Part 6

Now it is reckoned that the negroes in the United States are paying about $700,000,000 property taxes and this is only one-fifth of all they have accumulated, for the negro is getting more like the white people every day and has learned from him that it is not a sign of loyalty and patriotism to publish his property at its full taxable value.

In education and morals the progress is still greater. As you all know, at the close of the war the whole race was practically illiterate. It was a rare thing, indeed, to find a man of the race who even knew his letters. In 1880 the illiteracy had fallen to 70 per cent. and rapid strides along that line have been made ever since.

To-day there are 37,000 negro teachers in America, of which number 23,000 are regular graduates of high and normal schools and colleges, 23 are college presidents, 169 are principals of seminaries and many are principals of higher institutions. At present there are 369 negro men and women taking courses in the universities of Europe. The negro ministry, together with these teachers have been prepared for their work by our schools and are the greatest factors the North has produced for the uplift of the colored man.

To-day there are those who wish to impede the negro's progress and lessen his educational advantages by industrializing such colleges as Howard University of Washington by placing on their Boards of Trustees and Managers the pronounced leaders of industrialism, giving as a reason that the better he is educated the worse he is; in other words, they say crime has increased among educated negroes. While stern facts show the opposite, the exact figures from the last census show that the greater proportion of the negro criminals are from the illiterate class. To-day the marriage vow, which by the teaching of the whites the negro held to be of so little importance before the war, is guarded more sacredly. The one room cabin, with its attendant evils, is passing away, and the negro woman, the mightiest moral factor in the life of her people, is beginning to be more careful in her deportment and is no longer the easy victim of the unlicensed passion of certain white men. This is a great gain and is a sign of real progress, for no race can rise higher than its women.

Let me plead with the friends of the negro. Please continue to give him higher ideals of a better life and stand by him in the struggle. He has done well with the opportunities given him and is doing something along all the walks of life to help himself, which is gratitude of the best sort. What he needs to-day is moral sympathy, which in his condition years ago he could hardly appreciate. The sympathy must be moral, not necessarily social. It must be the sympathy of a soul set on fire for righteousness and fair play in a republic like ours. A sympathy which will see to it that every man shall have a man's chance in all the affairs of this great nation which boasts of being the land of the free and the home of the brave for which the black man has suffered and done so much in every sense of the word.

Let this great Christian nation of eighty millions of people do justice to the Black Battalion, and seeing President Roosevelt acknowledges that he overstepped the bounds of his power in discharging and renouncing them before they had a fair trial, and now that they are vindicated before the world, to take back what he called them, Cutthroats, Brutal Murderers, Black Midnight Assassins, and Cowards. This and this alone will to some extent atone for the wrong he has done and help him to regain the respect and confidence of the world.

Now in order to change the condition of things, I would suggest: First, that an international, industrial association be formed to help Afro-Americans to engage in manufacturing and commercial pursuits, assist them to buy farms, erect factories, open shops in which their young men and women can enter and produce what the world requires every day for its inhabitants.

If they were able to-day to produce the articles in common use as boots, shoes, hats, cotton and woolen goods, made-up clothing and enterprises such as farming, mining, forging, carpentering, etc., negroes would find a ready sale in preference to all others, because of its being a race enterprise, doing what no other corporation does, giving employment to members of the race as tradesmen, and teaching others to become skilled workers. These enterprises should be started in the southern, northern and western states, where the negro population will warrant such an undertaking.

I would suggest "A School History of the Negro Race" to be placed in our public schools as a text book. The general tone of all the histories taught in our public schools points to the inferiority of the negro and the superiority of the white. It must be indeed a stimulus to any people to be able to refer to their ancestry as distinguished in deeds of valor, and particularly so to the colored people. With what eyes can the white child look upon the colored child and the colored child look upon himself, when they have completed the assigned course of United States history, and in it found not one word of credit, not one word of favorable comment for even one among the millions of his fore-parents who have lived through nearly three centuries of his country's history. In them he is credited with no heritage of valor, he is mentioned only as a slave, while true historical records prove him to have been among the bravest of soldiers and a faithful producer of the nation's wealth. Though then a slave to the government, the negro's was the first blood shed in its defence in those days when a foreign foe threatened its destruction. In each and all of the American wars the negro was faithful, yes, faithful in battle while members of his race were being lynched to death; faithful to a land not his own in points of rights and freedom, all and that after he had enriched with his own life's blood, shouldered his musket to defend, when all this was done, regarded him with renewed terms, Black, Negro.

Last but not least the negro needs a daily newspaper in every large city, managed and edited by members of the race.

Such papers are needed to deal with questions of state and reflect the thoughts of the social world, to enter the province of ethics and tread the domain of morals and to give their opinion on the varying phases of religious truths and pass judgment on matters of a political nature.

There are hidden wrongs perpetrated by the whites against the negro race that will never be brought to light until the race owns and controls its own daily newspapers which alone have the power to discover and enthrone truth, thus becoming a safe guide to all honest seekers of facts respecting the race whether from a moral, educational, political or religious field. To carry out the plans suggested, whether viewed from an intellectual, industrial, commercial, or editorial standpoint, the world must acknowledge that to-day the negro race has the men and women, who are true to their race and all that stands for negro progress.

HISTORICAL COMPOSITION

ANNIE L. BURTON

It is only 132 years ago to-day that the British troops, who had occupied Boston, made a riding school of the Old South church, and otherwise sacrilegiously disported themselves, were persuaded to get out under the compulsion of the batteries set up on Dorchester Heights. But when the last company embarked for Halifax, it carried the last British flag ever unfurled by a military organization on Massachusetts soil. That was the end of foreign domination in Massachusetts. And by a happy coincidence this is the legendary anniversary of the birth of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, whose memory has been an inspiration in the struggle of another race for Liberty.

A QUESTION OF ETHICS

New York, Dec. 17.--Andrew Carnegie declared yesterday in a speech on the negro question that the negroes are a blessing to America, and that their presence in the South makes this country impregnable and without need of a navy to defend itself.

"Suppose," said Mr. Carnegie, "Great Britain were to send her war fleets to America. It would amount to nothing. All that the President of the United States would have to do would be to say, 'Stop exporting cotton.' The war would be ended in four days, for England cannot do without our cotton.

"We don't need a navy; we are impregnable. Because we have 9,000,000 colored men anxious and willing to work we hold this strong position, and I am interested in the negro from this material standpoint, as well as from the more humane point of view."

MY FAVORITE POEMS

Verses

On a green slope, most fragrant with the Spring, One sweet, fair day I planted a red rose, That grew, beneath my tender nourishing, So tall, so riotous of bloom, that those Who passed the little valley where it grew Smiled at its beauty. All the air was sweet About it! Still I tended it, and knew That he would come, e'en as it grew complete.

And a day brought him! Up I led him, where In the warm sun my rose bloomed gloriously-- Smiling and saying, Lo, is it not fair? And all for thee--all thine! But he passed by Coldly, and answered, Rose? I see no rose,-- Leaving me standing in the barren vale Alone! alone! feeling the darkness close Deep o'er my heart, and all my being fail.

Then came one, gently, yet with eager tread, Begging one rose-bud--but my rose was dead.

Verses

The old, old Wind that whispers to old trees, Round the dark country when the sun has set, Goes murmuring still of unremembered seas And cities of the dead that men forget-- An old blind beggar-man, distained and gray, With ancient tales to tell, Mumbling of this and that upon his way, Strange song and muttered spell-- Neither to East or West, or South or North, His habitation lies, This roofless vagabond who wanders forth Aye under alien skies-- A gypsy of the air, he comes and goes Between the tall trees and the shadowed grass, And what he tells only the twilight knows ... The tall trees and the twilight hear him pass.

To him the Dead stretch forth their strengthless hands, He who campaigns in other climes than this, He who is free of the Unshapen Lands, The empty homes of Dis.

Verses