This statement was surprising.  It cannot be accounted for by color prejudice at the North; it is related to the known shiftlessness and irresponsibility of a great portion of the negro population.  If it could be believed that this shiftlessness is due to the late state of slavery, the explanation would not do away with the existing conditions.  Schools at the North have for a long time been open to the negro; though color prejudice exists, he has not been on the whole in an unfriendly atmosphere, and willing hands have been stretched out to help him in his ambition to rise.  It is no doubt true, as has been often said lately, that the negro at the North has been crowded out of many occupations by more vigorous races, newly come to this country, crowded out not only of factory industries and agricultural, but of the positions of servants, waiters, barbers, and other minor ways of earning a living.  The general verdict is that this loss of position is due to lack of stamina and trustworthiness.  Wherever a negro has shown himself able, honest, attentive to the moral and economic duties of a citizen, either successful in accumulating property or filling honorably his station in life, he has gained respect and consideration in the community in which he is known; and this is as true at the South as at the North, notwithstanding the race antagonism is more accentuated by reason of the preponderance of negro population there and the more recent presence of slavery.  Upon this ugly race antagonism it is not necessary to enlarge here in discussing the problem of education, and I will leave it with the single observation that I have heard intelligent negroes, who were honestly at work, accumulating property and disposed to postpone active politics to a more convenient season, say that they had nothing to fear from the intelligent white population, but only from the envy of the ignorant.

The whole situation is much aggravated by the fact that there is a considerable infusion of white blood in the negro race in the United States, leading to complications and social aspirations that are infinitely pathetic.  Time only and no present contrivance of ours can ameliorate this condition.

I have made this outline of our negro problem in no spirit of pessimism or of prejudice, but in the belief that the only way to remedy an evil or a difficulty is candidly and fundamentally to understand it.  Two things are evident:  First, the negro population is certain to increase in the United States, in a ratio at least equal to that of the whites.  Second, the South needs its labor.  Its deportation is an idle dream.  The only visible solution is for the negro to become an integral and an intelligent part of the industrial community.  The way may be long, but he must work his way up.  Sympathetic aid may do much, but the salvation of the negro is in his own hands, in the development of individual character and a race soul.  This is fully understood by his wisest leaders.  His worst enemy is the demagogue who flatters him with the delusion that all he needs for his elevation is freedom and certain privileges that were denied him in slavery.