other crops they raised,
or, rather, did not raise; how many mules and hogs they owned, and how
they could with profit increase their ownership in mules and hogs; he
told them how many drug stores, grocery stores, and banks in the State
and county were owned by Negroes; and then, switching from the general
to the particular, he described the daily life of the ordinary,
easy-going tenant farmer of the locality. He pictured what he saw when
he came out of his unpainted house in the morning: that gate off the
hinges, that broken window-pane with an old coat stuck into it, that
cotton planted right up to the doors with no room left for a garden,
and no garden; and, worse than all, the uncomfortable knowledge of
debts concealed from the hard-working wife and mother. Then he
pictured what that same man's place might be and should become.

It was once said of a certain eminent preacher that his logic was on
fire. It might be said of Booker Washington that his statistics were
on fire. He marshalled them in such a way that they were dynamic and
stirring instead of static and paralyzing, as we all know them to our
sorrow. It so happened that Mr. Washington had never before been in
southwestern Georgia. After his speech one old farmer was heard to
say as he shook his head: "I don't understan' it! Booker T. Washington
he ain't never ben here befo', yit he knows mo' 'bout dese parts an'
mo' 'bout us den what eny of us knows ourselves." This old man did not
know that one of Mr. Washington's most painstaking and efficient
assistants, Mr. Monroe N. Work, the editor of the _Negro Year Book_,
devoted much of his time to keeping his chief provided with this
startlingly accurate information about his people in every section of
the United States.

On this occasion there were on the platform with Mr. Washington and
the officials of the fair the Mayor of Albany and members of the City
Council, while in the audience were several hundred whites on one side
of the centre aisle and twice as many blacks on the other. And Mr.
Washington would alternately address himself to his white and black
audience. He would, for instance, turn to the white men and tell them
that he had never known a particularly successful black man who could
not trace his original success to the aid or encouragement he had
received in one form or another from a white friend. He would tell
them that without their assistance his race could never have made more
progress in the