The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-21
HOPE OF THE NEGRO RACE
SOME OF THE SOUND VIEWS OF
BOOKER IT. WASHINGTON.
Believes the Lynching Question Will
Largely Solve ItseIf-Breaking of
Political Barriers.

Booker T. Washington, the now famous
colored leader of the South, who aroused
the convention to such a pitch of enthusi-
asm in the afternoon, reached the city at
noon and put up at the Denison, where
among his first callers were the represent
atives of the press. Mr.. Washington is a
man of strong personality, is wholly void
of pretensior, and has but one great pur-
pose in life, that of advancing the welfare
of his race. There does not seem to be an
atom of vanity in him. He has very in
telligent pair of eyes and when he gets to
talking he shows his superior powers and
none can listen to H!:n without being
moved to sympathy with him. And at the
same time he talks without any flourshes.
Mr.. Washington n one sense may be said
to have been m1[4 by Grover Cleveland.
The exalted Dem2~rstic magistrate discov-
cred Linn and brought the country's eyes
upon him. This NaS done at the time of
the Atlanta exposition where Mr.. Wash
ington made the opening address, which in
itself was q remarkable event as 1t was
the first time that the intelligent and in
fiuential whites of the South had ever
invited a colored man to address them.
Still the country did not particularly note
the event until President Cleveland wrote
to MI Washington stating that if the At
lanta exposition accomplished nothing more
well fulfilled its purpose for existence. The
letter was Immediately taken up by the
press and ever since then Mr.. Washington
has been a great man in the national estt-
nation.
MIR. WASHINGTON COLLEGE WORK.
Mr.. Washington is the educational au-
thority of the colored race. He founded
Tuskegee College, in Alabama, a very re-
markable institution, which now has up
wards of thousand students and which
has become the pattern of similar enter
prises.
81 began this college," said Mr.. Wash
ington yesterday, without a dollar of
property, sixteen years ago. l was a grad
uate of Hampton Institute, in Virginia, and
there became inbued with the idea of the
need of educating the colored race. The
school / started gradually developed and
has far exceeded my humble anticipat1ons
at the beginning. We have students from
fourteen to thirty-1ive years of age. They
partially work out their board and the cost
of education Is betrayed largely by friends
on the outside. The State gives US $500
year, we have an endowment OF $5O0OO, and
there are several funds such as the John
f. Slater fund of IS, 900, and others, but the
chief dependence is placed on the iberality
of our friends, who have never thus far
abandoned us. Some of our graduates have
established similar institutions at Meigs
and Snow Hill, in Alabama, and other
places. The great need of the race Is in
classics we give good English course of
training, but our chief aim is to teach agri-
culture and some twenty-six other pracu-
cal and useful pursuits.
Mr. Washington is thus the exponent of
self-help for the colored race His chlet
claim to fame is his persistent preaching
of the idea that the salvation of the race
depends upon the individual exert1ons OF
it's members
said. "They must obtain property and edu-
cation and they must get these things by
their own exertions."
In his endeavor to inculcate this thought
in the minds of his people, Mr.. Washington
has founded a number of conferences in
the various States of the South. He calls
membership being about 100. The central
conference will meet in annual session at
Tuskegee in February.
THE LYNCHING QUESTION.
How do you regard the lynching ques-
tion?" was asked Mr. washington.
II think" said he that with the adj
vancement Of the race the question will set
tie itself The men that are lynched are
invariably Migrants. men without property
or standing. Lynchings seem to come in
waves and it is hard to say whether they
are on the increase. If the record for the
last six months is to be taken as cri-
terion I should say that they were increas-
ing There are undoubtedly some lynchings
that are never reported by the Associated
Press"
The disregard for the life of a negro in
the South, Mr.. Washington says, is only
manifested by the lower class of the whites,
the intelligent whites showing no difference
of sentiment in this point than those of
the North.
There is in my opiuionj said Mr.. Wash
ington, mo chance for a. race war in the
future. The indications are favorable for
an early breaking up on political lines. l
do not believe that politics in the South
will be divided on race lines much longer"
do you mean to say that the colored
Democratic party?'
NO | can't say that they are. But eco
nomic issues must eventually divide them
as the intelligent people of the white race
are divided. The colOred race predOminateS
in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louis
mental affairs in those States l think that
the man who has the property, the intelli-
gence and the character, is the one who
is going to have the largest share in gov
ernment whether he be white or black or
whether he live in the North or South
ment of the colored race and that In order
to achieve this development the colored
man must learn to work his own saliva
ton
Mr. Washington is about thirty-eight
or sthirty-nine years of age, he does not
gin1a plantation when not much account
kept of birth statistics. He is married
and has three children. He says that ne
would keep himself busy every day of the
year in making speeches. He also says
that the intelligent whites of the South
favorable eye. Very little opposition is
openly expressed by even the lower class
OF whites.