The times., 1898-12-03
4 Far-Sishtcd Plan.

The remarkably practical mind of
Booker T. Washington sees in the re-
suits OF the Cuban war an opportunity
for his race. Some time ago he set
about raising fund for the education
of young colored. men and women of
Cuba and Porto Rico, who should go
back to teach their own people. One
student from Porto Rico reached Tus-
kegee some time ago, and four young
men from Cuba have just arrived
The dismay of some of our antrim
perialist friends over the prospect of
annexing what they call the .'miscel-
laneous population of Cuba, Porto
Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines, has
been rather funny. They have wept
over the fact that the people of these
islands do not have American ideas,
overlooking the fact that there is one
idea quite generally prevalent among
that population, namely, the idea of
freedom; and that this idea can hardly
have free sway under monarchical rule
But it does not seem to have occurred
to them that since Porto Rico is ours,
and Cuba is to be at least very near
neighbor, ii might be well to dissent
nate a few American ideas as soon as
possible among the miscellaneous but
willing people of those islands. 1t was
left for Booker Washington to perceive
that the most important thing for
young Cuban or Porto Rican to know at
present was how to use his hands and
the English language, and with his
customary promptness. he has set about
furnishing the means to that end.
1t should be borne in mind that Tus-
kegee is not exactly a manual training
school in the usual acceptation of that
term. 1t is not an institution in which
the student learns how to use his hands
deity and has to learn his trade in
the usual way after leaving; nor is it
a place where boy is made to do one
thing all the time, like a convict in the
states prison. Half a dozen or more
trades are taught, of which the student
may take his choice, while he learns in
any event something of farming and
carpenter work, and is given fair high
school education. There is not much
ton, with one trade, is all the training
that the ordinary man has a chance to
use in the course of one life, be he white
or black; and this Is far better equip
ment than the ordinary man in the ma
jority of cases actually has. The kind
OF population that is needed in Cuba is
not made up of college graduates, but of
bright adaptable, energetic young far
mers and mechanics, who will take that
land and make it bring forth sugar cane
and fruit and dollars, instead of scor-
pions, tarantulas and revolutions.
There is future for this type of man
in the West Indies. In at least one case
Mississippi negro went to Cuba and
made fortune by shrewd foresight and
ability to use the advantages of his
English education; and there is no rea-
son why others should not follow him.
There will be room in Cuba and Porto
Rico for all sorts of mechanics and pro-
fessional men who can work with their
hands. Civil engineers, electricians,
scientific farmers, carpenters, black
smiths, railway men-any sort of man
who has pair of clever hands and a
head with brains in it will be able to
make living, at least, and perhaps a
snug fortune in our new possessions.
And it is undeniable that the American
negro and the native West Indian are
better fitted to endure the climate than
are the white men of this country. If
the land is developed, the merchants of
the United States will get their Profit in
the increased commerce which will re-
suit The development must come
through men with industrial education.
and whether they are native West In
dians or negroes of the Southern States.
Tuskegee will give them the knowledge
that they need for this work, Booker
Washington is wise man. Possibly
the events of the next fifty years will
show that he is wiser than anyone at |
present understands him to be.