in short, have come, and that very rapidly, into sharp competition with white men (who have the prestige of a thousand years of civilization and opportunity) in all the industrial interests which make a people great, respected and feared.  The metamorphosis has been rapid, marvelous, astounding.  Their home life has been largely transformed into the quality of purity and refinement which should characterize the home; they have now successful farmers, merchants, ministers, lawyers, editors, educators, physicians, legislators—­in short, they have entered every avenue of industry and thought.  Their efforts yet crude and their grasp uncertain, but they are in the field of competition, and will remain there and acquit themselves manfully.

Of course I speak in general terms of the progress the colored people have made.  Individual effort and success are the indicators of the vitality and genius of a people.  When individuals rise out of the indistinguishable mass and make their mark, we may rest assured that the mass is rich and capable of unlimited production.  The great mass of every government, of every people, while adding to and creating greatness, go down in history unmentioned.  But their glory, their genius, success and happiness, are expended and survive in the few great spirits their fortunate condition produced.  The governments of antiquity were great and glorious, because their proletarians were intelligent, thrifty and brave, but the proletarians fade into vagueness, and are great only in the few great names which have been handed down to us.  It has been said that a nation expends a hundred years of its vitality in the production of a great man of genius like Socrates, or Bacon, or Toussaint l’Overture, or Fulton.  And this may be true.  There can now be no question that the African race in the United States possess every element of vitality and genius possessed by their fellow citizens of other races, and any calculation of race possibilities in this country which assumes that they will remain indefinitely the “mudsills” only of society will prove more brittle than ropes of sand.

At this time the colored people of the South are largely the industrial class; that is, they are the producing class.  They are principally the agriculturists of the South; consequently, being wedded to the soil by life-long association and interest, and being principally the laboring class, they will naturally invest their surplus earnings in the purchase of the soil.  Herein lies the great hope of the future.  For the man who owns the soil largely owns and dictates to the men who are compelled to live upon it and derive their subsistence from it.  The colored people of the South recognize this fact.  And if there is any one idiosyncrasy more marked than another among them, it is their mania for buying land.  They all live and labor in the cheerful anticipation of some day owning a home, a farm of their own.  As the race grows in intelligence this mania for land owning becomes more and more pronounced.  At first their impecuniosity will compel them to purchase poor hill-lands, but they will eventually get their grip upon the rich alluvial lands.