The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1911-03-03
Roscoe Conkling Simmons.
Tells What His Race Owes 70 Lincoln

LION u1SEl De IudlnJdlneG. l4OOkIuS
up I saw a vision. 1t was Lincoln.
| heard voice saying, Be of good
cheer Hi this was not in vain. I'm
less Gods throne can be overturned
time will make all things right
you ask me what of that liberty
that Lincoln, an instrument of God,
placed in the hands of the American
Negro. could assemble for you to-
night men living and dead whose
record of achievements ought to
wiring praise even from the thought
less men, and whose accomplishments
in any land save their own would en-
gage the pen of the chiefest of I'M
biased historians. And | would ex-
clude four men whom no race or Ian
guage can claim: Douglass, the ora
tor; Dunbar, the poet; Langston, the
statesman, and the Virginian slave,
now one of earth's great-W Washing
ton-not George.
My race came out of slavery with
nothing. 1t had no past with which
it had definite acquaintance and no
future to which it could in confidence
look or move. You told us to get ed
ucation. We hand in the records
showing that, without one dollars aid
from Washington, we have reduced
our illiteracy by So per cent You
told us to embrace the Christian re-
ligion. One-third of my race are on
the rolls of the Christian church and
from our meagre purse we have in
ested $35,000,000 in church proper
ty.
"You told us to get wealth and we
report to You that we are paying
taxes on $600,O00,000 in property You
told us to t-y the fields of trade and
commerce. We have So banks, five
insurance companies and 10000 mer-
chants You told us to try the pro-
LESSONS. We hand you list of doc
tors and lawyers and editors larger
than our country could claim when
Crispus Attucks was first to take the
orders of old Sam Adams and defy the
British intruder. You told us to pur-
sue the ways of peace; we say to you
that in the South black and white are
learning to live side by side in peace
as God planned. We present a man.
hood self-discovered and a noble
womanhood rising from the ashes of
VICE.
wherever you have sent us we
have gone, whether to the fields of
cotton and corn, to the forge, or to
the battlefield to fight for the only
flag we have evern known. Whatever
you have told us to do we have done,
with simple and child-like faith.
Recently | stood on the base Of
Grants tomb the waters of the Hud-
son below Contemplating the won
drous sword of the worlds greatest
soldier | heard the. prophecy: An
hundred years hence all men upon
this continent shall be free; Truth
shall again be naked and liberty go
unguarded.' l heard the hymn Of
Longfellow set to the music of brok-
en- tears
We have not wings, we cannot soar,
But we have feet to scale and
climb,
! By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy SUBMITS of our time
81 saw picture, | saw the throne
of Liberty; ON one side saw
Frederick Douglass: on the other,
John Brown, with his finger on Har-
per's Ferry. In the midst, I saw the
prince and king of peace forever,
holding love for a sceptre and the
Emancipation Proclamation for a
chact-Abraham Lincoln, the worlds
crownless king"
Turning aside Mr.. Simmons then
proposed this toast, which was given
with cheers:
Here's to Lincoln's soldiers, who
fought to crush slavery and save the
Union. Here's to Sheridan in the
Shenandoah; here's to Sherman
marching from Atlanta to the sea and
matchless Grant at Vicksburg and
Appomatox. Here's to Harriet
Beecher Stowe and Julia Ward Howe;
here's to Joe Dickey, our friend and
comrade, and here's to the North md
the South and the Union forever;
here's to the only flag that never
touched the ground, and to our coun
try under one flag, one destiny an(
one God forever --Ne4oberg Boenins
Union.