New-York tribune., 1910-08-27
TAFT PLEADS FOR NEGRO
Urqes Aid for Schools Like
Hampton and Tuskegee.
AT TRUSTEES MEETING
Deplores Fact That Heads of In
stitutions Have to Spend
q Time Begging.

Beverly. Mass, Aug 2s.-President TAT,
attended, at the home of Mrs Robert S.
Bradley, at Pride's Crossing, this after
noon, a meeting OF the board OF trustees
Of Hampton Institute and delivered an
address on negro education The Presi-
dent especially pleaded for more liberal
financial assistance for schools like Hamp-
ton and Tuskegee and their offspring.
Earlier in the day the President re-
ceived informal calls from Governor Fort
of New Jersey, who Inotored IN from a
neigh boring summer resort, and Senator
Lodge, OF Massachusetts,, who ran over
from Nahant for little talk on the pO-
litical situation
In his address to the Hampton trustees
President Taft said:
am not a millionaire. and have never
had tine fesRgs taxes * on & and 2G yo4 R6d
what you would do IL you had an income
Of s., 600 coo or 100000 a year and had the
help his fellow men II seems to ne that
one would like about first to find those
things to which he could be certain hei
might give his money and get return
of good to human kind. and IN looking
about I am very sure that he could not ind
place in which he could, for the benefit OF
human kind, invest his money with more
certainty of returns than in Hampton In
stitute.
| think it does not speak quite well for
all the gentlemen who are contributing gen.
erously to various causes that the head OF
an institution Ike Hampton, which is the
beginning Of great movement TO solve the
race question in this country, should be
obliged to go about seeking 100000 a year
and take a burden on himself that NOBODY
appreciates until he has had to get that
money In this way. One hundred thousand
dollars q year Is the income on certain
number Of millions, and Hampton ought TO
have had those millions long ago, IN order
ba M no
the same with Tuskegee as with Hampton
may not waste his life in raising the
good which he can do in carrying on such
a school and making it more efficient.
Hampton has done more than merely
solve the race question in the proper way.
1t furnished to the American educator a
type of school that is now spreading
throughout the country. General Arm
tical operation an industrial school that
did the work that these schools were in
tended to do 1t does seem strange, and it
certainly is interesting, that It required tho
solution Of the problem Of the education Oe
the negro to present to the white educa-
tors the best methods OF educating ths
whites. One of the dangers that we are
likely to fall into in the North in the edu~
cation of the negro is TO forget the neces-
South.
Education is. the solution of the race ques-
ton when it is directed toward giving the
negro a self-respect and a belief in the
dignity Of labor and in the necessity for his
making himself a valuable member OF the
community in order that the white men
may then give him what is his due. When
r man is a valuable member OF a CON-
nunity as laborer, as a skilled ldborer,
and one who builds up the industries OF ths
community, then he will get all the rights
that are coming to him.
I Dc not like 70 go into politics. or to
discuss the fact, but I do believe that the
present situation in the South is one fun
If hope for the solution CT the negro GJeS-
ion. because politics is largely out Of II.
and now the Southern white man and
Northern white man. and the Southern
negro and the Northern negro are al
uniting in this movement TO teach the ten
million negroes how 10 support themselves.
how to support the community IN which
they live, and when their value in the con-
nunity Is demonstrated, as it IS being
demonstrated, the race question VIII have
IS solution. No one can read the lectures
hat Booker Washington has delivered 70
MS own people without realizing that he IS
one of the greatest men OF this century.
and that he dares tell them the truth in
,rder that they may begin to build up their
ives on a sure foundation.