HKB
its achievements, so that from year to year, instead of looking back with regret, we can point to our children the rough path through which we grew strong and great.
We have a very bright and striking example in the history of the Jews in this and other countries. There is, perhaps, no race that has suffered so much, not so much in America as in some of the countries in Europe. But these people have clung together. They have had a certain amount of unity, pride, and love of race; and, as the years go on, they will be more and more influential in this country,--a country where they were once despised, and looked upon with scorn and derision. It is largely because the Jewish race has had faith in itself. Unless the Negro learns more and more to imitate the Jew in these matters, to have faith in himself, he cannot expect to have any high degree of success.
I wish to speak upon another subject which largely concerns the welfare of both races, especially in the South,--lynching. It is an unpleasant subject; but I feel that I should be omitting some part of my duty to both races did I not say something on the subject.
For a number of years the South has appealed to the North and to federal authorities, through the public press, from the public platform, and most eloquently through the late Henry W. Grady, to leave the whole matter of the rights and protection of the Negro to the South, declaring that it would see to it that the Negro would be made secure in his citizenship. During the last half-dozen years the whole country, from the President down, has been inclined more than ever to pursue this policy, leaving the whole matter of the destiny of the Negro to the Negro himself and to the Southern white people, among whom the great bulk of Negroes live.
By the present policy of non-interference on the part of the North and the federal government the South is given a sacred trust. How will she execute this trust? The world is waiting and watching to see. The question must be answered largely by the protection it gives to the life of the Negro and the provisions that are made for his development in the organic laws of the State. I fear that but few people in the South realise to what an extent the habit of lynching, or the taking of life without due process of law, has taken hold of us, and is hurting us, not only in the eyes of the world, but in our own moral and material growth.