Part 7 (2/2)
Was.h.i.+ngton almost never accompanies me on any occasion where there can be the least sign of purely social intercourse.
Whenever I meet white people in the North at their offices, in their parlors, or at their dinner tables, or at banquets, it is with me purely a matter of business, either in the interest of our inst.i.tution or in the interest of my race; no other thought ever enters my mind. For me to say now, after fifteen years of creating interest in my race and in this inst.i.tution in that manner, that I must stop, would simply mean that I must cease to get money in a large measure for this inst.i.tution. In meeting the people in this way I am simply doing what the head of practically every school, black and white, in the South is constantly doing.
For purely social pleasure I have always found all my ambitions satisfied among my own people, and you will find that in proportion as the colored race becomes educated and prosperous, in the same proportion is this true of all colored people.
I said a minute ago that I had tried to be careful in regard to the feelings of the Southern people. It has been urged upon me time and time again to employ a number of white teachers at this inst.i.tution. I have not done so and do not intend to do so, largely for the reason that they would be constantly mingling with each other at the table. For thirty years and more, in every one of our Southern States, white and colored people have sat down to the table three times a day nearly throughout the year, and I have heard very little criticism pa.s.sed upon them. This kind of thing, however, at Tuskegee I have always tried to avoid so far as our regular teaching force is concerned. But I repeat, if I begin to yield in the performance of my duty when out of the South in one respect, I do not know where the end will be. It is very difficult for you, or any other person who is not in my place, to understand the difficulty and embarra.s.sment that I am confronted with. You have no idea how many invitations of various kinds I am constantly refusing or trying to get away from because I want to avoid embarra.s.sing situations. For example, over a year ago Mr. S---- invited me to go to Stockbridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, near Lenox, to deliver an address on General Armstrong's life and work. When I reached Stockbridge an hour or so before the time of delivering the address, I found that Mr. S----, who had invited me, had also invited five or six other gentlemen to meet me at luncheon. The luncheon I knew nothing about until I reached the town. Under such circ.u.mstances I am at a loss to know how I could have avoided accepting the invitation. A few days afterward I filled a long-standing invitation to lecture at Amherst College. I reached the town a few hours before dinner and found that a number of people, including several college presidents, had been invited to meet me at dinner. Taking still another case: over a year ago I promised a colored club in Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, that I would be their guest at a banquet in October. The banquet was held on the third of the month, and when I reached Cambridge I found that in addition to the members of the colored club, the Mayor of the city and a number of Harvard professors, including President Eliot, had been invited; and I could go on and state case after case. Of course, if I wanted to make a martyr of myself and draw especial attention to me and to the inst.i.tution, I could easily do so by simply writing whenever I receive an invitation to a dinner or banquet that I could not accept on account of the color of my skin.
Six years ago at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago, where I spoke at a meeting at which President McKinley was present, I took both luncheon and dinner in the same dining-room with President McKinley and was the guest of the same club that he was a guest of. There were Southern men present, and the fact that I was present and spoke was widely heralded throughout the South, and so far as I know not a word of adverse comment was made. For nearly fifteen years the addresses which I have been constantly making at dinners and banquets in the North have been published throughout the South, and no adverse comment has been made regarding my presence on these occasions.
Practically all of the invitations to functions that are of even a semi-social character are urged upon me by Northern people, and very often after I have refused to accept invitations pressure is brought to bear on special friends of mine in order to get me to accept. Notwithstanding all this, where I accept one invitation I refuse ten; in fact, you have no idea how many invitations to dinner I refuse while I am in the North. I not only do so for the reason that I do not care to excite undue criticism, but for the further reason that if I were to accept any large proportion of such invitations I would have little time left for my legitimate work. In many cases the invitations come from people who do not give money but simply want to secure a notoriety or satisfy curiosity.
I have stated the case as I see it, and with a view of having you think over these matters by the time that we meet.
[Signed] BOOKER T. WAs.h.i.+NGTON.
There were two particularly notable occasions upon which Mr.
Was.h.i.+ngton unwittingly stirred the prejudices of the South. The first was when in 1901 he dined with President Roosevelt and his family at the White House; the second, when four years later he dined with Mr.
John Wanamaker and his daughter at a hotel in Saratoga, New York.
The truth of his dining at the White House, of which so many imaginary versions have been given, was this: having received so many expressions of approval from all sections of the country on his appointment of ex-Governor Jones to a Federal judges.h.i.+p in Alabama, which appointment was made, as described in a previous chapter, on the recommendation of Booker Was.h.i.+ngton and Grover Cleveland, President Roosevelt asked him to come to the White House and discuss with him some further appointments and other matters of mutual interest.
On arriving in Was.h.i.+ngton he went to the home of his friend, Whitefield McKinlay, a colored man with whom he usually stopped when in the Capital. The next morning he went to the White House by appointment for an interview with the President. Since they did not have time to finish their discussion, the President, in accordance with the course he had often followed with others under similar circ.u.mstances, invited Was.h.i.+ngton to come to dinner so that they might finish their discussion in the evening without loss of time.
In response to this oral invitation he went to the White House at the appointed time, dined with the President and his family and two other guests, and after dinner discussed with the President chiefly the character of individual colored office holders or applicants for office and, as says Colonel Roosevelt, ”the desirability in specific cases, notably in all offices having to do with the administration of justice, of getting high-minded and fearless white men into office--men whom we could be sure would affirmatively protect the law-abiding Negro's right to life, liberty, and property just exactly as they protected the rights of law-abiding white men.” Also they discussed the public service of the South so far as the representatives of the Federal Administration were concerned--the subject upon which President Roosevelt had wished to consult him. The next day the bare fact that he had dined with the President was obscurely announced by the Was.h.i.+ngton papers as a routine item of White House news. Some days later, however, an enterprising correspondent for a Southern paper lifted this unpretentious item from oblivion and sent it to his paper to be blazoned forth in a front-page headline. For days and weeks thereafter the Southern press fairly shrieked with the news of this quiet dinner. The very papers which had most loudly praised the President for his appointment of a Southern Democrat to a Federal judges.h.i.+p now execrated him for inviting to dine with him the man upon whose recommendation he had made this appointment.
Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton was also roundly abused for his ”presumption” in daring to dine at the White House. This was a little illogical in view of the well-known fact that an invitation to the White House is a summons rather than an invitation in the ordinary sense. Neither President Roosevelt nor Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton issued any statements by way of explanation or apology. While it was, of course, farthest from the wishes of either to offend the sensibilities of the South, neither one--the many statements to the contrary, notwithstanding--ever indicated subsequently any regret or admitted that the incident was a mistake.
During the furore over this incident both the President and Mr.
Was.h.i.+ngton received many threats against their lives. The President had the Secret Service to protect him, while Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton had no such reliance. His co-workers surrounded him with such precautions as they could, and his secretary acc.u.mulated during this period enough threatening letters to fill a desk drawer. It was not discovered until some years after that one of these threats had been followed by the visit to Tuskegee of a hired a.s.sa.s.sin. A strange Negro was hurt in jumping off the train before it reached the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute station. There being no hospital for Negroes in the town of Tuskegee he was taken to the hospital of the Inst.i.tute, where he was cared for and nursed for several weeks before he was able to leave. Mr.
Was.h.i.+ngton was absent in the North during all of this time. Many months later this Negro confessed that he had come to Tuskegee in the pay of a group of white men in Louisiana for the purpose of a.s.sa.s.sinating Booker Was.h.i.+ngton. He said that he became so ashamed of himself while being cared for by the doctors and nurses employed by the very man he had come to murder that he left as soon as he was able to do so instead of waiting to carry out his purpose on the return of his victim, as he had originally planned to do.
Booker Was.h.i.+ngton, with all his philosophy and capacity for rising above the personal, was probably more deeply pained by this affair than any other in his whole career. His pain was, however, almost solely on Mr. Roosevelt's account. He felt keenly hurt and chagrined that Mr. Roosevelt, whom he so intensely admired, and who was doing so much, not only for his own race but for the whole South as he believed, should suffer all this abuse and even vilification on his account. President Roosevelt evidently realized something of how he felt, for in a letter to him written at this time he added this postscript: ”By the way, don't worry about _me_; it will all come right in time, and if I have helped by ever so little 'the ascent of man' I am more than satisfied.”
Probably no single public event ever gave Booker Was.h.i.+ngton greater pleasure than Colonel Roosevelt's triumphant election to the Presidency in 1904. The day after the election he wrote the President the following letter:
[_Personal_]
_Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, Alabama,_ _November 10, 1904_.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I cannot find words in which to express my feeling regarding the tremendous outcome of Tuesday's election. I know that you feel the sacred and almost divine confidence imposed. In my opinion, no human being in America since Was.h.i.+ngton, perhaps, has been so honored and vindicated. The result shows that the great heart of the American people beats true and is in the direction of fair play for all, regardless of race or color.
Nothing has ever occurred which has given me more faith in all races or shows more plainly that they will respond to high ideals when properly appealed to.
I know that you will not misunderstand me when I say I share somewhat the feeling of triumph and added responsibility that must animate your soul at the present time because of the personal abuse heaped upon you on account of myself. The great victory and vindication does not make me feel boastful or vainglorious, but, on the other hand, very humble, and gives me more faith in humanity and makes me more determined to work harder in the interest of all our people of both races regardless of race or color. I shall urge our people everywhere to manifest their grat.i.tude by showing a spirit of meekness and added usefulness. The election shows to what a great height you have already lifted the character of American citizens.h.i.+p. Before you leave the White House I am sure that the whole South will understand you and love you.
G.o.d keep you and bless you.
Yours most sincerely,
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