per than anybody else, you can command
the markets of the world. Produce something that somebody else wants,
whether it be a shoe string or a savings bank, and the purchaser or
patron will not trouble himself to ask who the seller is. This same
great economic law runs through every line of industry, whether it be
farming, manufacturing, mercantile or professional pursuits. Recognize
this fundamental law of trade; add to it tact, good manners, a
resolute will, a tireless capacity for hard work, and you will succeed
in business. I have found in my own experience of thirty years in
business that success and its conditions lie around us, regardless of
race or color. I believe that it is possible for any man with the
proper stuff in him to make a success in business wherever he may be.
The best and only capital necessary to begin with is simply honesty,
industry, and common sense."

The Boston _Herald_ of August 24, 1900, said of this gathering: "The
national convention of colored business men began its sessions in this
city yesterday in a businesslike and hopeful manner. This is not a
political gathering. It is not a race gathering in the sense of one
met to air sentimental grievances that spring from race
oppositions.... President Washington believes that the security and
progress of the colored people in this land depend upon their
development of a moral worth commanding respect and an industrial
capacity that will make them both useful and independent. He
apprehends that these qualities cannot be bestowed as a gift of
benevolence, but must be acquired by individual energy and struggle.
'As I have noted,' he says, 'the condition of our people in nearly
every part of our country, I have always been encouraged by the fact
that almost without exception, whether in the North or in the South,
wherever I have seen a black man who was succeeding in his business,
who was a taxpayer, and who possessed intelligence and high character,
that individual was treated with the highest respect by the members of
the white race. In proportion as we can multiply those examples, North
and South, will our problem be solved.' That is the great lesson that
the members of the colored race have to learn. It will aid in
extending this knowledge for those colored business men who have
attained a measurable degree of success in life to meet for mutual
encouragement and helpfulness."

Just fifteen years later, in August, 1915, Booker Washington pres