The Omaha guide., 1935-10-12
KELLY MILLER
SAYS:
MY LIFEgS SPAN

CAAA Gill III EO-
ing strong. I was placed on the re.
tired list two years ago for purely
calendarial reason rather than on &C.
count of failing strength and physi-
cal infirmities.
| was for four years a contempor-
airy of Abraham Lincoln. There has
been greater transformation in the
material aspect of civilization
since my birth than had taken place
from the time Of Adam until then.
Abraham Lincoln never saw an cleo
trio light, rode in an automobile, used
q telephone or listened over the ra-
dio. The intellectual transformation
has been no less marvellous. Darwin's
"Origin of the Species" was publish
ed in 1859, four years before my
birth, but did not come into general
acceptance and vogue until some
twenty years after. This discovery
has caused the readjustment Of re-
ligious, political, economic and social
thought of mankind. Nor is the end
in sight. 1t doth not yet appear what
the reconstructive thought shall be-;
but we do know that it will be trace
able back to Darwin and the theory
Of evolution. All Of this has transpir-
ed during my life time, although I
cannot say with aneas Magma Pars
Quarum Fui" Il was a great part in
those thdngs), yet j can truly say
that the span of my life covered those
great transformations.
My seventy two years of life may
be taken as a yardstick to measure
the progress Of the Negro race from
Emancipation until now. I came to
notice things at the fag end of re-
construction. | have known and in a
have touched and been
touched by the great men and mea-
sures who have shaped the destiny
of the Negro race. l have seen the
political experiment reach its height
under Douglass and Langston, Pinch
back and Bruce, and have seen it
fade almost to nullity, and then
again take new squirt under DePriest
and Mitchell. | have seen the reli-
gious life of the race reach the point
of highest hope and expectation in
the great A. M. E. church under
Payne, Wayman and Brown and then
to decline on lower level of moral and
spiritual energy and enterprise. /
have seen the educational life Of the
race bouyant with the hope Of sal
walton through learning, and then to
taper down to hundreds and thou
sands of college bred men and women
who are seemingly satisfied to get
q place on the white mans payroll.
| have watched the agitative organ
izations from the Afro-American
league, the Niagara Movement, the
Equal Rights League to the National
Association for the Advancement Of
Colored People, they have all risen,
flourished and faded, except the last
mentioned which is still functioning.
l have seer business organizations
flourish for a season like a green bay
tree, and then wither at the top for
want of depth Of earth.
| have always maintained some
sort Of self distance from those
movements. l have mixed with action
only to a limited degree. l never en-
tered actively into the political ar
ena, in religious Leadership, nor bust
ness enterprises, nor into fraternal
and social organizations. / have been
in the main, an observer and a COM
m~entator rather than a dictator Of
the current of racial life.
| was born with a certain equipoise
of mind and am not easily swerved
by the hysteria Of the moment. i
have incurred the reputation of not
being willing to take sides in issues
and controversies to which the race
is SO readily proned. My intellectual
sanity saves me from such futile
~partizanship. | watched the fury that
ragged for two decades between the
advocates of higher and industrial
education hut hocop n tho bI;,d nor
tizan in neither. From the start l
made a just appraisment of the value
CT both, | realized their relative i'm
portance and comparative impotence.
| remember thirty years ago speak
ing in Boston and presenting two
briefs, n for the higher education
and one for the industrial education
as contributive factors in the solu-
ton of the race problem. Of course,
l was branded as a compromiser and
trimmer. At that time Booker T.
Washington and w. E. B. Dubois
were the irreconcilable antagonists.
| stood midway between the two, ap-
preciating the merits Of both and
their deficiencies. Twenty-Five years
later, both schools have come to my
platform. DIR. Dubois in delivering the
graduating address at Howard Uni
versity several years ago, acknow-
lodged the failure of both the higher
and ipJ,c+riaI aduo2+ioa &C q co1ror+