If I were counsel for Tuskegee--as I am not--I would follow the example
of the worthy accusers, and submit the matter without argument. Booker
Washington can afford to plead guilty to every charge; and he has never
belittled himself by answering his accusers.
But let the facts be known, that this man has collected upward of six
million dollars, mostly from the people of the North, and has built up
the nearest perfect educational institution in the world.
It is probably true that many of his teachers and best workers are
picked people--but they are Negroes, and were selected by a Negro. The
great general reveals his greatness in the selection of his generals: it
was the marshals whom Napoleon appointed who won for him his victories;
but his spirit animated theirs, and he chose them for this one
reason--he could dominate them. He infused into their souls a goodly
dash of his own enthusiasm.
Booker Washington is a greater general than Napoleon. For the Tuskegee
idea no Waterloo awaits. And as near as I can judge, Booker Washington's
most noisy critics are merely camp-followers.
That the man is a tyrant and a dictator there is no doubt. He is a
beneficent tyrant, but a tyrant still, for he always, invariably, has
his own way in weighty matters--in trivialities others can have theirs.
And as for dictatorship, the man who advances on chaos and transforms it
into cosmos is perforce a dictator and an egotist.
Booker Washington believes he is in the right, and he makes no effort to
conceal the fact that he is on earth. In him there is no disposition to
run and peep about, and find himself a dishonorable grave. All live men
are egotists, and they are egotists just in proportion as they have
life. Dead men are not egotists. Booker Washington has life in
abundance, and through him I truly believe runs the spirit of Divinity,
if ever a living man had it. A man like this is the instrument of Deity.
Tuskegee Institute has applications ahead all the time, from all over
America, for competent colored men and women who can take charge of
important work and do it. Dressmakers, housekeepers, cooks, farmers,
stockmen, builders, gardeners, are in demand. The world has never yet
had enough people to bear its burdens.
Recently we have heard much of the unemployed, but a very little search
will show that the people out of work are those of bad habits, which
make them unreliable and untrustworthy. The South, especially, needs the
willing worker and the practical man. And best of all the South knows
it, and stands ready to pay for the service.
A few years ago there was a fine storm of protest from Northern Negroes
to the effect that Booker Washington was endeavoring to limit the Negro
to menial service--that is, thrust him back into servility. The first
ambition of the Negro was to get an education so that he might become a
Baptist preacher. To him, education meant freedom from toil, and of
course we do not have to look far to see where he got the idea. Then
when Tuskegee came forward and wanted to make blacksmiths, carpenters
and brick-masons out of black men, there was a cry, "If this means
education, we will none of it--treason, treason!" It was assumed that
the Negro who set other Negroes to work was not their friend. This phase
of the matter requires neither denial nor apology. We smile and pass on.
In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-seven, the Negro was practically
disenfranchised throughout the South, by being excluded from the
primaries. He had no recognized ticket in the field. For both the blacks
and the whites this has been well. To most of the blacks freedom meant
simply exemption from work. So there quickly grew up a roistering,
turbulent, idle and dangerous class of black men who were used by the
most ambitious of their kind for political ends. To preserve the peace
of the community, the whites were forced to adopt heroic measures, with
the result that we now have the disenfranchised Negro.
Early in the Eighties, Booker Washington realized that, politically,
there was no hope for his race. He saw, however, that commerce
recognized no color line. We would buy, sell and trade with the black
man on absolute equality. Life-insurance companies would insure him,
banks would receive his deposits, and if honest and competent, would
loan him money. If he could shoe a horse, we waived his complexion; and
in every sort and kind of craftsmanship he stood on absolute equality
with the whites. The only question ever asked was, "Can you do the
work?"
And Booker Washington set out to help the Negro win success for himself
by serving society through becoming skilled in doing useful things. And
so it became Head, Hand and Heart. The manual was played off against the
intellectual.
But over and beyond the great achievement of Booker Washington in
founding and carrying to a successful issue the most complete
educational scheme of this age, or any other, stands the man himself. He
is one without hate, heat or prejudice. No one can write on the lintels
of his doorpost the word, "Whim." He is half-white, but calls himself a
Negro. He sides with the disgraced and outcast black woman who gave him
birth, rather than with the respectable white man who was his sire.
He rides in the Jim Crow cars, and on long trips, if it is deemed
expedient to use a sleeping-car, he hires the stateroom, so that he may
not trespass or presume upon those who would be troubled by the presence
of a colored man. Often in traveling he goes for food and shelter to the
humble home of one of his own people. At hotels he receives and
accepts, without protest or resentment, the occasional contumely of the
inferior whites--whites too ignorant to appreciate that one of God's
noblemen stands before them. For the whites of the South he has only
words of kindness and respect; the worst he says about them is that they
do not understand. His modesty, his patience, his forbearance, are
sublime. He is a true Fabian--he does what he can, like the royal
Roycroft opportunist that he is. Every petty annoyance is passed over;
the gibes and jeers and the ingratitude of his own race are forgotten.
"They do not understand," he calmly says. He does his work. He is
respected by the best people of North and South. He has the confidence
of the men of affairs--he is a safe man.
[Illustration: THOMAS ARNOLD]