The broad ax., 1916-02-05
OWNERSHIP OF HOMES.

| OWNERSHIP OF HOMES.
The Colored race has produced a
great many able men who have been
of Unreasonable value in the develop
ut of the race but among these there
* one who was born a slave, who
worked his way through school, who
saw his people striving and toiling for
an existence under load of Ignorance
and poverty and who devised plans by
which to relieve them; he saw that the
economic problem of poor people must
first be solved before there could be a
great ethical, mental or social develop
ment of that people. This man saw
that the great masses of his race were
laborers and that all they had to sell
was their labor. He saw also that if
there were no demand for their labor
they would be forced to remain in ig-
norance and poverty; so this great
leader of his people, went all over the
country, from ocean to ocean, from the
Great Lakes to the Gulf, heralding the
doctrine of industrial education for the
great masses of the Colored race. He
so awakened the country with his novel
ideas that in every state his doctrine
was taken up and put into practice,
and thousands of dollars were given by
the benevolent White people for the
education of the Negro. He also taught
the members of his race to become
skilled laborers and mechanics and be
proficient in whatever was their calling
in life; to be Industrious, frugal and
possess the land and build permanent
homes and dig out of the earth the
gold with which to educate their chill
dren and maintain their families. This
man, who taught and lead his people
thus, who inspired them to have faith
in themselves and believe in their fu-
ture success as no other man has done,
born on American soil, was Booker
T. Washington.
This great educator founded Tuske-
gee Institute which stands as a great
monument to his memory and through
which his doctrines permeated nearly
every home of the Colored race
throughout the United States and
stirred them as no other character has
done produced by the Negro race, to
rise to a higher plane of iving-to
greater manhood and become self
supporting. Students from Tuskegee
have carried its influence not only in
every state of the Union but to differ
emit parts of Africa and have there
assisted in the development of the peo-
pie and the industries of the country.
DR.. Washington saw that the methods
the Colored farmer was using would not
only keep him poor but would keep him
from educating his children and from
raising his moral, social and religious
standing; so he went every year from
place to place, from state to state,
throughout the South and urged the
Negro people to use scientific methods
in farming, to diversity their crops
and to get away from the hard condi-
tions always to be expected when a
whole race is more or less dependent
upon one crop for its sustenance.
Through the series of meetings held
by DIR. Washington, throughout the
country, over a million of people were
reached directly by the influence of his
Institution and the White and Black
people were greatly benefited and ap-
preciated his efforts.
Congress, by the Smith-Lever Bill,
gave a certain amount of money for
the rural population of each state for
the purpose of training the people in
better farming and better living. The
Colored people of the rural districts
of the South were not receiving their
pro rata of this fund, so DR.. Washing
ton made arrangements with the Ala
bama Polytechnic Institute for White
people, by which Tuskegee became re-
sponsible for the expenditure of a por-
ton of the money allotted Alabama
in helping the Colored people of the
rural districts of Alabama. To carry
out the plans, movable schools were es-
tablished and more than 7,540 Colored
people of Alabama were reached and
taught.
A short while ago I was in the
Eastern part of North Carolina and
saw that this fund was being used for
the teaching and training of the White
people of the rural district of N. Caro-
lima but none for the Colored people
of that district, although they were
eager and anxious to learn the methods
of scientific farming. They wished that
DR.. Washington would bring his NOV
able school into their district in North