Transcriber’s Note: A reprint edition provided by the Negro Universities
Press, New York, 1969. New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain. Obvious typos were corrected.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ALEXANDER’S MAGAZINE
_Charles Alexander, Editor_
_Vol. 1_ _Boston, Mass., May 15, 1905_ _No. 1_
_Missionary Work and African Education_
FROM THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY MAGAZINE
Mystery becomes opportunity. Mr. Mott’s book, “The Pastor and Modern
Missions,” contains the following summary: “One hundred years ago Africa
was a coast line only. Even one generation ago, when Stanley emerged from
that continent with the latest news of Livingstone, nine tenths of inner
Africa remained unexplored. More than 600 white men have given their
lives to explore this one continent. Now, however, H. R. Mill, D. Sc.,
formerly librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, can well say, ‘The
last quarter of the nineteenth century has filled the map of Africa with
authentic topographic details, and left few blanks of any size.’ Bishop
Hartzell says: ‘Yesterday Africa was the continent of history, of mystery,
and of tragedy; today it is the continent of opportunity.’ When Stanley,
starting in 1874, made his journey of 999 days across Africa, in the
course of 7,000 miles he never met a Christian. There was not a mission
station, or church, or school on all that track. Now the chain of missions
is almost complete from Mombasa to the mouth of the Congo, and there are
scattered through inner Africa hundreds of churches and Christian schools
and over 100,000 native Christians.”
“Three distinct Africas are known to the modern world—North Africa,
where men go for health; South Africa, where they go for money; and
Central Africa, where they go for adventure. The first, the old Africa of
Augustine and Carthage, every one knows from history; the geography of
second, the Africa of the Zulu and the diamond, has been taught us by two
universal educators, war and the stock exchange; but our knowledge of the
third, the Africa of Livingstone and Stanley, is still fitly symbolized by
the vacant look upon our maps which tells how long this mysterious land
has kept its secret.” So said Henry Drummond in “Tropical Africa” in 1888;
the mystery is now revealed; we see an open door for the gospel of love,
light and life.
The African work of our Missionary Union is in the Congo Free State.
The mission was adopted by us in 1884. There are now 8 stations; 31
missionaries and were last year 306 native helpers; 13 churches with
3,3692 members; 135 schools, with 4,456 pupils. [Transcriber’s Note:
obviously, 3,3692 is a misprint. 3,692 members seems most likely (= about
250 per church), but 33,692 is also plausible.]
[Illustration: REV. HENRY RICHARDS]
Who says that the next 25 years will surely determine what Central Africa
is to be. Considering what has been done in Uganda and Congo land, we
ought fully to expect that the gospel tree will have so grown that its
branches with healing leaves will overshadow the whole land.
[Illustration]
WORK OF THE HAMPTON INSTITUTE
_Told at the 35th Anniversary Exercises of that Splendid Seat of Learning_
_By E. Jay Ess_
WRITTEN FOR ALEXANDER’S MAGAZINE
Hampton Institute, Va., May 3rd, 1905.—This has been anniversary week at
Hampton Institute. The spirit of Armstrong—the courageous and strong—has
been all about and in everything. The famous Ogden Party headed by
Dr. Robert C. Ogden, trustee of Hampton and of Tuskegee, has been in
attendance and has given to the occasion an importance of overwhelming
interest.
[Illustration: DR. H. B. FRISSELL]
First of all the weather has been perfect. Everything whether of exhibit
or address has been in perfect good taste and the 35th anniversary
exercises have been voted the most successful in the history of the
school—made so in large part because of the presence upon Hampton’s
grounds of her most famous and eloquent son, Dr. Booker T. Washington,
who delivered the principal address upon both days—“Virginia Day,” May 2,
when nearly 300 White Virginians from Richmond attended in a body—and upon
Wednesday, May 3, when the anniversary exercises proper were held. He has
been lionized wherever he has gone and has been as cordially sought after
by banker, prelate, educator and what not, as by those who are students or
have been students of Hampton.
A report of Tuesday’s exercises may be interesting:
The spacious room was handsomely decorated with flags and bunting. The
exercises were of an exceptionally interesting character, the opening
service being followed by plantation songs from the chorus of Negro and
Indian students of the school. J. Enoch Blanton, a member of the class of
1905 in agriculture, read an essay on “Changed Ideas of Farming.” Francis
E. Bolling, a graduate of the class of 1905, in domestic science spoke
of “What Hampton Has Meant to Me,” paying a glowing tribute to his Alma
Mater. Dr. John Graham Brooks of Harvard University, spoke on the “Fruits
of Hampton.” He said that as the race problem is probably the hardest with
which the world has to deal, and one of which we are the most profoundly
ignorant, he would avoid the big and keep near the little. “One of the
truest things about Hampton,” he said, “is that she is finding out her
own business, the real business of Hampton is to learn how a race can
be disciplined into independence and how success is to be won. In this
Hampton succeeds admirably.”
Dr. Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute
was then introduced and received a splendid ovation. After Doctor
Washington’s address, President Boatwright of Richmond College spoke on
“The Educational Problem,” in which he paid a glowing tribute to the work
of the Hampton Institute. Dr. R. E. Blackwell of Randolph-Macon College
followed and spoke of the misgiving with which Southern men approach
the problem of education, and expressed the opinion that if respect and
co-operation between the races is to be restored, it must be through such
institutions as Hampton and Tuskegee. Dr. Robert C. Ogden made a few
remarks in which he gave a hearty welcome to the guests present. He also
paid a very high tribute to Doctor Frissell, whom he said, was the real
founder of the Conference for Education in the South. He briefly reviewed
the work in the institution and spoke of the American fellowship existing
between Massachusetts and Virginia, of Boston and Richmond which binds the
hearts of all together.
[Illustration: HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY]
On Wednesday representatives of the several classes spoke most acceptably
after which Dr. Robert C. Ogden, president of the Hampton board of
trustees, presented the diplomas and trade certificates to the young men
and women of the several academic and industrial departments. Of these 13
were awarded to post-graduates, 23 to members of the senior class, and 45
trade certificates to those who had finished trades. After this ceremony
Dr. Booker T. Washington again spoke. He said in part:
“When I was a student at this institution I was taught that Ponce de Leon
spent years in search of a fountain of perpetual youth. In my opinion
there is no spot in America where one can more nearly renew his youth and
strengthen his faith in the wisdom and perpetuity of our institutions than
at Hampton.
“To the students who are to go out from the Hampton institute today to
begin what I hope are to be careers of usefulness, I wish to say: I hope
that you will learn to be even tempered, self-controlled and hopeful.
You will find many conditions that will try your soul, but the test
of Hampton’s training will be shown by the ability with which you are
able to choose the fundamental things in life and stick to them and not
become discouraged because of the temporary and non-essential. The great
thing is for you to conduct yourselves so as to become worthy of the
privileges of an American citizen and these privileges will come. I hope
you will not yield to the temptation of becoming grumblers and whiners,
but will hold up your head and march bravely forward, meeting manfully
and sensibly all the problems that may confront you. Place emphasis upon
your opportunities rather than upon your disadvantages; place emphasis
upon achievement rather than upon the injustices to which you will be
subjected. As you go out into the world you may expect rebuffs, sometimes
insults, opposition, injustice. You will meet with race prejudice in many
forms, but if you are true to Hampton and its traditions you will meet and
overcome all of these conditions with a calm and patient spirit.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA AND CLEVELAND HALLS]
“No one can degrade you; you, yourselves, are the only individuals who can
inflict that punishment. I hope that you will pursue the policy of making
yourself so indispensably useful in every community into which you go that
the members of that community, black and white, will feel that they cannot
dispense with your services. The race that goes quietly and contentedly
on doing things day by day will reap its reward. It often requires more
courage to suffer in silence than to retaliate; more courage not to
strike back than to strike; more courage to be silent than to speak. We
must not permit ourselves to harbor the belief that our friends among the
white people in the south are disappearing. If we pursue the sensible
and conservative course, the number of such friends will multiply. There
are great opportunities for us here in the south in education, industry,
business and the professions. The race that gets most out of the soil,
out of the wood, out of the kitchen, out of the school room, the doctor’s
office or the pulpit, is the race that is going to succeed regardless of
all obstacles.”
The signal tribute to Dr. Frissell was received with every manifestation
of pride on the part of the students and alumni, and of gratification
upon the part of Dr. Frissell himself, the board of trustees and the
distinguished visitors present. Some of those who have been here as
members of Mr. Ogden’s party and as guests of Hampton and friends of
Negro Education—many of whom have spoken during the two days stay—are:
Dr. John Graham Brooks, Cambridge, Mass.; Dr. Wallace Buttrick, executive
secretary of the General Education Board, New York; Mr. E. H. Clement,
editor Evening Transcript, Boston; Dr. A. S. Draper, State Committee of
Education, New York; Rev. Paul Revere Frothingham, Boston; Mr. Frederick
T. Gates, confidential secretary to Mr. John D. Rockefeller; Hon. Seth
Low, New York; Dr. St. Clair McKelway of the Brooklyn Eagle; Mr. W. R.
Moody, East Northfield, Mass.; Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Boston; Mr. and
Mrs. J. G. Thorpe, Cambridge, Mass.; Dr. F. G. Peabody, Cambridge, Mass.;
Mr. Geo. Foster Peabody, New York and a great number of others—some 95 in
all—many with their wives.
A great number of prominent Colored persons have also been present,
including Hon. Harry S. Cummings of Baltimore; Rev. M. J. Naylor of
Baltimore; Mr. Emmett J. Scott, secretary to Dr. Booker T. Washington and
many others.
[Illustration: MEMORIAL CHAPEL, HAMPTON INSTITUTE]
SOCIALISM AND THE NEGRO.
By Reverdy C. Ransom.
What do the Socialists propose to do with the Negro question? One says,
he is willing to treat a black man as he would a white man; that is, when
Socialism is fully established. Another tells us, he has never considered
the subject, besides he is too busy considering the question of “class
consciousness.” The Socialistic cult in this country, under whatever name
it may act, is bound to consider the Negro and the questions growing out
of his presence here. Nine million people cannot be ignored. They are
the storm centre for the exhibition of vigorous racial prejudices and
animosities.
[Illustration: REV. R. C. HANSON, D. D.]
Mr. Eraste Vidrine, a socialistic organizer in the Southern states, in
the International Socialist Review for January, says: “The socialist
organizations are restricted to whites, who refuse admission to Negroes.”
This is God’s world and not a devil’s world.
Of all the numerous attempts through the ages to read the teachings of
Jesus into widely differing schools of thought, that of socialism is
nearest.
Karl Marx is the high priest of modern socialism, and Joseph Mazzini,
Count Tolstoi, and Henry George are of the same company. It will take
years for the ruling ideas of the present age to spend themselves. New
England is conservative. Precedent, custom, the old-established order of
things, hold sway. In the west, it is different. The immense distances of
her prairies, and the lofty altitudes of her mountains are congenial soil
for the growing of great ideas.
Theories, economic, populistic, socialistic, coming out of the west,
strike the staid people of the east as being quite grotesque. But it
must ever be that true prophets and reformers are made out of cranks and
heretics.
With those who advocate the Negroes, forced elimination or self-effacement
from politics, we have nothing but uncompromising dissent.
The obsequious, cringing, sycophantic man, with his hat under his arm,
is only a thing to be despised. To be a man, one must stand erect, and
contend for the recognition of all that belongs to a man. The Democratic
party does not seek the Negro; the Republican party uses him, but has
small use for him, in the paths that lead to honor and to power.
Those who falsely picture the Negro as indolent, shiftless, lazy, are
one with those who seek to keep him in a condition of social, political
and economic inferiority. The Negro is industrious and aspiring and is
seeking to mount each round in the ladder of moral, social, industrial and
political strength and progress.
Seventy percent of our women are wage-workers, with the overwhelming
majority of our men. Organized labor may discriminate, but there can be no
permanent advance while one-eighth of our population is ignored.
The program of socialism is begirt with the spirit of righteousness and
seeks to establish itself on the foundations of justice. Sooner or later,
in the affairs of men, there must come a levelling process. The Negro
needs to take a broader outlook and a larger view of himself in relation
to his surroundings.
Within the present century the mightiest battle of all the ages will be
fought right here in the United States. It will be that of the people
coming into their own. I have used the term socialism loosely; but I
mean what Chicago meant when it voted to own its street railways; I mean
what Kansas meant when it sought to establish its own oil refineries; I
mean the spirit of what Edward Bellamy said in his “Looking Backward,”
I mean in fine, that the wheels and spindles, the wealth of the bowels
of the earth, and the produce of the soil shall be justly shared by the
producers. The Negro’s cue for all time to come, is to preach brotherhood
and to practice it. He or some other race, whom God shall choose, has it
in his power to more mightily enrich the world than did Egyptian or Jew,
Greek, Roman, or Anglo-Saxon, this by consecrating himself to a mission of
unselfishness, to war against social, political and economic inequalities,
and for a bringing in of the realization of the brotherhood of man.
New Bedford, Mass.
BUSINESS RULES.
In Andrew Carnegie’s “Empire of Business” he sets down the prime
conditions of success as they appear to him. Above all, he says, a young
man should concentrate his energy, thought and capital exclusively on the
business which he has adopted. If he has begun on one line, he should
fight it out on that line.
The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital,
which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have
investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere.
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “Put
all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you
and take notice; men who do that do not often fail. It is easy to watch
and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that
breaks most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put
one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the
American business man is lack of concentration.
To summarize what I have said: Aim for the highest; never enter a barroom;
do not touch liquor, or if at all, only at meals; never speculate; never
indorse beyond your surplus cash fund; make the firm’s interests yours;
break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one
basket and watch that basket.
OF INTEREST TO WAITERS.
Said the man about town as he pushed a coin across the table and poked
several bank notes into his vest pocket: “Have you ever seen a waiter who
stands in with the cashier in a fashionable hotel, cafe or rathskeller
dress up his change as you’d dress a window, so that you’re tempted to
tip him? No matter what denomination you pay in, between them they’ll
always make one bill look as if it had been broken up with dynamite. If
your check calls for half a dollar you never get half a dollar back from
a dollar. There’ll be a quarter and two 10-cent pieces and a nickel. If
you’re generous you won’t pick up the quarter; if you’re kind of stingy
you’ll leave a dime, and you’ll pass over the nickel anyway, even if
you’re tighter than a tight shoe.”
“Let me ask you a harder one,” replied the man addressed. “Have you ever
seen a waiter who didn’t stand in with the cashier in a fashionable hotel,
cafe or rathskeller?”
WITH OUR THINKERS
“I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant unexpected
encouragements if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of
his life—that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the
high-water mark of pure, unselfish useful living.”—Booker T. Washington.
* * * * *
“The ability to live and thrive under adverse circumstances is the surest
guarantee of the future. The race which at the last shall inherit the
earth will be the race which remains longest upon it. The Negro was here
before the Anglo-Saxon was evolved, and his thick lips and heavy-lidded
eyes looked out from the inscrutable Sphynx cross the sands of Egypt while
yet the ancestors of those who now oppress him were living in caves,
practicing human sacrifices, and painting themselves with woad—and the
Negro is here yet.”—Charles W. Chesnutt.
* * * * *
Fortune is often too kind and generous to the mentally, morally delinquent
and too often covers the path of the undeserving with flowers, while real
merit and genius is allowed to starve and die.
The Disfranchisement of the Negro
BY WILFRED H. SMITH
FROM THE OUTLOOK
As an American Negro I feel compelled to take issue with the Hon. John
B. Knox of Alabama, in his article in The Outlook of January 21, on the
“Reduction of Southern Representation,” and challenge his statement
that the recent Constitution of Alabama does not disfranchise the Negro
as such, but only prescribes an educational and property qualification
test for both races; and his further statement that in case a Negro is
discriminated against by the registrars, an appeal to the courts of
Alabama will not be in vain.
On the contrary, the fact is that the suffrage provisions of the new
Constitution of Alabama are an open disavowal and nullification of the
Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and an exclusion of the
Negro from the electorate on account of his race and previous condition;
also the law providing for an appeal to the courts of the State of
Alabama, where a Negro is refused registration, is only a snare, and
affords him no relief whatever.
In considering this question the following undeniable facts should be
borne in mind:
1. The Twelfth Census of the United States shows the population of the
State of Alabama to be 1,001,152 whites and 827,545 Colored; and in 20
counties the Negroes largely outnumber the whites.
2. That since 1875 or thereabouts, up to the adoption of the new
Constitution, the Negro vote in the State of Alabama has been suppressed
by intimidation and false returns; so that during the entire time the
complete control of the state government has been in the hands of white
men and the Democratic party.
3. That not a single Negro delegate held a seat in the convention which
enacted this Constitution; it was composed exclusively of white men.
4. That the constitutional convention was called upon a party platform
in which there was a pledge that no white man, however poor or ignorant,
should be deprived of the franchise.
Upon the authority of Judge Cooley’s work on Constitutional Limitations,
and the case of Ah Kow vs. Nunan, 5th Sawyer, 560, it is proper to refer
to statements in debate on the passage of a law, for the purpose of
ascertaining the general object of the legislation proposed, and the
mischief sought to be remedied. If, then, we wish to know the purpose of
the law, we have but to read the words of Mr. Knox himself, in his opening
address as president of the constitutional convention:
“If the Negroes of the south should move in such numbers to the State of
Massachusetts, or any other northern state, as would enable them to elect
the officers, levy the taxes, and control the government and policy of
that state, I doubt not they would be met in the spirit that the Negro
laborers from the south were met in the State of Illinois, with bayonets
led by a Republican governor, and firmly but emphatically informed that no
quarter would be shown them in that territory.
“And what is it that we do want to do? Why, it is, within the limits
imposed by the Federal Constitution, to establish white supremacy in this
state.”
And so throughout the debate on these provisions the same or similar
language was indulged in. Some of the delegates proposed openly to defy
the Fifteenth Amendment by frankly writing it in the law that no Negro
should be eligible to vote in Alabama. The prevailing opinion seemed to be
that the enfranchisement of the Negro in the beginning was an insult and
an outrage upon the southern white people to humiliate and degrade them,
and it now became their duty in self-defense to disfranchise him as far as
they could under the Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Upon the authority of the Supreme Court of the United States, one cannot
do indirectly unlawfully what one cannot do directly lawfully.
How could Mr. Knox keep his pledge not to disfranchise a single white
man, made to his party, and at the same time keep his oath to support
the Constitution of the United States? Which, think you, had the greater
building force upon him? There being only white and black men in Alabama,
and the convention being pledged not to disfranchise the whites, who else
were there to be disfranchised but the Blacks. No matter how the thing was
done, whether by a soldier clause or a grandfather clause, a temporary
plan or a permanent plan, its purpose was unlawful and repugnant to the
Fifteenth Amendment.
The well-settled rule of construction is that the form of a law by which
an individual is deprived of constitutionality is immaterial. The test of
the law’s constitutionality is whether it operates to deprive any person
of a right guaranteed by the Constitution. If it does, it is a nullity,
whatever may be its form.
Only one of many similar illustrations can be given of the administration
of this law.
In the postoffice at Montgomery there are about eight or ten Colored
clerks and carriers, all of them qualified under the United States Civil
Service, who own their homes, each valued at upwards of a thousand
dollars. Not one of these men, however, has been able to satisfy the board
of registrars in Montgomery county of his good character, his ability to
read or write, or that he was assessed with three hundred dollars’ worth
of property. The Constitution thus administered has brought about the
following results:
In the county of Montgomery, where there are more than 5000 qualified
Negro electors, only 47 were allowed to register. And in the whole State
of Alabama, with about two hundred thousand qualified Negro electors,
only about two thousand five hundred were allowed to register; while all
the white men in the state who applied—183,234—were given certificates of
qualification for life.
Mr. Knox is also in error when he says that the Negroes of Alabama
disqualify themselves by failing to pay their capitation tax, which is a
prerequisite for voting.
The payment of the poll tax without also being registered does not
give the right to vote in Alabama; and the payment of this tax is not a
prerequisite for registration. The truth is, the boards of registrars
refuse to register qualified Negroes, no matter what their qualification,
or what property they own, or what taxes they have paid, except in such
cases as seem to suit their whims. The qualified Negro thus refused is
wholly remediless.
The Alabama Constitution provides that any person to whom registration
is denied shall have the right of appeal to the Circuit Court. At the
trial the solicitor for the state shall appear and defend against the
petitioner on behalf of the state. The judge shall charge the jury only as
to what constitutes the qualifications to entitle the applicant to become
an elector at the time he applied for registration, and the jury shall
determine the weight and effect of the evidence and return a verdict. From
the judgment rendered an appeal lies to the Supreme Court in favor of the
petitioner.
This law, we submit, is an absolute farce. It provides for an appeal from
a partisan board to a partisan jury, composed exclusively of white men
with the state solicitor, a partisan officer, appearing for the state
against the elector. The hands of the trial judge are tied, so that he
can only charge the jury as to what constitutes qualifications. The jury
are thus made the sole judges of the case, and their decision is final,
because nothing but an issue of fact can arise at the trial. Every lawyer
knows that an appellate court cannot disturb the verdict of a jury on
any disputed issue of fact, and hence on appeal to the Supreme Court the
appeal was dismissed, the Court would avail nothing.
The case of the state vs. Crenshaw, 138 Alabama, 506, from Limestone
county, referred to by Mr. Knox, in no way supports his contention,
and really decides nothing. It has been ascertained that this case was
specially made up to induce Negroes to abandon the Federal Courts and seek
the State Courts. As arranged, the jury in the Circuit Court reversed the
registrars, but on appeal to the Supreme Court the appeal was dismissed,
the Court holding that the Constitution gave the right of appeal only to
the person refused registration and not to the registrars.
The deception becomes obvious when we consider how utterly impossible it
would be for the courts of Alabama, as at present constituted, to carry
on their regular business and determine the cases of two hundred thousand
qualified Negroes refused registration.
Noble work in the Black Belt
BY H. D. SLATTER
Of a truth we may say that the upward career of the average Negro reads
like a romance of the wildest creation. The terrible struggle to overcome
the ignorance and superstition which slavery imposed upon him, the bitter
contest with the phantoms of darkness, the persistent advancement into
the light of intelligence with the shadow of a long record of intense
cruelty and suffering constantly threatening before him and with the gloom
of an inexorable race prejudice threatening his onward march toward a
higher and grander civilization, this new citizen, undaunted by barriers
of whatever sort, is forging his way to the front in every noble cause.
Many inspiring examples of usefulness on the part of earnest young men who
have received their training at such Institutions as Hampton and Tuskegee
may be found in all sections of the south; but we know of few who are so
unselfishly devoted to the work of elevating the masses of the race as
Prof. William H. Holtzclaw, principal of the Utica Normal and Industrial
institute, located one mile from the town of Utica, on a branch of the
Yazoo and Mississippi Valley railroad in the very heart of the Black Belt
of Mississippi, where the Negroes outnumber the whites seven to one.
Professor Holtzclaw was born in Roanoke, Alabama in 1872. At an early
age he heard of Dr. Booker T. Washington and later attended the Tuskegee
Institute where he received such convictions as to the wisdom of the
principal’s course as to inspire him with the ambition to supplement, if
possible, this great work. After his graduation he went to Snow Hill,
also where he worked for four years in the Snow Hill institute, rising to
the responsible position of treasurer of that institution. While at Snow
Hill he made a very careful study of the condition of the Colored people
in various parts of the south and settled upon Mississippi as the state in
which he might render most valuable service.
In October, 1902, leaving his wife in Alabama, he started for Utica,
where, with unflagging industry he succeeded in opening a school under
an oak tree in the forest one mile from the town. As soon as he was able
to secure a cabin in which to teach the young people flocked in great
numbers to his school. In a very short while he had 200 pupils in daily
attendance. One teacher after another was employed; but the struggle was
most distressing when he found that he could not raise money enough to
pay them. During all this time he was trying to arouse the interest of
the people. He went from door to door explaining his efforts, then made a
tour of the churches; after riding or walking ten miles at night, he would
return and teach the next day. After a protracted struggle of this kind
and after visiting nearly everybody for miles, he secured about $600.
Forty acres of land were purchased and part of the lumber for a
comfortable building was put on the ground. Some of the trustees in
New York City and Boston came to his assistance and with this and
contributions from a few other friends, he was able to get through that
first year. Although it was a struggle, he found in it some pleasure. To
know that you are doing the work that the world needs and must have done
is a pleasure, even under trying circumstances. It is doubtful if any
school started as a result of Tuskegee’s teaching ever accomplished more
in the same length of time, during its first year of existence than was
true of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute.
Starting in October, 1902, without a cent, in the open air, he succeeded
in one year in establishing a regularly organized institution,
incorporated under the laws of the state of Mississippi, with 225
students and seven teachers, and the property valued at $4000. On 40 acres
of good farm land, about a mile from town, a model crop had been grown. He
had erected a two-story frame building, at a cost of something over $4000.
But in all this noble work Professor Holtzclaw was assisted by teachers
whose co-operation made it possible for him to accomplish so much in so
short a period.
[Illustration: PROF. W. H. HOLTZCLAW]
Miss Ada L. Hicks, lady principal of the institute, a graduate of the
Snow Hill school and for a number of years a student at Spelman seminary,
Atlanta, Ga., is one of the most helpful workers associated with the
professor. She is deeply concerned about the work and is painstaking in
every effort.
Miss Clara J. Lee, head of the academic work of the institute was born
on a farm in the neighborhood of Utica. She finished the normal course
in Tongaloo university, located in the beautiful little village of
Tongaloo, in the very middle of the state of Mississippi, just a few miles
from Jackson, the capital. She started to work with Professor Holtzclaw
immediately upon her graduation and her services have been invaluable. Her
endeavors are highly appreciated by the principal.
The work which Professor Holtzclaw is doing in the Black Belt of
Mississippi is of incalculable value.
* * * * *
“I sometimes think we’re growing up
To be a wondrous people,
But yet, I fear, in building we’re
Commencing with the steeple.
Without a basis broad and deep,
With virtue its foundation,
And truth and bright as corner-stones,
We can not build a nation.”
—Daniel Webster Davis.
AND WHEN LOVE IS BLIND
A THRILLING STORY OF HOW LOVE PLAYS UPON THE HEART AND SOUL
BY ALICE MAUD MEADOWS
WRITTEN FOR ALEXANDER’S MAGAZINE
Chapter I.
“I wish,” Nora Desmond colored ever so slightly, “one of you would tell me
what Mr. Le Strange is like!”
Mrs. Desmond and Nancy Desmond looked at one another sharply, something
like a warning glance passed between them.
“Like?” Mrs. Desmond repeated, faintly.
“Yes—like,” Nora returned. “I know he’s tall and big. I know he has a
pleasant voice, a merry laugh; I know”—her strange, pretty eyes grew
shy, though they saw nothing, never had seen anything since her fourth
birthday—“he is the kindest man in the whole wide world; but I want to
know what his face is like—that’s natural, isn’t it, since”—a trifle
defiantly—“since we are such good friends?”
“Quite natural,” Mrs. Desmond answered. “What would you like to know—the
color of his eyes?”
Once more she looked at Nancy; the girl shrugged her shoulders, and made a
helpless sort of gesture.
“Of course,” Nora said, “the color of his eyes, his hair, what sort of a
nose and mouth he has, whether he wears a mustache. I should like a word
picture of him. You know,” she sighed softly, “it’s all the picture I can
see.”
For some reason or other, both Mrs. and Miss Desmond looked relieved.
“John Le Strange has very good features, indeed,” Mrs. Desmond answered;
“a straight nose, a good mouth and really beautiful eyes. His hair is
brown, with a natural wave in it. I don’t think there’s anyone in the
world who could deny John has good features. As for the nature of the man,
it’s absolutely the sweetest I have ever known.”
A very pretty smile crossed Nora’s lips, a tender expression entered the
sightless eyes.
“The sweetest nature you have ever known,” she repeated. “One couldn’t
have a nicer thing said than that. Looks are a great deal, of course—I so
love everything beautiful, but a lovely nature is even more than a lovely
exterior. I—why, that’s John’s footstep; he’s earlier than usual today,
isn’t he?”
John Le Strange boarded in the house of Mrs. Desmond; had lived in her
house now for ten years, almost ever since the death of Terrence Desmond,
leaving his widow not very well provided for.
A look of pleased expectancy shone upon the girl’s face; then, as the
footsteps passed the door, went slowly upstairs, it died away.
“His footfall sounds tired tonight,” she said, more to herself than the
others, “as though some trouble is upon him. I wish, mother”—it was
curious how directly she seemed to look at her mother—“you would go up to
him, just to see that nothing is wrong. He’s been an inmate of your house
so long now, you must feel almost like a mother to him.”
Once more Mrs. Desmond glanced at Nancy.
“I dare say he’s fagged out,” she answered. “Men mostly are when they come
home from their work. Why not go and ask him yourself, Nora? You’re his
favorite.”
A smile flashed into the girl’s face, in her eyes, on her lips, dimpling
her cheeks. She had been beautiful before; she was absolutely lovely now.
“His favorite!” she repeated. “Mother, do you really think so? Of course,
he pities me—everyone does; everyone is kind to me—but, apart from that,
do you really, really think I am his favorite—in spite of my blindness?”
Mrs. Desmond rose, cross the room, put her hand upon the girl’s shoulder.
“I don’t think—I know,” she returned. “He thinks more of you than he
thinks of anyone in the wide, wide world! That’s something to be proud of,
Nora.”
She rose slowly, her little hands tightly clasped.
“Something to be very, very proud of!” she returned. “But how wonderful
that is, mother!”
She moved across the room without stretching out her hands. No one who did
not know would have supposed her to be blind.
“She will marry him, of course,” Nancy said, when she was out of hearing,
“because she is blind; she never would if she could see!”