The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-11-01
BOOKER WASHINGTON wRoSG
Blunder of the Great Col.
ored Educator-What an Eminent
Colored Leader SAYS
From the Brooklyn Defender,

- 9AAaLG lin
dents that has happened in our political
affairs since reconstruction. It is Hks
the premature acknowledgements OF the
race that brought about the irrepressi-
bic conflict, and the carpet-bag regime
in the south that caused sectional ami
mosities, that has cost almost a sea of
blood. Hero worship is a bad thing
anyway, and whether We try to deifv
man or IDOLS, conflicts are almost sure
to come This storm has been coming
for some time n we have been pre-
dieting it. The writing of this editorial
viii be Just as much misunderstood by
the colored people generally, and the
hypocritlcal and mawkish
or the north, as President Roosevelt
was misunderstood by the ationaI
people and newspapers of the south.
We will be abused and inst
as the president is being traduced by
rash southern criticism, and as the
south is being traduced and abused by
n of the north, and yet
We shall have the courage to write it.
We are told by our best friends that il
Will Kill our chances for a federal posi-
ton. Well, it may; but the truth must
be told. Leaders are born and not
created by men. The colored race has
not been allowed to make or create
their own leaders; these leaders have
always been made and created by
white men, and forced upon the race
regardless or qualifications. Mr.. Wash
1ngton is a gentleman and a scholar and
a great educator along industrial lines:
but 1t is preposterous and ridiculous to
try to impress upon the world hat M
is the only and greatest colored man
and gentleman in the United States.
There are more than a thousand color
ed men,-yes, thousands-better edu-
Gated; just as gentlemanly, greater
leaders and more progressive in every
way than Mr.. Washington, both in
church and state, who are purposely
ignored and turned down by white peo-
pie Of the north every lay.
President Roosevelt is a great presi-
dent, with an honest heart, with the
purpose and courage to do right. He
had no sinister motive in inviting Mr..
Washington to dine with him. Brought
into the presidential chair under pc
culiar and extraordinary conditions, he
was somewhat handicapped and would
naturally seek for light in every on
ceivable direction. The south presented
the greatest puzzle to his inquiring
mind, and he tries to pacify and con-
ciliate differences down there to the
satisfaction of all parties concerned. To
do this he must not be imposed upon by
his white or colored friends. The
greatest diplomacy is necessary to adj
just a veXed question not yet settled,
but which was beginning to be adjusted
by his cautious measures. Conserva-
tive white men were being appointed to
office and sectional barriers were being
torn down. Two colored leaders were
called to the White house, one q bishop
in the person of Bishop Abraham Grant,
n of the most cautious and ablest
| colored leaders of the race in the coun-
try; the other an educator in the per-
Sol of Prof. Booker T. Washington.
the eStimable and honored principal Of
Tuskegee. Bishop ira was gracious
ly received, talked and advised with
the president, and, like a cautious pre-
late as he is, left and made a good i'm
preston, as he always does.
To show the wisdom Of this man we
quote a bit of unwritten history, per-
haps, because of his modesty, not gen
orally known. Immediately after the
Spanish war we had cause to visit the
White house with Bishop Grant. Presi-
lent Mckinley, always gracious, re-
ceived him con~fidentially and, talking
over the appointment of the labor COM
mission, offered hin a place upon it.
We insisted hat Bishop Grant accept
it. He said to the president, no, whilst
he considered it a great honor, yet it
/ W 40 III CCplI II llio POolliOi oo
chief pastor in his church. The presi-
lent said to him: Well, consult your
bishops and if you can decide upon
a proper man 1 will appoint him. They
lie not decide upon a proper man in
time and did not get the appointment.
We print this to show Bishop Grants
diplomacy. Now to Prof. Washington's
non-diplomacy. An educator Is never
a politician, or seldom a statesman:
take them out of their useful %avocations
and inject them into politics and they
become absolute failures. Booker I
Washington, because of his great sue
cess as an industrial educator, in our
judgment the greatest in the nation
doing more good in his way tina anv
other one man TO solve a difficult ques-
ton, had been proclaimed a god and a
Moses, a marvel, a phenomenon, the
only educated colored gentleman in the
United States, when we have upon gu
fingers men his superior in every way
saving only the lines of industrial edu-
cation: he has been f1attered and fav.
ored, both by the white people of the
north and the south, until both he ano
the president misunderstood the diff.
cult political underlying situation. Bu'
Mr.. Washington should have been thu
wiser Of the two. When President
Roosevelt invited Prof. Washington II
the White house to confer with him n
| did the proper tnlnS, IOT WHICH we dp
plaude him. When he invited him Il
dine at the White house he did the gen
tlemanly thing, the lawful thing; blu
the most expedicnt political thing pos
sible. st. Paul, the great Apostle, said
"An things are lawful, but all thing
are not expedient." Mr.. Washington
had given to him the greatest oppor
tunity of his life: had he been a states
mar or a politician. had he been a
Bishop Grant, a job Mercer Langs
ton, a Pinchback. a P. K. Bruce, a Ere
Douglass, a Lynch, a Lyon, a White,
Cheatham or hundreds OF other abb
colored leaders hat we know; a h
considered the welfare of the presiden
/, or his race, he would have confidential
said TO the president: l appreciat
, this great honor, but might it not b
misunderstood and flame the dyint
preiudices and embers OF sectional feel
t ing that we are trying to ~extinguish
Had he done this it would have been
triumph in diplomacy and the astut
and quick p~ercciving president woul
have taken the hint
But the greatest harm that may re
eTIt from this impolitic and undiplo