nterest 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 illustrated
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 assassin. It is meet here that I should refer in the
opening of my address to this third assassination in the histo