large
measure, in ignorance and poverty, so long will this ignorance and
poverty of the negro in a score of ways prevent the highest development
of the white man.

The problem of lifting up the negro in Cuba and Porto Rico is an easier
one in one respect, even if it proves more difficult in others. It will
be less difficult, because there is the absence of that higher degree of
race feeling which exists in many parts of the United States. Both the
white Cuban and the white Spaniard have treated the people of African
descent, in civil, political, military, and business matters, very much
as they have treated others of their own race. Oppression has not cowed
and unmanned the Cuban negro in certain respects as it has the American
negro.

In only a few instances is the color-line drawn. How Americans will
treat the negro Cuban, and what will be the tendency of American
influences in the matter of the relation of the races, remains an
interesting and open question. Certainly it will place this country in
an awkward position to have gone to war to free a people from Spanish
cruelty, and then as soon as it gets them within its power to treat a
large proportion of the population worse than did even Spain herself,
simply on account of color.

While in the matter of the relation of the races the problem before us
in the West Indies is easier, in respect to the industrial, moral, and
religious sides it is more difficult. The negroes on these islands are
largely an agricultural people, and for this reason, in addition to
a higher degree of mental and religious training, they need the same
agricultural, mechanical, and domestic training that is fast helping the
negroes in our Southern States. Industrial training will not only help
them to the ownership of property, habits of thrift and economy, but the
acquiring of these elements of strength will go further than anything
else in improving the moral and religious condition of the masses, just
as has been and is true of my people in the Southern States.

With the idea of getting the methods of industrial education pursued at
Hampton and Tuskegee permanently and rightly started in Cuba and Porto
Rico, a few of the most promising men and women from these islands
have been brought to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute,
and educated with the view of having them return and take the lead in
affording industrial training on these islands, where the training can
best be given