esman of the age, the immortal Emancipator; and all
honor to the men who wore the blue, both white and black; and all honor
to the men and women who gave their sons to the cause and furnished the
sinews of war; and all praise be to the God of Heaven who was behind
the conflict controlling all.

If we would properly honor this great and good man we must finish the
work which he so nobly began,--the lifting up of the Negro race to the
highest point of civilization. This can be accomplished; first, by being
good and loyal citizens ourselves, and by teaching our children to be
the same.

The groundwork of our material advancement is industry. As a race we are
generally industrious, but we need to become more skillfully so.
Unskilled labor cannot compete with skilled labor, neither North or
South. In the past you gave us certain positions as the result of
sympathy, not because we could perform the work as skillfully as others.

The sentiment which actuated you to help us was a noble one, but that
kind of sentiment is a thing of the past; now we are required to stand
or fall according to our merits. When goods are to be manufactured,
machines constructed, houses and bridges built, clothing fashioned, or
any sort of work performed, none but skilled workmen are considered;
there are a great number of employers that care but little about the
color of the workmen; with them the question is, Can he do the work?

We must continue the struggle for our civil and political rights. I have
no sympathy with that class of leaders who are advising the Negro to
eschew politics in deference to color prejudice.

Does it make for permanent peace to deny to millions of citizens their
political rights when they are equal to the average electorate in
intelligence and character? Fitness, and not color or previous condition
of servitude, should be the standard of recognition in political
matters. Indeed the Negro should not be denied any civil or political
right on account of his color, and to the extent this is done there is
bound to be disquietude in the nation.

We have already seen that temporizing with slavery at the formation of
the Union resulted in a hundred years of strife and bitterness, and
finally brought on devastation and death. And may we not profit by this
bitter experience? The enlightened American conscience will not tolerate
injustice forever. The same spirit of liberty and fair play which
enveloped the nation in the days o