ad become leaders by the silent suffrage of their fellows, had sought
to lead their own people alone, and were usually, save Douglass, little
known outside their race. But Booker T. Washington arose as
essentially the leader not of one race but of two,--a compromiser
between the South, the North, and the Negro. Naturally the Negroes
resented, at first bitterly, signs of compromise which surrendered
their civil and political rights, even though this was to be exchanged
for larger chances of economic development. The rich and dominating
North, however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was
investing largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of
peaceful cooperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to
recognize Mr. Washington's leadership; and the voice of criticism was
hushed.

Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of
adjustment and submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to
make his programme unique. This is an age of unusual economic
development, and Mr. Washington's programme naturally takes an economic
cast, becoming a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as
apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life.
Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are coming in
closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is
therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington's programme practically
accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own
land, the reaction from the sentiment of war time has given impetus to
race-prejudice against Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of
the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens. In other
periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro's tendency to
self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of
submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and
peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly
self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who
voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not
worth civilizing.

In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only
through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people
give up, at least for the present, three things,--

First, political power,

Second, insistence on civil rights,

Third, higher education of Negro youth,--and concentrate all their