Mr. Washington introduced Philip A. Payton, Jr., of New York City;
E.C. Brown, of Philadelphia, Pa.; and Watt Terry, of Brockton, Mass.;
as the three largest real estate operators of the Negro race. Philip
A. Payton, Jr., was the pioneer in opening the Harlem district in New
York City to settlement by Negroes, who had formerly been excluded
from all decent portions of the city and obliged to live on San Juan
Hill and in other sections of unsavory reputation. E.C. Brown made
money in real estate in Newport News and Norfolk, Va., and headed
movements for the establishment of Negro banks in both of these
cities. Afterward he moved to Philadelphia, where he has opened a
bank, and also conducts a real estate business on Broad Street--the
only Negro, it is said, who conducts a large business enterprise on
this important thoroughfare. At the same meeting it was brought out
that a Negro by the name of Phillip J. Allston was chemist for the
Potter Chemical Company, having risen from bottle-washer to that
responsible post. The story of J.S. Trower, caterer, of Philadelphia,
showed that he was frequently engaged for the most important functions
in the city and had been regularly employed by the Cramps Company,
shipbuilders, to take charge of the catering in connection with the
ceremonies accompanying the launching of new ships for the Navy. Mrs.
Bell Davis of Indianapolis, Ind., has become equally successful as a
caterer. When the National Negro Business League met in Indianapolis
it was she who served the annual banquet. Booker Washington took the
greatest satisfaction in disclosing her achievements to the Negro
people who had previously known little or nothing about her. He thus
introduced her at a meeting of the League, "Mrs. Bell Davis, a widow,
the celebrated caterer of Indianapolis, Ind., who has served banquets
and receptions in honor of Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the
United States, who owns a stock of Haviland china, linen, and
silverware valued at thousands of dollars, all unencumbered, furnishes
another illustration of what heights can be attained in the commercial
world by strenuous effort and making use of every little opportunity
which presents itself. Mrs. Davis' humble beginnings, hardships
encountered, and success achieved would make three chapters of a most
interesting biography."

Among the men spoken of by Booker Washington at the Philadelphia
meeting of the Business League was Heman E. Perry, the founde