folly, and that progress in the
enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result
of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No
race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long
in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges
of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared
for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar
in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to
spend a dollar in an opera-house.

In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us
more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white
race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending,
as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles
of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three
decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and
intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South you shall
have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let
this be constantly in the mind that, while from representations in these
buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory,
letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material
benefits will be that higher good, that let us pray God will come, in a
blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and
suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a
willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this,
coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved
Southland a new heaven and a new earth.

THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER[22]

BY CHRISTIAN A. FLEETWOOD

CHRISTIAN A. FLEETWOOD, _Sergeant-Major, United States Volunteer
Infantry, 1863-1866. Received a Medal of Honor from Congress for
meritorious action in saving the colors at Chapin Farm, September 29,
1864, where he seized them after two color-bearers had been shot down,
and bore them throughout the fight. Also has a General B. F. Butler
Medal for bravery and courage before Richmond._

[Note 22: Delivered at the Negro Congress, at the Cotton States and
International Exposition, Atlanta Ga., November 11 to November 23,
1895.]

For 1600 years prior to the war between Great Britain and the Colonies,
the pages of history bear no record of the Negro as a soldier.