asked the Anglo-Saxon to
take possession and dig out the treasures of wheat, corn, cotton, gold
and silver, coal and iron, and the poor Indian was told "to move on."

The Negro in Africa sits listlessly in the sunshine of barbarous
idleness while the same progressive, indomitable, persevering, white man
is taking possession; the same edict has gone forth to the native
African--he is being told "to move on."

The same God will tell the white man in America and in Africa, if he
does not mete out absolute justice and absolute fairness to his weaker
and less-advantaged brother, black or red or brown, if he cannot do
justly and love mercy, just as he told the patricians of Rome, he will
tell the white man "to move on."

Whatever question there may be about the white man's part in this
situation, there is no doubt about ours. Don't let us delude ourselves
but keep in mind the fact that the man who owns his home and cultivates
his land and lives a decent, self-respecting, useful, and helpful life
is no problem anywhere. We talk about the "color line," but you know
and I know that the blackest Negro in Alabama or Mississippi or Africa
or anywhere else who puts the same amount of skill and energy into his
farming gets as large returns for his labor as the whitest Anglo-Saxon.
The earth yields up her increase as willingly to the skill and
persuasions of the black as of the white husbandman. Wind, wave, heat,
stream, and electricity are absolutely blind forces and see no race
distinction and draw no "color line." The world's market does not care
and it asks no question about the shade of the hand that produces the
commodity, but it does insist that it shall be up to the world's
requirements.

I thank God for the excellent chance to work that my race had in this
Southern country; the Negro in America has a real, good, healthy job,
and I hope he may always keep it. I am not particular what he does or
where he does it, so he is engaged in honest, useful work. Remember
always that building a house is quite as important as building a poem;
that the science of cooking is as useful to humanity as the science of
music; that the thing most to be desired is a harmonious and helpful
adaptation of all the arts and sciences to the glory of God and the good
of humanity; that whether we labor with muscle or with brain, both need
divine inspiration. Let us consecrate our brain and muscle to the
highest and noblest service, to God, and humanit