598 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a man whose oonversatiou showed him to be one of the class to 

 whom the designation " unreconstructed " has sometimes been ap- 

 plied. An officer in the Confederate army, he had accepted the 

 situation at the close of the war, but now, after thirty years, al- 

 though he spoke of existing conditions without bitterness, he spoke 

 of them with little or no sympathy. I had some doubt how he 

 would comment on my errand, when I told him that I was on my 

 way to attend the Negro Conference at Tuskegee. Imagine my 

 surprise when he exclaimed: " Going to Tuskegee, are you, to see 

 Booker Washington? Just let me tell you there's a man that's got 

 the right idea of things. He's teaching the negroes to work. I 

 wish the South had a thousand Booker Washingtons." This man, 

 1 learned afterward, when I was in Atlanta, was one of the most 

 prominent and successful business men of that city. 



The second day of my stay at Tuskegee, as I came out of the 

 rude buildings where the conference had been held, a young col- 

 ored man waiting at the door accosted me. " Is not this Mr. 



," he said, " and at the World's Fair were you not in charge 



of such an exhibit? " naming one of the educational exhibits. I 

 said I was the man. " Don't you remember me? " he added, tell- 

 ing me where he had been working at the time. I did remember 



Alabama IIai.i.. Oin: wf llif tii.-,l l.uil.liiig.^ t:n_cUil li_\ lljo .-.t lulciits. 



him perfectly, and asked how he happened to be so far removed 

 from Chicago. 



" It was like this," he said. " Next year I went to the Atlanta 

 Exposition. While there I heard Mr. Washington speak, and 

 learned about his school where negro boys could learn a trade. I 



