Booker T. Washington Part 14

"He added that at the present time his gross income from his houses was between $6,000 and $7,000 per month. Altogether, including several store buildings and two apartment houses containing fifty-four suites of rooms, Mr. Terry owns 222 buildings in Brockton. One of these buildings is leased by the United States Government for the use of the post-office; another is rented for a public library and reading-room by the city.

"I should not, perhaps, have dared to make this statement if I had not confirmed the truth of Mr. Terry's statement by independent inquiry.

In a recent letter from Secretary White, of the Brockton Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, he says: 'Some weeks ago I wrote you relative to our mutual friend (Watt Terry's) business, but now I want to enclose a clipping from the tax list which you will see is positive evidence that the time the taxes were recorded he was carrying well on to $300,000 and I know that his purchase of $120,000 occurred since that time. It is certainly a most wonderful development within a few years.'

"I ought to add that during all the time that Mr. Terry has been in Brockton he has been connected with the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, and not long ago he contributed $1,000 toward the support of that inst.i.tution.

"Many persons will, perhaps, feel that money which is acquired in this rapid way is likely to do the person who obtains it as much harm as it does good. I confess that it seems to me that the same amount of money acquired more slowly would mean more to the man who gained it. On the whole, however, the Negro race has not reached the point where it has been troubled by the number of its millionaires. And if getting slowly and laboriously is a good discipline, the Negro has almost a surplus of that kind of blessing. I ought to add, also, in justice to Mr.

Terry, that from all I can learn, his rapid rise has neither injured his character nor destroyed his good sense. I suspect that the effort to keep all those houses rented and the effort to pay interest on his mortgages has had a tendency to make him humble."

Although Watt Terry's success is, of course, phenomenal he is only one of the many notably successful Negro business men who have told their stories at meetings of the National Negro Business League. Neither is Mr. Terry the only Negro who has made a big success in real estate. At the meeting of the league already described, held in Boston in 1915, Mr. Washington introduced Philip A. Payton, Jr., of New York City; E.C. Brown, of Philadelphia, Pa.; and Watt Terry, of Brockton, Ma.s.s.; 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 unenc.u.mbered, furnishes another ill.u.s.tration 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 founder of the first and only old line legal reserve life insurance company operated by and for Negroes. In his efforts to raise the $100,000 initial capital required by the law of his State--Georgia--Mr. Perry had tramped all over the United States at least three times. Finally, having tried every conceivable source without securing the required amount, he returned to all the subscribers of capital stock the money they had paid in plus 4 per cent. interest. This action so inspired the confidence of the subscribers that almost without exception they not only returned the money, but subscribed for additional stock with the result that the initial capital stock was oversubscribed. When examined by the State Insurance Department three years after it opened business this company was found to have a gross income of almost $77,000 and admitted a.s.sets of almost $160,000. Each subsequent examination by the State Department has showed a healthy growth, low mortality, good judgment in the selection of risks, prompt payment of claims, careful management, and a sound financial condition. By means of this company, known as the Standard Life Insurance Company, life insurance may be had by any Negro under the same conditions, with the same degree of security, and at the same rates as a white man.

Among the other notably successful Negro business men who have told their stories at meetings of the league are the following: Victor H.

Tulane, of Montgomery, Ala., whose story of small beginnings and present success stirred his fellows at a meeting of the league. Mr.

Tulane entered the grocery business twenty-five years ago, a business that any ambitious man of his race may enter, requiring small capital but unlimited patience and close attention to business. He now owns considerable property, and is a factor in all matters that concern his race in Montgomery, being regarded by white and colored citizens alike as Montgomery's first colored citizen. Mr. Tulane says: "Twenty-five years ago I was a renter; to-day I am landlord of not a few tenants.

Twenty-five years ago my stock represented less than a hundred dollars; at the present time it values several thousands. Twenty-five years ago I had but one helper--a small boy; to-day I employ on an average of seven a.s.sistants the year round, excluding my wife and self. Twenty-five years ago I bought lard in five-pound quant.i.ties; to-day I purchase by the barrel. Twenty-five years ago I bought salt in ten-cent quant.i.ties; at present I buy it in ton lots. Twenty-three years ago I was unable to secure credit to the amount of three dollars, but since that period the very house that then refused me has credited me at one time with several hundred times this amount, and to-day it is not, how much do you owe?--but, how much do you want?

Twenty years ago my business barely required the service of one horse and wagon; at present it demands the use of several. Twenty years ago I did an annual business of something less than a thousand dollars; during several years since that time the value of my business has exceeded $40,000 per year." It is Mr. Tulane's boast that he has not been denied credit during his business career except the one time mentioned above, and that he has never been threatened or sued in connection with the collection of a debt.

Another man's story that came out at the meeting of the National Negro Business League is the story of Charles H. Anderson, a wholesale and retail fish and oyster dealer. He conducts a fish, oyster, and game business in Jacksonville, Fla., which supplies the largest hotels and many of Jacksonville's richest white families. He is also interested in a fish and oyster packing business on the Florida coast, and is the cashier of the colored bank at Jacksonville. A speaker at the league meeting held in the John Wanamaker store, Philadelphia, in August, 1913, referred to Mr.

Anderson as follows: "The first time I saw this gentleman was fourteen years ago, when he was standing up behind a white sheet that had a round hole cut in it, bravely negotiating his head and face as a target; he was working for a man who was running one of those games known as: 'Every-time-you-hit-the-n.i.g.g.e.r's-head-you-get-a-fine-cigar!'

(Uproarious laughter.) There I found him fourteen years ago, posing as a target, and for the magnificent sum of five cents anybody could have secured the privilege of throwing three b.a.l.l.s at his face. (Prolonged laughter and applause as Mr. Anderson stepped forward and was introduced to Hon. John Wanamaker, who warmly shook his hand.) To-day this young man is one of the most competent and one of the most prosperous business men of our race, regardless of section, North, South, East, or West. (Hearty applause.) Recently he was offered $18,000 for one piece of property which he owns in Jacksonville, Fla., and if he would sell out to me to-day all of his real estate and other holdings and equities, I would be willing to give him my check for $75,000."

Others are: Edward C. Berry of Athens, Ohio, who owns and operates a family hotel in which he does a business of $25,000 to $35,000 a year; J. Walter Hodge of Indianapolis, Ind., who, inspired by the recitals at the Business League meetings, gave up his job as a Pullman car porter, after he had saved some money, and is now the owner of a large real estate business; Thomas H. Hayes who, starting as a day laborer for the Southern Railway, now controls probably the largest undertaking establishment in Memphis, Tenn.

Perhaps the most remarkable story of business success ever told before a meeting of the league was that of J. H. Blodgett of Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Blodgett told his story at the sessions of the league held in Philadelphia in 1913 at the Academy of Music. By request he in part repeated it at the meeting held in the Wanamaker Store the following day. Mr. Blodgett is an ex-slave. He has had no education whatever except what he has picked up in his long and successful struggle with life's sternest realities. We will give his story in his own language.

Bear in mind that this is the language, as taken down verbatim by a stenographer at the time, of a totally unschooled ex-slave. He said: "Now I want to say I went to Jacksonville nineteen years ago with the magnificent sum of a dollar and ten cents in my pocket. (Laughter.) I also had an extra suit of underclothing in a paper bag; that was all the baggage I had as a boarder. (Laughter.) I was also arrested as a tramp for having on a straw hat in the winter time. (Hearty laughter.) And I say all this especially to you young men who are present here to-night, for so many of our young men seem to think that they can't start or succeed in business unless somebody shoves them off the bank into the water of opportunity and makes them swim for themselves; I simply want to say this to you young men, I started with $1.10 and one extra suit of underclothing in a paper bag--(laughter)--and to-day I pay more taxes than any Negro in Florida. (Prolonged applause.) I have had all sorts of struggles and difficulties to contend with, but you can't get away from it--if you get anything in this United States of America now, you have got to work for it. (Hearty applause.) The white people all over this country have 'weaned the Negro.' (Laughter and applause.) Dr. Washington has been going all over this country boasting about what you could do and what our race has done, and the white man is just quietly and gently and in every way telling us: 'Go thou and do what Dr. Washington said you could do.' (Prolonged laughter and applause.)

"When I began, I commenced working for a railroad company; I had a splendid job--washing cars for a dollar and five cents a day; I got $8.40 from the railroad every eight days. After working for a month and a half I saved enough money to send back and bring my wife from Charleston, South Carolina, to Jacksonville. Both of us went to work; we opened a little boarding-house; she ran that, and when my $1.05 a day enabled me to save as much as one hundred dollars, I quit that job and began to hustle for myself. I told the white man I was working under: 'You don't know that a Negro with $100 in cash is a rare thing among my people. I'm going to strike out and see what I can do by myself.' I made up my mind that if all of the big Negroes that I had heard of, read about, and talked with, if they could get honor and recognition by having brains, money, and ability, there was nothing the matter with me and my poor little wife to prevent us from getting up, too; so I went to work and determined to work day and night, if need be, to get some money, and other things necessary to succeed in life. I wanted money because I had seen and suffered so many humiliations put on the man who does not have money. (Applause.)

"The first time I saw this distinguished gentleman (pointing to Dr.

Booker T. Washington) I was laying brick in Jacksonville, Fla., at $1.25 a day, and he drove by in company with Mr. James W. Johnson, Mr.

J. Rosamond Johnson, and another gentleman. I had always loved the big men of my race; even as a little boy I delighted to hear of what they had achieved, and when I heard that the great Booker T. Washington was in town, I quit my job for that day, went to the place where he spoke, walked up close, and was hoping somebody would do me the honor of introducing me. But I found the gentlemen who had him in charge were introducing him to n.o.body but the big Negroes, and the big Negroes were shaking hands with him and completely monopolizing Booker T. Washington. (Prolonged laughter.) I did not like to be rude and therefore did not push through the crowd and shake hands with him anyway, as I felt like doing. I was nothing but a poor brick-layer, n.o.body would introduce me, but I heard his grand speech, was richly benefited and inspired by all he said, and when I went away I made a solemn vow to myself. I said: 'If G.o.d be with me, I mean to so work and conduct myself so that some day I shall deserve to shake hands with Booker T. Washington.' (Hearty applause.) Now let me tell you the sequel of the story. Away down in Florida, in my humble home in Jacksonville, there is a room named 'Booker T. Washington.'

(Applause.) I have set apart and dedicated a portion of my home in honor of this distinguished gentleman and leader of our race.

(Applause.) He is the first human being on earth I have ever permitted to sleep in it, and his good wife is the first woman and second person I have ever permitted to sleep in that room. (Prolonged laughter and applause.) We love him in the South, both Negro and white man! (Hearty applause.) Booker T. Washington's name is a monument of strength because he is teaching the Negro to use his hands and head in order to be useful in the community and to achieve success. (Applause.)

"I have been sick this summer and just got back from Saratoga--(prolonged applause)--of course all men who get rich go to Saratoga. (Laughter and applause.) While there I met some folks, and in the course of my remarks I had occasion to remind them that Dr.

Booker T. Washington, while an earnest advocate of industrial training, is not an enemy or opposed to higher education. There was a man from the British West Indies who began to speak on the subject of the Negro; he began to orate around, began to tell how the Negro must expect to rise in the world; oh! he made a magnificent speech going to show that there was nothing in the world like higher education for the Negro; he even said that the Negro race would never amount to anything and get its rights until every one of us had secured a college education. (Laughter.) Why, you ought to have been there and heard him orate; he took us all through Greek, Roman, ancient, and medieval history; across the Alps and all around the Egyptian pyramids--(hearty laughter)--and even cited the Druids of old to testify to the grandeur and necessity of higher education for the Negro. After he got through orating I said to him: 'Brother, I was down to a meeting of Negroes in the State of Florida--at the State Business League, and I saw sitting on one bench eleven (11) Negro men whose combined wealth would amount to more than one million dollars, and not one of them ever saw the inside of a college.' (Prolonged applause, mingled with laughter.) And I said to him further than that: 'If any of you gentlemen who claim to be educated in the British West Indies, and all you gentlemen who hail from Beloit College (wherever it is)--if you can fool any one of those eleven Negroes out of one dime, I will give you ten dollars!'

(Laughter and applause.) Yes, sir, without much education these men own their own homes and dozens of homes in which other people live; they are self-sustaining and independent, and can write their names to checks away up in the thousands of dollars; they live in neat, comfortable, well-appointed homes and enjoy the respect and esteem of their neighbors--black as well as white. 'Now, sir,' I turned to him and asked him, 'will you kindly tell me what is your occupation in life and what you have been able to accomplish with all this higher education you have been talking about?' I found out that he was a waiter in the United States Hotel. (Laughter.) I said to him further: 'My brother, I don't claim to be an educated man, but live in a villa of my own; I own considerable real estate, and my dear little wife rides around in our own $5,500 Packard automobile, all paid for.'

(Prolonged applause and laughter.)

"I am somewhat of a carpenter and builder; I went to work, bought some ground while it was cheap and at a time when everything in Jacksonville was at low tide; there were plenty of sick Yankees whose investments had depreciated and I invested what money I had in some land. I would build a house, then sell it; buy more land, build another house and sell that; after a while I was able to build three houses and sell two, build two and sell one and so on--(applause)--until pretty soon I found myself in the real estate business, buying land and building and selling houses. In this way I have gone on building my own houses until now I have plenty to support myself and that dear little red-headed woman who has a seat somewhere in this beautiful audience. (Laughter and applause.) She doesn't have to keep a boarding-house any more; she is on the retired list. (Laughter and applause.) We have made enough to keep from doing that."

At this point Dr. Washington asked, "How many houses do you own?"

Mr. Blodgett replied: "I have been selling houses pretty rapidly during the last few years, but I have built--and right here I want to say that while my subject is 'Building and Contracting' I have never built a house for anybody but myself. I build my own property. I have built since the fire we had in Jacksonville in 1902 two hundred and eight houses of my own. (Prolonged applause.) I have sold a good many of them. When I realized that I was beginning to get old and not in such good physical condition as I used to be, I was afraid I might get afflicted with tuberculosis, or appendicitis, or some of these other high-sounding diseases the doctors now talk about--(laughter)--and so I thought it best to convert some of my estate into another form that could be more easily handled by my better half when I had gone to inhabit my mansion in the skies. (Laughter.) So I have begun to sell off some of my property and get out of debt. I now have one hundred and twenty-one houses, the rents from which amount to a little over twenty-five hundred dollars a month. (Prolonged applause.) I have invested my money in recent years in what I call 'grip-sack'

securities, so that if there should be any little unpleasantness among the races, I can go to my safe and grab that grip-sack. (Prolonged laughter and applause.) You see if there should ever be any friction or trouble, I can grab my grip-sack, jump into a powerful machine, and come up here around Philadelphia, 'The City of Brotherly Love' or over here in Canada, and I can sit down at my leisure and read in the papers what they are doing down there. (Prolonged laughter.)

"Dr. Washington has been in my home in Jacksonville; I have now had the honor of not only shaking hands with him, but of having him as my special guest. I know I am going to make one break here now, I'm going to say something that my little modest wife may not like me to say, but I hope she will excuse just this one time--(laughter)--for everybody knows that I ain't very bright anyhow--not really responsible. (Prolonged laughter.) I want to say this, not in a boasting way--I live in the best home of any Negro in this country I have so far seen. (Hearty applause.) I live in a home--we call it 'Blodgett Villa'; we have flowers and lawns and vines and shrubbery, a nice greenhouse and all those things that go to make up for higher civilization. I surrounded myself with all these things to show that the Negro has the same taste, the same yearning for higher civilization that the white man has whenever he has the money to afford it. (Applause.) You know they have been saying all these years that the Negro is coa.r.s.e and vicious, that he is kin to the monkey--(laughter)--and that we do not appreciate those things that make for higher civilization such as flowers, hothouses, neatly kept houses and lawns, automobiles, and such things, so I went and got them. (Applause.) When you step inside of Mrs. Blodgett's home there you will find art and music and literature, and if you can find anything in there that does not tend toward the higher civilization, you have my promise and consent to throw it outdoors. (Laughter and applause.)...

"I remember when I was a drayman on the streets of Jacksonville; I was a great big man, even heavier than I am now: I wore a pair of magnificent feet appropriate to my size, and when I drove along everybody whistled and called me 'Old Big One.' Since that time I have graduated from a drayman to what the program calls me: a 'Builder and Contractor,' and when they see me now riding through the streets of Jacksonville in my $5,500 Packard automobile, if one of those Negroes should call me 'Old Big One,' I would put him in jail. (Laughter and applause.) I am interested in business with white men, and I tell you when a Negro gets to the point where he makes cash deposits in a white man's bank--say $5,000 this week, $2,000 next week, and so on, they will begin to discover you, honor and respect you. If you deposit $2,000 this week, the bank president will know about it, and when it gets to the place that you have got in the bank $25,000, why this man even (pointing to an ebony black man in the audience) will have become a bright mulatto!"

Perhaps the most unique and impressive session of the National Negro Business League was that held at the invitation of John Wanamaker in his great department store in Philadelphia in 1913. One of the most interesting talks at this meeting was that of Charles Banks of Mound Bayou, Miss. Mr. Banks has been referred to in an earlier chapter. He has often been called the J. Pierpont Morgan of his race. He said in part: "I live in the little town of Mound Bayou, Miss., that was founded by Isaiah T. Montgomery, an ex-slave of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Southern Confederacy. Mr. Montgomery, the ex-slave in question, is present at this meeting. We live in what is called the 'Black Belt of Mississippi' and our plantations embrace some of the richest and most fertile land that can be found in the entire 'Delta.'

In some parts of the 'Delta' the Negro population outnumbers the white population in a ratio of five to one. In the town in which I live (Mound Bayou) we outnumber the white population in a ratio of five to nothing. (Laughter and applause.)

"Instead of whining and lamenting our lot, and bemoaning the racial prejudice which exists in our section of the country, we are taking advantage of some of the opposition and the tendency to segregate us and we are trying to show, through the leadership of this ex-slave of Jefferson Davis, that it is possible for us to build up a Negro community, a town owned and controlled by Negroes right there under his direct supervision. And as a result, on the Yazoo and Mound Bayou Branch of the Yazoo Central Railroad, we have one of the best-governed and most prosperous towns on the whole line. We have something like thirty to forty thousand acres of land in that rich and fertile country owned and controlled exclusively by Negro men and women. We have there the little town of Mound Bayou, which it is our privilege to represent, and so far as its management or government is concerned, we have control of everything. There we have a Negro Depot Agent, a Negro Express Agent, a Negro Postmaster, a Negro Mayor, a Board of Negro Aldermen and City Councilmen, and every other official of the city administration is a full-fledged Negro. In that town I am the banker, and I pa.s.s for a Negro." (Laughter and applause followed this sally, as the speaker is the blackest of full-blooded Africans.)

In concluding his address of welcome on this occasion Mr. Wanamaker said: "I do hope that meetings like this will come often and be held in every large city in the North. In exhibiting to the world the successful business men and women of your race, your league is doing exactly what every good merchant legitimately does, that is--you are showing your goods. (Laughter.) And you are delivering the goods.

(Prolonged applause.) Your league is making an 'Annual Report' as it were; it is making a 'Yearly Inventory' of what your race has on hand, and though this large hall has been the scene of many delightful occasions (mainly connected with this business) your coming here to-day is the first meeting of its kind. (Applause.) I believe that this meeting ought to be put down as historical, and should serve as a set-off--in striking contrast to the stoning of William Lloyd Garrison, in the streets of Philadelphia, scarcely more than fifty years ago. (Prolonged applause.) This meeting will simply help to balance your account. (Applause.) The world is moving on, and it is a glorious thing to-day to find that, instead of stepping backward--contrary to the predictions of some--you are making such splendid strides forward under the fine leadership of Dr. Booker T.

Washington--(applause)--as evidenced in this Business League Convention.

"In closing I want not only to pay just tribute to what you have achieved in music, in education, and religious life, but I think it fitting, on this occasion, and I have planned to show you a fine painting from the brush of the greatest artist of your race--the son of Bishop Tanner. I have seen his handiwork in some of the art galleries of the first rank in Europe. For the most part his paintings are religious in conception, and the peculiar beauty of them is that they deal with the heart, even as they are fine expressions of art.

(Applause.) Before you leave I have planned to show you several other pictures of real merit that members of your race have produced.

(Applause.)

"And oh--when I consider all these things, and when I gazed upon this vast and beautiful audience a few minutes ago, as you were singing so fervently our national anthem, 'America,' as I looked over the sea of earnest, intelligent faces, I wondered how on earth we could sing that song for a hundred years or more--I wondered how it was possible to keep a race like yours enslaved while, for years and years, the people of this nation sang that last line of that song, 'Let freedom ring!!!'" (Prolonged applause, tumultuous cheering, and the waving of countless handkerchiefs as Mr. Wanamaker resumed his seat.)

Aside from having the successful colored men and women tell one another and their less-successful fellows how they had achieved their success at these sessions of the league, Booker Washington also arranged to have one or more prominent white men speak. His reason for this, aside from the obvious one of helping to foster friendly feeling between the races, was, it may safely be hazarded, to impress upon his people that white people succeed by the possession and the application of the same qualities which bring success to colored people. At the Chicago meeting of the league in 1912 Julius Rosenwald spoke--Julius Rosenwald, the Jewish philanthropist who has done and is doing so much to help the Negro. It was he who offered $25,000 to any city in the United States which would raise $75,000 for a Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation Building for colored men. It is he also who is helping Tuskegee in the building of rural schoolhouses as was explained in the third chapter. He is one of Tuskegee's trustees.

The late Robert C. Ogden, the New York manager of the Wanamaker business, addressed the convention of 1905 in New York. He was a man whom Booker Washington delighted to hold up to his people as an example of what a man could accomplish through his own unaided efforts. He had begun his business career at a salary of $5 a week, and from that as his starting-point he had risen to be the New York head of the greatest department store business in the country. He was for twenty-five years President of the Board of Trustees of Hampton, a member of the Tuskegee Board, and the originator and host of the annual educational pilgrimages which gave leading Northerners a first hand and intelligent insight into the dire need of education for the ma.s.ses of the people both white and black throughout the South. Much of the educational activity in the South to-day may be traced to the early Ogden educational pilgrimages.

Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the New York meeting in 1910. He had just returned from Africa. He said later that nothing connected with his homecoming had touched him so deeply as the ovation given him by these, his fellow-citizens of African descent. Among other white men who have spoken before the league are Henry Clews, the banker; Dr.

H.B. Frissell, the Princ.i.p.al of Hampton Inst.i.tute, and Dr. J.H.

Dillard, president of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation of Negro Rural Schools.

One of Mr. Washington's many methods for inspiring his people to strive for business efficiency and success was to excite their imaginations by holding up before them the achievements of such men as John Wanamaker, Robert C. Ogden, William H. Baldwin, Jr., Henry H.

Rogers, Julius Rosenwald, the Rockefellers, and Andrew Carnegie.

Out of the National Negro Business League have developed the following organizations which are affiliated with it:

The National Negro Funeral Directors' a.s.sociation, The National Negro Press a.s.sociation, The National Negro Bar a.s.sociation, The National Negro Retail Merchants' a.s.sociation, The National a.s.sociation of Negro Insurance Men.

Booker Washington was able to speak with a.s.surance and authority to the business men of his race because he practised what he preached.

The business methods which he employed in conducting the business, in distinction from the educational affairs, of Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, compare favorably with those of the best-managed industrial corporations. He may even have appeared to be over-insistent upon business accuracy, system, and efficiency, so anxious was he to belie the popular notion that Negroes must of necessity, because they are Negroes, be slipshod and unsystematic. In refutation of this familiar accusation he built up an inst.i.tution almost as large as Harvard University which runs like clockwork without a single white man or woman having any part in its actual administration. Tuskegee itself is the most notable example of its founder's method of argument. No person knowing the facts about Tuskegee can ever again honestly say that Negroes are always and necessarily slipshod and unsystematic in their business methods.

CHAPTER NINE

BOOKER WASHINGTON AMONG HIS STUDENTS

In spite of his absorption in guiding the destinies of his race Booker Washington never lost interest in individuals however humble or in their individual affairs however small. This was strikingly shown in his relations to his students. He never wearied in his efforts to help in the solution of the life problems of the hundreds of raw boys and girls who each year flocked to Tuskegee and to Booker Washington with little but hope and ambition upon which to build their careers. With many of these newcomers he not infrequently had his initial talk before they knew who he was. This was made easy by his simple and una.s.suming manner, which was the exact opposite to what these unsophisticated youths expected in a great man. One of the graduates of Tuskegee in the book, "Tuskegee and Its People," thus describes his first meeting with Booker Washington. His experience was almost identical with that of many another entering student. He says:

"My first glimpse of Mr. Washington was had in the depot at Montgomery, Ala., where a friend and I, on our way to Tuskegee, had changed cars for the Tuskegee train. Two gentlemen came into the waiting-room where we were seated, one a man of splendid appearance and address, the other a most ordinary appearing individual, we thought. The latter, addressing us, inquired our destination. Upon being told that we were going to Tuskegee, he remarked that he had heard that Tuskegee was a very hard place--a place where students were given too much to do, and where the food was very simple and coa.r.s.e.

He was afraid we would not stay there three months. We a.s.sured him that we were not afraid of hard work, and meant to finish the course of study at Tuskegee at all hazards. He then left us. Very soon after the gentleman who had so favorably impressed us, and whom we afterward found to be the treasurer of the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, Mr. Warren Logan, came back and told us our interlocutor was none other than the Princ.i.p.al of the school to which we were going."