ou a message not of blackness
and despair but of hope--hope triumphant, hope, that Watts has pictured
as blind with one string to her lyre, that sees not the star just ahead,
but sits supreme at the top of the world.

Emancipation redeemed the precious promises of the Declaration of
Independence. It rid the Republic of its one great inconsistency, a
government of the people resting upon despotism; it rescued the ship of
state from the rocks of slavery and sectionalism, and set her with sails
full and chart and compass true once more upon the broad ocean of
humanity to lead the world to the haven of true human brotherhood. We
have encountered storms and tempests at times; the waves of race
antipathy have run high, and the political exigencies of the hour seem
to overcast the heavens with clouds of darkness and despair, yet I have
never lost faith, because the fathers set her course, and God, the
Master Mariner, has ever been at the helm. "In giving freedom to the
slave we insured freedom to the free." In a country where all men were
free none could be slaves. Emancipation raised labor to its true dignity
and gave a new impetus to industry, commerce, and civilization. Under
free labor men of many climes have come here to help develop the natural
resources of the country, and the nation has entered upon a period of
progress such as the world has never before witnessed in any time or
place.

What of the Negro himself? Has he justified Emancipation? The statistics
of his physical, intellectual, and material progress are known to all.
He has increased his numbers nearly threefold. The Negro population is
to-day nearly three times that of the whole country at the time of the
adoption of the Constitution. It is nearly three times that of New
England in 1860. He has reduced his illiteracy to thirty per cent. He
owns nearly $700,000,000 worth of property including nearly one million
homes. He has shown that his tutelage in American civilization has not
been vain; that he could live under the most trying and oppressive
conditions.

Three milestones in his progress have been reached and passed:

First: The North and South agree that the abolition of slavery was right
and just.

Second: The people of the North and South agree that every industrial
opportunity shall be given to the Negro.

Third: The right of the Negro to be educated and the duty of the state
to see to it that he has every opportunity for education are
establ