The colored American., 1903-08-29
4 Bright BarriSter.
Continued from first page.

pie good sound advice.
The Colored Bar Association, which
met at Greenville, Miss. some years
ago, invited him to deliver an address,
from which the following is taken:
Gentlemen of the Colored Bar AS
sOciaLiOn of mississippi: | have list
ened with pleasure and profit to your
excellent addresses on different legal
topics and l can pay you no higher
compliment than to say you are an
honor to the profession. l look upon
this meeting as the dawn of a new
era in the history of our race. 1t is
no new thing for us to meet and
participate in the aSsemblages of men,
in fact, one of the misfortunes of our
people has been too great love for
meetings and conventions of every
kind, out of which little if any per
manent good has ever accrued to us.
The emotional side of our nature has
ever been too often used as instru-
ments In the hands of others. Some
persons unwisely think that all that
is necessary to constitute a successful
lawyer is an oily tongue, a vivid i'm
aginatiOn and a great capacity to lie,
In fact, some people profess to think
that lawyer and liar are synony-
nous terms. Such persons it is need
less for me to say, know but little of
the law, and still less of the lawyer
the contests of lawyers are not "ex-
parte." They confront each other be-
forelearned and astute courts anu in
the presence of the world, where lies
and frauds have the least chance of
success and where exposure will usu-
ally prove fatal to cause. No lawyer
can build a splendid professional ca
reer upon an insufficient education
any more than he can build a monu-
stone q n
sand We are citizens of this country
by nativity, not by choice or adoption,
and here, under Gods providence, we
mean to stay and strike glad hands
with all lovers of justice work out
our own destinies, and vie with every
other nationality in developing the
material resources of our beloved
country. We should prepare ourselves
by every energy of mind and soul to
solve the problem put to us by those
by whom we are surrounded and with
whom we live, viz, The survival of
the fittest.' Citizens by nativity, we
have no other land to love. To this
we have given our labor for more than
one hundred years. In defense of her
flag we have given our lives; to sus-
tain her integrity we have contributed
whatever was demanded of us. At
all times we have been faithful and
reliable. We have never been num-
bered among our countrys enemies.
We have never been found in the
ranks of socialists and anarchists in
their attack upon social order and our
free institutions. Yet We have lived
under a condition of things at times
uneQualled in the history of civilized
government"
From beginning to end this was one
of the grandest addresses ever dsliv-
cred. He not only tells the aspiring
young Negro lawyer to first acquire a
college education, thusly fitting aim
self to compete with the best lawyers
of his time, but almost in the same
breath he tells this nation that in as
much as 1t has forced our men to keep
the flag from trailing in the dust in
every war in which it has engaged.
it should be discontentod until every
citizen is protected at home as well
as abroad.
About seventeen years ago Mr.. Set
tie became a resident of Memphis.
Immediately on his arrival, he was
appointed assistant Attorney General
of Shelby County, Tenn. which in
cludes the city of Memphis, the larg-
est and most fiourishing city in the
State Those were warm days in pol
itics with Gen. G. p. NJ. Turner, one
af preataSt orators and LAWYERS