t obstacles, but in
the face of many dangers and difficulties. But the dawn of a new day is
breaking and industrialism seems to be the spirit of the age. The very
fact that the Negro was not allowed to attend the white man's school in
the South gave the Negro a Tuskegee. The fact that no white educator was
willing to bear the black man's burden gave him a Booker Washington. For
similar reasons the Negro has been forced to build his own libraries,
his own theatres, his own hotels, and to establish many other business
enterprises.

Hardships, trials, persecution, and offences are a primary necessity in
life. We ought not, therefore, complain of them; our trials have made us
what we are.

This is pre-eminently a progressive age. The world no longer stands
still. We are either going forward or backward, rising or falling; there
is no such thing as standing still. Those phases of our human activities
that are standing still are dying. This forward movement is not
accomplished without obstacles, and what is true of politics and
business is equally true of individuals. The greatest strength comes
from overcoming--from resistance and struggle.

CHAPTER 20.

THE NEGRO AND THE WORLD WAR.

No book written in the year 1918 would be complete without a word about
this awful conflagration which is now sweeping over the earth.

One sometimes thinks that the end is near and that the world is being
destroyed.

We know that everything that has been invented to advance civilization
is now being used to destroy it. Our one consolation is that however
imperfect we may have been as a nation, we know that our cause is just
and because of this we believe that in the end we will and must win. The
right has always been more powerful than the wrong, even more powerful
than might and it will prove true in this case.

I am being constantly asked by white men in both the North and South,
"How does the Negro regard this war and what about his willingness to
share in its responsibilities." I have only one answer for such
questions: "The Negro now knows but one word 'Loyalty.' He is no alien,
he owes no allegiance to any other country, there is no hyphen to his
name, he is all American, he is willing to fight and die, that the world
might be made safe for democracy." He only asks that he may share in
this democracy.

Already there are practically 200,000 Negroes who have been called to
the colors and thousands of others are expected