on. In the year 1912 they manifested their friendship
and interest in the most practical of ways by volunteering to raise a
guarantee fund of $50,000 a year for five years to help bridge the
ever-widening gap between the income of the school and its unavoidably
mounting expenses. To do this, aside from contributing handsomely
themselves, almost all went out and "begged" of their friends. Mr.
Julius Rosenwald of Chicago, for instance, after making his own
liberal personal contribution, and soliciting funds among his Chicago
friends, left his great and absorbing interests at a busy time of the
year to go to New York and devote a week's time to "begging" money for
Tuskegee among his friends and acquaintances, Messrs. Low, Willcox,
Trumbull, Mason, and others also personally solicited funds. Many men
have gotten millionaires to give large sums of money, but how many men
have ever gotten millionaires both to give large sums and personally
to solicit large sums for a purely unselfish purpose?

In his final report Booker Washington said of this guarantee fund: "It
is not possible to describe in words what a relief and help this
$50,000 guarantee fund has proven during the four years it has been in
existence.... We shall have to begin now to consider some method of
replacing these donations. The relief which has come to us because of
this guarantee fund has been marked and far reaching."

The same qualities which enabled Booker Washington to get close to the
plain people helped him to win the confidence of the great givers.
Through his money-raising efforts he constantly added to his great
stock of knowledge of human nature. Also the same qualities of heart
and mind which enabled him to rise superior to the obstacles of race
prejudice helped him to bear without discouragement or bitterness the
many rebuffs of the money raiser. One cannot help speculating,
however, on the loss to Tuskegee, to the Negro race, and to the
general welfare, entailed by the necessity of his devoting two-thirds
of his time, strength, and resourcefulness merely to the raising of
money.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MANAGING A GREAT INSTITUTION

Booker Washington's chief characteristic as an administrator was his
faculty for attention to minute details without losing sight of his
large purposes and ultimate ends. His grasp of every detail seems more
remarkable when one realizes the dimensions of his administrative
task. Besides leading his race in Ameri