Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1900-11-30
BOOKER WASHINGTON.
The Message which He Brought 60 his
BrsttIsbOrO Audience Tuesday EVen-


The Message which He Brought 60 his
BrsttIeborO Audience Tuesday EVEN
Ing.
Booker Washington was greeted by
large and appreciatlve audience In the
Auditorium in the Young Mems Christian
association course Tuesday evening. To
those who heard Mr.. Washington when
here in the same course year ago he came
as a friend whose acquaintance his hearers
we're glad to renew. To those who heard
him for the first time, the address was a
revelation of the native strength, the saw
ing common sense, and the unquestioned
capacity for leadership which marks so
strongly this foremost representative of his
race.
In beginning his address, Mr.. Washing.
ton frankly said that his speeches we're
like the old minister's sermons, he some
times changed the text, but it was always
the same old sermon. As matter of fact,
the address on Tuesday evening followed
substantially the same lines as that given
by the speaker on his FIRST appearance here,
his theme, the past and present condition
of the negro race in this country and the
lines on which its salvation must be work
ed out, being treated in the same general
way with new illustrations, and, II posi-
BILE, with added force of personal convic
tibn.
Mr. Washington emphasized first of all,
as he always does, the importance of in
dustral training for the negro. The black
man, he says in substance, can only be de-
veloped, can only be given a chance TO
show the manhood that is in him, can only
gain permanent standing, not only among
white men but among the members of his
own race, by being taught how to do
things. He started in the race as a child
with more than child's handicaps, and
the problem is to bring out his own will
power, to show him what there is in him
and how to use il. The burning wrongs
of his race Mr.. Washington fully recognizes,
but he does not dwell upon them. IT is
hard, it is dreadful he says, for the negroes
when they are tortured physically, or when
they are deprived of their legal rights at
the ballot box or in any other way, but 1t
is worse for the white men who inhict
these injuries. On Tuesday evening he
cited the recent lynching In Colorado as a
case in point. The fate Of that poor black
boy burned at the stake with devillsh de-
liberation was an awful one, but Mr..
Washington said this was not to be COM
pared with the horrible and nameless
| Which, THAI ulOU VI NnlLt
people inflicted on themselves by this act
Mr.. Washington Is always at his best
when describing the work of his own
school at Tuskegee and he reported highly
favorable progress as being made. The
most encouraging message which he
brought was that in his travels through
the Southern states-and within the last
six months he had been in nearly all of
these states-he found scattered here and
there centres of influence which had gone
out from Tuskegee and Hampton and
other schools of this class. He found men
and women at work slngly who spread
around them the influence of this training,
where there were better homes, better
education, lands better cultivated, less
mortgage Indebtedness, more self-owner-
ship. Often times little colonies had grown
up pervaded by these uplifting influences.
In spite Of all discouragements, Mr..
Washington looks to the future of his race
with courageous hopefulness. The lesson
OF his lecture, emphasized so strongly and
fervently and with such effect of genuine
oratory at the end, was one TO be taken to
heart by white people and black alike:
The one thing in life worth living for, the
one thing that is ennobllng and helpful
and uplifting for each individual, is life
of helpfulness, of trying TO do something
for ones fellows from pure and unselhsh
motives.