UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA BOOK CARD Please keep this card in book pocket rr w- — 1 H X I./.1 UJ .-t- p ►^ 1 — ' 1 = as — : u: Ul r~i I X 5 r l en 5 en 3 u THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA \; , ^t.* _— _> if "V 'v.'' ! Wr . ■ '•"*' . ■ ■ > . BOOKER T. WASHINGTON r-ccl. 1-/3-73 Booker T. Washington Builder of a Civilization By Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe Illustrated from Photographs Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1916 Copyright, 1916, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian COPYRIGHT, I9l6, BY THE OUTLOOK PUBLISHING CO. UBRMW UNW. OF UOR-m CAROLINA FOREWORD IN THE passing of a character so unique as Dr. Booker T. Washington, many of us, his friends, were anxious that his biography should be written by those best qualified to do so. It is therefore a source of gratification to us of his own race to have an account of Dr. Washington's career set forth in a form at once accurate and readable, such as will inspire unborn generations of Negroes and others to love and appreciate all mankind of whatever race or color. It is especially gratifying that this biography has been pre- pared by the two people in all America best fitted, by antecedents and by intimate acquaintance and association with Dr. Washington, to undertake it. Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe is the grandson of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had a very direct influence on the abolition of slavery, and Mr. Emmett J. Scott was Dr. Washington's loyal and trusted secretary for eighteen years. Robert R. Moton. Principal Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, August J, IQl6. AUTHORS' PREFACE THIS is not a biography in the ordinary sense. The exhaustive "Life and Letters of Booker T. Washington" re- mains still to be compiled. In this more modest work we have simply sought to present and interpret the chief phases of the life of this man who rose from a slave boy to be the leader of ten millions of people and to take his place for all time among America's great men. In fact, we have not even touched upon his childhood, early training, and education, because we felt the story of those early strug- gles and privations had been ultimately well told in his own words in "Up from Slavery." This autobiography, however, published as it was fifteen years before his death, brings the story of his life only to the threshold of his greatest achievements. In this book we seek to give the full fruition of his life's work. Each chapter is complete in itself. Each presents a complete, although by no means exhaustive, picture of some phase of his life. We take no small satisfaction in the fact that we were personally selected by Booker Washington himself for this task. He considered us qualified to produce what he wanted: namely, a record of his struggles and achieve- ments at once accurate and readable, put in permanent form for the information of the public. He believed that vii AUTHORS' PREFACE such a record could best be furnished by his confidential associate, working in collaboration with a trained and ex- perienced writer, sympathetically interested in the welfare of the Negro race. This, then, is what we have tried to do and the way we have tried to do it. We completed the first four chapters before Mr. Wash- ington's death, but he never read them. In fact, it was our wish, to which he agreed, that he should not read what we had written until its publication in book form. Emmett J. Scott, Lyman Beecher Stowe. via PREFACE IT IS not hyperbole to say that Booker T. Washington was a great American. For twenty years before his death he had been the most useful, as well as the most distinguished, member of his race in the world, and one of the most useful, as well as one of the most distinguished, of American citizens of any race. Eminent though his services were to the people of his own color, the white men of our Republic were almost as much indebted to him, both directly and indirectly. They were indebted to him directly, because of the work t he did on behalf of industrial education for the Negro, # thus giving impetus to the work for the industrial educa- tion of the White Man, which is, at least, as necessary; • and, moreover, every successful effort to turn the thoughts » of the natural leaders of the Negro race into the fields of • business endeavor, of agricultural effort, of every species • of success in private life, is not only to their advantage, • but to the advantage of the White Man, as tending to • remove the friction and trouble that inevitably come • throughout the South at this time in any Negro district • where the Negroes turn for their advancement primarily f to political life. The indirect indebtedness of the White Race to Booker ix ^ PREFACE T. Washington is due to the simple fact that here in Amer - ic a we are all in t he e nd going u p or down together; and therefore, in the long run, the man who makes a surJsr an- tial cont ribution tow ard upliftin g any pa rt of th e com- muni ty has he lp ed to uplift all of the community. Wher- ever in our land the Negro remains uneducated, and liable to criminal suggestion, it is absolutely certain that the whites will themselves tend to tread the paths of bar- barism; and wherever we find the colored people as a whole engaged in successful work to better themselves, and respecting both themselves and others, there we shall also find the tone of the white community high. The patriotic white man with an interest in the welfare of t his c ountry is almost as heavily indebted to Booker T. Washington as th e co lored men themselves?" """ — If there is any lesson, more essential than any other, for this country to learn, it is the lesson that the enjoymen t of rights should b e ma de conditional upon the perform ance of duty. For one failure in the history of our country whicTT is due to the people not asserting their rights, there are hundreds due to their not performing their duties. !This is just as true of the White Man as it is of the Colored Man. But it is a lesson even more important to be taught the Colored Man, because the Negro starts at the bottom of the ladder and will never develop the strength to climb even a single rung if he follow the lead of those who dwell only upon their rights and not upon their duties. He has a hard road to travel anyhow. He is certain to be treated with much injustice, and although he will encounter x PREFACE among white men a number who wish to help him upward and onward, he will encounter only too many who, if they do him no bodily harm, yet show a brutal lack of con- sideration for him. Nevertheless his one safety lies in steadily keeping in view that the law of service is the great law of life, above all in this Republic, and that no man of color can benefit either himself or the rest of his race, unless he proves by his life his adherence to this law. Such a life is not easy for the White Man, and it is very much less easy for the Black Man; but it is even more important for the Black Man, and for the Black Man's people, that he should lead it. As nearly as any man I have ever met, Booker T. Wash- ington lived up to Micah's verse, "What more doth the Lord require to thee than to do Justice and love Mercy and N walk humbly with thy God." He did justice to every man. He did justice to those to whom it was a hard thing to do justice. He showed mercy; and this meant that he showed mercy not only to the poor, and to those beneath him, but that he showed mercy by an understand- ing of the shortcomings of those who failed to do him justice, and failed to do his race justice. He always under- stood and acted upon the belief that the Black Man could not rise if he so acted as to incur the enmity and hatred of the White Man; that it was of prime importance to the well-being of the Black Man to earn the good will of his white neighbor, and that the bulk of the Black Men who dwell in the Southern States must realize that the White Men who are their immediate physical neighbors xi \ PREFACE are beyond all others those whose good will and respect it is of vital consequence that the Black Men of the South should secure. He was never led away, as the educated Negro so often is led away, into the pursuit of fantastic visions; into the drawing up of plans fit only for a world of two dimensions. He kept his high ideals, always; but he never forgot for a moment that he was living in an actual world of three dimensions, in a world of unpleasant facts, where those unpleasant facts have to be faced; and he made the best possible out of a bad situation from which there was no ideal best to be obtained. And he walked humbly with his God. To a very extraordinary degree he combined humility and dignity; and I think that the explanation of this extraordinary degree of success in a very difficult com- bination was due to the fact that at the bottom his humility was really the outward expression, not of a servile attitude toward any man, but of the spiritual fact that in very truth he walked humbly with his God. Nowhere was Booker T. Washington^ wisdom shown better than in the mixture of moderation and firmness with which he took precisel y the right position as to, the p art the Black Man should try to tak e in politi cs. He put the whole case in a nut-shell in the following sentences: "In my opinion it is a fatal mistake to teach the young black man and the young white man that the dominance of the white race in the South rests upon any other basis than absolute justice to the weaker man. It is a mistake xii PREFACE to cultivate in the mind of any individual or group of individuals the feeling and belief that their happiness rests upon the misery of some one else, or their wealth by the poverty of some one else. I do not advocate that the Negro make politics or the holding of office an important thing in his life. I do urge, in the interests of fair play for everybody, that a Negro who prepares himself in property, in intelligence, and in character to cast a ballot, and desires to do so, should have the opportunity." In other words, while he did not believe that political activity should play an important part among Negroes as a whole, he did believe that in the interests of the White, as well as in the interests of the Colored, race, the upright, honest, intelligent Black Man or Colored Man should be given the right to cast a ballot if he possessed the qualities which, if possessed by a White Man, would make that White Man a valuable addition to the suffrage-exercising class. ^.._ — -" ..N° m? n . Whitfr oQIacEZ^ii iaots fcfnj^jjjy^than Booker T . Wa^hingi-on to the threat of the South } an d to the whole country^ and especially to the Black M an him- self, contained in the mass of ignorant, propertyless, semi- , ,1 ' m i m i i t? ■■ . l.llXll lllll.Hl ll .ll., _j f ,,,,„, „ „,. vicious Black Ynfpr fn wholly InH-rin n; i n thp ch aracter wmrh alone fits a race for self-government, who nevertheless have bee n given the ballot in certain SouthernStates". In my many conversationJanToonsuTt^ him it is, I believe, not an exaggeration to say that one-half the time we were discussing methods for keeping out of office, and out of all political power, the ignorant, semi-criminal, xiii A PREFACE shiftless Black Man who, when manipulated by the able and unscrupulous politician, Black or White, is so dreadful a menace to our political institutions. But he felt very strongly, and I felt no less strongly, that one of the most efficient ways of warring against this evil type was to show the Negro that, if he turned his back on that type, and fitted himself to be a self-respecting citizen, doing his part in sustaining the common burdens of good citizenship, he would be freely accorded by his White neighbors the privileges and rights of good citizenship. Surely there can be no objection to this. Surely there can be no serious objection thus to keep open the door of hope for the thoroughly decent, upright, self-respecting man, no matter what his color. In the same way, while Booker T. Washington firmly believed that the attention of the Colored race should be riveted, not on political life, but on s uccess s ought in the fields of honest business endeavor , he also felt, and I agreed with him, that it was to the interest of both races that there should be appointments to office of Black Men whose characters and abilities were such that if they were White Men their appointments would be hailed as being well above the average, and creditable from every standpoint. He also felt, and I agreed with him, that it was essential that these appointments should be made relatively most numerous in the North — for it is worse than useless to preach virtue to others, unless the preachers themselves practise it; which means that the Northern communities, which pride themselves on possessing the proper attitude xiv PREFACE toward the Negro, should show this attitude by their own acts within their own borders. I profited very much by my association with Booker T. Washington. I owed him much along many different lines. I valued greatly his friendship and respect; and when he died I mourned his loss as a patriot and an American. Theodore Roosevelt. Sagamore Hill y August 28, 1916. XV CONTENTS PAGB Foreword by Robert R. Moton v Authors' Preface vii Preface by Theodore Roosevelt ix CHAPTER I. The Man and His School in the Making . . 3 II. Leader of His Race 19 III. Washington: the Educator 57 IV. The Rights of the Negro 82 V. Meeting Race Prejudice 107 VI. Getting Close to the People 135 VII. Booker Washington and the Negro Farmer . 164 VIII. Booker Washington and the Negro Business Man 185 IX. Booker Washington Among His Students . . 222 X. Raising Hundreds of Thousands a Year . . 248 XI. Managing a Great Institution 272 XII. Washington: The Man 300 xvn ILLUSTRATIONS Booker T. Washington .... Frontispiece FACING PAGE Tuskegee in the making. Nothing delighted Mr. Washington more than to see his students do- ing the actual work of erecting the Tuskegee Institute buildings . . . . . 12 Tuskegee Institute students laying the foundation for one of the four Emery buildings . . 14 "His influence, like that of his school, was at first community wide, then county wide, then State wide, and finally nation wide" ... 16 A study in black. Note the tensity of expression with which the group is following his each and every word . . . . . . . 32 Showing some of the teams of farmers attending the Annual Tuskegee Negro Conference . . 58 An academic class. A problem in brick masonry 62 Mr. Washington in characteristic pose addressing an audience ....... 136 Mr. Washington silhouetted against the crowd upon one of his educational tours .... 136 Mr. Washington in typical pose speaking to an audience 136 xix ILLUSTRATIONS FACING FACE A party of friends who accompanied Dr. Washing- ton on one of his educational tours . . 138 This old woman was a regular attendant at the Tuskegee Negro Conference .... 170 The cosmopolitan character of the Tuskegee stu- dent body is shown by the fact that during the past year students have come from the foreign countries or colonies of foreign countries in- dicated by the various flags shown in this pic- ture 238 In 1906 the Tuskegee Institute celebrated its 25th Anniversary. A group of well-known Ameri- can characters attended .... 248 Some of Mr. Washington's humble friends . . 274 Soil analysis. The students are required to work out in the laboratory the problems of the field and the shop ...... 274 Mr. Washington was a great believer in the sweet potato 280 Mr. Washington had this picture especially posed to show off" to the best advantage a part of the Tuskegee dairy herd ..... 290 Mr. Washington feeding his chickens with green stuffs raised in his own garden . . . 306 Mr. Washington in his onion patch . . . 306 Mr. Washington sorting in his lettuce bed . . 306 xx BOOKER T. WASHINGTON BUILDER OF A CIVILIZATION CHAPTER ONE THE MAN AND HIS SCHOOL IN THE MAKING IT CAME about that in the year 1880, in Macon County, Alabama, a certain ex-Confederate colonel con- ceived the idea that if he could secure the Negro vote he could beat his rival and win the seat he coveted in the State Legislature. Accordingly, the colonel went to the leading Negro in the town of Tuskegee and asked him what he could do to secure the Negro vote, for Negroes then voted in Alabama without restriction. This man, Lewis Adams by name, himself an ex-slave, promptly re- plied that what his race most wanted was education and what they most needed was industrial education, and that if he (the colonel) would agree to work for the pas- sage of a bill appropriating money for the maintenance of an industrial school for Negroes, he (Adams) would help to get for him the Negro vote and the election. This bargain between an ex-slaveholder and an ex-slave was made and faithfully observed on both sides, with the result that the following year the Legislature of Alabama appropriated $2,000 a year for the establishment of a normal and in- dustrial school for Negroes in the town of Tuskegee. On the recommendation of General Armstrong of Hampton Institute a young colored man, Booker T. Washington, a 3 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON recent graduate of and teacher at the Institute, was called from there to take charge of this landless, buildingless, teacherless, and studentless institution of learning. This move turned out to be a fatal mistake in the politi- cal career of the colonel. The appellation of "nigger lover" kept him ever after firmly wedged in his political grave. Thus, by the same stroke, was the career of an ex- slaveholder wrecked and that of an ex-slave made. This political blunder of a local office-seeker gave to education one of its great formative institutions, to the Negro race its greatest leader, and to America one of its greatest citizens. One is tempted to feel that Booker T. Washington was always popular and successful. On the contrary, for many years he had to fight his way inch by inch against the bitterest opposition, not only of the whites, but of his own race. At that time there was scarcely a Negro leader of any prominence who was not either a politician or a preacher. In the introduction to "Up from Slavery," Mr. Walter H. Page says of his first experience many years ago with Booker Washington: "I had occasion to write to him, and I addressed him as 'The Rev. Booker T. Washington.' In his reply there was no mention of my addressing him as a clergyman. But when I had occasion to write to him again, and persisted in making him a preacher, his second letter brought a postscript: 'I have no claim to Rev.' I knew most of the colored men who at that time had become prominent as leaders of their race, but I had not then known one who was neither a politician nor a preacher; and I had not heard of the head of an important colored school 4 THE MAN AND HIS SCHOOL who was not a preacher. 'A new kind of man in the colored world,' I said to myself — 'a new kind of man surely if he looks upon his task as an economic one instead of a theological one." And just because Booker Washington did look "upon his task as an economic one instead of a theological one" he was at first regarded with suspicion by most of the preachers of his race and by some openly denounced as irreligious and the founder of an irreligious school. Like so many men of greater opportunity in all ages and places, many of these Negro ministers confounded theology and religion. Finding no theology about Booker Washington or his school, they assumed there was no religion. Some of them even went so far as to warn their congregations from the pulpit to keep away from this Godless man and his Godless school. To this formidable and at first almost universal opposition from the leaders among his own people was added the more natural opposition of the neighboring white men who assumed that he was "spoiling the niggers" by education. A youth with a high collar, loud necktie, checked suit, and patent-leather shoes, dangling a cane, smoking a cigarette, and loitering im- pudently on a street corner was their mental picture of an educated Negro. Among the original group of thirty students with whom Mr. Washington started Tuskegee Institute on an old plantation equipped with a kitchen, a stable, and a hen- house, was a now elderly man who to-day has charge of the spacious and beautiful grounds of the Institute. He was 5 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON approaching middle age when he entered this original Tuskegee class. The following is a paraphrase of his ac- count of the early days of the school : "After we'd been out on the plantation three or four weeks Mr. Washington came into the schoolroom and said: 'To-morrow we're going to have a chopping bee. All of you that have an axe, or can borrow one, must bring it. I will try and provide those of you who cannot furnish an axe. We will dismiss school early to-morrow afternoon and start for the chop- ping bee.' So we came to school next day with the axes, all of us that could get them; we were all excited and eager for that chopping bee, and we were all discussing what it would be like, because we had never been to one before. So in the afternoon Mr. Washington said it was time for that chopping bee, so he put his axe over his shoulder and led us to the woods and put us to work cutting the trees and clearing the land. He went right in and worked harder and faster and handled his axe better than any of us. After a while we found that a chopping bee, as he called it, was no different from just plain cutting down trees and clearing the land. There wasn't anything new about that — we all had had all we wanted of it. Some of the boys said they didn't come to school to cut down trees and clear land, but they couldn't say they were too good for that kind of work when Mr. Washington himself was at it harder than any of them. So he kept with us for some days till everybody had his idea. Then he went off to do something more im- portant. "Now, in those days he used to go off every Saturday 6 THE MAN AND HIS SCHOOL morning and he wouldn't come back till Monday morning. He'd travel all round the country drumming up students for the school and telling the people to send their children. And on Sunday he'd get the preachers to let him get up in their pulpits and tell the people about the school after they had finished preaching. And the preachers would warn their people against him and his school, because they said it wasn't Methodist, and it wasn't Baptist, and it wasn't Presbyterian, and it wasn't Episcopalian, and it wasn't Christian. And they told the people to keep their children away from that Godless man and his school. But when he came along and asked to speak to the people they had to leave him, just as everybody always did — let him do just what he wanted to do. And when they heard him, the people, they didn't pay no attention to the preachers, they just sent their children as fast as ever they could contrive it. "Now, in those days Mr. Washington didn't have a horse, nor a mule, nor a wagon, and he wanted to cover more country on those trips than he could afoot, so he'd just go out in the middle of the road and when some old black man would come along driving his mule wagon he'd stop him and talk with him, and tell him about the school and what it was going to do for the black folks, and then he'd say: 'Now, Uncle, you can help by bringing your wagon and mule round at nine o'clock Saturday morning for me to go off round the country telling the people about the school. Now, remember, Uncle Jake, please be here promptly at nine,' and the old man would say, 'Yes, boss, 7 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON I sure will be here!' That was how he did it — when he needed anything he'd go out and put his hand on it. First, he could put his hand on anything he wanted round the town; then, he could put his hand on anything he wanted all over the county; then he could put his hand on any- thing he wanted all over the State; and then finally they do tell me he could put his hand on anything he wanted away up to New York. "In those days, after we came to live here on the 'plantation,' I used to take the wheelbarrow and go round to the office when Mr. Washington opened up the mail in the morning, and if there was money in the mail then I could go along to the town with the wheelbarrow and get provisions, and if there was no money then there was no occasion to go to town, and we'd just eat what we had left. Most of the white storekeepers wouldn't give us credit, and they didn't want a 'nigger school' here anyhow. Times have changed. Now those storekeepers get a large pro- portion of their trade here at the Institute, and if there should be any talk of moving, they'd just get up and fight to the last to keep us here and keep our trade. "And in those days the Negro preachersfor the most of them, and the white folks, or the most of them, were al- ways trying to dispute with Mr. Washington and quarrel with him, but he just kept his mouth shut and went ahead. He kept pleasant and he wouldn't dispute with them, nor argue with them, nor quarrel with them. When the white folks would come round and tell him he was 'spoiling good niggers by education,' he would just ask them to wait 8 THE MAN AND HIS SCHOOL patiently and give him time to show them what the right kind of education would do. And when the colored preachers would come round and tell him he was no Christian, and his school had no religion, he would ask them to just wait and see if the boys and girls were any less Christian because of the education they were get- ting. But whoever came along and whatever happened Mr. Washington just kept his mouth shut and went ahead. "After two years of school I went out and rented some land and planted cotton, and just about time to harvest my crop Mr. Washington sent for me one Saturday and said : 'I need you. I want you to come back and work for the school on the farm. I want you to start in Monday morning.' When I told him about my cotton crop just ready to be picked he said : 'Can't help that, we need you. You'll have to arrange with your neighbors to harvest your crop for you.' " To the inquiry, "Well, did you come?" the old man re- plied, "Of course I did. When Mr. Washington said come I came same as everybody did what he told them. I got a neighbor to harvest my crop and I lost money on it, but I came to work that Monday morning more than thirty years ago, and I've been here ever since." The idea of not doing what Mr. Washington wanted him to do, or even arguing the matter, was evidently incon- ceivable to this old man. He had always obeyed Mr. Washington just as he had obeyed the laws of nature by sleeping and eating. That is the kind of control which 9 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Booker Washington always exercised over his fellow-work- ers. He accepted their implicit obedience as naturally and simply as they gave it. As Mr. Page also points out in the introduction to "Up from Slavery," however humble Mr. Washington's origin may have been, what might be termed his intellectual pedigree was of the highest and finest. He may be called, in fact, the spiritual grandson of the great Dr. Mark Hop- kins of Williams College. Just as Samuel Armstrong was perhaps the most receptive of Mark Hopkins' pupils, so Booker Washington became the most receptive pupil of Samuel Armstrong. As says Mr. Page: "To the for- mation of Mr. Washington's character, then, went the mis- sionary zeal of New England, influenced by one of the strongest personalities in modern education, and the wide- reaching moral earnestness of General Armstrong himself." In his autobiography Mr. Washington thus describes General Armstrong's influence and the impression he made upon him: "It has been my fortune to meet personally many of what are called great characters, both in Europe and America, but I do not hesitate to say that I never met any man who, in my estimation, was the equal of General Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of the slave plantation and the coal mines, it was a rare privilege for me to be permitted to come into direct contact with such a character as General Armstrong. I shall always re- member that the first time I went into his presence he made the impression upon me of being a perfect man; I was made to feel that there was something about him that 10 THE MAN AND HIS SCHOOL was superhuman. It was my privilege to know the General personally from the time I entered Hampton till he died, and the more I saw of him the greater he grew in my estimation. One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a liberal education. (This recalls President Garfield's definition of a university when he said, 'my idea of a university is a log with Mark Hopkins on one end and a boy on the other.') The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to study men and things!" When the young man imbued with these ideas and fresh from these influences found himself responsible for the destinies of a studentless, teacherless, buildingless, and landless school it is significant how he went to work to supply these manifold deficiencies. First, he found a place in which to open the school — a dilapidated shanty church, the A. M. E. Zion Church for Negroes, in the town of Tuskegee. Next he went about the surrounding countryside, found out exactly under what conditions the people were living and what their needs were, and ad- vertised the school among the class of people whom he wanted to have attend it. After returning from these ex- n BOOKER T. WASHINGTON periences he said: "I saw more clearly than ever the wis- dom of the system which General Armstrong had in- augurated at Hampton. To take the children of such people as I had been among for a month, and each day give them a few hours of mere book education, I felt would be almost a waste of time." Six weeks after the school was opened, on July 4, 1881, in the shanty Methodist Church with thirty students, Miss Olivia A. Davidson entered the school, the enrollment of which had already grown to fifty, as assistant teacher. She subsequently became Mrs. Washington. The school then had students, a teacher, and a building such as it was, but it had no land. It was succeeding in so far as teaching these eager and knowledge hungry young people what could be learned from books, but little more. Mr. Wash- ington found that about 85 per cent, of the Negroes of the Gulf States lived on the land and were dependent upon agriculture for their livelihood. Hence, he reasoned that it was of supreme importance to teach them how to live on the land to the best advantage. In order to teach the students how to live on the land the school itself must have land. About this time an old plantation near the town of Tuskegee came upon the market. The school had no money. Mr. Washington had no money, and the #2,000 a year from the State Treasury could be used only for the payment of teachers. Accordingly Mr. Washington per- sonally borrowed the #250, from a personal friend, necessary to secure title to the land, and moved the school from the shanty church to the comparative comfort of four aged 12 o n _1 ^ som ething wrong with itrorthe white people would not be ^ ^ \ praisi ng it so.' I got the speech and read it. Then I said, T Ah, here it is,' and I read his words, 'the colored people do not want social equality.' (This man's interpretation of this sentence in the speech, "The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the en- joyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.") I tell you that is a lie. We do want social equality. Why, don't you want your manhood recognized? Then Mr. Washington said that our emanci- pation and enfranchisement were untimely and a mistake; that we were not ready for it. (Naturally, Mr. Washing- ton said no such thing.) What did he say that for but to tickle the palates of the white people? Oh, yes, he was shrewd. He will get many hundreds of dollars for his school by it." Let it not be thought that this attitude represented any large or important body of opinion among the Negroes. The great majority both of the leaders and the rank and file enthusiastically accepted both the new leader and his new kind of leadership. The small minority, however, holding the view of the preacher quoted, continued to cause Booker Washington some annoyance, which, although continuously lessening, persisted in some de- 23 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON gree throughout his life. This numerically small and individually unimportant element of the Negroes in America would hardly warrant even passing mention ex- cept that the always carping and sometimes bitter criti- cisms of these persons are apt to confuse the well-wishers of the race who do not understand the situation. The Negroes holding this point of view are sometimes pleased to refer to themselves as the Talented Tenth. They are largely city dwellers who have had more or less of what they term "higher education" — Latin, Greek, Theology, and the like. A number of these persons make all or a part of their living by publicly bewailing the wrongs and injustices of their race and demanding their redress by immediate means. Mr. Washington's emphasis upon the advantages of Negroes in America and the debt of gratitude which they owe to the whites, who have helped them to make more progress in fifty years than any other race ever made in a like period, is naturally very annoying to this type of person. In spite of their constant abuse of him Mr. Washington some years ago agreed to confer with the leaders of this faction to see if a program could not be devised through which all could work to- gether instead of at cross purposes. In spite of the fact that the chief exponent of this group opened the first meeting with a bitter attack upon Mr. Washington, such a program was adopted, to which, before the conferences were over, all duly and amicably agreed to adhere. Some of the more restless spirits among the leaders of the Talented Tenth soon, however, broke their pledges, repu- 24 LEADER OF HIS RACE diated the whole arrangement, and started in as before to denounce Mr. Washington and those who thought and acted with him. After the Atlanta speech Mr. Washington's task was a dual one. While the active head of his great and rapidly growing institution, he was also the generally accepted leader of his race. It is with his leadership of his race that we are concerned in this chapter. His duties in this capacity were vast and ill defined, and his responsibility exceedingly heavy. He said, himself, that when he first came to be talked of as the leader of his race he was somewhat at a loss to know what was expected of him in that capacity. His tasks in this direction, however, were thrust upon him so thick and fast that he had not long to remain in this state of mind. After the Atlanta speech he was in almost daily contact with what was befalling his people in all parts of the country and to some extent all over the world. Through his press clipping service, sup- plemented by myriads of letters and personal reports, practically every event of any significance to his race came to his notice. Whan he heard of rioting, lynching, or serious trouble in any community he sent a message of advice, encouragement, or warning to the leading Negroes of the locality and sometimes to the whites whom he knew to be interested in the welfare of the Negroes. When the trouble was sufficiently serious to warrant it he went in person to the scene. When he heard of a Negro winning a prize at a county fair, or being placed in some position of unusual trust and distinction, he wrote him a letter of con- 25 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON gratulation and learned the circumstances so that he might cite the incident by way of encouragement to others. After the riots in Atlanta, Georgia, some years ago, when infuriated white mobs foiled in their efforts to lynch a Negro murderer, burned, killed, and laid waste right and left in the Negro section of the town, Mr. Washington, who was in the North at the time, boarded the first train for the city, arrived just after the bloody scenes, gathered together his frightened people amid the smoking ruins of their homes, soothed, calmed, and cheered them. He then went to the leading city officials, secured from them a promise of succor for the stricken people and protection against further attack. Next he went to the Governor of the State, secured his sympathy and cooperation, and with him organized a' conference of leading State and city officials and other representative men who there and then mapped out a program tending to prevent the recurrence of such race riots — a program which up to the present time has successfully fulfilled its purpose. It is characteristic of Mr. Washington's methods that he turned this disaster into an ultimate blessing for the very community that was afflicted. ( Mr. Washington was the kind of leader who kept very close to the plain people. He knew their every-day lives, their weaknesses, their temptations. To use a slang phrase, he knew exactly what they "were up against" whether they lived in country or city. Within a com- paratively short period before his death he addressed two audiences as widely separated by distance and environ- 26 LEADER OF HIS RACE ment as the farmers gathered together for the first Negro Fair of southwestern Georgia at Albany, Georgia, and five thousand Negro residents of New York City assembled in the Harlem Casino. He told those Georgia farmers how much land they owned and to what extent it was mortgaged, how much land they leased, how much cotton they raised, and how much of other crops they raised, or, rather, did not raise; how many mules and hogs they owned, and how they could with profit increase their ownership in mules and hogs; he told them how many drug stores, grocery stores, and banks in the State and county were owned by Negroes; and then, switching from the general to the particular, he described the daily life of the ordinary, easy-going tenant farmer of the locality. He pictured what he saw when he came out of his unpainted house in the morning: that gate off" the hinges, that broken window-pane with an old coat stuck into it, that cotton planted right up to the doors with no room left for a garden, and no garden; and, worse than all, the uncomfort- able knowledge of debts concealed from the hard-working wife and mother. Then he pictured what that same man's place might be and should become. It was once said of a certain eminent preacher that his logic was on fire. It might be said of Booker Washington that his statistics were on fire. He marshalled them in such a way that they were dynamic and stirring instead of static and paralyzing, as we all know them to our sorrow. It so happened that Mr. Washington had never before been in southwestern Georgia. After his speech one old farmer 27 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON was heard to say as he shook his head: "I don't understan' it! Booker T. Washington he ain't never ben here befo', yit he knows mo' 'bout dese parts an' mo' 'bout us den what eny of us knows ourselves." This old man did not know that one of Mr. Washington's most painstaking and efficient assistants, Mr. Monroe N. Work, the editor of the Negro Year Book, devoted much of his time to keeping his chief provided with this startlingly accurate information about his people in every section of the United States. On this occasion there were on the platform with Mr. Washington and the officials of the fair the Mayor of Albany and members of the City Council, while in the audience were several hundred whites on one side of the centre aisle and twice as many blacks on the other. And Mr. Washington would alternately address himself to his white and black audience. He would, for instance, turn to the white men and tell them that he had never known a particularly successful black man who could not trace his original success to the aid or encouragement he had re- ceived in one form or another from a white friend. He would tell them that without their assistance his race could never have made more progress in the last fifty years in this country than any similar group of people had ever made in a like period of time. After he had raised the white section of his audience to a high degree of self-congratula- tory complaisance he would suddenly shift the tenor of his remarks and ask them why they should mar this splendid record by discriminating against the weaker race in mat- ters of education, by destroying their confidence in the 28 LEADER OF HIS RACE justice of the courts through mob violence, and by the numerous small, mean ways in which race prejudice shows itself and retards and discourages the upward struggle of a weaker people. As he proceeded along these lines one could see the self-congratulatory expression fade from the faces of his white listeners. He would next turn to his own people and tell them of their phenomenal progress since emancipation and of the great and essential part they had played in the upbuilding of the South — left prostrate by the Civil War. One could see their eager, upturned faces glow with pride and self- satisfaction. But suddenly he would shift the tone of his comments and tell them how sadly those of them who were indolent and shiftless and unreliable and vicious were re- tarding the upward struggles of the industrious and self- respecting majority and how they were perpetuating the prejudice against the whole race. And as he pictured this seamy side of the situation one could see the glow of pride gradually wilt from the myriads of swarthy upturned faces. Hardly less successful than his use of statistics was his use of the much-abused funny story. He never told a story, however good, for its own sake. He told it only when it would most effectively drive home whatever point he happened to be making. In this same speech he was saying that a Negro who is lazy and unreliable and does nothing to accumulate property or improve his earning capacity deserves no consideration from whites or blacks and has no right to say that the color line is drawn against 29 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON him. * By way of illustration he told this story: "A shift- less Southern poor white asked a self-respecting old black man for three cents with which to pay his ferry fare across a river. The old black man replied: Ts sorry not to com- merdate yer, boss, but der fac' is dat a man what ain't got three cents is jest as bad off on one side ob der ribber as der udder.'" At another point in this speech he was telling his people not to be discouraged because their race has less to point to than other races in the way of past achievements. He said that after all it was the future that was of vital concern and not the past, and that the future was theirs to a peculiar degree because they were a young race. And to illustrate their situation he told of meeting old Aunt Caroline one evening striding along with a basket on her head. He said, "Where are you going, Aunt Caroline?" And she re- plied: "Lor' bless yer, Mister Washin'ton, I dun bin where I's er goin'." "And so," he concluded, "some of the races of the earth have dun bin where dey was er goin'!" but fortunately the Negro race was not among them. In making the point that, in spite of race prejudice, the handicaps to which his people were subjected in the South were after all superficial and did not interfere with their chance to work and earn a living, he told the experience of an old Negro who was accompanying him on one of his Southern educational tours. At a certain city they were obliged to wait several hours between trains, so this old man took advantage of the opportunity to stroll about and see the sights of the place. After a while he pulled out his 30 LEADER OF HIS RACE watch and found he had barely time to get back to the station before the train was due to leave. Accordingly he rushed to a hack stand and called out to the first driver he came to, who happened to be a white man: "Hurry up an' take me to the station, I's gotta get the 4:32 train!" To which the white hack driver replied: "I ain't never drove a nigger in my hack yit an' I ain't goin' ter begin now. You can git a nigger driver ter take ye down!" To this the old colored man replied with perfect good nature: "All right, my frien', we won't have no misunder- standing or trouble; I'll tell you how we'll settle it: you jest hop in on der back seat an' do der ridin' and I'll set in front an' do der drivinV In this way they reached the station amicably and the old man caught his train. Like this old Negro, Mr. Washington always devoted his energies to catching the train, and it made little difference to him whether he sat on the front or the back seat. A few months later, to the five thousand people of his own race in the Harlem Casino in New York City, he de- scribed their daily lives, their problems, perplexities, and temptations in terms as homely, as picturesque, and as vivid as he used in talking to the Georgia farmers. He urged them, just as he did the farmers, to stop moving about and to settle down — "to stop staying here and there and everywhere and begin to live somewhere." He urged them to leave the little mechanical job of window washing, or what not, and go into business for themselves, even if they could only afford a few newspapers or peanuts to start with. He told of a certain New York street where he had 3i BOOKER T. WASHINGTON found all the people on one side of a row of push carts were selling something, while all the people on the other side were buying something. Those that were selling were white people, while those that were buying were colored people. That, he said, was a color line they had drawn themselves. He reminded them of the high cost of living, and by way of example he commented upon the expense of having to buy so many shoes. He said: "Up here you not only have to have good, expensive shoes, but you have to wear them all the time." And then he reminded them how back in the country down South, before they came to the city, they would buy a pair of shoes at Christmas and after Christmas put them away in the "chist " and not take them out again until "big meeting day," and then wear them only in the meeting and not walking to and from the church. And as he concluded with the words, "Under those conditions shoes last a long time," people all over the audience were chuckling and nudging and winking at one another as people will when characteristic incidents in their past lives are graphically recalled to them. Then he described the almost innumerable temptations to spend money which the city offers. Some of the store windows are so enticing that, as he said, "the dollars al- most jump out of your pockets as you go by on the side- walk." "Then you men working for rich men here in the city smell the smoke of so many twenty-five-cent cigars that after a while you feel as though you must smoke twenty-five-cent cigars. You don't stop to think that when the grandfathers of those very men first came from 32 o > as M G O a, 3 Ui SO U a o a. o o 3 LEADER OF HIS RACE the country a hundred years ago they smoked two-for-five cigars." Then he told of a family he had found living on the tenth story of an electric-lighted, steam-heated apart- ment house with elevator service, and this very family only two years before was living in a two-room cabin in the Yazoo Valley on the Mississippi bottoms. And he com- mented: "Now, that family's in danger. No people can change as much and as fast as that without great danger!" Next he touched on the high rents and said: "You mothers know that sooner or later you have to take in roomers to help pay that rent, and after a while you take in Tom, Dick, or Harry, or anybody who's got the money re- gardless of who or what they are, and you mothers know the danger that spells for your daughters." (At this point he was interrupted by a chorus of "amens" from women all over the great hall.) He continued: "Now, you take the 'old man' aside an' tell him straight, you're not going to have any more roomers hanging round your house — that he's got to hustle for a better job or go into some little business for himself, or move out into some little cottage in the country, or do something to get rid of those Tom, Dick, and Harry roomers." In short, in this speech Mr. Washington showed that he knew just as intimately the lives of his people in the flats of Greater New York as on the farms of southwestern Georgia. In spite of his grasp of details Mr. Washington never became so immersed in them as to lose sight of his ultimate goal, and conversely he never became so blinded by the 33 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON vision of his ultimate goal as to overlook details. The solution of the so-called Negro problem in America, he felt, is to be found along these lines: As his people have more and more opportunity for training and become better and better trained they become more and more self-sufficient. t They are developing their own carpenters, masons, black- smiths, farmers, merchants, and bankers as well as law- yers, teachers, preachers, and physicians. These trained people naturally, for the most part, serve their own race, and to them the members of the race naturally turn for the service that each is equipped to render.- As they acquire wealth, education, and cultivation, the persons possessing these advantages naturally intermingle socially and build up a society from which the rough, ignorant, and uncouth of their own race are as inevitably excluded as are such persons from all polite social intercourse of whatever people. These Negroes of education and cultivation no more desire to force themselves into the society of the other race than do any persons of real education and cultivation desire to go where they are not wanted. As the race increases in wealth and culture it becomes more and more easy and natural for its successful members to satisfy their social desires and ambitions in their own society. Already in the centres of Negro prosperity and culture it would be almost, if not quite, as impossible for a white man to be received into the best Negro society as it would for a Negro to be received into the best white society. This growing independence and self-sufficiency in the trades, the professions, and social intercourse leads 34 LEADER OF HIS RACE inevitably, as he pointed out, to a form of natural segrega- tion based upon economic needs and social preferences, and in conformity to the laws of nature, which is a very different matter from the artificial and arbitrary segrega- tion forced upon unwilling people by the laws of men. Under these conditions the disputes as to whether the best society of the blacks is inferior or superior to the best society of the whites becomes as academic and futile as would be similar contentions as to whether the best society of Constantinople is inferior or superior to that of Boston. While Negroes are more and more drawing apart from the whites into their own section of the city, town, or county they nevertheless find it a source of strength to live near the whites in order that they may have the benefit of their aid in those matters in which the older and stronger race excels. Nor is this an entirely one-sided advantage, as there are not a few matters in which the Negroes have natural advantages over the whites and hence may render them useful service. Thus the two races, socially sep- arated but economically interdependent, may to mutual advantage live side by side. Some persons claim that any such plan of race adjust- ment, while theoretically plausible and ideally desirable, is nevertheless practically impossible. They contend that no so radically different races have ever lived side by side in harmony and each aiding the other. However that may be, there remains the fact that such a harmonious and mutually helpful relationship between the two races does already exist in the town of Tuskegee, throughout Macon 35 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON County, and in many other of the more progressive lo- calities throughout the South to-day. And at the same time, the lynchings and riots and other manifestations of racial conflict are continuously if slowly growing less fre- quent. Whatever may be the relative strength of the two theories, the facts are lining up in support of the Booker Washington prophecy at the Atlanta Exposition when he said: "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." During the last twenty years of his life Mr. Washington came more and more to be regarded as the representative and spokesman of his race, and was invited to represent and speak for them at such national and international gatherings as the annual conventions of the National Negro Business League, of which he was the president and founder; the great meeting in honor of the brotherhood of man, held in Boston in 1897; the Presbyterian rally for Home Missions, at which President Grover Cleveland presided; the International Sunday-school Convention held in Chicago in 1914; the meeting of the National Educational Association in St. Louis in 1904; the Thanks- giving Peace Jubilee in the Chicago Auditorium at the close of thewarwith Spain in 1898, with President McKinley and his Cabinet in attendance; the Commencement exercises at Harvard in 1896, when President Eliot conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts; the International Con- ference on the Negro, held at Tuskegee in 1912, with repre- sentatives present from Europe, Africa, the West Indies, 36 LEADER OF HIS RACE and South America, as well as all sections of the United States. Dartmouth College conferred his Doctorate upon him in 1901. At Harvard in 1896 President Eliot, with these words, conferred upon Mr. Washington the first honorary degree ever conferred by a great university upon an American Negro: "Teacher, wise helper of his race; good servant of God and country." In his speech delivered at the Alumni Dinner on the same day Mr. Washington brought this message to Harvard: "If through me, an humble repre- sentative, seven millions of my people in the South might be permitted to send a message to Harvard — Harvard that offered up on death's altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell, and scores of others, that we might have a free and united country — that message would be: 'Tell them that the sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by the way of the shop, the field, the skilled hand, habits of thrift and economy, by way of industrial school and college, we are coming. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up. Often through oppression, unjust discrimination, and prejudice, but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and property, there is no power on earth that can permanently stay our progress!' " The next year at the great meeting in honor of the brotherhood of man held in Music Hall, Boston, which con- cluded with the unveiling of the monument of Robert Gould Shaw, Booker Washington in concluding his ad- dress turned to the one-armed color bearer of Colonel Shaw's regiment and said: "To you, to the scarred and 37 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, 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 re- corded no story, in you and the loyal race which you repre- sent Robert Gould Shaw will have a monument which time cannot wear away." In his speech at the Peace Jubilee exercises after the war with Spain, Mr. Washington said: "When you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American War — heard it from the lips of Northern soldiers and Southern soldiers, from ex-abolitionist and ex- master — 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." And again in the same speech, after rehearsing the successes of American arms, he said: "We have succeeded in every conflict, ex- cept the effort to conquer ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices. . . . Until we thus conquer our- selves, I make no empty statement when I say that we shall have, especially in the Southern part of our country, a cancer gnawing at the heart of the Republic that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or within." Note this as the language of a man on a great national occasion who has been accused of a time-serving acquiescence in the injustices which his race suffers ! In his address before the National Educational Associa- tion in St. Louis, in 1904, he made the following remarks which are typical of points he sought to emphasize when 38 LEADER OF HIS RACE addressing audiences of white people: "Let me free your minds, if I can, from possible fear and apprehension in two directions: the Negro in this country does not seek, as a race, to exercise political supremacy over the white man, nor is social intermingling with any race considered by the Negro to be one of the essentials to his progress. You may not know it, but my people are as proud of their racial identity as you are of yours, and in the degree that they become intelligent, racial pride increases. I was never prouder of the fact that I am classed as a Negro than I am to-day. ... I can point you to groups of my people in nearly every part of our country that in intelli- gence and high and unselfish purpose of their school and church life, and in the purity and sweetness of their home life and social intercourse, will compare favorably with the races of the earth. You can never lift any large section of people by continually calling attention to their weak points. A race, like a child in school, needs encourage- ment as well as chastisement." In his address before the annual session of 1914 of the National Negro Business League at Muskogee, Oklahoma, Mr. Washington made the following remarks which are typical of his points of chief emphasis in addressing his own people: "Let your success thoroughly eclipse your short- comings. We must give the world so much to think and talk about that relates to our constructive work in the direction of progress that people will forget and overlook our failures and shortcomings. . . . One big, definite fact in the di- rection of achievement and construction will go farther in 39 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON securing rights and removing prejudice than many printed pages of defense and explanation. . . . Let us in the future spend less time talking about the part of the city that we cannot live in, and more time in making that part of the city that we can live in beautiful and attrac- tive. It is characteristic of the kind of criticism to which Mr. Washington was subjected that a certain element of the Negro press violently denounced this comment as an in- direct endorsement of the legal segregation of Negroes. Probably the last article written by Mr. Washington for any publication was the one published posthumously by the New Republic, New York City, December 4, 191 5, en- titled, "My View of Segregation Laws," in which he stated in no uncertain terms his views on the segregation laws which were being passed in the South. In concluding his article, he said: "Summarizing the matter in the large, segregation is ill- advised because: 1. It is unjust. 2. It invites other unjust measures. 3. It will not be productive of good, because practically every thoughtful Negro resents its injustice and doubts its sincerity. Any race adjustment based on injustice finally defeats itself. The Civil War is the best illustration of what results where it is attempted to make wrong right or seem to be right. 4. It is unnecessary. 5. It is inconsistent. The Negro is segregated from his 40 LEADER OF HIS RACE white neighbor, but white business men are not prevented from doing business in Negro neighborhoods. 6. There has been no case of segregation of Negroes in the United States that has not widened the breach between the two races. Wherever a form of segregation exists it will be found that it has been administered in such a way as to embitter the Negro and harm more or less the moral fibre of the white man. That the Negro does not express this constant sense of wrong is no proof that he does not feel it. "It seems to me that the reasons given above, if care- fully considered, should serve to prevent further passage of such segregation ordinances as have been adopted in Norfolk, Richmond, Louisville, Baltimore, and one or two cities in South Carolina. "Finally, as I have said in another place, as white and black learn daily to adjust, in a spirit of justice and fair play, these interests which are individual and racial, and to see and feel the importance of those fundamental in- terests which are common, so will both races grow and prosper. In the long run, no individual and no race can succeed which sets itself at war against the common good; for in the gain or loss of one race all the rest have' equal claim." In concluding his Muskogee speech he said: "If there are those who are inclined to be discouraged concerning racial conditions in this country we have but to turn our minds in the direction of the deplorable conditions in Europe, growing largely out of racial bitterness and fric- 41 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON tion. When we contrast what has taken place there with the peaceful manner in which black people and white people are living together in this country, notwithstanding now and then there are evidences of injustice and friction, which should always be condemned, we have the greatest cause for thanksgiving. Perhaps nowhere else in the world can be found so many white people living side by side with so many of dark skin in so much of peace and harmony as in the United States." This concluding observation was particularly character- istic of him. Somewhere, or somehow, he always turned to account all significant events for weal or woe from the most trivial personal happenings to the titanic world war. Like all great leaders, Booker Washington did the bulk of his work quietly in his own office and not on dramatic historic occasions before great audiences. He received every day, for instance, a huge and varied mail which re- quired not only industry to handle, but much judgment, patience, and tact to dispose of wisely and adequately. We will here mention and quote from a sheaf of letters taken at random from his files which partially illustrate the range of his interests and the variety of the calls which were constantly made upon him. A railroad official in Colorado asked his opinion on the question of separate schools for white and black children apropos of a movement to amend the State constitution so as to make possible such separate schools. In his reply Mr. Washington said: "As a rule, colored people in the Northern States are very much opposed to any plans for 42 LEADER OF HIS RACE separate schools, and I think their feelings in the matter deserve consideration. The real objection to separate schools, from their point of view, is that they do not like to feel that they are compelled to go to one school rather than the other. It seems as if it was taking away part of their freedom. This feeling is likely to be all the stronger where the matter is made a subject of public agitation. On the other hand, my experience is that if this matter is left to the discretion of the school officials it usually settles itself. As the colored people usually live pretty closely together, there will naturally be schools in which colored students are in the majority. In that case, the process of separation takes place naturally and without the necessity of changing the constitution. If you make it a con- stitutional question, the colored people are going to be op- posed to it. If you leave it simply an administrative question, which it really is, the matter will very likely set- tle itself." We next find a courteous reply to the letter of some poor crank who wanted to secure his backing for a preparation which he had concocted for taking the curl out of Negroes' hair. Then comes a letter to a man who wants to know whether it is true that the Negro race is dying out. To him Mr. Washington quoted the United States census figures for 1910, which indicate an increase of HyV P er cent, in the Negro population for the decade. Next, we come upon a letter written to a man who is interested in an effort of the Freedman's Aid Society to raise a half a million dollars for Negro schools in the South. 43 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Since this letter so well describes an important phase of Booker Washington's leadership we give it almost in full. It was written in 1913 and runs thus: "I think the most interesting work that Tuskegee has done in recent years is its work in rural schools in the country surrounding the Institute. During the last five or six years forty-seven school buildings have been erected in Macon County by colored people themselves. At the same time the school term has been lengthened in every part of the county from five to eight months. This work has been done under the direction of a supervising teacher working in connection with the extension department of the Institute. "Among other things that have been attempted to en- courage the people to improve their schools has been a model country school started in a community called Rising Star, a few miles from the Institute. The school at Rising Star is an example of the rural school that Tuskegee is seeking to promote. It consists of a five-room frame house in which the teachers — a Tuskegee graduate and his wife — not only teach, but live. All the rooms are used by the school children. In the kitchen they are taught to cook, in the dining-room to serve a meal, in the bedroom to make the beds. In the garden they are taught how to raise vegetables, poultry, pigs, and cows. They recite in the sitting-room or on the veranda, and their lessons all deal with matters of their own every-day life. . . . In- stead of figuring how long it will take an express train to reach the moon if it travelled at the rate of forty miles an 44 LEADER OF HIS RACE hour, the pupils figure out how much corn can be raised on neighbor Smith's patch of land and how much farmer Jones' pig will bring when slaughtered. "The pupils learn neatness and cleanliness by living in a decent home during their school hours. They carry the lesson home, and the result is seen in cleaner and better farmhouses. The model school has become the pattern on which the farmers and their wives are improving their homes. ..." Then comes a letter from a poor woman who wants him in the course of his travels to look up her husband who abandoned her some years before. For purposes of identi- fication she says: "This is the hith of him 5-6 light eyes dark hair unwave shave and a Suprano Voice his age 58 his name Steve. ..." Even though Mr. Washing- ton did not agree to spend his spare time looking for a dis- loyal husband with a soprano voice, he sent the poor woman a kind reply and suggested some means of tracing her recreant spouse. We come next upon a long letter written to a man who wishes to quote for publication in a magazine Booker Washington's opinion on the relation between crime and education. In the concluding paragraphs of his reply Mr. Washington says: "In nine cases out of ten the crimes which serve to unite and give an excuse for mob violence are committed by men who are without property, without homes, and without education except what they have picked up in the city slums, in prisons, or on the chain gang. The South is spending too much money in giving 45 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON the Negro this kind of education that makes criminals and not enough on the kind of schools that turn out farmers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Other things being equal, it is true not only in America, in the South, but throughout the world, that there is the least crime where there is the most education. This is true of the South and of the Negro, just the same as it is true of every other race. Par- ticularly is it true that the individuals who commit crimes of violence and crimes that are due to lack of self-control are individuals who are, for the most part, ignorant. The decrease in lynching in the Southern States is an index of the steady growth of the South in wealth, in industry, in education, and in individual liberty." Then comes a letter to an individual who desires to know what proportion of the American Negroes can read and write now, and what proportion could at the time of the Civil War. The reply again quotes the 1910 census to the effect that 69.5 per cent, can now read and write as com- pared with only 3 per cent, at the close of the war. The letter also points out that the rate of illiteracy among American Negroes is now lower than the rate for all the peoples of Russia, Portugal, Brazil, and Venezuela, and al- most as low as that of Spain. There follows a sheaf of correspondence in which Mr. Washington agreed to speak at the unveiling of a tablet in Auburn, New York, to the memory of "Aunt Harriet" Tubman Davis, the black woman, squat of stature and seamed of face, who piloted three or four hundred slaves from the land of bondage to the land of freedom. While 46 LEADER OF HIS RACE there he also agreed to speak at Auburn prison in response to the special request of some of the prisoners. Then we find a courteous but firmly negative reply to a long-winded bore who writes a six-page letter urging Mr. Washington to secure the acceptance by the Negro race of a flag which he has designed as their racial flag. After this follows a group of letters which passed between him and the late Edgar Gardiner Murphy, author of "The Present South," "The Basis of Ascendency," and other important books. In one of these letters Mr. Washington agrees, as requested, to read the proofs of "The Basis of Ascendency," and in another he thus characteristically comments upon Mr. Murphy's fears that a pessimistic book on the status of the Negro written by a supposed authority (a colored man) would do wide-reaching harm: "Of course among a certain element it will have an in- fluence for harm, but human nature, as I observe it, is so constructed that it does not take kindly to a description of a failure. It is hard to get up enthusiasm in connection with a funeral procession. No man, in my opinion, could write a history of the Southern Confederacy that would be read generally because it failed. I am not saying, of course, that the Negro race is a failure. Mr. writes largely from that point of view, hence there is no rallying point for the general reader." In reply to a Western university professor who had asked his opinion of amalgamation as a solution of the race problem he wrote: "I have never looked upon amalgama- tion as offering a solution of the so-called race problem, and 47 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON I know very few Negroes who favor it or even think of it, for that matter. What those whom I have heard discuss the matter do object to are laws which enable the father to escape his responsibility, or prevent him from accepting and exercising it, when he has children by colored women. I think this answers your question, but since there seems to be some misunderstanding as to how colored people feel about this subject, I might say in explanation of what I have already said: The Negroes in America are, as you know, a mixed race. If that is an advantage we have it; if it is a disadvantage, it is still ours, and for the simple reason that the product of every sort of racial mixture between the black man and any other race is always a Negro and never a white man, Indian, or any other sort of man. "The Negro in America is defined by the census as a person who is classed as such in the community in which he or she resides. In other words, the Negro in this country is not so much of a particular color or particular racial stock as one who shares a particular condition. It is the fact that they all share in this condition which creates a cause of common sympathy and binds the members of the race together in spite of all differences." To an embarrassing question put by the society editor of some paper Mr. Washington replied by merely telling a funny story the application of which to the impertinent inquiry was obvious. In another letter he summed up his opinion of the much-mooted question of the franchise in these two sentences: "There is no reason why every Negro who is not fitted to vote should not be disfranchised. At 48 LEADER OF HIS RACE the same time, there is no good reason why every white man who is not fitted to vote should not also be disfranchised." From the foregoing correspondence it will be seen that one of Booker Washington's many roles was to act as a kind of plenipotentiary and interpreter between his people and the dominant race. For this part he was peculiarly fitted by his thorough understanding of and sympathy for each race. Theodore Roosevelt, immediately after taking the oath of office as President of the United States, in Buffalo after the death of President McKinley, wrote Mr. Washington the following note : [Copy] Executive Mansion Washington Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 14, 1 90 1. My Dear Mr. Washington: I write you at once to say that to my deep regret my visit South must now be given up. When are you coming North ? I must see you as soon as possible. I want to talk over the question of possible ap- pointments in the South exactly on the lines of our last conversation together. I hope that my visit to Tuskegee is merely deferred for a short season. Faithfully yours, (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt. Booker T. Washington, Esq., Tuskegee, Alabama. 49 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON This deferred visit finally took place in 1905, not long after Colonel Roosevelt's triumphant election to the Presidency, when he came to Tuskegee accompanied by his secretary, William Loeb, Jr.; Federal Civil Service Commissioner, John McThenny; Collector of Revenue for the Birmingham District, J. O. Thompson; Judge Thomas G. Jones of Montgomery, and a fellow Rough Rider by the name of Greeneway. In response to the above note Mr. Washington went to the White House and discussed with the President "possible future appointments in the South " along the lines agreed upon between them in a conference which they had had at a time when it had seemed possible that Mr. Roose- velt might be given the Republican Presidential nomina- tion of 1900, that is, while Mr. Roosevelt was Governor of New York and a tentative candidate for the nomination. Upon his return to Tuskegee after this talk with Presi- dent Roosevelt, Mr. Washington found that the judge- ship for the Southern District of Alabama had just be- come vacant through the death of the incumbent, Judge Bruce, Here was an opportunity for the President to put into practice in striking fashion the policy they had discussed — namely, to appoint to Federal posts in the Southern States the best men available and to reward and recognize conspicuous merit among Southern Demo- crats and Southern Negroes as well as among Southern white Republicans. Being unable at the moment to return to Washington, he sent his secretary, Emmett J. Scott, with the following letter: 5° LEADER OF HIS RACE Tuskegee, Alabama, October 2, 190 1. President Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D. C. My Dear Mr. President: I send you the following information through my secretary, Mr. Emmett J. Scott, whom you can trust implicitly. Judge Bruce, the Judge of the Middle District of Alabama, died yesterday. There is going to be a very hard scramble for his place. I saw ex-governor T. G. Jones yesterday, as I promised, and he is willing to accept the judgeship of the Middle District of Alabama. I am more convinced now than ever that he is the proper man for the place. He has until recently been president of the Alabama State Bar Association. He is a Gold Demo- crat, and is a clean, pure man in every respect. He stood up in the Constitutional Convention and elsewhere for a fair election law, opposed lynching, and he has been out- spoken for the education of both races. He is head and shoulders above any of the other persons who I think will apply for the position. Yours truly, Booker T. Washington. P. S. — I do not believe in all the South you could select a better man through whom to emphasize your idea of the character of a man to hold office than you can do through ex-governor Jones. [Copy] Mr. Scott described what occurred on his delivery of this letter in the following report to his chief: Washington, D. C, October 4, 1901. My Dear Mr. Washington: I called to see the Presi- dent this morning. I found him all cordiality and brim- Si BOOKER T. WASHINGTON ming over with good will for you. That pleased me much! He had received the telegram and had made an appoint- ment for me. He read your letter, inquired if I knew the contents, and then launched into a discussion of it. Wanted to know if Governor Jones supported Bryan in either campaign. I told him no. He wanted to know how I knew. I told him of the letter wherein he (Governor Jones) stated to you that he was without political am- bition because he had opposed Bryan, etc. Well, he said he wanted to hear from you direct as to whether he had or not, and asked me to write you to find out. I am now awaiting that wire so as to call again on him. As soon as I see him again I will wire you and write you as to what he says. He is going to appoint Governor Jones. That was made apparent. While I was waiting to see him Senator Chandler with the Spanish Claims Commission called. They saw him first. I heard the talk, however, which was mostly felicitation. Incidentally, however, Senator Chandler said that the Commission was afraid it would lose one of its members because of the vacancy in Alabama, referring to Hon. W. L. Chambers, who was present and who is a member of the Commission. The President laughed heartily. Said the Senator always sprung recommendations unexpectedly, and so forth and so forth. He did not inquire as to any of the others — the applicants — seemed interested only to find out about Governor Jones. . . . There were many correspon- dents there at the door, but I told them I was passing through to Buffalo, but had stopped over to invite the President to include Tuskegee in his itinerary when he goes South again. . . . Will write again when I see the President again. Yours sincerely, (Signed) Emmett J. Scott. 52 LEADER OF HIS RACE As soon as he had received Dr. Washington's telegram in reply, Mr. Scott went again to the White House and wrote thus of his second call : [Copy] Washington, D. C, October 5, 1901. My Dear Mr. Washington : You have my telegram of to-day. I sent it as soon as I had seen the President. I had a three-hour wait to see him and it was tiresome, but I "camped with them." When admitted to the general reception room the President met me and was cordial and asked me to wait awhile, till he could dismiss two delegations, then he invited me into the office, or cabinet room, and read very carefully the telegram received from you last night — Friday night. His face was a study. He was greatly surprised to learn that the Governor voted for Bryan, and walked about considerably. At last he said, "Well, I guess I'll have to appoint him, but I am awfully sorry he voted for Bryan." He then asked me who Dr. Crum* is and I told him that he was a clean representative character, and that he was favorably con- sidered by Harrison for the Charleston postmastership, etc. He did not know him and asked me what place was referred to. You had not discussed it with me, but I told him you most likely referred to the place made vacant by the death of Webster. He then called Mr. Cortelyou, Secretary, into the office and asked him if he knew Cr um. He said he didn't but that he had heard of *This refers to a suggestion made by Mr. Washington in his telegram recom- mending the appointment of Dr. W. D. Crum, a colored physician, to a South Carolina vacancy, so that the President could thereby announce at the same time the appointment of a first-grade Southern white Democrat and a first- class colored man. 53 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON him and always favorably. The President then asked Cortelyou what place a man named B. was being con- sidered for, and he said the place made vacant by Web- ster's death. He then turned to me and said that he was sorry, that he would certainly have considered the matter if he had had your word earlier. He asked me to tell you that if you wish Dr. Crum considered for any other place that he will be glad to have you communicate with him. I then asked him what I should tell you in the Governor Jones' matter, and he said: "Tell Mr. Washington without using my name that party will most likely be appointed — in fact I will appoint him — only don't make it that strong by wire." So I consider the matter closed. The colored brethren here are scared. They don't know what to expect, and the word has passed, they say, that you are the "Warwick" so far as they are concerned. I hope to find you well in Chicago. Sincerely yours, (Signed) Emmett J. Scott. This precedent-breaking appointment of a Southern Democrat by a Republican President, made primarily on the recommendation of Booker Washington and Grover Cleveland, was acclaimed with enthusiastic approval by all Democrats everywhere, and in fact there was no dissenting voice except from the office- holding Southern Republicans who naturally resented this encroachment upon what they regarded as their patronage rights. At first appreciation was almost universal of the efforts of the Negro leader in helping a Republican President to make this far-reaching change in 54 LEADER OF HIS RACE the Federal officeholding traditions of the South. Soon, however, some Southern newspapers began to question the wisdom of allowing a Negro to have even an advisory voice in political matters notwithstanding his advice had in this instance been so acceptable to the South. This criticism grew so insistent that Judge Jones found himself in an uncomfortable position because his appointment had been made, in large part, on the recommendation of a Negro. He tried to soften the situation by giving out a statement to the effect that his endorsement by representative white men would probably have assured his appointment even without the assistance of Booker Washington. Later, however, the Judge expressed to Mr. Scott privately, after listening with deep interest to the recital of all the incidents connected with his appointment, his apprecia- tion of what Booker Washington had done for him. Aside from this appointment, Booker Washington had a voice in many others, including those of Gen. R. D. Johnson as Receiver of Public Moneys at Birmingham, Colonel Thomas R. Roulhac as United States District Judge, and Judge Osceola Kyle of Alabama as United States District Attorney in the Panama Canal Zone. During the administrations of both Presidents Roosevelt and Taft hardly an office of consequence was conferred upon a Negro without first consulting Mr. Washington. He did not strive through his influence with Presidents Roosevelt and Taft to increase the number of Negro appointees, but rather to raise the personnel of Negro officeholders. During the period when his advice was SS BOOKER T. WASHINGTON most constantly sought at the White House, Charles W. Anderson was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for~the Second District of New York City; J. C. Napier of Nashville, Tenn., became Register of the Treasury; William H. Lewis of Boston was appointed successively Assistant United States District Attorney and Assistant Attorney-General of the United States; Robert H. Terrell was given a Municipal Judgeship of. the District of Colum- bia; Whitefield McKinlay was made Collector of the Port for the Georgetown District, District of Columbia; Dr. W. D. Crum was appointed Collector of Customs for the Port of Charleston, S. C; Ralph W. Tyler, Auditor for the Navy Department at Washington, D. C; James A. Cobb, Special Assistant U. S. Attorney in charge of the enforcement of the Pure Food Law for the District of Columbia, and Charles A. Cottrell, Collector of Internal Revenue for the District of Hawaii at Honolulu. In all these notably excellent appointments Mr. Washington had a voice. In 1903, in commenting on a speech of Mr. Washing- ton's in which he had emphasized the importance of quality rather than quantity in Negro appointments, Presi- dent Roosevelt wrote him as follows : My Dear Mr. Washington : That is excellent ; and you have put epigrammatically just what I am doing — that is, though I have rather reduced the quantity I have done my best to raise the quality of the Negro appointments. With high regard. Sincerely yours, Theodore Roosevelt. 56 CHAPTER THREE WASHINGTON: THE EDUCATOR THE Tuskegee Commencement exercises dramatize edu- cation. They enable plain men and women to visual- ize in the concrete that vague word which means so little to them in the abstract. More properly they 'dramatize the identity between real education and actual life. On the platform before the audience is a miniature engine to which steam has been piped, a minia- Iture frame house in course of construction, and a piece of brick wall in process of erection. A young man in jump- ers comes onto the platform, starts the engine and blows the whistle, whereupon young men and women come hur- rying from all directions, and each turns to his or her ap- pointed task. A young carpenter completes the little house, a young mason finishes the laying of the brick wall, a young farmer leads forth a cow and milks her in full view of the audience, a sturdy blacksmith shoes a horse, and after this patient, educative animal has been shod he is turned over to a representative of the veterinary divi- sion to have his teeth filed. At the same time on the op- posite side of the platform one of the girl students is hav- ing a dress fitted by one of her classmates who is a dress- maker. She at length walks proudly from the platform 57 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON in her completed new gown, while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after her to make sure that it "hangs right behind." Other girls are doing washing and ironing with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tus- kegee methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses, while boys from the tailoring depart- ment sit crosslegged working on suits and uniforms. In the background are arranged the finest specimens which scientific agriculture has produced on the farm and me- chanical skill has turned out in the shops. The pumpkin, potatoes, corn, cotton, and other agricultural products predominate, because agriculture is the chief industry at Tuskegee just as it is among the Negro people of the South. ^/ This form of commencement exercise is one of Booker Washington's contributions to education which has been widely copied by schools for whites as well as blacks. That it appeals to his own people is eloquently attested by the people themselves who come in ever-greater numbers as the commencement days recur. At three o'clock in the morning of this great day vehicles of every description, each loaded to capacity with men, women, and children, begin to roll in in an unbroken line which sometimes ex- tends along the road for three miles. Some of the teachers at times objected to turning a large area of the Insti- tute grounds into a hitching-post station for the horses and mules of this great multitude, but to all such objec- tions Mr. Washington replied, "This place belongs to the people and not to us." Less than a third of these eight 58 (D u a c o O M ^4 C a < '-a c E o c o E/5 THE EDUCATOR to nine thousand people are able to crowd into the chapel to see the actual graduation exercises, but all can see the graduation procession as it marches through the grounds to the chapel and all are shown through the shops and over the farm and through the special agricultural exhibits, and even through the offices, including that of the prin- cipal. It is significant of the respect in which the people hold the Institute, and in which they held Booker Wash- ington, that in all these years there has never been on these occasions a single instance of drunkenness or disorderly conduct. In his annual report to the trustees for 1914 Mr. Wash- ington said of these commencement exercises: "One of the problems that constantly confronts us is that of making the school of real service to these people on this one day when they come in such large numbers. For many of them it is the one day in the year when they go to school, and we ought to find a way to make the day of additional value to them. I very much hope that in the near future we shall find it possible to erect some kind of a large pa- vilion which shall serve the purpose of letting these thou- sands see something of our exercises and be helped by them." The philosophy symbolized by such graduation exer- cises as we have described may best be shown by quoting Mr. Washington's own words in an article entitled, "In- dustrial Education and the Public Schools," which was published in the Annals of the American Academy of Polit- ical and Social Science for September of the year 191 3. In this article Mr. Washington says: "If I were asked 59 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON what I believe to be the greatest advance which Negro education has made since emancipation I should say that it has been in two directions: first, the change which has taken place among the masses of the Negro people as to what education really is; and, second, the change that has taken place among the masses of the white people in the South toward Negro education itself. "I can perhaps make clear what I mean by a little ex- planation: the Negro learned in slavery to work but he did not learn to respect labor. On the contrary, the Negro was constantly taught, directly and indirectly during slavery times, that labor was a curse. It was the curse of Canaan, he was told, that condemned the black man to be for all time the slave and servant of the white man. It was the curse of Canaan that made him for all time 'a hewer of wood and drawer of water.' The consequence of this teaching was that, when emancipation came, the Negro thought freedom must, in some way, mean freedom from labor. "The Negro had also gained in slavery some general notions in regard to education. He observed that the people who had education for the most part belonged to the aristocracy, to the master class, while the people who had little or no education were usually of the class known as 'poor whites.' In this way education became asso- ciated in his mind with leisure, with luxury, and freedom from the drudgery of work with the hands. . . . "In order to make it possible to put Negro education on a sound and rational basis it has been necessary to 60 THE EDUCATOR change the opinion of the masses of the Negro people in regard to education and labor. It has been necessary to make them see that education, which did not, directly or indirectly, connect itself with the practical daily interests of daily life could hardly be called education. It has been necessary to make the masses of the Negroes see and realize the necessity and importance of applying what they learned in school to the common and ordinary things of life; to see that education, far from being a means of escaping labor, is a means of raising up and dignifying labor and thus indirectly a means of raising up and dig- nifying the common and ordinary man. It has been necessary to teach the masses of the people that the way tqbmldjup_a race is to begm-at-the "bottom andnot at the top, to lift the man furthest down, and thus raise the whole structure o£jociety»JiJ3ove.,him. On the other hand, it has been necessary to demonstrate to the white man in the South that education does not 'spoil' the Negro, as it has been so often predicted that it would. It was necessary to make him actually see that education makes the Negro not an idler or spendthrift, but a more industrious, thrifty, law-abiding, and useful citizen than he otherwise would be." The commencement exercises which we have described are one of the numerous means evolved by Booker Washing- ton to guide the masses of his own people, as well as the Southern whites, to a true conception of the value and meaning of real education for the Negro. The correlation between the work of farm, shop, and 61 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON classroom, first applied by General Armstrong at Hamp- ton, was developed on an even larger scale by his one-time student, Booker Washington. The students at Tuskegee are divided into two groups: the day students who work in the classroom half the week and the other half on the farm and in the shops, and the night students who work all day on the farm or in the shops and then attend school at night. The day school students pay a small fee in cash toward their expenses, while the night school students not only pay no fee but by good and diligent work gradually accumulate a credit at the school bank which, when it becomes sufficiently large, enables them to become day school students. In fact, the great major- ity of the day students have thus fought their way in from the night school. But all students of both groups thus receive in the course of a week a fairly even balance between theory and practice. In a corner of each of the shops, in which are carried on the forty or more different trades, is a blackboard on which are worked out the actual problems which arise in the course of the work. After school hours one always finds in the shops a certain number of the teachers from the Academic Department looking up problems for their classes for the next day. A physics teacher may be found in the blacksmithing shop digging up problems about the tractive strength of wires and the expansion and contrac- tion of metals under heat and cold. A teacher of chem- istry may be found in the kitchen of the cooking school unearthing problems relating to the chemistry of food for 62 c z V) w R rt a; E ,a ^4 o u n,