do not believe that these white people
want it continually advertised to the world that some special law must
be passed by which they will seem to be given an unfair advantage over
the Negro by reason of their ignorance or their poverty. It is unfair
to blame the Negro for not preparing himself for citizenship by
acquiring intelligence, and then when he does get education and
property, to pass a law that can be so operated as to prevent him from
being a citizen, even though he may be a large taxpayer. The Southern
white people have reached the point where they can afford to be just
and generous; where there will be nothing to hide and nothing to
explain. It is an easy matter, requiring little thought, generosity or
statesmanship to push a weak man down when he is struggling to get up.
Any one can do that. Greatness, generosity, statesmanship are shown in
stimulating, encouraging every individual in the body politic to make
of himself the most useful, intelligent, and patriotic citizen
possible. Take from the Negro all incentive to make himself and his
children useful property-holding citizens, and can any one blame him
for becoming a beast capable of committing any crime?"

This time the immediate object was attained. The Atlanta
_Constitution_ and other leading Georgia papers indorsed Booker
Washington's appeal and the Legislature voted down its anti-Negro
members. Be it said to the credit of the Georgia Legislature that it
has resisted several similar attempts to discriminate against the
Negro citizens of the State, and it was not till 1908, ten years after
the Louisiana law was passed, that Georgia finally passed a law
disfranchising Negro voters.

Booker Washington has been accused of not protesting against the
lynching of Negroes. In the article published in the _Century
Magazine_ in 1912, from which we have previously quoted, he said on
this subject: "When he was Governor of Alabama, I heard Governor Jelks
say in a public speech that he knew of five cases during his
administration of innocent colored people having been lynched. If that
many innocent people were known to the governor to have been lynched,
it is safe to say that there were other innocent persons lynched whom
the governor did not know about. What is true of Alabama in this
respect is true of other states. In short, it is safe to say that a
large proportion of the colored persons lynched are innocent.... Not a
few cases have occurred where white peo