The broad ax., 1912-03-30
wAsHNGroN's HNHoUsE
STORIES.

~ Dubois, for example-make OF Dr.
D.oLsr T. Washington is this, that in
!. soeeches he constantly and subtly
.rfrms the white mans cOmplaeent
ssrse of superiority to the COlOred
man.
While endeavoring with one hand to
,;ft tSe Negro of the South through in
Ins,riaI education, with the other-so
.besa critics assert-he presses his peo-
Mo down into the position of social in
tsriority in which the more aggressively
,,esconscious of the white people de-
.;-e them to be. These critics of DIR.
washington cite, as illustrations OF his
subtle maneuvering in this matter, his
.onstant use, before white audiences,
If anecdotes involving the COlored man
and the chicken coop.
II was interesting to see illustrations
If this crop up in DR.. Washington g
visit last week. For example, he spoke
before the City Club upon the progress
If the Negro race, largely as illustrated
in the growth of Tuskegee Institute. In
.bs course of his address he touched on
the early struggles of Tuskegee when
aid, ramshackle buildings had to be
used for classrooms:
I said we began in a little shanty.
After teaching in that shanty for a
number of months, the student body
began TO multiply so fast that I was
complied to call into use an old-fash-
;oned henhouse, which found on the
nIsntation. ] remember that one after
mon spoke to an old Colored man who
lived nea- by, telling him that I wanted
him to come the next morning at 9
o'clock and assist me in cleaning that
bepbouse out and whitewashing it for
school purposes. With some excitement
in his voice and manner, he turned to
me and said: CHOW, boss, I'll come
and help you clean out that henhouse
tomorrow morning, but Use afraiad you
is gwine to get in trouble, case you
dom understand the customs down
here. You never should clean out a
henbouse down here in the daytime. D
At another meeting in Chicago he
told another anecdote which ran, as
nearly as we can repeat it, something
like this:
feel, in addressing you tonight, etc.
etc, something like the Colored mar
whose wife went away on visit and
left him alone in charge of the place
Somebody asked him how he got alonl
in her absence and he said: "Well, Al
rot along gretty well. All only made
one mistake. All forgot, one night, Il
lock the henhouse door and an the
hens got out in the night and went
hume!"
Both anecdotes provoked hearty
laughter from the white audiences
which heard them They served the i'm
memorial ends of the aneedote. TAey
put the audience into good humor
into the frame of mind in which, reason
ably or not, each man said to himself
with a chuckle: Essay, he's all right
IN listen to him!"
But to the educated ColOred man
sensitive about his standing in the com
munity, painfully conscious Of the thou
sand points at which social ostracisn
wounds him and his family, DR.. Wash
ington's little jokes have lost thei
salt. He traces-whetheT fancifully o.
not, who shan sayf-something OF tn
eOnplseement superiority Of the whit
people to this old assumption Of tn
weakness of the Colored man for tn
contents of the henhouse. And it i
like rubbing salt in old wounds to Sc
the powerful and protected DR.. Wash
ingtOn mounting to favor-so to sPeal
with the free and jaunty use Of some
thing which has become, to him, al
most a symbol Of the plight in whiel
be finds his people.
Does this seem representative
Probably to many of our readers !
viii seem decidedly 50. They WI
argue that when Dr.. Washington Id
achieved the ends which he seeks
when he and the men in his Inovemen
have lifted the Colored men and wome
OF the South 10 q position OF II
dustrial independence, then the oil
"henhouse joke" will die Of inanitior
And in the meantime, they win sa1
what's the use Of getting excite
about a mere joke, the by-play an
surplusage Of q speaker who is a
mittedly in earnesti
That is perhaps, the typical Anne
lean attitude toward a piece Of hu-no
But for many the question win persis
Many will feel that Dr.. Washingto
has been needlessly careless Of II
fnal;orz - Al. .Sv..AnS nl,~.n1k N ~