Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1905-10-28

maze ana thaJ they could not be
changed. This seems to indicate
that the trip as planned did not en-
brace the Negro in the programme,
save that contained in that loop OF
the trip which has already been re-
ferred 10 at Tuskegee.
Here in Richmond. the one minute
vouohsafed Mr.. Giles B. jackson and
his committee. out OF total four
hundred and twenty minutes was
given by Mayor Mccarthy. whose
guest as the representative Of this
c0y. President Roosevelt was. and
we venture the opinion that the Dem
ocratic management of Jacksonville.
Florida was equally as magnanimous
in dealing with the Third Baptist
Academy.
The eolored people of New Or
leans. Louisiana. consisting Of Hon.
J. Madison Vance. Hon. Walter L.
Cohen, Register of Land Office ana
Col James Lewis, Surveyor Of the
General Land ONCE became so pep-
sistent in urging that the President
address the colored people at a Ne
gro University that United States
Senator s. D. McEnery Of that state
denounced the committee almost in
their presence for they sat in an ad-
joining room.
It seems to us that It was time
the colored folks were taking the
hint, TO the extent of understanding
that the programme was arranged
with the assent and consent of the
President of the United States
through his private secretary. Mr..
William Loeb. Jr.
/ It looks like Mr.. Roosevelt is out
cunning for votes" for some of his
pet measures. The Republican Par
ty viii hardly sustain him unani-
mously on many Of the propositions
which he is urging upon their atten-
ton in the United States Senate.
For this reason, it is best not to
handicap him by annoying advances
on our part. II may be that when
he goes out Of office, he can be made
to pay a special visit to the Black
South and thereby get some idea as
to the extent Of the progress Of the
American citizen Of color. In his
speeches. he used the word Negro"
with the suavity and familiarity Of
southerner of the old school.
Mr.. Roosevelt's speeches have been
models of their kind. His intima-
tiOns at the Third Baptist Academy
at Jacksonville were defined with al
vengeance at Tuskegee Institute. To-
our mind. he made an open attack
upon the higher education OF the Ne
gro. Certainly. he chilled every
instructor in every Negro college in
the land. He said 1.-THE profession
al and mercantile avenues to success
are Overcrowded; for the present
the best chance of success awaits
the intelligent worker at some me-
chanical trade or on a farm, for this
man viii almost certainly achieve
industrial independence"
II these institutions have already
overcrowded the professions. what
further use can there be for their
existence2 In Jacksonville, Mr..
Roosevelt modified his utterances by
saying that they applied to the whites
rs nil ms - 81, roro~n4 "a r.
would say the same to both. In his
address at Tuskegee, all Of this was
omitted and he used no words Of
qualification in his wholesale en-
dorsement Of the ordinary training
of the Negroes.
The address in all other respects
was a gem and will hardly come in
for share of criticism from any
quarter. The question which we
would like TO hear and see discussed
is. Are the professional and mercan-
tile avenues for the Negro over
crowded?
II the President of the United
States has been correctly informed,
then what becomes of the Negro Bus
mess League Of which the distin-
guished Booker T. Washington, A.
NJ. is President? II that gentleman
construed the utterances to be even
an unintentional attack upon the
mercantile pursuits on the part Of
the Negroes. then his position must
have been most embarrassing.
But President Roosevelt may not
have intended to go as far as his
utterances along these lines seem to
have carried him. Selah