ehind you and go to the merchant and say, 'Here, tie me and take
all I've got.'" All agreed that the people mortgaged more than was
necessary, to buy sewing machines (which sometimes were not used),
expensive clocks, great family Bibles, or other things easily dispensed
with. Said one man: "My people want all they can get on credit, not
thinking of the day of settlement. We must learn to bore with a small
augur first. The black man totes a heavy bundle, and when he puts it
down there is a plow, a hoe, and ignorance."

It was to people such as these that Booker T. Washington brought hope,
and serving them he passed on to fame. Within a few years schools on the
plan of Tuskegee began to spring up all over the South, at Denmark, at
Snow Hill, at Utica, and elsewhere. In 1900 the National Negro Business
League began its sessions, giving great impetus to the establishment of
banks, stores, and industrial enterprises throughout the country, and
especially in the South. Much of this progress would certainly have been
realized if the Business League had never been organized; but every one
granted that in all the development the genius of the leader at
Tuskegee was the chief force. About his greatness and his very definite
contribution there could be no question.

3. _Individual Achievement: The Spanish-American War_

It happened that just at the time that Booker T. Washington was
advancing to great distinction, three or four other individuals were
reflecting special credit on the race. One of these was a young scholar,
W.E. Burghardt DuBois, who after a college career at Fisk continued
his studies at Harvard and Berlin and finally took the Ph.D. degree
at Harvard in 1895. There had been sound scholars in the race before
DuBois, but generally these had rested on attainment in the languages or
mathematics, and most frequently they had expressed themselves in rather
philosophical disquisition. Here, however, was a thorough student of
economics, and one who was able to attack the problems of his people and
meet opponents on the basis of modern science. He was destined to do
great good, and the race was proud of him.

In 1896 also an authentic young poet who had wrestled with poverty and
doubt at last gained a hearing. After completing the course at a high
school in Dayton, Paul Laurence Dunbar ran an elevator for four dollars
a week, and then he peddled from door to door two little volumes of
verse that had been privately printe