Page images
PDF
EPUB

before this country wakes up to the situation that great inheritance may have passed away from you in the South, and that is what you must work to prevent.

The Present Ministry, if they could only see it, have an enormous chance before them. I know that I myself, owing to various reasons, am not particularly pleasing to the Bond party, but I see no reason why others should not take up my work, and that is the union of South Africa. I do not care a jot who wears the peacock's feathers so long as the work is done. Let us get to the practical result-union. Natal is ready, Rhodesia is ready, and even the Republics could federate, as Professor Bryce has pointed out, without loss of dignity so far as the flag is concerned. That is the position I wish to be able to carry out, and that is what must

come.

WASHINGTON

OOKER TALIAFERRO WASHINGTON, a distinguished American educator, was born a slave at Hale's Ford, Virginia, in 1856. After the close of the Civil War he removed with his parents to Maldon, West Virginia, where he was able to obtain a little schooling while working for his own living. He subsequently went to Hampton Institute, where he worked his way through the course in three years and spent two years more in the Institute as a teacher. In 1881 he became the head of an institution at Tuskeegee, Alabama, since incorporated as the Tuskeegee Normal and Industrial Institute, of which he is still (1901) the president. From small beginnings the school has grown to large proportions through his efforts in great measure, he having delivered many addresses in the northern States setting forth the needs of this institution for the training of the negro. He has also made a number of notable public speeches and contributed to the periodicals on educational themes. In June, 1896, Harvard University conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. This was the first time in the history of America that such a distinction was ever given to a colored man. Mr. Washington's bock, "The Future of the American Negro," appeared in 1899, and his Autobiography in 1901; this latter has been translated into several foreign languages.

THE RACE PROBLEM

[Address delivered at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition, at Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895.]

MR

R. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND CITIZENS,One third of the population of the South is of the negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

N-Orations. Vol. 25

(10853)

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the State legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel

was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!"

The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal," Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down your

bucket where you are." for water was answered: you are."

And a third and fourth signal

"Cast down your bucket where

The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are "-cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business,

pure and simple, it is in the South that the negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance.

Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down your bucket where you are."

Cast it down among the eight million negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South.

Casting down you bucket among my people, helping and

encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories.

While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen.

As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed-" blessing him that gives and him that takes."

There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:

"The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;

And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast."

« PreviousContinue »