ersians, Egyptians, and even God's
chosen people, allowed corruption and vice to so dwarf their moral sense
that there was, according to the universal law of civilization, nothing
left for them but death and destruction.

It is no reproach to the Negro to say that his history and environment
in this country have well-nigh placed him at the bottom of the moral
scale. This must be remedied, if the Negro is ever to reach his full
status of civilized manhood and womanhood. It must come through the
united efforts of the educated among us. We must be united to stop the
ravages of disease among our people; united to keep black boys from
idleness, vice, gambling, and crime; united to guard the purity of black
womanhood and, I might add, black manhood also. It is not enough to
simply protest that ninety-five out of every hundred Negroes are orderly
and law-abiding. The ninety-five must be banded together to restrain and
suppress the vicious five.

The people must be impressed with the idea that a high moral character
is absolutely essential to the highest development of every race, white
quite as much as black. There is no creature so low and contemptible as
he who does not seek first the approval of his own conscience and his
God; for, after all, how poor is human recognition when you and your God
are aware of your inward integrity of soul! If the Negro will keep
clean hands and a pure heart, he can stand up before all the world and
say, "Doubtless Thou, O Lord, art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant
of us and Israel acknowledge us not."

Thirdly, and lastly, _the Negro needs intelligent industry_.

Slavery taught the Negro many things for which he should be profoundly
thankful--the Christian religion, the English language, and, in a
measure, civilization, which in many aspects may be crude in form, but
these have placed him a thousand years ahead of his African ancestors.

Slavery taught the Negro to work by rule and rote but not by principle
and method. It did not and, perhaps, could not teach him to love and
respect labor, but left him, on the contrary, with the idea that manual
industry was a thing to be despised and gotten rid of, if possible; that
to work with one's hands was a badge of inferiority. A tropical climate
is not conducive to the development of practical energy. Add to the
Negro's natural tendency his unfortunate heritage from slavery, and we
see at once that the race needs especially to be rooted and