Part 12

There is an unconscious, beautiful, strong clinging to truth; and it is this divine quality in child or in man, in Jew or Gentile, in Christian or Mohammedan, in the ancient world or in the modern world, in a black man or in a white man, that always has led men and moulded their activity. The men who have been brave enough, wise enough, simple enough, self-denying enough to plant themselves upon this rock of truth and there stand, have, in the end, drawn the world unto them, even as Christ said: "I will draw all men unto me." Such a man was Luther, such a man was Wesley, such a man was Carlyle, such a man was Cromwell, such were Garrison and Phillips, such was Abraham Lincoln, and such was our own great Frederick Douglass.

The thing aimed at by all great souls has been to bring men and races back to the simplicity and purity of childhood--back to reality.

What is the most original product with which the Negro race stands accredited? Yes, I am almost ready to add, with which America stands accredited? Without hesitation I answer:--Those beautiful, weird, quaint, sweet melodies which were the simple, child-like expression of the anguish, the joy, the hopes, the burdens, the faith, the trials of our forefathers who wore the yoke of slavery.

Why are they the admiration of the world? Why does every attempt at improvement spoil them? Why do they never fail to touch the tenderest chord--to bring tears from the eyes of rich and poor--from king and humblest toiler alike?

Listen how in this beautiful song the soul in trouble is told not to go to houses and temples made by man, but to get close to Nature:

Ef yer want to see Jesus Go in de wilderness, Go in de wilderness, Go in de wilderness, Go in de wilderness. If yer want to see Jesus, Go in de wilderness Leanin' on de Lord. Oh brudder, how d'ye feel, when ye come out de wilderness, Come out de wilderness, Come out de wilderness, Oh, brudder, how d'ye feel, when ye come out de wilderness, Leanin' on de Lord?

Then, in another, hear how our foreparents broke through all the deceptions and allurements of false wealth, and in their long days of weariness expressed their faith in a place where every day would be one of rest:

Oh, religion is a fortune, I r'a'ly do believe. Oh, religion is a fortune, I r'a'ly do believe. Oh, religion is a fortune, I r'a'ly do believe, Whar Sabbaths hab no end. Whar yo' been, poor mourner, whar yo' been so long? "Been down in de valley, for to pray; An' I ain't done prayin' yet."

Then, how, when oppressed by years of servitude to which others thought there would be no end, we hear them break out into quaint and wild bursts of appeal to fact:

My Lord delibered Daniel, My Lord delibered Daniel, My Lord delibered Daniel; Why can't He deliber me? I met a pilgrim on de way, an' I ask him where he's gwine. "I'm bound for Canaan's happy lan', An' dis is de shoutin' band. Go on."

He delibered Daniel from de lion's den, Jonah from de belly ob de whale, An' de Hebrew children from de fiery furnace. Den why not ebery man?"

Or when the burden seemed almost too great for human body to endure, there came this simple, child-like prayer:

O Lord, O, my Lord, O, my good Lord, Keep me from sinkin' down. O Lord, O my Lord, O my good Lord, Keep me from sinkin' down. I tell yo' what I mean to do. Keep me from sinkin' down. I mean to go to hebben, too. Keep me from sinkin' down.

Or what could go more directly to Nature's heart than the pathetic yet hopeful, trustful outburst of the little slave boy who was to be taken from his mother to be sold into the far South, when it seemed to him that all earthly happiness was forever blighted. Hear him:

I'm gwine to jine de great 'sociation, I'm gwine to jine de great 'sociation, I'm gwine to jine de great 'sociation. Den my little soul's gwine to shine, shine; Den my little soul's gwine to shine along. Oh!

I'm gwine to climb up Jacob's ladder. Den my little soul's gwine to shine, shine. Den my little soul's gwine to shine along. Oh!

I'm gwine to climb up higher an' higher. Den my little soul's gwine, etc

I'm gwine to sit at de welcome table I'm gwine to feast off milk an' honey.

I'm gwine to tell God how-a' you sarved me. Den my little soul's gwine to shine, shine. Den my little soul's gwine to shine along. Oh!

And so it has ever been, so it is, and ever will be. The world, regardless of race, or colour, or condition, admires and approves a real thing. But sham, buffoonery, mere imitation, mere superficiality, never has brought success and never will bring it.

An individual or a race that is strong enough, is wise enough, to disregard makeshifts, customs, prejudices, alluring temptations, deceptions, imitations--to throw off the mask of unreality and plant itself deep down in the clay, or on the solid granite of nature, is the individual or the race that will crawl up, struggle up, yes, even burst up; and in the effort of doing so will gain a strength that will command for it respect and recognition. Before an individual or a race thus equipped, race prejudice, senseless customs, oppressions, will hide their faces forever in blushing shame.

GETTING DOWN TO MOTHER EARTH

One of the highest ambitions of every man leaving Tuskegee Institute should be to help the people of his race find bottom--find bed rock--and then help them to stand upon that foundation. If we who are interested in the school can help you to do this, we shall count ourselves satisfied. And until the bed-rock of our life is found, and until we are planted thereon, all else is but plaster, but make-believe, but the paper on the walls of a house without framework.

That is one of the stepping stones with which nature has provided us. Here the path is plain, if we have the courage to follow it. Eighty-five per cent. of the people of the Negro race live--or attempt to live--by some form of agriculture. If we would save the race, and lift it up, here is the great opportunity around which, in a large measure, individual, organized, religious and secular effort should centre for the next fifty years.

But to do this we must take advantage of the forces at hand. We must stand upon our own feet, and not upon a foundation supplied by another. We must begin our growth where our civilization finds us, and not try to begin on some other civilization.

To illustrate what I mean, we need not go to another race, nor very far from home. In a little town in Alabama there was a sturdy, industrious black man who for nearly twenty years had lived upon rented land, had hired mules and horses to work that land, and had mortgaged his crops to secure food and clothes. He had driven to church on Sunday in a buggy that was not his, and he wore good-looking clothes that were not paid for. In outward appearance he seemed to prosper. He seemed to be what the white men about him were.

But this black man knew that he was trying to stand upon an imperfect basis. And so, one day about a dozen years ago, he made up his mind that henceforth he would be himself--that he would stand upon his own foundation. He told the white man to take back his mules, to take back his waggon and buggy; and he gave up the rented land. He had resolved to be a man. A few acres of land were secured. He made his bed in the cotton seed at night. He hired a boy to come to his place at night, and by moonlight he pulled a plough which the boy guided. In this way a cotton crop was made free from debt. With the small surplus which he got from this he bought an ox, and with this beast made a second crop free from debt. A mule was bought, and then another. To-day this man is the owner of a comfortable home, is a stockholder in one of the banks of his county, and his note or check will be honoured by any business house there. While others were talking, or debating over second-hand doctrines learned by rote, this strong son of nature had found himself and solved his own problem.

I might tell you the story of another man of our race who began his successful business life in the hollow of a tree for his home; without furniture or bed-clothing. But that tree, and the land on which it stood, were his own. You had better begin life in a hollow tree and be a man, than begin it in a rented house and be a mere tool, the imitation of a man. If you were to go into the Western part of this country you would find it filled with men of the highest culture, profound scholarship, and enduring wealth, whose ancestors a few generations ago began life in a dug-out, in a hay loft, or in a hole in the side of a mountain. Young men and young women, there is no escape. If we would be great, and good, and useful, we must pay the price. And remember that when we get down to the fundamental principles of truth, nature draws no colour line.

I do not want to startle you when I say it, but I should like to see during the next fifty years every coloured minister and teacher, whose work lies outside the large cities, armed with a thorough knowledge of theoretical and practical agriculture, in connection with his theological and academic training. This, I believe, should be so because the race is an agricultural one, and because my hope is that it will remain such. Upon this foundation almost every race in history has got its start. With cheap lands, a beautiful climate and a rich soil, we can lay the foundation of a great and powerful race. The question that confronts us is whether we will take advantage of this opportunity?

In a recent number of the New York _Independent_, Rev. Russel H. Conwell, the pastor of the great Temple Baptist Church, in Philadelphia, a church that has a membership of three thousand persons, tells of the pastor of a small country church in Massachusetts who, in perplexity at the eternally recurring question of how to make his church pay its expenses, asked Mr. Conwell's advice. "I advised him," Mr. Conwell says, "to study agricultural chemistry, dairy farming and household economy. I meant the advice seriously, and he took it seriously. He made his studies, and he made them thoroughly. On the Sunday when he preached his first practical sermon which was the outgrowth of his helpful learning, its topic was scientific manures, with appropriate scriptural allusions. He had just seventeen listeners. These seventeen, however, were greatly interested. Later on, they discussed the remarkable departure with their friends who had not attended the service. The result was that within five Sundays the church was packed with worshippers, who had discovered that heaven is not such a long distance from earth after all."

In the present condition of our race, what an immense gain it would be if from every church in the vast agricultural region of the South there could be preached every Sunday two sermons on religion, and a lesson or lecture given on the principles of intelligent agriculture, on the importance of the ownership of land, and on the importance of building comfortable homes. I believe that if this policy could be pursued, instead of the now too often poorly clothed, poorly fed, and poorly housed ministers, with salaries ranging from one hundred to three hundred dollars a year, we should soon have communities and churches on their feet, to such an extent that hundreds of ministers who now live at a dying rate would be supported in a manner commensurate with the dignity of the profession. Not only this, but such a policy would result in giving the ministry such an ideal of the dignity of labour and such a love for it, that the minister's own home and garden and farm would be constant object lessons for his followers, and at the same time sources from which he could draw a support which would make him in a large measure independent.

One of the most successful and most honoured ministers I know is a man who owns and cultivates fifty acres of land. This land yields him an income sufficient to live on each year. This man's note or check is gladly honoured at the bank. Because of his independence he leads his people instead of having to cater to their whims. It may be suggested that what I plead for has not been done by others, after this fashion. It was done in the early years of the settlement of New England, and persevered in by the ministers there until the people of the country had become sufficiently prosperous to support their ministers suitably. Besides, if one race of people, or one individual, is simply to follow in the steps of another, no progress would ever be possible in the world. Let us remember that no other race of people ever had just such a problem to work out as we have.

What I have tried to say to you to-night about agricultural life may be said with equal emphasis about city occupations. Show me the race that leads in work in wood and in metal, in the building of houses and factories, and in the constructing and operating of machinery, and I will show you the race that in the long run moulds public thought, that controls government, that leads in commerce, in the sciences, in the arts and in the professions.

What we should do in all our schools is to turn out fewer job-seekers and more job-makers. Any one can seek a job, but it requires a person of rare ability to create a job.

If it may seem to some of you that what I have been saying overlooks the development of the race in morals, ethics, religion and statesmanship, my answer would be this. You might as well argue that because a tree is planted deep down in Mother Earth, because it comes in contact with clay, and rocks, and sand, and water, that through its graceful branches, its beautiful leaves and its fragrant blossoms it teaches no lesson of truth, beauty and divinity. You cannot plant a tree in air and have it live. Try it. No matter how much we may praise its proportions and enjoy its beauty, it dies unless its roots and fibres touch and have their foundation in Mother Earth. What is true of the tree is true of a race.

A PENNY SAVED

A large proportion of you, for one reason or another, will not be able to return to this institution after the close of the present year. On that account there are some central thoughts which I should like to impress upon your minds this evening, and which I wish you to take with you into the world, whether you go out from the school as graduates or whether you go as undergraduates.

I have often spoken to you about the matter of learning to economize your time, to save your time, the matter of trying to make the most of every minute and hour of your existence. I have often spoken to you about the hurtful reputation which a large proportion of the people of our race get in one way or another because of this seeming inability to put a proper value upon time, or a proper value upon the importance of keeping one's word in connection with obligations.

You know to what a large extent the feeling prevails--whether justly or unjustly--that as a people we cannot be depended upon to keep our word; that if we are hired to work in a mill or a factory, we work until we have got three dollars or four dollars in wages ahead, and then go on an excursion, or go to town, and do not return to work until what we have earned has been consumed.

And so, in one way or another, a large proportion of us get the reputation that we cannot be depended upon for faithful, regular, efficient service; and that hurts the race. Wherever you go, we wish you by your own actions, by your advice, by your influence, to try and disprove and counteract that hurtful reputation. You can do this in the most efficient manner by yourselves being the highest possible example.

The people who succeed are, very largely, those who learn to economize time, in the ways I have referred to, and those who also have learned to save, not only time, but money.

Now this may seem to you a very materialistic thought for me to emphasize this evening--the saving of money--but to us, as a race, it is of vital importance. I have heard it expressed recently on several occasions that the Negro was becoming too much materialized, too much industrialized. Too much attention, it has been said, is given to the material side of life. Now it seems to me that I have as yet seen very little that need arouse our fears in that direction. I am not able to understand how a race that does not own a single steam railroad, that does not own a single street-car line, that owns hardly a bank, that does not own a single block of houses in a large city--I am not able to understand how such a race as that is in danger of becoming materialized. When you get millions of dollars in banks, when you get millions of dollars invested in railroad stocks, when you get other millions invested in street-car lines, or in the control of large factories, great plantations, or in other great industrial enterprises in the South, then I shall say that there are signs of your becoming too materialistic, of your getting to be too rich; but I do not see any such signs yet. And until we do see such signs, we can rest ourselves in peace, I think, so far as that danger is concerned.

But there is a certain influence of money that I do not think we emphasize enough. In the first place the getting hold of money, the getting hold of a competency, insures us the possession of certain influences that we can get in no other way. In order to get hold of the spiritually best and highest things in life there are certain material things that we are compelled to have first. In the first place the getting hold of money and the saving of this money will assure the possession of decent comfortable houses to live in. No person can do his best work, or can be of the greatest service to himself and to his fellow-beings, until he is able to live in a decent, comfortable house. You will not be ready for life until you own such a house, whether you live in it or not. Even if you own such a house and rent it out, you are that much more of a man. I often hear people say that they do not own a house, or property, because they do not expect to live long in this place or that place. I have known such people to move six times in six years. They never will own a house, simply because they have got into the habit of giving excuses, instead of trying to get to own a home.

The possession of a decent house insures us a certain amount of proper comfort. No person can do the best work, can think well, can get along well, unless he has a certain amount of comfort, and, I may add, a certain amount of good, nourishing food, well cooked. The person who is not sure where he is going to get his breakfast, or the one who is not sure where he is going to get the money to pay his next week's board, is the individual who cannot do the best work, whether the work be physical, mental or spiritual. The possession of money enables us to be sure that we are going to have comfortable clothing, clothing enough to keep the body warm and vigorous, and in good, healthy condition.

The possession of money enables us to get to the point where we can do our part in the building of school-houses, churches, hospitals; it enables us to do our part in all these directions. Money not only enables us to get upon our feet in these material directions, but it has another value. The getting of it develops foresight on our part. People cannot get money without learning to exercise forethought, without planning to-day for to-morrow, this week for the next week, and this year for next year. People cannot get hold of money--or at least cannot keep hold of it--who have not learned to exercise self-control. They must be able to say "No." I want you students, when you go out from here, to be able to say "No." I want you to be able to go by a store and, as you notice the things in that store--whether candy or spring hats, or whatever it is that attracts you--to be able, notwithstanding the fact that you have the money in your pockets to buy, to exercise a self-control that will enable you to pass these things by and save your money to invest it in a home. Persons cannot get hold of money without learning to exercise economy, without learning to make everything go just as far as it is possible to make it go.

Then, again, the getting money enables a person to become a good, steady, safe citizen. The people who kill and are killed, nine times out of ten, whether they are black or white, are people who do not own a home, who do not have money in the bank. They are people who live in their gripsacks. They are gripsack leaders. If their gripsacks are in Montgomery to-night, there is their home. If they are in Opelika the next night, there is their home that night. There are numbers of these people who have no home except their gripsacks. Now I don't want you to go out from here to be that kind of men and women. I want to see you own land. I want to see you own a decent home. And let me say right here that your home is not decent or complete unless it contains a good, comfortable bath-tub. Of the two, I believe I would rather see you own a bathtub without a house, than a house without a bathtub. If you get the tub you are sure to get the house later. So when you go out from here, buy a bathtub, even if you cannot afford to buy anything else.

The possession of money, the having of a bank account, even if small, gives us a certain amount of self-respect. An individual who has a bank account walks through a street so much more erect; he looks people in the face. The people in the community in which he lives have a confidence in him and a respect for him which they would not have if he did not possess the bank account.

Now one great mistake that we make in striving to reach these things is that we keep putting off beginning. The young man says that he will begin when he gets married. The young woman says that she will begin when she gets dressed well enough, or gets a little further on in life. Yielding to this temptation or to that, they keep putting off beginning to save. It makes one sick at heart, as he goes into the cities, to see young men on Sunday afternoons paying two or three dollars for a hack or carriage to take young women out to drive, when in too many cases the men do not earn a salary of more than four dollars a week. Young women, don't go driving with such men. A man who goes driving on a salary of four dollars a week cannot own a home or possess a bank account. When you are asked to go to drive by such a man as that, tell him you would rather he would put his money in the bank, because you know he is not able to afford to spend it in that way.

I like to see people comfortably and neatly dressed; but there is no sadder sight than to see young men and women yielding to the temptation to spend all they earn upon clothes. Then when they die--in many, many cases--somebody has to pass around a hat to take up a collection in order that they may be decently put away. Do not make that mistake. Resolve that no matter how little you may earn, you will put a part of the money in the bank. If you earn five dollars a week, put two dollars in the bank. If you earn ten dollars, save four of them. Put the money in the bank. Let it stay there. When it begins to draw interest you will find that you will appreciate the value of money.