farms, truck gardens, dormitories, and shops before going to his
office and attacking his huge correspondence. This correspondence,
both in its dimensions and catholicity, was typical of the man. His
daily incoming mail amounted to between 125 and 150 letters. The
outgoing ran to between 500 and 1,000 letters daily--in large part, of
course, "campaign letters,"--as he called them, letters seeking to
interest new friends in the work of the Institute, and others keeping
in touch with friends already interested, etc. His advice, opinion, or
comments were sought on every conceivable subject both by serious and
sensible men and women and by cranks of both races. Hundreds of the
humbler people of his own race were constantly applying to him for
information and advice as to whether it would be profitable to start
this or that business venture, or whether or not it would be possible
to establish a school in this or that community, and how they should
set about it.
Booker Washington's sense of justice was unquenchable. While at
Coden-on-the-Bay, near Mobile, Ala., in September, 1915, snatching a
few days of rest and recreation as a palliative for the insidious
disease which was so soon to end his life, he was distressed by a
newspaper report of the killing of a number of Haitians by United
States Marines. He read the report in a Mobile paper late one
afternoon on his return from a fishing trip. He went to bed but could
not sleep. The misfortunes of the turbulent little black republic
seethed through his mind. Early in the morning, while his companions
were still sleeping, he awakened the inevitable stenographer and
dictated an article counselling patience in dealing with the
unfortunate little country. This article, dictated by a dying man on
the impulse of the moment, briefly recites the history of Haiti from
the period over a hundred years ago when the people of the island
wrested their liberty from France under the leadership of Toussaint
L'Ouverture, up to the present time. He then says in part:
"Associated Press dispatches a few days ago stated that forty or fifty
Haitians had been killed on Haytian soil in one day by American
marines and a number of marines wounded. To every black man in the
United States this dispatch brought a feeling of disappointment and
sorrow. While, as I have stated, the United States, under the
circumstances, was compelled to take notice of conditions in Haiti and
is being compelled to control matters, largely because of the fault of
the Haitians, I had hoped that the United States would be patient in
dealing with the Haitian Government and people. The United States has
been patient with Germany. It has been patient in the Philippines. It
has been exceedingly patient in dealing with Mexico. I hope this
country will be equally patient and more than patient in dealing with
Haiti--a weaker and more unfortunate country!
"I very much wish that it might have been possible for the United
States to have taken a little more time in making known to the
Haitians the purposes we have in mind in taking over the control of
their custom houses and their governmental affairs. While everything
that we intend to do, and have in mind to do, is perfectly plain to
the officials of the United States, we must remember that all this is
not perfectly plain to the Haitians. It would have been worth while,
in my opinion, before attempting arbitrarily to force Haiti to sign
the treaty put before its officials, to have spent a little time and a
little patience in informing the Haitian people of the unselfish
benevolence of our intentions. They, in time, would have understood
why it is necessary to intervene in their affairs.
"Another reason, in my opinion, why patience may be manifested in this
matter is that the treaty, even at the best, cannot be ratified by the
United States Senate until it meets in regular session in December,
unless the President calls it in special session earlier.
"I confess that while I am unschooled in such matters, since reading
the treaty the Haitians have been told they must ratify, it seems to
me rather harsh and precipitate; one cannot be surprised that the
Haitians have hesitated to agree to all the conditions provided for in
this treaty. No wonder they have hesitated when they have had so
little time in which to understand it, when the masses of the Haitian
people know little or nothing of what the treaty contemplates.
"The way matters are now going, there is likely to be bitterness and
war. The United States, in the end, will conquer, will control, will
have its way, but it is one thing to conquer a people through love,
through unselfish interest in their welfare, and another thing to
conquer them through the bullet, through the shotgun. Shooting
civilization into the Haitians on their own soil will be an amazing
spectacle. Sending marines as diplomats and Mauser bullets as
messengers of destruction breed riot and anarchy, and are likely to
leave a legacy of age-long hatreds and regrets.
"I also hope the United States will not pursue a mere negative policy
in Haiti, that is, a policy of controlling the customs and what-not,
without going further in progressive, constructive directions. In a
word, the United States now has an opportunity to do a big piece of
fine work for Haiti in the way of education, something the island has
never had. I hope some way will be provided by which a portion of the
revenues will be used in giving the people a thorough, up-to-date
system of common school, agricultural, and industrial education. Here
is an excellent opportunity for some of the young colored men and
women of the United States who have been educated in the best methods
of education in this country to go to Haiti and help their fellows.
Here is an opportunity for some of the most promising Haitian boys
and girls to be sent to schools in the United States. Here is an
opportunity for us to use our influence and power in giving the
Haitians something they have never had, and that is education, real
education. At least 95 per cent. of the people, as I have said, are
unlettered and ignorant so far as books are concerned."
Booker Washington's self-control was never more needed than on an
occasion at Tuskegee described by T. Thomas Fortune, the Negro author
and publicist. A Confederate veteran who had lost an arm fighting for
the Confederacy and who had served for a number of years in Congress
was on the program to speak at a Tuskegee meeting. This Confederate
veteran had a great liking for Mr. Washington and believed in his
ideas on the importance of industrial education for the colored
people. Mr. Fortune says:
"John C. Dancy, a colored man, at that time Collector of Customs at
Wilmington, N.C., was to speak first, the Confederate veteran second,
and I was to follow the latter. Mr. Dancy is an unusually bright and
eloquent man. Mr. Dancy paid a glowing tribute to the New England men
and women who had built up the educational interest among the colored
people after the war, of which Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes are
lasting monuments. Mr. Dancy had plenty of applause from the great
concourse of countrymen, but his address made the white speaker
furious. When the former Congressman was called upon to speak he
showed plainly that he was agitated out of his self-restraint.
Without any introductory remarks whatever, he said, as I remember it:
"'I have written this address for you,' waving it at the audience,
'but I will not deliver it. I want to give you niggers a few words of
plain talk and advice. No such address as you have just listened to is
going to do you any good; it's going to spoil you. You had better not
listen to such speeches. You might just as well understand that this
is a white man's country, as far as the South is concerned, and we are
going to make you keep your place. Understand that. I have nothing
more to say to you.'
"The audience was taken back as much by the bluntness of the remarks
as if they had been doused with cold water. Indignation was everywhere
visible on the countenances of the people. But Mr. Washington appeared
unruffled. On the contrary, his heavy jaw was hard set and his eyes
danced in a merry measure. It was a time to keep one's temper and
wits, and he did so, as usual. Without betraying any feeling in the
matter, and when everybody expected him to announce the next speaker,
he said:
"'Ladies and Gentlemen: I am sure you will agree with me that we have
had enough eloquence for one occasion. We shall listen to the next
speaker at another occasion, when we are not so fagged out. We will
now rise, sing the doxology, and be dismissed.'
"The audience did so, but it was the most funereal proceeding I had
ever witnessed upon such an occasion. Mr. Washington's imperturbable
good nature alone saved the day."
Some time after President Roosevelt had begun to consult Booker
Washington on practically all his appointments and policies which
particularly affected the relations between the races, and after
several Southern white men had been given Federal appointments on Mr.
Washington's recommendation, the bitterness against him grew so
intense, especially among the "Talented Tenth" element of the Northern
Negroes, that he decided to meet a group of their leaders face to
face, and have it out. Accordingly, through Mr. Fortune, he arranged
to meet a number of these men at a dinner at Young's Hotel in Boston.
Mr. Fortune thus describes what took place:
"At the proper time, when the coffee and cigars were served, I arose
and told the diners that Dr. Washington had desired to meet them at
the banquet table and at the proper time to have each one of them
express freely his opinion of the race question, and how best the race
could be served in the delicate crisis through which it was then
passing. Each of the speakers launched into a tirade against Dr.
Washington and his policies and methods, many of them in lofty flights
of speech they had learned at Harvard University. The atmosphere was
dense with discontent and denunciation.
"The climax was reached when William H. Lewis, the famous Harvard
football coach, told Dr. Washington to go back South, and attend to
his work of educating the Negro and 'leave to us the matters political
affecting the race.' Every eye was upon Dr. Washington's face, but
none of them could read anything in it; it was as inscrutable as a
wooden Indian's. When every one of them had had his say, I called upon
Dr. Washington to respond to the speakers who had unburdened
themselves. Dr. Washington rose slowly, and with a slip of paper in
his hand, said:
"'Gentlemen, I want to tell you about what we are doing at Tuskegee
Institute in the Black Belt of Alabama.'
"For more than a half-hour he told them of the needs and the work
without once alluding to anything that had been said in heat and anger
by those to whom he spoke. He held them close to him by his simple
recital, with here and there a small blaze of eloquence, and then
thanking them for the candor with which they had spoken, sat down.
They were all disappointed, as they expected that he would attempt to
excuse himself for the things they had complained of."
At the time of Mr. Washington's death, the same William H. Lewis, who
told him at this time to go back to the South and attend to his work
and "leave to us the matters political affecting the race," said of
him:
"Words, like tears, are vain and idle things to express the great
anguish I feel at the untimely death of Booker Washington. He was my
friend who understood me and believed in me. I did not always believe
in him because I did not understand him. I first saw and heard him
when a junior at Amherst in the early 90's, when he spoke at Old John
Brown's church in Springfield, where I journeyed to hear him. I could
not then appreciate his love for the Southern people and his gospel of
work. I even doubted his loyalty to his race. When I came to Boston I
joined in with his most violent and bitterest critics. The one thing
that I am so thankful for is that I early saw the light and came to
appreciate and understand the great work of Booker T. Washington.
"I have just finished reading an old letter from him, date, October 1,
1901, in which he said: 'The main point of this letter is to say I
believe that both you and I are going to be in a position in the
future to serve the race effectually, and while it is very probable
that we shall always differ as to detailed methods of lifting up the
race, it seems to me that if we agree in each doing our best to lift
it up the main point will have been gained, and I am sure that in our
anxiety to better the condition of the race there is no difference
between us, and I shall be delighted to work in hearty coöperation
with you.'
"Since then, I have known him intimately and well. He was unselfish
and generous to a fault; he was modest yet masterful; he was quiet yet
intense; his common sense and sagacity seemed uncanny, such was his
knowledge of human nature. His was a great soul in which no bitterness
or littleness could even find a lurking place. His was the great heart
of Lincoln, with malice toward none and charity for all. He loved all
men and all men loved him.
"My humble prayer is that his torch has lighted another among the dark
millions of America, to lead the race onward and upward."
Booker Washington's insistence that the classrooms, shops, and farms
were for the development of the students rather than the students for
their development was well illustrated by a remark he once made to
Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts when the Bishop was visiting
the Institute. In reply to Bishop Lawrence's question as to whether he
had chosen the best available land for his agricultural work, he said,
"No, sir, I chose pretty nearly the poorest land I could find. I chose
land on which men would have to spend all their energies to bring out
the life in the land. They work here under the hardest conditions.
When they go out to other lands--to their own lands, perhaps--they
won't find any worse land to till. If they find any better land the
difference will be all gain for them."
Perhaps more remarkable than any or all of his achievements was the
fact that Booker Washington was a gentleman. It would be difficult to
find a man who better conformed to the exacting yet illusive
requirements of that term. He had not only the naturalness and the
goodness of heart which are the fundamentals, but he had also the
breeding and the polish which distinguish the finished gentleman from
the "rough diamond." This fact about Booker Washington has been well
described by Hamilton Wright Mabie in an article entitled: "Booker T.
Washington: Gentleman," in which he says in part:
"Booker Washington became one of the foremost men in America; he was
heard on great occasions by great audiences with profound attention;
he was a writer and speaker of National position, the founder of a
college, and the organizing leader of a race in ideas and industry.
These were notable achievements; but there was another achievement
which was in its way more notable. Without any advantages of birth or
station or training, a member of an ostracized race, with the doors of
social life closed in his face, Dr. Washington was a gentleman. I
recall two illustrations of this quality of nature, often lacking in
men of great ability and usefulness. The first was in Stafford House,
London, the residence of the Duke of Sutherland. The older Duke was
the lifelong friend of Queen Victoria; and once, when she was going to
Stafford House, she wrote the Duke that she was about to leave her
uninteresting house for his beautiful palace. Nothing could be more
stately than the great hall of Stafford House, with its two marble
stairways ascending to the galleries above; and when the Duchess of
Sutherland, standing on the dais from which the stairs ascended,
received her guests she reminded more than one of her guests of the
splendid picture drawn by Edmund Burke of Marie Antoinette moving like
a star through the palace of Versailles. On that evening Dr.
Washington was present. At one time in one of the rooms he happened to
be talking with the duchess and two other women of high rank, two of
them women of great beauty and stateliness. There were some people
present who were evidently very much impressed by their surroundings.
Booker Washington seemed to be absolutely unconscious of the splendor
of the house in which he was, or of the society in which for the
moment he found himself. Born in a hut without a door-sill, he was at
ease in the most stately and beautiful private palace in London.
"On another occasion there was to be a Tuskegee meeting at Bar Harbor.
The Casino had been beautifully decorated for a dance the night
before. The harbor was full of yachts, the tennis courts of
fine-looking young men and women; it was a picture of luxury tempered
with intelligence. Mr. Washington was looking out of the window.
Presently he turned to me and said, with a smile, 'And last Wednesday
morning I was eating breakfast in a shanty in Alabama; there were five
of us and we had one spoon!'"
At the time of his stay in London, during which this reception at
Stafford House took place, he was given a luncheon by a group of
distinguished men to which Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, was
invited. In reply, Mr. Asquith sent this note:
_10 Downing Street, Whitehall, S.W._
_26th September, 1910._
DEAR SIR: I much regret that my engagements do not allow me
to accept your invitation to be present at the luncheon
which it is proposed to give in honor of Mr. Booker T.
Washington. I feel sure, however, that he will be welcomed
with a cordiality which his persistent and successful labors
in the cause of the education of the American Negro deserve,
especially at the hands of English men, whose difficulties
in many parts of the Empire have been helped toward a
solution by the results of his work.
Yours faithfully,
[Signed] H.H. ASQUITH.
While at home, no matter how pressed and driven with work, Booker
Washington snatched an hour or so every day for hunting or riding.
This daily exercise became a fetich with him which he clung to with
unreasonable obstinacy. He would frequently set off upon these hunts
or rides in so exhausted a condition that obviously their only effect
could be worse exhaustion. His intense admiration for Theodore
Roosevelt probably had its influence, conscious or unconscious, in
strengthening his devotion to violent outdoor exercise.
Whatever he was doing or wherever he was, his mind seemed constantly
at work along constructive lines. At the most unexpected times and
places he would suddenly call the inevitable stenographer and dictate
some idea for an article or address or some plan for the improvement
of Tuskegee or for the betterment of the whole race in this or that
particular. He would sometimes reduce his immediate subordinates to
the verge of despair by pouring out upon them in rapid succession
constructive suggestions each one of which meant hours, days, and even
weeks of time to work out, and then calling for the results of all
before even one could be fairly put into effect. This tendency became
particularly marked in his closing years when the consciousness of an
immense amount of work to be done and a short and constantly lessening
period in which to do it must have become an obsession and almost a
nightmare to him.
He would sometimes wound the feelings of acquaintances and friends,
particularly his teachers, by passing them on the street and even
looking at them without recognition. This naturally was not
intentional, nor was it because his mind was wool-gathering, but
merely because he was thinking out some idea with which the people and
events immediately about him had for the moment no connection and were
consequently totally obliterated from his consciousness.
Mr. Washington's strength of will and determination were never better
shown than in the closing hours of his life. When he was told by his
doctors at St. Luke's Hospital, New York, whither he had been taken by
the New York trustees of the Institute after his final collapse, that
he had but a few hours to live, he insisted upon starting for home at
once. His physicians expostulated and warned him that in his condition
he could not reasonably expect to survive the journey. He insisted
that he must go and be true to his oft-repeated assertion, "I was born
in the South, I have lived and labored in the South, and I expect to
die and be buried in the South." This remark, when sent out in the
Associated Press dispatches announcing his death, touched the South as
nothing else could have. No Negro was ever eulogized in the Southern
press as he was. Long accounts of his career and death with
sympathetic and appreciative editorial comments appeared in most of
the Southern papers.
One of the doctors who was called in to attend him at the time he was
taken to the hospital remarked that it was "uncanny to see a man up
and about who ought by all the laws of nature to be dead." In this
condition, then, he set out upon the long journey from New York to
Tuskegee. When the party reached the Pennsylvania Station an invalid's
chair was awaiting him, but he declined to use it, and leaning on the
arms of his companions walked or rather tottered to his seat in the
train. As soon as the train began to move Southward a slight
invigoration of triumph seemed to come over him which increased as the
journey continued, until at its close he seemed stronger than when he
started. All along the way he would inquire at frequent intervals what
point they had reached. The reaching and passing of each important
station such as Greensboro, Charlotte, and Atlanta he would seem to
score up in his mind's eye as a new triumph. And when finally he
reached Chehaw, the little station five miles from Tuskegee, he was
fairly trembling with eager expectancy. As we have said, he reached
Tuskegee apparently stronger than when he left New York and strong
enough to enjoy the final triumph of his indomitable will over his
overworked and weakened body. The next morning, November 14, 1915, he
was dead.
Of the myriads of tributes to Booker Washington by white men and black
both North and South, which were spoken from platforms and pulpits and
printed in newspapers and periodicals throughout the length and
breadth not only of America but the world, there are two which we feel
irresistibly compelled to use in concluding this chapter and book. One
is the tribute of a former student, Isaac Fisher, president of the
Tuskegee Alumni Association, speaking for the graduates at the
memorial exercises held at Tuskegee on December 12, 1915; the other
is the tribute of one of his teachers, Clement Richardson, head of the
division of English, speaking in effect for the Tuskegee teachers in
an article published in the _Survey_ of December 4, 1915.
At this memorial meeting, after being introduced by Seth Low, Chairman
of the Board of Trustees, as the representative of the Tuskegee Alumni
Association, Mr. Fisher said:
"Mr. Chairman: The greatest citizens of this nation have paused long
enough to pay tributes of honor to the memory of Dr. Washington; and
to-night some of the world's most distinguished citizens are present
to say their words of love for the departed chieftain whose body lies
in a grave just outside of those walls. In the presence of these great
men I do not see why you have asked me, one of the least of all, to
add my simple praise.
"But I can say that no persons have sustained so great a loss as have
the members of the Tuskegee Alumni Association; and I come to bear
testimony to the depth and sincerity of their grief.
"There is a story which has not yet been told, in connection with the
spread of industrial education in the South and throughout the entire
country. I must tell that story here before I can make clear just how
great is the Alumni's loss.
"In telling of the spread of industrial education, during the past
twenty-five years, we seem not to know that the work has been
difficult and prosecuted at great sacrifice on the part of the
Tuskegee graduates who have sought to interpret Dr. Washington's
theory that economic fitness was the basis of racial growth in many
other directions.