bludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, then I shall sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience in vain.  But admit that they are men of common sense and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they cannot wholly disregard—­guiding and controlling as best they can the vicious and irresponsible of either race—­compensating error with frankness, and retrieving in patience what they lost in passion—­and conscious all the time that wrong means ruin—­admit this, and we may reach an understanding to-night.

The President of the United States, in his late message to Congress, discussing the plea that the South should be left to solve this problem, asks:  “Are they at work upon it?  What solution do they offer?  When will the black man cast a free ballot?  When will he have the civil rights that are his?” I shall not here protest against a partisanry that, for the first time in our history, in time of peace, has stamped with the great seal of our government a stigma upon the people of a great and loyal section; though I gratefully remember that the great dead soldier, who held the helm of State for the eight stormiest years of reconstruction, never found need for such a step; and though there is no personal sacrifice I would not make to remove this cruel and unjust imputation on my people from the archives of my country!  But, sir, backed by a record, on every page of which is progress, I venture to make earnest and respectful answer to the questions that are asked.  We give to the world this year a crop of 7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth $450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses and fruit.  This enormous crop could not have come from the hands of sullen and discontented labor.  It comes from peaceful fields, in which laughter and gossip rise above the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the singing plough.  It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of its just hire, I present the tax books of Georgia, which show that the negro twenty-five years ago a slave, has in Georgia alone $10,000,000 of assessed property, worth twice that much.  Does not that record honor him and vindicate his neighbors?

What people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well?  For every Afro-American agitator, stirring the strife in which alone he prospers, I can show you a thousand negroes, happy in their cabin homes, tilling their own land by day, and at night taking from the lips of their children the helpful message their State sends them from the schoolhouse door.  And the schoolhouse itself bears testimony.  In Georgia we added last year $250,000 to the school fund, making a total of more than $1,000,000—­and this in the face of prejudice not yet conquered—­of the fact that the whites are assessed for $368,000,000, the blacks for $10,000,000, and yet forty-nine per cent of the beneficiaries are black children; and in the doubt of many wise men if education helps, or can help, our problem.  Charleston, with her taxable