Atlanta, Sept. 18 — While President Cleveland was waiting at Gray Gables to- day to send the electric spark that started the machinery of the Atlanta Exposition, a Negro Moses stood before a great audience of white people and delivered an oration that marks a new epoch in the history of the South, and a body of Negro troops marched in a procession with the citizen soldiery of Georgia and Louisiana. The whole city is thrilling to-night with a realization of the extraordinary significance of these two unprecedented events. Nothing has happened since Henry Grady's immortal speech before the New England Society in New York that indicates so profoundly the spirit of the New South, except, perhaps, the opening of the Exposition itself.

When Prof. Booker T. Washington, Principal of an Industrial School for colored people in Tuskegee, Ala., stood on the platform of the Auditorium, with the sun shinning over the heads of his hearers into his eyes, and his whole face lit up with the fire of prophecy, 0004 Clark Howell, the successor of Henry W. Grady, said to me: “That man's speech is the beginning of a moral revolution in America.”

It is the first time that a Negro has made a speech in the South on any important occasion before an audience composed of white men and women. It electrified the audience, and the response was as if it had come from the throat of a whirlwind.

PROF. WASHINGTON THE NEGRO MOSES.

Mrs. Thompson had scarcely taken her seat when all eyes were turned on a tall, tawny Negro sitting in the front row of the platform. It was Prof. Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee, Ala. Normal and Industrial Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the foremost man of his race in America. Gilmore's band played the “Star Spangled Banner,” and the audience cheered. The tune changed to “Dixie,” and the audience roared with shrill “hi-yi's.” Again the music changed to “Yankee Doodle,” and the clamor lessened.

All this time the eyes of the thousands looked straight at the Negro orator. A strange thing was to happen. A black man was 0005 to speak for his people, with none to interrupt him. As Prof. Washington strode forward to the edge of the stage, the low, descending sun shot fiery rays through the windows into his face. A great shout greeted him. He turned his head to avoid the blinding light, and moved about the platform for relief. Then he turned his wonderful countenance to the sun without a blink of the eyelids, and began to talk.

There was a remarkable figure; tall, bony, straight as a Sioux chief, high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws and strong, determined mouth, with big white teeth, piercing eyes and a commanding manner. The sinews stood out on his bronzed neck, and his muscular right arm swung high in the air with a lead pencil grasped in the clinched brown fist. His big feet were planted squarely, with the heels together and the toes turned out. His voice rang out clear and true, and he paused impressively as he made each point. Within ten minutes the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm — handkerchiefs were waved, canes were flourished, hats were tossed in the air. The fairest women of Georgia stood up and cheered. It was as if the orator had bewitched them.

NO CAUSE EVER PLEADED BETTER

And when he held his dusky hand high above his head, with the fingers stretched wide apart, and said to the white people of the South on behalf of his race: “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress,” the great wave of sound dashed itself against the walls, and the whole audience was on its feet in a delirium of applause, and I though at that moment of the night when Henry Grady stood among the curling wreaths of tobacco smoke in Delmonico's banquet hall, and said: “I am a Cavalier among Roundheads.”

I have heard that great orators of many countries, but not even Gladstone himself could have pleaded a cause with more consummate power than did this angular Negro, standing in a nimbus of sunshine, surrounded by the men who once fought to keep his race in bondage. The roar might swell ever so high, but the expression of his earnest face never changed.

A ragged, ebony giant, squatted on the floor in one of the aisles, watched the orator with burning eyes and tremulous face 0007 until the supreme burst of applause came, and then the tears ran down his face. Most of the Negroes in the audience were crying, perhaps without knowing just why.

At the close of the speech Gov. Bullock rushed across the platform and seized the orator's hand. Another shout greeted this demonstration, and for a few minutes the two men stood facing each other, hand in hand.