The Washington bee., 1911-04-08
BATTLESHIPS AND SCHOOL
HOIICEC


at which President Taft, Secretary
Root and others spoke, President w.
?. Thirkield, of Howard University,
responded to the toast, "Battleships
and SChOOlhOuses. He said in part,
that Congressman had proposed that
for three millions we should build
Dreadnaught, and enblazon her with
the name "Skeered o Nothin'," but
Lincoln saw, with prophetic ken, that
our gravest problems and perils are
not without, but within; that "as a na-
ton of free men we must live through
all time, or die by suicide"
Grave and far-reaching are the
problems of the Republic; world en-
braclng, our opportunity. The battle
snip cannot solve these problems; the
Schoolhouse and college can. With
enough gunboats to police our shores,
rather than forty more battleships for
eighty millions, to plow the seas and
tempt the devil of War, give us eighty
millions to equip and strengthen the
institutions of learning in forty States
of the Union. After all, it is not the
gun, but the man behind the gun that
commands the worlds homage, and
AldNNO lnC - lllOll liiNiilClDlC.
Spain had the ships and the guns,
but drew her defenders and warriors
from a population 63 per cent of
whom are illiterate, and the guns
would not hit the mark 1t is the man
of trained powers, the man of discip-
lined brain and will, dauntless and
hrln before the foe, who aims steady
ana hits the bulls-eye every time.
Powers tested in school, mental and
moral sinews hardened give forth the
American Hobson and his band of he
roes. Wild-eyed in visions of war, and
hot on his (Hobson's) hobby for battle
ships, he may apppear,-yet may we
never forget his deathless deed of he
rOism for his country, and his ex-
ample of high-souled valor that
clutches the heart of American youth
The nerves of such a man may trem-
| bic, but the soul of patriotism carries
him on IN the teeth of the guns. &
with Senator Gallinger, we agree
| that it is the school and the moral
forces of the Republic we must bring
to bear on the grave problems we
| face. Think of the migration of a mil
lion year to our shores. No longer
kindred peoples - Teutons, Saxons
Celts of Northern Europe-but the
Slavs and Semites, the Huns anC
Vandals of Southern Europe; of thi.
million, 100000 illiterate, 100000 o.
them unskilled On they come will
their blood hatreds and race hostil
tiles.
America is Gods crucible, the
great melting-pot, where all the races
of Europe are meeting and reforming
Our civilization will be to these either
the fires of God, refining, Christening
purifying, or the fires of He'll, destroy
ing, corrupting, damning these alier
masses before they can be American
Iized
Your battleships will not stol
them. The schOolhouse must oper
to them and train them for citizenship
else the cities into which are massinl
these ignorant aliens will be over
whelmed. as was Rome. Even nov
the warning of Wendell Philips is sol
emn and prophetic: Our cities will
yet strain our Republic as sIavery
never did And face to face with ap
palling illiteracy and bartered ballots
even in Ohio, there is given awfu
meaning to that other word of Phil
lips: An ignorant ballot is the wind
ling sheet of liberty
Let education, therefore, as TIT
Senator-statesman pleads, be made
national function. Place it alongside
of the Army and Navy. Let it ranl
along with internal improvements a.
a basal function of the Government
| The conservation of forests and waite
ipOwers IS good. Conservation and de
lvelOpment of manhood is better.
Il am here also to utter the graft
tude of nearly One-third of the peopl
of the District, a race also represent
| ing every ninth soul of the Republic
for the constant and generous interes
| OF Senator Gallinger in the equipmen
and work not only of the common
schools, but of Howard University
the only institution where the Govern
ment directly touches the education o
the American Negro.
with a large spirit of humanity
| Senator Gallinger joins the President
I may say, in the expressed conviction
that this institution is the partial pay
iment of a debt to a race to which tn
Government and the people of tn
e United States are eternally indebted
that it is an obligation of the Govern
meIt TO an institution which 'shal
work out in the end the solution o
one Of the great problems that Go
has put upon the people of the Unite
States 1t stands for the education o
a race which through no fault OF It
, own is a part of our AnglO-SaXOn CIV
ilization, and must measure up to It
duties and responsibilities, or b
doomed. They are Americans in spir
it and ideals-not anarchists or social
lists; not strikers or avengers. Their
are no Black Hand societies anon
- Iblack men, For the training OF tn
teachers, physicians, and the lntellec
! itual. moral, and industrial leaders an
l helpers of this race, Howard Unlver
sity stands"