and equities, I would be willing to give him my check for
$75,000."

Others are: Edward C. Berry of Athens, Ohio, who owns and operates a
family hotel in which he does a business of $25,000 to $35,000 a year;
J. Walter Hodge of Indianapolis, Ind., who, inspired by the recitals
at the Business League meetings, gave up his job as a Pullman car
porter, after he had saved some money, and is now the owner of a large
real estate business; Thomas H. Hayes who, starting as a day laborer
for the Southern Railway, now controls probably the largest
undertaking establishment in Memphis, Tenn.

Perhaps the most remarkable story of business success ever told before
a meeting of the league was that of J. H. Blodgett of Jacksonville,
Fla. Mr. Blodgett told his story at the sessions of the league held in
Philadelphia in 1913 at the Academy of Music. By request he in part
repeated it at the meeting held in the Wanamaker Store the following
day. Mr. Blodgett is an ex-slave. He has had no education whatever
except what he has picked up in his long and successful struggle with
life's sternest realities. We will give his story in his own language.
Bear in mind that this is the language, as taken down verbatim by a
stenographer at the time, of a totally unschooled ex-slave. He said:
"Now I want to say I went to Jacksonville nineteen years ago with the
magnificent sum of a dollar and ten cents in my pocket. (Laughter.) I
also had an extra suit of underclothing in a paper bag; that was all
the baggage I had as a boarder. (Laughter.) I was also arrested as a
tramp for having on a straw hat in the winter time. (Hearty laughter.)
And I say all this especially to you young men who are present here
to-night, for so many of our young men seem to think that they can't
start or succeed in business unless somebody shoves them off the bank
into the water of opportunity and makes them swim for themselves; I
simply want to say this to you young men, I started with $1.10 and one
extra suit of underclothing in a paper bag--(laughter)--and to-day I
pay more taxes than any Negro in Florida. (Prolonged applause.) I have
had all sorts of struggles and difficulties to contend with, but you
can't get away from it--if you get anything in this United States of
America now, you have got to work for it. (Hearty applause.) The white
people all over this country have 'weaned the Negro.' (Laughter and
applause.) Dr. Washington has been going all over this country
boast