Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1906-04-11
TAFT TALKS ON
NEGRO PROBLEM
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION THE
SALVATION OF RACE.
CELEBRATION AT TUSKEGEE
Anniversary of Founding of Booker
7. Washngton's Great School the
Occasion for an Address by Sec
rotary of War on Uplifting Of the
Blacks.

Tuskegee, Ala, April THE TWEEN
ty-ffth anniversary OF Tuskegee In
stitute was celebrated last night.
some OF the most prominent educa-
tors in the country and others of
national reputation being present.
Principal Booker T. Washington
delivered an address of welcome.
Robert C. Ogden. president of the
trustees, delivered an address on the
significance Of the celeb alton. Pres
| ident Eliot Of Harvard spoke on What
Uplifts Race and What Holds 1t
| Down. Secretary Taft spoke in part
as follows:
This great seat of useful learning
was founded 25 years ago to elevate
a race. No topic would be appropri-
ate on such an occasion as this which
did not relate to its welfare and fu-
ture Brought TO this country against
their will. for $50 years the negroes
| lived in slavery. Then a bloody four
years war was fought, resulting in
their emancipation. Thereafter there
were adopted into the fundamental
law Of the country three amendments
intended to effect change for the
negroes from a condition of legal
/ servltude to that of a full enjoyment
of the rights OF life, liberty and
propel ty, and protection from legisla-
ton which should exclude them from
political power and influence by rea.
| son OF their color or previous condi,
| ton of servitude.
The 18th amendment which abol
ishes slavery gave to the negro the
boon of freedom, but it left four or
! five millions of people not five per
| cent. of whom could read or write
and all of whom had been dependeD,
upon others for what they ate and
wore and did as children turned
| loose in the world.
The 14th amendment secured to
the negro the equal protection of the
laws Of the state in which he lived
and due process of law in any depri
walton of his life, liberty or property
under state law This is the amend
ment which second to his emancipa
ton has become the most important
in his development.
Personal liberty and private prop
erty have been the chief causes of our
present triumph over the savagery OF
prehistoric men In the elevation oil
the human race l should be the last
to exclude the influence of religion
but even its influence was vastly
greater upon a mind with the sturdy
| virtues of providence and industry
and honesty than upon those in a bar
! barOus state.
The many movements to confer on
the negro the higher academic and
literary education which We're inau
| gurated, were not well adapted tC
securing the proper foundation foI
the upbuilding of the race. The home
Iier virtues must he instilled in q
people before they are ready to re
ceive with advantage, merely literary
or scientific education or can make
the best use of it, The great wealth
of the south still is in agriculture
There has also been wonderful
growth in mining and manufactures
in all of which labor was a pressing
need. The opportunity of the negro
lay, first, in tue skill of his hands as
laborer and in his industry as a
tiller of the soil, and second, in his
capacity to save from his earnings
sufficient to enable him to accumu-
late capital to buy land and establish
his economic independence. IN those
efforts he would encounter little if
any opposition from the southern
white.
THE white men who can do the
most good for the negro, who can aid
him in his toilscme march to bette
material and intellectual conditions,
are the southern white men VINO are
his neighbors. 1t is one Of the en-
courasing signs of the time that
there is growing up in the south n
body of leading white men who feel
that the future Of the negro race af-
fects the future of the south and that
both self-interest and humanity re
CURE of them to lend all the aid they
can 20 this people in TIE thToes Of a
buldensome effort"