rtunity to earn a livelihood in the
manner for which her education fits her.

We whites of America must begin to realize that Booker T. Washington
was right when he said it was impossible to hold a man in the gutter
without staying there with him, because "if you get up, he will get up."
We do not want to remain in the gutter. We, therefore, must help the
Negro to rise.

If we are to obtain the best results from colored labor, unions should
admit it to their membership. It is not the universal practice to admit
colored persons to unions. The result, of course, is that even if a
colored man has the opportunity to learn a trade, knowing he will not be
permitted to enjoy the benefits of a union, he does not have the highest
incentive for learning it. The north is especially neglectful in not
providing openings for the colored men in trades. In the south it is not
unusual to see a colored brick-mason working alongside a white
brick-mason. But in the north the best a colored man can hope for on a
building job now is a position as a hod-carrier or mortar-mixer.

When the alien arrives in this country, he is given opportunity for
virtually every kind of employment. But the colored man who is born in
the United States, and, therefore, should share in its opportunities,
is not given as fair a chance as the alien worker.

Naturally, we cannot hope that these conditions will be remedied in a
day or a month nor can the colored man expect that the millennium will
come to him through the action of white people alone. He can improve his
chances of securing greater rights and opportunities in the United
States, if he will make the most of the limited opportunities now
afforded him. He who does the best he can with the tools he has at hand
is bound in time to demand by his good work better tools for the
performance of more important and profitable duties. The conviction is
general that "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful
also in much."

The late Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who was a good friend of the black
man as well as the white, struck the right note in his introduction to
the biography of Booker T. Washington when he said:

"If there is any lesson more essential than any other for this
country to learn, it is the lesson that the enjoyment of rights
should be made conditional upon the performance of duty."

There exist certain rights which every colored man and woman may enjoy
regardless of