efficient. This is as much true in New York as it
is in Alabama. As the supply of efficient men increases, the demand for
inefficient men will decrease and sooner or later there will be no room
for the inefficient man. He will be idle, cannot get any work to do. He
will be added to the vagrant class. Already this class is too large
among us; strong able-bodied men walking about with no home and nothing
to do. This is a dangerous class. Of course, unless the vagrant gets
some work to do he will starve or have to leave the country; but this
man does not do either. He becomes a parasite and lives of the honest
toil of others. Sometimes he lives out of the white man's kitchen,
because his sweetheart is the cook; sometimes because his old mother is
a wash woman, and sometimes because his sister is a nurse. This is the
class, my white friends, that gives you trouble, this is the class that
gives us trouble, this is the class that will give trouble to any
community and we are as anxious as you are to rid ourselves of this body
of death.

Now the best class of Negroes and the best class of white people are
agreed as to the fact that this dangerous class must be gotten rid of,
but they differ as to methods. The Negro believes mostly in the
preventive method, the white man mostly in the cure method. The Negro
says a good school in every community will prevent, the white man says a
good jail in every county will cure. The Negro says teach the law, the
white man says enforce the law. The Negro cries for a state reformatory
for the boys and girls of his race, the white man cries for the
penitentiary for them. Now, this is not a very great difference after
all and we should get together by each asking for the best schools to
prevent these evils and then when the evils are committed, asking for
the strictest law for their punishment. As for my part, it is not a
question in my mind as to the cause of this increasing class among my
people. It is plain to me that ignorance is the cause of inefficiency,
inefficiency the cause of vagrancy, and vagrancy the cause of crime. We
must, therefore, seek the remedy in the removal of the cause. If
ignorance be the mother of inefficiency, inefficiency the mother of
vagrancy, and vagrancy the mother of crime, it is plain that the removal
of ignorance will stop the others. This can only be done by education
and civic righteousness.

I wish here to emphasize the fact that education is the source of al