The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-21

I. /. 7 EIUItLOIl, tUILOT the IOOKOUL
Cincinnati. r. c. Browning, of Arkansas,
and Jack Darsie. also of Arkansas, made
brief addresses, and the final speaker was
Alexander Proctor. of Independence, Mo,
the philosopher of the reformation" as he
is called. He thought that if the American
people can raise $40, 600 to elect Presi-
dent, they can raise $500, 900 to make
Christ king of the nations.
BOOKER II. WASHINGTON PRESENT.
The Missionary Conference Gives the
Great Negro Warm Welcome.
There were fully three thousand people at
Tomlinson Hall in the evening. Booker T.
Washington the moses" of the colored race
of the South, was the principal attraction,
although Carey E. Morgan delivered an ex-
cellent address on THE Church and the
Children The chorus of three hundred
voices rendered several selections with fine
effect, one Of the pieces being I'VE Need the
Light" which was composed by Professor
DUNCAN, of this city. This is the piece that
was to have been delivered the night be-
fore, but which, owing to a mistake on
President Daviss part, was not Mr.. Davis
apologized yesterday to the choir and every
body else, saying he sorry the incident
occurred, it was far from his thought to
prevent the singing of any such grand
songs as the chorus renders. He had mere
ly been ignorant, he explained, of it's being
on the programme. The chorus also favored
the audience last night with a selection
from Gounods Unfold Ye Portals" 1t was
one Of the treats of the evening. Mr.. Frank
Morgan, who is soloist at the Tabernacle,
also sang a beautiful hymn and received
much applause.
One of the features of the evening was the
taking of collection for the work Booker
| Washington is carrying on at Tuskegee, the
amount collected being $14O
Carey f. Morgan, in his address concern
ing the children, occupied the first forty min
utes of the evening. He said that the chill
dren were veritable gold mine, a Klondike,
when it came to raising money for missions.
Continuing, he said that the ethical nurture
and religious training of the child i'm
peratively necessary if one generation would
discharge its just obligations to the next.
The work of training devolves largely on the
church, and 1t has never found better
auxiliary for its accomplishment than the
Sunday school. Ee recounted the growth of
Sunday schools since Robert Raiker founded
the first in 1881. In 1896 there a
membership in the schools of this country of
1908 IT'S. The Christian Church has over
a million pupils in it's schools. In closing the
speaker spoke of the Indifference of many
to the Sunday schools and made an eloquent
plea in their behalf.
BOOKER WASHINGTON TALK
Booker T. Washington was introduced
gave him a rousing reception, waving their
handkerchiefs and otherwise manifesting
their pleasure. Mr.. Washington, during the
delivery of his address, told many humorous
stories and won the hearts of his audience
by his eloquence and earnestness. Quite a
number of colored men could be seen in the
back part of the balconies and they seemed
to enjoy the words of their famous leader.
In part, Mr.. Washington spoke as follows:
LAS a member of the negro race 1 take
the deepest interest in the industrial and
religious work which you are pushing for
ward among my people in the South in the
most unseltiSh and patriotic manner you are
| helping to lift the burden from our entire
| country. The work which you are doing in
| the South needs to be strengthened and
| multiplied many fold. In proportion as you
| lift up the negro in the South, you lift up
| your white brethren in the South. The
| white man who yields to the temptation of
stealing a negro's ballot because OF his
! ignorance will soon learn to steal white
mans ballot, from that he will yield TO the
| temptation of stealing Negroes dollar and
| white mans dollar. 1t is not the negro
| alone that is suffering The burden thrown
| poverty-ridden South Immediately after the
| war was greater than you realize. Out of
! its own poverty the South asked to
| educate four millions of freemen. There is
| no grander mission in the world for the
! Christian Church than to help remove this
| burden. In doing this you not only life up
| the black man, but extend Christian charity
| toward your white brethren in the black
! belt of the South. Where you have spent
! one dollar in the work this year you should
! spend two dollars next year. > $3.50
There should be a closer connection be-
! tween the negrOs educated brain and his
! opportunity of earning his daily living. The
| negro has a great deal of science in his head
that has never seen daylight-a great deal
! of science that has never touched anything
| practical-there must be a great meeting;
| the ncgros chemistry must meet and touch
! the corn field and produce forty bushels
! vi hon mix growing
| negro's science of mechanics must reach the
steam laundry operating point. The negro's
! biology wants to reach the chicken raising
point. The negroes mathematics wants to
I reach the house building point. The negro S
| botany wants to reach the grass and cotton
| growing point-let there be d great meeting
| between science and the business of life.
| All this not as an end, but as foundation
| for the higher things of life.
"In the Southern part of our country are
! twenty-five millions of your brethren who
are bound to you and to whom you are
! der if you would. The most intelligent
man in your community has his intelligence
darkened by the ignorance Of a fellow
| citizen in the Mississippi bottoms. The
most wealthy in your city would be more
| wealthy but for the poverty of a fellow
| being in the Carolina rice swamps The
most moral and religious among you has
| his religion and morality modified by the
| degradation of the man in the South whose
| religion is a mere matter of form or emo
| tionalism. The vote in your State that is
| cast for the highest and purest form of
| government is largely neutraliZed by the
| vote of the man IN Louisiana whose ballot
| is stolen or cast in ignorance. When the
| South is ignorant you are ignorant. when
| the South is poor you are poor, when the
| South commits crime you commit crime.
|
'It seems to me that the temptation in
! educational and missionary work is 10 do
| for a people that which was done a thouA
sand years ago or is being done for a peo-
! pie a thousand miles away, without always
| making a careful study Of the needs and
! conditions of the people whom we are try
| ing to help. The temptation is to run all
1 people through a certain educational mold,
| regardless OF the conditions of the subject
| or the end TO be accomplished. Unfortunate
kly for us as a race our education be-
! gun Immediately after the war too nearly
| where New England education ended We
| seemed to overlook the fact that we were
| dealing with a race that had little occa-
! sion to labor in their native land and con-
! sequently brought little love for labor with
/ them to America. Added to this was the
| fact that they had been forced for $50 years
I to labor without compensa ton. under cir
| cunstances that were calculated to sdolany-
! thing but teach them to the dignity.
/ beauty and civiizing power of intelligent
i labor. We forgot the industrial education
! that was given the Pilgrim Fathers of New
| England in clearing and planting its cold,
| bleak and snowy hills and valleys, in the
| providing of shelter, founding the small
| mills ard factories. in supplying themselves
with homemade garments, thus laying tho