era in politics, in commerce, in religion and in ethics--a new
era in the feeling and temper of the white American towards the
Afro-American, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what shall be our
conduct in the future? Watchman, what shall be the forecast?

Mr. Chairman, the forecast is bright--brighter than it has ever been in
any previous period of the race's history in this nation--and I make
this statement in the fullest appreciation of the efforts which are
being made all over this land, by adverse legislation, to weed us out of
politics and other public preferments; to push us into a corner to
ourselves, in both Church and State--a propaganda which has brought
gloom to many of our leaders, producing a pessimism inimical to
progress.

But why a pessimistic outlook, Mr. Chairman? Is it possible to deprive
ten million native-born American citizens from the enjoyment of their
rights and privileges, guaranteed alike to all by the Constitution of
the United States? I think not. Such a condition, Mr. Chairman, would be
like an established government with no diplomatic representative at
court. No matter what methods are adopted, some of the representative
men of our race, unexpectedly or otherwise, in the final analysis, will
slip in; if not in the Congress of the United States, then in the
legislatures and in the municipal governments of the State--such, for
example, as Lawyer Bass in Philadelphia, Pa.; Councilman Cummings in
Baltimore; Smith in the legislature of Ohio; Fitzgerald in New Jersey,
and Jackson in Illinois. No arrangement, no matter how planned, can
ultimately defeat this logical result which _patience_ alone will
produce.

God and Time, ladies and gentlemen, are important factors in the
solution of these questions. Fifty years are not sufficient to determine
the possibilities of a race. No seer who knew the ancestors of the
Anglo-Saxons as Caesar knew them, would have foretold such a future as
they now enjoy. This Anglo-Saxon race, whose ancestors worshipped the
mistletoe, offered human sacrifices, and drank wine out of human skulls,
have now become the conquerors and the dominant race on the earth. Their
literature is the cream of the human intellect, and their tongue
promises to become the official lingua of the earth. _God and Time_ have
wrought these things for them, and what God and Time have wrought for
one race, _God and Time_ can accomplish for another race--if that race
remain true to itself and t