l come about. Already, in connection
with various educational and business projects in the South, white and
colored men meet on common grounds, and the way has been opened to a
wider mutual understanding. And it is common enough now, where it was
unheard of a few years ago, for both white men and Negroes to speak
from the same platform in the South. I have attended a number of
such meetings. Thus slowly--awkwardly, at first, for two centuries of
prejudice are not immediately overcome--the white man and Negro will
come to know one another, not merely as master and servant, but as
co-workers. These things cannot be forced.

One reason why the white man and the Negro have not got together more
rapidly in the South than they have, is because they have tried always
to meet at the sorest points. When sensible people, who must live
together whether or no, find that there are points at which they cannot
agree, it is the part of wisdom to avoid these points, and to meet upon
other and common interests. Upon no other terms, indeed, can a democracy
exist, for in no imaginable future state will individuals cease to
disagree with one another upon something less than half of all the
problems of life.

'Here we all live together in a great country,' say the apostles of this
view; 'let us all get together and develop it. Let the Negro do his best
to educate himself, to own his own land, and to buy and sell with the
white people in the fairest possible way.'

It is wonderful, indeed, how close together men who are stooping to a
common task soon come.

Now, buying and selling, land ownership and common material pursuits,
may not be the highest points of contact between man and man, but they
are real points, and help to give men an idea of the worth of their
fellows, white or black. How many times, in the South, I heard white men
speak in high admiration of some Negro farmer who had been successful,
or of some Negro blacksmith who was a worthy citizen, or of some Negro
doctor who was a leader of his race.

It is curious, once a man (any man, white or black) learns to do his job
well, how he finds himself in a democratic relationship with other men.
I remember asking a prominent white citizen of a town in Central Georgia
if he knew anything about Tuskegee. He said,--

'Yes: I had rather a curious experience last fall. I was building a
hotel and couldn't get any one to do the plastering as I wanted it done.
One day I saw two Negro pl