ington, to the alarm of his friends, launched into a fervid
denunciation of lynching and ended with an earnest and eloquent appeal
for better feeling between the races. Instead of his words breaking up
the meeting in a storm of anger and rioting, this audience composed of
Southern whites and colored people vigorously applauded his
sentiments. Undoubtedly they were applauding not so much the views
expressed as the courage shown in expressing them at that place and
under those circumstances.

A somewhat similar experience occurred on a recent speaking tour which
he and a party were making through the State of Louisiana. He was
accompanied by a company of Negro leaders, including Major Moton of
Hampton, who has since become his successor as Principal of Tuskegee
Institute. They were in a portion of the State notorious for its
lynchings of Negroes. No one who has ever seen Major Moton, or knows
anything about him, would think of accusing him of timidity or
cowardice. But when they went before a white audience in this
particular district he urged Mr. Washington as a matter of common
prudence to "soft pedal" what he had to say about lynching. Just as in
Jacksonville Mr. Washington did just the opposite, and made his
denunciation particularly emphatic, and just as in Jacksonville there
was the same applause and apparent approval of his views.

Booker Washington also protested that in the matter of public
education his people are not given a square deal in parts of the
South, particularly in the country districts. He continually
emphasized the relation between education and crime. Other things
being equal the more and the better the education provided the less
the number and seriousness of the crimes committed. Also he pointed
out that the neglect of Negro school facilities injures the white
citizens almost if not quite as much as the Negroes themselves. And
conversely that good school facilities for the colored children
benefit the whites almost as much as the Negroes. He also insisted
that quite aside from all moral and ethical considerations Negro
education pays in dollars and cents. As illustrating the relation
between Negro education and crime or rather lack of Negro education
and crime he related this incident in an article entitled, "Black and
White in the South" published in the _Outlook_ of March 14, 1914: "A
few weeks ago three of the most prominent white men in Mississippi
were shot and killed by two colored boys.