against sinister
schemes and unfortunate happenings. Notwithstanding this, it is
equally true to assert that on the whole the distinct impression left
by Mr. Washington's propaganda is, first, that the South is justified
in its present attitude toward the Negro because of the Negro's
degradation; secondly, that the prime cause of the Negro's failure to
rise more quickly is his wrong education in the past; and, thirdly,
that his future rise depends primarily on his own efforts. Each of
these propositions is a dangerous half-truth. The supplementary truths
must never be lost sight of: first, slavery and race-prejudice are
potent if not sufficient causes of the Negro's position; second,
industrial and common-school training were necessarily slow in planting
because they had to await the black teachers trained by higher
institutions,--it being extremely doubtful if any essentially different
development was possible, and certainly a Tuskegee was unthinkable
before 1880; and, third, while it is a great truth to say that the
Negro must strive and strive mightily to help himself, it is equally
true that unless his striving be not simply seconded, but rather
aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser
environing group, he cannot hope for great success.

In his failure to realize and impress this last point, Mr. Washington
is especially to be criticised. His doctrine has tended to make the
whites, North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the
Negro's shoulders and stand aside as critical and rather pessimistic
spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the
hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting
these great wrongs.

The South ought to be led, by candid and honest criticism, to assert
her better self and do her full duty to the race she has cruelly
wronged and is still wronging. The North--her co-partner in
guilt--cannot salve her conscience by plastering it with gold. We
cannot settle this problem by diplomacy and suaveness, by "policy"
alone. If worse come to worst, can the moral fibre of this country
survive the slow throttling and murder of nine millions of men?

The black men of America have a duty to perform, a duty stern and
delicate,--a forward movement to oppose a part of the work of their
greatest leader. So far as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience,
and Industrial Training for the masses, we must hold up his hands a