deadly poison. The Negro thrives on persecution. He never loses faith.
Individuals may lose hope, but the race will never. The Negro does not
run against the buzz-saw of destruction, and this fact should be put
down to his credit. The saw will not whirl forever.

Second: The success of the last thirty-seven years gives hope of
ultimate triumph. The Negro has increased in intelligence, in wealth,
in moral worth, in population, etc. It is useless to give figures. All
right-thinking men admit this.

I take no part in that view of a few pessimists, that the Negro race
grows worse; that the "old time Negro" is better than the young "new
Negro." The old Negro was submissive because he was not allowed to be
otherwise. There is no character in slavish goodness. Character must
be developed in freedom of action. Under freedom, a few young Negroes
have gone to excess, but, thank God, under freedom, hundreds of
thousands of young Negroes, in schools and out of schools, are
struggling up the hill of virtue, of industry, of learning, not goaded
on by the lash of the master, but impelled by a holy ambition that
does not halt at temporary defeats.

Third: So I believe the Negro will be as good as any. He will produce
his poets, historians, philosophers, inventors, his men of commerce,
his humanitarians. His present disenfranchisement will keep him along
these lines. The best people in America are helping him. Besides the
Negro's own efforts in such organizations as the A. M. E. Church, the
American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church, the
Freedmen's Aid and Southern Educational Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, the Home Mission Society of the Baptist Church, and
many other organizations are behind him with millions of dollars, with