The Story of My Life and Work

by Booker T. Washington

Governor MacCorkle is a Southern man, a democrat, and the words which he spoke on this occasion received the most hearty cheering, and the convention on the next day passed a resolution without a dissenting vote recommending Governor MacCorkle’s suggestion in the settlement of the franchise question in the Southern States. The influence of this convention was most beneficial on the minds of the Southern white people, and gave encouragement to the Negro and to his friends throughout the country.

As I write this chapter a conference is being arranged for by the leading white citizens of Montgomery, Ala., which is to take place there during the month of May of each year. The object of this conference is to afford an opportunity for free and generous discussion of the race problem from every point of view. This movement, organized as it has been at the seat of the Confederate government, is most remarkable. It seems fitting that Montgomery should be the place where from year to year the best thought of the nation can assemble and assist in working out our national problem.

In closing this chapter I simply wish to add that I see no reason why the race should not feel encouraged. Every individual or race that has succeeded has done so only by paying the price which success demands. We cannot expect to get something for nothing. We shall continue to prosper in proportion as each individual proves his usefulness in the community, as each individual makes himself such a pillar in property and character that his community will feel that he cannot be spared.

CHAPTER XX.
THE MOVEMENT FOR A PERMANENT ENDOWMENT

Having, through nearly twenty years of incessant toil, succeeded in securing for Tuskegee the annual expenses for running the school and the money with which to purchase its present plant and equipment, valued at about $300,000, it has been for several years clearly seen by the trustees and myself that the thing needed to secure Tuskegee in the future was a permanent endowment fund. Not only is an endowment fund necessary as an assurance that the work of Tuskegee shall go on in the future, but it is necessary in order to relieve the Principal of the hard work of remaining in the North the greater portion of his time begging and speaking in order to raise the amount annually necessary to carry on the work. An endowment fund, the interest from which would be sufficient to meet, partially, the current expenses of the institution, would enable the Principal to devote his time to the executive work of the school, and this would obviously lead to greater perfection in the work there, both in the academic and industrial branches. Improved methods and facilities would redound to the benefit of each person educated at the institution. Various appeals, for the last year or two, have been made to the friends of Tuskegee for an endowment fund, and within the past year we have received by gifts and bequests $38,848.93 for this purpose. The United States Congress, in the winter of 1899, donated to Tuskegee 25,000 acres of land out of the public domain of Alabama, the proceeds of this grant to be added to the endowment fund.

No organized effort, however, was made to interest the friends of Tuskegee in the matter of raising a permanent endowment until the fall of 1899. It was then thought by the trustees and myself that the time was ripe for putting forth specific effort in this direction. Accordingly, it was decided to hold a public meeting in December, 1899, in the city of New York, at which the work of Tuskegee might be set forth by capable speakers, and the good the school was accomplishing, not only among the Negroes of the “black belt” but for the whole country, might be brought forcibly to the ears of the public. This meeting was held in the concert hall of Madison Square Garden, in the City of New York, on the evening of December 4, 1899. I take pleasure in giving a description of this meeting and in mentioning some of its immediate results, because it proved to be a magnificent tribute to the cause for which Tuskegee stands.

Ex-President Grover Cleveland had very kindly consented to be present and to preside at this meeting. The beautiful concert hall, which holds about 2,000 people, was packed that night so that it was difficult to procure even standing room. Many prominent people occupied seats upon the platform and in the boxes. Among the former I might mention Mr. Morris K. Jesup, Mr. Wm. E. Dodge, Mr. Alexander Orr, Mr. Robert C. Ogden, Mr. George Foster Peabody, Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, Rev. Dr. D. H. Greer, Mr. Charles E. Bigelow, Mr. Arthur Curtiss James, Mr. John A. Stewart, Mr. A. S. Frissell, Mr. George McAneny, Mr. Horace White, Hon. John M. Barrett, Mr. Walter H. Page, Hon. Seth Low, Hon. E. M. Shepard, Hon. Levi P. Morton, Dr. N. M. Butler, Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes, Mr. John E. Parsons, Hon. Carl Schurz, Rev. P. B. Tompkins, Mr. Samuel P. Avery, Mr. R. F. Cutting, Mr. J. S. Kennedy, Mr. C. P. Huntington, Mr. C. S. Smith, Mr. R. W. Gilder, Chancellor H. K. McCracken, Mr. William G. Low, Mr. W. P. Ware, Prof. Chas. Sprague Smith, Mr. Wm. Jay Schieffelin, Mr. Charles Lanier, Mr. J. Hampden Robb, Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, Mr. Horace E. Deming, Mr. Joseph Lorocque, Mr. J. Kennedy Todd, Mr. LeGrand B. Cannon, Mr. Charles S. Fairchild, Mr. August Belmont, Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, Mr. Gustav Schwab, Mr. James C. Carter, Mr. John L. Cadwallader, Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge, Rev. Dr. H. Heber Newton, Mr. Edward Hewitt, Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, Mr. Wheeler H. Peckham, Mr. Everett P. Wheeler, Mr. I. Fredk. Kernochan, Col. Wm. Jay, Mr. Chas. C. Beaman, Rev. Dr. Wm. R. Huntington, Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, Mr. Wm. Dean Howells, Gen. Wagner Swayne, Hon. W. L. Strong, Mr. Charles H. Marshall, Mr. Henry Holt, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Among those who occupied boxes were Mr. Robert C. Ogden, Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Dodge, Mrs. C. R. Lowell, Mr. Henry Villard, Mr. C. D. Smith, Miss Putnam, Mr. George Foster Peabody, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Mrs. Fredk. Billings, Miss Olivia Stokes, Mrs. C. A. Runkle, Miss Matilda W. Bruce, Miss Mary Parsons, Mr. W. H. Baldwin, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore K. Gibbs, Mrs. W. H. Harkness, Mrs. C. B. Hackley, Miss Bryce, Mrs. F. C. Barlow, Mr. and Mrs. A. T. White, Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Pratt, Mr. C. E. Bigelow.

The day before the meeting was to be held Mr. Cleveland found himself confined to his house by illness, and wrote me his inability to be present. The letter proved to be almost, if not quite, as great an encouragement to the object of the meeting as Mr. Cleveland’s presence would have been. The letter was read at the meeting, and I think the reader will not complain if I quote it here. It is as follows:

Princeton, N. J., Dec. 3, 1899.

“My Dear Mr. Washington: