature's veins her strength, undying tides.
"I watch the circle of the eternal years,
And read forever in the storied page
One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears—
One onward step of Truth from age to age.
"The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain;
The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates;
Man's hope lies quenched;—and, lo! with steadfast gain
Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.
"Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross
Make up the groaning records of the past;
But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss,
And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last."
"From off the starry mountain-peak of song,
The spirit shows me, in the coming time,
An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong,
A race revering its own soul sublime."
And in the "Ode to France," from which I quoted on last Sabbath, the same glorious thought is expressed:—
"And surely never did thine altars glance
With purer fires than now in France;
While, in their bright white flashes,
Wrong's shadow, backward cast,
Waves cowering o'er the ashes
Of the dead, blaspheming past,
O'er the shapes of fallen giants,
His own unburied brood,
Whose dead hands clench defiance
At the overpowering good:
And down the happy future runs a flood
Of prophesying light;
It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood,
Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud
Of Brotherhood and Right."
That is my faith. The wrong may triumph for the moment, but in its very triumph is its death-knell; it cannot always prevail. God has so constituted the moral universe, has so planted in the human heart the sense of right, that ultimately justice is sure to be done. "Ever the Right comes uppermost," is no mere poetic fancy, but one of God's great laws. In the light of that law, I am hopeful. I know that things cannot go on as they are going on now, that the outrageous manner in which we are at present treated cannot always continue. It is bound to end sooner or later.
(4.) I am hopeful, because I have faith in the power of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ to conquer all prejudices, to break down all walls of separation, and to weld together men of all races in one great brotherhood. It is a religion that teaches the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, a religion in which there is neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. And this religion is in this land. There are, according to the statistics of the churches for 1898, excluding Christian Scientists, Jews and Latter Day Saints, 135,667 ministers in the United States, 187,075 churches, and 26,100,884 communicants in these churches. This would seem to be a guarantee that every right belonging to the Negro would be secured to him; that in the struggle which he is making in this country for simple justice and fair play, for manhood recognition, for such treatment as his humanity and citizenship entitle him, back of him would be found these 135,667 ministers, 187,075 churches and 26,100,884 church members. But, alas, such is not the case. These professed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who came to seek and to save the lost, who was the friend of publicans and sinners, whose gospel was a gospel of love, and who was all the time reaching down and seeking to befriend the lowly, those who were despised and who were being trampled upon by others;—the Christ of whom it is written, "And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth;" and who, in speaking of himself, said, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to comfort all that mourn; to give them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;"—these professed followers of this wonderfully glorious Christ, instead of standing back of the poor Negro in the earnest, desperate struggle which he is making against this damnable race-prejudice, which curses him because he is down, branding him with vile epithets, calling him low, degraded, ignorant, besotted; and yet putting its heel upon his neck so as to prevent him from rising; despising him because he is down, and hating him when he manifests any disposition to throw off his ignorance and degradation and show himself a man;—in this struggle, I say, against this damnable race-prejudice, these professing Christians are often his worst enemies, his most malignant haters and traducers.
In saying that the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is in this land, I do not therefore, base my assertion upon the fact, that there are 135,667 ministers in it, and 187,075 churches, and 26,100,884 professing Christians. No. The American Church as such is only an apology for a church. It is an apostate church, utterly unworthy of the name which it bears. Its spirit is a mean and cowardly and despicable spirit. "One shall chase a thousand," we are told in the good Book—and "two shall put ten thousand to flight." And yet with 135,667 preachers, and more than 2,000,000 church members in this land, this awful, black record of murder and lawlessness against a weak and defenseless race, still goes on. In the presence of this appalling fact, I can well understand the spirit which moved Theodore Parker—that pulpit Jupiter of his day—when in his great sermon on "The True Idea of a Christian Church," he said, "In the midst of all these wrongs and sins—the crimes of men, society and the state—amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime and war, and slavery, too—is the church, to say nothing, do nothing; nothing for the good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who do the wrong? Men tell us so, in word and deed; that way alone is safe! If I thought so, I would never enter the church but once again, and then to bow my shoulders to their manliest work, to heave down its strong pillars, arch and dome, and roof, and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson I buried myself under the ruins of that temple which profaned the worship of the God most high, of God most loved. I would do this in the name of men; in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear and blessed name of God." And I would do it, too.
But, in spite of the shallowness and emptiness and glaring hypocrisy of this thing which calls itself the church; this thing which is so timid, so cowardly that it dares not touch any sin that is unpopular, I still believe that Christianity is in this land. To-day it is like a little grain of mustard seed, but it has entered the soil, has germinated, and is springing up. It is like the little lump of leaven which the woman hid in three measures of meal; but it has begun to work, and will go on working, diffusing itself, until the whole is leavened. God has promised to give to his Son the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession; and in that promise this land is included. Christianity shall one day have sway even in Negro-hating America; the spirit which it inculcates, and which it is capable of producing, is sure, sooner or later, to prevail. I have, myself, here and there, seen its mighty transforming power. I have seen white men and women under its regenerating influence lose entirely the caste feeling, to whom the brother in black was as truly a brother as the brother in white. If Christianity were a mere world influence, I should have no such hope; but it is something more than a mere world influence; it is from above; back of it is the mighty power of God. The record is, "To as many as received him to them gave he power to become children of God, even to them that believed on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It can do what no mere human power can do. Jesus Christ is yet to reign in this land. I will not see it, you will not see it, but it is coming all the same. In the growth of Christianity, true, real, genuine Christianity in this land, I see the promise of better things for us as a race.
TOPIC XXXI.
NEGRO CRIMINALITY.
BY JOHN HENRY SMYTH.
JOHN HENRY SMYTH, LL. D.
John Henry Smyth, LL. D., ex-U. S. Minister Resident and Consul-General to Liberia, was born in the city of Richmond. His parents were Sully Smyth of Lynchburg, Campbell County, Va., and Ann Eliza, formerly Goode of Chesterfield County, Va. He received his first instruction from a lady of his own race, at a time when the laws of Virginia made it a penal offense to teach Negroes any other thing than manual labor. At the age of seven years he was sent to Philadelphia to be educated. He attended the public schools of that city four years and two private schools under the control and direction of friends or Quakers. He graduated from the Institute for Colored Youth, May 4, 1862. He displayed a decided taste and aptitude for the fine arts early in life, and at the age of sixteen years he became a student of art, and was admitted a member of the Life School of the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, a year before graduation. In 1870 he graduated from the Law School of Howard University. The same year he married the daughter of Rev. John Shippen, of Washington, D. C., Miss Fannie Ellen, a lady whom he had the pleasure of instructing in the first elocution class of Howard University.
For eighteen years he was in the service of the United States, beginning as a first-class clerk and ending as United States Minister and Consul-General. For seven years he taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania, practiced law in the District of Columbia, North and South Carolina. On retiring from the diplomatic service in Liberia, two distinctions were conferred upon Mr. Smyth, by Liberia College, the honorary degree of LL. D., and by the President of Liberia, the Honorable Hilery Richard Wright Johnson, the order of Knight Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption. There were only two Americans so honored by the Black Republic. At present Mr. Smyth is at the head of the Negro Reformatory Association of Virginia, a corporation resident in Virginia, with authority to establish reform schools for delinquent Negro minors of both sexes in Virginia.
The first school of the association is the Virginia Manual Labor School, Hanover, Va., with 1,800 acres of land, 800 of which is under cultivation. The good people of Mr. Smyth's native city, Richmond, and friends in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York have made possible the purchase of the plantation known as Broad Neck, Hanover.
The principal benefactor was Mr. Collis P. Huntington of New York, who was pleased to make a contribution of $12,000 toward this worthy and necessary charity.
We have need to felicitate ourselves as members of a great though oppressed race, that an Armstrong, the founder and promoter of this institution of practical learning, was given to us and to the nation, and that through his influence and example, Tuskegee and other similar institutions have grown into vigorous youth. Two of these seats of industrial education, through a system of race conferences, have given to us who are deprived of a popular press an opportunity to be heard in our own behalf upon subjects, the public discussion of which, through literary mediums, has been monopolized by members of the other race. Our moral delinquencies have been discussed recently at the North and in the South—at times in a sensible and at other times in a nonsensical way; arguments have been made to the world by orators and writers seemingly more interested and concerned in making the worse appear the better reason than in philosophically looking into facts or honestly seeking to discover truth. From much that has been said, it would appear to one unacquainted with the American branch of the Negro race that within thirty-five years it has become criminal, although for nearly three centuries it has been a stranger to wrongdoing, law abiding and not law breaking. Such radical change, if change there has been, in individuals or classes of people, is rare, abnormal, and must be accounted for in some other way than by the wholesale charge of inherited savagery and innate moral obliquity. Crime from an hereditary standpoint may not justly be chargeable to one race of men to the exclusion of another, to the black race more than to the white, to the yellow races more than to the white or black.
The first crime was in the first family. The sacred writings teach that God gave, mid the thunderings of the heavens, the smoking of the mountain, and the consternation of the people, the criminal code in the ten commandments, which may be found in the traditions of heathen peoples, somewhat modified, just as in the written laws of all Christian nations. Had crime not existed prior to this heavenly edict, there would have been little apparent reason for this ancient pronouncement through a Hebrew medium. The conclusion seems then to be irresistible—that mankind coveted, stole, lied, were disobedient to parents, were adulterers and murderers from the earliest times, and only ceased to be so, measurably, in proportion as the sanctions of law were strong or weak. The Christian religion and civilizations other than Christian, with their religions, growth, and development under the influence of good, wise, and godly men, have contributed more than all else, to the decrease of crime and among all classes and conditions of men. "Thou shalt not" stays the course of crime.
The history of the black or African race, since the decadence and destruction of the cities of North Africa and the Nile Delta and the loss of prestige of the peoples who held sway in them, has been shrouded and obscured, and hence gratuitous arguments are made in regard to the savagery and bestiality (which it is claimed we inherit) of the progenitors of Negro Americans that are wholly unsupported by reliable data. The acts of the Puritan fathers of New England and of the cavaliers and Huguenots of the South, toward Indian and Negro heathen in the New World—men of whom it has been facetiously said that, "they fell first upon their knees and then upon the aborigines,"—these acts, together with the horrors of the middle passage and the unrequited toil of centuries, of which the blacks were victims, must be taken into account in considering the matter of crime in connection with this race, and go far to explain a condition which otherwise would be abnormal. The baleful influences of a dead and buried past account for crime among the old and the young Negro Americans, the responsibility for which rests upon the United States rather than the Southern states, upon this nation rather than any part of it.
In Virginia and Maryland there were indentured white slaves. When the system was abolished the same conditions plagued the colonists that annoy us now. Mr. Doyle, in his work entitled English Colonies in America, says, "The liberated servant (white) became an idler, socially corrupt and often politically dangerous." The whites became an irresponsible, shiftless, and criminal class, just as the Negroes have become to an alarming extent since freedom. There are to-day in certain sections of the South whole neighborhoods of whites almost without moral sense and near to barbarism. It will not be pretended, however, that there has not been and is not now, criminality among the Negro race just as there was during the years of its oppression; but a condition upheld and approved by the constitution, laws, and public sentiment of the nation cannot do other than plead guilty to having contributed to this result which has so greatly affected the estimation in which good men, equally with bad men, the innocent as well as the guilty of our race, are held by the whites. I am not clanking my chains as a Negro in remembering the past, and only do so in accounting for what the unreasoning and unsympathetic are disposed to regard as abnormal criminality in the American Negro.
Negro parents under the old regime were parents physically only. The government of their children was in the hands of others. Obedience to parents enjoined by the decalogue was not rendered by children, was not encouraged by others, nor could it have been enforced by parental authority. Filial affection in the slave-child existed to an appreciable degree notwithstanding these disadvantages. Parents and children came into the possession of freedom not sufficiently understanding nor appreciating the relation of each to the other. While I am clearly of opinion that it may not be successfully shown that Negro children are more criminal in inclination than other children, their home-training, or, rather, their lack of home-training, is greatly responsible for what of criminality there is among them. Negro parents, as a rule, seem disposed not only to give larger liberty to their children than they ought, but they give absolute license in too many instances. In illustration of this fact, in cities particularly, children are allowed to go from their homes in the night-time and wander the streets amid their baleful associations until nine, ten, eleven o'clock and longer. And when they return home they do so unattended. The accounts given by them as to where they have been cannot be relied upon. Further, children are not required to be respectful to their elders of either sex. This condition does not obtain alone among children of ignorant and poor parentage, but absence of good manners is also often found among children and youths who have had fair common and high school advantages. This license has led directly and unerringly to the formation and cultivation of habits more likely to debase than elevate them. To venture criticism of parental laches or of the conduct of the young, to admonish or advise different manners and conduct from that which the inclination of the young seems to suggest, would be to run the risk of being regarded as officious or meddling, and thereby of inviting insult. Parents whose children are known to be of the class pictured are themselves timid and indisposed to insist upon obedience from them, for fear of offending them and causing them to go away from home. The inexperience and ignorance of childhood and youth, coupled with the grant of too great liberty, are responsible for the too general tendency to wrong doing.
Negro parents who were themselves victims of oppression as well as those who were born under the benign influences of freedom, have crude and unwise notions about the duty of requiring their children to do some kind of work. Too many Negro children are guarded from soiling their hands and developing their muscles with necessary and useful toil. The struggling, industrious widow as well as the well-conditioned housewife whose husband has a good home and makes a good living, seeks to relieve her children of work. This encouragement of laziness can have but one outcome—the living in the sweat of others' faces than their own. Under conditions such as these, parents possessed of radically ignorant and wrong notions about rearing their children, unconsciously cultivate tendencies which lead to criminality. To the extent that a child's mind becomes familiar with higher conditions and mind-work, to that degree does physical exertion in the way of mere muscle-work become distasteful, and as a result the child becomes less efficient as a mere bread-winner by the sweat of his brow. Education is chargeable with producing a condition for which parents and not school teachers are responsible. Complete and entire reform in our system of home-training of our boys and girls will go far to relieve youthful Negroes of just censure for ill-breeding. How far all these reflections are applicable to the rearing and training of white children is for white parents to consider.
Mr. Philip Alexander Bruce, in a recent publication in the Contemporary Review,[6] accounts for moral delinquencies in the young of the race by the very natural and normal disposition of Negroes, where numerically strong, to segregate themselves from the whites. In London one finds a French settlement. In nearly every large city in the United States, Germans live together. Italians, Swedes, and Norwegians settle among their congeners. It is not contended that they are less law-abiding and loyal citizens as a consequence of their nearness of living and association. Mr. Bruce enlarges upon the thought thus: "The worst impression made by that society (a Negro community) is seen in the temper of the children. Whatever may be said in condemnation of the old system, it at least not only compelled the parents to restrain, and if needful to punish their offspring for bad conduct, but it also created an atmosphere of order and sobriety in the plantations which had a more or less beneficial influence on the character of the young. As the case now stands the only discipline to which the little Negro is subject is that exercised by parents too untrained themselves to understand how to govern him properly, and in most instances too ignorant to have any just idea as to the difference between right and wrong in the ordinary affairs of life. What is the result? The child grows up without any lessons in self-control and self-improvement, or any intelligent appreciation of the cardinal principles of morality. If the child is a boy, he leaves his parents almost as soon as he can earn his own support and only too often leads for years the life of a vagabond. All the worst impulses of his nature are further encouraged by this wandering and irresponsible existence. Is it strange that, under the operation of this influence alone, the number of black criminals in the Southern states is increased to an alarming degree?"
What good effect could result from restraint exercised or punishment inflicted by parents whose judgment and will were dormant? It is only when a parent governs and controls, ignorant though he may be, that the best results can be expected to follow. Judgment, affection, and concern for the child must enter into the method of his training if the rearing is to be beneficial and helpful.
To my mind but one merit can be claimed for the old system of enslavement—a discipline as to labor which produced the best results to the master class and made the slave orderly and systematic in the performance of his tasks. Though smarting, even now, under the resultant influences of a destroyed system, we can afford to do justice to the good men and women of the white race who constituted a part of the system. Slavery as it has been known in the outside world, is not slavery as it was in the genteel and pious homes and households of the South. Here the "people" were treated almost as members of the family, "uncles" and "aunts" and "mammies" and playmates. They were necessary supplements, sharers of all great occasions of joy or sorrow, of feasts and sufferings. And the tenderest and most watchful care was bestowed on them. Consideration for the servants was the test of the "quality." Mutual influences went to make as pure, high and beautiful a civilization as the system was capable of. And no philanthropist on earth has ever had a deeper horror for the evils that have been represented as slavery in the South than many of the "quality." Nor anywhere was the wise abolition of slavery more earnestly studied and desired than by the good people of the Southern states.
In the discussion of the criminality of the Negro, too much importance is attached to mere statistics. In any discussion of an ethical character mere statistics may not be relied upon. I shall present a few which are entirely authentic but which prove little, in my opinion, prejudicial to the Negroes of to-day as compared with the Negroes of the past, and could not unless figures could be adduced, alike authentic, showing the criminality of the Negroes as bondmen; neither can comparison between the criminality of the blacks and whites be cited to the Negroes' prejudice in the light of the disparity between the races in every essential element of race growth. The foregoing facts greatly detract from any comparative criminal exhibit in which Negroes of to-day are made to figure.
The last United States census furnishes some figures which seem to be more in the Negro's favor than against him. Persons of all races in the penitentiaries of the United States in 1890 were 45,233, of which number 14,687 were colored. Prisoners in county jails, 19,538, of which number 5,577 were colored. Inmates in juvenile reformatories, 14,846, of which 1,943 were colored. Of a total of 73,045 almshouse paupers, only 6,467 were Negroes. Of murderers there were 2,739 Negroes out of a total of 4,425. In 1850 there was one criminal to 3,500 of population; in 1890 one criminal to 645 of population; whites, one to every 1,000, and blacks, one to every 284. Take the ignorance of the Negro as to secular matters, the moral torpor in which he necessarily exists, his poverty, the presumption of guilt when charged with crime, his inability to defend himself, his being forced to plead to an information or indictment in forma pauperis; could crime charged and established against him be less than it is? Ought not the record to be worse rather than better? Of the 14,846 juvenile delinquents given an opportunity to re-enter society and walk in the straight path through reformatories, only 1,943 were Negroes. With the doors of almshouses swung wide to 73,046 paupers, racial pride prevented poor Negroes entering these homes of mercy, and only 6,467 allowed themselves to become objects of public charity. With a larger percentage of unskilled than skilled Negro laborers in 1890, only 2,253 of 6,546 convicts whose employments were known were in the penitentiaries of the land. Of 45,233 criminals but 253 were persons who had enjoyed higher educational advantages, and not a single educated Negro figures in the enumeration.
What are the remedies for existing criminality, and how may its increase be checked? Popular secular education for whites and blacks, compulsory, if possible, erected on a broad basis of Christianity, is the only safe, enduring, moral, and economic remedy. Mere secular education may not be relied upon to restrain crime, and we must honestly own that our only hope is in the diffusion of true religion. The church should take the initiative in this matter, the state, aye, the nation should come to the assistance of the church, and of those states in which the burden is too great for them to bear it successfully. If the Holy Scriptures be not the basis of all worthy knowledge our civilization is a fraud. Individual philanthropy has done much towards aiding in the matter of education, particularly so-called higher education. May not individual wealth help to minimize ignorance, dissipate poverty, help the feeble in mind and morals of the race to robust Christian manhood? "For many men of great possessions, the voice of conscience is effective, as the contemplated grasp of the tax-gatherer could never be. Around them they see ignorance to be banished, talent missing its career, misery appealing for relief. They know that the forces of the times have brought them their large fortunes, only through co-operation and the protection of the whole community; so with justice in their hearts, as well as generosity, they found the benefactions which are doing so much to foster the best impulses of American life; and in this response to public duty they find conferred upon riches a new power and fascination."
The reform schools for juveniles throughout the North and West, and those in Virginia, represent Christian agencies for the reduction and destruction of crime in its germinal state, and are a display of wise and humane statesmanship on the part of legislators. The white people of Virginia, ever responsive to appeals in behalf of human need, made possible the Virginia Manual Labor School at Broad Neck Farm, Hanover, Virginia. It was this sentiment in behalf of moral reform among Negro children and youths that brought to the aid of this institution the interested concern of a man of wealth and national influence, whose sympathy for the poor and ignorant of his countrymen, white and black, is as broad and far-reaching as ignorance and human suffering.[7] This reformatory, opened September 12, 1899, and aided by the state February 5, 1900, began with a nucleus of five Negro boys, and has now under its guardianship fifty-two children. It has thus early demonstrated conclusively that saving and redemptive elements of character exist in Negro children no less than in those of other races; also that for tractableness and responsiveness to kindly influences, delinquent Negro children show themselves of legitimate kinship to that race among whom, as the classic writer tells us, "the gods delighted to disport themselves—the gentle Ethiopians."
I know how disposed as a race we are to wilt, to lose heart, and complain, in the glare of new exhibitions of prejudice, such as harass us in our native Virginia, and our brethren in other parts of the country. To such, I put the question: "By courage can we not lessen misfortune? Yes! A thousand times yes! Courage turns ignoble agony into beautiful martyrdom. Its alchemy is universal. Is the stake a misfortune to the martyr? It is his dearest fortune. Is oppression, prejudice, or ignorance, a misfortune to the reformer? It is the very condition of his reform. Is misunderstanding, injustice, suspicion, or contempt a misfortune to the earnest man or woman anywhere who is trying to guide his life by a more celestial trigonometry than petty minds can conceive? In one sense these things are to be deplored but in another and deeper sense nothing is to be dreaded that can be faced and known by an unfrighted human spirit. A misfortune bravely met is a fortune, and the world is full of people happy because bravely unhappy."