The forum. [volume] (Springfield, Ill.) 1904-192?, 1916-09-30
B. 7. WASHINGTON
AS RACE LEADER
Woods Hutchinson, N. D., on
Worth Of Late Educator.
TUSKEGEE HIS MEMORIAL

Eminent Physician Writes interesting
Story About the Founder Of Great
Southern Industrial School - POSI-
bilIties of the CoIorsd People ArsI
Ably Presented.
In a recent issue of the New York
American DR.. Woods Hutchinson con-
/ tributes an article on the late Dr.
Booker Il. Washington. in which he inI
part says:
This is not an ungrateful world.
after all. Within few months OF
his death comes the gratifying re
port that the memorial fund to theI
great founder of Tuskegee has already
reached $250,000. His greatest me-
mortal, of course. is and will ever be |
Tuskegee itself and the spirit of self
reliance upon which 1t is founded.
He had the clear sightedness TO see
and this was his great transforming
vision for the salvation of his race
that any man, white or black, who
tOuio bthuu anu uatly uROn
mother earth and win from the ele-
ments by his own brain and muscle,
illumined by science, place and liv-
ing need not worry much about reeog-
milton by any other race or class.
Next to his shrewd and logged In
sistence In the training of its students
that they must stand upon their own
feet, depend upon their own biceps and
brains for success and forget for the
present everything else came an equal
ly keen and helpful recognition Of the
wide field Of development and progress
which lay before them within their
own race, regardless entirely of the
white.
Eleven million souls-a nation with
In nation-eertainly furnish a wide
enough field for development for enter
prise and Adventures population and
a territory as great as Switzerland, as
Holland, as Belgium, as Canada or
Australia. The Negro merchant who
can draw all the trade of two-thirds
or even half Of his own people within
his county or tributary district has
good business and the makings Of a
fortune.
Negro banker who can secure the
accounts Of all the forehanded farmers
and tradesmen and intelligent artisans
and laborers Of his own race has a
good business ready to his hand. Ev-
cry county town with 5000 or more
colored population to draw from will
furnish a good living for a Negro doc
tor, lawyer, three or four ministers and
a dozen teachers.
A Negro dairy, a Negro creamery.
cheese factory, an association of
Negro fruit growers, can ind ready
market and good trade among their
own people In the county. state or
neighboring states. Why do they need
to concern themselves with what their
white neighbors' think about the color
line?
The extent to which this new spirit
of self respect and independence and
racial pride has already spread. not
merely from Tuskegee. but a hundred
other lesser centers as well, is one of
the most cheering and encouraging
signs of the times to the student of
economic conditions as they actually
exist In the south today.
The spirit Of the more intelligent and
thoughtful and successful Negroes
and there are tens of thousands Of
such-is no longer one of bitterness
against their white neighbors or of We
hement assertion of their equality In
every respect, but one of friendly COM
petition, of quiet and increasing self
respect and mutual respect and OF firm
determination to win their own way,
fight their own battles. regardless of
racial rivalries.
They have the future before them,
and they are willing to wait and let
the next hundred or two hundred or
three hundred years decide the ques-
ton of what their real racial worth
and possibilities are.
Thanks to Tuskegee and the wide
spread feeling which 1t both leads and
typifies, the race problem In the south
is making much more genuine and en-
couraging progress toward solution
than is usually supposed. One of the
things that really proved Booker
Washington great was his ability to
recognize the difficult truth that there
Is no real conflict between the best and
most vital interests of the Negro aud
tho xuhffa MANILA