Show I THE COLORED MEN SOUTH The States of the South that arc disfranchising l dis-franchising negroes do it on the score of their ignorance l the interdiction extended to the Illiterate whites there would be no objection but this Is got around by a provision which gives men a right to vote even If they are Illiterate Illite-rate 1C their forefathers two or three generations ago were voters I tho object was to be Just the reasoning would be surely the negro whose grandfather was a slave has as much right to vote as the white man whose forefathers were voters forty and sixty years ago But 1C the colored man had I something of the Caucasian In his disposition l dis-position he would say to himself I Well wait 0 little and we will compel 1 some new device to prevent outvoting out-voting They would earn enough to provide themselves with cheap books they would study by torchlight If needs be disfranchised or not Jhcy would lake L tothemselves the pleasure of turning for themselves the first leaves oC the book of knowledge But this can at beat bc only Inn lim ited way For most of the race the I te thought seems far away To talk to them of learning t read Is like telling the man of the world engrossed In I business that lie should dcvoto four hours dally to the study of Greek for I the shadow of slavery Is still over him at least the darkness through which no I ray of light penetrated for two hundred I years tare there not enough of the race In the South to form the great resolution of redeeming their race I enough with a determination to enliot under the banner of Booker Washington Washing-ton and beginning on time young of their race lay the foundation oC a system sys-tem of Industrial schools In which brain eyes and hands can at the same time be educated until when students emerge from those schools they will be so equipped that the world will need their Work Something oC that kind I I must be done and with It begun and persevered thcro would be grat I I hope for the race But as they arc now l drifting thc will soon at least thousands j I i thou-sands of them drift and gravitate back j to savagery Out of their disfranchise niont cannot a fair proportion of tho I race be directed Into higher and useful I channels I |