arrassment at the
outset, because of the various and conflicting opinions as to what is
to be its final place in our economic and political life.

Within the last thirty years--and, I might add, within the last three
months,--it has been proven by eminent authority that the Negro is
increasing in numbers so fast that it is only a question of a few
years before he will far outnumber the white race in the South, and it
has also been proven that the Negro is fast dying out, and it is only
a question of a few years before he will have completely disappeared.
It has also been proven that education helps the Negro and that
education hurts him, that he is fast leaving the South and taking up
his residence in the North and West, and that his tendency is to drift
toward the low lands of the Mississippi bottoms. It has been proven
that education unfits the Negro for work and that education makes him
more valuable as a labourer, that he is our greatest criminal and that
he is our most law-abiding citizen. In the midst of these conflicting
opinions, it is hard to hit upon the truth.

But, also, in the midst of this confusion, there are a few things of
which I am certain,--things which furnish a basis for thought and
action. I know that whether the Negroes are increasing or decreasing,
whether they are growing better or worse, whether they are valuable
or valueless, that a few years ago some fourteen of them were brought
into this country, and that now those fourteen are nearly ten
millions. I know that, whether in slavery or freedom, they have always
been loyal to the Stars and Stripes, that no school-house has been
opened for them that has not been filled, that the 2,000,000 ballots
that they have the right to cast are as potent for weal or woe as an
equal number cast by the wisest and most influential men in America. I
know that wherever Negro life touches the life of the nation it helps
or it hinders, that wherever the life of the white race touches the
black it makes it stronger or weaker. Further, I know that almost
every other race that has tried to look the white man in the face has
disappeared. I know, despite all the conflicting opinions, and with a
full knowledge of all the Negroes' weaknesses, that only a few
centuries ago they went into slavery in this country pagans, that
they came out Christians; they went into slavery as so much property,
they came out American citizens; they went into slavery without a
language, t