Part 12

I want to say a special word of acknowledgment to the school teachers, men and women alike, who are doing the work of education; and in saying that word I also want to point out this: it is absolutely essential that we should have people do well in the professions; but there is only a limited amount of room in the professions and there is almost an unlimited amount of room in agriculture and in the mechanical trades. Do your very best to develop good teachers, good doctors, to develop good preachers—preachers who shall preach to the colored man as it should be preached to the white man, that “by their fruits you shall know them,” and that the truly religious man is the man who is decent and clean in his private life; who is orderly and law-abiding; the man who hunts down the criminal and does all he can to stop crime and wrong-doing; the man who treats his neighbor well; who is a good man in his own family and therefore a good man in the state. That is what we have a right to expect from the Christian leadership of the churches. All honor to the teacher, to the doctor, to the preacher; but remember that it is impossible that the bulk of any people shall be teachers, or doctors, or lawyers, or preachers. The bulk have got to be men engaged in the trades, as mechanics, as wage-workers, as farmers. Every man who is a good farmer, a thrifty, progressive, saving mechanic, who owns his own house, who is free from debt, and able to bring up his children well, and to keep his wife as she should be kept, is not only a first-class citizen, but is doing a mighty work in helping to uplift his race.

AT MOBILE, ALA., OCTOBER 23, 1905

_Mr. Mayor; My Fellow-Citizens_:

I know that the rest of you will not grudge my saying that most of all I am touched by the sight of the men who wore the gray in the great war, parading here to-day. I have just been presented by Judge Semmes with this beautiful badge. I passed by the statue of Admiral Semmes as we drove up hither. Admiral Semmes had under him on the “Alabama” one of my uncles, and it was another uncle that built the “Alabama.” The Judge’s sister, the Admiral’s daughter, is the wife of that distinguished ex-Confederate who by his rule as Governor of the Philippines has held aloft the record of American rule for integrity, efficiency, and firmness.

In speaking before the citizens of this great seaport of the Gulf I naturally wish to say a word about the Panama Canal. I hold that as a matter of public policy whatever helps part of our country helps the whole; and I did my best to bring about the construction of the canal in the interest of all our people; but if there is any one section to be most benefited by it, it is the section that includes the Gulf States. Originally I had been for the Nicaragua canal; but when Congress acted I abode by the decision of Congress. It became evident that we should either have no canal or the Panama Canal; and I am for a canal. If we had not acted as we have, all chance of building that canal would have vanished for half a century to come; and as it is we now are assured of having that canal within a comparatively short time. Gentlemen, I want to warn you not to be misled by interested clamor. Every man who had to do with bringing about the construction of the canal knows that for decades it was opposed and successfully opposed by great commercial interests which did not wish to see it completed, which did not wish to see a canal speedily dug through the Isthmus and communication between the Atlantic and Pacific established. It seems to me evident from certain things I see in a portion of the daily press that those enemies are still active, and that they are going to try to becloud the issue, with the hope of putting off for ten or fifteen years or over the digging of that canal. Their weapons will be and are every form of misrepresentation. But, gentlemen, they will fail. You need not have the slightest alarm. Uncle Sam has started to dig that canal and it will be dug, and soon. The people who, largely by the circulation of false rumors and by direct misstatement, are seeking to create confusion such as will defer the building of the canal will be disappointed. We have as a people the right to feel genuine satisfaction with the progress that has already been made. Let me point out something of which you here will appreciate the significance: the sanitation of the Isthmus. Do you remember that a couple of years ago men said that you could not dig that canal because yellow fever was epidemic there? We are digging it, and with a cleaner bill of mortality than the Isthmus has ever known before. I am happy to be able to tell you that from information received this very day, I find that those who have just returned from the Isthmus are not only pleased but astonished at the excellent trim in which the project is; that it is going on well, and that it will go along even better in the future.

Of all the things said about me to-day in the over-kind allusions to me, I was especially pleased by what the Colonel said as to my attitude toward crooked public servants. I will take advice about appointing men; but if I find they are crooked I do not take any advice at all about removing them. We have Scriptural authority for saying that “offences must come”; but the Good Book adds, “woe to them through whom they come.” I can not guarantee, and no human being can, that there will not be an occasional man of an improper kind appointed, or an occasional well-meaning man who after being appointed goes wrong; but I can say that every effort within the power of the Government will be made to hunt such a man out of the public service and to punish him to the full extent of the law.

Here in this seaboard city I want to say another word, and that is about the United States Navy. Again, Judge Semmes, in passing by the monument of your illustrious father I felt the thrill of pride that all Americans must feel that the names of the combatants in that famous ship duel are commemorated in the names of the “Kearsarge” and “Alabama” in the United States Navy now, and that if ever they have to go into action they will go into action side by side, manned by Americans, against a common foe. I know that an audience composed as this audience is of men who either themselves fought or whose fathers fought in the Civil War, appreciate to the full the sound national policy (if I may use the vernacular) of never bluffing unless you mean to make good. We undertook to build the Panama Canal because we said that owing to our position and interest and standing we were the only nation that could or should do it. That means that we have got to protect it and police it ourselves. We do not ask anybody else to help us do the work we have allotted to ourselves. We must therefore bring up and keep up our navy to the highest point of efficiency. We can afford to have a small army; although we must insist upon its being kept up to the high point of efficiency that I am glad to say our regular army in its individual units has now attained. In the event of war, however, which I hope will never come, the American people in the future as in the past must on land rely mainly upon its volunteer soldiery. But while it is a comparatively simple task to turn a man of the proper character, physique and intelligence into a good soldier, you can not improvise either a battleship or the crew of a battleship. At sea the battle has to be fought with the ships and the crews that have been prepared before the war begins; and we wish to profit by the lessons of history by seeing that our navy is always kept adequate to our needs. It is not necessary to have a very large navy; but it is necessary that ship for ship it should be just a little the most efficient navy in the world. In battle the shots that count are the shots that hit. There are plenty of gallant fellows who will go down with their ships. That is all right; if there is nothing else to be done, go down with the ships rather than surrender. But try to make the other fellow’s ship go down first! I want our people to feel that in assuming to dig the Isthmian canal, in assuming the position we have assumed as regards this Western Hemisphere and in the Oriental seas, we bind ourselves to keep our navy at such a point of efficiency that there shall be no chance of humiliation at the hands of any foreign foe.

I appreciate immensely this mighty outpouring of people. The Mayor in his most gratifying and touching speech spoke of the fact of our agreement on the fundamental questions, without regard to our differences on what are really matters only of political detail. The things that count are the things upon which we are all agreed and must be all agreed in our civic life. Whether President, Governor, Mayor, Congressman, or State Legislator, there are certain basic principles to which we must prove true if we are to make this country what it shall be made. We can perfectly well afford to differ about the currency or the tariff; but we can not afford to differ about such questions as honesty in public life, decency and cleanliness in private life. Those qualities and others like them go to the root of the whole question of citizenship. I believe in the future of this country; I believe that this great self-governing Republic will rise to a height never even dreamed of by any other nation, because I believe that the average American citizen, North or South, East or West, has the right stuff in him; that the average American citizen has the three fundamental virtues of honesty, courage, and common-sense.

AT THE ALABAMA CONFERENCE FEMALE COLLEGE, TUSKEGEE, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905

_Mr. Mayor; and you, My Friends and Fellow Americans_:

It is indeed a peculiar pleasure to be here this morning and be greeted as you have greeted me. Mr. Mayor, I feel that those gathered here to greet me symbolize what we most like to think of as typically American in our national life. When you brought me here, Mr. Mayor, I was met on the platform by the pastors of the Methodist and Baptist churches in the shade of an institution of the higher learning, in the presence of these students and of the children of the public schools; while at the same time I see the industries of the nation typified both by cotton being picked as I came up and also by the fact that I am speaking on the most valuable platform I have ever spoken on (cotton bales); and finally, I have as a guard of honor members of the National Guard, whom, as I look at, I feel to be my own comrades, for they are just the type I had in my own regiment in the Spanish war. These elements, as I say, typify what we hope and believe are the elements representing what is most vital in American life: the deep religious feeling of our people, the understanding of our people that material prosperity amounts to nothing if behind it and under it there is not the spiritual sense, the sense of moral obligation, the fealty to an ideal; the realization that in addition we must have, as the foundation of national prosperity, industry, energy, and thrift, and their fruits. There must be devotion to the arts and practices of peace, devotion to civic duty, and yet the readiness of the man who does his duty in civil life to do it in military life if ever the need arises; and finally the recognition of the fact that though a great many crops are important, the most important crop is the crop of children; and the one thing that this Nation can not afford to neglect is the education of the nation of the future. The Nation of the future will rise higher or not just as the boys and girls of the present are or are not trained to do their duty as men and as women. So I take a particular pleasure in being here and greeting the children of the public schools and those past childhood who are studying in this college itself. The one all-essential thing in America, the thing that underlies everything else, is to have the average American a good man or a good woman. If there is any one thing that I respect more than a good man it is a good woman. I think she is just a trifle more useful, and she has a harder time in life; and so she is a little more entitled to our respect than even the best man; and there is not a man here who is worth his salt who does not agree with me. Of course it is a mere truism to say that the ultimate factor in determining the welfare of the nation is the life of the home; that is, the way in which the ordinary man, the ordinary woman, performs his or her ordinary duties of the most sacred and intimate kind. If the man is a good father, a good husband; if he is decent and clean in his domestic life; if he does his duty by his neighbor; if he is the kind of a man whom we are glad to have as a neighbor and to do business with, that man is a good citizen. It is just the same with the woman. If the woman is a good wife and mother, she is a good citizen; and not merely a good citizen, but she is the very best kind of citizen that this country can produce. What we need is not merely desire to perform heroic feats under altogether exceptional circumstances; but the steadfast determination to perform the rather commonplace duties of every day, day by day, as they arise. Speaking broadly, the man who does that is the man whom you can trust if the need for heroism arises. Each of you boys here should remember that the way to fit yourself to be of the utmost possible use is so to act that your family likes to have you at home, instead of feeling a relief when you are gone; and it is the same way with the girl. We all of us know an occasional foolish mother who says, “I have had to work hard; I have had a pretty hard time, my daughter shall not have to work.” That is not kindness to the daughter. It is doing the very worst thing that can be done for her. Do not bring up your boys and girls to be useless, to avoid trouble, to get around trouble, to shirk work. The man or the woman who counts in life is the man or the woman, not who flinches from a task, but who does the task, who overcomes the obstacle. The boy or girl won’t turn out that kind of a man or woman if not brought up in that spirit from the beginning.

AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE, TUSKEGEE, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905

_Mr. Washington; Friends, and Pupils of Tuskegee Institute_:

To the white population as well as to the black, it is of the utmost importance that the negro be encouraged to make himself a citizen of the highest type of usefulness. It is to the interest of the white people that this policy be conscientiously pursued, and to the interest of the colored people that they clearly realize that they have opportunities for economic development here in the South not now offered elsewhere. Within the last twenty years the industrial operations of the South have increased so tremendously that there is a scarcity of labor almost everywhere; so that it is the part of wisdom for all who wish the prosperity of the South to help the negro to become in the highest degree useful to himself, and therefore to the community in which he lives. The South has always depended, and now depends, chiefly upon her native population for her work. Therefore in view of the scarcity not only of common labor, but of skilled labor, it becomes doubly important to train every available man to be of the utmost use, by developing his intelligence, his skill, and his capacity for conscientious effort. Hence the work of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is a matter of the highest practical importance to both the white man and the black man, and well worth the support of both races alike in the South and in the North. Your fifteen hundred students are not only being educated in head and heart, but also trained to industrial efficiency, for from the beginning Tuskegee has placed especial emphasis upon the training of men and women in agriculture, mechanics, and household duties, Training in these three fundamental directions does not embrace all that the negro, or any other race, needs, but it does cover in a very large degree the field in which the negro can at present do most for himself and be most helpful to his white neighbors. Every black man who leaves this institute better able to do mechanical or industrial work adds by so much to the wealth of the whole community and benefits all people in the community. The professional and mercantile avenues to success are overcrowded; for the present the best chance of success awaits the intelligent worker at some mechanical trade or on a farm; for this man will almost certainly achieve industrial independence. I am pleased, but not in the least surprised, to learn that many among the men and women trained at Tuskegee find immediate employment as leaders and workers among their own people, and that their services are eagerly sought by white people for various kinds of industrial work, the demand being much greater than the supply. Viewed from any angle, ignorance is the costliest crop that can be raised in any part of this Union. Every dollar put into the education of either white man or black man, in head, in hand, and in heart, yields rich dividends to the entire community. Merely from the economic standpoint it is of the utmost consequence to all our citizens that institutions such as this at Tuskegee should be a success. But there are other and even higher reasons that entitle it to our support. In the interest of humanity, of justice, and of self-protection, every white man in America, no matter where he lives, should try to help the negro to help himself. It is in the interest and for the protection of the white man to see that the negro is educated. It is not only the duty of the white man, but it is to his interest, to see that the negro is protected in property, in life, and in all his legal rights. Every time a law is broken, every individual in the community has the moral tone of his life lowered. Lawlessness in the United States is not confined to any one section; lynching is not confined to any one section; and there is perhaps no body of American citizens who have deserved so well of the entire American people as the public men, the publicists, the clergymen, the countless thousands of high-minded private citizens, who have done such heroic work in the South in arousing public opinion against lawlessness in all its forms, and especially against lynching. I very earnestly hope that their example will count in the North as well as in the South, for there are just as great evils to be warred against in one region of our country as in another, though they are not in all places the same evils. And when any body of men in any community stands bravely for what is right, these men not merely serve a useful purpose in doing the particular task to which they set themselves, but give a lift to the cause of good citizenship throughout the Union. I heartily appreciate what you have done at Tuskegee; and I am sure you will not grudge my saying that it could not possibly have been done save for the loyal support you have received from the white people round about; for during the twenty-five years of effort to educate the black man here in the midst of a white community of intelligence and culture, there has never been an outbreak between the races, or any difficulty of any kind. All honor is due to the white men of Alabama, to the white men of Tuskegee, for what they have done. And right here let me say that if in any community a misunderstanding between the races arises, over any matter, infinitely the best way out is to have a prompt, frank and full conference and consultation between representatives of the wise, decent, cool-headed men among the whites and the wise, decent, cool-headed colored men. Such a conference will always tend to bring about a better understanding, and will be a great help all round.