The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-10-22
ADVICE TO NEGROES.
President RooseveIt's Address at the
Baptist College at Jacksonville.

President RoOseveIt's Address at the
Baptist College at Jacksonville.
Jacksonville, Fla, Oct 21.-President
Roosevelt in his speech at the Colored
Baptist college here today said:
Every good American must be inter
lean arise and help every other Ameri-
can upward so as to be able to do his
duty by himself and those dependent
upon him and by the state at large. It
seems to me that it is true of all of
US that our duties are even more inn
portant than our rights. If we do our
duties faithfully in spite of the difficult
ties that come. then, sooner or later the
rights win take care OF themselves.
What say to this body of my col
ored fellow citizens is just exactly what
would say to any body of my white
fellow citizens. What we need in this
country is typifed by what have been
shown to day as having been done by
people of your race. We need education,
morality, industry; we need intelligence.
clean living and the power to work
hard and effectively. No man interest
ed as every president must be in the
welfare of all his fellow Americans
could be otherwise than deeply pleased,
not only at the evidences of thrift and
IDENTIFY many hundreds of your num-
Der in this city, as shown by the homes
that I have seen, but interested also in
seeing an educational institute like this
is carried on
1.-THE costliest crop for any commun-
ity is the crop Of ignorance. It is per
fectly true that education in mind alone
equally true that you can not get the
best citizen without education. We
want our people Of every race educa-
ted, in mind, heart and hands, educated
so that head and hand can do their sew
era1 tasks, and have behind head and
hand also the heart, the conscience, the
sense Of clean and just living which
makes the foundation Of all good eiti-
zenship. That is just as true Of the
white man as Of the eolored man. It is
true of every man.
Il want to say a special word Of ac-
acknowledgement to the school teachers,
men and women alike, who are doing
the work of education and in saying
that word I also want to point oat
thiss
1T is absolutely essential that we
should have the people do well in the
professions, but there is only a limited
amount of room in the professions and
there is almost an unlimited amount OF
room for men in agriculture and me
chanical trades. Do your very best to
develop good teachers, to develop good
neutrality-suspicious. who shall preach
to the. coIOred man as 1t Should be
preached to the white man, that by
your fruits you shall know them, and
that the truly religious man is the man
who is decent and clean in his private
life: who is orderly and law abiding;
the man who hunts down the criminal
and does all he can to stop crime and
wrong doing: the man who treats his
neighbor well: who is a good man in
his own family and, therefore, a good
man in the state. That Is what we have
right to expect from the Christian
leadership that we see in the churches.
All honor to the teacher all honor to
the preacher-but remember 1t is per-
fectly impossible that the bulk Of any
people shall be teachers or preachers.
The bulk have got to be men engaged
/ in the trades: as mechanics. as wage
workers as farmers. Every man who
| is a good farmer, a thrifty. progressive,
saving mechanic. who owns his own
/ house, who is free from debt and able
to bring up his children well and to
keep his wife as she should be kept.
is not only a first class citizen, but is
doing a mighty work in helping to up
4 lift his race