an all-potential healer in the life of any progressive people
and it is only when races are viewed in the light of extensive
discipline and persistent struggles that achievements gratifying and
reassuring are to be seen. The Rothschilds, Carnegies, Vanderbilts,
and towering lights in the business and professional worlds at large
are but well-favored children of a long-drawn ancestry, men in whose
ancestral veins, the blood and iron of hope, pluck, anticipation and
realization found outlet through the ravines and across the hill-tops
of centuries bygone. However the claims of heredity may be made to
appear in other directions, they carry weight when applied to an
infant race and the traits which distinguish the more advanced
varieties of the human family.

As it is futile to attempt the solution of any problem by eliminating
any of its salient factors, so it would be well for us to admit the
factor of unfavorable environment while that of an unfriendly heredity
cuts so large a figure in the shortcomings and strivings of a race.
The curse of slavery has so marred the visage of this otherwise comely
and coming race that it will be the work of centuries to completely
eradicate the awful results of its deeply imbedded hoof-marks. The
lack of mutual confidence and inter-race alienation were among the
most cherished tendrils to which the hot-bed of slavery gave birth for
ages. That the sour grapes on which their ancestors fed should set on
edge the incisors of their descendants is no less a deduction of
common sense and history than the unavoidable finding of iron-clad
logic.

The far-reaching effect of the unwholesome environment and heredity
mentioned, is seen in the business and professional struggles of the
more resolute and enterprising members of the race on every hand.
While these endeavors are in many instances healthy and promising in
character, the greater multitude are skeleton-like in shape and
dwarfish in proportion, indicating to a pitiful degree the lack of
blood to supply and brain to conduct the enterprise, it matters little
whether it be of the professional or business type. The medical
practitioner and undertaker are striking exceptions to the
non-prosperous and unsuccessful class, although the good fortune of
both is due chiefly to giant causes which account for the business and
professional dearth of the race in other directions. While the
physicians and funeral directors of the dominant race will not r