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Show THE BOOKER WASHINGTON INCIDENT. The best editorial expression we have seen on the Booker Washington incident comes from William Wil-liam Marion Reedy, who says: "What shall one say of the Booker T. Washington Wash-ington incident in New York City, except that it is a tragedy a tragedy not alone for him, but for his race. For his explanation will not be believed. be-lieved. Possibly this in itself is due to race prejudice, pre-judice, but the fact' is that it will not be believed. The statements of the man and his wife who say he peeped through a keyhole and tried to flirt with her are too positive to be met by simple denial. de-nial. And the conduct which is alleged against Washington is too closely related to the one great horror and terror of the South to be in any fashion fash-ion minimized. Anything but that hint of aspiring aspir-ing familiarity with a white woman might have been forgiven the distinguished negro educator. It fits in so aptly with the South's dictum that the negro cannot be trusted to restrain the impulse im-pulse of the servile race to sexual relations with the whites. Washington may not be guilty. It may be all a terrible mistake, as he says, but never before in the history of the world has there been a more glaring example of the diabolical diaboli-cal ingenuity of chance in simulating design. The occurrence so confirms racial suspicion in the South that it seems utterly impossible that the unfortunate Washington should ever regain the regard of the world that he held up to this time. That the episode must retard the cause of the education and moral development of the negro along the lines laid down by Washington himself must be admitted. What can we expect of the race, people will ask, when its exemplar, its foremost fore-most representative in the world, collapses in character at just the point of moral strain at which anthropologists have said the racial character char-acter Is fatally weakest? In a minute Washington's Washing-ton's great record as a leader is annihilated. The hopes of thousands friendly to his people are dashed. The chances of myriads of blacks as yet unborn in this country are destroyed. The Till-mans Till-mans and the Vardamans are vindicated. This is the effect, although it is voiceless in the southern press. It is an effect that will never be set aside by any amount of explanation accepted in however how-ever kindly a spirit by those concerned to break its force upon a helpless and struggling people. The usefulness of Booker T. Washington is at an end. , If the incident of his alleged invasion of a white's apartment be explainable to some on grounds consistent with morality, no amount of explanation will satisfy others. The stain is ineffaceable. in-effaceable. And if it be the stain of an untrue accusation, the tragedy is all the greater. Everybody Every-body will hope that the implications in the newspaper news-paper stories of last Monday morning are not true, but at the very best presentation of the educator's case, the conviction that the inc'dent as reported is thoroughly consistent with ineradicable ineradi-cable qualities of negro nature, high or low, educated edu-cated or ignorant, is so strong in the region where Washington's work is doing, that hiswork can never be effective again. The pity of it!" |