Others are: Edward C. Berry of Athens, Ohio, who owns and operates a family hotel in which he does a business of $25,000 to $35,000 a year; J. Walter Hodge of Indianapolis, Ind., who, inspired by the recitals at the Business League meetings, gave up his job as a Pullman car porter, after he had saved some money, and is now the owner of a large real estate business; Thomas H. Hayes who, starting as a day laborer for the Southern Railway, now controls probably the largest undertaking establishment in Memphis, Tenn.
Perhaps the most remarkable story of business success ever told before a meeting of the league was that of J. H. Blodgett of Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Blodgett told his story at the sessions of the league held in Philadelphia in 1913 at the Academy of Music. By request he in part repeated it at the meeting held in the Wanamaker Store the following day. Mr. Blodgett is an ex-slave. He has had no education whatever except what he has picked up in his long and successful struggle with life's sternest realities. We will give his story in his own language. Bear in mind that this is the language, as taken down verbatim by a stenographer at the time, of a totally unschooled ex-slave. He said: "Now I want to say I went to Jacksonville nineteen years ago with the magnificent sum of a dollar and ten cents in my pocket. (Laughter.) I also had an extra suit of underclothing in a paper bag; that was all the baggage I had as a boarder. (Laughter.) I was also arrested as a tramp for having on a straw hat in the winter time. (Hearty laughter.) And I say all this especially to you young men who are present here to-night, for so many of our young men seem to think that they can't start or succeed in business unless somebody shoves them off the bank into the water of opportunity and makes them swim for themselves; I simply want to say this to you young men, I started with $1.10 and one extra suit of underclothing in a paper bag—(laughter)—and to-day I pay more taxes than any Negro in Florida. (Prolonged applause.) I have had all sorts of struggles and difficulties to contend with, but you can't get away from it—if you get anything in this United States of America now, you have got to work for it. (Hearty applause.) The white people all over this country have 'weaned the Negro.' (Laughter and applause.) Dr. Washington has been going all over this country boasting about what you could do and what our race has done, and the white man is just quietly and gently and in every way telling us: 'Go thou and do what Dr. Washington said you could do.' (Prolonged laughter and applause.)
"When I began, I commenced working for a railroad company; I had a splendid job—washing cars for a dollar and five cents a day; I got $8.40 from the railroad every eight days. After working for a month and a half I saved enough money to send back and bring my wife from Charleston, South Carolina, to Jacksonville. Both of us went to work; we opened a little boarding-house; she ran that, and when my $1.05 a day enabled me to save as much as one hundred dollars, I quit that job and began to hustle for myself. I told the white man I was working under: 'You don't know that a Negro with $100 in cash is a rare thing among my people. I'm going to strike out and see what I can do by myself.' I made up my mind that if all of the big Negroes that I had heard of, read about, and talked with, if they could get honor and recognition by having brains, money, and ability, there was nothing the matter with me and my poor little wife to prevent us from getting up, too; so I went to work and determined to work day and night, if need be, to get some money, and other things necessary to succeed in life. I wanted money because I had seen and suffered so many humiliations put on the man who does not have money. (Applause.)
"The first time I saw this distinguished gentleman (pointing to Dr. Booker T. Washington) I was laying brick in Jacksonville, Fla., at $1.25 a day, and he drove by in company with Mr. James W. Johnson, Mr. J. Rosamond Johnson, and another gentleman. I had always loved the big men of my race; even as a little boy I delighted to hear of what they had achieved, and when I heard that the great Booker T. Washington was in town, I quit my job for that day, went to the place where he spoke, walked up close, and was hoping somebody would do me the honor of introducing me. But I found the gentlemen who had him in charge were introducing him to nobody but the big Negroes, and the big Negroes were shaking hands with him and completely monopolizing Booker T. Washington. (Prolonged laughter.) I did not like to be rude and therefore did not push through the crowd and shake hands with him anyway, as I felt like doing. I was nothing but a poor brick-layer, nobody would introduce me, but I heard his grand speech, was richly benefited and inspired by all he said, and when I went away I made a solemn vow to myself. I said: 'If God be with me, I mean to so work and conduct myself so that some day I shall deserve to shake hands with Booker T. Washington.' (Hearty applause.) Now let me tell you the sequel of the story. Away down in Florida, in my humble home in Jacksonville, there is a room named 'Booker T. Washington.' (Applause.) I have set apart and dedicated a portion of my home in honor of this distinguished gentleman and leader of our race. (Applause.) He is the first human being on earth I have ever permitted to sleep in it, and his good wife is the first woman and second person I have ever permitted to sleep in that room. (Prolonged laughter and applause.) We love him in the South, both Negro and white man! (Hearty applause.) Booker T. Washington's name is a monument of strength because he is teaching the Negro to use his hands and head in order to be useful in the community and to achieve success. (Applause.)
"I have been sick this summer and just got back from Saratoga—(prolonged applause)—of course all men who get rich go to Saratoga. (Laughter and applause.) While there I met some folks, and in the course of my remarks I had occasion to remind them that Dr. Booker T. Washington, while an earnest advocate of industrial training, is not an enemy or opposed to higher education. There was a man from the British West Indies who began to speak on the subject of the Negro; he began to orate around, began to tell how the Negro must expect to rise in the world; oh! he made a magnificent speech going to show that there was nothing in the world like higher education for the Negro; he even said that the Negro race would never amount to anything and get its rights until every one of us had secured a college education. (Laughter.) Why, you ought to have been there and heard him orate; he took us all through Greek, Roman, ancient, and medieval history; across the Alps and all around the Egyptian pyramids—(hearty laughter)—and even cited the Druids of old to testify to the grandeur and necessity of higher education for the Negro. After he got through orating I said to him: 'Brother, I was down to a meeting of Negroes in the State of Florida—at the State Business League, and I saw sitting on one bench eleven (11) Negro men whose combined wealth would amount to more than one million dollars, and not one of them ever saw the inside of a college.' (Prolonged applause, mingled with laughter.) And I said to him further than that: 'If any of you gentlemen who claim to be educated in the British West Indies, and all you gentlemen who hail from Beloit College (wherever it is)—if you can fool any one of those eleven Negroes out of one dime, I will give you ten dollars!' (Laughter and applause.) Yes, sir, without much education these men own their own homes and dozens of homes in which other people live; they are self-sustaining and independent, and can write their names to checks away up in the thousands of dollars; they live in neat, comfortable, well-appointed homes and enjoy the respect and esteem of their neighbors—black as well as white. 'Now, sir,' I turned to him and asked him, 'will you kindly tell me what is your occupation in life and what you have been able to accomplish with all this higher education you have been talking about?' I found out that he was a waiter in the United States Hotel. (Laughter.) I said to him further: 'My brother, I don't claim to be an educated man, but live in a villa of my own; I own considerable real estate, and my dear little wife rides around in our own $5,500 Packard automobile, all paid for.' (Prolonged applause and laughter.)
"I am somewhat of a carpenter and builder; I went to work, bought some ground while it was cheap and at a time when everything in Jacksonville was at low tide; there were plenty of sick Yankees whose investments had depreciated and I invested what money I had in some land. I would build a house, then sell it; buy more land, build another house and sell that; after a while I was able to build three houses and sell two, build two and sell one and so on—(applause)—until pretty soon I found myself in the real estate business, buying land and building and selling houses. In this way I have gone on building my own houses until now I have plenty to support myself and that dear little red-headed woman who has a seat somewhere in this beautiful audience. (Laughter and applause.) She doesn't have to keep a boarding-house any more; she is on the retired list. (Laughter and applause.) We have made enough to keep from doing that."
At this point Dr. Washington asked, "How many houses do you own?"
Mr. Blodgett replied: "I have been selling houses pretty rapidly during the last few years, but I have built—and right here I want to say that while my subject is 'Building and Contracting' I have never built a house for anybody but myself. I build my own property. I have built since the fire we had in Jacksonville in 1902 two hundred and eight houses of my own. (Prolonged applause.) I have sold a good many of them. When I realized that I was beginning to get old and not in such good physical condition as I used to be, I was afraid I might get afflicted with tuberculosis, or appendicitis, or some of these other high-sounding diseases the doctors now talk about—(laughter)—and so I thought it best to convert some of my estate into another form that could be more easily handled by my better half when I had gone to inhabit my mansion in the skies. (Laughter.) So I have begun to sell off some of my property and get out of debt. I now have one hundred and twenty-one houses, the rents from which amount to a little over twenty-five hundred dollars a month. (Prolonged applause.) I have invested my money in recent years in what I call 'grip-sack' securities, so that if there should be any little unpleasantness among the races, I can go to my safe and grab that grip-sack. (Prolonged laughter and applause.) You see if there should ever be any friction or trouble, I can grab my grip-sack, jump into a powerful machine, and come up here around Philadelphia, 'The City of Brotherly Love' or over here in Canada, and I can sit down at my leisure and read in the papers what they are doing down there. (Prolonged laughter.)
"Dr. Washington has been in my home in Jacksonville; I have now had the honor of not only shaking hands with him, but of having him as my special guest. I know I am going to make one break here now, I'm going to say something that my little modest wife may not like me to say, but I hope she will excuse just this one time—(laughter)—for everybody knows that I ain't very bright anyhow—not really responsible. (Prolonged laughter.) I want to say this, not in a boasting way—I live in the best home of any Negro in this country I have so far seen. (Hearty applause.) I live in a home—we call it 'Blodgett Villa'; we have flowers and lawns and vines and shrubbery, a nice greenhouse and all those things that go to make up for higher civilization. I surrounded myself with all these things to show that the Negro has the same taste, the same yearning for higher civilization that the white man has whenever he has the money to afford it. (Applause.) You know they have been saying all these years that the Negro is coarse and vicious, that he is kin to the monkey—(laughter)—and that we do not appreciate those things that make for higher civilization such as flowers, hothouses, neatly kept houses and lawns, automobiles, and such things, so I went and got them. (Applause.) When you step inside of Mrs. Blodgett's home there you will find art and music and literature, and if you can find anything in there that does not tend toward the higher civilization, you have my promise and consent to throw it outdoors. (Laughter and applause.)...
"I remember when I was a drayman on the streets of Jacksonville; I was a great big man, even heavier than I am now: I wore a pair of magnificent feet appropriate to my size, and when I drove along everybody whistled and called me 'Old Big One.' Since that time I have graduated from a drayman to what the program calls me: a 'Builder and Contractor,' and when they see me now riding through the streets of Jacksonville in my $5,500 Packard automobile, if one of those Negroes should call me 'Old Big One,' I would put him in jail. (Laughter and applause.) I am interested in business with white men, and I tell you when a Negro gets to the point where he makes cash deposits in a white man's bank—say $5,000 this week, $2,000 next week, and so on, they will begin to discover you, honor and respect you. If you deposit $2,000 this week, the bank president will know about it, and when it gets to the place that you have got in the bank $25,000, why this man even (pointing to an ebony black man in the audience) will have become a bright mulatto!"