d to go. His spirit was quelled, but not broken.

Just before leaving, he wrote to Davis.

"My dear Webb!" the letter ran, "you, after all, were right. We have
little or no show in the fight for life among these people. I have
struggled for two years here at Broughton, and now find myself back
where I was when I first stepped out of school with a foolish faith in
being equipped for something. One thing, my eyes have been opened
anyway, and I no longer judge so harshly the shiftless and unambitious
among my people. I hardly see how a people, who have so much to
contend with and so little to hope for, can go on striving and
aspiring. But the very fact that they do, breeds in me a respect for
them. I now see why so many promising young men, class orators,
valedictorians and the like fall by the wayside and are never heard
from after commencement day. I now see why the sleeping and dining-car
companies are supplied by men with better educations than half the
passengers whom they serve. They get tired of swimming always against
the tide, as who would not? and are content to drift.

"I know that a good many of my friends would say that I am whining.
Well, suppose I am, that's the business of a whipped cur. The dog on
top can bark, but the under dog must howl.

"Nothing so breaks a man's spirit as defeat, constant, unaltering,
hopeless defeat. That's what I've experienced. I am still studying law
in a half-hearted way for I don't know what I am going to do with it
when I have been admitted. Diplomas don't draw clients. We have been
taught that merit wins. But I have learned that the adages, as well as
the books and the formulas were made by and for others than us of the
black race.

"They say, too, that our brother Americans sympathize with us, and
will help us when we help ourselves. Bah! The only sympathy that I
have ever seen on the part of the white man was not for the negro
himself, but for some portion of white blood that the colored man had
got tangled up in his veins.

"But there, perhaps my disappointment has made me sour, so think no
more of what I have said. I am going now to do what I abhor. Going
South to try to find a school. It's awful. But I don't want any one to
pity me. There are several thousands of us in the same position.

"I am glad you are prospering. You were better equipped than I was
with a deal of materialism and a dearth of ideals. Give us a line when
you are in good heart.

"Yours, HA