Special Assistant U.S.
Attorney in charge of the enforcement of the Pure Food Law for the
District of Columbia, and Charles A. Cottrell, Collector of Internal
Revenue for the District of Hawaii at Honolulu. In all these notably
excellent appointments Mr. Washington had a voice.

In 1903, in commenting on a speech of Mr. Washington's in which he had
emphasized the importance of quality rather than quantity in Negro
appointments, President Roosevelt wrote him as follows:

MY DEAR MR. WASHINGTON: That is excellent; and you have put
epigrammatically just what I am doing--that is, though I
have rather reduced the quantity I have done my best to
raise the quality of the Negro appointments. With high regard.

Sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

CHAPTER THREE

WASHINGTON: THE EDUCATOR

The Tuskegee Commencement exercises dramatize education. They enable
plain men and women to visualize in the concrete that vague word which
means so little to them in the abstract. More properly they dramatize
the identity between real education and actual life. On the platform
before the audience is a miniature engine to which steam has been
piped, a miniature frame house in course of construction, and a piece
of brick wall in process of erection. A young man in jumpers comes
onto the platform, starts the engine and blows the whistle, whereupon
young men and women come hurrying from all directions, and each turns
to his or her appointed task. A young carpenter completes the little
house, a young mason finishes the laying of the brick wall, a young
farmer leads forth a cow and milks her in full view of the audience, a
sturdy blacksmith shoes a horse, and after this patient, educative
animal has been shod he is turned over to a representative of the
veterinary division to have his teeth filed. At the same time on the
opposite side of the platform one of the girl students is having a
dress fitted by one of her classmates who is a dressmaker. She at
length walks proudly from the platform in her completed new gown,
while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after her to make sure that
it "hangs right behind." Other girls are doing washing and ironing
with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee
methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses,
while boys from the tailoring department sit crosslegged working on
suits and uniforms. In the background are arranged the f