The age-herald., 1902-03-06
SOUTHERN NEGRO
 GUEST OF HONOR
Booker WaShlngton's Words
 Greetedby Great Applause.
POTTER INTRODUCED HIM
Says He Photographed Roosevelt He Should Be Proud of Ills Guest When Alabama Negro Was
 Invited to Dinner.

New York March 5.-Bishop Potter was chairman and Booker T. Washington the principal speaker at a meeting held to- night at Carnegie Hall in the interest or Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Armstrong Association. Robert c. l Ogden of the Armstrong Association in- | troduced Bishop Potter. who said In part: We must deal with the black man as problem-not in fragments. but as a whole. In doing this we but prepare to | meet a great deal of opposition from cer- tain quarters. I must confess that the first man who entered my mind as l en- tered this hall was the senior Senator from South Carolina Some time ago in Boston he delivered himself of strange utterance of what these institutions at Hampton and Tuskegee were doing to educate the negro. He says to enable him to enter the trades Is to crowd out the white people This is a peculiar discrimi- nation to make just as we have begun to elevate the colored men and women. We ought to realize that the main thing that divides the negro from the white Is the lack of culture, and that by giving him this culture we will ennoble him and raise him to @ level of intelligence and creative citizenship"
 H. B. Frissel, principal of the Hamp- ton Institute, followed with few words about the work of the institute.
 Potter Congratulated Roosevelt. Washington was introduced by Bishop Potter, who said that after the President had entertained Booker T. Washington as his guest he telegraphed him as fol- | lows: "T congratulate you upon your guest. He was a guest at my table last | winter and I never entertained a wor- | thier one"
 Somehow or other,'' continued the bishop, my message became public, and since that time I have received numerous letters from people south of the Mason and Dixon line entreating me not to show myself in their neighborhood. as their citizens had no desire to entertain me-" Washington was received with great l applause. He said:
 If we would discuss what Is known 1 as the race question with any degree of benefit we must reach the point where
 we can so far rid ourselves of sectional
 or racial prejudices that we can in a 1 l tion of the southern white man and at
 the same time put ourselves in the place
 of the negro. Nothing will be gained for
 either race or for any section of the country by bitter criticism. For 250 years
 the negro has worked. What he wants l to learn now is how to work. There is
 a vast difference between working and
 being worked. For one to learn that
 work is honorable and to be idle is dis l l. 1o
 tion of civilization. It is not the negro
 who has been properly trained in hand,
 head and heart who commits crime. Ignorant Negro Is the Criminal.
 Tt is the ignorant, shiftless negro who l has no regard of occupation, who has not learned to love labor, who does not | own a home who is usually criminal. | When the man becomes the owner of piece of land and decent house and a bank account I notice at once a conser- vative w-abiding citizen and one who can be trusted to vote intelligently for l the best interests of the community in which he lives.
 With the negro, as with every weak and inexperienced race 1t Is important that he be taught that his salvation Is in learning to own and cultivate intelli- gently and skillfully the soil. To the negro Just nOW tulS lS tHo wheat, ehii else is the chaff. Agriculture will prove our salvation and the race should be slow to abandon the farm. Just now large propotion of the race needs that education which will make the youth re- turn to the farm and produce fifty bushels of corn where only twenty-five grew before, rather than yield to the temptation to go to city and attempt to live by their wits. Those who would help save my race should use their influence to keep the negro out of the large cities, especially the cities of, the North. These are some of the lessons that Hampton and Tuskegee institutes are constantly teaching The time has come when we must see to 1t that all the people in the South have the fullest opportunities for the best education. All must be educated well but the tremendous demands upon her for the education of two races should | enlist your hearty interest and support. | Providing for education in the South is not a matter of giving aims of mere | philanthropy. It Is a matter of business | that concerns the whole country"