Tuskegee Institute, Alabama,January 1, 1913.Dear Mr. (or Miss) Blank:I take this opportunity to send you greetings, to inquire how you are getting along, and to express the hope that in every way you are prospering. If, however, you are having discouragements, I trust that you are meeting them bravely. If you have difficulties, or are laboring under disadvantages, use them as stepping-stones to success.I again call your attention to the importance of keeping in touch with the Institute. Keeping your address on file with us and sending a report of your work will assist in doing this. I enclose herewith a blank for that purpose. Visits to the school should also be made from time to time. You should begin to prepare now to be here during the coming commencement exercises in May in order that you may see what is being done at the institution and to meet your former classmates. Already the officers of the General Alumni Association have begun preparations for your welcome.I urge upon you the importance of keeping up the habitof study and of reading good books and papers. The accompanying circular on "How to Buy Books" gives valuable suggestions about how to secure the best books cheaply. I take this occasion to inform you that already we are making preparations for our 1913 Summer School. It is hoped that every graduate who is teaching will attend this or some other good summer school.I trust that wherever you are located you will do all that you can for community uplift. Be active in church and Sunday-school work, help to improve the public schools, assist in bettering health conditions, help the people to secure property, to buy homes and to improve them. In doing all these things, you will be carrying out the Tuskegee idea.Very truly yours,[Signed]Booker T. Washington, Principal.
Tuskegee Institute, Alabama,January 1, 1913.
Dear Mr. (or Miss) Blank:
I take this opportunity to send you greetings, to inquire how you are getting along, and to express the hope that in every way you are prospering. If, however, you are having discouragements, I trust that you are meeting them bravely. If you have difficulties, or are laboring under disadvantages, use them as stepping-stones to success.
I again call your attention to the importance of keeping in touch with the Institute. Keeping your address on file with us and sending a report of your work will assist in doing this. I enclose herewith a blank for that purpose. Visits to the school should also be made from time to time. You should begin to prepare now to be here during the coming commencement exercises in May in order that you may see what is being done at the institution and to meet your former classmates. Already the officers of the General Alumni Association have begun preparations for your welcome.
I urge upon you the importance of keeping up the habitof study and of reading good books and papers. The accompanying circular on "How to Buy Books" gives valuable suggestions about how to secure the best books cheaply. I take this occasion to inform you that already we are making preparations for our 1913 Summer School. It is hoped that every graduate who is teaching will attend this or some other good summer school.
I trust that wherever you are located you will do all that you can for community uplift. Be active in church and Sunday-school work, help to improve the public schools, assist in bettering health conditions, help the people to secure property, to buy homes and to improve them. In doing all these things, you will be carrying out the Tuskegee idea.
Very truly yours,
[Signed]Booker T. Washington, Principal.
The questions were slightly varied from year to year. The following were those sent out with the 1915 letter—the last to bear the signature of the Institute's founder.
Please favor me by answering these questions and returning the blank as soon as you receive it.1. Your full name when at Tuskegee? ______________________________________2. What year were you graduated from Tuskegee? ____________________________3. Your present home address? __________________________________________4. If you are not at home, your temporary address for the winterof 1915-1916? __________________________________________________5. If you have married, your wife's name before marriage? ______________________Was she ever a student at Tuskegee? _________________________________Is she living? ____________________________________________________6. Your present occupation? If in educational work, giveyour position in the school. _________________________________________7. How long have you followed it? _______________________________________8. What are your average wages or earnings per day, week, ormonth? _______________________________________________________9. What other occupation have you? _____________________________________10. Average wages per day, week, or month at this occupation? ________________11. Kind and amount of property owned? _________________________________12. Tell us something of the work you are doing this year. (We will also be pleased to receive testimonials from white and colored persons concerning your work)._____________________________________________________________13. We especially wish to get in touch this year with as many of our former students as possible. Please give present addresses and occupations of all of these that you can._____________________________________________________________Booker T. Washington, Principal.Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
Please favor me by answering these questions and returning the blank as soon as you receive it.
1. Your full name when at Tuskegee? ______________________________________
2. What year were you graduated from Tuskegee? ____________________________
3. Your present home address? __________________________________________
4. If you are not at home, your temporary address for the winterof 1915-1916? __________________________________________________
5. If you have married, your wife's name before marriage? ______________________Was she ever a student at Tuskegee? _________________________________Is she living? ____________________________________________________
6. Your present occupation? If in educational work, giveyour position in the school. _________________________________________
7. How long have you followed it? _______________________________________
8. What are your average wages or earnings per day, week, ormonth? _______________________________________________________
9. What other occupation have you? _____________________________________
10. Average wages per day, week, or month at this occupation? ________________
11. Kind and amount of property owned? _________________________________
12. Tell us something of the work you are doing this year. (We will also be pleased to receive testimonials from white and colored persons concerning your work)._____________________________________________________________
13. We especially wish to get in touch this year with as many of our former students as possible. Please give present addresses and occupations of all of these that you can._____________________________________________________________
Booker T. Washington, Principal.
Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
Dairy herd
Mr. Washington had this picture especially posed to show off to the best advantage a part of the Tuskegee dairy herd.
As previously mentioned the relationship between Mr. Washington and his Trustees was at all times particularly friendly and harmonious. While they were always directors who directed instead of mere figureheads, they nevertheless were broad enough and wise enough to give the Principal a very free rein. Preëminent among the able and devoted Trustees of Tuskegee was the late William H. Baldwin, Jr. In order to commemorate his life and work the William H. Baldwin, Jr., Memorial Fund of $150,000 was raised by a committee of distinguished men, with Oswald Garrison Villard of the New YorkEvening Postas chairman, among whom were Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, and Charles W. Eliot, and placed at the disposal of the Tuskegee Trustees. A bronze memorial tablet in memory of Mr. Baldwin was at the same time placed on the Institute grounds. At the ceremony at which this tablet was unveiled and this fund presented to the Trustees, Mr. Washington said in part, in speaking ofhis relations with Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Baldwin's relations to Tuskegee:
"Only those who are close to the business structure of the institution could really understand what the coming into our work of a man like William H. Baldwin meant to all of us. In the first place, it meant the bringing into our work a certain degree of order, a certain system, so far as the business side of the institution was concerned, that had not hitherto existed. Then the coming of him into our institution meant the bringing of new faith, meant the bringing of new friends. I shall never forget my first impression. I shall never forget my first experience in meeting Mr. Baldwin. At that time he was the General Manager and one of the Vice-Presidents of the Southern Railway, located then in its headquarters in the city of Washington. I remember that, a number of days previous, I had gone to the city of Boston and had asked his father if he would not give me a line of introduction to his son, about whom I had already heard in Washington. Mr. Baldwin's father readily gave me a line of introduction and I went in a few days after that and sought out Mr. Baldwin in his Washington office and he looked through this letter of introduction, read it carefully, then he looked me over, up and down, and I asked him if he would not become a trustee of this institution. After looking me over, looking me up and down for a few seconds or a few minutes longer, he said, 'No, I cannot become a trustee; I will not say I will become a trustee because when I give my word to become a trustee it must mean something.'He said, 'I will study the institution at Tuskegee, I will go there and look it over and after I have found out what your methods are, what you are driving at—if your methods and objects commend themselves to me, then I will consent to become a trustee.' And I remember how well—some of the older teachers and perhaps some of the older students will recall—that upon one day, when we were least expecting it, he stopped his private car off here at Chehaw and appeared here upon our grounds, and some of us will recall how he went into every department of the institution, how he went into the classrooms, how he went through the shops, how he went through the farm, how he went through the dining-room; I remember how he went to each table, and took pieces of bread from the table and broke them and examined the bread to see how well it was cooked, and even tasted some of it as he went into the kitchen. He wanted to be sure how we were doing things here at Tuskegee. Then after he had made this visit of examination for himself, after he had studied our financial condition, then after a number of months had passed by, he consented to permit us to use his name as one of our Trustees, and from the beginning to the end we never had such a trustee. He was one who devoted himself night and day, winter and summer, in season and out of season, to the interests of this institution. Now, having spoken this word, you can understand the thoughts and the feelings of some of us on this occasion as we think of the services of this great and good man.
"It is one of the privileges of people who are not alwaysclassed among the popular people of earth to have strong friends for the reason that nobody but a strong man will endure the public criticism that so often comes to one who is the friend of a weak or unpopular race. This, in the words of another, is one of the advantages enjoyed sometimes by a disadvantaged race."
Naturally no account of Booker Washington's administration of the great institution which he built would be complete without some mention of Mrs. Washington's part in her husband's work. Aside from her duties as wife, mother, and home maker—duties which any ordinary woman would find quite exacting enough to absorb all her time, thought, and strength particularly in view of the fact that a wide hospitality is part of the rôle—Mrs. Washington, as director of women's industries, is one of the half-dozen leading executives of the institution. In addition to her many and varied family and official duties at the Institute Mrs. Washington has always been a leader in social service and club work among the women of her race throughout the country, and has besides all this come to be a kind of mother confessor, advisor, and guide to hundreds of young men and women. We will conclude this chapter by quoting in large part an article written by Mr. Scott and published some years ago in theLadies' Home Journal, which describes how and when Mrs. Washington entered her husband's life and work and the part she played in his affairs:
"Even before the war closed there came to the South on the heels of the army of emancipation an army ofschool teachers. They came to perfect with the spelling-book and the reader the work that the soldiers had begun with the sword. It was during this period in the little straggling village of Macon, Miss., that a little girl, called then Margaret Murray, but who is known now as Mrs. Booker T. Washington, was born. When she grew old enough to count she found herself one of a family of ten and, like nearly all children of Negro parentage, at that time, very poor.
"In the grand army of teachers who went South in 1864 and 1865 were many Quakers. Prevented by the tenets of their religion from entering the army as soldiers these people were the more eager to do the not less difficult and often dangerous work of teachers among the freedmen after the war was over.
"One of the first memories of her childhood is of her father's death. It was when she was seven years old. The next day she went to the Quaker school teachers, a brother and sister, Sanders by name, and never went back home to live.
"Thus at seven she became the arbiter of her own fate. The incident is interesting in showing thus early a certain individuality and independence of character which she has exhibited all through her life. In the breaking or loosening of the family relations after the death of her father she determined to bestow herself upon her Quaker neighbors. The secret of it, of course, was that the child was possessed even then with a passion for knowledge which has never since deserted her. Rarely does a daypass that Mrs. Washington amid the cares of her household, of the school, and of the many philanthropic and social enterprises in which she takes a leading part, does not devote half or three-quarters of an hour to downright study.
"And so it was that Margaret Murray became at seven a permanent part of the Quaker household, and became to all intents and purposes, so far as her habits of thought and religious attitude are concerned, herself a Quaker.
"'And in those early days,' says Mrs. Washington, laughing, 'I learned easily and quickly. It was only after I grew up that I began to grow dull. I used to sit up late at night and get up early in the morning to study my lessons. I was not always a good child, I am sorry to say, and sometimes I would hide away under the house in order to read and study.'...
"When Margaret Murray was fourteen years old the good Quaker teacher said one day, 'Margaret, would thee like to teach?' That very day the little girl borrowed a long skirt and went downtown to the office of Judge Ames, and took her examination. It was not a severe examination. Judge Ames had known Margaret all her life and he had known her father, and in those days white people were more lenient with Negro teachers than they are now. They did not expect so much of them. And so, the next day, Margaret Murray stepped into the schoolroom where she had been the day before a pupil and became a teacher....
"Then Margaret heard of the school at Nashville—Fisk University—and she went there. She had a little money when she started to school, and with that and what she was able to earn at the school and by teaching during vacations she managed to work her way as—what was termed rather contemptuously in those days—a 'half-rater.' It was not the fashion at that time, in spite of the poverty of the colored people, for students to work their way through school.
"In those days very little had been heard at Fisk of Tuskegee, of Hampton, or of Booker T. Washington. Students who expected to be teachers were looking forward to going to Texas. Texas has always been more favorable to Negro education than other Southern States and has always got the best of Negro public school teachers.
"But upon graduation day, June, 1889, Booker T. Washington was at Fisk, and he sat opposite Margaret Murray at table. About that time it was arranged that she should go to Texas, but, without knowing just how it came about, she decided to go to Tuskegee and become what was then called the Lady Principal of the school. Mrs. Washington has been at Tuskegee ever since.
"Mrs. Washington's duties as the wife of the Principal of the Tuskegee Institute are many and various. She has charge of all the industries for girls. She gives much time to the extension work of the school, which includes the 'Mothers' meetings' in the town of Tuskegee and the 'plantation settlement' nearby. Her most characteristic trait, however, is a boundless sympathy which has made her a sort of Mother Confessor to students andteachers of the Institute. All go to her for comfort and advice.
"The 'mothers' meetings' grew out of the first Tuskegee Negro Conference held at Tuskegee in February, 1892. Mrs. Washington, as she sat in the first meeting of Negro farmers and heard what they had to say, was impressed with the fact that history was repeating itself. Here again, as in the early days of the woman's suffrage movement, women had no place worth mentioning in the important concerns of life outside the household. While there were many women present at this first conference, they did not seem to realize that they had any interest in the practical affairs that were being discussed by their sons and husbands. While her husband was trying to give these farmers new ideas, new hopes, new aspirations, the thought came to Mrs. Washington that the Tuskegee village was the place for her to begin a work which should eventually include all the women of the county and of the neighboring counties. The country colored women crowd into the villages of the South on Saturday, seeking to vary the monotony of their hard and cheerless lives. Mrs. Washington determined to get hold of these women and utilize the time spent in town to some good purpose. Accordingly, the first mothers' meeting was organized in the upper story of an old store which then stood on the main street of the village. The stairs were so rickety that the women were almost afraid to ascend them. It answered the purpose temporarily, however, and there was no rent to pay. How to get the women to the meeting was, for a time, a question. For fear of opposition Mrs. Washington took no one into her confidence except the man who let her have the room. She sent a small boy through the streets with the instruction to go to every colored woman loitering about the streets and say: 'There is a woman upstairs who has something for you.' Mrs. Washington says: 'That first meeting I can never forget. The women came, and each one, as she entered, looked at me and seemed to say, 'Where is it?' We talked it all over, the needs of our women of the country, the best way of helping each other, and there and then began the first mothers' meeting which now has in its membership two hundred and twenty-nine women.'...
"Mrs. Washington asked some of the teachers at Tuskegee to begin to help these people (the people of the country districts surrounding the school). At first they went to the plantation (selected for the purpose) on Sundays only. Mrs. Washington selected what seemed to be the most promising cabin and asked the woman who lived there if she could come to that house the next Sunday and hold a meeting. When the party went down early the next Sunday morning a stout new broom was taken along. Making the woman a present of the broom, it was suggested that all take a hand in cleaning the house a little before the people should begin to come. The woman took the broom and swept half of the room, when Mrs. Washington volunteered to finish the job.
"She had not gone far along on her half before thewoman was saying: 'Oh, Mis' Washington, lemme take de brom an' do mah half ovah.' Mrs. Washington says: 'I have always thought that that one unconscious lesson in thoroughness was the foundation of our work on that plantation.'...
"Not the least of the duties which fall to Mrs. Washington is that of caring for the distinguished people who visit the Tuskegee Institute. The Tuskegee rule that everything must be in readiness for the inspection of visitors, as much so in the kitchen as in any other department of the school, prevails in her home also.
"An interesting part of this home life is the Sunday morning breakfast. The teachers have slept later than usual, and, through the year, when Mr. Washington is at home, they are invited in groups of three and four to share this morning meal. In this way he keeps in personal touch with each of his teachers; he knows what they are doing; he hears their complaints, if they have any; he counsels with them; they 'get together.'
"Mrs. Washington's labors for the good of her people are not confined to the school. She is (has been) president of the Southern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, editor of the official organ of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, of which she is also an officer. She is a frequent contributor to the newspapers and magazines. (Mrs. Washington has since served two terms as president of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.)
"Mr. Washington's own estimate of his wife's helpfulness to him may be gathered from his tribute in his widely read autobiography, 'Up from Slavery': 'She is completely one with me in the work directly connected with the school, relieving me of many burdens and perplexities.'"
JUST as in thefirst chapterwe sought to show the man in the making, so in this last chapter we shall seek to picture him as he became in the full fruition of his life. In the fully developed man of the last decade of his life we find the same traits and qualities which began to show themselves in those early years of constant struggle and frequent privation. There is the same intense mental and physical activity; the same readiness to fight against any odds in a good cause; the same modesty, frankness, open-mindedness, and passion for service.
One of the many illustrations of this intense activity was shown in a trip he made to Atlanta, Ga., three or four years before he died. Even at this time his strength had begun to wane. In accordance with his unfailing practice he got up at six o'clock in the morning, and after visiting his poultry and his beloved pigs, mounted his horse and rode over farms and grounds inspecting crops and buildings and what-not until eight o'clock, when he went to his office and attacked his huge morning's mail. After dictating for an hour or more he left his office just in time to catch a train which brought him to Atlanta at two o'clock in the afternoon. At the station he shook hands with four hundred people who had gathered to meet him. As he went along the streets to the Government Building he shook hands with many others who recognized him in passing. At the Government Building he shook hands with another large group assembled there to meet him. After the dinner tendered him by some of the leading individuals and associations among the Negroes of the city he posed for his photograph with a group of those at the dinner. He then made a tour of the city by motor, during which he visited three or four schools for Negroes and at each made a half-hour speech into which, as always, he threw all the force and energy there was in him.
After supper that evening he addressed twelve hundred people in the Auditorium Armory, speaking for an hour and a half. From the armory he went to a banquet given in his honor where he gave a twenty-minute talk. He did not get to bed until one o'clock. Four hours later he took a return train which brought him back to the school by ten-thirty. He went at once to his office and to work, working until late in the afternoon when he called for his horse and took his usual ride before supper. After supper he presided at a meeting of the Executive Council and after the Council meeting he attended the Chapel exercises. After these exercises were over at ten o'clock he made an inspection on foot of various parts of the buildings and grounds before going to bed. By just such excessive overwork did he constantly undermine and finally break down his almost superhuman strength and powers of endurance.This he did with an obstinate persistence in spite of wise and increasingly urgent warnings from physicians, friends, and associates. Where his own health was concerned he obdurately refused to listen to reason. It would almost seem as though he had deliberately chosen to put forth herculean efforts until he dropped from sheer exhaustion rather than to work with moderation for a longer span of life.
Booker Washington was a man who thought, lived, and acted on a very high plane. He was, in other words, an idealist, but unlike too many idealists he was sternly practical. His mind worked with the rapidity of flashes of lightning, particularly when he was aroused. This led him at times to feel and show impatience in dealing with slower-minded people, particularly his subordinates. He was often stirred to righteous indignation by injustice, but always kept his temper under control. He had a lucid mind which reasoned from cause to effect with machine-like accuracy. His intuitions were amazingly keen and accurate. In other words, his subconscious reasoning powers were very highly developed. Consequently his judgments of men and events were almost infallible. Although practically devoid of personal vanity, he was a very proud and independent man, and one who could not brook dictation from any one or bear to be under obligation to any one. He had the tenacity of a bulldog. His capacity for incessant work and his unswerving pursuit of a purpose once formed, were a constant marvel to those who surrounded him. While he was without conceit or vanity hehad almost unlimited self-confidence. While it cannot be said that he overrated his own abilities, neither can it be said that he underrated them. His sympathies were easily aroused and he was abnormally sensitive, but he never allowed his emotions to get the better of his judgment. He forgave easily and always tried to find excuses for people who wronged, insulted, or injured him. In repartee he could hold his own with any one and enjoyed nothing more than a duel of wits either with an individual or an audience.
Less than a month before he died, when he was wasted by disease and suffering almost constant pain, he received this letter of appeal from Madame Helena Paderewski:
New York, October 26, 1915.My Dear Mr. Washington: I am writing you a very personal letter on a subject that is close to my heart, and I know the message it carries will find a response in your generous sympathy. It is with great pleasure that I recall our meeting, some years ago, and I have watched the success of your work among your people with sincere satisfaction, for I have always been an advocate of the principles for which you stand, the uplift of the colored race.It is because I know you have ever directed your broad influence toward the most worthy causes that I am asking you in the name of the starving babies and their helpless mothers, to tell your people that we need them in our work of sending food and medicines to Poland. We need, my dear sir, even the smallest contribution that your beloved followers may offer, and I beg of you to make an appeal to your people. Tell them, for they may not all know as wellas you, yourself, that it was a Pole—Kosciusko—who, in addition to fighting for American liberty, gave that which he needed himself to help the colored race. As you will recall, after refusing the grant of land offered him in recognition of his services in the War of the Revolution, he returned to Poland, not wishing to accept a reward for doing what he considered a sublime duty to those in need. Later, after eight years, when he again visited America, he was given a pension as General in the American Army. With the back pay during his absence, the sum amounted to about $15,000. Although poor himself, he felt deep compassion for the neglected colored children and, with the money given him, he established the first school in America devoted exclusively to the education of the colored youth.I am sure you know the story in all its details, but I desire the colored people of America to know that to-day the descendants of the man who—unasked—aided them—plead for a crust of bread, a spoonful of milk for their hungry children. Tell them this and God will bless and prosper you in your telling and them in their giving. Do not think that small amounts are useless—five cents may save a life. I am sending Mr. Paderewski's appeal, but conditions, to-day, are worse now than when it was written. Will you help Poland? Will you do it now?Please reply to Hotel Gotham.Yours in work for humanity,[Signed]Helena Paderewski.Dr. Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee, Alabama.
New York, October 26, 1915.
My Dear Mr. Washington: I am writing you a very personal letter on a subject that is close to my heart, and I know the message it carries will find a response in your generous sympathy. It is with great pleasure that I recall our meeting, some years ago, and I have watched the success of your work among your people with sincere satisfaction, for I have always been an advocate of the principles for which you stand, the uplift of the colored race.
It is because I know you have ever directed your broad influence toward the most worthy causes that I am asking you in the name of the starving babies and their helpless mothers, to tell your people that we need them in our work of sending food and medicines to Poland. We need, my dear sir, even the smallest contribution that your beloved followers may offer, and I beg of you to make an appeal to your people. Tell them, for they may not all know as wellas you, yourself, that it was a Pole—Kosciusko—who, in addition to fighting for American liberty, gave that which he needed himself to help the colored race. As you will recall, after refusing the grant of land offered him in recognition of his services in the War of the Revolution, he returned to Poland, not wishing to accept a reward for doing what he considered a sublime duty to those in need. Later, after eight years, when he again visited America, he was given a pension as General in the American Army. With the back pay during his absence, the sum amounted to about $15,000. Although poor himself, he felt deep compassion for the neglected colored children and, with the money given him, he established the first school in America devoted exclusively to the education of the colored youth.
I am sure you know the story in all its details, but I desire the colored people of America to know that to-day the descendants of the man who—unasked—aided them—plead for a crust of bread, a spoonful of milk for their hungry children. Tell them this and God will bless and prosper you in your telling and them in their giving. Do not think that small amounts are useless—five cents may save a life. I am sending Mr. Paderewski's appeal, but conditions, to-day, are worse now than when it was written. Will you help Poland? Will you do it now?
Please reply to Hotel Gotham.
Yours in work for humanity,
[Signed]Helena Paderewski.
Dr. Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee, Alabama.
In spite of disease, pain, and weakness—in spite of the fact that he must have realized that his remaining time for his own chosen work had narrowed down to a matter ofweeks—he instantly responded to this appeal. Immediately he sent Madame Paderewski's letter to the Negro press of the entire country with this explanatory note:
MADAME PADEREWSKI'S APPEAL FOR POLISH VICTIMSMadame Helena Paderewski, wife of the famous pianist, has addressed a letter to Dr. Booker T. Washington, of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, making an appeal for the Polish victims of the European War. The letter is sent to the press with the thought that there may be those among the Negro people who may feel disposed to respond to Madame Paderewski's appeal.An organization known as the Polish Victims' Relief Fund has been organized, with headquarters in Aeolian Building, 35 West Forty-Second Street, New York City. Madame Paderewski's letter follows, etc.
MADAME PADEREWSKI'S APPEAL FOR POLISH VICTIMS
Madame Helena Paderewski, wife of the famous pianist, has addressed a letter to Dr. Booker T. Washington, of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, making an appeal for the Polish victims of the European War. The letter is sent to the press with the thought that there may be those among the Negro people who may feel disposed to respond to Madame Paderewski's appeal.
An organization known as the Polish Victims' Relief Fund has been organized, with headquarters in Aeolian Building, 35 West Forty-Second Street, New York City. Madame Paderewski's letter follows, etc.
Immediately after Mr. Washington's death Mrs. Washington received the following note from Madame Paderewski:
New York, November 15, 1916.Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee, Alabama.My Dear Mrs. Washington: It was with a feeling of personal loss that I read this morning of the death of Dr. Washington. I have always admired his courage and wonderful ability, and his passing at this time brings a double sorrow, for in this morning's mail I received a copy of theTuskegee Studentcontaining my letter and appeal to Dr. Washington. I wish it had been possible for me to have thanked him for what he has done, but I am sure that the Heavenly Father will bless this and the many other good works with which he was connected.I desire you to know how much I appreciate the kindness of Dr. Washington and how highly I esteemed him. Please accept my deep sympathy and believe me,Very sincerely yours,[Signed]Helena Paderewski.
New York, November 15, 1916.
Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee, Alabama.
My Dear Mrs. Washington: It was with a feeling of personal loss that I read this morning of the death of Dr. Washington. I have always admired his courage and wonderful ability, and his passing at this time brings a double sorrow, for in this morning's mail I received a copy of theTuskegee Studentcontaining my letter and appeal to Dr. Washington. I wish it had been possible for me to have thanked him for what he has done, but I am sure that the Heavenly Father will bless this and the many other good works with which he was connected.
I desire you to know how much I appreciate the kindness of Dr. Washington and how highly I esteemed him. Please accept my deep sympathy and believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
[Signed]Helena Paderewski.
Although apparently indifferent to the treatment he received from those about him Booker Washington was in reality, as has been said, unusually sensitive. No matter what his engagements he always insisted upon being at home with his wife and children on Thanksgiving Day and on Christmas. One Christmas, about ten years ago, it so happened that no Christmas presents were provided for him. The children gave presents to one another and to their mother and she to them, but through oversight there were no presents for Mr. Washington. Mrs. Washington says that after the presents had been opened her husband drew her aside and said in broken tones: "Maggie, they've not given me a single Christmas present!" From then on Mrs. Washington saw to it that the children remembered their father at Christmas.
In Birmingham, Ala., about three years before his death, he and his secretary entered an office building one day to call on one of the Tuskegee Trustees whose office was on the top floor. When they looked for an elevator they were referred by the hall man to the elevator for colored people. On this elevator was a sign reading, "For Negroes and Freight." His secretary expected him to comment on this, but he said nothing and seemed hardly to notice it.That evening, in addressing a great audience of both races in one of the big theatres of the city, he was urging the Negroes to look upon their Southern white neighbors as their friends and to turn to them for advice when he said very slowly and distinctly: "I visited, this morning, a building which had on the elevator for colored people a sign reading, 'For Negroes and Freight.' Now, my friends, that is mighty discouraging to the colored man!" At this not only the colored people, but the white people sprang to their feet and shouted, many of them, "You're right, Doctor!" "That's mean!" "That's not fair!" and other such expressions.
Feeding chickens
Mr. Washington feeding his chickens with green stuffs raised in his own garden.
Onioin patch
Mr. Washington in his onion patch.
Lettuce bed
Mr. Washington sorting in his lettuce bed.
Every morning before breakfast when at home Mr. Washington would visit his chickens, pigs, and cows. He said of finding the newly laid eggs: "I like to find the new eggs each morning myself, and am selfish enough to permit no one else to do this in my place. As with growing plants, there is a sense of freshness and newness and restfulness in connection with the finding and handling of newly laid eggs that is delightful to me. Both the realization and the anticipation are most pleasing. I begin the day by seeing how many eggs I can find or how many little chicks there are that are just beginning to creep through the shells. I am deeply interested in the different kinds of fowls, and always grow a number of different breeds at my own home."
But none of the animals interested him and aroused his enthusiasm as did the pigs. He always kept on his own place some choice specimens of Berkshires and PolandChinas at whose shrine he worshipped each morning. Also he always insisted that the swine herd of the Institute be kept recruited up to full strength and in fact considerably beyond full strength in the opinion of the Agricultural Director who in vain protested that it was not profitable to keep so large a herd. It would be interesting to know whether the great economic importance of the pig to his race was at the bottom of Booker Washington's fondness for the animal.
After breakfast he mounted his horse and made a round of the Institute farms, truck gardens, dormitories, and shops before going to his office and attacking his huge correspondence. This correspondence, both in its dimensions and catholicity, was typical of the man. His daily incoming mail amounted to between 125 and 150 letters. The outgoing ran to between 500 and 1,000 letters daily—in large part, of course, "campaign letters,"—as he called them, letters seeking to interest new friends in the work of the Institute, and others keeping in touch with friends already interested, etc. His advice, opinion, or comments were sought on every conceivable subject both by serious and sensible men and women and by cranks of both races. Hundreds of the humbler people of his own race were constantly applying to him for information and advice as to whether it would be profitable to start this or that business venture, or whether or not it would be possible to establish a school in this or that community, and how they should set about it.
Booker Washington's sense of justice was unquenchable. While at Coden-on-the-Bay, near Mobile, Ala., in September, 1915, snatching a few days of rest and recreation as a palliative for the insidious disease which was so soon to end his life, he was distressed by a newspaper report of the killing of a number of Haitians by United States Marines. He read the report in a Mobile paper late one afternoon on his return from a fishing trip. He went to bed but could not sleep. The misfortunes of the turbulent little black republic seethed through his mind. Early in the morning, while his companions were still sleeping, he awakened the inevitable stenographer and dictated an article counselling patience in dealing with the unfortunate little country. This article, dictated by a dying man on the impulse of the moment, briefly recites the history of Haiti from the period over a hundred years ago when the people of the island wrested their liberty from France under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, up to the present time. He then says in part:
"Associated Press dispatches a few days ago stated that forty or fifty Haitians had been killed on Haytian soil in one day by American marines and a number of marines wounded. To every black man in the United States this dispatch brought a feeling of disappointment and sorrow. While, as I have stated, the United States, under the circumstances, was compelled to take notice of conditions in Haiti and is being compelled to control matters, largely because of the fault of the Haitians, I had hoped that the United States would be patient in dealing with the Haitian Government and people. The United States has beenpatient with Germany. It has been patient in the Philippines. It has been exceedingly patient in dealing with Mexico. I hope this country will be equally patient and more than patient in dealing with Haiti—a weaker and more unfortunate country!
"I very much wish that it might have been possible for the United States to have taken a little more time in making known to the Haitians the purposes we have in mind in taking over the control of their custom houses and their governmental affairs. While everything that we intend to do, and have in mind to do, is perfectly plain to the officials of the United States, we must remember that all this is not perfectly plain to the Haitians. It would have been worth while, in my opinion, before attempting arbitrarily to force Haiti to sign the treaty put before its officials, to have spent a little time and a little patience in informing the Haitian people of the unselfish benevolence of our intentions. They, in time, would have understood why it is necessary to intervene in their affairs.
"Another reason, in my opinion, why patience may be manifested in this matter is that the treaty, even at the best, cannot be ratified by the United States Senate until it meets in regular session in December, unless the President calls it in special session earlier.
"I confess that while I am unschooled in such matters, since reading the treaty the Haitians have been told they must ratify, it seems to me rather harsh and precipitate; one cannot be surprised that the Haitians have hesitated to agree to all the conditions provided for in this treaty.No wonder they have hesitated when they have had so little time in which to understand it, when the masses of the Haitian people know little or nothing of what the treaty contemplates.
"The way matters are now going, there is likely to be bitterness and war. The United States, in the end, will conquer, will control, will have its way, but it is one thing to conquer a people through love, through unselfish interest in their welfare, and another thing to conquer them through the bullet, through the shotgun. Shooting civilization into the Haitians on their own soil will be an amazing spectacle. Sending marines as diplomats and Mauser bullets as messengers of destruction breed riot and anarchy, and are likely to leave a legacy of age-long hatreds and regrets.
"I also hope the United States will not pursue a mere negative policy in Haiti, that is, a policy of controlling the customs and what-not, without going further in progressive, constructive directions. In a word, the United States now has an opportunity to do a big piece of fine work for Haiti in the way of education, something the island has never had. I hope some way will be provided by which a portion of the revenues will be used in giving the people a thorough, up-to-date system of common school, agricultural, and industrial education. Here is an excellent opportunity for some of the young colored men and women of the United States who have been educated in the best methods of education in this country to go to Haiti and help their fellows. Here is an opportunity forsome of the most promising Haitian boys and girls to be sent to schools in the United States. Here is an opportunity for us to use our influence and power in giving the Haitians something they have never had, and that is education, real education. At least 95 per cent. of the people, as I have said, are unlettered and ignorant so far as books are concerned."
Booker Washington's self-control was never more needed than on an occasion at Tuskegee described by T. Thomas Fortune, the Negro author and publicist. A Confederate veteran who had lost an arm fighting for the Confederacy and who had served for a number of years in Congress was on the program to speak at a Tuskegee meeting. This Confederate veteran had a great liking for Mr. Washington and believed in his ideas on the importance of industrial education for the colored people. Mr. Fortune says:
"John C. Dancy, a colored man, at that time Collector of Customs at Wilmington, N.C., was to speak first, the Confederate veteran second, and I was to follow the latter. Mr. Dancy is an unusually bright and eloquent man. Mr. Dancy paid a glowing tribute to the New England men and women who had built up the educational interest among the colored people after the war, of which Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes are lasting monuments. Mr. Dancy had plenty of applause from the great concourse of countrymen, but his address made the white speaker furious. When the former Congressman was called upon to speak he showed plainly that he was agitated out of hisself-restraint. Without any introductory remarks whatever, he said, as I remember it:
"'I have written this address for you,' waving it at the audience, 'but I will not deliver it. I want to give you niggers a few words of plain talk and advice. No such address as you have just listened to is going to do you any good; it's going to spoil you. You had better not listen to such speeches. You might just as well understand that this is a white man's country, as far as the South is concerned, and we are going to make you keep your place. Understand that. I have nothing more to say to you.'
"The audience was taken back as much by the bluntness of the remarks as if they had been doused with cold water. Indignation was everywhere visible on the countenances of the people. But Mr. Washington appeared unruffled. On the contrary, his heavy jaw was hard set and his eyes danced in a merry measure. It was a time to keep one's temper and wits, and he did so, as usual. Without betraying any feeling in the matter, and when everybody expected him to announce the next speaker, he said:
"'Ladies and Gentlemen: I am sure you will agree with me that we have had enough eloquence for one occasion. We shall listen to the next speaker at another occasion, when we are not so fagged out. We will now rise, sing the doxology, and be dismissed.'
"The audience did so, but it was the most funereal proceeding I had ever witnessed upon such an occasion. Mr. Washington's imperturbable good nature alone saved the day."
Some time after President Roosevelt had begun to consult Booker Washington on practically all his appointments and policies which particularly affected the relations between the races, and after several Southern white men had been given Federal appointments on Mr. Washington's recommendation, the bitterness against him grew so intense, especially among the "Talented Tenth" element of the Northern Negroes, that he decided to meet a group of their leaders face to face, and have it out. Accordingly, through Mr. Fortune, he arranged to meet a number of these men at a dinner at Young's Hotel in Boston. Mr. Fortune thus describes what took place:
"At the proper time, when the coffee and cigars were served, I arose and told the diners that Dr. Washington had desired to meet them at the banquet table and at the proper time to have each one of them express freely his opinion of the race question, and how best the race could be served in the delicate crisis through which it was then passing. Each of the speakers launched into a tirade against Dr. Washington and his policies and methods, many of them in lofty flights of speech they had learned at Harvard University. The atmosphere was dense with discontent and denunciation.
"The climax was reached when William H. Lewis, the famous Harvard football coach, told Dr. Washington to go back South, and attend to his work of educating the Negro and 'leave to us the matters political affecting the race.' Every eye was upon Dr. Washington's face, but none of them could read anything in it; it was as inscrutable as awooden Indian's. When every one of them had had his say, I called upon Dr. Washington to respond to the speakers who had unburdened themselves. Dr. Washington rose slowly, and with a slip of paper in his hand, said:
"'Gentlemen, I want to tell you about what we are doing at Tuskegee Institute in the Black Belt of Alabama.'
"For more than a half-hour he told them of the needs and the work without once alluding to anything that had been said in heat and anger by those to whom he spoke. He held them close to him by his simple recital, with here and there a small blaze of eloquence, and then thanking them for the candor with which they had spoken, sat down. They were all disappointed, as they expected that he would attempt to excuse himself for the things they had complained of."
At the time of Mr. Washington's death, the same William H. Lewis, who told him at this time to go back to the South and attend to his work and "leave to us the matters political affecting the race," said of him:
"Words, like tears, are vain and idle things to express the great anguish I feel at the untimely death of Booker Washington. He was my friend who understood me and believed in me. I did not always believe in him because I did not understand him. I first saw and heard him when a junior at Amherst in the early 90's, when he spoke at Old John Brown's church in Springfield, where I journeyed to hear him. I could not then appreciate his love for the Southern people and his gospel of work. Ieven doubted his loyalty to his race. When I came to Boston I joined in with his most violent and bitterest critics. The one thing that I am so thankful for is that I early saw the light and came to appreciate and understand the great work of Booker T. Washington.
"I have just finished reading an old letter from him, date, October 1, 1901, in which he said: 'The main point of this letter is to say I believe that both you and I are going to be in a position in the future to serve the race effectually, and while it is very probable that we shall always differ as to detailed methods of lifting up the race, it seems to me that if we agree in each doing our best to lift it up the main point will have been gained, and I am sure that in our anxiety to better the condition of the race there is no difference between us, and I shall be delighted to work in hearty coöperation with you.'
"Since then, I have known him intimately and well. He was unselfish and generous to a fault; he was modest yet masterful; he was quiet yet intense; his common sense and sagacity seemed uncanny, such was his knowledge of human nature. His was a great soul in which no bitterness or littleness could even find a lurking place. His was the great heart of Lincoln, with malice toward none and charity for all. He loved all men and all men loved him.
"My humble prayer is that his torch has lighted another among the dark millions of America, to lead the race onward and upward."
Booker Washington's insistence that the classrooms,shops, and farms were for the development of the students rather than the students for their development was well illustrated by a remark he once made to Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts when the Bishop was visiting the Institute. In reply to Bishop Lawrence's question as to whether he had chosen the best available land for his agricultural work, he said, "No, sir, I chose pretty nearly the poorest land I could find. I chose land on which men would have to spend all their energies to bring out the life in the land. They work here under the hardest conditions. When they go out to other lands—to their own lands, perhaps—they won't find any worse land to till. If they find any better land the difference will be all gain for them."
Perhaps more remarkable than any or all of his achievements was the fact that Booker Washington was a gentleman. It would be difficult to find a man who better conformed to the exacting yet illusive requirements of that term. He had not only the naturalness and the goodness of heart which are the fundamentals, but he had also the breeding and the polish which distinguish the finished gentleman from the "rough diamond." This fact about Booker Washington has been well described by Hamilton Wright Mabie in an article entitled: "Booker T. Washington: Gentleman," in which he says in part:
"Booker Washington became one of the foremost men in America; he was heard on great occasions by great audiences with profound attention; he was a writer and speaker of National position, the founder of a college, and theorganizing leader of a race in ideas and industry. These were notable achievements; but there was another achievement which was in its way more notable. Without any advantages of birth or station or training, a member of an ostracized race, with the doors of social life closed in his face, Dr. Washington was a gentleman. I recall two illustrations of this quality of nature, often lacking in men of great ability and usefulness. The first was in Stafford House, London, the residence of the Duke of Sutherland. The older Duke was the lifelong friend of Queen Victoria; and once, when she was going to Stafford House, she wrote the Duke that she was about to leave her uninteresting house for his beautiful palace. Nothing could be more stately than the great hall of Stafford House, with its two marble stairways ascending to the galleries above; and when the Duchess of Sutherland, standing on the dais from which the stairs ascended, received her guests she reminded more than one of her guests of the splendid picture drawn by Edmund Burke of Marie Antoinette moving like a star through the palace of Versailles. On that evening Dr. Washington was present. At one time in one of the rooms he happened to be talking with the duchess and two other women of high rank, two of them women of great beauty and stateliness. There were some people present who were evidently very much impressed by their surroundings. Booker Washington seemed to be absolutely unconscious of the splendor of the house in which he was, or of the society in which for the moment he found himself. Born in a hut without a door-sill, hewas at ease in the most stately and beautiful private palace in London.
"On another occasion there was to be a Tuskegee meeting at Bar Harbor. The Casino had been beautifully decorated for a dance the night before. The harbor was full of yachts, the tennis courts of fine-looking young men and women; it was a picture of luxury tempered with intelligence. Mr. Washington was looking out of the window. Presently he turned to me and said, with a smile, 'And last Wednesday morning I was eating breakfast in a shanty in Alabama; there were five of us and we had one spoon!'"
At the time of his stay in London, during which this reception at Stafford House took place, he was given a luncheon by a group of distinguished men to which Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, was invited. In reply, Mr. Asquith sent this note: