wealth and education, by untiring and unobtrusive expression of good feeling and by the sedulous cultivation of the law of Christian love, let us endeavor to win over those who are our enemies because they think we are theirs. Let no man imagine that I condone or encourage or advise voluntary humiliation. Every one condemns the frown-fearing, smile-courting, hat-inhand Negro. True manliness is respected in white and black alike. Our hard and rugged pathway is not our greatest calamity. England beheaded its kings. Cromwell had his wars. France had its Bartholomew and its Reign of Terror. The rivers of Germany ran red with human blood. And, now, a concluding word by way of application. I sometimes fear that the greatest danger of the Negro's failure is more internal than external. His conduct in public places is often far from what it should be. The refined and respectable members of the race are humiliated and disgraced by a class of lawless ruffians who infest our depots and coaches set aside for colored people, who have no respect for law. We are ashamed of them but helpless. The unjust and cruel law which forces upon us the "Jim Crow" car law would be a little more tolerable if there were some way of getting rid of the "Jim Crow" Negro who seems never happier than when loitering around the stations. Another internal trouble: In nearly all our cities there are among our people lodges and burial associations, good and of great value when properly conducted. But I confess it pains me to see our people living in squalor and being buried in luxury. It is a mistake to give a one hundred dollar funeral to a fifty cent Negro. Again, there is another serious drawback, in the existence of a class of easy-going citizens, who infest the town and live by the sweat and toil of wife, mother or daughter over wash tubs or in cook rooms, while they live as gentlemen (?) of leisure or furnish the courts with criminals. Let us give no tolerance to these idle and vicious people. They do the race irreparable harm. In his business life the Negro has many lessons to learn. Whatever may be said of his misfortune in politics-his failure in business and professional life is due to himself. It is true that the failure of the Freedman's Saving Bank, officiated at the time by Negroes, but really mismanaged by heartless white men from the North, created a distrust for banks in general and colored banks in particular, which more than twenty-five years have not served to eradicate. The result has been that funds have been withheld which, if properly invested, would have helped the race on material lines. We have yet to learn the advantages of partnership and of mutual support. men. Respect for our professional men: We have not yet come to a proper realization of the importance of properly supporting our professional In the ultimate analysis, it is in the home that the Negro's status is to be solved. The girls and women of the race will fix the destiny and the character of the race. "She who rocks the cradle rules the race." Well may it be said: "The soul's armor is never well set to the soul unless braced by the hand of a woman, and it is only when she braces it loosely that the vigor of manhood fails." Let us do what we can to preserve the purity of our women. It is a shameful truth that in some cities, at least, there are Negro men driving vehicles of public utility, with no visible support, who are agents of barter and sale of the virtue of our women. We must exercise more care in the selection of associates for our children, and social lines must be drawn. I have spoken thus freely, perhaps too freely for some, because the educated class among us feel the burden of these shortcomings. The great mass of our people are so steeped in ignorance that they do not feel the burden. The cultured class read, think, judge and philosophize and their sufferings are too often seen in the deep lines of anxiety on cheek and brow. We are looking, my friends, for the dawn of a brighter day. Truth must win. Once developed it remained stationary for ages. The sun may be obscured by the clouds for a month, but the vegetation does not go back into the ground. It remains and waits the certain coming of the genial sun. "Some of these days all skies will be brighter, Some of these days all the burdens be lighter, Hearts will be happier, souls will be whiter, "Some of these days, in deserts uprising, Fountains shall flash while the joy bells are ringing, And the world with its sweetest of birds shall go singing, Some of these days. "Some of these days, let us bear with our sorrow, Faith in the future-its light we may borrow, There will be joy in the garden tomorrow— INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE RACES (Contributed for this book.) BY PROF. WILLIAM PICKENS, The leading young Negro linguist in America. This is a modification of one of the subjects that was suggested to me. Carnal intercourse, thank heaven, is not the only variety of contact possible between two races that live together as the white and black |