certain privileges in the North that
he does not have in the South, when it comes to the matter of securing
property, enjoying business opportunities and employment, the South
presents a far better opportunity than the North. Few coloured men
from the South are as yet able to stand up against the severe and
increasing competition that exists in the North, to say nothing of the
unfriendly influence of labour organisations, which in some way
prevents black men in the North, as a rule, from securing employment
in skilled labour occupations.

Another point of great danger for the coloured man who goes North is
in the matter of morals, owing to the numerous temptations by which
he finds himself surrounded. He has more ways in which he can spend
money than in the South, but fewer avenues of employment are open to
him. The fact that at the North the Negro is confined to almost one
line of employment often tends to discourage and demoralise the
strongest who go from the South, and to make them an easy prey to
temptation. A few years ago I made an examination into the condition
of a settlement of Negroes who left the South and went to Kansas about
twenty years ago, when there was a good deal of excitement in the
South concerning emigration to the West. This settlement, I found, was
much below the standard of that of a similar number of our people in
the South. The only conclusion, therefore, it seems to me, which any
one can reach, is that the Negroes, as a mass, are to remain in the
Southern States. As a race, they do not want to leave the South, and
the Southern white people do not want them to leave. We must therefore
find some basis of settlement that will be constitutional, just,
manly, that will be fair to both races in the South and to the whole
country. This cannot be done in a day, a year, or any short period of
time. We can, it seems to me, with the present light, decide upon a
reasonably safe method of solving the problem, and turn our strength
and effort in that direction. In doing this, I would not have the
Negro deprived of any privilege guaranteed to him by the Constitution
of the United States. It is not best for the Negro that he relinquish
any of his constitutional rights. It is not best for the Southern
white man that he should.

In order that we may, without loss of time or effort, concentrate our
forces in a wise direction, I suggest what seems to me and many others
the wisest policy to be pursued. I have