SOME ASPECTS OF THE RACE QUESTION.

An Article Published in the Baltimore Sun, November 21st, 1898.

Messrs. Editors: Recently we have had a number of discussions and opinions concerning the solution of the race problem, the difficulties and dangers surrounding it, the respective relations of both races toward it, and the need of mutual confidence, patience and temperance in dealing with it. But in most of the current discussions of this momentous subject one cannot but be impressed with the omission of the Negro as an intelligent factor in the solution.

They err upon the side of treating him as a quantity in an algebraic equation with imposed conditions as the known member, and the Negro in a certain numerical relation, the unknown member or quantity to be determined.

The latest and most patent opinions delivered upon this subject agree in one main contention, that the education of the Negro has been misdirected in that it has given him false ideas of his rights and privileges, elevated him above his opportunities, promoted the growth of luxurious habits, increased vice and disorder, fostered the spirit of insolent self-importance, and extended his disinclination to labor.

It is not that the negro's education has been misdirected per se that is primarily and wholly the cause of his supposed degeneracy, but the attitude of those who hold the opportunities and gateways of employment and achievement possible to him at his renaissance.

A SERIOUS BLOW TO FREE INSTITUTIONS.

If the American people were sincere—and there is every reason to believe they were—when they enacted certain amendments to the constitution, a great deal of idle comment is wasted 0005 8upon certain ideas of rights and privileges it is alleged the negro holds. Abstractly, the right to vote implies the right to be voted for, and under our form of government any citizen—provided he conforms to the technical requirements of age and residence, regardless of the higher qualifications of ability, talent, scholarship and morality—whom a requisite number of fellow citizens desire to nominate for any office, may become a candidate. As to the wisdom of those amendments there is room for a grave doubt. To entitle any large class of people, ignorant and illiterate, let it be granted, to the right of suffrage by legislative enactment is a serious blow to the permanency of free institutions, and the time is rapidly approaching when the intelligence of every voter must be taken into consideration by federal legislation. With such tremendous questions of policy as territorial expansion and colonial acquisition, tariff reform, social reform, agrarian reform and labor reform, possible of decision by individual suffrage, is it wonderful that serious minded people are beginning to fear for the great American republic?

The words of Lincoln need to be recast and a “government of the people, for the people and by the people” must mean of those sufficiently educated to decide between the merits of opposing principles and men.

As regards the capacity and capability of the negro at the time the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were enacted, we believe, in their logical and practical application, they were a full generation in advance of existing circumstances and conditions, and only by a slow and tortuous process of evolution can this strangely compounded American people be brought to the consistent practice of what has been placed in the fundamental law of the land.

THE NEGRO's INTEREST A VITAL ONE.

The negro is as much interested in the solution of the race problem as anybody else, for it has become to him a question of life an death. He has enjoyed thirty-three years of freedom and education and must now apply his knowledge to study of his environment by the light of his experience. He must learn what things advance and what hinder his welfare; determine for himself the conditions that are transitory and mutable and those 0006 9that are permanent and indestructible. It seems that the unanimous sentiment of the whites is against his active participation and self assertiveness in politics. The negro could well abstain from prominence in politics and concentrate his attention and energy in the direction of economic advancement and progress, and gradually mould public sentiment to a just consideration of his possibilities. Of course there are and will be a lot of selfish politicians to insists that the race problem consists simply in the question whether the negro shall vote or not. because they are judges with a direct and mercenary interest in the cause to be decided. What they want, primarily, is the negro vote, and, failing in that a plentiful crop of Southern outrages. Indeed, if the negro could have much less outrage and lynching, even at the expense of less voting, he would in the end be a gainer. The recent events, in Illinois and the Carolinas, arouse us to the fact that it is time for the negro to pause and consider, cooly and seriously, this trend of event and what it portends to him. We are drifting, apparently, toward a war of races. Not perhaps a war fought in the open field with organized battalions—the forces are too unequal for that; but towards a settled and perpetual race conflict by mutual hatred, suspicion and distrust, and if the gathering train of revenges and animosities, occasioned by the desperate and cruel clashes occurring with appalling frequency, is to be halted and the problem peacefully solved, it must be by the action and co-operation of the people, white and black, throughout this broad land. The present hostility between the races seems to be engendered by their political relations, and if things go on as they are no man can apprehend the future. Let the negro, as an experiment, abstain from prominence political affairs. I earnestly believe such a course would convert enmity into friendship, mistrust into confidence, contempt into respect, place upon the American people the highest obligation to protect his rights and advance his welfare, and at the same time illustrate his wisdom and gain all that he imperatively needs.

A CHANCE TO MAKE A LIVING

The negro does not ask social equality, but he wants and needs the opportunity to earn an honest living at whatever he excels. It matters little the name of the education so it is real and he has 0007 10the chance of applying his energy with better direction and facility. Any process of education which does not teach him to live completely and make the most of life must necessarily be a failure. The present status of the negro is largely due to economic conditions. He desires to be neither the master nor the dependent of the white; he longs, and justly, to be their equal in all that contributes to good government, secures stability to society, gives sodality to the races and make for general progress.

The large majority of the race, probably nine tenths, must, for sometime to come, engage in manual labor in order to provide homes and sustenance; and yet that nine tenths must be enlightened concerning morality, responsibility as parents, and duty as part and parcel of this great nation. With the long hours of labor, the frequent discouragements which these periods of agitation produce, their own perversity and many other difficulties, is there any wonder that a great number of these people are yet ignorant of the modes and requisites of right living?

The apparent degeneracy of large numbers of the race is directly chargeable to the lack of proper homes and housing. The necessity that compels both parents to be bread winners is positive evidence of the fact that their children grow up like Topsy, without reason or rhyme,” a prey to those forces which drag down, strangers to those which uplift. The Penates of virtue, purity and strength, which reign in all well regulated homes, have no place in their abodes. The exuberance of their youth, finding no possibility of expression inside the home, is poisoned by the philosophy of the streets. Boys and girls are taken from school at tender ages and put to work, that they may add to the family income, and in a majority of cases fall into companionship with those skilled in viciousness and petty crime. The disposition to shirk duty, which is constitutional in the human race, becomes augmented beyond possibility of redemption, and their lives are a succession of misdirected methods to live by their wits.

In a second grade of one of the colored schools I find, in a class of sixty, one-fourth as bright as the average white child, one-half gave hopeful evidence, while the remaining fourth at present are comparatively hopeless. About two of the first fourth will finish the high school course; the remainder, together with the hopeful half, drop out anywhere between the second and 0008 11eight grades, and the hopeless fourth will never complete the primary course.

What becomes of this great yearly drift of children into the mass of society? Here lies the immediate and gravest problem of the race.

A SCHEME OF PRACTICAL SOCIALISM.

The negro is gradually and surely being forced out of trades and occupations that were his exclusive employments for some time after the war. Every day opportunities of earning an honest dollar are diminishing for him, and yet he must live and pay rent. The present high tax rate here in Baltimore is especially severe on him because he must not only earn and pay enough in rent to enable the owner to liquidate his taxes, but as much more as will secure a fair profit to the owner on his investment, and in many cases to both agent and owner. Is there a remedy for the present deplorable state of affairs? Yes. Briefly stated, the negro must adopt a plan of practical socialism, a scheme of intellectual, moral, social and financial co operation and self-help. It can be done right here in Baltimore. Let the colored churches from now on do a more practical, tangible work: let them abolish collections for foreign missions and establish one for home missions. Let the ministers be a little more reasonable in their request for salary and reckon it not by their supposed worth, but by the financial capability of the congregation. Let them look less to display and more to substantial good and seek to give their members some vital principle of living. Let the white citizens who are interested in this question, and those colored persons that have prospered, contribute liberally to this home mission fund. Establish trade schools equipped with the latest machinery and fill them with those people who are compelled to toil. Teach them to manufacture every article of clothing, do laundry work with the latest appliances; put their goods upon the market in competition with others and pay them living wages. Let the school board continue to put colored teachers in colored schools, as they can and are doing a great work among their people. They have the conspicuous advantage of understanding the difficulties that confront their pupils, having once been in their places. Their influence is directed toward improving the conditions surrounding the home life of their pupils, 0009 12managing their amusements and entertainments. The present curriculum in the colored schools is not too high. Many students have mastered it and graduated, and not one has been accused of any misdemeanor or conduct unbecoming ladies and gentlemen. They are all doing a good work, fully conscious of their duty and grave responsibility in the solution of this race problem. The greatest advance towards the solution of this problem lies in the improvement of the economic conditions in which the negro is situated, and as soon as he learns the duties and responsibilities of parents, infuses into his religion the dynamic spirit of right living, avoids superficiality by striving after that which is solid and substantial in education, then we may hope to see him acquire that character, morality and self control which are essential elements in the elevation of any race. We are satisfied that when the conditions that surround the average negro are elevated and purified his nature will respond to the character of his environment.

ADDRESS.

Delivered at Music Hall, Baltimore, December 29th, 1898., upon the occasion of the third concert of the Alumni Association of the Baltimore Colored High School.

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my very pleasant duty to welcome you to the third concert of the Alumni Association of the Baltimore Colored High School. As the purpose of this concert is known to you or can be easily ascertained by referring to the program. I shall not burden you with its rehearsal.

It is, however, quite apropos to enlist your sympathy and assistance for the work our association proposes to undertake at a very early day. There can be no doubt that a favorable judgment resulting from the present referendum to those able, earnest and willing, will remove whatever misgivings we may have anent our initiative, and bring success to worthy endeavors.

To those disposed to criticise and differ from us, we plead an injunction until sufficient time shall have elapsed from the inception of the practical application of our proposal to indicate its merits and demerits.

Without entering into a discussion of the relative values of absolute and comparative truths, positive and implied rights, theoretic and conferred privileges, observation impresses upon us the fact of existing in an atmosphere of peculiar conditions, increasing in heartless and pitiless severity, whose alleviation can only be wrought by subordinating sentiment to prudence and duty, and by projecting those plans and modes of action determined by sober and reflective thought.

In a word, we must deal with social problems as we find them and think for to day as well as to-morrow.

It is clearly perceptible that improvement in society is not accomplished by the operations of myriads of genii, or by the 0011 14magic of an Aladdin's ring or lamp. There shall be no survival of races by impassive natural selection, but if civilization gravitates toward unity, and the expression of the Scriptures is to be literally fulfilled in the absorption of the races of earth and their final rehabilitation as a nation of one the characteristics of that race which adhered most rigidly to the path of rectitude in moral and material affairs, will be found in the surviving species.

We stand to day at the divergence of two angles—the past and the present—and, to our finite minds, a glance in either direction resolves the vista into an indefinite point, possibly chaos or order. Our vantage ground is the summit of the best that has gone before, and our work is to perpetuate the ideal in life by applying to new conditions the principles of success in former ages.

We have seen how vice, luxury, intemperance, idleness and ignorance have devastated temples and destroyed nations; how cleanliness, industry and thrift prevent disease and poverty, and decrease the human annuity in jails, hospitals and almshouses. The difficulties attending progress in a state where the progenitors of a race are victims of an economic system, that gives no time for education and enlightenment concerning the higher duties of life, and enforces the alternatives, starvation and stealth, without providing opportunities for earning a living, are facts engaging the greatest minds.

That old maxim, “Labor omnia vincit,” has suffered some mutation in practical modern philosophy, and the race, whose most approved collateral is an abundance of the raw material of labor—which, on account of its large diffusion, has become a commodity with more value in use than in exchange—and whose nutriment must be obtained in competition with the most colossal mechanical contrivances ever fashioned, has little hope of existing, much less surviving, unless current methods of education undergo a change.

This is pre-eminently an age of stupendous material progress; the forces of nature yielding to the impact of co operative human energy. Everywhere the tendency to work en masse is apparent, producing vast combinations in capital, labor, associations for benevolent and philanthropic purposes.

0012 15

“Here is our great lesson—the necessity of striving jointly for the attainment of desired ends.”

We must begin to make clothes as well as wear them; produce food as well as eat it; sell as well as buy; build houses as well as live in them; in short, we must become producers as well as consumers.

The 80,000 colored people in Baltimore all dress and eat; they live in houses with upholstery, ornaments and utensils. Reckoning the individual cost of living at fifty ($50) dollars a year, a very reasonable sum, there is an annual expenditure of $4,000,000. Suppose by a process of education and co-operation, it could be arranged that at least a moiety of this sum be handled by our own tradesmen and artisans, and through them enter the different avenues of life among us. Would we not be able to raise the average standard of living in a few years on account of the annual increment?

If our young men and women are to apply the training now given them more extensively, ourselves must produce the conditions in which their talents can be employed. If that growing and persistent class under the ban of the Scriptural injunction is to be redeemed and specialized into intelligent units, we must provide and instruct them in the use of modern appliances that they may obtain a greater margin for living from a greater efficiency in production. If we wish to change the present and erroneous method of computing our progress, we must reduce the comparative criminal disproportion.

“We are not lacking in substance, but in intelligent direction.” Whatever may have been necessary thirty years ago will not suffice the present, for this is a new day involving new duties. There must be more attention paid to general progress and advancement with a view of discriminating between the accidental and the essential. We have never sufficiently appreciated the value and force of co-operative effort, and while it cannot be said entirely that our faith has adhered too strictly to the Franklinian religion of “every man for himself,” it cannot be denied that our method has too generally been that of “every man By himself.”

Our association proposes to undertake the study of existing conditions and problems, to consider our resources in every particular, 0013 16and devise and apply means for a better direction and distribution.

Our first work will be to assist those parents who are unable to clothe their children that they may attend school and thus prevent the propagation of that class, whose ultimate development too often furnishes a moral for the social reformer. Our efforts shall be directed towards improving the standard of domestic comfort, thereby creating those refining influences which make home a place of sanctity and endearment.

One great obstacle in the way of successful development of our children is that their constant medium of communication is a dead level. There is no greater natural ability in the children of one race than in another, and the student of public education can easily trace a parallel in accomplishment through the grammar grades. But here the equality ceases and deteriorations begin; differences in environment tell, and enlightened conceptions of prospective status and position in practical life enforce changes in favor of probable adaptability.

There should be a change in current educational methods to comprehend this difference. The trade school, an immediate copula between exertion and compensation, should begin here for those unable to undertake the higher education, and thus we should have the industrial and scholastic supplementing each other, flowing together like the Arve and Rhone.

We believe there can be a change for the better in present conditions. The initiative belongs to those who have had educational advantages, opportunity for refinement, matured intelligence, social accomplishments and virtues. The alteration must begin at the summit, not the base. Upon the intelligent youths of to day, in large measure, depends the future of the race, and if they are able to grasp the true law of progress, secure advances which may be bequeathed as common property to the next generation, and cling, like the albatross to the ancient mariner, to those virtues of integrity and industry, the saying of the prophet shall come to pass with us—“They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.”

NEW DAY—NEW DUTY.

Address delivered before the Morgan College Literary Association, January 20th, 1899.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Every revolution of the earth upon its axis marks a division of time, and to the human being each recurring performance of this planetary phenomena brings consciousness of relation and application to new conditions. Progress depends upon such extension of thought and knowledge to these successive periods as will result in improvement of methods in overcoming external and internal resistances, and the betterment of social conditions.

The history of mankind is divided into epochs and ages much as the chromatic ascending of peaks in a mountain range, each period marking a certain altitude in human accomplishment greater than the proceeding. In the rude beginnings individual energy was expended in obtaining subsistence, but as the social unit reproduced and became more populous, a system of co operation, involving the division of labor, became necessary and government grew out of the pressing need of securing equality of opportunity and protection of person and property among diversified and complicated interrelations. Forms of government have differed in different communities, but each seems to have progressed to a certain point and then declined.

It is not our present purpose to trace the causes and history of the rise and fall of civilizations; it suffices to say that the methods of regulation have been contingent upon prevalent ideas and states of education in different periods, concerning human affinities morally and materially. In the community in which we live it is generally believed that the ideally best form of government, the only one which can fully satisfy all the exigencies of the social state, is that in which the sovereignty, or supreme 0015 18controlling power, is vested in the entire aggregate of interests—in which the whole people participate.

The observant mind begins to see the genesis of a change in existing forms, resulting from a larger and higher consideration of the duties and potentialities of the political unit, a stricter regard for the principles of common honesty and uprightness in men and measures, a better distribution of production between capital and labor, and a real, rather than theoretic, subserving of the best interests of all collectively. Discussion and opinion are veering from the consideration of and allegiance to party shibboleth as the only preventive and deliverance from mal-administration—a relic and custom of barbarism, characteristic in the African savage with his totem—to the great range and diversity of specific needs, recognizing good government in itself, rather than an abstract consideration, as a fit and desirable consummation.

The cog of progress has slipped the time of private wells and cesspools, primitive streets, town pumps, open drains; when vagrancy, common begging, street rowdyism, and a great variety of ordinary nuisances and minor misdemeanors were tolerated as a matter of course; and when no provision was made for systematic and thorough education of all children. Enlightened communities are now committed to a public water supply, a sewer system and ultimate sewage disposal consistent with the requirements of sanitary science, good streets, well made and well kept, maintained conditions of order, decency, and safety, and to the principle that it is both the right and duty of the community to make liberal provision for the instruction of all children, to the end that the average standards of civilization may not decline in the process of transmission from one generation to the next.

It is the duty of every good citizen, in the premises, to use his power and influence in such a quiet and effective way that these necessities may be procured and distributed upon the best possible engineering, financial and sanitary principles; that the best possible methods obtain in the organization and management of establishments that have to do with the detention and correction of offenders, and with the relief of distress; that the public schools be made as efficient as possible, and that their methods from time to time, be adjusted to meet the needs of a changing situation.

0016 19

Material affairs of to-day are managed and conducted on a huge scale, involving vast combinations in capital and labor; yet this is neither new nor characteristic of this age. Enterprises were managed upon just as and grand a scale in civilizations now obsolete, as the Pyramids in Egypt, the Temple of Solomon, the Parthenon, the Augustan Mausoleum, and the Great Wall of China bear witness. But the more minute division of labor, the improvement and increase in the quality and quantity of appliances have produced results undreamed of in the most extravagant periods of the past. Success to-day requires the possession of that tri-unity of materials, land, labor and capital.

In the moral realm, schemes for human redemption and debasement are both projected and operated upon an immense scale. A Christian spire now rises all over the land, an ever present compass pointing mankind to the way of light and truth, bringing blighted faculties to a sense of consciousness and realization of the consequences of wrong doing.

Almost within sound of the Sabbath morning service, dens of vice and immorality are conducted on just as large a scale, founded upon contrasting creeds of utter disregard and contempt for human virtue and destiny, while the revelries and orgies practiced serve as reminders of the dark genesis of man. In congested by ways, often the immediate rear of magnificent temples dedicated to mortal ransom, a horde of urchins and overgrown street gamins, the “dernier mot” of civilization, keep “Sunday on Sabbath instead of Sabbath on Sunday,” by indulging the baser passions held in restraint at other times by the irreducible necessities of existence.

It is between these extremes of social mal-adjustment that the thinking men and women of to-day must determine their duty.

Although a great advance has been made in the manner of diffusing knowledge, a great deal remains to be done before methods will be so systematized that every individual can be prepared for the function of complete living. All curriculums should be determined with deliberate reference to this end, else the lack of restraint in population will bring into existence a race of barbarians as merciless and cruel as those by whom the primeval forests were tenanted.

0017 20

Outside of our duty relative to those things which affect the aggregate mass of human beings in the community, there is a specific duty belonging to each one of us affecting a class to which we are bound by ties of blood and condition. Upon our intelligent young men and women there rests a grave responsibility. A generation has passed since emancipation, and we are judged to-day, even by the progeny of the abolitionists, by comparison with existing standards, and the verdict is being rendered in tones of severity unmixed with sentiment. The burden rests upon us and we cannot put it away. 'tis hard, but 'tis true, and we must be equal to it. The love of our whole race demands it: that special regard we cannot but feel for the well being and advancement of our own people and our own sunny home demands it: recognition of the truth of human brotherhood—that last result of sociological study—demands it.

How and where shall we begin? Each of us by building, firm and stable, in the depths of his own heart, the conviction that the conditions of our life have changed; that old things have passed away, and the new things that have come to us demand, with an authority that cannot be gainsaid, the effort of mind and heart and hand to show that we have not degenerated—submerged by a superior civilization—and that we shall keep abreast of progress by uniting creed and conduct, establishing a reflective rather than emotional system of religious ethics, and by ridding our hearts of the feelings of distrust and incapacity, with regard to each other, that have made it their citadel.

We must endeavor, by the co-operation of the enlightened minority, to fix a general improvement in negro nature so that, notwithstanding occasional interruption, the tendency would be toward extensive and continuous progress. The advancement of a race resembles that of individuals, the fate of whose lives is contingent upon the accurate observance or criminal neglect of inexorable laws. There is no subtle, hopeful fatalism working slowly, steadily, and remorselessly for our elevation and progress. Our future will not follow the course of any impassive natural selection, in its politico-economic sense, but will depend upon present utility and its hereditary transmission. We have been dealing in futures upon too narrow a base, taking no account of possible and probable variation from rectitude in the line of direction.

0018 21

The antebellum negro, when thrown into juxtaposition with the greatest civilization the world has known, fell a prey to its vices, corruptions and enervations on account of limited capacity. This failing can be distinguished to day in large numbers of his offspring, and if our progress is to be the rhythmic movement of an ascending line, we must begin a crusade against this feverish devotion to the gewgaws of existence. Many of our people are in a deplorable state for want of education: many others are in a deplorable state because of it. If educating the negro, under the present system, means making him what the average intelligent and well-to-do negro is—that is, not a contributor to the work of assisting his fellows—then there should be a change. The present instruction is largely absurd and irrelevant to the practical affairs of life. Our christainity also shirks delicate and important work. Its creed seems to be “purify and exalt the soul; the body will take care of itself.” This may be true with a small and peculiar class of people, but it often results in a hysterical, one sided religion; a vague emotionalism. We must look after both body and soul and strive to realize the classic ideal of a “healthy mind in a healthy body.” Our vague generalities must be supplemented by a specific code of details for active work comprehending the supply of loaves and fishes.

There is altogether a too prevalent belief that at sometime—impossible of determination on account of lack of positive information—the waters of fate encumbered with prejudice, hate, distrust and injustice, that now obstruct our path, will, by some mysterious exertion of power, be divided on either side and a way to Canaan blazoned before us. This comforting, through imaginary hope is one of the causes of that stagnation which opposes our material progress. It is my sincere belief that had the whole race, immediately after emancipation from physical bondage, been transported to some new country, or concentrated in an uninhabited and unsettled portion of this country, and their labor wisely directed in the production of wealth in forms indigenous to the locality, the condition to day would be improved in every particular, as experience and necessity are the very best teachers and disciplinarians, while our progress would have been structural, in the natural order of things, and 0019 22not artificially stimulated—supposing, of course, no restriction or interruption in arts of intercourse and commerce with superior civilizations.

Our present status is a complete justification of the theory of Malthus—that the natural tendency of population is to out run subsistence—but from quite another cause than the niggardiness of nature. By a some what one sided education we have anticipated evolution by paying too much attention to the possible environment of a pre-natal race, instead of seeking the remedy for the difficulties that beset the existing one. It may be part of a complex duty to build futures for boys and girls yet unborn, as Prof. Scarborough * asserts; but inference cannot proceed from the unknown to the known and it is absolute folly to condition clear voyage now upon what are likely to be the prevailing winds at some remote period. It may be that certain limitations are faults of the present social organization, but we live in them and are of them, and if our fate is to be assisted in the only effective way, they must be dealt with as they exist.

*“THE Educated Negro and Menial Pursuits.” December Forum, 1898.

“Of what use are our colleges and industrial schools, if those who are trained therein shall have no opportunity for the employment of their powers and talents?” Here is the problem our young men of to day must solve. Their duty lies in devotion to a thorough study of the economic condition and financial capabilities of the race, in order that they may create such a state among ourselves, arising from our daily necessities and desires, as well evolve opportunities and compensation for every legitimate form of endeavor and secure a conversation of energy.

In all treatises on political economy, it is axiomatic that land, labor and capital are the three factors in production, and that the whole produce is distributed among three corresponding and correlative parts,—rent, wage and interest. The negro possesses an abundance of one factor, labor, and receives a disproportionate return in wages, which, being barely sufficient to provide actual subsistence in most cases, precludes the possibility of acquiring land and capital even through the most frugal management, leaving out altogether the consideration of persistent waste. In Maryland alone the annual expenditure of the colored 0020 23people, for the necessaries and conveniences of life, is large enough to furnish capital stock for the greatest Trust Company ever contemplated; and yet persons, unable to carry their minds beyond the state of things with which they are familiar, assert, with the greatest complacency, that it is impossible to change the direction of the bodily and mental activity now exerted in the pursuit of separate and self regarding interests. Whatever may be the merits of defects of the scheme of “practical socialism,” it cannot truly be said impracticable, as history bears witness to the success with which large bodies of human beings may be trained to feel the general interest their own, as the example of the Jesuits in Paraguay, and quite recently, The National Cash Register Company, in Dayton, Ohio. * It is yet to be ascertained whether such a plan would be inconsistent with what Mill calls “that multiform development of human nature, those manifold unlikenesses, that diversity of tastes and talents, and variety of intellectual points of view, which not only form a great part of the interest of human life, but by bringing intellects into a stimulating collision, and by presenting to each innumerable notions that he would not have conceived himself, are the mainsprings of mental and moral progression.”

*Jno. H. Patterson, in the Charities Review, December 1898.

It is not sufficiently considered how little there is in the ordinary life of most of our people to give any largeness either to their conceptions or sentiments. Their work is a routine; not a labor of love, but of self interest in the most elementary from, the satisfaction of daily wants; neither the thing done, nor the process of doing it, introduces the mind to thoughts or feelings extending beyond individuals. Notwithstanding the fact that numbers of our people live in squalid dens, bordering upon ill-paved streets involving unsanitary conditions; notwithstanding the fact that the great mass of colored people belong to that class which is first to feel the effects of a high tax rate, not a genuine good government club exists among us. On the other hand, there are clubs by the hundred devoted to the exaltation of some particular candidate or party, and to the art and mystery of transforming political principles and ambitions into dollars and cents. What makes the outlook so discouraging is the apathy of those who should, by reason of education and experience, be foremost 0021 24in the work of elevating the masses. We content ourselves with the very sublime soliloquy that eating and sleeping are the only desires of the class spoken of, and the highest welfare of the divine germ is subserved in their satisfaction. Like Lalla Rookh, we lull our energies to sleep, content to dream of princes in fairy tales, mail clad crusaders, and turbaned Moors, Cinderella's fairy-coach, and the giants of nursery lore that we learned in the mythological “vade mecum” of our school days, until Utopia breaks the spell and we awake to find ourselves anachronisms, reminiscences and anthropological specimens of an interesting, but effete, era.

But, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am no sentimental iconoclast. I earnestly long to see a betterment of present conditions, but it must be the work of the best hearts and minds. My appeal is more especially to the young men of to-day, and with the hope that a more reciprocal feeling between duty and destiny be born in them, that they will to the height of this great argument bring tact, skill, and sincerity of purpose, that they will succeed in raising this Antaeus of prejudice, hate, distrust, ignorance, illiteracy, vice, luxury and intemperance from the earth, I conclude this address.