The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-13
BOOKER WASHINGTONAND
 HIS WORK AT TUSKEGEE
BY SAM P. JONES.
From the Atlantn Ionrnnl.

From the Atlanta Journal.
 I have been preaching, pererRrinating featuring around over the United States for thirty years, but think the biggest, broadest, highest thing I have struck in all my rounds I hit last Saturday night at the Booker Washington Normal in- stitute of Tuskegee. Ala. arrived at Tuskegee on the evening train, and about o'clock, in carriages, with Congressman Thompson, Rev. MT Trawiek and other gentlemen, I drove out to the chapel or auditorium of the school and we walked in and took our seats on the platform. There were twenty-four hundred stu dents sitting before me and a choir of two hundred behind us It was marvel ous sight to look upon. They gave us three songs: two of classical music and one along the line of the old-fashioned negro melodies, and with this one they well nigh lifted the roof from the great building. I was then introduced to the audience and spoke for an hour and half. I am sure I never spoke to a more respectful, attentive. appreciative au- dience After the lecture we had other songs, and the entertainment, not in- cluding my lecture. was immense.
 I talked with several of the leading citizens of Tuskegee and questioned them closely as to the nature. influence and efficiency of that school. They spoke uniformly in the highest terms of Booker Washington and the great work he was doing. The institute is a city in itself,
 
 ings. and the auditorium in which I spoke is one of the finest in America. This school not only has its literary fea- tufes, but it is a beehive in itself All the great buildings on the premises, the artisans of the school nodded the brick in each building, did the carpenter and stone-mason work, and everything was done there by the school that could be done in Alabama by skilled workmen. think there are 24O0 students present now, and l learned that there were 12OO additional applicants who had to be turned away. Rev. Mr. Trawick told me l.iat on some occasion at the college s,--.e weeks ago, Congressman Thompson made a few remarks on the platform. and Booker Washington got up and, in his remarks, said that he had kept close record of all his students and graduates of the normal institute of Tuskegee, and not a single student or graduate had ever broken into the penitentiary or into the United States congress. I asked Booker Washington the next morning in reference to the latter point I said, "Tell me, have you kept record of your students, and is 1t a fact that not one of them has ever been convicted of crime?" He said: Those are the facts" said; "It is generally said that when you educate a negro he is headed for the chaingang but" I said, "you make a marvellous statement in the thousands and thousands of students who have at- tended your school that not one of them had ever been convicted of crime" I sa-a: Facts are facts, and stand out a complete refutation of all bare asser- tions on any line"
 have believed for years that Booker T. Washington was the leading colored man of the world, and I have always be- lieved that he was leading his people right. I heard that he said to his stu dents some weeks ago: Now don't any of you cherish the idea of social equality. It will be a thousand years,' he said, before you can think and talk along that line. You have got to put thousand years of industry, of history of poetry, of science, of achievements behind you before you can dare think of social equal ity, much less talk about it. and" said