'

"The audience was taken back as much by the bluntness of the remarks
as if they had been doused with cold water. Indignation was everywhere
visible on the countenances of the people. But Mr. Washington appeared
unruffled. On the contrary, his heavy jaw was hard set and his eyes
danced in a merry measure. It was a time to keep one's temper and
wits, and he did so, as usual. Without betraying any feeling in the
matter, and when everybody expected him to announce the next speaker,
he said:

"'Ladies and Gentlemen: I am sure you will agree with me that we have
had enough eloquence for one occasion. We shall listen to the next
speaker at another occasion, when we are not so fagged out. We will
now rise, sing the doxology, and be dismissed.'

"The audience did so, but it was the most funereal proceeding I had
ever witnessed upon such an occasion. Mr. Washington's imperturbable
good nature alone saved the day."

Some time after President Roosevelt had begun to consult Booker
Washington on practically all his appointments and policies which
particularly affected the relations between the races, and after
several Southern white men had been given Federal appointments on Mr.
Washington's recommendation, the bitterness against him grew so
intense, especially among the "Talented Tenth" element of the Northern
Negroes, that he decided to meet a group of their leaders face to
face, and have it out. Accordingly, through Mr. Fortune, he arranged
to meet a number of these men at a dinner at Young's Hotel in Boston.
Mr. Fortune thus describes what took place:

"At the proper time, when the coffee and cigars were served, I arose
and told the diners that Dr. Washington had desired to meet them at
the banquet table and at the proper time to have each one of them
express freely his opinion of the race question, and how best the race
could be served in the delicate crisis through which it was then
passing. Each of the speakers launched into a tirade against Dr.
Washington and his policies and methods, many of them in lofty flights
of speech they had learned at Harvard University. The atmosphere was
dense with discontent and denunciation.

"The climax was reached when William H. Lewis, the famous Harvard
football coach, told Dr. Washington to go back South, and attend to
his work of educating the Negro and 'leave to us the matters political
affecting the race.' Every eye was upon Dr. Washington's face, but
none of them could read an