rly every part
of our country that in intelligence and high and unselfish purpose of
their school and church life, and in the purity and sweetness of their
home life and social intercourse, will compare favorably with the
races of the earth. You can never lift any large section of people by
continually calling attention to their weak points. A race, like a
child in school, needs encouragement as well as chastisement."

In his address before the annual session of 1914 of the National Negro
Business League at Muskogee, Oklahoma, Mr. Washington made the
following remarks which are typical of his points of chief emphasis in
addressing his own people: "Let your success thoroughly eclipse your
shortcomings. We must give the world so much to think and talk about
that relates to our constructive work in the direction of progress
that people will forget and overlook our failures and shortcomings....
One big, definite fact in the direction of achievement and
construction will go farther in securing rights and removing
prejudice than many printed pages of defense and explanation.... Let
us in the future spend less time talking about the part of the city
that we cannot live in, and more time in making that part of the city
that we can live in beautiful and attractive."

It is characteristic of the kind of criticism to which Mr. Washington
was subjected that a certain element of the Negro press violently
denounced this comment as an indirect endorsement of the legal
segregation of Negroes. Probably the last article written by Mr.
Washington for any publication was the one published posthumously by
the _New Republic_, New York City, December 4, 1915, entitled, "My
View of Segregation Laws," in which he stated in no uncertain terms
his views on the segregation laws which were being passed in the
South. In concluding his article, he said:

"Summarizing the matter in the large, segregation is ill-advised
because:

1. It is unjust.

2. It invites other unjust measures.

3. It will not be productive of good, because practically every
thoughtful Negro resents its injustice and doubts its sincerity. Any
race adjustment based on injustice finally defeats itself. The Civil
War is the best illustration of what results where it is attempted to
make wrong right or seem to be right.

4. It is unnecessary.

5. It is inconsistent. The Negro is segregated from his white
neighbor, but white business men are not prevented from doing busines