s if properly approached. President
Stevens of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company wrote that he had had
one hundred copies of the article distributed among the officials and
employees of his road. Mr. J.M. Parker, Receiver and General Manager
of the Arkansas, Louisiana & Gulf Railway Company, wrote: "I have your
favor with enclosure.... I shall take pleasure in reading this
article, and from glancing through it I am inclined to think that the
statement that the Negro is not getting a square deal in the way of
transportation facilities is well founded." Mr. William J. Black,
Passenger Traffic Manager of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway
System, wrote in part: "You will, no doubt, be pleased to learn that
the Santa Fe has already provided equipment for colored travel in
conformity with the plan outlined in your article." From all or most
of the Southern railways came letters of the general tenor of those
quoted, and thus was the way prepared for the successful inauguration
of the Railroad Days.

Constantly as he labored for the rights of his people he never sought
to obtain for them any special privileges. Unlike most leaders of
groups, classes, or races of people he never sought any exclusive or
special advantages for his followers. He did not want the Negro to
receive any favors by reason of his race any more than he wanted him
to be discriminated against on that account. He wanted all human
beings, Negroes among the rest, to receive their deserts as
individuals regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, or any
other consideration which has nothing to do with the individual's
merits. One of his favorite figures was that "one cannot hold another
in a ditch without himself staying in the ditch." There is not a
single right for which he contended for his people which if won would
not directly or indirectly benefit all other people. Were they in all
the States admitted to the franchise on equal terms with white
citizens what Mr. Washington termed the "encouragement of vice and
ignorance among white citizens" would cease.

Were the lynching of Negroes stopped the lynching of white men would
also cease. Both the innocent black man and the innocent white man
would feel a greater sense of security while the guilty black man as
well as the guilty white man would be less secure. Were the Negroes
given their full share of public education the whites would gain not
only more reliable and intelligent Negro labor, but