n,--like steel tempered by fire, and hardened for
the practical uses of mankind, has come numerous valiant
spirits, whose advent was so timely as to have seemed
divinely inspired. Price and Cain, Elliott and Bruce,
Cailloux, and others, who have joined the silent majority,
did noble work and lived to see the race's redemption, but
it has been left for newer and younger men to complete the
structure on the foundation that was furnished by the "Old
Guard." The modern age of politics and business in the sunny
South--the home of nine-tenths of the Negroes--offers no
brighter luminary than the Hon. Henry A. Rucker of Georgia.
Young as years go, but mature in all the attributes that
command success and popular esteem, the life of Henry A.
Rucker is a priceless text-book for the aspiring
Afro-American youth. Guided upward by nothing save the lofty
counsel of a good mother and the inherent qualities of a
true gentleman, he has scaled the heights, and for himself,
has solved the problem of "how the fittest" may survive, and
is giving to the whole race the key by which he wrought out
so clear a solution. No _legerdemain_ has worked his upward
flight. The ingredients that he has utilized are simple,
even if rare, and are within the reach of the least favored
of human beings--honesty of purpose, fidelity to every trust
and adherence to the golden rule. He has always been able to
secure what was justly his without encroaching upon the
sacred rights or legitimate possessions of another.
Harboring no malice in his own bosom he has softened the
wrath of his neighbor and demonstrated how clever diplomacy
and a manly appeal to the finer instincts of a possible
enemy yields richer returns than all the force and invective
that a century could bring to bear. If the battle is to be
fought out on lines of mental competition and personal worth
rather than by balls and bayonets, Mr. Rucker has grasped
the situation and the best evidence of the wisdom of his
policy of inter-racial cooeperation is the results he has
individually achieved, and the commendation freely offered
by the white and colored people who greet him day by day in
the routine of duty. Atlanta owes much to the indefatigable
energy and inexhaustible public spirit of Henry A. Rucker.
He