narrow areas.

over the whole country. Senator Windom, of Minnesota, advocated a plan for distributing by assisted emigration, so that the negroes might not remain massed in (b) Deportation has received a larger support, and South America, Africa, adjacent islands, have been proposed as desirable refuges. President Lincoln, Senators Butler, Gibson, and Morgan have advocated extra-union colonization. Neither scheme seems feasible or perhaps possible; certainly, has not secured popular favor, or the negro's assent, and so there is need for other plans. This unsettled question, acquiring more seriousness and danger with each year's delay, wider and deeper than any new or minor event, or incident, demands the cooperation of churches, statesmen and people, for it will, when rightly met and settled, aid the taxpayer, increase the rewards of labor, teach noblest lessons of humanity, relieve a race from the scourge of centuries, and our Government and Christianity from the reproach of not having met with fortitude and wisdom the most important and urgent matter within our purview as citizens and patriots. Before bringing into our citizenship and under our protectorate alien peoples, before the reversal of time-honored policy for the doubtful advantage of ruling by force, by military occupation, over distant populations, it would seem as if every consideration of justice and right and the weight of the undischarged obligations growing out of the compulsion of quick emancipation, should not allow any new and doubtful duty to interfere with the performance of what conscience, the Constitution, self-interest, unredeemed pledges, make an imperative claim of overwhelming importance. Liberty, citizenship, and what they involve were purchased at the price of blood and hecatombs of victims and uncountable sacrifices. The negroes are here, not of their own free will; their residence, their grievances and hardships, their inequality of intellectual energy and moral force, are not of their own seeking, and they are Americans, having become such through the avarice and horrors of the "middle passage" during the atrocious slave trade, against which Virginia and the Carolinas made frequent and impotent protest. Take up the white man's burden, is the poetic appeal which has made imperialism popular as a step toward civilizing the inhabitants of the two Indias. But another race of our own land has burdens, which, if not taken up and alleviated, will seriously compromise the prosperity, the life, of neighbors and fellow-citizens. This race is not like an extraterritorial dependency, which we can protect against itself and chronic revolution, until it is in a fit condition for self-government. This distinct class of citizenship is within our own borders, has been deliberately chosen as our own wards, and we can not, without gross criminality and most serious peril, leave it to its own self-support and development. Neither North nor South can wrap around herself robes of complacency in contemplation of the present deplorable situation and Pharisaically boast, "Thou canst not say I did it." Without crimination and recrimination, the whole people should thoughtfully trouble themselves to consider the real significance of present facts and tendencies, and most seriously inquire what humanity, civilization and good government require to solve the most difficult question that has presented itself during our national existence. The docile disposition of the Afro-American, his lack of individuality, initiative and foresight, his inability to plan and combine wisely for his own well-being, his facility of bad control, his irresponsibility for being the cause of conflict and peril, the drag weight he is and must remain upon his white neighbors, enormously increase the responsibility of those who govern. The power of the sentiment of race unity in forty years has unified Germany and Italy and reconstructed the map of Central Europe; but, here, race prejudice shows no signs of decay or disappearance. The cleavage growing out of racial differences, the points of irritation, the tendency to exasperated conflicts, have not sensibly lessened. The wide gulf of separation, not likely with lapse of time to be bridged over by coeducation, social intercourse, community of worship and

citizenship, is as fixed as it was in antebellum days. If we would enter aright upon the duties and privileges of a new century, we should base our claim for respect and gratitude, not on heavy armaments, nor cruel neglect of those of whom we are the only guardians, nor by novel experiments, but upon a nobler civilization, a beneficent illustration of the benefits of representative government, a dominant and self-sustained purpose to enable the freshly enfranchised to work out better industrial, social, political, and moral results. From our own American people we may expect what is noble and magnanimous, if we keep their vision lifted toward an ideal of justice and truth and righteousness.

In this connection, attention is invited to the accompanying maps, carefully prepared from the Eleventh Census (1890). Plate A illustrates, at a glance, the geographical distribution of the negroes in the Southern States, according to density of this population, and Plate B shows their relative number as compared with the white people. Plate B also shows the location of most of the principal colored schools, leaving out, except in a few instances, the public schools and the less-attended denominational schools. In each of the cities of Raleigh, Columbia, Charleston, Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans, and Marshall are several schools. Besides the general public school systems, which include colored pupils, there are State Normal and Industrial schools for the negro race at Petersburg, Greensboro, Savannah, Montgomery, Huntsville, New Orleans, Prairieview, and one in Mississippi. The great institutes at Hampton and Tuskegee are loosely connected with the governments in Virginia and Alabama, through legislative appropriations and a minority of trustees on their respective boards. Some of the schools under control of religious organizations are designated on Plate B, but besides these are many others, not a few of considerable excellence.

These plates present, at a glance, in graphic and impressive form, the relative black and white population, the localization, the unnatural and dangerous concentration, of illiteracy and ignorant suffrage, and the predominance, within a limited area as compared with our whole territory, of the perils which demand, for their removal, the most active and sagacious statesmanship.

This paper is intended to reach chiefly those interested in public affairs-legislators, editors, etc.-so as to awaken attention to the necessity of looking more earnestly to the encouragement of such agencies as are adapted to uplift and benefit a numerous and important element in our citizenship. I venture, therefore, to suggest, with the assent of the board, a personal purpose to urge upon Southern legislators and those who mould public sentiment the necessity of looking to the encouragement and increased support of these agencies. Much would be secured if there was a studied desire, on the part of persons acquainted with principles and methods of instruction, to acquaint themselves with what would be best for the negro at the present time, having reference to those who are to become leaders and teachers, as well as to those who, by the necessities of the case, must, for a long period, remain in an humble condition. Without intrenching upon what is the work of churches, much can be accomplished in the way of indoctrinating great principles of virtue, morality, and integrity. A study of economic conditions is a field of promising usefulness, and the great industrial force might, by proper legislation, be protected against evil influences and trained for greater usefulness and happiness.

APPENDIX.

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY AT THE TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE, DECEMBER 18, 1898.

Teachers and pupils of Tuskegee:

To meet you under such pleasant auspices and to have the opportunity of a personal observation of your work is indeed most gratifying. The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is. ideal in its conception, and has already a large and growing reputation in this country and is not unknown abroad. I congratulate all who are associated in this undertaking for the good work which it is doing in the education of its students to lead lives of honor and usefulness, thus exalting the race for which it was established.

Nowhere, I think, could a more delightful location have been chosen for this unique educational experiment, which has attracted the attention and won the support even of conservative philanthropists in all sections of the country.

To speak of Tuskegee without paying special tribute to Booker T. Washington's genius and perseverance would be impossible. The inception of this noble enterprise was his, and he deserves high credit for it. His was the enthusiasm and enterprise which made its steady progress possible and established in the institution its present high standard of accomplishment. He has won a worthy reputation as one of the great leaders of his race, widely known and much respected at home and abroad as an accomplished educator, a great orator, and a true philanthropist.

What steady and gratifying advances have been made here during the past fifteen years a personal inspection of the material equipment strikingly proves. The fundamental plan of the original undertaking has been steadily followed; but new features have been added; gaps in the course of instruction have been filled in; the patronage and resources have been largely increased, until even the legislative department of the State of Alabama recognized the worth of the work and of the great opportunities here afforded. From one small frame house the institution has grown until it includes the fine group of dormitories, recitation rooms, lecture halls, and workshops which have so surprised and delighted us to-day. A thousand students, I am told, are here cared for by nearly a hundred teachers, altogether forming, with the preparatory department, a symmetrical scholastic community which has been well called a model for the industrial colored schools of the South. Certain it is that a pupil bent on fitting himself or herself for mechanical work can have the widest choice of useful and domestic occupations.

One thing I like about this institution is that its policy has been generous and progressive; it has not been so self-centered or interested in its own pursuits and ambitions as to ignore what is going on in the rest of the country, or make it difficult for outsiders to share the local advantages. I allude especially to the spirit in which the annual conferences have been held by leading colored citizens and educators, with the intention of improving the condition of their less fortunate brothers and sisters. Here, we can see, is an immense field and one which can not too soon or too carefully be utilized. The conferences have grown in popularity, and are well calculated not only to encourage colored men and colored women in their individual efforts, but to cultivate and promote an amicable relationship between the two races-a problem whose solution was never more needed than at the present time. Patience, moderation, self-control, knowledge, character, will surely win you victories and realize the best aspirations of your people. An evidence of the soundness of the purpose of this institution is that