the esteem that he now enjoys?"

Mr Harry T. Peck, who writes thus, ventures the opinion that the
estimate of the public in regard to Booker Washington is exaggerated.
"There is no evidence that his mind is in any way exceptional," he
adds.... "Were he a white man, he never would be singled out for
eminence.... He is not an orator; he is not a writer; he is not a
thinker. He is something more than these. He is the man who comes at the
psychological moment and does the thing which is wanting to be done, and
which no one else has yet accomplished." This can hardly be accepted as
genuine criticism. Just as we judge a tree by its fruits, so we measure
capacity, and even genius, by its results. If, as is generally
acknowledged to be the case, Booker Washington has practically solved
that Race Problem which American politicians have hardly dared to face
since the close of the Civil War, it is only fair that we accord him the
distinction of possessing that original shrewdness which may even be
called genius. When an idea of exceptional value is given forth, one
that is all the greater on account of its simplicity, people seem to be
naturally disposed to underrate the power which gave it utterance.
Booker Washington may merely be following in the footsteps of Adam Smith
when, instead of regarding the negro population as an evil or a
grievance, he prescribes that their labour, as a source of vast wealth,
be utilised for the national advancement. Viewed from any other
standpoint, there can be no doubt that the rapidly-increasing negroes
inspire some disquieting apprehensions as a possible source of
inconvenience or of actual danger. Once get the coloured race well under
control, however, and the result would be all-round satisfaction.

Thus Booker Washington is not only the man of the hour to his own
people; in him the Man who has been wanted for forty years has been
found. Being somewhat over forty years of age, he was born in those
portentous times towards the end of the sixth decade of the last century
when the political horizon of the Republic was darkening and showing
symptoms of the coming Civil War. Virginia, his native State, was the
most populous and wealthy of the original thirteen, which, as colonies,
separated from Great Britain after the War of Independence. In the days
of his childhood, before the Civil War actually broke out, his
surroundings were those of the cabin standing amid the squalor of
slavery. All the s