ty years has not
settled as to whether he was a hero or a felon, a patriot or a traitor. So
much has been said of the old Negro's fidelity to his masters that
something different might have been expected of him. But take the singular
conditions: the first faint streaks of a long delayed dawn had just begun
to illumine the sky and this black pilot with his face turned toward the
East had no eye for the darkness behind him. He had no time to analyze his
position, the right or wrong of it. He had no opportunity to question
whether it was loyalty to a union in which he aspired to citizenship, or
disloyalty to his masters of the despised confederacy. It was not a time
to argue, it was a time to do; and with rare power of decision, skill of
action and with indomitable courage, he steered the good ship Planter past
Fort Johnson, past Fort Sumter, past Morris Island, out where the flag,
the flag of his hopes and fears floated over the federal fleet. And Robert
Smalls had done something, something that made him loved and hated,
praised and maligned, revered and despised, but something that made him
representative of the best that there is in sturdy Negro manhood.

It may seem a far cry from Robert Smalls, the pilot of the Planter, to
Booker T. Washington, Principal of the Institute at Tuskegee, Alabama.
But much the same traits of character have made the success of the two
men; the knowledge of what to do, the courage to do it, and the following
out of a single purpose. They are both pilots, and the waters through
which their helms have swung have been equally stormy. The methods of both
have been questioned; but singularly neither one has stopped to question
himself, but has gone straight on to his goal over the barriers of
criticism, malice and distrust. The secret of Mr. Washington's power is
organization, and organization after all is only a concentration of force.
This concentration only expresses his own personality, in which every
trait and quality tend toward one definite end. They say of this man that
he is a man of one idea, but that one is a great one and he has merely
concentrated all his powers upon it; in other words he has organized
himself and gone forth to gather in whatever about him was essential.

Pilot he is, steadfast and unafraid, strong in his own belief,--yes
strong enough to make others believe in him. Without doubt or skepticism,
himself he has confounded the skeptics.

Less statesmanlike than Douglas