Booker Washington sent a marked copy of the Century Magazine containing the article, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" to the head of every railroad in the South calling attention to the portion relating to unfair treatment in passenger service for his people. In response he received letters which in almost every case were friendly and in many cases showed an active desire to coöperate in the improvement of the conditions complained of. Mr. Washington published extracts from these letters in the Negro press prior to his Railroad Day proposal in order to show that the railroad officials were for the most part at least willing to give a respectful hearing to the complaints of their Negro patrons if properly approached. President Stevens of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company wrote that he had had one hundred copies of the article distributed among the officials and employees of his road. Mr. J.M. Parker, Receiver and General Manager of the Arkansas, Louisiana & Gulf Railway Company, wrote: "I have your favor with enclosure.... I shall take pleasure in reading this article, and from glancing through it I am inclined to think that the statement that the Negro is not getting a square deal in the way of transportation facilities is well founded." Mr. William J. Black, Passenger Traffic Manager of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway System, wrote in part: "You will, no doubt, be pleased to learn that the Santa Fé has already provided equipment for colored travel in conformity with the plan outlined in your article." From all or most of the Southern railways came letters of the general tenor of those quoted, and thus was the way prepared for the successful inauguration of the Railroad Days.
Constantly as he labored for the rights of his people he never sought to obtain for them any special privileges. Unlike most leaders of groups, classes, or races of people he never sought any exclusive or special advantages for his followers. He did not want the Negro to receive any favors by reason of his race any more than he wanted him to be discriminated against on that account. He wanted all human beings, Negroes among the rest, to receive their deserts as individuals regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, or any other consideration which has nothing to do with the individual's merits. One of his favorite figures was that "one cannot hold another in a ditch without himself staying in the ditch." There is not a single right for which he contended for his people which if won would not directly or indirectly benefit all other people. Were they in all the States admitted to the franchise on equal terms with white citizens what Mr. Washington termed the "encouragement of vice and ignorance among white citizens" would cease.
Were the lynching of Negroes stopped the lynching of white men would also cease. Both the innocent black man and the innocent white man would feel a greater sense of security while the guilty black man as well as the guilty white man would be less secure. Were the Negroes given their full share of public education the whites would gain not only more reliable and intelligent Negro labor, but would be largely freed so far as Negroes are concerned from the menace of the crimes of violence which are committed almost exclusively by ignorant persons. Finally, were Negro travellers given equal accommodations and treatment for equal rates on all the Southern railways the volume of Negro travel would more rapidly increase, thus increasing the prosperity of the railways and their shareholders which would in turn promote the prosperity of the entire South.
True to his policy of always placing the emphasis upon those things which are encouraging instead of upon those things which are discouraging, Mr. Washington concluded the already much-quoted article, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" with these observations: "Notwithstanding all the defects in our system of dealing with him, the Negro in this country owns more property, lives in better houses, is in a larger measure encouraged in business, wears better clothes, eats better food, has more schoolhouses and churches, and more teachers and ministers, than any similar group of Negroes anywhere in the world."
| CHAPTER | FIVE |
MEETING RACE PREJUDICE
ALTHOUGH intensely human and consumingly interested in humanity—both in the mass and as individuals, whether of his own race or any other—Booker Washington thought and acted to an uncommon degree on the impersonal plane. This characteristic was perhaps most strikingly illustrated in his attitude toward race prejudice. When, many years ago, he had charge of the Indian students at Hampton, and had occasion to travel with them, he found they were free to occupy in the hotels any rooms they could pay for, whereas he must either go without or take a room in the servants' quarters. He regarded these experiences as interesting illustrations of the illogical nature of race prejudice. The occupants of these hotels did not resent mingling with members of a backward race whose skin happened to be red, but they did object to mingling on the same terms with members of another backward race whose skin happened to be black. It apparently never entered his head to regard this discrimination with bitterness or as a personal rebuff. One could not, however, make a greater mistake than to assume from this impersonal attitude that he condoned race prejudice, or in any sense stood as an apologist for it. To dispel any such idea one has only to recall his speech at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago after the Spanish War, from which we have already quoted, and in which he characterized racial prejudice as "a cancer gnawing at the heart of the Republic, that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or within."
Very early in his career Washington worked out for himself a perfectly definite line of conduct in the matter of social mingling with white people. In the South he scrupulously observed the local customs and avoided offending the prejudices of the Southerners in so far as was possible without unduly handicapping his work. For instance, in his constant travelling throughout the South he not only violated their customs, but oftentimes their laws, in using sleeping cars, but this he was obliged to do because he could spare neither the time to travel by day nor the strength and energy to sit up all night. This particular Southern prejudice and the laws predicated upon it he was hence forced to violate, but he did so as a physical necessity to the accomplishment of his work and not in any sense as a defiance of custom or law. While in the South he observed Southern customs and bowed to Southern prejudices, but he declined to be bound by such customs, laws, and prejudices when in other parts of this country or the world. Except in the South he allowed himself whatever degree of social intercourse with the whites seemed best calculated to accomplish his immediate object and his ultimate aims. He never accepted purely social invitations from white persons. He always claimed that he could best satisfy his social desires among his own people. He believed that the question of so-called "social equality" between the races was too academic and meaningless to be worthy of serious discussion.