Part 8

There are now more than one hundred and fifty-three organs of the Colored Americans, edited and managed exclusively by them, and devoted to their interests as well as to the cause of general intelligence, improvement and higher education. These organs of the “Press” are classified into: magazines, 3; daily papers, 3; school papers, 11; weekly papers, 136.

Ten of these newspapers own the buildings they occupy, and fifty-four own their own printing plants.

There is a large field here for exploitation and splendid opportunities for the development of a high order of intellect. Only one of these newspapers was established before the Civil War, the Christian Recorder, of Philadelphia, which began in 1839. All the others were established after the Civil War, one in 1865, the others after 1870—a fact which demonstrates the ability of Colored Americans to advance in intellectual ability when the opportunities are presented for its free exercise.

The sphere of influence of the newspapers can not be disputed, we know how it is regarded and the enormous deference paid to that influence among the White Americans, and the same results must obtain among the Colored Americans.

There is room in this department of intellectual development, for many strong and vigorous writers, who will be able to crystallize the energies of the Colored Americans into a determined effort to maintain their position in the onward movement of the human race toward unification.

AUTHORS, WRITERS, POETS AND THE FINE ARTS

An investment in brains has always been regarded as the most productive in profitable returns. It is becoming the fixed opinion, based upon ages of experience, that the uplift of the world, the advancement of people and their progress can be accomplished by brains only.

War and its desolations, its ravages, rapine, and cruelties, have for a time swayed and dominated various parts of the earth, but, it must be considered that violence is the mere handmaid to an uplift by intellectual effort. War prepares the way for intellect and secures it an opportunity to be made manifest without molestation.

If we refer to the “Catalogue des manuscripts Ethiopiens,” already mentioned, we shall find a most amazing condition of intellectual development among the ancient Ethiopians. It was this intellectual condition that made its impress upon Egypt, and the other nations of Europe and Asia, because the Ethiopians were not a conquering race by force of arms, except so far as it was necessary to protect themselves against attack.

If we turn to their descendants—our Colored Americans—we find the same intellectual efforts resumed and progress going on in a marked degree under favorable circumstances and highly civilized and free conditions and environments. The same talent and genius that sculptured the exquisite Ethiopian bronze statuary recently discovered in The Soudan, carved the beautiful designs on Egyptian monuments, traced the architecture of noble palaces and immortal buildings, still traceable in ruins more than three thousand years old, and other evidences of art, is manifesting itself at the present day among our Colored Americans and other descendants in foreign countries.

Consider Lethierre, once president of the School of Fine Arts at Rome, within our present generation, and view his paintings that now adorn the walls of the Louvre in Paris.

We should not omit Edmonia Lewis, the sculptress, whose admirable works required a residence in Rome, nor Henry Owassa Tanner, the eminent artist, whose gems of art are represented in the fine art museums of the world. There are numerous others but these are given to emphasize the point of present Ethiopian intellectual ability.

Among writers were Alexander Poushkin, the celebrated Russian poet. He was a Negro with curly hair and a black complexion, but a man of extraordinary talent and versatility, in prose fiction, and history as well as poetry.

Jose Maria Heredia, the greatest of Spanish-American poets, was a Colored man, likewise the poet Placidio.

We can not forget Paul de Cassagnac, of France, editor, author and poet, who was also a Colored man.

Dumas, the noted dramatic author and novelist, was a colored man, and a most prolific popular author, poet, dramatist, novelist and essayist. That great production “Camille” is familiar to all theater-goers in the world, and when a man rises and says: “The world is mine,” he uses the language of Dumas’ Monte Christo, a world-wide novel that has been translated in all languages and performed on every stage.

We might go on for pages and refer to the Ethiopian intellect as something almost dominant in the world of letters in foreign countries, but must refer to our own Colored Americans as this work concerns them particularly.

We can claim as our own Williams, the historian, the first Colored American ever elected to the Ohio legislature, and at one time judge advocate of the G. A. R. of Ohio.

Phillis Wheatley, the girl who translated the Latin “Metamorphoses of Ovid” in Boston, which were republished in England as standard. Under the most distressing and adverse circumstances Phillis Wheatley became a scholar and a poetess of distinction and the associate of culture and refinement in Boston.

Paul Laurence Dunbar may be held up to all as an example worth following as a man, a poet, a novelist, and a journalist. At the age of twenty-one years he published his first book, “Oak and Ivy,” and followed it with others that commanded the attention and received the encomiums of the literary world in the United States. His poetry appeals to the heart and the hearth, and the intensity of thought displayed in his numerous writings is relieved by humor and quaint philosophy. Dunbar is a triumphant and unerring demonstration of Ethiopian intellect.

James B. Corrothers, the poet and prose writer, is another illustration of the power of applied intellect. Corrothers will be always known for the high order as well as humor of his writings, in the United States and in England where his “Jim Crow” idea of Negro fun is still supreme. Of his “The Black Cat Club,” a prominent literary and critical magazine, says: “The Black Cat Club should be commemorated by cultivated people of color as a second Emancipation Day.”

Charles W. Chesnutt, lawyer, writer, editor, historian and novelist, easily stands as a standard to be looked up to by the members of his race.

Miss Inez C. Parker, whose flights of fancy evolved from the higher realms of thought, betray the poetic gift of her race to a singular degree of beauty. As a poetess and writer, her destiny in aiding the uplift of humanity and helping it toward the universal goal, is manifest in every outpouring of her genius.

These are only a few of many, the most prominent now before the world. There are many others coming on and they will soon appear to the astonished eyes and ears of the people who have no thought of the great future and destiny of the Colored Americans.

_THE OVERGROUND RAILROAD_ _A Mighty Way to Progress—The Underground Railroad a Thing of the Past_

The old folks revel in stories about the “Underground Railroad.” They traveled over it, and we may admit that it took them to liberty. We may even go farther than that, and say that it lifted from the shoulders of a great race, a weight that was crushing them down, and brought them into the land of “Opportunity.”

But all that is ancient history. What happened even yesterday is old, and we are too busy today working to take advantage of the things offered us today, and that will happen tomorrow, to dream about the past.

We are all working to make things turn out to our advantage, and the less we dwell about the past the closer we get to the golden fruit.

We are living in a practical age, and the man who does things prospers, while the dreamer starves or gropes about at the bottom of the ladder.

All men need things; want something done for them. It is good business policy to supply the wants and to do the things everybody wants done.

We mentioned the “Underground Railroad” as something that benefited the race; but we have its successor in the way of transportation that is reaping profit from that benefit.

That successor is the “Overground Railroad.” It is a system of transportation such as the world has never seen or used.

You ask: “What is an ‘Overground Railroad?’” Everybody can answer, or thinks he can, so he says: “Why, it is a railroad that runs over the land and transports passengers and freight.” But the answer does not hit the mark, for this particular Overground exercises a mightier power; possesses a wider influence than the mere haulage of passengers and freight.

It carries opportunity, activity, benefit, incentive, intelligence, knowledge, and progress to every corner of this great land and into every town, village, city, hamlet, even the cross-roads are reached.

It reaches every one of ten millions of a great race that less than two decades ago were forbidden opportunity, and compelled to travel over the “Underground Railroad.” Now, everything belonging to the great mass of mankind, or to which they are entitled or may aspire, is parceled out with lavish hand to all who wish to take. The effort is yours, the prize awarded you.

In round numbers there are about two hundred thousand miles of railroads in the United States, spreading out in every direction from ocean to ocean, and from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. Many of them reach over into Mexico and Canada.

On the trains operated by these railroads, there are thousands of Pullman cars, drawing-room and chair-cars. All of these cars are in the charge of Colored Americans, the sum total of their number running up into tens of thousands. These men are the posterity, the descendants of the passengers of the old “Underground Railroad.”

It is true philosophy that makes for education and wisdom, gives polish, affords incentives to ambition and a leaning toward high ideals, as well as offering opportunities—always bear in mind “Opportunity” for that is what counts. Now imagine the bright men and women that travel on these two hundred thousand miles of railroad. Imagine also, our ten thousand men circulating among them; mixing with them; in daily and hourly contact with them! Something must come of this association, and something does come, which something is of incalculable benefit.

The passengers on the Overground Railroad are men and women from every part of the world. They are the successful people; the experienced people, and the leaders of thought. They have taken opportunity by the forelock and ridden it to the finish. Otherwise they would not be able to travel.

They are soldiers, statesmen, politicians, lawyers, clergymen, physicians, scientists, and everything that is the highest and noblest in the world.

Their number according to statistics, runs up into the hundreds of millions of passengers annually. Our ten thousand in the performance of their duties, listen to their interchange of opinions; note everything that is worth knowing; glean opportunities, and absorb information and wisdom.

If you have noticed any of these ten thousand off duty and on his way home, you can not have failed to see gentlemen.

These men are really the operators of our “Overground Railroad” in the highest sense of management. They are not mechanical, they are observing and possess the power of mental acquisitiveness, due to their surroundings and their contact with the passengers. They are the opposites of the patrons and passengers, and managers of the old “Underground Railroad,” which is switched off into the sidetrack of forgetfulness.

The Pullman man from New York City meets his brother Pullman employee from San Francisco, let us say, at St. Louis. Their regular stunt is about two thousand miles each, with the care of numbers of the passengers coming from tens of thousands of miles apart, from all over the globe, in fact.

What is the result of this meeting? To an outsider it is something like this:

“How are you, Sam?”

“How are you, Bill?”

“Have a New York stogie.”

“Have a San Francisco cheroot.”

That is all the outsider sees or learns. But when these men get away and apart, they exchange notes of everything that they have learned on the trip or has transpired on their routes. They are message bearers of everything they have learned new from their passengers.

Multiply this one instance with thousands of similar instances. We have every city in the world linked with every other city; every nationality brought in contact with every other nationality; every class and character of individual tied up with every other class of individuals, and these men are the great deposit reservoirs of everything.

They become laden with unlimited cosmopolitan and universal knowledge and information, charged with it as a bee is charged with honey in its flights from bush to bush and from flower to flower.

This is not an exaggeration, on the contrary, it is of such common knowledge that we think nothing about it. It is every-day fact that any one can see for himself by going to any railroad depot in the country.

We said these men are the great deposit reservoirs of everything, but unlike the most of our deposit reservoirs, they are also the sources of distribution through innumerable channels. Their business is like the training at a State Normal School with actual experience added in unlimited quantities. They go out from these training schools, or rather from this educational system belonging to every Overground Railroad and scatter knowledge, information, and opportunity. A word, even a hint, of what “a man told me on the run from New Orleans to Chicago,” and one or perhaps many, find themselves boosted into opportunities they never would have found without the operators on the Overground Railroad.

These Pullman employees are evangelists, news gatherers, and experienced men acquainted with the ways and doings of the world. They have homes, abiding places, wives, sweethearts, brothers, sisters, friends. They have their clubs and meeting places, and they unload their information and knowledge, mixed with opportunity, to ears greedy for advancement, and opportunities for betterment.

They scatter broadcast high aspirations and incentives to progress among the ten millions of the posterity of the patrons of the old Underground Railroad.

Through this means the most astounding results have been accomplished—results that have never happened any other race since the world began.

The Israelites dwelt in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years, and waited for a Moses to come and lead them out of their unpleasant environments. There were about six hundred thousand of them, and most of their posterity are still dreaming of the past.

The four millions that started the Underground Railroad, have increased to ten millions in a generation and a half, and they led themselves out to the promised land.

Imagine ten millions of any other race in the United States with perfect freedom of action! We might well shudder at what would happen us—happen the country. We do not feel that way about the posterity of the operators and passengers of the old Underground Railroad. They are peaceable, earnest students of the ways of civilization, and they are working upward—they are ambitious to learn and constantly devise methods of improving their condition in the same way all true American citizens are following. They have their homes, their children, and their attachments in our midst, in fact, they belong to our soil, and have no desire to depart elsewhere to spend their money. They are always ready to shed their blood for the Stars and Stripes, and are always willing to leap to the nation’s rescue, or to aid in promoting its welfare.

Where does the Colored race learn all these things? Not in the schools for they are limited, and live too much in the musty past, but the cap-sheaf of the education of the race, its maintenance as a factor in the civilization of the earth, is in their contact with the world, their absorption of the wisdom and experience of the world’s people, due in a great measure to the operators of the Overground Railroad.

Through this source the great race is learning that there is no vocation to which it may not aspire in time to come and the opportunities for intellectual development and its benefits are multiplying rapidly.

Already there is a great sprinkling of dark skins in every avenue of life, commerce, trade, science, and in everything that the white skin aspires to. Look down for a moment, and compare your state with that of the scavenger, the sewer digger, the section hand, and the grades of labor so attractive to foreign elements that come here to scrape up enough to return to their wallow in their various native lands. You are far above these and you belong here and you are rising with the best.

The Story of a Rising Race Told in Pictures

_PHOTOGRAPHED FROM LIFE_

│MANUAL TRAINING Special Collection C │HOME SCIENCE │HOSPITAL PRACTICE │DENTAL SURGERY

You are put upon the initiative, and find out new ways of doing old things which is what makes civilization progress, and you have the door of opportunity invitingly open to you always. You have only to open your eyes to see opportunity within your grasp. You are associated with the management of the Overground Railroad.

SUCCESS THROUGH SELF HELP

The opportunities afforded by the Overground Railroad, in the way of obtaining information, can not be overestimated. It is, practically, a school of instruction that may be attended by any one, and who may follow the bent of his desires afterward.

There are two classes of people who may avail themselves of the educational process undertaken by the dissemination of information through the medium of the Overground Railroad: The man who is aided in his life work, and the man who must help himself. It is of the man who must help himself, of the “self-help” man, that there is more to be said of than the other. He represents the bone, sinew and brains of the nation.

When a man or woman succeeds in reaching a high position through his or her own efforts, or in attaining a point from which the work of a lifetime begins, and in the direction of success, the pride of attainment is justifiable.

There are many who have the strength of purpose and the will power to utilize the forces of mind and body within them, and develop themselves with the aid of that power.

Their examples are an illustration of a higher education that really educates.

The man or woman who sits with folded hands waiting for someone to help him, or for something to turn up or come his way, so that he can seize upon it without trouble or labor, is too far gone in uselessness in the present age to be worth trying to lift up.

We are all interdependent in this world of business, but must not imagine that because we must live with and do business with others, that we can depend solely upon those others. Every man must stand upon his own ability and exertions.

The men who do this succeed through self-help, self-reliance, self-knowledge, and self-sufficiency. The greatest men in history are those who worked themselves up from humble surroundings and against tremendous odds. It is always the brain that conceives the thought, and the strong arm that executes the mandates of the thought. Where the physical arm is not strong enough, the brain quickly conceives a method of supplying the difficulty.

It was the boast of the philosopher Archimedes that he could move the world if he could find a fulcrum for his lever. The modern man is so far advanced that he finds a fulcrum for his lever, and if he does not move the earth, he moves a large part of it.

If we take the pains to look about us, we shall find every avenue of human endeavor occupied by self-made men. These men originated in the most humble surroundings, but lifted themselves up through the sheer force of their own energy of character and vital force backed by persistence.

The history of the world has pages about the men who sprang up from humble sources and amid the greatest difficulties. They overcame them somehow, some say by the aid of Providence, but we know that it was through innate courage, brains, energy and persistence.

Every man may raise himself up by his own efforts, indeed, the man who uses another as his ladder will soon find himself leaning on a broken reed, and amount to very little in this world of struggle and competition.

Who knows better what a man can do than the man himself? There are always hidden sources of strength in every man, and he alone is able to bring them into use. Remember one point in this age of competition: Learn how to do things, and then set about doing them of your own accord. The man who waits to be pushed ahead seldom finds any pushers. This is the wisdom of experience, and will =not= bear argument, so true it is.

TRAIN YOURSELF FOR YOUR LIFE’S WORK Physical Development—Exercise for Pleasure and Profit—Uniformity in the Use of the Muscles—General and Special Muscle Training—Systematic Hardening of the Body—Various Kinds of Exercises—Key to Good Health and Mental Activity A Strong Healthy Man Is Always Selected for the Best Positions

In all ages of the world physical development has been regarded as a preparation for health and the successful beginning of a life work.