Chapter 7

The Negro problem, if there is any in the country, from an industrial standpoint may be resolved into two phases. In the South the race is allowed unfettered opportunity in almost all trades and occupations. Whatever other crimes she may be guilty of, she allows the colored people to work. There we find colored men who take large contracts for the erection of public buildings. Most of the finest hotels, private residences, and business blocks represent the work of colored labor from foundation to roof. In a recent visit to the black belt of Alabama I was told that in a certain town colored mechanics had constructed the courthouse and every other important building within the corporate limits. A Southern white man, pointing out this fact, remarked that such a thing would be impossible in the North. So strong is the prejudice against the employment of Negro labor that the presence of the Negro workmen on a brick wall would cause every white man to throw down his trowel and quit work. This thing is true in all the remunerative avenues of life in the North. In respect to the South, it is there that the Negro will work out his industrial destiny. He has been and will be the laborer. Such schools as Tuskegee and Hampton will prepare him to compete with other people in all trades. We speak so often of the "New South." It is time that we had a "New North." The Northern people, as generous as they have been in founding schools for the freedmen, seem to love them best at a distance. The North will educate us, but will not allow us to work. We need education, but we also need opportunity for industrial progress. We want a fair chance in the race of life. How can we ever make any headway if we are all shut up to one or two lines of service? A citizen of the town some time ago said to me that years ago the Negro and the Irishman came to Princeton with nothing. The Irishman has accumulated real estate, but the Negro still has nothing. One of the reasons is simply this: the Irishman has ten chances to the colored man's one. What is true of this community is practically true of the whole North. (Rev. J. Q. Johnson, in the Christian Recorder, Philadelphia, Pa.)

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The Negro question is but another name for the labor problem in the South; and it is not so serious as the labor problem of the North. The Negro is the Southern laborer. His color preserves his class distinction. As a workman, he is fitted for the warm climate and agricultural pursuits of that region. He is shiftless and improvident because so long trained to live dependent upon a master. He is doing better work as an employee than he did as a slave. He is happy, peaceable, and content. There are no socialistic or anarchistic traits in his blood. His wants are few, and he is able to cover a life of hardship and penury with the flowers of melody and the foam of unceasing mirth. The troubles of the South do not arise in the Negro, but in the white men. There is a class of "white trash" who have all the fierce and unruly instincts of that robber race, the Saxons, at whose door the lynchings and political uproars may be faithfully laid. The better element of Southern people have no part in these. Thus it is the same class that raises disturbance in Alabama that does the same in Chicago. The Negro and the better whites have no part in either case. What the final outcome of the race question will be is impossible, of course, to surmise. The probabilities are that the African will remain a hewer of wood and a drawer of water until his face shall pale--and it is paling rapidly--and he shall cease to be a social factor. No two races ever lived antagonistic, yet in contact, without the stronger either annihilating or absorbing the other. (Chicago Conservator.)

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The United States and not the Negro is responsible for the Negro's identity with this country and also for his past and present condition in America; and, having of her own accord made us citizens and participants of this government (because we have merited both as slaves in the forest and as armed soldiers and patriots on the field of battle, protecting a flag which up to that time had never offered us protection--by these means we have merited a citizenship) God and the civilized world will hold the United States and the several states responsible as our guardians to the heights of true civilization. As for adaptation to and responsibility of civilization, the Negro is receiving the highest mental and social culture. I call your attention to the thousands of colored professional men and women who are rare models of social culture and intellectual worth--men of learning and distinguished for intelligence, men known and honored by the civilized world for their mental merits. Blind Tom is the greatest musical prodigy the world has ever seen. Regardless of his race and identity, I believe that Rev. J. C. Price, D.D., was as fine an orator as America ever produced, and Douglass the peer of any statesman. There has been something very peculiar about the history of American issues for the last one hundred years. Though the Negro himself has kept silent, yet there has scarcely been in that length of time a decisive issue before the American Congress that would have affected the entire nation that was not either the outcome of our presence in this country or a corollary thereto in some phase. The nation, not the Negro, is responsible for the so-called Negro problem. Therefore it is the nation's problem, and the nation must solve it. America bought the whistle, and she must pay for it. The Negro has been and will ever be the Pharaoh's plague to America, until the nation recognizes the declaration of the fathers and the design of God in bequeathing to all men justice in equity and the fullest recognition of citizenship to all who are made a part of this government by constituency and responsibility. This done, we will have but one problem, and that will be how to better advance the glory of one common union. To-day we stand beneath the American eagle, which bears in his talons the stars and stripes, for which more than two hundred thousand of our fathers and brothers have fallen on yonder battlefields. We stand here begging for peace, protection, and a just recognition of manhood. We stand here under the flag for which our fathers fought in common with the white man, and plead for civil rights. Yea, in the name of God and the blood of our dead we ask a shelter beneath thy wing. Shall the stars of the American flag, our only hope as guides to higher manhood, the reflective rays of American civilization and liberty, hide their shameful faces behind the clouds of American prejudice and bring to us night at noon? Shall your red stripes, O flag! a worthy token of our fathers' blood, which has mingled with the white in all American conflicts, now be used as a signal of welcome and protection to non-Americans, anarchists, and socialists, while the sons of American slaves, soldiers, and citizens are left standing without protection and rightful recognition, reaching forth the brawny hands for labor in vain? O may the goddess of liberty hear us to-day, and may the true American pulse be found forcing life, liberty, and protection through every artery of American sentiment! (Bishop Petty, A. M. E. Zion Church.)

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The most important topic that should engage the attention of every Negro throughout the land is, What method can we employ to bring the race problem more practically before the country, and how should we go at it? There must evidently, in all instances, be some way or means of placing all questions before the public in such a manner that all parties may plainly see both sides. As to the race problem, it has never been brought before the public so as to command any serious thought. We shall, of course, have to lay our foundation before we can proceed, as everything must have something to support it. We will say right here that the press is the foundation or starting place in all such cases. A general view of the Negro press will convince one that the race problem has not been handled as it should have been, but it is not too late to make the much needed amends, and now is the time to brace up and come to the front. The newspaper at this time and age of modern predisposition is looked upon as a mighty weapon, but the weak point in Negro journalism is the predominance of petty matters over the more momentous questions that obtain at this time. The race problem has never been appealed to the proper source, and we have never employed the proper methods to touch the pulse of the right class of people. The pulpit has never declared itself on this question, or else the Negro would have been much farther advanced than he is. My idea, or rather the thought that comes to me now, is that the Christian Church should be sounded on the subject of race equality, and there should be some movement instituted among the Negroes of the most populous cities and towns asking the ministers of the white Churches to set aside a special Sabbath to give their views thereon. We are of the opinion that the best step to take would be to organize a club in each city, which shall be invested with the power to appoint a committee to wait on the various ministers. We shall find out then from their pulpits whether the white man considers the colored brother as good as he is. To get the views of the ministers throughout the country on the same day would have a tendency to bring the question squarely and fairly before the nation. These questions may seem a canard to many, but this is the proper step to take and the proper appeal. If we cannot reach the people in this way, why, there are other courses to pursue. We should not despair. If we fail in accomplishing our ends in one manner, we must try other plans, and finally we may be able to touch the right chord. (Dennis S. Thompson, Kansas City, Mo.)

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The Negro problem, like Banquo's ghost, will not down. Like the poor, it is always with us. True, some there are who declare that there is no problem at all, only such as exists in the imagination; but he who will take the trouble to investigate will find that there is plenty of the problem lying around loose, and it will not require a Diogenes to find it. The most live phases of the problem are those which relate to the Negro's moral standard, educational progress, and his physical condition. Some of the views in this connection are grossly exaggerated, but in the main they represent observations which cannot be dismissed too lightly. It is now a matter too plain for conjecture that the Negro must look to his physical interests, that he must make certain alterations along moral and intellectual lines if he would preserve himself. Scientists have gone so far as to hazard the prediction that ultimate extinction is the forecast for the race. The race itself is apt to receive this declaration with derision, but it must not count its position too sure. We have yet to see an intelligent refutation of the statements which the scientists are making in this regard. The Negro press promptly sat down upon Prof. Hoffman when he touched upon its moral standard, but it was rather by ridicule than argument. Only the properly qualified should speak on a question of this character. By that we mean those reasonably informed and who have given the proper time to an impartial investigation of the subject. Howls of protest and indignation cannot take the place of scientific reasoning, and before the press of the country takes Mr. Hoffman and his kind to task it should be prepared to know whereof it speaks. But, aside from this, popular interest is very much aroused as to the present educational needs of the Negro. Prof. Washington, the great apostle of industrial education, thinks it the Negro's greatest want just now. President Mitchell, of Leland University, thinks the higher education of the race the proper thing. The "Advance" is inclined to the former view. The Negro may not be top-heavy; his higher education has hardly gone far enough for that in a general sense, but he has given altogether too much time to the intellectual side of his development. He should become skilled in manual arts; he should learn something that he has left unlearned: how to labor correctly and profitably. His intellectual offspring each succeeding year realize more and more difficulty in finding places, so that the so-called higher avenues are becoming crowded to an uncomfortable extent. The colored man will find it not a whit to his disgrace to be a tiller of the soil; when he is an educated tiller he will find that he can produce better crops, make more money, and rear his children usefully. If he keeps up his present lick, he will find that he has all teachers and no scholars, all preachers and no congregations, all doctors and no patients, all lawyers and no clients. Several vital questions should now receive the race's closest attention--viz., (1) the investigation of its moral condition; (2) a system of education adapted to its needs; (3) the improvement of its physical status. (Alamo City Advance, San Antonio, Tex.)

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A few years since we thought the Negro problem incapable of solution. We looked at it from various standpoints. Many suggestions as to an estimation in solving this intricate problem have been offered by many of our leaders. Booker T. Washington emphasizes the importance of industrial education as a means to an end of race antagonism, bitterness, and friction. It is a mistaken idea that Prof. Washington's critics have when they affirm that Mr. Washington believes in industrial education to the exclusion of a college or university education. He believes in both; but he especially emphasizes industrial education as a means to an end, and not as ultimatum in solving the race problem. It would pay Mr. Washington's opposers to come here and visit his school. We guarantee that he will receive and treat them kindly. We have no doubt that they will go away from here convinced that Mr. Washington is right. We just wish that you could see what our eyes now behold as we sit in the principal's magnificent residence. There is here an activity not suspected by the outside world. Draw upon your imaginations a moment and see if you can bring to your perceptions the scene: Eight hundred and fifty students at work, like busy bees in a hive, training in twenty-six different industries, and everybody at work; not an idle moment allowed. Here the shrill whistle of the sawmill and brickyard, bringing them in from the farm of six hundred and fifty acres, nearly all of which is under cultivation. How can any sane person say that this kind of education does not benefit the race? We will warrant that very few, if any, of Mr. Washington's students will ever be found in jail, the workhouse, the penitentiary, or on the chain gang. All this industry and activity is controlled by Mr. Washington and his eighty-one assistants, which makes him and his school an aggressive and conquering force in this the black belt of the Southland. It is impossible to estimate the good that this school is doing, and it is equally as difficult to attempt a description thereof. We do not envy the man who deems himself sufficiently enlightened to be able to frown down Booker T. Washington and his great work. We simply turn our heads and smile a great big smile and say in muffled tones: "The fool hath said in his heart that there is no hope for the Negro race in this country." There is hope. Get up and be doing; get religion, education, a trade, and a profession; buy property; "put money in thy purse," and you will be recognized as a full-fledged citizen of this country. Let us say what we believe to be a fact: The disciplined thought that the Negro is receiving at this school will give a freshness, a manliness, a hopefulness, and a faith which will deliver him from the tyranny of his surroundings, widen his views of his own capabilities, make him conscious of belonging to a race that has rich things in store for the world, and glorify his heart with a thousand strange and fruitful sympathies and with endless heroic aspirations. It is something so unique in the history of Christian civilization that wherever the existence of such an institution as that of Tuskegee is heard of there will be curiosity as to its character, its work, and its prospects. An institution suited to the exigencies of this race cannot come into existence all at once. It must be the result of years of experience, of trial, and of experiment. In order that you may form a correct idea as to the magnitude of this school, let us cull the following statement from a speech of Mr. Washington, who, among other things, said: "We have eight hundred and fifty students at Tuskegee from twenty-two states, eighty-one instructors, and a colony of one thousand people, together with literary training. We train in twenty-six different industries. Of the thirty-seven buildings, all except three were erected by the students. They have sawed the lumber, made the brick, done the masonry, carpentering, plastering, painting, and tin spouting. The property is now valued at $280,000, and is the work of students in the past fifteen years." All sound-thinking and unprejudiced-minded persons will agree that this institution is a very able instrument to assist in carrying forward the work so necessary to be done for the race. (J. Francis Robinson, Cambridge, Mass.)

MOTHER'S TREASURES.

BY MRS. F. E. W. HARPER.

Two little children sit by my side, I call them Lily and Daffodil; I gaze on them with a mother's pride, One is Edna and the other is Will.

Both have eyes of starry light And laughing lips over teeth of pearl. I would not change for a diadem My noble boy and darling girl.

To-night my heart o'erflows with joy; I hold them as a sacred trust. I fain would hide them in my heart, Safe from tarnish of moth and rust.

What should I ask for my dear boy? The richest gift of wealth or fame? What for my girl? A loving heart And a fair and spotless name?

What for my boy? That he should stand A pillar of strength to the state. What for my girl? That she should be The friend of the poor and desolate.

I do not ask that they shall never tread With weary feet the paths of pain; I ask that in the darkest hour They may faithful and true remain.

I only ask their lives may be Pure as gems in the gates of pearl, Lives to brighten and bless the world-- This I ask for my boy and girl.

I ask to clasp their hands again 'Mid the holy hosts of heaven; Enraptured, say: "I am here, O God! And the children thou hast given."

GEN. ANTONIO MACEO.

The Great Cuban Negro Warrior.

Gen. Maceo was a born warrior. He came of a race of warriors. Of ten brothers, he was the last survivor who had escaped the bullets of the Spaniards in the ten-years' war, begun in 1868, and the present war. They were all soldiers and patriots, following in the footsteps of their father, and they all died fighting for Cuba.

The distinguishing characteristics of Antonio Maceo were intense love of Cuba, courage that knew no fear, and a natural genius for war. He was of Spanish and African blood, and his enemies often accused him of waging a race war, but this he always denied, and his friends believed him. He fought only for Cuban independence.

Gen. Maceo was the terror of the Spaniards. They feared him as they feared no other Cuban. They put a price of twenty-five thousand dollars on his head, dead or alive. The Spaniards could not capture or defeat him in open warfare, and the work of destroying him fell to the part of an infamous traitor in his camp: his physician, who betrayed him into the hands of the enemy.

Maceo was great in his life, and in the manner of his death he has raised up friends for his beloved Cuba all over the world.

His parents were both "pardos"--that is, light-colored mulattoes--and they were quite well off. Marcos owned and operated a cattle ranch and a pony express between the town and near-by estates. He was worth about forty thousand dollars. Antonio was well trained in contra-Spanish ideas. His father had been quietly interested in the small revolutionary disturbances that took place up to 1868, and Ascenio, his godfather, a prominent lawyer of Santiago City, was one of the most active promoters of the ten-years' struggle that began in 1868.

After a boyhood spent in the best schools of Santiago de Cuba, Antonio's seventeenth year found him engaged in business for his father. The preparations for the war were then secretly going on, and young Maceo, being thought to possess a discretion beyond his years, was initiated into the movement. He labored hard for the cause then, and when the time came for action he promptly took the field, at eighteen years of age, with a few men whom he had organized and armed.

Maceo was really idolized by his men. For one thing, his magnificent personal appearance and the halo of many glorious exploits had great effect; but the real reason for his popularity was the care he took of his men. No soldier was too poorly or too thinly clad to come right in and talk to the General at any time. Maceo talked familiarly with his stalwart men, listened patiently to all complaints, great and small, and settled them in a quick, decisive manner. Particularly was he an object of affection to his men because he was always the first rider in a _machete_ charge. He was always the closest to the enemy in a mountain fight, and was never to be found in a pitched battle anywhere else but in the first trench when there was any firing going on.

Dispatches were received in this country on Saturday, January 16, 1897, confirming the report of the death of Gen. Antonio Maceo, the valiant Cuban leader, who, with the rest of his staff, was reported to have been brutally murdered through Spanish treachery. Having been invited by the Spaniards to a conference, with a view of bringing the terrific struggle for Cuban liberty to an end, he started for the place of meeting. When nearly there he found himself surrounded by Spanish forces, and received the command to surrender. Instantly realizing that he had been drawn into a trap, he and his followers made a terrible struggle for their freedom, but were outnumbered. As they were fighting, Maceo received his death wound, and shed his life's blood in the defense of his country, which he loved too well to desert by surrender. Thus died brave Antonio Maceo, one of the greatest generals of African extraction that ever lived.

Jose Antonio Maceo was born in the eastern province of Santiago, near the city of Santiago de Cuba, in 1850, being the oldest of eleven brothers. When yet a young man he fought for "Cuba Libre" in the late ten years' war, seeking to throw off the yoke of Spanish tyranny. His service in that war, as well as in the present struggle, showed him to be a born fighter, and earned for him the titles of Second General in Chief of the Forces of Liberty and General in Chief of the Army of Invasion. He had full charge of the civil and military jurisdictions of the western and most important portion of the island of Cuba, the place where the present struggle will either be won or lost to the brave Cubans.