Mr. Washington feeding his chickens with green stuffs raised in his own garden.
Mr. Washington in his onion patch.
Mr. Washington sorting in his lettuce bed.
Every morning before breakfast when at home Mr. Washington would visit his chickens, pigs, and cows. He said of finding the newly laid eggs: "I like to find the new eggs each morning myself, and am selfish enough to permit no one else to do this in my place. As with growing plants, there is a sense of freshness and newness and restfulness in connection with the finding and handling of newly laid eggs that is delightful to me. Both the realization and the anticipation are most pleasing. I begin the day by seeing how many eggs I can find or how many little chicks there are that are just beginning to creep through the shells. I am deeply interested in the different kinds of fowls, and always grow a number of different breeds at my own home."
But none of the animals interested him and aroused his enthusiasm as did the pigs. He always kept on his own place some choice specimens of Berkshires and Poland Chinas at whose shrine he worshipped each morning. Also he always insisted that the swine herd of the Institute be kept recruited up to full strength and in fact considerably beyond full strength in the opinion of the Agricultural Director who in vain protested that it was not profitable to keep so large a herd. It would be interesting to know whether the great economic importance of the pig to his race was at the bottom of Booker Washington's fondness for the animal.
After breakfast he mounted his horse and made a round of the Institute farms, truck gardens, dormitories, and shops before going to his office and attacking his huge correspondence. This correspondence, both in its dimensions and catholicity, was typical of the man. His daily incoming mail amounted to between 125 and 150 letters. The outgoing ran to between 500 and 1,000 letters daily—in large part, of course, "campaign letters,"—as he called them, letters seeking to interest new friends in the work of the Institute, and others keeping in touch with friends already interested, etc. His advice, opinion, or comments were sought on every conceivable subject both by serious and sensible men and women and by cranks of both races. Hundreds of the humbler people of his own race were constantly applying to him for information and advice as to whether it would be profitable to start this or that business venture, or whether or not it would be possible to establish a school in this or that community, and how they should set about it.
Booker Washington's sense of justice was unquenchable. While at Coden-on-the-Bay, near Mobile, Ala., in September, 1915, snatching a few days of rest and recreation as a palliative for the insidious disease which was so soon to end his life, he was distressed by a newspaper report of the killing of a number of Haitians by United States Marines. He read the report in a Mobile paper late one afternoon on his return from a fishing trip. He went to bed but could not sleep. The misfortunes of the turbulent little black republic seethed through his mind. Early in the morning, while his companions were still sleeping, he awakened the inevitable stenographer and dictated an article counselling patience in dealing with the unfortunate little country. This article, dictated by a dying man on the impulse of the moment, briefly recites the history of Haiti from the period over a hundred years ago when the people of the island wrested their liberty from France under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, up to the present time. He then says in part: