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, except the effort to conquer
ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices.... Until we thus
conquer ourselves, 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 Association in St.
Louis, in 1904, he made the following remarks which are typical of
points he sought to emphasize when 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 intelligence 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 encouragement 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
shortcomings. 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 direction of achievement and
construction will go farther in 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 attractive."
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 indirect 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, 1915, entitled, "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 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 carefully 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 interests 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 friction. 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 characteristic 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 required 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
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 constitutional question, the colored people are going to
be opposed to it. If you leave it simply an administrative question,
which it really is, the matter will very likely settle 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 11-3/10 per 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. 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 encourage 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.... Instead of figuring how long it will take an
express train to reach the moon if it travelled at the rate of forty
miles an 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 identification 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. Washington did not agree to
spend his spare time looking for a disloyal 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 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.
Particularly 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 compared 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 almost 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 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 influence 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 amalgamation as offering a solution of the so-called
race problem, and 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 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 rôles 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, 1901._
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
appointments 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._
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 McIlhenny; 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. Roosevelt
might be given the Republican Presidential nomination 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 President Roosevelt,
Mr. Washington found that the judgeship for the Southern District of
Alabama had just become 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 Democrats
and Southern Negroes as well as among Southern white Republicans.
Being unable at the moment to return to Washington, he sent his
secretary with the following letter:
_Tuskegee, Alabama,_
_October 2, 1901._
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 Democrat, 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 outspoken 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 President this
morning. I found him all cordiality and brimming over with
good will for you. That pleased me much! He had received the
telegram and had made an appointment 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 ambition 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 correspondents 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.
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[1] is and I told him that he was
a clean representative character, and that he was favorably
considered 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 Crum. He said he
didn't but that he had heard of him and always favorably.
The President then asked Cortelyou what place a man named B.
was being considered for, and he said the place made vacant
by Webster'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.