 UP FROM SLAVERY, CHAPTER XIII. Soon after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number of students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that they did not have any money to pay even the small charges at the school, began applying for admission. This class was composed of both men and women. It was a great trial to refuse admission to these applicants, and in 1884 we established a night school to accommodate a few of them. The night school was organized on a plan similar to the one which I had helped to establish at Hampton. At first it was composed of about a dozen students. They were admitted to the night school only when they had no money with which to pay any part of their board in the regular day school. It was further required that they must work for ten hours during the day at some trade or industry, and study academic branches for two hours during the evening. This was the requirement for the first one or two years of their stay. They were to be paid something above the cost of their board, with the understanding that all of their earnings, except a very small part, were to be reserved in the school's treasury to be used for paying their board in the regular day school after they had entered that department. The night school, started in this manner, has grown, until there are at present 457 students enrolled in it alone. There could hardly be a more severe test of a student's worth than this branch of the institute's work. It is largely because it furnishes such a good opportunity to test the backbone of a student that I place such high value upon our night school. Anyone who is willing to work ten hours a day at the brickyard or in the laundry through one or two years, in order that he or she may have the privilege of studying academic branches for two hours in the evening, has enough bottom to warrant being further educated. After the student has left the night school, he enters the day school, where he takes academic branches four days in a week, and works at his trade two days. He usually works at his trade during the three summer months. As a rule, after a student has succeeded in going through the night school test, he finds a way to finish the regular course in industrial and academic training. No student, no matter how much money he may be able to command, is permitted to go through school without doing manual labor. In fact, the industrial work is now as popular as the academic branches. Some of the most successful men and women who have graduated from the institution obtained their start in the night school. While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of the work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree the religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training of the students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer meetings, Sunday school, Christian Endeavor Society, Young Men's Christian Association, and various missionary organizations testify to this. In 1885, Miss Olivia Davidson, to whom I have already referred, as being largely responsible for the success of the school during its early history, and I, were married. During our married life, she continued to divide her time and strength between our home and the work for the school. She not only continued to work in the school at Tuskegee, but also kept up her habit of going north to secure funds. In 1889, she died, after four years of happy married life and eight years of hard and happy work for the school. She literally wore herself out, in her never-ceasing efforts, in behalf of the work that she so dearly loved. During our married life, there were born to us two bright, beautiful boys, Booker Tolliver and Ernest Davidson. The older of these, Booker, has already mastered the brickmaker's trade at Tuskegee. I have often been asked how I began the practice of public speaking. In answer, I would say that I never planned to give any large part of my life to speaking in public. I have always had more of an ambition to do things, than to merely talk about doing them. It seems that when I went north with General Armstrong to speak at the series of public meetings to which I have referred, the President of the National Educational Association, the Honorable Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at one of those meetings and heard me speak. A few days afterward he sent me an invitation to deliver an address at the next meeting of the Educational Association. This meeting was to be held in Madison, Wisconsin. I accepted the invitation. This was, in a sense, the beginning of my public speaking career. On the evening that I spoke before the association, there must have been not far from four thousand persons present. Without my knowing it, there were a large number of people present from Alabama, and some from the town of Tuskegee. These white people afterward frankly told me that they went to this meeting expecting to hear the South roundly abused, but were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no word of abuse in my address. On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady, who was teacher in a college in Tuskegee, wrote back to the local paper that she was gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave the white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting the school started. This address at Madison was the first that I had delivered that in any large measure dealt with the general problem of the races. Those who heard it seemed to be pleased with what I said, and with the general position that I took. When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it my home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of the people of the town as any white man could do, and that I would, at the same time, deplore the wrongdoing of the people as much as any white man. I determined never to say anything in a public address in the north that I would not be willing to say in the South. I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed, than by calling attention alone to all the evil done. While pursuing this policy I have not failed at the proper time and in the proper manner to call attention in no uncertain terms to the wrongs which any part of the South has been guilty of, I have found that there is a large element in the South that is quick to respond to straightforward, honest criticism of any wrong policy. As a rule, the place to criticize the South, when criticism is necessary, is in the South, not in Boston. A Boston man who came to Alabama to criticize Boston would not affect so much good, I think, as one who had his word of criticism to say in Boston. In this address at Madison I took the ground that the policy to be pursued with references to the races was, by every honorable means, to bring them together, and to encourage the cultivation of friendly relations, instead of doing that which would embitter. I further contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should more and more consider the interests of the community in which he lived, rather than seek alone to please someone who lived a thousand miles away from him and from his interests. In this address I said that the whole future of the Negro rested largely upon the question as to whether he should make himself through his skill, intelligence, and character of such undeniable value to the community in which he lived that the community could not dispense with his presence. I said that any individual who learned to do something better than anybody else, learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner, had solved his problem, regardless of the color of his skin, and that in proportion, as the Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be respected. I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates had produced two hundred and sixty-six bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground, in a community where the average production had been only forty-nine bushels to the acre. He had been able to do this by reason of his knowledge of the chemistry of the soil, and by his knowledge of improved methods of agriculture. The white farmers in the neighborhood respected him, and came to him for ideas regarding the raising of sweet potatoes. These white farmers honored and respected him because he, by his skill and knowledge, had added something to the wealth and the comfort of the community in which he lived. I explained that my theory of education for the Negro would not, for example, confine him for all time to farm life, to the production of the best and the most sweet potatoes, but that, if he succeeded in this line of industry, he could lay the foundations upon which his children and grandchildren could grow to hire and more important things in life. Such, in brief, were some of the views I advocated in this first address, dealing with the broad question of the relations of the two races, and since that time I have not found any reason for changing my views on any important point. In my early life I used to cherish a feeling of ill-will toward anyone who spoke in bitter terms against the Negro, or who advocated measures that tended to oppress the black man, or take from him opportunities for growth in the most complete manner. Now, whenever I hear anyone advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who would do this. I know that the one who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity for the highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know that he is trying to stop the progress of the world, and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to stop the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body across the track, as to try to stop the growth of the world in the direction of giving mankind more intelligence, more culture, more skill, more liberty, and in the direction of extending more sympathy and more brotherly kindness. The address which I delivered at Madison before the National Educational Association gave me a rather wide introduction in the north, and soon after that opportunities began offering themselves for me to address audiences there. I was anxious, however, that the way might also be open for me to speak directly to a representative southern white audience. A partial opportunity of this kind, one that seemed to me might serve as an entering wedge, presented itself in 1893, when the international meeting of Christian workers was held at Atlanta, Georgia. When this invitation came to me, I had engagements in Boston that seemed to make it impossible for me to speak in Atlanta. Still, after looking over my lists of dates and places carefully, I found that I could take a train from Boston that would get me into Atlanta about thirty minutes before my address was to be delivered, and that I could remain in that city before taking another train for Boston. My invitation to speak in Atlanta stipulated that I was to confine my address to five minutes. The question, then, was whether or not I could put enough into a five-minute address to make it worthwhile for me to make such a trip. I knew that the audience would be largely composed of the most influential class of white men and women, and that it would be a rare opportunity for me to let them know what we were trying to do at Tuskegee, as well as to speak to them about the relations of the races. So I decided to make the trip. I spoke for five minutes to an audience of two thousand people, composed mostly of southern and northern whites. What I said seemed to be received with favor and enthusiasm. The Atlanta papers of the next day commented in friendly terms on my address, and a good deal was said about it in different parts of the country. I felt that I had, in some degree, accomplished my object, that of getting a hearing from the dominant class of the south. The demands made upon me for public addresses continued to increase, coming in about equal numbers from my own people and from northern whites. I gave as much time to these addresses as I could spare from the immediate work at Tuskegee. Most of the addresses in the north were made for the direct purpose of getting funds with which to support the school. Those delivered before the colored people had, for their main object, the impressing upon them, the importance of industrial and technical education, in addition to academic and religious training. I now come to that one of the incidents in my life which seems to have excited the greatest amount of interest, and which perhaps went further than anything else in giving me a reputation that, in a sense, might be called national. I refer to the address which I delivered at the opening of the Atlanta Cotton State's an international exposition at Atlanta, Georgia, September 18, 1895. So much has been said and written about this incident, and so many questions have been asked me concerning the address, that perhaps I may be excused for taking up the matter with some detail. The five-minute address in Atlanta, which I came from Boston to deliver, was possibly the prime cause for an opportunity being given me to make the second address there. In the spring of 1895, I received a telegram from prominent citizens in Atlanta asking me to accompany a committee from that city to Washington for the purpose of appearing before a committee of Congress in the interest of securing government help for the exposition. The committee was composed of about twenty-five of the most prominent and most influential white men of Georgia. All the members of this committee were white men, except Bishop Grant, Bishop Gaines, and myself. The mayor and several other city and state officials spoke before the committee. They were followed by the two colored bishops. My name was the last on the list of speakers. I had never before appeared before such a committee, nor had I ever delivered any address in the capital of the nation. I had many misgivings as to what I ought to say, and as to the impression that my address would make. While I cannot recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress upon the committee with all the earnestness and plainness of any language that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do something which would assist in ridding the south of the race-question and making friends between the two races, it should, in every proper way, encourage the material and intellectual growth of both races. I said that the Atlanta Exposition would present an opportunity for both races to show what advance they had made since freedom, and would, at the same time, afford encouragement to them to make still greater progress. I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no race without these elements could permanently succeed. I said that in granting the appropriation Congress could do something that would prove to be of real and lasting value to both races, and that it was the first great opportunity of the kind that had been presented since the close of the Civil War. I spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes, and was surprised at the close of my address to receive the hearty congratulations of the Georgia Committee and of the members of Congress who are present. The committee was unanimous in making a favorable report, and in a few days the bill passed Congress. With the passing of this bill, the success of the Atlanta Exposition was assured. Soon after this trip to Washington, the directors of the Exposition decided that it would be a fitting recognition of the colored race to erect a large and attractive building which should be devoted wholly to showing the progress of the Negro since freedom. It was further decided to have the building designed and erected wholly by Negro mechanics. This plan was carried out. In design, beauty, and general finish the Negro building was equal to the others on the grounds. After it was decided to have a separate Negro exhibit, the question arose as to who should take care of it. The officials of the Exposition were anxious that I should assume this responsibility, but I declined to do so on the plea that the work at Tuskegee at that time demanded my time and strength. Largely at my suggestion, Mr. I. Garland Penn of Lynchburg, Virginia, was selected to be at the head of the Negro department. I gave him all the aid that I could. The Negro exhibit, as a whole, was large and creditable. The two exhibits in this department which attracted the greatest amount of attention were those from the Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Institute. The people who seemed to be the most surprised, as well as pleased at what they saw in the Negro building, were the southern white people. As the day for the opening of the Exposition drew near, the Board of Directors began preparing the program for the opening exercises. In the discussion from day to day of the various features of this program, the question came up as to the advisability of putting a member of the Negro race on for one of the opening addresses, since the Negroes had been asked to take such a prominent part of the Exposition. It was argued further that such recognition would mark the good feeling prevailing between the two races. Of course, there were those who were opposed to any such recognition of the rights of the Negro, but the Board of Directors, composed of men who represented the best and most progressive element in the South, had their way, and voted to invite a black man to speak on the opening day. The next thing was to decide upon the person who was thus to represent the Negro race. After the question had been canvassed for several days, the directors voted unanimously to ask me to deliver one of the opening day addresses, and in a few days after that I received the official invitation. The receiving of this invitation brought to me a sense of responsibility that it would be hard for anyone not placed in my position to appreciate. What were my feelings when this invitation came to me? I remembered that I had been a slave, that my early years had been spent in the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that I had had little opportunity to prepare me for such a responsibility as this. It was only a few years before that time that any white man in the audience might have claimed me as a slave, and it was easily possible that some of my former owners might be present to hear me speak. I knew, too, that this was the first time in the entire history of the Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak from the same platform with white Southern men and women on any important national occasion. I was asked now to speak to an audience composed of the wealth and culture of the white South, the representatives of my former masters. I knew, too, that while a greater part of my audience would be composed of Southern people, yet there would be present a large number of Northern whites, as well as a great many men and women of my own race. I was determined to say nothing that I did not feel from the bottom of my heart to be true and right. When the invitation came to me, there was not one word of intimation as to what I should say or as to what I should admit. In this, I felt that the board of directors had paid a tribute to me. They knew that by one sentence I could have blasted in a large degree the success of the exposition. I was also painfully conscious of the fact that, while I must be true to my own race and my utterances, I had it in my power to make such an ill-timed address as would result in preventing any similar invitation being extended to a black man again for years to come. I was equally determined to be true to the North, as well as to the best element of the white South in what I had to say. The papers, North and South, had taken up the discussion of my coming speech, and as the time for it drew near, this discussion became more and more widespread. Not a few of the Southern white papers were unfriendly to the idea of my speaking. From my own race I received many suggestions as to what I ought to say. I prepared myself as best I could for the address, but as the 18th of September drew nearer, the heavier my heart became, and the more I feared that my effort would prove a failure and a disappointment. The invitation had come at a time when I was very busy with my schoolwork, as it was the beginning of our school year. After preparing my address, I went through it, as I usually do with those utterances which I consider particularly important, with Mrs. Washington, and she approved what I intended to say. On the 16th of September, the day before I was to start for Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers expressed a desire to hear my address, that I consented to read it to them in a body. When I had done so, and had heard their criticisms and comments, I felt somewhat relieved, since they seemed to think well of what I had to say. On the morning of September 17th, together with Mrs. Washington and my three children, I started for Atlanta. I felt a good deal, as I suppose a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In passing through the town of Tuskegee, I met a white farmer who lived some distance out in the country. In a jesting manner, this man said, Washington, you have spoken before the northern white people, the Negroes in the south, and to us country white people in the south, but Atlanta, tomorrow, you will have before you the northern whites, the southern whites, and the Negroes altogether. I am afraid that you have got yourself in a tight place. This farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his frank words did not add anything to my comfort. In the course of the journey from Tuskegee to Atlanta, both colored and white people came to the train to point me out and discussed with perfect freedom in my hearings what was going to take place the next day. We were met by a committee in Atlanta. Almost the first thing that I heard when I got off the train in that city was an expression something like this, from an old colored man nearby. That's demand of my race what's going to make a speech at the exposition tomorrow. I sure going to hear him. Atlanta was literally packed at the time with people from all parts of the country and with representatives of foreign governments as well as with military and civic organizations. The afternoon papers had forecasts of the next day's proceedings in flaring headlines. All this tended to add to my burden. I did not sleep much that night. The next morning, before day, I went carefully over what I planned to say. I also kneeled down and asked God's blessing upon my effort. Right here, perhaps, I ought to add that I make it a rule never to go before an audience on any occasion without asking the blessing of God upon what I want to say. I also make it a rule to make a special preparation for each separate address. No two audiences are exactly alike. It is my aim to reach and talk to the heart of each individual audience, taking it into my confidence very much as I would a person. When I am speaking to an audience, I care little for how what I am saying is going to sound in the newspapers, or to another audience, or to an individual. At the time, the audience before me absorbs all my sympathy, thought, and energy. Early in the morning, a committee called to escort me to my place in the procession, which was to march to the exposition grounds. In this procession were prominent colored citizens and carriages, as well as several Negro military organizations. I noted that the exposition officials seemed to go out of their way to see that all of the colored people in the procession were properly placed and properly treated. The procession was about three hours in reaching the exposition grounds, and during all of this time the sun was shining down upon us disagreeably hot. When we reached the grounds, the heat, together with my nervous anxiety, made me feel as if I were about ready to collapse, and to feel that my address was not going to be a success. When I entered the audience room I found it packed with humanity from bottom to top, and there were thousands outside who could not get in. The room was very large, and well suited to public speaking. When I entered the room there were vigorous cheers from the colored portion of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white people. I had been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while many white people were going to be present to hear me speak, simply out of curiosity, and that others who would be present would be in full sympathy with me, there was a still larger element of the audience which would consist of those who were going to be present for the purpose of hearing me make a fool of myself, or at least of hearing me say some foolish thing, so that they could say to the officials who had invited me to speak, I told you so. One of the trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, as well as my personal friend, Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr., was at the time general manager of the Southern Railroad, and happened to be in Atlanta on that day. He was so nervous about the kind of reception that I would have, and the effect that my speech would produce, that he could not persuade himself to go into the building, but walked back and forth in the grounds outside until the opening exercises were over. CHAPTER XIV THE ATLANTE EXPOSITION ADDRESS The Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make an address as a representative of the Negro race, as stated in the last chapter, was opened with a short address from Governor Bullock. After other interesting exercises, including an invocation from Bishop Nelson of Georgia, a dedicatory ode by Albert Howell, Jr., and addresses by the president of the Exposition and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the president of the Woman's Board, Governor Bullock introduced me with the words, We have with us today a representative of Negro enterprise and Negro civilization. When I arose to speak, there was considerable cheering, especially from the colored people. As I remember it now, the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the friendship of the races, and bring about hearty cooperation between them. So far as my outward surroundings were concerned, the only thing that I recall distinctly now is that when I got up I saw thousands of eyes looking intently into my face, the following is the address which I delivered. Mr. 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. 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 a 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. And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, cast down your bucket where you are. 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 production 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 gougas 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 of the prosperity of the South, where 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 millions of 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 your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads in 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 your 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, interesting your children, watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dim dyes 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 is 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. Efforts or means so invested will pay a thousand percent 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 closest sin and suffering joined we march to fate abreast. Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third in more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress. We shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic. Gentlemen of the exposition, as we present you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect over much. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens, gathered from miscellaneous sources, remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drugstores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations, but for the constant help that has come to our education life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement. The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly and that progress and the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house. In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement and drawn us so near to you of the white race as this opportunity offered by the exposition, and here bending as it were over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race. Only let this be constantly in mind, that while from the representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth. The first thing that I remember after I had finished speaking was that Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took me by the hand, and that others did the same. I received so many and such hearty congratulations that I found it difficult to get out of the building. I did not appreciate to any degree, however, the impression which my address seemed to have made until the next morning when I went into the business part of the city. As soon as I was recognized, I was surprised to find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd of men who wished to shake hands with me. This was kept up on every street onto which I went, to an extent which embarrassed me so much that I went back to my boarding place. The next morning I returned to Tuskegee. At the station in Atlanta and at almost all of the stations at which the train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I found a crowd of people anxious to shake hands with me. The papers in all parts of the United States published the address in full, and for months afterwards there were complimentary editorial references to it. Mr. Carr Cowell, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, telegraphed to a New York paper, among other words, the following. I do not exaggerate when I say that Professor Booker T. Washington's address yesterday was one of the most notable speeches, both as to character and as to the warmth of its reception ever delivered to a southern audience. The address was a revelation. The whole speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand with full justice to each other. The Boston transcript said editorially, The speech of Booker T. Washington at the Atlanta Exposition this week seems to have dwarfed all other proceedings in the exposition itself. The sensation that it has caused in the press has never been equaled. I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from lecture bureaus and editors of magazines and papers to take the lecture platform and to write articles. One lecture bureau offered me $50,000 or $200 a night and expenses if I would place my services at its disposal for a given period. To all these communications I replied that my life work was at Tuskegee and that whenever I spoke it must be in the interests of Tuskegee school and my race and that I would enter into no arrangements that seemed to place a mere commercial value upon my services. Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to the President of the United States, the Honorable Grover Cleveland. From him the following autograph reply. Gray Gables, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, October 6th, 1895. Booker T. Washington Esquire. My dear sir, I thank you for sending me a copy of your address delivered at the Atlanta Exposition. I thank you with much enthusiasm for making the address. I have read it with intense interest and I think the exposition would be fully justified if it did not do more than furnish the opportunity for its delivery. Your words cannot fail to delight an encourage all who wish well for your race and if our colored fellow citizens do not from your utterances gather new hope and form new determinations to gain every valuable advantage offered them by their citizenship it will be strange indeed. Yours very truly, Grover Cleveland. Later I met Mr. Cleveland for the first time when as President he visited the Atlanta Exposition. At the request of myself and others he consented to spend an hour in the Negro building for the purpose of inspecting the Negro exhibit and of giving the colored people in attendance an opportunity to shake hands with him. As soon as I met Mr. Cleveland I became impressed with his simplicity, greatness, and rugged honesty. I have met him many times since then, both at public functions and at his private residence in Princeton, and the more I see of him the more I admire him. When he visited the Negro building in Atlanta he seemed to give himself up wholly for that hour to the colored people. He seemed to be as careful to shake hands with some old colored Auntie, clad partially in rags, and to take as much pleasure in doing so as if he were greeting some millionaire. Many of the colored people took advantage of the occasion to get him to write his name in a book or on a slip of paper. He was as careful and patient in doing this as if he were putting his signature to some great state document. Mr. Cleveland has not only shown his friendship for me in many personal ways, but has always consented to do anything I have asked of him for our school. This he has done, whether it was to make a personal donation or to use his influence in securing the donations of others. Judging from my personal acquaintance with Mr. Cleveland, I do not believe that he is conscious of possessing any color prejudice. He is too great for that. In my contact with people I find that as a rule it is only the little and narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls, with a great outside world. No man whose vision is bounded by color can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world. In meeting man in many places I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice. I have often said to our students in the course of my talks to them on Sunday evenings in the chapel, that the longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for and dying for, if need be, is the opportunity of making someone else more happy and more useful. The colored people and the colored newspapers at first seemed to be greatly pleased with the character of by Atlanta address, as well as with its reception. But after the first burst of enthusiasm began to die away and the colored people began reading the speech in cold type, some of them seemed to feel that they had been hypnotized. They seemed to feel that I had been too liberal in my remarks toward the southern whites and that I had not spoken out strongly enough for what they termed the rights of my race. For a while there was reaction, so far as a certain element of my own race was concerned, but later these reactionary ones seemed to have been won over to my way of believing and acting. While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I recall that about ten years after the school at Tuskegee was established, I had an experience that I shall never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott, then the pastor of Plymouth Church and also editor of the Outlook, then the Christian Union, asked me to write a letter for his paper giving my opinion of the exact condition, mental and moral, of the colored ministers in the south as based upon my observations. I wrote the letter giving the exact facts as I conceived them to be. The picture painted was a rather black one, or since I am black shall I say white. It could not be otherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery, a race which had not had time or opportunity to produce a competent ministry. What I said soon reached every Negro ministry in the country, I think, and the letters of condemnation which I received from them were not few. I think that for a year after the publication of this article, every association and every conference or religious body of any kind of my race that met did not fail before adjourning to pass a resolution condemning me, or calling upon me to retract or modify what I had said. Many of these organizations went so far in their resolutions as to advise parents to cease sending their children to Tuskegee. One association even appointed a missionary whose duty it was to warn the people against sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had a son in the school, and I noticed that whatever the missionary might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not to take his son away from the institution. Many of the colored papers, especially those that were the organs of religious bodies, joined in the general course of condemnation and demands for retraction. During the whole time of the excitement and through all the criticism, I did not utter a word of explanation or retraction. I knew that I was right, and that time and the sober second thought of the people would vindicate me. It was not long before the bishops and other church leaders began to make careful investigation of the conditions of the ministry, and they found out that I was right. In fact, the oldest and most influential bishop in one branch of the Methodist Church said that my words were far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began making itself felt in demanding a purifying of the ministry. While this is not yet complete by any means, I think I may say, without egotism, and I have been told by many of our most influential ministers, that my words had much to do with starting a demand for the placing of a higher type of men in the pulpit. I have had the satisfaction of having many who once condemned me thank me heartily for my frank words. The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry, so far as regards myself, is so complete that at the present time I have no warmer friends among any class than I have among the clergymen. The improvement in the character and life of the Negro ministers is one of the most gratifying evidences of the progress of the race. My experience with them, as well as other events in my life, convinced me that the thing to do, and one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing, and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it. In the midst of the discussion which was going on concerning my Atlanta speech, I received the letter which I give below from Dr. Gilman, the president of Johns Hopkins University, who had been made chairman of the judges of award in connection with the Atlanta Exposition. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. President's office, September 30th, 1895. Dear Mr. Washington, would it be agreeable to you to be one of the judges of award in the Department of Education at Atlanta? If so, I shall be glad to place your name upon the list. A line by telegraph will be welcomed. Yours very truly, DC Gilman. I think I was even more surprised to receive this invitation than I had been to receive the invitation to speak at the opening of the exposition. It was to be part of my duty as one of the jurors to pass not only upon the exhibits of the colored schools, but also upon those of the white schools. I accepted the position and spent a month in Atlanta in performance of the duties which it entailed. The board of jurors was a large one containing an all of sixty members. It was about equally divided between southern white people and northern white people. Among them were college presidents, leading scientists and men of letters, and specialists in many subjects. When the group of jurors to which I was assigned met for organization, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, who was one of the number, moved that I be made secretary of that division, and the motion was unanimously adopted. Nearly half of our division were southern people, and for forming my duties in the inspection of the exhibits of white schools, I was in every case treated with respect, and at the close of our labors I parted from my associates with regret. I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon the political condition and the political future of my race. These recollections of my experience in Atlanta give me the opportunity to do so briefly. My own belief is, although I have never before said so in so many words, that the time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to. I think, though, that the opportunity to freely exercise such political rights will not come in any large degree through outside or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the Negro by the southern white people themselves, and that they will protect him in the exercise of those rights. Just as soon as the South gets over the old feeling that it is being forced by foreigners or aliens to do something which it does not want to do, I believe that the change in the direction that I have indicated is going to begin. In fact, there are indications that it is already beginning in a slight degree. Let me illustrate my meaning. Suppose that some months before the opening of the Atlanta exposition there had been a general demand from the press and public platform outside the South that a Negro be given a place on the opening program and that a Negro be placed upon the board of jurors of award. Would any such recognition of the race have taken place? I do not think so. The Atlanta officials went as far as they did because they felt it to be a pleasure, as well as a duty, to reward what they considered merit in the Negro race. Say what we will, there is something in human nature which we cannot blot out, which makes one man in the end recognize and reward merit in another, regardless of color or race. I believe it is the duty of the Negro as the greater part of the race is already doing, should deport himself modestly in regard to political claims. Depending upon the slow but sure influences the proceed from the possession of property, intelligence, and high character for the full recognition of his political rights. I think that the according of the full exercise of political rights is going to be a matter of natural slow growth, not an overnight Gord Vine affair. I do not believe that the Negro should cease voting for a man cannot learn the exercise of self-government by ceasing to vote any more than a boy can learn to swim by keeping out of the water. But I do believe that in his voting should more and more be influenced by those of intelligence and character who are his next-door neighbors. I know colored men who, through the encouragement, help and advice of southern white people, have accumulated thousands of dollars worth of property, but who at the same time would never think of going to those same persons for advice concerning the casting of their ballots. This, it seems to me, is unwise and unreasonable and should cease. In saying this, I do not mean that the Negro should trekkle or not vote from principle for the instant he ceases to vote from principle he loses the confidence and respect of the southern white man even. I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits an ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote and prevents a black man in the same condition from voting. Such a law is not only unjust, but it will react as all unjust laws do in time, for the effect of such a law is to encourage the Negro to secure education and property, and at the same time it encourages the white man to remain in ignorance and poverty. I believe that in time, through the operation of intelligence and friendly race relations, all cheating at the ballot box in the south will cease. It will become apparent that the white man who begins by cheating a Negro out of his ballot soon learns to cheat a white man out of his, and that the man who does this ends his career of dishonesty by the theft of property or by some equally serious crime. In my opinion, the time will come when the south will encourage all of its citizens to vote. It will see that it pays better from every standpoint to have healthy, vigorous life than to have that political stagnation which always results when one half of the population has no share and no interest in the government. As a rule, I believe in universal free suffrage, but I believe that in the south we are confronted with peculiar conditions that justify the protection of the ballot in many of the states, for a while, at least, either by an education test, a property test or by both combined, but whatever tests are required, they should be made to apply with equal and exact justice to both races. End of Chapter 14, The Atlanta Exposition Address. Recording by Preston McConkey. Annabella, Utah. Chapter 15 of Up From Slavery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Roberts. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Chapter 15. The Secret of Success in Public Speaking. As to how my address at Atlanta was received by the audience in the Exposition Building, I think I prefer to let Mr. James Creeleman, the noted war correspondent, tell. Mr. Creeleman was present and telegraphed the following account to the New York world. Atlanta, September 18. While President Cleveland was waiting at Gray Gables today to send the electric spark that started the machinery of the Atlanta Exposition, a Negro Moses stood before a great audience of white people and delivered an oration that marks a new epoch in the history of the South, and a body of Negro troops marched in a procession with the citizen soldiery of Georgia and Louisiana. The whole city is thrilling tonight with the realization of the extraordinary significance of these two unprecedented events. Nothing has happened since Henry Grady's Immortal Speech before the New England Society in New York that indicates so profoundly the spirit of the New South, except perhaps the opening of the Exposition itself. When Professor Booker T. Washington, principal of an industrial school for colored people in Tuskegee, Alabama, stood on the platform of the auditorium with a sun shining over the heads of his auditors into his eyes and with his whole face lit up with a fire of prophecy, Clark Howell, the successor of Henry Grady, said to me, that man's speech is the beginning of a moral revolution in America. It is the first time that a Negro has made a speech in the South on any important occasion before an audience composed of white men and women. It electrified the audience and the response was as if it had come from the throat of a whirlwind. Mrs. Thompson had hardly taken her seat when all eyes were turned on a tall, tawny Negro sitting in the front row of the platform. It was Professor Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee, Alabama, Normal and Industrial Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the foremost man of his race in America. Gilmore's band played the star-spangled banner and the audience cheered. The tune changed to Dixie and the audience roared with shrill, high yeas. Again the music changed, this time to Yankee Doodle and the clamor lessened. All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked straight at the Negro order. A strange thing was to happen. A black man was to speak for his people with none to interrupt him. As Professor Washington strode to the edge of the stage, the low descending sun shot fiery rays through the windows into his face. A great shout greeted him. He turned his head to avoid the blinding light and moved about the platform for relief. Then he turned his wonderful countenance to the sun without a blink of the eyelids and began to talk. There was a remarkable figure, tall, bony, straight as a Sue chief, high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws, and strong determined mouth, with big white teeth, piercing eyes and a commanding manner. The sinews stood out on his bronzed neck and his muscular right arm swung high in the air with a lead pencil grasped in the clinched brown fist. His big feet were planted squarely with the heels together and the toes turned out. His voice ranged out clear and true and he paused impressively as he made each point. Within ten minutes the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm. Hankertips were waved, canes were flourished, hats were tossed in the air. The fairest women of Georgia stood up and cheered. It was as if the order had bewitched them. And when he held his dusky hand high above his head, with the fingers stretched wide apart and said to the white people of the South on behalf of his race, in all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one is the hand in all things essential to mutual progress. The great wave of sound dashed itself against the walls and the whole audience was on its feet in a delirium of applause and I thought at that moment of the night when Henry Grady stood among the curling reeds of tobacco smoke in Delmonico's banquet hall and said, I am a cavalier among roundheads. I have heard the great orders of many countries, even Gladstone himself could have pleaded a cause with most consummate power than did this angular negro, standing in a nimbus of sunshine, surrounded by the men who once fought to keep his race in bondage. The roar might swell ever so high, but the expression of his earnest face never changed. A ragged, ebony giant squatted on the floor in one of the aisles, watched the order with burning eyes and tremulous face until the supreme burst of applause came, and then the tears ran down his face. Most of the audience were crying, perhaps without knowing just why. At the close of the speech, Governor Bullock rushed across the stage and seized the order's hand. Another shout greeted this demonstration, and for a few minutes the two men stood, facing each other hand in hand. So far as I could spare the time from the immediate work at Tuskegee, after my Atlanta address, I accepted some of the invitations to speak in public which came to me, especially those who always did this with the understanding that I was to be free to talk about my life work and the needs of my people. I also had it understood that I was not to speak in the capacity of a professional lecturer or from your commercial gain. In my efforts on the public platform, I have never been able to understand why people come to hear me speak. This question I can never rid myself of, time and time again as I have stood in the street in front of a building I felt ashamed that I should be the cause of people as it seemed to me wasting a valuable hour of their time. Some years ago I was to deliver an address before a literary society in Madison, Wisconsin. An hour before the time set for me to speak, a fierce snow storm began and continued for several hours. I made up my mind that there would be no audience and that I should not have to speak but as a matter of duty I went to the church and found it packed with people. The surprise people often ask me if I feel nervous before speaking or else they suggest that since I speak often they suppose that I get used to it. In answer to this question I have to say that I always suffer intensely from nervousness before speaking. More than once just before I was to make an important address this nervous strain has been so great that I have resolved never again to speak in public. I not only feel nervous before speaking out of my address the main thing and the best thing that I had meant to say. There is a great compensation though for this preliminary nervous suffering that comes to me after I have been speaking for about ten minutes and have come to feel that I have really mastered my audience and that we have gotten into full and complete sympathy with each other. It seems to me that there is rarely such a combination of mental and physical delight in any effort as that which comes to a public speaker when he feels that he has a great audience of sympathy and oneness that connects the public speaker with his audience that is just as strong as though it was something tangible and visible. If in an audience of a thousand people there is one person who is not in sympathy with my views or is inclined to be doubtful, cold or critical I can pick him out. When I have found him I usually go straight at him and it is a great satisfaction to watch the process of his thawing out. I find that the most effective although I never tell an anecdote simply for the sake of telling one. That kind of thing I think is empty and hollow and an audience soon finds it out. I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking. I do not believe that one should speak unless deep down in his heart he feels convinced that he has a message to deliver. When one feels from the bottom of his heart to the top let him say it and in delivering his message I do not believe that many of the artificial rules of elocution can under such circumstances help him very much. Although there are certain things such as pauses, breathing and pitch a voice that are very important, none of these can take the place of soul in an address. When I have an address to deliver I like to forget all about the rules for the proper use of the rules. I tend to throw me off my balance so quickly when I am speaking as to have someone leave the room. To prevent this I make up my mind as a rule that I will try to make my address so interesting will try to state so many interesting facts one after another that no one can leave. The average audience I have come to believe wants facts rather than generalities or sermonizing. Most people in the audience that I like best to talk to I would put at the top of the list an organization of strong wide awake businessmen such for example as is found in Boston New York Chicago and Buffalo I have found no other audience so quick to see a point and so responsive. Within the last few years I have had the privilege of speaking before most of the leading organizations of this kind I think that one of the worst instruments of torture that was ever invented is the custom which makes it necessary for a speaker to sit through a 14 course dinner every minute of the time feeling sure that his speech is going to prove a dismal failure and disappointment. I rarely take part in one of these long dinners that I do not wish that I could put myself back in the little cabin where I was a slave boy and again go through the experience of having bread and pork but on Sunday morning my mother was permitted to bring down a little molasses from the big house for her three children and when it was received how I did wish that every day was Sunday I would get my tin plate and hold it up for the sweet morsel but I would always shut my eyes while the molasses was being poured out onto the plate with the hope that when I opened them I would be surprised to see there would be more of it and that it would last longer if spread out in this way so strong are my childish impressions of these Sunday morning feasts that it would be pretty hard for anyone to convince me that there is not more molasses on a plate when it is spread all over the plate than when it occupies a little corner if there is a corner in a plate at any rate I have never believed in cornering syrup my share of the syrup was usually about two tablespoonfuls and those two spoonfuls of molasses were much more enjoyable to me than is a 14 course dinner after which I am to speak next to a company of businessmen I prefer to speak to an audience of southern people of either race together or taken separately their enthusiasm and responsiveness are a constant delight the amens and that's the truth that comes spontaneously from the colored individuals are calculated to spur any speaker on to his best efforts I think that next in order of preference I would place a number of colleges including Harvard, Yale Williams Amherst Fisk University the University of Pennsylvania Wellesley the University of Michigan Trinity College in North Carolina and many others when speaking directly in the interests of the Tuskegee Institute I usually arrange sometime in advance a series of meetings in important centers this takes me before churches Sunday schools Christian endeavor societies and men's and women's clubs when doing this in a single day three years ago at the suggestion of Mr. Morris K. Jessup of New York and Dr. J. L. M. Curry the general agent of the fund the trustees of the John F. Slater's fund voted a sum of money to be used in paying the expenses of Mrs. Washington and myself while holding a series of meetings among the colored people in the large centers of Negro population especially in the large cities of the ex-slave holding states each year during the last three years I voted some weeks to this work the plan that we have followed has been for me to speak in the morning to the ministers, teachers and professional men in the afternoon Mrs. Washington would speak to the women alone and in the evening I spoke to a large mass meeting in almost every case the meetings have been attended not only by the colored people in large numbers but by the white people in Chattanooga, Tennessee for example there was present at the mass meeting an audience that eight hundred of these were white I have done no work that I really enjoyed more than this or that I think has accomplished more good these meetings have given Mrs. Washington and myself an opportunity to get firsthand accurate information as to the real condition of the race by seeing the people in their homes their churches their Sunday schools and their places of work as well as in the prisons and dens of crime these meetings also gave us I never feel so hopeful about the race as I do after being engaged in a series of these meetings I know that on such occasions there is much that comes to the surface that is superficial and deceptive but I have had experience enough not to be deceived by mere signs and fleeting enthusiasm I have taken pains to go to the bottom of things and get facts in a cold business like manner I have seen the statement made lately by one who claims are not virtuous there never was a baser falsehood uttered concerning a race or a statement made that was less capable of being proved by actual facts no one can come into contact with the race for twenty years as I have done in the heart of the south without being convinced that the race is constantly making slow but sure progress materially, educationally and morally one might take up the life of the worst element in New York City for example I have seen turning the white man but all will agree that this is not a fair test early in the year 1897 I received a letter inviting me to deliver an address at the dedication of the Robert Goldshaw Monument in Boston I accept the invitation it is not necessary for me I am sure to explain who Robert Goldshaw was and what he did the monument to his memory stands near the head of the Boston Common facing the state that we found in the country the exercises connected with the dedication were held in music hall in Boston and the great hall was packed from top to bottom with one of the most distinguished audiences that ever assembled in the city among those present were more persons representing the famous old anti-slavery element that it is likely will ever be brought together in the country again the late officials and hundreds of distinguished men a report of the meeting which appeared in the Boston transcript will describe it better than any words of mine could do the core and kernel of yesterday's great noon meeting in honor of the brotherhood of man in music hall was the superb address of the Negro president of Tuskegee Booker T. Washington received his Harvard AM last June the first of his race said of his people when Mr. Washington rose in the flag filled enthusiasm warmed patriotic and glowing atmosphere of the music hall people felt keenly that here was the civic justification of the old abolition spirit of Massachusetts in his person the proof of her ancient and indomitable faith in his strong thorough and rich oratory the crown and glory of the old war days of suffering and strife the scene was full of historic beauty and deep significance cold Boston was alive with the fire that is always hot in her heart for righteousness and truth rows and rows of people who are seldom seen at any public function whose families of those who are certain to be out of town on a holiday crowded the place to overflowing the city was at her birthright feet in the persons of hundreds of her best citizens men and women whose names and lives stand for the virtues longed had greeted the officers and friends of Colonel Shaw the sculptor St. Gaudens the memorial committee the governor and his staff and the Negro soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts as they came upon the platform or entered the hall Colonel Henry Lee of Governor Andrews old staff had made a noble simple presentation speech for the committee paying tribute to Mr. John M. Forbes in whose stead he served Governor Wilcott had made his short memorable book in which he had written the story of Colonel Shaw and his black regiment had been told in gallant words and then after the singing of my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord Booker Washington arose it was of course just the moment for him the multitude shaken out of its usual symphony concert calm quivered with an excitement that was not suppressed a dozen times it had sprung to its feet to cheer and wave and hurrah as one person when this man of culture and voice and power as well as a dark skin began and uttered the names of Starnes and of Andrew feeling began to mount you could see tears glisten in the eyes of soldiers and civilians when the order turned and said to you to the scarred and scattered remnants of the 54th who with empty sleeve and wanting leg have honored this occasion with your presence to you your commander is not dead though Boston erected no monument and history recorded no story in you and in the loyal race which you represent Robert as well as the governor of Massachusetts the individual representative of the people sympathy as well as the chief magistrate who had first sprung to his feet and cried three cheers to Booker T. Washington among those on the platform was sergeant William H. Carney of New Bedford Massachusetts the brave colored officer who was the color bear at Fort Wagner and held the American flag in spite the flag never touched the ground this flag sergeant Carney held in his hands as he sat on the platform and when I turn to address the survivors of the colored regiment who were present and referred to sergeant Carney he rose as if by instinct and raised the flag it has been my privilege to witness a good many satisfactory and rather sensational demonstrations in connection with some of my public addresses but in dramatic effect I have never seemed to entirely lose control of itself in the general rejoicing throughout the country which followed the close of the Spanish-American war peace celebrations were arranged in several of the large cities I was asked by president William R. Harper of the University of Chicago who was chairman of the committee of invitations for the celebration to be held in the city of Chicago to deliver one of the addresses at the celebration of these and the principal one was given in the auditorium on the evening of Sunday October 16 this was the largest audience that I have ever addressed in any part of the country and besides speaking in the main auditorium I also addressed that same evening two overflow audiences in other parts of the city it was said that there were 16,000 persons in the auditorium 28 of a policeman president William McKinley attended this meeting as did also the members of his cabinet many foreign ministers and a large number of army and navy officers many of whom had distinguished themselves in the war which had just closed the speakers besides myself on Sunday evening were Rabbi E-mail G. Hirsch Father Thomas P. Hodnett and Dr. John H. Barrows the Chicago Times Herald in describing pictured the Negro choosing slavery rather than extinction recalled Christmas addicts shedding his blood at the beginning of the American Revolution that white Americans might be free while black Americans remained in slavery rehearsed the conduct of the Negroes with Jackson at New Orleans drew a vivid and pathetic picture of the southern slaves protecting and supporting the families of their masters while the latter were fighting to perpetuate black slavery recounted the bravery against the heroism of the black regiments that stormed El Cane and Santiago to give freedom to the enslaved people of Cuba forgetting for the time being the unjust discrimination that law and custom make against them in their own country in all of these things the speaker declared his race had chosen the better part and then he made his eloquent appeal to the consciences of the white Americans when you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro soldier and southern soldier from ex-abolitionist and ex-masters then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country the part of the speech which seems to arouse the wildest and most sensational enthusiasm was that in which I thank the president for his recognition of the Negro in his appointments during the Spanish-American war the president was sitting in a box at the right I finished the sentence thanking him for his generosity the whole audience rose and cheered again and again waving handkerchiefs and hats and canes until the president arose in the box and bowed his acknowledgments at that the enthusiasm broke out again and the demonstration was almost indescribable one portion of my address at Chicago seemed to have been misunderstood by the southern press and some of the southern papers took occasion to criticize me rather strongly these criticisms continued for several weeks until I finally got a letter from the editor of the age herald published in Birmingham, Alabama asking me if I would say just what I meant by this part of the address I replied to him in a letter which seemed to satisfy my critics in this letter I said that I had made it a rule never to say before a northern audience anything that I would not say before an audience in the south I said that I did not think it was necessary for me to go into extended explanations if my 17 years words could explain I said that I made the same plea that I had made in my address in Atlanta for the blotting out of race prejudice in commercial and civil relations I said that what is termed social recognition was a question which I never discussed and then I quoted from my Atlanta address what I had said there in regard to that subject in meeting crowds of people at public gatherings there is one type of individual that I dread I mean the crank I have become so accustomed to these people now in the distance when I see them elbowing their way up to me the average crank has a long beard poorly cared for a lean narrow face and wears a black coat the front of his vest and coat are slick with grease and his trousers bag at the knees in Chicago after I had spoken at a meeting I met one of these fellows they usually have some process for curing all of the ills of the world at once this Chicago specimen had a patent process by which he said Indian corn could be kept through a period I felt sure that if the Negro race in the south would as a whole adopt his process it would settle the whole race question it mattered nothing that I tried to convince him that our present problem was to teach the Negroes how to produce enough corn to last them through one year another Chicago crank had a scheme by which he wanted me to join him in an effort to close up all the national banks in the country if that was done he felt sure it would put the Negro on his feet the number of people who stand ready for the purpose is almost countless at one time I spoke before a large audience in Boston in the evening the next morning I was awakened by having a card brush my room and with it a message that someone was anxious to see me thinking that it must be something very important I dressed hastily and went down when I reached the hotel office I found a blank an innocent looking individual waiting for me who coolly remarked I heard you talk at a meeting I am often asked how it is possible for me to super intend the work at Tuskegee and at the same time to be so much away from the school in partial answer to this I would say that I think I have learned in some degree at least to disregard the old maxim which says do not get others to do that which you can do yourself my motto on the other hand is do not do that which others can do as well one of the most encouraging signs in connection with the Tuskegee organization is so thorough that the daily work of the school is not dependent upon the presence of any one individual the whole executive force including instructors and clerks now numbers 86 this force is so organized and subdivided that the machinery of the school goes on day by day like clockwork most of our teachers have been connected with the institutions for a number of years and are as much interested in it as I am in my absence for 17 years is the executive he is efficiently supported by Mrs. Washington and by my faithful secretary Mr. Emmett J. Scott who handles the bulk of my correspondence and keeps me in daily touch with the life of the school and who also keeps me informed of whatever takes place in the south that concerns the race I owe more to his tact, wisdom and hard work than I can describe the main executive work of the school whether I am at Tuskegee this week and is composed of the nine persons who are at the head of the nine departments of the school for example Mrs. B. K. Bruce the lady principal the widow of the late ex-senator Bruce is a member of the council and represents it in all that pertains to the life of the girls at the school in addition to the executive council there is a financial committee of six that meets every week and decides upon the expenditures for the week on these there are innumerable smaller meetings such as that of the instructors in the Phelps Hall Bible training school or of the instructors in the agricultural department in order that I may keep in constant touch with the life of the institution I have a system of reports so arranged that a record of the school's work reaches me every day of the year no matter in what part of the country the medium of these reports I know each day what the income of the school in money is I know how many gallons of milk and how many pounds of butter come from the dairy what the bill of fare for the teachers and students is whether a certain kind of meat was boiled or baked and whether certain vegetables served in the dining room were bought from a store or procured from our own farm human nature I find all prepared to go in the pot rather than to take the time in trouble to go to the field and dig and wash one's own sweet potatoes which might be prepared in a manner to take the place of the rice I am often asked how in the midst of so much work a large part of which is for the public I can find time for any rest or recreation and what kind of recreation or sports I am fond of this is rather a difficult question to answer a vigorous healthy body with the nerves steady and strong prepared for great efforts and prepared for disappointments and trying positions as far as I can I make it a rule to plan for each day's work not merely to go through with the same routine of daily duties but to get rid of some of the routine work as early in the day as possible and then to enter upon some new or advanced work I make it a rule to clear my desk every day before leaving my office of all correspondence and memoranda I make it a rule never to let my work drive me but to so master it and keep it in such complete control and to keep so far ahead of it that I will be the master instead of the servant there is a physical and mental and spiritual enjoyment that comes from a consciousness of being the absolute master of one's work in all its details that is very satisfactory and inspiring my experience teaches me that if one learns to follow this plan he gets a freshness of body and vigor of mind out of work in a long way toward keeping him strong and healthy I believe that when one can grow to the point where he loves his work this gives him a kind of strength that is most valuable when I begin my work in the morning I expect to have a successful and pleasant day of it but at the same time I prepare myself for unpleasant and unexpected hard places I prepared myself to hear that one of our school buildings is on fire or has burned or that something I have done or omitted to do or for something that he had heard that I had said probably something that I had never thought of saying in nineteen years of continuous work I have taken but one vacation that was two years ago when some of my friends put the money into my hands and forced Mrs. Washington and myself to spend three months in Europe I have said that I believe it is the duty of everyone to keep his body in good condition I try to look after the little things will not come when I find myself unable to sleep well I know that something is wrong if I find any part of my system the least week and not performing its duty I consult a good physician the ability to sleep well at any time and in any place I find a great advantage I have so trained myself that I can lie down for a nap of fifteen or twenty minutes and get up refreshed in body and mind I have said that I make it a rule to finish up each day's work before leaving it for this when I have an unusually difficult question to decide one that appeals strongly to the emotions I find it a safe rule to sleep over it for a night or to wait until I have had an opportunity to talk over it with my wife and friends as to my reading the most time I get for solid reading is when I am on the cars newspapers are to me a constant source of delight and recreation the only trouble is that I have the greatest fondness for is biography I like to be sure that I am reading about a real man or real thing I think I do not go too far when I say that I have read nearly every book and magazine article that has been written about Abraham Lincoln in literature he is my patron saint out of the twelve months in a year I suppose that on average I spend six months away from Tuskegee while my being absent from the school so much unquestionably I can't read all my messages yet there are at the same time some compensations the change of work brings a certain kind of rest I enjoy a ride of a long distance on the cars when I am permitted to ride where I can be comfortable I get rest on the cars except when the inevitable individual who seems to be on every train approaches me with the now familiar phrase that I could do on the grounds this absence also brings me into contact with the best work being done in educational lines and into contact with the best educators in the land but after all this has said the time when I get the most solid rest in recreation is when I can be at Tuskegee and after our evening meal is over can sit down as is our custom with my wife and Portia and Baker and Davidson and me there is nothing on earth equal to that although what is nearly equal to it is to go with them for an hour or more as we like to do on Sunday afternoons into the woods where we can live for a while near the heart of nature where no one can disturb or vex us surrounded by pure air the trees the shrubbery the flowers and the sweet is another source of rest and enjoyment somehow I like as often as possible to touch nature not something that is artificial or an imitation but the real thing when I can leave my office in time so that I can spend 30 or 40 minutes in spading the ground in planting seeds and digging about the plants I feel that I am coming into contact with something that is giving me strength for the many duties and hard places that await me out in the big world I pity the man taking inspiration out of it aside from the large number of fowls and animals kept by the school I keep individually a number of pags and fowls of the best grades and in raising these I take a great deal of pleasure I think the pig is my favorite animal few things are a more satisfactory to me than a high grade Berkshire or Poland china pig games once in a while, is all I care for in this direction. I suppose I would care for games now if I had had any time in my youth to give to them, but that was not possible."