nk that the explanation of this extraordinary degree of success in
a very difficult combination was due to the fact that at the bottom
his humility was really the outward expression, not of a servile
attitude toward any man, but of the spiritual fact that in very truth
he walked humbly with his God.

Nowhere was Booker T. Washington's wisdom shown better than in the
mixture of moderation and firmness with which he took precisely the
right position as to the part the Black Man should try to take in
politics. He put the whole case in a nutshell in the following
sentences:

"In my opinion it is a fatal mistake to teach the young black man and
the young white man that the dominance of the white race in the South
rests upon any other basis than absolute justice to the weaker man. It
is a mistake to cultivate in the mind of any individual or group of
individuals the feeling and belief that their happiness rests upon the
misery of some one else, or their wealth upon the poverty of some one
else. I do not advocate that the Negro make politics or the holding of
office an important thing in his life. I do urge, in the interests of
fair play for everybody, that a Negro who prepares himself in
property, in intelligence, and in character to cast a ballot, and
desires to do so, should have the opportunity."

In other words, while he did not believe that political activity
should play an important part among Negroes as a whole, he did believe
that in the interests of the White, as well as in the interests of the
Colored race, the upright, honest, intelligent Black Man or Colored
Man should be given the right to cast a ballot if he possessed the
qualities which, if possessed by a White Man, would make that White
Man a valuable addition to the suffrage-exercising class.

No man, White or Black, was more keenly alive than Booker T.
Washington to the threat of the South, and to the whole country, and
especially to the Black Man himself, contained in the mass of
ignorant, propertyless, semi-vicious Black voters, wholly lacking in
the character which alone fits a race for self-government, who
nevertheless have been given the ballot in certain Southern States.

In my many conversations and consultations with him it is, I believe,
not an exaggeration to say that one-half the time we were discussing
methods for keeping out of office, and out of all political power, the
ignorant, semi-criminal, shiftless Black Man who, when manipulated by