The sun., 1903-05-17
BOOKER WASHINGTON HOME.
TREMENDOUS WELCOME GIVEN
TO HIM AT TCSkEEGEE.
I. 400 students Greet Him In Parade
Flowers and Music and HiEh-Sound.
INK Words Thrown At Him-He Re.
piles with Some Hard.Headeti Sehse.

piles With Some HArd.Headed Sense.
TuskEEaEE, Ala. May 10. Booker WASH
ing,on returned on Wednesday to Tuskee-
gee # was his first home coming follow
ins the gift of $500. 600 by Andrew Carnegie.
The memory OF the day when President
Mckinley visited the school has been a
unit for comparison for celebrations there,
one year after another. Now they have a
new and bigger one.
There is a street which leads from the
entrance of the grounds past the older
buildings and down to the chapel at the
further end. 1t was mud puddles and sticky
clay but that did not matter. The l400
students formed in battalons. marched up
and down it in double columns, which
stretched for the length OF two avenue
blocks. the men in their blue uniforms,
and the women in their regulation blue
dresses braided in red. Uniforms, dresses.
CAPS. shoes-all are the output Of the school
shops.
Mr. Washington was to arrive at o clock.
The little bobbin of train which runs from
Chehaw to Tuskeegee and let's its passengers
of by means of a plank, was late. So the
student body marched up and down in
the mud to the music OF their own band.
lHtI' "tlc S'i dPkhhs
bows still with the gait of slavery days
ambling along in ambitious com petition
with others as straight as ramrods
The girls were bareheaded 500 Of them in
two long double rows here the kinky wooly
head Of the cotton fields. there the long
black hair that suggests the Indian, some
with brown hair, others with fairly blonde
hair, some with red-not few Of them
- aDI l,,i,x y,c
feature that, in the aggregate, could not
fail to cause comment.
AT the far end was the hat brigade" Of
the boys made up of those who for the most
part have lately entered and are too poor as
yet to buy uniforms, BY the system OF
the school, a boy can practically earn his
way trough the course, although he comes
without money. The first year he works
week days and takes what studies he can
carry at night school. At the end Of the
year he has enough to his credit on the
books so that by working one or two days
a week, he can carry day courses from
that time on. They tell the story OF two
Georgia boys who tramped 200 miles to
Tuskeegee, leading their mothers cow-her
chief possession and her gift to education
and her sons OF such stuff is the shat
brigade" made of. and they trudged along
with their heads as high as the Others.
With the band in the lead and the faculty
of the school as a bodyguard, Mr. Washing
toms carriage drove down the lane left by
the students, the girls waving their handker-
chiefs and the boys at salute. They marched
him Oh to the chapel, cheering as they went.
where townspeope and visitors had already
gathered.
NH IL ool,.~ 81, ln,-
on the walls. There had been rivalry and
heartburnings as to which class should
put flowers on the principals chair, and,
judging by the result, two or three classes
must have done IL. There was little room
left for the Moses of his race" There
were pictures Of Mr.. Carnegie and of Booker
Washington on the pillars and there were
palms and roses and wood flowers The
class OF lo0S wanted to put up a transparency
for the occasion by dint of charcoal artist.
And they did it, The seniors had floral
piece to present, and they presented it.
while their mascot, a little pale-faced girl
OF thirteen, with long hair hanging loosely
to her waist, waved the class banner.
The score of students from the West Indies,
some with the high cheek bones of the
Indian. others with the features of Spanish
parentage and still others Of the more pro-
nounced African type-these wanted to
sing a song in honor Of the day.
And they sang it. Most of them can
speak English but brokenly, but they
learned the words by heart. There was an
infection in the rhyming, too, which helped
them out for -Tus-kee-gee, Car ne gle,
Booker T." know nothing of linguistic
limitation.
The alumni had speaker; so did the stu
dent body. The speeches were boyish, bonn
bastic. fowery, that smacked healthfully
Of commencement-tide under whatever
circumstances and that made the man In
the chair OF flowers squirm at the eulogy.
Then Lewis Adams had something to say,
a negro and trustee, who was at Tuske-
gee before Washington was, and helped
get him there and has stood by him since.
He told Of the days when they had to bor-
row Of Peter to pay Paul, of the strain and
the sweat it took to meet a debt OF $40, Of
the little beginnings which had grown.
And then there was a talk from another
trustee, a white citizen Of Tuskegee, who
told how Mr.. Washington and his work
had stood the test not only OF moneyed
men Of the North, but Of the close watch
ing which Southerners have given al first
hand.
His final point was this: In the years of
Np-building the principal of Tuskeegee
had worked practically without salary;
he had invested his whole in the work
They had often talked among themselves
of the later years when he would wear him
self out. They had guessed that some
thing would provide Now they knew
what
Before each of the speakers and after
each Of the speakers almost before .and
after every cheer, and there were lot of
them-a tall. long-arhed negro, perched
back Of the platform, would get up, swing
his baton at the audience and give the
signal TO the choir behind him. then start
of in a rousing song. Sometimes it was
patriotic hymn; at other times the words
were his own to the honor Of Washington
and Carnegie and the school and the race
and again they we're those of some old
campmeeting air with refrain which the
400 students shouted to the roof and
drowned out the band, as only a chapel full
of negro singers can.
Booker Washington had been travelling
North and West, speaking before score