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.