Twentieth Century Negro Literature Part 61

Disfranchis.e.m.e.nts owe their rise as much to the indolence and vice of too large a cla.s.s of Negroes as they do to prejudice on the part of the whites. No respectable cla.s.s of men, white or black, is going to be governed by a hoodlum element whose bellies are the main objects of their existence. The Indianapolis _Journal_, one of the most influential northern dailies, is right when it says that Booker T.

Washington will not be disfranchised; it means further that his cla.s.s will not be disturbed.

It will concern us but little as to what this country may do to the whites to spur them up to their duties, providing that is their object. The whites are not on trial; it is the Negroes. If the disfranchis.e.m.e.nts are the means of creating better Negroes they will have builded better than they knew. If they reduce hoodlumism, creating Washingtons, we will not be concerned about the hoodlums of other races. The decline and fall of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt are the two last acts of the great political drama. The Negroes have it in their power to hasten or prolong the day. What will they do with it? Our lives are measured by that which we are and that which we do. The two elements most essential to a successful life, are character and achievement.

Character is the excellence of spirit. It consists not in external deeds, but in the thought, feeling and purpose enshrined in our character. In the sight of G.o.d and in the eyes of our own spirit it depends not so much upon the words we speak or the things we do, but the thoughts we think and the feelings we cherish are the purity, power and integrity of our spiritual nature. The first and best object of life is character; what we do may command the admiration of mankind, but to be is better than to do. The measure of our spiritual excellency lies within us. It is in the heart rather than the deed.

Beauty, purity and generosity may appear in the external act, while the motive prompting it may be mean, ign.o.ble and selfish. Sweet truth, purity and n.o.ble traits of character may be enshrined within the soul and the life be so modest that they may not manifest themselves to the public gaze.

When asked why Antipater was not dressed in purple, Alexander, replying, said: "These men wear their purple on the outside, while Antipater is royal within." It is the soul throbbing with a generous feeling and a n.o.ble impulse. The soul is loyal to the claims of truth and virtue. So you can see it is better to be loyal from within than to make a display from the outside. If our race expects to meet the possibilities we must learn what it takes to make true characters. It is not the exhibit from the outside, it is what we are, as we are judged from our actions, by the fruits we bring forth.

Character is the cultivated power; shun the examples of the world. How many persons ever made a careful a.n.a.lysis of their own character or labored to develop the good and suppress the evil? The first object of life is character, but an object no less important is achievement.

Character is power, but power is of no use only when it is applied. A cistern of water may contain a latent force enough to do the work of a thousand men or overturn mountains, but only when its latent powers are developed into the form of steam and applied to the arm of iron for the accomplishment of a purpose is it of any good to the world. A man of moral force must apply his power to become a blessing to mankind. Character must go forth into the deed if it accomplishes that whereunto it was sent. Public sentiment is beginning to measure a man, not so much by his culture as what he can do with his culture. It demands efficiency as well as scholastic acquirement. We must understand that the demands are different now from what they were in times gone by. A man must accomplish something if he expects to meet the possibilities that await him and his race. I do not object to education; I rather love education; but how must a man be educated?

His feet, his eyes, his hands, his head, must all be educated; and when he is thus educated he is prepared to meet the emergencies that await his race. As a race, thus educated, we can not be hindered from taking position in life as American citizens. We often say that everything is against us, and it seems so; but while this seems the case we must be doing something individually and as a race. The conditions of successful achievements are a correct idea of intelligence, persistence and courageous labor. First we must have purpose in life or, in other words, an object in view. A life that is aimless is a sad spectacle, not so bad perhaps as a ruined life, but not much more admirable. The Hindoos believe that the destiny of mankind was lost in the personality by absorption in the Brahma, and most persons are so aimless in life and so devoid of any higher or n.o.bler purpose that they lose their individuality in the great Brahma of society. A man is an individual, not a mere unit in a ma.s.s; a personality, not a mere member of a body politic. Did you ever think what a fearful lack of that which is n.o.ble in humanity is contained in the world? It ignores that which is highest and best in human nature--man's freedom and power of self-organization and self-determining influence in the ma.s.ses of men. We are too apt to fall in the same line or take on the same personalities of those around us for the emanc.i.p.ation from bondage of social errors, evils, spiritual freedom and individual aims. To float with the current is easy; a chip can do that, but a man ought to be able to stem the tide when necessary. Put manhood, womanhood into the world as a spiritual force to mold, purify and elevate. Go forth into an active life with a n.o.ble purpose, and attaining it achievement will be of the highest success. The greater issue of the day and the demands of the hour have not been made fundamental in our homes; the duties of the home have not been pressed on the youth until they stand out erect in the possession of a sterling womanhood and manhood, respecting and respected in whatever sphere they find their vocation.

Character--character, resting upon the foundation of integrity, has not been as it ought the burning theme of every day's instruction, until it becomes the very soul of every boy and girl. Without character a man had better be as dumb as a fish and as ignorant as a snail. Intelligence, skill, industry, economy, endurance, courage and power will be so many elements of destruction unless character shall dominate the life and be expressed in the actions. My hands and yours have a work to do; my head and yours have a duty to perform. Here is the only solution for the Negro problem. It may not be out of place for me to here emphasize the need of our working in harmony with our environments. Our destiny is American in place and American in spirit.

It is nonsense to talk of emigration of the ma.s.ses. We endured slavery 243 years and stayed here, and we shall still be here when lynch law shall have spent its force, and with us shall be our white brother.

It is the dictate of wisdom to develop friendship, to teach unity, to rivet the ties of fraternal love. It is the policy of annihilation to deepen the chasm between the races. G.o.d forbid the day when the white educators of the land shall no longer be willing to spend and be spent for the moral and intellectual uplift of our ma.s.ses. Let us be done with sowing the seed of bitterness; we can only reap the whirlwind of destruction. Because an inflamed sentiment drove black miners from Pana, Illinois, every community is not repellent. Because a man rose in the Christian Endeavor meetings in Detroit and tried to cast bad reflections on our race, every Christian Endeavorer is not our enemy.

We shall be wise when we find our friends of whatever locality, of whatever faith, of whatever rank, or of whatever race, and pour into their open bosoms the full measure of our confidence. So shall we hasten the day of our final disenthrallment There is one thing the Negro must be proud of before he can reach the height and possibilities that await him, he must learn to be proud of his race and color. No race can be successful until it does these things. I would not change my color, because I am proud of it. If there is any one thing that will clog the wheels of our material progress, it is the fact that some of us try to overreach ourselves. We should not become dazzled at the splendor and magnificence of those who have had hundreds of years to make this country what it is to-day. No man is a success who has not a fixed sign post, an aim in life to attain unto.

A man should get that amount of education that will best fit him for the performance and attainment of his object in life. Too much Greek will do you no good with a white ap.r.o.n on. I do not say that you should not study Greek if you intend to fill a chair in some inst.i.tution of learning. I do not say that you should not read medicine if you intend to become a physician, or law if you desire to follow the profession. If we watch our chances, and take timely advantage of the opportunities offered us, our race will greatly improve and we will be wage workers, skilled artisans, and eventually land owners and a wealthy cla.s.s of citizens of this country. I advise you to learn trades; learn to become mechanics. We have the ability and capacity to reach the highest point, and even to go further in the march of progress than has been made by any people.

TOPIC x.x.xVII.

IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM THE AWFUL TRAGEDY.

BY E. E. COOPER.

[Ill.u.s.tration: E. E. Cooper.]

EDWARD E. COOPER.

For twenty-five years following Emanc.i.p.ation and the new opportunities which that great event brought, many of the brightest minds the colored race has produced had been endeavoring to solve the perplexing and important problem of how to make a newspaper, published in the interest of the colored people, a profitable business enterprise. The number of such newspaper ventures whose managers failed to solve the problem mounts well up into the hundreds.

In the early spring of 1893, Mr. Edward E. Cooper, fresh from conquests in race journalism in Indianapolis, came to Washington and established "The Colored American," a weekly newspaper whose circulation last year was put down at 12,000 copies per week, and numbers among its readers residents in every clime where our flag floats. Mr. Cooper interpreted the "want" for such a newspaper.

His first venture in journalism was "The Colored World,"

published at Indianapolis. This was quite a success, but he gave it up to accept a position in the Railway Mail Service.

On leaving the Mail Service be again embarked in journalism and established "The Indianapolis Freeman," an ill.u.s.trated weekly. This was a new feature. "The Freeman" quickly jumped into great popularity and soon gained national fame. Having made "The Freeman" a success, he decided to go to Washington for a larger field of endeavor. Mr. Cooper is undoubtedly the best all-around newspaper man the colored race has yet produced.

Edward E. Cooper was born near the little town of Smyrna, Tenn., and attended the old barracks school for colored children on Knowles Street, Nashville, south of the Nashville and Chattanooga depot; which school afterwards became the nucleus of Fisk University. He began life selling papers, etc., on trains; then worked on a farm two years. He next went to Indianapolis, attended the public schools and graduated from the high school. In 1883, he married Miss Tenie Jones, one of the most cultivated young ladies of Paris, Ky.

Mr. Cooper freely acknowledges that his wife has been the balance-wheel in his life that has brought him what success he has gained.

We stand in the shadow of a national sorrow.

In an hour of national pride and jubilation, with the eyes of the world upon the greatest republic since the eagles of Rome overspread the earth, in the fullness of his powers and the prime of his usefulness, the Chief Magistrate of the Republic was stricken down by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin. It is meet here that I should refer in the opening of my address to this third a.s.sa.s.sination in the history of our country, for the purpose of ill.u.s.trating the short story that I have to tell you and to point a moral and adorn a tale which may not be without value to us. For it is true that

"Lives of great men all remind us We may make our lives sublime, And departing leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time."

William McKinley was the incarnation, not only of the possibilities of the humblest American boy who, by diligence, integrity and devotion to the best interests of the country, rose by steady strides to the highest dignities in the gift of the people, but he was also the embodiment of that grand sweep of American business genius which has spread over the world, and promises to predominate it. If this man who now rests from his labors with his honors full upon him represented anything, it was the logic of business development in its largest and best sense, for, as Governor of Ohio and member in Congress and President of the United States, his name is indissolubly a.s.sociated with the commercial promotion, protection and expansion of American trade.

He was not only a great executive and a great legislator, but, when yet a youth, when the great Republic was in the agony of possible dissolution, he heroically shouldered a musket and went to the front as a private to preserve the union of the states bequeathed to us by the n.o.ble fathers and the heroism of the American revolutionary soldier in that memorable struggle, the first victim of which was Crispus Attucks, the lineaments of whose personality have been chiseled in marble and will stand a monument upon Boston Common, to show a "Man's a man for a' that and a' that," and that the rank is but the guinea's stamp.

Ah, well, we faithful hearts and true, who were never false to a friend, who have always loved the flag, even when the flag waved not over us, who fought with Washington at Valley Forge and with Perry at Lake Erie, with Jackson at New Orleans, with Shaw at Fort Wagner, and with Butler at New Market Heights, who went up San Juan Hill with Theodore Roosevelt and the immortal Rough Riders and followed little Joe Wheeler in Luzon, who, although a Southern brigadier, as a reconstructed unionist in a reunited country showed in Cuba and Manila that he had the same regard for a black soldier as for a white one when he was loyal to the flag and faithful to his country, are here to mourn our loss. This great heart that loved his country and gave his life to it and for it is stilled in death!

The a.s.sa.s.sin! What of him? It is a matter of notorious fact that he was so obscure in the life that he had led and had contributed so little to the public weal in the place where his hands found labor that he was utterly unknown and went down to the quicklime that consumed his miserable remains, to the chaos from which we all spring, stigmatized with at least two cognomens and with the reputation of having contributed nothing to the wealth of the Republic or the happiness of mankind. There are millions of him in Europe and America who keep in perpetual jeopardy the splendid civilization evolved out of the tumult of Egypt and Rome and the Dark Ages. And the very genius of logical business development sprung out of the bosom of Moroe on the Nile and of Tyre where ancient Afro-Phoenicians ruled the blue waters of the adjacent seas and of the lordly Egyptians, who were African in their fiber, historians to the contrary notwithstanding, were the founders of the commercial spirit that dominates the world to-day. More than that, they laid the basis of our literature and of our philosophy. As Lord Byron hath beautifully said:

"Ye have the Pyrrick dances yet-- Where has the Pyrrick phalanx gone?

Of two such lessons, why forget The n.o.bler and the manlier one?

Ye have the letters Cadmus gave; Think ye he meant them for a slave?"

Now, Cadmus was a black African slave captured in war; so was Aesop, the world's greatest fabulist; so was Terence, among the grandest of Rome's lyric poets; so was Pushkin, the national poet to-day of Russia; so was Alexander Dumas the first, the greatest, not only of French novelists, but of novelists of all times and the infinite storehouse from which all novelists draw, Honore De Balzac and Charles d.i.c.kens to the contrary notwithstanding.

But of this vile a.s.sa.s.sin, Leon Czolgosz, why do I make this exordium here upon the violent taking off of the President beloved by all the people, and my animadversion upon the character of the man who lifted his hand against the supreme representative of the greatest Republic upon earth and the most prosperous nation? It is an incident in the life of government that the supreme head of it shall be subject to the vicissitudes of its maniacal, fanatical and criminal cla.s.ses, those who live by their wits or those who dream of a condition of society unattainable, as human nature is constructed, such as Edward Bellamy has pictured in "Looking Backward." I wish it distinctly understood that I refer to this matter simply to draw attention to the fact that Czolgosz, the obscure a.s.sa.s.sin of the highest representative of the logic of business development in this country, is inseparably linked as the Siamese twins to the mobocrat, and that any effort made to root out the anarchist in this country will fail, and should fail, unless the mobocrat is rooted out at the same time.

It is written in the stars. G.o.d has said, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."

And what business development can we have when the dark shadow of anarchism and mobism overshadows the land like the dark cloud that covered the children of Israel in their confusion, when in their perversion they had turned their faces from the G.o.d of their destiny?

No, there can be no business development in this country while our laws are so lax as to allow irresponsible individuals or organizations to clog the wheels of industry or to waste unnecessarily the red blood that gives life to a virile human form. I say, with our grand President, throttle the anarchist that would shoot a President or a successor to a President. Yes, but if you leave the Southern mobocrat to shoot John Jones, an unknown ent.i.ty, the element of anarchism remains pregnant in the body politic and is liable at any time to show its venomous head.

Who could have told when the whole nation was hopeful that a John Wilkes Booth lurked reluctant in the body politic to cut down the wisest and the most humane and the most lovable of all the Presidents?

Ah, my friends, you can't protect the President of the United States from the a.s.sa.s.sin, and leave unprotected in any corner of the republic its meanest citizen, because, as Alexander Pope has wisely said, "We are all but links of one stupendous chain. Break a link of that chain and the power of that chain is destroyed."

TOPIC x.x.xVIII.

HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO TO HELP HIMSELF.

BY W. R. PETTIFORD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. R. Pettiford, D. D.]

REV. WILLIAM R. PETTIFORD, D. D.

It is difficult to present a life's record so as to furnish a correct estimate of the man in question. Particularly is this true if we attempt to give upon a page the account of a long life of active and useful service.

Among the leaders in Christian work in the state of Alabama, Dr. W. R. Pettiford ranks very high, having but few, if any, superiors. As a business man he is unexcelled. Twelve years of unremitting toil and unbroken success in the banking business demonstrate the truth of this a.s.sertion.

In presenting this sketch we could not do better than quote from the Cyclopedia of the Colored Baptist of Alabama, by Rev. C. O. Boothe, D. D.:

Rev. W. R. Pettiford, D. D., son of William and Matilda Pettiford, was born in Granville county, North Carolina, January 20th, 1849. He was, when a boy, of an industrious turn of mind, working faithfully at whatever his hands found to do. At one time he was with the tanner, and at another time he was running his father's farm.

At the age of 21 years he united with the Baptist Church of Rocksboro, Person county, North Carolina, and was immersed by the Rev. Ezekiel Horton of Salisbury. While he was serving this church as clerk he told his mother the secret, which he greatly desired that she would not reveal, that he felt called to the gospel ministry. Brother Horton often put up at their home, hence soon got possession of the secret.

Dr. Pettiford now says: "When I was called into an examining council and learned that my secret was out, I was very much frightened, but the advice given upon this day has ever been helpful to me."