THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES. 323 



people of your State pay the greater portion of the school taxes, 

 and that the poverty of the State prevents it from doing all that it 

 desires for public education; yet I believe that you will agree with 

 me that ignorance is more costly to the State than education; that 

 it will cost Louisiana more not to educate the negroes than it will 

 to educate them. In connection with a generous provision for 

 public schools, I believe that nothing will so help my own people in 

 your State as provision at some institution for the highest academic 

 and normal training in connection with thorough training in agri- 

 culture, mechanics, and domestic economy. The fact is that ninety 

 per cent of our people depend upon the common occupations for 

 their living, and outside of the cities eighty-five per cent rely upon 

 agriculture for support. Notwithstanding this, our people have 

 been educated for the most part since the war in everything else 

 but the very thing most of them live by. First-class training in 

 agriculture, horticulture, dairying, stock raising, the mechanical 

 arts, and domestic economy would make us intelligent producers, and 

 not only help us to contribute our proportion as taxpayers, but would 

 result in retaining much money in the State that now goes outside 

 for that which can be as well produced at home. An institution 

 which will give this training of the hand, along with the highest 

 mental culture, would soon convince our people that their salvation 

 is largely in the ownership of property and in industrial and busi- 

 ness development, rather than in mere political agitation. 



" The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its wil- 

 lingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. A race, 

 like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up. Surely no 

 people ever had a greater chance to exhibit the highest Christian 

 fortitude and magnanimity than is now presented to the people of 

 Louisiana. It requires little wisdom or statesmanship to repress, to 

 crush out, to retard the hopes and aspirations of a people, but the 

 highest and most profound statesmanship is shown in guiding and 

 stimulating a people, so that every fiber in the body and soul shall 

 be made to contribute in the highest degree to the usefulness and 

 ability of the State. It is along this line that I pray God the 

 thoughts and activities of your convention be guided." 



As to the cure for such outbreaks as have recently hurt North 

 Carolina and South Carolina, I would say that the remedy will not 

 come by the Southern white man's being merely cursed by the 

 Northern white man or by the negro. Again, it will not come by 

 the Southern white man merely depriving the negro of his rights 

 and privileges. Both of these methods are but superficial, irritat- 

 ing, and must in the nature of things be short-lived. The states- 

 man, to cure an evil, resorts to enlightenment, to stimulation; the 



