He said that there is 85 per cent. of illiteracy among the Spaniards, while there is only 54 per cent. of illiteracy among the negroes; therefore the negroes are clearly more advanced in civilization than the Spaniards.
Poor old Spain!
The learned Doctor further demonstrated that there is 65 per cent. of illiteracy among the Italians; therefore the negroes are far ahead of Italy. Russian illiteracy being 70 per cent. the black man takes precedence of the land of Peter the Great, Skobelef, Gorky, Turgenef and Tolstoy. South America, having an illiteracy of 80 per cent., falls far to the rear of the negro—and Castro must add this additional kick to the many he has already received from North America.
Proud of his statistics, Doctor Booker Washington exclaims: “The negro race has developed more rapidly in the thirty years of its freedom than the Latin race has in one thousand years of freedom.”
That’s a bold statement, Doctor.
To say nothing of its accuracy, may it not have been an unwise thing for you to claim that the black man has risen during thirty years more rapidly in the scale of civilization than the whites have risen in a thousand?
True, you confine yourself to the Italians, the Spaniards, the Russians and the South Americans, but when you say the darkest of all the colored races is superior to that great section of the white race named by you, does it not occur to you that you may create a feeling of resentment among all the whites?
You have thousands of true friends throughout the entire country—white men who have most generously helped you in your work, helped you with money, with moral support and with a certain amount of social recognition. Your admirers refer to you as a great man. They allude to your work as a great work. The South helps you with appropriations, just as the North helps you with donations. We want to see you succeed in building up your race.
But have you a single white friend who will indorse your statement that the black race is so superior to the whites that it can do in one generation what it required the whites a thousand years to do?
Do you imagine that your friends, President Roosevelt, Mr. Carnegie, Dr. Hart, Bishop Potter, and others, will like you better when they hear you putting forth a claim to race superiority? Doctor, you have overshot the mark.